29513	----	images generously made available by 1st-hand-history.org (http://1st-hand-history.org/) Note: Images of the original pages are available through 1st-hand-history.org. See http://1st-hand-history.org/Marshall/album1.html OPINION OF THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, AT JANUARY TERM, 1832, DELIVERED BY MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL. IN THE CASE OF SAMUEL A. WORCESTER, _Plaintiff in Error_, _versus_ THE STATE OF GEORGIA With a statement of the case, extracted from the Records of the Supreme Court of the United States. Printed from Authenticated Copies. Washington: Printed by Gales and Seaton. 1852. OPINION, &c. SAMUEL A. WORCESTER, _Plaintiff in Error_, _vs._ THE STATE OF GEORGIA. A writ of error was issued from the Supreme Court of the United States, directed to "the honorable the Judges of the Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett, in the State of Georgia," commanding them to "send to the said Supreme Court of the United States, the record and proceedings in the said Superior Court of the County of Gwinnett, between the State of Georgia, Plaintiff, and Samuel A. Worcester, Defendant, on an indictment in that Court." This writ of error was returnable on the second Monday of January, 1832, and was attested by the Honorable HENRY BALDWIN, one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. A citation was issued, directed to "the State of Georgia," dated October 27, 1831, and signed by the Honorable HENRY BALDWIN, by which the said State was cited to show cause why the error in the judgment against Samuel A. Worcester, in the writ of error mentioned, if there was any error, should not be arrested, and why speedy justice should not be done to the parties in that behalf. The citation was served on his Excellency WILSON LUMPKIN, Governor of the State of Georgia, on the 24th November, 1831, and on CHARLES J. JENKINS, Esq. Attorney General of the said State, on the 22d November, 1831. The writ of error was returned to the Supreme Court of the United States, with the record of the proceedings in the Court for the County of Gwinnett annexed thereto, and with the following certificate, under the seal of the Court: GEORGIA, _Gwinnett County, ss._ I, John G. Park, Clerk of the Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett, and State aforesaid, do certify that the annexed and foregoing is a full and complete exemplification of the proceedings and judgment had in said Court, against Samuel A. Worcester, one of the Defendants in the case therein mentioned as of record in the said Superior Court. Given under my hand, and the seal of the Court, this 28th day of November, 1831. JOHN G. PARK, _Clerk_. _The following is a copy of the Record_: "GEORGIA, _Gwinnett county_: The grand jurors, sworn, chosen, and selected for the county of Gwinnett, to wit: John S. Wilson, Isaac Gilbert, James Wells, Jr., Benjamin S. Smith, James W. Moore, Robert Craig, John M. Thompson, Hamilton Garmany, Amos Wellborn, William Green, Buckner Harris, William Rakestraw, Jones Douglass, Wiley Brogdon, B. F. Johnson, Wilson Strickland, Richard J. Watts, and John White-- In the name and behalf of the citizens of Georgia, charge and accuse Elizur Butler, Samuel A. Worcester, James Trott, Samuel Mays, Surry Eaton, Austin Copeland, and Edward D. Losure, white persons of said county, with the offence of 'residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation, without a licence:' For that the said Elizur Butler, Samuel A. Worcester, James Trott, Samuel Mays, Surry Eaton, Austin Copeland, and Edward D. Losure, white persons as aforesaid, on the fifteenth day of July, eighteen hundred and thirty one, _did reside_ in that part of the Cherokee nation attached by the laws of said State to the said county, and in the county aforesaid, without a licence or permit from his Excellency the Governor of said State, or from any agent authorized by his Excellency the Governor aforesaid to grant such permit or licence, and without having taken the oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of the State of Georgia, and uprightly to demean themselves as citizens thereof, contrary to the laws of said State, the good order, peace, and dignity, thereof. TURNER H. TRIPPE, _Sol. Gen'l._ JNO. W. A. SANFORD, _Pros'r._ _September_, 1831. True bill:--JOHN S. WILSON, _Foreman_. _Witnesses Sworn._--John W. A. Sanford, Charles H. Nelson, Moses Cantrell, William Wood, Jacob R. Brooks, Jno. F. Cox, William Tippins, Hubbard Barker. GWINNETT SUPERIOR COURT, _September Term_, 1831. STATE OF GEORGIA, } _vs._ } _Indictment for a_ SAMUEL A. WORCESTER, ELIZUR BUTLER, } _misdemeanor._ AND OTHERS. } And the said Samuel A. Worcester, in his own proper person, comes and says, that this Court ought not to take further cognizance of the action and prosecution aforesaid, because, he says, that, on the 15th day of July, in the year 1831, he was, and still is, a resident in the Cherokee nation; and that the said supposed crime, or crimes, and each of them, were committed, if committed at all, at the town of New Echota, in the said Cherokee nation, out of the jurisdiction of this court, and not in the county Gwinnett, or elsewhere within the jurisdiction of this Court. And this defendant saith, that he is a citizen of the State of Vermont, one of the United States of America, and that he entered the aforesaid Cherokee nation in the capacity of a duly authorized missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, under the authority of the President of the United States, and has not since been required by him to leave it: that he was, at the time of his arrest, engaged in preaching the Gospel to the Cherokee Indians, and in translating the sacred Scriptures into their language, with the permission and approval of the said Cherokee nation, and in accordance with the humane policy of the Government of the United States, for the civilization and improvement of the Indians; and that his residence there, for this purpose, is the residence charged in the aforesaid indictment: and this defendant further saith, that this prosecution the State of Georgia ought not to have or maintain, because, he saith, that several treaties have, from time to time, been entered into between the United States and the Cherokee nation of Indians, to wit: at Hopewell, on the 28th day of November, 1785; at Holston, on the 2d day of July, 1791; at Philadelphia, on the 26th day of June, 1794; at Tellico, on the 2d day of October, 1798; at Tellico, on the 24th day of October, 1804; at Tellico, on the 25th day of October, 1805; at Tellico, on the 27th day of October, 1805; at Washington City, on the 7th day of January, 1805; at Washington City, on the 22d day of March, 1816; at the Chickasaw Council House, on the 14th day of September, 1816; at the Cherokee Agency, on the 8th day of July, 1817, and at Washington City, on the 27th day of February, 1819: all which treaties have been duly ratified by the Senate of the United States of America; and, by which treaties, the United States of America acknowledge the said Cherokee nation to be a sovereign nation, authorized to govern themselves, and all persons who have settled within their territory, free from any right of legislative interference by the several States composing the United States of America, in reference to acts done within their own territory; and, by which treaties, the whole of the territory now occupied by the Cherokee nation, on the East of the Mississippi, has been solemnly guarantied to them; all of which treaties are existing treaties at this day, and in full force. By these treaties, and particularly by the treaties of Hopewell and Holston, the aforesaid territory is acknowledged to lie without the jurisdiction of the several States composing the Union of the United States; and, it is thereby specially stipulated, that the citizens of the United States shall not enter the aforesaid territory, even on a visit, without a passport from the governor of a State, or from some one duly authorized thereto, by the President of the United States: all of which will more fully and at large appear, by reference to the aforesaid treaties. And this defendant saith, that the several acts charged in the bill of indictment, were done, or omitted to be done, if at all, within the said territory so recognized as belonging to the said nation, and so, as aforesaid, held by them, under the guaranty of the United States: that, for those acts, the defendant is not amenable to the laws of Georgia, nor to the jurisdiction of the courts of the said State; and that the laws of the State of Georgia, which profess to add the said territory to the several adjacent counties of the said State, and to extend the laws of Georgia over the said territory, and persons inhabiting the same; and, in particular, the act on which this indictment _vs._ this defendant is grounded, to wit: "An act entitled an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power, by all persons, under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians, and their laws, and to prevent white persons from residing within that part of the chartered limits of Georgia, occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and to provide a guard for the protection of the gold mines, and to enforce the laws of the State within the aforesaid territory," are repugnant to the aforesaid treaties; which, according to the constitution of the United States, compose a part of the supreme law of the land; and that these laws of Georgia are, therefore, unconstitutional, void, and of no effect: that the said laws of Georgia are also unconstitutional and void, because they impair the obligation of the various contracts formed by and between the aforesaid Cherokee nation and the said United States of America, as above recited: also, that the said laws of Georgia are unconstitutional and void, because they interfere with, and attempt to regulate and control, the intercourse with the said Cherokee nation, which, by the said constitution, belongs exclusively to the Congress of the United States; and because the said laws are repugnant to the statute of the United States, passed on the ---- day of March, 1802, entitled "An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers:" and that, therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to cause this defendant to make further or other answer to the said bill of indictment, or further to try and punish this defendant for the said supposed offence or offences alleged in the bill of indictment, or any of them: And, therefore, this defendant prays judgment whether he shall be held bound to answer further to said indictment? GEORGIA, _Gwinnett county_: Personally appeared in open court, Samuel A. Worcester, and, being sworn, saith, that the several matters and things contained in the above and foregoing plea, are true in substance and in fact. Sworn to, and subscribed in open court, this 15th September, 1831. SAMUEL A. WORCESTER. JOHN G. PARK, _Clerk_. _September Term_, 1831. Pleas to the jurisdiction, &c. overruled by the court. Arraigned, and pled not guilty. Copy bill, and list of witnesses, waived. T. H. TRIPPE, _Sol. Gen._ _Jury sworn and empannelled._ 1. James H. Gilreath, 2. Benjamin Towers, 3. Joseph Bolton, 4. Thomas Weems, 5. John Moffett, 6. Wade Peavy, 7. John L. Tippens, 8. Thomas Burge, 9. Eli Elkins, 10. Wm. W. Downs, 11. Matthew Brown, 12. Geo. R. Edwards. _Verdict._ We, the jury, find the defendants guilty. JAMES H. GILREATH, _Foreman._ _September_ 15_th_, 1831. _Sentence._ THE STATE, } _Indictment for residing in the_ _vs._ } _Cherokee nation without license:_ B. F. THOMPSON, AND OTHERS. } _Verdict, "Guilty."_ THE STATE, } _vs._ } _Indictment for residing in the_ ELIZUR BUTLER, SAMUEL A. } _Cherokee nation without license:_ WORCESTER, AND OTHERS. } _Verdict, "Guilty."_ The defendants, in both of the above cases, shall be kept in close custody, by the sheriff of this county, until they can be transported to the penitentiary of this State, and the keeper thereof is hereby directed to receive them, and each of them, into his custody, and keep them, and each of them, at hard labor in said penitentiary, for and during the term of four years." The case of Elizur Butler, Plaintiff in Error, _versus_ the State of Georgia, was brought before the Supreme Court in the same manner. Both cases came on for argument on the 20th of February, 1832, and they were argued by Mr. Sergeant and Mr. Wirt, for the Plaintiffs in Error. There was no appearance for the State of Georgia. On the 3d day of March, 1832, Mr. Chief Justice MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the Court. SAMUEL A. WORCESTER, } Opinion of the Supreme Court _vs._ } of the United States, delivered THE STATE OF GEORGIA. } by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall, } at January Term, 1832. This cause, in every point of view in which it can be placed, is of the deepest interest. The defendant is a State, a member of the Union, which has exercised the powers of government over a People who deny its jurisdiction, and are under the protection of the United States. The plaintiff is a citizen of the State of Vermont, condemned to hard labor for four years in the penitentiary of Georgia, under color of an act which he alleges to be repugnant to the constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States. The legislative power of a State, the controlling power of the constitution and laws of the United States, the rights, if they have any, the political existence of a once numerous and powerful People, the personal liberty of a citizen, are all involved in the subject now to be considered. It behooves this Court, in every case, more especially in this, to examine into its jurisdiction with scrutinizing eyes, before it proceeds to the exercise of a power which is controverted. The first step in the performance of this duty is the inquiry whether the record is properly before the Court. It is certified by the clerk of the Court which pronounced the judgment of condemnation under which the plaintiff in error is imprisoned, and is also authenticated by the seal of the Court. It is returned with, and annexed to, a writ of error issued in regular form, the citation being signed by one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court, and served on the Governor and Attorney General of the State more than thirty days before the commencement of the term to which the writ of error was returnable. The Judicial act,[1] so far as it prescribes the mode of proceeding, appears to have been literally pursued. [1] Judicial act, sec. 22, 25, v. 2. pp. 64, 65. In February, 1797, a rule[2] was made on this subject, in the following words: "It is ordered by the Court, that the clerk of the Court to which any writ of error shall be directed, may make return of the same by transmitting a true copy of the record, and of all proceedings in the same, under his hand and the seal of the Court." [2] 6 Wh. Rules. This has been done. But the signature of the Judge has not been added to that of the Clerk. The law does not require it. The rule does not require it. In the case of Martin vs. Hunter's lessee,[3] an exception was taken to the return of the refusal of the State Court to enter a prior judgment of reversal by this Court, because it was not made by the Judge of the State Court to which the writ was directed; but the exception was overruled, and the return was held sufficient. In Buel vs. Van Ness,[4] also a writ of error to a State Court, the record was authenticated in the same manner. No exception was taken to it. These were civil cases. But it has been truly said at the bar, that, in regard to this process, the law makes no distinction between a criminal and civil case. The same return is required in both. If the sanction of the Court could be necessary for the establishment of this position, it has been silently given. [3] 1st Wh. 304, 361. [4] 8th Wh. 312. McCulloch vs. the State of Maryland,[5] was a _qui tam_ action, brought to recover a penalty, and the record was authenticated by the seal of the Court and the signature of the Clerk, without that of a Judge. Brown et al. vs. the State of Maryland, was an indictment for a fine and forfeiture. The record in this case, too, was authenticated by the seal of the Court and the certificate of the Clerk. The practice is both ways. [5] 4th Wh. 316. The record, then, according to the Judiciary act, and the rule and the practice of the Court, is regularly before us. The more important inquiry is, does it exhibit a case cognizable by this tribunal? The indictment charges the plaintiff in error, and others, being white persons, with the offence of "residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation without a licence," and "without having taken the oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of the State of Georgia." The defendant in the State Court appeared in proper person, and filed the following plea: "And the said Samuel A. Worcester, in his own proper person, comes and says, that this court ought not to take further cognizance of the action and prosecution aforesaid, because, he says, that, on the 15th day of July, in the year 1831, he was, and still is, a resident in the Cherokee nation; and that the said supposed crime or crimes, and each of them, were committed, if committed at all, at the town of New Echota, in the said Cherokee nation, out of the jurisdiction of this court, and not in the county Gwinnett, or elsewhere within the jurisdiction of this court: And this defendant saith, that he is a citizen of the State of Vermont, one of the United States of America, and that he entered the aforesaid Cherokee nation in the capacity of a duly authorized missionary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, under the authority of the President of the United States, and has not since been required by him to leave it: that he was, at the time of his arrest, engaged in preaching the Gospel to the Cherokee Indians, and in translating the sacred Scriptures into their language, with the permission and approval of the said Cherokee nation, and in accordance with the humane policy of the Government of the United States for the civilization and improvement of the Indians; and that his residence there, for this purpose, is the residence charged in the aforesaid indictment: and this defendant further saith, that this prosecution the State of Georgia ought not to have or maintain, because, he saith, that several treaties have, from time to time, been entered into between the United States and the Cherokee nation of Indians, to wit: at Hopewell, on the 28th day of November, 1785; at Holston, on the 2d day of July, 1791; at Philadelphia, on the 26th day of June, 1794: at Tellico, on the 2d day of October, 1798; at Tellico, on the 24th day of October, 1804; at Tellico, on the 25th day of October, 1805; at Tellico, on the 27th day of October, 1805; at Washington city, on the 7th day of January, 1805; at Washington city, on the 22d day of March, 1816; at the Chickasaw Council House, on the 14th day of September, 1816; at the Cherokee Agency, on the 8th day of July, 1817; and at Washington city, on the 27th day of February, 1819: all which treaties have been duly ratified by the Senate of the United States of America; and, by which treaties, the United States of America acknowledge the said Cherokee nation to be a sovereign nation, authorized to govern themselves, and all persons who have settled within their territory, free from any right of legislative interference by the several States composing the United States of America, in reference to acts done within their own territory; and, by which treaties, the whole of the territory now occupied by the Cherokee nation, on the east of the Mississippi, has been solemnly guarantied to them; all of which treaties are existing treaties at this day, and in full force. By these treaties, and particularly by the treaties of Hopewell and Holston, the aforesaid territory is acknowledged to lie without the jurisdiction of the several States composing the Union of the United States; and, it is thereby specially stipulated, that the citizens of the United States shall not enter the aforesaid territory, even on a visit, without a passport from the governor of a State, or from some one duly authorized thereto, by the President of the United States: all of which will more fully and at large appear, by reference to the aforesaid treaties. And this defendant saith, that the several acts charged in the bill of indictment, were done, or omitted to be done, if at all, within the said territory so recognized as belonging to the said nation, and so, as aforesaid, held by them, under the guaranty of the United States: that, for those acts, the defendant is not amenable to the laws of Georgia, nor to the jurisdiction of the courts of the said State; and that the laws of the State of Georgia, which profess to add the said territory to the several adjacent counties of the said State, and to extend the laws of Georgia over the said territory, and persons inhabiting the same; and, in particular, the act on which this indictment _vs._ this defendant is grounded, to wit: "An act entitled an act to prevent the exercise of assumed and arbitrary power, by all persons, under pretext of authority from the Cherokee Indians, and their laws, and to prevent white persons from residing within that part of the chartered limits of Georgia, occupied by the Cherokee Indians, and to provide a guard for the protection of the gold mines, and to enforce the laws of the State within the aforesaid territory," are repugnant to the aforesaid treaties; which, according to the constitution of the United States, compose a part of the supreme law of the land; and that these laws of Georgia are, therefore, unconstitutional, void, and of no effect; that the said laws of Georgia are also unconstitutional and void, because they impair the obligation of the various contracts formed by and between the aforesaid Cherokee nation and the said United States of America, as above recited: also, that the said laws of Georgia are unconstitutional and void, because they interfere with, and attempt to regulate and control the intercourse with the said Cherokee nation, which, by the said constitution, belongs exclusively to the Congress of the United States; and because the said laws are repugnant to the statute of the United States, passed on the ---- day of March, 1802, entitled "An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers:" and that, therefore, this Court has no jurisdiction to cause this defendant to make further or other answer to the said bill of indictment, or further to try and punish this defendant for the said supposed offence or offences alleged in the bill of indictment, or any of them: And, therefore, this defendant prays judgment whether he shall be held bound to answer further to said indictment." This plea was overruled by the Court. And the prisoner, being arraigned, pleaded not guilty. The jury found a verdict against him, and the Court sentenced him to hard labor, in the penitentiary, for the term of four years. By overruling this plea, the Court decided that the matter it contained was not a bar to the action. The plea, therefore, must be examined, for the purpose of determining whether it makes a case which brings the party within the provisions of the 25th section of the "Act to establish the judicial courts of the United States." The plea avers that the residence, charged in the indictment, was under the authority of the President of the United States, and with the permission and approval of the Cherokee nation. That the treaties, subsisting between the United States and the Cherokees, acknowledge their right as a sovereign nation to govern themselves and all persons who have settled within their territory, free from any right of legislative interference by the several States composing the United States of America. That the act under which the prosecution was instituted is repugnant to the said treaties, and is, therefore, unconstitutional and void. That the said act is, also, unconstitutional; because it interferes with, and attempts to regulate and control, the intercourse with the Cherokee nation, which belongs, exclusively, to Congress; and, because, also, it is repugnant to the statute of the United States, entitled "An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes, and to preserve peace on the frontiers." Let the averments of this plea be compared with the 25th section of the Judicial act. That section enumerates the cases in which the final judgment or decree of a State Court may be revised in the Supreme Court of the United States. These are, "where is drawn in question the validity of a treaty, or statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States, and the decision is against their validity; or where is drawn in question the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, any State, on the ground of their being repugnant to the constitution, treaties, or laws, of the United States, and the decision is in favor of such their validity; or where is drawn in question the construction of any clause of the constitution, or of a treaty, or statute of, or commission held under, the United States, and the decision is against the title, right, privilege, or exemption, specially set up or claimed by either party, under such clause of the said constitution, treaty, statute, or commission." The indictment and plea, in this case, draw in question, we think, the validity of the treaties made by the United States with the Cherokee Indians: if not so, their construction is certainly drawn in question; and the decision has been, if not against their validity, "against the right, privilege, or exemption, specially set up and claimed under them." They also draw into question the validity of a statute of the State of Georgia, "on the ground of its being repugnant to the constitution, treaties, and laws, of the United States, and the decision is in favor of its validity." It is, then, we think, too clear for controversy, that the act of Congress, by which this court is constituted, has given it the power, and, of course, imposed on it the duty, of exercising jurisdiction in this case. This duty, however unpleasant, cannot be avoided. Those who fill the Judicial Department have no discretion in selecting the subjects to be brought before them. We must examine the defence set up in this plea. We must inquire and decide whether the act of the Legislature of Georgia, under which the plaintiff in error has been prosecuted and condemned, be consistent with, or repugnant to, the constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States. It has been said at the bar, that the acts of the Legislature of Georgia seize on the whole Cherokee country, parcel it out among the neighboring counties of the State, extend her code over the whole country, abolish its institutions and its laws, and annihilate its political existence. If this be the general effect of the system, let us inquire into the effect of the particular statute and section on which the indictment is founded. It enacts that "all white persons, residing within the limits of the Cherokee nation on the first day of March next, or at any time thereafter, without a licence or permit from his Excellency the Governor, or from such agent as his Excellency the Governor shall authorize to grant such permit or licence, and who shall not have taken the oath hereinafter required, shall be guilty of a high misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by confinement to the penitentiary, at hard labor, for a term not less than four years." The 11th section authorizes the Governor, "should he deem it necessary for the protection of the mines, or the enforcement of the laws in force within the Cherokee Nation, to raise and organize a guard," &c. The 13th section enacts, "that the said guard or any member of them, shall be, and they are hereby, authorized and empowered to arrest any person legally charged with or detected in a violation of the laws of this State, and to convey, as soon as practicable, the person so arrested, before a Justice of the peace, judge of the superior, justice of inferior court of this State, to be dealt with according to law." The extra-territorial power of every Legislature being limited in its action, to its own citizens or subjects, the very passage of this act is an assertion of jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation, and of the rights and powers consequent on jurisdiction. The first step, then, in the inquiry, which the constitution and laws impose on this Court, is an examination of the rightfulness of this claim. America, separated from Europe by a wide ocean, was inhabited by a distinct People, divided into separate nations, independent of each other and of the rest of the world, having institutions of their own, and governing themselves by their own laws. It is difficult to comprehend the proposition, that the inhabitants of either quarter of the globe could have rightful original claims of dominion over the inhabitants of the other, or over the lands they occupied; or that the discovery of either by the other should give the discoverer, rights in the country discovered, which annulled the pre-existing rights of its ancient possessors. After lying concealed for a series of ages, the enterprise of Europe, guided by nautical science, conducted some of her adventurous sons into this Western world. They found it in possession of a People who had made small progress in agriculture or manufactures, and whose general employment was war, hunting, and fishing. Did these adventurers, by sailing along the coast, and occasionally landing on it, acquire for the several Governments to whom they belonged, or by whom they were commissioned, a rightful property in the soil, from the Atlantic to the Pacific; or rightful dominion over the numerous people who occupied it? Or has nature, or the great Creator of all things, conferred these rights over hunters and fishermen, on agriculturists and manufacturers? But power, war, conquest, give rights, which, after possession, are conceded by the world, and which can never be controverted by those on whom they descend. We proceed, then, to the actual state of things, having glanced at their origin; because holding it in our recollection might shed some light on existing pretensions. The great maritime Powers of Europe discovered and visited different parts of this continent at nearly the same time. The object was too immense for any one of them to grasp the whole; and the claimants were too powerful to submit to the exclusive or unreasonable pretensions of any single potentate. To avoid bloody conflicts, which might terminate disastrously to all, it was necessary for the nations of Europe to establish some principle which all would acknowledge, and which should decide their respective rights as between themselves. This principle, suggested by the actual state of things, was, "that discovery gave title to the Government by whose subjects or by whose authority it was made, against all other European Governments, which title might be consummated by possession."[6] [6] 8th Wh. 573. This principle, acknowledged by all Europeans, because it was the interest of all to acknowledge it, gave to the nation making the discovery, as its inevitable consequence, the sole right of acquiring the soil and of making settlements on it. It was an exclusive principle, which shut out the right of competition among those who had agreed to it; not one which could annul the previous rights of those who had not agreed to it. It regulated the right given by discovery among the European discoverers; but could not affect the rights of those already in possession, either as aboriginal occupants, or as occupants by virtue of a discovery made before the memory of man. It gave the exclusive right to purchase, but did not found that right on a denial of the right of the possessor to sell. The relation between the Europeans and the natives was determined in each case by the particular government which asserted and could maintain this pre-emptive privilege in the particular place. The United States succeeded to all the claims of Great Britain, both territorial and political, but no attempt, so far as is known, has been made to enlarge them. So far as they existed merely in theory, or were in their nature only exclusive of the claims of other European nations, they still retain their original character, and remain dormant. So far as they have been practically exerted, they exist in fact, are understood by both parties, are asserted by the one, and admitted by the other. Soon after Great Britain determined on planting colonies in America, the King granted charters to companies of his subjects, who associated for the purpose of carrying the views of the crown into effect, and of enriching themselves. The first of these charters was made before possession was taken of any part of the country. They purport generally to convey the soil, from the Atlantic to the South Sea. This soil was occupied by numerous and warlike nations, equally willing and able to defend their possessions. The extravagant and absurd idea, that the feeble settlements made on the sea coast, or the companies under whom they were made, acquired legitimate power by them to govern the people, or occupy the lands from sea to sea, did not enter the mind of any man. They were well understood to convey the title which, according to the common law of European sovereigns respecting America, they might rightfully convey, and no more. This was the exclusive right of purchasing such lands as the natives were willing to sell. The crown could not be understood to grant what the crown did not affect to claim, nor was it so understood. The power of making war is conferred by these charters on the colonies, but _defensive_ war alone seems to have been contemplated. In the first charter to the first and second colonies, they are empowered, "for their several _defences_, to encounter, expulse, repel, and resist, all persons who shall, without license," attempt to inhabit "within the said precincts and limits of the said several colonies, or that shall enterprise or attempt at any time hereafter the least detriment or annoyance of the said several colonies or plantations." The charter to Connecticut concludes a general power to make defensive war with these terms: "and upon _just causes_ to invade and destroy the natives or other enemies of the said colony." The same power, in the same words, is conferred on the government of Rhode Island. This power to repel invasion, and, upon just cause, to invade and destroy the natives, authorizes offensive as well as defensive war, but only "on just cause." The very terms imply the existence of a country to be invaded, and of an enemy who has given just cause of war. The charter to William Penn contains the following recital: "and because, in so remote a country, near so many barbarous nations, the incursions, as well of the savages themselves, as of other enemies, pirates, and robbers, may probably be feared, therefore we have given," &c. The instrument then confers the power of war. These barbarous nations, whose incursions were feared, and to repel whose incursions the power to make war was given, were surely not considered as the subjects of Penn, or occupying his lands during his pleasure. The same clause is introduced into the charter to Lord Baltimore. The charter to Georgia professes to be granted for the charitable purpose of enabling poor subjects to gain a comfortable subsistence by cultivating lands in the American provinces, "at present waste and desolate." It recites: "and whereas our provinces in North America have been frequently ravaged by Indian enemies, more especially that of South Carolina, which, in the late war by the neighboring savages, was laid waste by fire and sword, and great numbers of the English inhabitants miserably massacred; and our loving subjects, who now inhabit there, by reason of the smallness of their numbers, will, in case of any new war, be exposed to the like calamities, inasmuch as their whole Southern frontier continueth unsettled, and lieth open to the said savages." These motives for planting the new colony are incompatible with the lofty ideas of granting the soil and all its inhabitants from sea to sea. They demonstrate the truth, that these grants asserted a title against Europeans only, and were considered as blank paper so far as the rights of the natives were concerned. The power of war is given only for defence, not for conquest. The charters contain passages showing one of their objects to be the civilization of the Indians, and their conversion to Christianity--objects to be accomplished by conciliatory conduct, and good example; not by extermination. The actual state of things, and the practice of European nations, on so much of the American continent as lies between the Mississippi and the Atlantic, explain their claims and the charters they granted. Their pretensions unavoidably interfered with each other: though the discovery of one was admitted by all to exclude the claim of any other, the extent of that discovery was the subject of unceasing contest. Bloody conflicts arose between them, which gave importance and security to the neighboring nations. Fierce and warlike in their character, they might be formidable enemies, or effective friends. Instead of rousing their resentments, by asserting claims to their lands, or to dominion over their persons, their alliance was sought by flattering professions, and purchased by rich presents. The English, the French, and the Spaniards, were equally competitors for their friendship and their aid. Not well acquainted with the exact meaning of words, nor supposing it to be material whether they were called the subjects, or the children of their father in Europe; lavish in professions of duty and affection, in return for the rich presents they received; so long as their actual independence was untouched, and their right to self government acknowledged, they were willing to profess dependence on the Power which furnished supplies of which they were in absolute need, and restrained dangerous intruders from entering their country: and this was probably the sense in which the term was understood by them. Certain it is, that our history furnishes no example, from the first settlement of our country, of any attempt, on the part of the crown, to interfere with the internal affairs of the Indians, farther than to keep out the agents of foreign Powers, who, as traders or otherwise, might seduce them into foreign alliances. The King purchased their lands when they were willing to sell, at a price they were willing to take; but never coerced a surrender of them. He also purchased their alliance and dependence by subsidies; but never intruded into the interior of their affairs, or interfered with their self government, so far as respected themselves only. The general views of Great Britain, with regard to the Indians, were detailed by Mr. Stuart, superintendent of Indian affairs, in a speech delivered at Mobile, in presence of several persons of distinction, soon after the peace of 1763. Towards the conclusion he says, "lastly, I inform you that it is the King's order to all his Governors and subjects to treat the Indians with justice and humanity, and to forbear all encroachments on the territories allotted to them; accordingly, all individuals are prohibited from purchasing any of your lands; but, as you know that, as your white brethren cannot feed you when you visit them, unless you give them ground to plant, it is expected that you will cede lands to the King for that purpose. But, whenever you shall be pleased to surrender any of your territories to his majesty, it must be done, for the future, at a public meeting of your nation, when the governors of the provinces, or the superintendent shall be present, and obtain the consent of all your people. The boundaries of your hunting grounds will be accurately fixed, and no settlement permitted to be made upon them. As you may be assured that all treaties with you will be faithfully kept, so it is expected that you, also, will be careful strictly to observe them." The proclamation issued by the King of Great Britain, in 1763, soon after the ratification of the articles of peace, forbids the governors of any of the colonies to grant warrants of survey, or pass patents upon any lands whatever, which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by, us, (the King) as aforesaid, are reserved to the said Indians, or any of them. The proclamation proceeds: "and we do farther declare it to be our royal will and pleasure, for the present, as aforesaid, to reserve, under our sovereignty, protection, and dominion, for the use of the said Indians, all the lands and territories lying to the westward of the sources of the rivers which fall into the sea, from the west and northwest as aforesaid: and we do hereby strictly forbid, on pain of our displeasure, all our loving subjects from making any purchases or settlements whatever, or taking possession of any of the lands above reserved, without our special leave and licence for that purpose first obtained. "And we do further strictly enjoin and require all persons whatever, who have, either wilfully or inadvertently, seated themselves upon any lands within the countries above described, or upon any other lands which, not having been ceded to, or purchased by us, are still reserved to the said Indians, as aforesaid, forthwith to remove themselves from such settlements." A proclamation, issued by Governor Gage, in 1779, contains the following passage: "Whereas many persons, contrary to the positive orders of the King, upon this subject, have undertaken to make settlements beyond the boundaries fixed by the treaties made with the Indian nations, which boundaries ought to serve as a barrier between the whites and the said nations;" particularly on the Ouabache, the proclamation orders such persons to quit those countries without delay. Such was the policy of Great Britain towards the Indian nations inhabiting the territory from which she excluded all other Europeans; such her claims, and such her practical exposition of the charters she had granted: she considered them as nations capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war; of governing themselves, under her protection; and she made treaties with them, the obligation of which she acknowledged. This was the settled state of things when the war of our Revolution commenced. The influence of our enemy was established; her resources enabled her to keep up that influence; and the colonists had much cause for the apprehension that the Indian nations would, as the allies of Great Britain, add their arms to hers. This, as was to be expected, became an object of great solicitude to Congress, Far from advancing a claim to their lands, or asserting any right of dominion over them, Congress resolved "that the securing and preserving the friendship of the Indian nations appears to be a subject of the utmost moment to these colonies." The early journals of Congress exhibit the most anxious desire to conciliate the Indian nations. Three Indian departments were established; and commissioners appointed in each, "to treat with the Indians in their respective departments, in the name and on behalf of the United Colonies, in order to preserve peace and friendship with the said Indians, and to prevent their taking any part in the present commotions." The most strenuous exertions were made to procure those supplies on which Indian friendships were supposed to depend, and everything which might excite hostility was avoided. The first treaty was made with the Delawares, in September, 1778. The language of equality in which it is drawn, evinces the temper with which the negotiation was undertaken, and the opinion which then prevailed in the United States. "1st. That all offences or acts of hostilities, by one or either of the contracting parties against the other, be mutually forgiven, and buried in the depth of oblivion, never more to be had in remembrance. "2d. That a perpetual peace and friendship shall, from henceforth, take place and subsist between the contracting parties aforesaid, through all succeeding generations: and if either of the parties are engaged in a just and necessary war, with any other nation or nations, that then each shall assist the other, in due proportion to their abilities, till their enemies are brought to reasonable terms of accommodation," &c. 3d. The third article stipulates, among other things, a free passage for the American troops through the Delaware nation, and engages that they shall be furnished with provisions and other necessaries at their value. "4th. For the better security of the peace and friendship now entered into by the contracting parties against all infractions of the same by the citizens of either party, to the prejudice of the other, neither party shall proceed to the infliction of punishments on the citizens of the other, otherwise than by securing the offender or offenders, by imprisonment, or any other competent means, till a fair and impartial trial can be had by judges or juries of both parties, as near as can be to the laws, customs, and usages, of the contracting parties, and natural justice," &c. 5th. The fifth article regulates the trade between the contracting parties, in a manner entirely equal. 6th. The sixth article is entitled to peculiar attention, as it contains a disclaimer of designs which were, at that time, ascribed to the United States, by their enemies, and from the imputation of which Congress was then peculiarly anxious to free the Government. It is in these words: "Whereas the enemies of the United States have endeavored, by every artifice in their power, to possess the Indians in general with an opinion that it is the design of the States aforesaid to extirpate the Indians, and take possession of their country: To obviate such false suggestion the United States do engage to guaranty to the aforesaid nation of Delawares, and their heirs, all their territorial rights, in the fullest and most ample manner, as it hath been bounded by former treaties, as long as the said Delaware nation shall abide by, and hold fast, the chain of friendship now entered into." The parties further agree, that other tribes, friendly to the interest of the United States, may be invited to form a State, whereof the Delaware nation shall be the heads, and have a representation in Congress. This treaty, in its language, and in its provisions, is formed, as near as may be, on the model of treaties between the crowned heads of Europe. The sixth article shows how Congress then treated the injurious calumny of cherishing designs unfriendly to the political and civil rights of the Indians. During the war of the Revolution, the Cherokees took part with the British. Alter its termination, the United States, though desirous of peace, did not feel its necessity so strongly as while the war continued. Their political situation being changed, they might very well think it advisable to assume a higher tone, and to impress on the Cherokees the same respect for Congress which was before felt for the King of Great Britain. This may account for the language of the treaty of Hopewell. There is the more reason for supposing that the Cherokee chiefs were not very critical judges of the language, from the fact that every one makes his mark; no chief was capable of signing his name. It is probable the treaty was interpreted to them. The treaty is introduced with the declaration, that "The commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States give peace to all the Cherokees, and receive them into the favor and protection of the United States of America, on the following conditions." When the United States gave peace, did they not also receive it? Were not both parties desirous of it? If we consult the history of the day, does it not inform us that the United States were at least as anxious to obtain it as the Cherokees? We may ask, further: Did the Cherokees come to the seat of the American Government to solicit peace; or, did the American commissioners go to them to obtain it? The treaty was made at Hopewell, not at New York. The word "give," then, has no real importance attached to it. The first and second articles stipulate for the mutual restoration of prisoners, and are of course equal. The third article acknowledges the Cherokees to be under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other Power. This stipulation is found in Indian treaties, generally. It was introduced into their treaties with Great Britain; and may probably be found in those with other European Powers. Its origin may be traced to the nature of their connexion with those Powers; and its true meaning is discerned in their relative situation. The general law of European sovereigns, respecting their claims in America, limited the intercourse of Indians, in a great degree, to the particular potentate, whose ultimate right of domain was acknowledged by the others. This was the general state of things in time of peace. It was sometimes changed in war. The consequence was, that their supplies were derived chiefly from that nation, and their trade confined to it. Goods, indispensable to their comfort, in the shape of presents, were received from the same hand. What was of still more importance, the strong hand of Government was interposed to restrain the disorderly and licentious from intrusions into their country, from encroachments on their lands, and from those acts of violence which were often attended by reciprocal murder. The Indians perceived in this protection, only what was beneficial to themselves--an engagement to punish aggressions on them. It involved practically no claim to their lands, no dominion over their persons. It merely bound the nation to the British crown, as a dependent ally, claiming the protection of a powerful friend and neighbor, and receiving the advantages of that protection, without involving a surrender of their national character. This is the true meaning of the stipulation, and is undoubtedly the sense in which it was made. Neither the British Government, nor the Cherokees, ever understood it otherwise. The same stipulation entered into with the United States, is undoubtedly to be construed in the same manner. They receive the Cherokee nation into their favor and protection. The Cherokees acknowledge themselves to be under the protection of the United States, and of no other Power. Protection does not imply the destruction of the protected. The manner in which this stipulation was understood by the American Government, is explained by the language and acts of our first President. The fourth article draws the boundary between the Indians and the citizens of the United States. But, in describing this boundary, the term "allotted" and the term "hunting ground" are used. Is it reasonable to suppose, that the Indians, who could not write, and most probably could not read, who certainly were not critical judges of our language, should distinguish the word "allotted" from the words "marked out." The actual subject of contract was the dividing line between the two nations, and their attention may very well be supposed to have been confined to that subject. When, in fact, they were ceding lands to the United States, and describing the extent of their cession, it may very well be supposed that they might not understand the term employed, as indicating that, instead of granting, they were receiving lands. If the term would admit of no other signification, which is not conceded, its being misunderstood is so apparent, results so necessarily from the whole transaction, that it must, we think, be taken in the sense in which it was most obviously used. So with respect to the words "hunting grounds." Hunting was at that time the principal occupation of the Indians, and their land was more used for that purpose than for any other. It could not, however, be supposed, that any intention existed of restricting the full use of the lands they reserved. To the United States, it could be a matter of no concern, whether their whole territory was devoted to hunting grounds, or whether an occasional village, and an occasional corn field, interrupted, and gave some variety to the scene. These terms had been used in their treaties with Great Britain, and had never been misunderstood. They had never been supposed to imply a right in the British Government to take their lands, or to interfere with their internal Government. The 5th article withdraws the protection of the United States from any citizen who has settled, or shall settle, on the lands allotted to the Indians, for their hunting grounds; and stipulates that, if he shall not remove within six months, the Indians may punish him. The 6th and 7th articles stipulate for the punishment of the citizens of either country, who may commit offences on or against the citizens of the other. The only inference to be drawn from them is, that the United States considered the Cherokees as a nation. The 9th article is in these words: "For the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and for the prevention of injuries or oppressions on the part of the citizens or Indians, the United States, in Congress assembled, shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating the trade with the Indians, and _managing all their affairs_, as they think proper." To construe the expression "managing all their affairs," into a surrender of self government, would be, we think, a perversion of their necessary meaning, and a departure from the construction which has been uniformly put on them. The great subject of the article is the Indian trade. The influence it gave, made it desirable that Congress should possess it. The commissioners brought forward the claim, with the profession that their motive was, "the benefit and comfort of the Indians, and the prevention of injuries or oppressions." This may be true, as respects the regulation of their trade, and as respects the regulation of all affairs connected with their trade, but cannot be true, as respects the management of all their affairs. The most important of these, is the cession of their lands, and security against intruders on them. Is it credible, that they could have considered themselves as surrendering to the United States, the right to dictate their future cessions, and the terms on which they should be made? or to compel their submission to the violence of disorderly and licentious intruders? It is equally inconceivable that they could have supposed themselves, by a phrase thus slipped into an article, on another and most interesting subject, to have divested themselves of the right of self government on subjects not connected with trade. Such a measure could not be "for their benefit and comfort," or for "the prevention of injuries and oppression." Such a construction would be inconsistent with the spirit of this and of all subsequent treaties; especially of those articles which recognise the right of the Cherokees to declare hostilities, and to make war. It would convert a treaty of peace covertly into an act, annihilating the political existence of one of the parties. Had such a result been intended, it would have been openly avowed. This treaty contains a few terms capable of being used in a sense which could not have been intended at the time, and which is inconsistent with the practical construction which has always been put on them; but its essential articles treat the Cherokees as a nation capable of maintaining the relations of peace and war; and ascertain the boundaries between them and the United States. The treaty of Hopewell seems not to have established a solid peace. To accommodate the differences still existing between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee nation, the treaty of Holston was negotiated, in July, 1791. The existing constitution of the United States had been then adopted, and the Government, having more intrinsic capacity to enforce its just claims, was perhaps less mindful of high sounding expressions, denoting superiority. We hear no more of giving peace to the Cherokees. The mutual desire of establishing permanent peace and friendship, and of removing all causes of war, is honestly avowed, and, in pursuance of this desire, the first article declares, that there shall be perpetual peace and friendship between all the citizens of the United States of America and all the individuals composing the Cherokee nation. The second article repeats the important acknowledgment, that the Cherokee nation is under the protection of the United States of America, and of no other sovereign whosoever. The meaning of this has been already explained. The Indian nations were, from their situation, necessarily dependent on some foreign potentate for the supply of their essential wants, and for their protection from lawless and injurious intrusions into their country. That Power was naturally termed their protector. They had been arranged under the protection of Great Britain: but the extinguishment of the British power in their neighborhood, and the establishment of that of the United States, in its place, led naturally to the declaration, on the part of the Cherokees, that they were under the protection of the United States, and of no other Power. They assumed the relation with the United States which had before subsisted with Great Britain. This relation was that of a nation claiming and receiving the protection of one more powerful: not that of individuals abandoning their national character, and submitting as subjects to the laws of a master. The third article contains a perfectly equal stipulation for the surrender of prisoners. The fourth article declares, that "the boundary between the United States and the Cherokee nation shall be as follows: Beginning," &c. We hear no more of "allotments" or of "hunting grounds." A boundary is described, between nation and nation, by mutual consent. The national character of each, the ability of each to establish this boundary, is acknowledged by the other. To preclude forever all disputes, it is agreed that it shall be plainly marked by commissioners, to be appointed by each party; and, in order to extinguish forever, all claim of the Cherokees to the ceded lands, an additional consideration is to be paid by the United States. For this additional consideration the Cherokees release all right to the ceded land, forever. By the fifth article, the Cherokees allow the United States a road through their country, and the navigation of the Tennessee river. The acceptance of these cessions is an acknowledgment of the right of the Cherokees to make or withhold them. By the sixth article it is agreed, on the part of the Cherokees, that the United States shall have the sole and exclusive right of regulating their trade. No claim is made to the management of all their affairs. This stipulation has already been explained. The observation may be repeated, that the stipulation is itself an admission of their right to make or refuse it. By the seventh article the United States solemnly guaranty to the Cherokee nation all their lands not hereby ceded. The eighth article relinquishes to the Cherokees any citizens of the United States who may settle on their lands; and the ninth forbids any citizen of the United States to hunt on their lands, or to enter their country without a passport. The remaining articles are equal, and contain stipulations which could be made only with a nation admitted to be capable of governing itself. This treaty, thus explicitly recognizing the national character of the Cherokees, and their right of self government; thus guarantying their lands; assuming the duty of protection, and of course pledging the faith of the United States for that protection; has been frequently renewed, and is now in full force. To the general pledge of protection have been added several specific pledges, deemed valuable by the Indians. Some of these restrain the citizens of the United States from encroachments on the Cherokee country, and provide for the punishment of intruders. From the commencement of our Government, Congress has passed acts to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indians, which treat them as nations, respect their rights, and manifest a firm purpose to afford that protection which treaties stipulate. All these acts, and especially that of 1802, which is still in force, manifestly consider the several Indian nations as distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which their authority is exclusive, and having a right to all the lands within those boundaries, which is not only acknowledged, but guarantied by the United States. In 1819, Congress passed an act for promoting these humane designs of civilizing the neighboring Indians, which had long been cherished by the Executive. It enacts, "that, for the purpose of providing against the further decline and filial extinction of the Indian tribes adjoining to the frontier settlements of the United States, and for introducing among them the habits and arts of civilization, the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby, authorized, in every case where he shall judge improvement in the habits and condition of such Indians practicable, and that the means of instruction can be introduced, _with their own consent_, to employ capable persons, of good moral character, to instruct them in the mode of agriculture suited to their situation; and for teaching their children in reading, writing, and arithmetic; and for performing such other duties as may be enjoined, according to such instructions and rules as the President may give and prescribe for the regulation of their conduct in the discharge of their duties." This act avowedly contemplates the preservation of the Indian nations as an object sought by the United States, and proposes to effect this object by civilizing and converting them from hunters into agriculturists. Though the Cherokees had already made considerable progress in this improvement, it cannot be doubted that the general words of the act comprehend them. Their advance in the "habits and arts of civilization." rather encouraged perseverance in the laudable exertions still farther to meliorate their condition. This act furnishes strong additional evidence of a settled purpose to fix the Indians in their country by giving them security at home. The treaties and laws of the United States contemplate the Indian territory as completely separated from that of the States; and provide that all intercourse with them shall be carried on exclusively by the Government of the Union. Is this the rightful exercise of power, or is it usurpation? While these States were colonies, this power, in its utmost extent, was admitted to reside in the crown. When our Revolutionary struggle commenced, Congress was composed of an assemblage of deputies acting under specific powers granted by the Legislatures, or conventions of the several colonies. It was a great popular movement, not perfectly organized, nor were the respective powers of those who were entrusted with the management of affairs accurately defined. The necessities of our situation produced a general conviction that those measures which concerned all, must be transacted by a body in which the representatives of all were assembled, and which could command the confidence of all; Congress, therefore, was considered as invested with all the powers of war and peace, and Congress dissolved our connexion with the mother country, and declared these United Colonies to be independent States. Without any written definition of powers, they employed diplomatic agents to represent the United States at the several Courts of Europe; offered to negotiate treaties with them; and did actually negotiate treaties with France. From the same necessity, and on the same principles, Congress assumed the management of Indian affairs; first in the name of these United Colonies, and afterwards in the name of the United States. Early attempts were made at negotiation, and to regulate trade with them. These not proving successful, war was carried on under the direction, and with the forces of the United States, and the efforts to make peace, by treaty, were earnest and incessant. The Confederation found Congress in the exercise of the same powers of peace and war, in our relations with Indian nations, as with those of Europe. Such was the state of things when the Confederation was adopted. That instrument surrendered the powers of peace and war to Congress, and prohibited them to the States, respectively, unless a State be actually invaded, "or shall have received certain advice of a resolution being formed by some nation of Indians to invade such State, and the danger is so imminent as not to admit of delay till the United States, in Congress assembled, can be consulted." This instrument also gave the United States in Congress assembled the sole and exclusive right of "regulating the trade, and managing all the affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States: _Provided_, That the legislative power of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated." The ambiguous phrases which follow the grant of power to the United States, were so construed by the States of North Carolina and Georgia as to annul the power itself. The discontents and confusion resulting from these conflicting claims, produced representations to Congress, which were referred to a committee, who made their report in 1787. The report does not assent to the construction of the two States, but recommends an accommodation, by liberal cessions of territory, or by an admission, on their part, of the powers claimed by Congress. The correct exposition of this article is rendered unnecessary by the adoption of our existing constitution. That instrument confers on Congress the powers of war and peace; of making treaties, and of regulating commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and _with the Indian tribes_. These powers comprehend all that is required for the regulation of our intercourse with the Indians. They are not limited by any restrictions on their free actions. The shackles imposed on this power, in the Confederation, are discarded. The Indian nations had always been considered as distinct, independent political communities, retaining their original natural rights, as the undisputed possessors of the soil, from time immemorial, with the single exception of that imposed by irresistible power, which excluded them from intercourse with any other European potentate than the first discoverer of the coast of the particular region claimed: and this was a restriction which those European potentates imposed on themselves, as well as on the Indians. The very term, "nation," so generally applied to them, means "a People distinct from others." The constitution, by declaring treaties already made, as well as those to be made, to be the supreme law of the land, has adopted and sanctioned the previous treaties with the Indian nations, and, consequently, admits their rank among those Powers who are capable of making treaties. The words "treaty" and "nation" are words of our own language, selected in our diplomatic and legislative proceedings, by ourselves, having each a definite and well understood meaning. We have applied them to Indians, as we have applied them to the other nations of the earth. They are applied to all in the same sense. Georgia, herself, has furnished conclusive evidence that her former opinions on this subject concurred with those entertained by her sister States, and by the Government of the United States. Various acts of her Legislature have been cited in the argument, including the contract of cession made in the year 1802, all tending to prove her acquiescence in the universal conviction that the Indian nations possessed a full right to the lands they occupied, until that right should be extinguished by the United States, with their consent; that their territory was separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they might reside, by a boundary line, established by treaties; that, within their boundary, they possessed rights with which no State could interfere; and that the whole power of regulating the intercourse with them, was vested in the United States. A review of these acts, on the part of Georgia, would occupy too much time, and is the less necessary, because they have been accurately detailed in the argument at the bar. Her new series of laws, manifesting her abandonment of these opinions, appears to have commenced in December, 1828. In opposition to this original right, possessed by the undisputed occupants of every country, to this recognition of that right, which is evidenced by our history in every change through which we have passed, is placed the charters granted by the monarch of a distant and distinct region, parcelling out a territory in possession of others, whom he could not remove, and did not attempt to remove, and the cession made of his claims, by the treaty of peace. The actual state of things at the time, and all history since, explain these charters; and the King of Great Britain, at the treaty of peace, could cede only what belonged to his crown. These newly asserted titles can derive no aid from the articles so often repeated in Indian treaties, extending to them, first, the protection of Great Britain, and afterwards, that of the United States. These articles are associated with others, recognizing their title to self government. The very fact of repeated treaties with them recognizes it; and the settled doctrine of the law of nations is, that the weaker power does not surrender its independence--its right to self government--by associating with a stronger, and taking its protection. A weak State, in order to provide for its safety, may place itself under the protection of one more powerful, without stripping itself of the right of government, and ceasing to be a State. Examples of this kind are not wanting in Europe. "Tributary and feudatory States," says Vattel, "do not thereby cease to be sovereign and independent States, so long as self government and sovereign and independent authority is left in the administration of the State." At the present day, more than one State may be considered as holding its right of self government under the guarantee and protection of one or more allies. The Cherokee nation, then, is a distinct community, occupying its own territory, with boundaries accurately described, in which the laws of Georgia can have no force, and which the citizens of Georgia have no right to enter, but with the assent of the Cherokees themselves, or in conformity with treaties, and with the acts of Congress. The whole intercourse between the United States and this nation, is, by our constitution and laws, vested in the Government of the United States. The act of the State of Georgia, under which the plaintiff in error was prosecuted, is consequently void, and the judgment a nullity. Can this Court revise and reverse it? If the objection to the system of legislation, lately adopted by the Legislature of Georgia, in relation to the Cherokee nation, was confined to its extraterritorial operation, the objection, though complete, so far as respected mere right, would give this Court no power over the subject. But it goes much further. If the view which has been taken be correct, and we think it is, the acts of Georgia are repugnant to the constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States. They interfere forcibly with the relations established between the United States and the Cherokee nation, the regulation of which, according to the settled principles of our constitution, are committed exclusively to the Government of the Union. They are in direct hostility with treaties, repeated in a succession of years, which mark out the boundary that separates the Cherokee country from Georgia; guaranty to them all the land within their boundary; solemnly pledge the faith of the United States to restrain their citizens from trespassing on it; and recognize the pre-existing power of the nation to govern itself. They are in equal hostility with the acts of Congress for regulating this intercourse and giving effect to the treaties. The forcible seizure and abduction of the plaintiff in error, who was residing in the nation, with its permission, and by authority of the President of the United States, is also a violation of the acts which authorize the Chief Magistrate to exercise this authority. Will these powerful considerations avail the plaintiff in error? We think they will. He was seized, and forcibly carried away, while under guardianship of treaties guarantying the country in which he resided, and taking it under the protection of the United States. He was seized while performing, under the sanction of the Chief Magistrate of the Union, those duties which the humane policy adopted by Congress had recommended. He was apprehended, tried, and condemned, under color of a law which has been shown to be repugnant to the constitution, laws, and treaties, of the United States. Had a judgment, liable to the same objections, been rendered for property, none would question the jurisdiction of this Court. It cannot be less clear when the judgment affects personal liberty, and inflicts disgraceful punishment, if punishment could disgrace when inflicted on innocence. The plaintiff in error is not less interested in the operation of this unconstitutional law than if it affected his property. He is not less entitled to the protection of the constitution, laws, and treaties, of his country. It is the opinion of this Court that the judgment of the Superior Court for the county of Gwinnett, in the State of Georgia, condemning Samuel A. Worcester to hard labor, in the penitentiary of the State of Georgia, for four years, was pronounced by that Court under color of a law which is void, as being repugnant to the constitution, treaties, and laws of the United States, and ought, therefore, to be reversed and annulled. MANDATE OF THE COURT. SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, _January Term_, 1832. SAMUEL A. WORCESTER, } _In Error to the Superior_ _Plaintiff in Error_, } _Court for the County of_ _vs._ } _Gwinnett, in the State of_ THE STATE OF GEORGIA. } _Georgia._ This cause came on to be heard on the transcript of the record from the Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett, in the State of Georgia, and was argued by counsel: on consideration whereof, it is the opinion of this Court, that the act of the Legislature of the State of Georgia, upon which the indictment in this case is founded, is contrary to the constitution, treaties, and laws, of the United States; and, that the special plea, in bar, pleaded by the said Samuel A. Worcester, in manner aforesaid, and relying upon the constitution, treaties, and laws, of the United States, aforesaid, is a good bar and defence to the said indictment, by the said Samuel A. Worcester; and, as such, ought to have been allowed and admitted by the said Superior Court for the County of Gwinnett, in the State of Georgia, before which the said indictment was pending and tried; and that there was error in the said Superior Court of the State of Georgia, in overruling the plea so pleaded, as aforesaid. It is, therefore, ordered and adjudged, that the judgment rendered in the premises, by the said Superior Court of Georgia, upon the verdict upon the plea of Not Guilty, afterwards pleaded by the said Samuel A. Worcester, whereby the said Samuel A. Worcester is sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary of the State of Georgia, ought to be reversed and annulled. And this Court, proceeding to render such judgment as the said Superior Court of the State of Georgia should have rendered, it is further ordered and adjudged, that the said judgment of the said Superior Court be, and hereby is, reversed and annulled; and that judgment be, and hereby is, awarded, that the special plea in bar, so as aforesaid pleaded, is a good and sufficient plea in bar, in law, to the indictment aforesaid, and that all proceedings on the said indictment do forever surcease, and that the said Samuel A. Worcester be, and hereby is, henceforth dismissed therefrom, and that he go thereof quit without day. And that a special mandate do go from this Court to the said Superior Court, to carry this judgment into execution. MARCH 5, 1832. 
4241	----	SE-QUO-YAH. From Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 In the year 1768 a German peddler, named George Gist, left the settlement of Ebenezer, on the lower Savannah, and entered the Cherokee Nation by the northern mountains of Georgia. He had two pack-horses laden with the petty merchandise known to the Indian trade. At that time Captain Stewart was the British Superintendent of the Indians in that region. Besides his other duties, he claimed the right to regulate and license such traffic. It was an old bone of contention. A few years before, the Governor and Council of the colony of Georgia claimed the sole power of such privilege and jurisdiction. Still earlier, the colonial authorities of South Carolina assumed it. Traders from Virginia, even, found it necessary to go round by Carolina and Georgia, and to procure licenses. Augusta was the great centre of this commerce, which in those days was more extensive than would be now believed. Flatboats, barges, and pirogues floated the bales of pelts to tide-water. Above Augusta, trains of pack-horses, sometimes numbering one hundred, gathered in the furs, and carried goods to and from remote regions. The trader immediately in connection with the Indian hunter expected to make one thousand per cent. The wholesale dealer made several hundred. The governors, councilors, and superintendents made all they could. It could scarcely be called legitimate commerce. It was a grab game. Our Dutch friend Gist was, correctly speaking, a contrabandist. He had too little influence or money to procure a license, and too much enterprise to refrain because he lacked it. He belonged to a class more numerous than respectable, although it would be a good deal to say that there was any virtue in yielding to these petty exactions. It was a mere question of confiscation, or robbery, without redress, by the Indians. He risked it. With traders, at that time, it was customary to take an Indian wife. She was expected to furnish the eatables, as well as cook them. By the law of many Indian tribes property and the control of the family go with the mother. The husband never belongs to the same family connection, rarely to the same community or town even, and often not even to the tribe. He is a sort of barnacle, taken in on his wife's account. To the adventurer, like a trader, this adoption gave a sort of legal status or protection. Gist either understood this before he started on his enterprise, or learned it very speedily after. Of the Cherokee tongue he knew positively nothing. He had a smattering of very broken English. Somehow or other he managed to induce a Cherokee girl to become his wife. This woman belonged to a family long respectable in the Cherokee Nation. It is customary for those ignorant of the Indian social polity to speak of all prominent Indians as "chiefs." Her family had no pretension to chieftaincy, but was prominent and influential; some of her brothers were afterward members of the Council. She could not speak English; but, in common with many Cherokees of even that early date, had a small proportion of English blood in her veins. The Cherokee woman, married or single, owns her property, consisting chiefly of cattle, in her own right. A wealthy Cherokee or Creek, when a son or daughter is born to him, marks so many young cattle in a new brand, and these become, with their increase, the child's property. Whether her cattle constituted any portion of the temptation, I can not say. At any rate, the girl, who had much of the beauty of her race, became the wife of the German peddler. Of George Gist's married life we have little recorded. It was of very short duration. He converted his merchandise into furs, and did not make more than one or two trips. With him it had merely been cheap protection and board. We might denounce him as a low adventurer if we did not remember that he was the father of one of the most remarkable men who ever appeared on the continent. Long before that son was born he gathered together his effects, went the way of all peddlers, and never was heard of more. He left behind him in the Cherokee Nation a woman of no common energy, who through a long life was true to him she still believed to be her husband. The deserted mother called her babe "Se-quo-yah," in the poetical language of her race. His fellow-clansmen as he grew up gave him, as an English one, the name of his father, or something sounding like it. No truer mother ever lived and cared for her child. She reared him with the most watchful tenderness. With her own hands she cleared a little field and cultivated it, and carried her babe while she drove up her cows and milked them. His early boyhood was laid in the troublous times of the war of the Revolution, yet its havoc cast no deeper shadows in the widow's cabin. As he grew older he showed a different temper from most Indian children. He lived alone with his mother, and had no old man to teach him the use of the bow, or indoctrinate him in the religion and morals of an ancient but perishing people. He would wander alone in the forest, and showed an early mechanical genius in carving with his knife many objects from pieces of wood. He employed his boyish leisure in building houses in the forest. As he grew older these mechanical pursuits took a more useful shape. The average native American is taught as a question of self-respect to despise female pursuits. To be made a "woman" is the greatest degradation of a warrior. Se-quo-yah first exercised his genius in making an improved kind of wooden milk-pans and skimmers for his mother. Then he built her a milk-house, with all suitable conveniences, on one of those grand springs that gurgle from the mountains of the old Cherokee Nation. As a climax, he even helped her to milk her cows; and he cleared additions to her fields, and worked on them with her. She contrived to get a petty stock of goods, and traded with her countrymen. She taught Se-quo-yah to be a good judge of furs. He would go on expeditions with the hunters, and would select such skins as he wanted for his mother before they returned. In his boyish days the buffalo still lingered in the valleys of the Ohio and Tennessee. On the one side the French sought them. On the other were the English and Spaniards. These he visited with small pack-horse trains for his mother. For the first hundred years the European colonies were of traders rather than agriculturists. Besides the fur trade, rearing horses and cattle occupied their attention. The Indians east of the Mississippi, and lying between the Appallachian Mountains and the Gulf, had been agriculturists and fishermen. Buccaneers, pirates, and even the regular navies or merchant ships of Europe, drove the natives from the haunted coast. As they fell back, fur traders and merchants followed them with professions of regard and extortionate prices. Articles of European manufacture--knives, hatchets, needles, bright cloths, paints, guns, powder--could only be bought with furs. The Indian mother sighed in her hut for the beautiful things brought by the Europeans. The warrior of the Southwest saw with terror the conquering Iroquois, armed with the dreaded fire-arms of the stranger. When the bow was laid aside, or handed to the boys of the tribe, the warriors became the abject slaves of traders. Guns meant gunpowder and lead. These could only come from the white man. His avarice guarded the steps alike to bear-meat and beaver-skins. Thus the Indian became a wandering hunter, helpless and dependent. These hunters traveled great distances, sometimes with a pack on their backs weighing from thirty to fifty pounds. Until the middle of the eighteenth century horses had not become very common among them, and the old Indian used to laugh at the white man, so lazy that he could not walk. A consuming fire was preying on the vitals of an ancient simple people. Unscrupulous traders, who boasted that they made a thousand per cent, held them in the most abject thrall. It has been carefully computed that these hunters worked, on an average, for ten cents a day. The power of their old village chiefs grow weaker. No longer the old men taught the boys their traditions, morals, or religion. They had ceased to be pagans, without becoming Christians. The wearied hunter had fire-water given him as an excitement to drown the cares common to white and red. Slowly the polity, customs, industries, morals, religion, and character of the red race were consumed in this terrible furnace of avarice. The foundations of our early aristocracies were laid. Byrd, in his "History of the Dividing Line," tells us that a school of seventy-seven Indian children existed in 1720, and that they could all read and write English; but adds, that the jealousy of traders and land speculators, who feared it would interfere with their business, caused it to be closed. Alas! this people had encountered the iron nerve of Christianity, without reaping the fruit of its intelligence or mercy. Silver, although occasionally found among the North American Indians, was very rare previous to the European conquest. Afterward, among the commodities offered, were the broad silver pieces of the Spaniards, and the old French and English silver coins. With the most mobile spirit the Indian at once took them. He used them as he used his shell-beads, for money and ornament. Native artificers were common in all the tribes. The silver was beaten into rings, and broad ornamented silver bands for the head. Handsome breast-plates were made of it; necklaces, bells for the ankles, and rings for the toes. It is not wonderful that Se-quo-yah's mechanical genius led him into the highest branch of art known to his people, and that he became their greatest silversmith. His articles of silverware excelled all similar manufactures among his countrymen. He next conceived the idea of becoming a blacksmith. He visited the shops of white men from time to time. He never asked to be taught the trade. He had eyes in his head, and hands; and when he bought the necessary material and went to work, it is characteristic that his first performance was to make his bellows and his tools; and those who afterward saw them told me they were very well made. Se-quo-yah was now in comparatively easy circumstances. Besides his cattle, his store, and his farm, he was a blacksmith and a silversmith. In spite of all that has been alleged about Indian stupidity and barbarity, his countrymen were proud of him. He was in danger of shipwrecking on that fatal sunken reef to American character, popularity. Hospitality is the ornament, and has been the ruin, of the aborigine. His home, his store, or his shop, became the resort of his countrymen; there they smoked and talked, and learned to drink together. Among the Cherokees those who have are expected to be liberal to those who have not; and whatever weaknesses he might possess, niggardliness or meanness was not among them. After he had grown to man's estate he learned to draw. His sketches, at first rude, at last acquired considerable merit. He had been taught no rules of perspective; but while his perspective differed from that of a European, he did not ignore it, like the Chinese. He had now a very comfortable hewed-log residence, well furnished with such articles as were common with the better class of white settlers at that time, many of them, however, made by himself. Before he reached his thirty-fifth year he became addicted to convivial habits to an extent that injured his business, and began to cripple his resources. Unlike most of his race, however, he did not become wildly excited when under the influence of liquor. Se-quo-yah, who never saw his father, and never could utter a word of the German tongue, still carried, deep in his nature, an odd compound of Indian and German transcendentalism; essentially Indian in opinion and prejudice, but German in instinct and thought. A little liquor only mellowed him--it thawed away the last remnant of Indian reticence. He talked with his associates upon all the knotty questions of law, art, and religion. Indian Theism and Pantheism were measured against the Gospel as taught by the land-seeking, fur-buying adventurers. A good class of missionaries had, indeed, entered the Cherokee Nation; but the shrewd Se-quo-yah, and the disciples this stoic taught among his mountains, had just sense enough to weigh the good and the bad together, and strike an impartial balance as the footing up for this new proselyting race. It has been erroneously alleged that Se-quo-yah was a believer in, or practiced, the old Indian religious rites. Christianity had, indeed, done little more for him than to unsettle the pagan idea, but it had done that. It was some years after Se-quo-yah had learned to present the bottle to his friends before he degenerated into a toper. His natural industry shielded him, and would have saved him altogether but for the vicious hospitality by which he was surrounded. With the acuteness that came of his foreign stock, he learned to buy his liquor by the keg. This species of economy is as dangerous to the red as to the white race. The auditors who flocked to see and hear him were not likely to diminish while the philosopher furnished both the dogmas and the whisky. Long and deep debauches were often the consequence. Still it was not in the nature of George Gist to be a wild, shouting drunkard. His mild, philosophic face was kindled to deeper thought and warmer enthusiasm as they talked about the problem of their race. All the great social questions were closely analyzed by men who were fast becoming insensible to them. When he was too far gone to play the mild, sedate philosopher, he began that monotonous singing whose music carried him back to the days when the shadow of the white man never darkened the forests, and the Indian canoe alone rippled the tranquil waters. Should this man be thus lost? He was aroused to his danger by the relative to whom he owed so much. His temper was eminently philosophic. He was, as he proved, capable of great effort and great endurance. By an effort which few red or white men can or do make, he shook off the habit, and his old nerve and old prosperity came back to him. It was during the first few years of this century that he applied to Charles Hicks, a half-breed, afterward principal chief of the nation, to write his English name. Hicks, although educated after a fashion, made a mistake in a very natural way. The real name of Se-quo-yah's father was George Gist. It is now written by the family as it has long been pronounced in the tribe when his English name is used--"Guest." Hicks, remembering a word that sounded like it, wrote it--George Guess. It was a "rough guess," but answered the purpose. The silversmith was as ignorant of English as he was of any written language. Being a fine workman, he made a steel die, a facsimile of the name written by Hicks. With this he put his "trade mark" on his silver-ware, and it is borne to this day on many of these ancient pieces in the Cherokee nation. Between 1809 and 1821, which latter was his fifty-second year, the great work of his life was accomplished. The die, which was cut before the former date, probably turned his active mind in the proper direction. Schools and missions were being established. The power by which the white man could talk on paper had been carefully noted and wondered at by many savages, and was far too important a matter to have been overlooked by such a man as Se-quo-yah. The rude hieroglyphics or pictoriographs of the Indians were essentially different from all written language. These were rude representations of events, the symbols being chiefly the totemic devices of the tribes. A few general signs for war, death, travel, or other common incidents, and strokes for numerals, represented days or events as they were perpendicular or horizontal. Even the wampum belts were little more than helps to memory, for while they undoubtedly tied up the knots for years, like the ancient inhabitants of China and Japan, still the meagre record could only be read by the initiated, for the Indians only intrusted their history and religion to their best and ablest men. The general theory with many Indians was, that the written speech of the white man was one of the mysterious gifts of the Great Spirit. Se-quo-yah boldly avowed it to be a mere ingenious contrivance that the red man could master, if he would try. Repeated discussion on this point at length fully turned his thoughts in this new channel. He seems to have disdained the acquirement of the English language. Perhaps he suspected first what he was bound to know before he completed his task, that the Cherokee language has certain necessities and peculiarities of its own. It is almost impossible to write Indian words and names correctly in English. The English alphabet has not capacity for its expression. If ten white men sat down to write the word an Indian uttered, the probabilities are that one half of them would write them differently from the other half. It is this which has led to such endless confusion in Indian dictionaries. For instance, we write the word for the tribe Cherokee, and the letter R, or its sound, is scarcely used in their language. Today a Cherokee always pronounces it Chalaque, the pronunciation being between that and Shalakke. On these peculiarities it is not the purpose of this article to enter, but hasten to George Gist, brooding over a written language for his people. His first essay was natural enough. He tried to invent symbols to represent words. These he sometimes cut out of bark with his knife, but generally wrote, or rather drew. With these symbols he would carry on a conversation with a person in another apartment. As may be supposed, his symbols multiplied fearfully and wonderfully. The Indian languages are rich in their creative power. By using pieces of well-known words that contain the prominent idea, double or compound words are freely made. This has been called by writers treating this subject, the polysynthetic. It is, in fact, a jumbling of sentences into words, by abbreviation, the omitted parts of words being implied or understood. There is one important fact which I will merely note here that is generally overlooked. These compounded words, to a large extent, represent the intrusive or European idea. The names the Indians gave many of the European things were mere DEFINITIONS. Such as "Big Knives," etc. Occasionally they made a dash at the French or English sounds, as in the word "Yengees" for English, which has finally been corrupted in our language to Yankees. Of course an attempt at fixed symbols for words was an unhappy experiment in a language one prominent element of which is, the facility of making words out of pieces of words, or compounded words. Besides this difficulty, no language can be taught successfully by means of a dictionary, until the human memory acquires more power. Three years of hopeless struggle with the mighty debris of his symbols left him, although in the main reticent, a mighty man of words. But his labors were not lost. Through that heroic, unaided struggle he gained the first true glimpses into the elements of language. It is a startling fact, that an uneducated man, of a race we are pleased to call barbarians, attained in a few years, without books or tutors, what was developed through several ages of Phoenician, Egyptian, and Greek wisdom. Se-quo-yah discovered that the language possessed certain musical sounds, such as we call vowels, and dividing sounds, styled by us consonants. In determining his vowels he varied during the progress of his discoveries, but finally settled on the six--A, E, I, O, U, and a guttural vowel sounding like U in UNG. These had long and short sounds, with the exception of the guttural. He next considered his consonant, or dividing sounds, and estimated the number of combinations of these that would give all the sounds required to make words in their language. He first adopted fifteen for the dividing sounds, but settled on twelve primary, the G and K being one, and sounding more like K than G, and D like T. These may be represented in English as G, H, L, M, N, QU, T, DL or TL, TS, W, Y, Z. It will be seen that if these twelve be multiplied by the six vowels, the number of possible combinations or syllables would be seventy-two, and by adding the vowel sounds, which maybe syllables, the number would be seventy-eight. However, the guttural V, or sound of U in UNG, does not appear as among the combinations, which make seventy-seven. Still his work was not complete. The hissing sound of S entered into the ramifications of so many sounds, as in STA, STU, SPA, SPE, that it would have required a large addition to his alphabet to meet this demand. This he simplified by using a distinct character for the S (OO), to be used in such combinations. To provide for the varying sound G, K, he added a symbol which has been written in English KA. As the syllable NA is liable to be aspirated, he added symbols written NAH, and KNA. To have distinct representatives for the combinations rising out of the different sounds of D and T, he added symbols for TA, TE, TI, and another for DLA, thus TLA. These completed the eighty-five characters of his alphabet, which was thus an alphabet of syllables, and not of letters. It was a subject of astonishment to scientific men that a language so copious only embraced eighty-five syllables. This is chiefly accounted for by the fact that every Cherokee syllable ends in a vocal or nasal sound, and that there are no double consonants but those provided for the TL or DL, and TS, and combinations of the hissing S, with a few consonants. The fact is, that many of our combinations of consonants in the English written language are artificial, and worse than worthless. To indicate by a familiar illustration the syllabic character of the alphabet of Se-quo-yah, I will take the name of William H. Seward, which was appended to the Emancipation Proclamation of Mr. Lincoln, printed in Cherokee. It was written thus: "O [wi] P[li] 4 [se] G [wa] 6 [te]," and might be anglicized Will Sewate. As has been observed, there is no R in the Cherokee language, written or spoken, and as for the middle initial of Mr. Seward's name, H., there being, of course, no initial in a syllabic alphabet, the translator, who probably did not know what it stood for, was compelled to omit it. It was in the year 1821 that the American Cadmus completed his alphabet. As will be observed by examining the alphabet, which is on the table in the engraving, he used many of the letters of the English alphabet, also numerals. The fact was, that he came across an old English spelling-book during his labors, and borrowed a great many of the symbols. Some he reversed, or placed upside down; others he modified, or added to. He had no idea of either their meaning or sound, in English, which is abundantly evident from the use he made of them. As was eminently fitting, the first scholar taught in the language was the daughter of Se-quo-yah. She, like all the other Cherokees who tried it, learned it immediately. Having completed it without the white man's hints or aid, he visited the agent, Colonel Lowry, a gentleman of some intelligence, who only lived three miles from him, and informed that gentleman of his invention. It is not wonderful that the agent was skeptical, and suggested that the whole was a mere act of memory, and that the symbols bore no relation to the language, or its necessities. Like all other benefactors of the race, he had to encounter a little of the ridicule of those who, being too ignorant to comprehend, maintain their credit by sneering. The rapid progress of the language among the people settled the matter, however. The astonishing rapidity with which it is acquired has always been a wonder, and was the first thing about it that struck the writer of this article. In my own observation, Indian children will take one or two, at times several, years to master the English printed and written language, but in a few days can read and write in Cherokee. They do the latter, in fact, as soon as they learn to shape letters. As soon as they master the alphabet they have got rid of all the perplexing questions in orthography that puzzle the brains of our children. Is it not too much to say that a child will learn in a month, by the same effort, as thoroughly, in the language of Se-quo-yah, that which in ours consumes the time of our children for at least two years. There has been a great clamor for a universal language. We once had it, in our learned world, in the Latin, in which books were locked up for the scholars and dead to the world. Language is the handmaiden of thought, and to be useful must be obedient to its changes as well as its elemental characteristics. For the English of three hundred years ago we need a glossary, and to carry down his immortal thoughts in their pristine vigor, must have, every two hundred years, a Johnson to modernize a Shakspeare. To probe the causes of the change of language, to ascertain why even a WRITTEN language is mutable, to pick up this garment of thought and run its threads back through all their vagaries to their origin and points of divergence, is one of the grand tasks for the intellectual historian. He, indeed, must give us the history of ideas, of which all art, including language, is but the fructification. To say, therefore, that the alphabet of Se-quo-yah is better adapted for his language than our alphabet is for the English, would be to pay it a very wretched compliment. George Gist received all honor from his countrymen. A short time after his invention written communication was opened up by means of it with that portion of the Cherokee Nation then in their new home west of the Arkansas. Zealous in his work, he traveled many hundred miles to teach it to them; and it is no reproach to their intellect to say that they received it readily. It has been said the Indians are besotted against all improvements. The cordiality with which this was received is worthy of attention. In 1823 the General Council of the Cherokee Nation voted a large silver medal to George Gist as a mark of distinction for his discovery. On one side were two pipes, the ancient symbol of Indian religion and law; on the other a man's head. The medal had the following inscription in English, also in, Cherokee in his own alphabet: "Presented to George Gist, by the General Council of the Cherokee Nation, for his ingenuity in the invention of the Cherokee alphabet." John Ross, acting as principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, sent it West to Se-quo-yah, together with an elaborate address, the latter being at that time in the new nation. In 1828 Gist went to Washington city as a delegate from the Western Cherokees. He was then in his fifty-ninth year. At that time the portrait was taken, an engraving from which we present to our readers. He is represented with a table containing his alphabet. The missionaries were not slow to employ it. It was arranged with the Cherokee, and English sounds and definitions. Rev. S.A. Worcester endeavored to get the outlines of its grammar, and both he and Mr. Boudinot prepared vocabularies of it, as did many others. In this way, by having more and better observers, we know more of this language than many others, and affinities have been traced between it and some others, supposed to be radically different, which would have appeared in the case of some others, had they been as fully or correctly written. Besides the Scriptures, a very considerable number of books were printed in it, and parts of several different newspapers existing from time to time; also almanacs, songs, and psalms. During the closing portion of his life, the home of Se-quo-yah was near Brainerd, a mission station in the new nation. Like his countrymen, he was driven an exile from his old home, from his fields, work-shops, and orchards by the clear streams flowing from the mountains of Georgia. Is it wonderful if such treatment should throw a sadder tinge on a disposition otherwise mild, hopeful, and philosophic? One of his sons is a very fair artist, using promiscuously pencil, pen, chalk, or charcoal. He served, as a private soldier, in the Union army in the late war, and there, in his quarters, made many sketches. His power of caricaturing was very considerable. If a humorous picture of some officer who had rendered himself obnoxious was found, chalked in unmistakable but grotesque lineaments, on the commissary door, it was said, "It must have been by the son of Se-quo-yah." In his mature years, at Brainerd, although approaching seventy, the nerve or fire of the old man was not dead. Some narrow-minded ecclesiastics, because Gist would not go through the routine of a Christian profession after the fashion they prescribed, have not scrupled to intimate that he was a pagan, and grieved that the Bible was printed in the language he gave. This arose simply from not comprehending him. They persisted in considering him an ignorant savage, while he comprehended himself and measured them. In his old days a new and deeper ambition seized him. He was not in the habit of asking advice or assistance in his projects. In his journey to the West, as well as to Washington, he had an opportunity of examining different languages, of which, as far as lay in his power, he carefully availed himself. His health had been somewhat affected by rheumatism, one of the few inheritances he got from the old fur peddler of Ebenezer; but the strong spirit was slow to break. He formed a theory of certain relations in the language of the Indian tribes, and conceived the idea of writing a book on the points of similarity and divergence. Books were, to a great extent, closed to him; but as of old, when he began his career as a blacksmith by making his bellows, so he now fell back on his own resources. This brave Indian philosopher of ours was not the man to be stopped by obstacles. He procured some articles for the Indian trade he had learned in his boyhood, and putting these and his provisions and camping equipage in an ox-cart, he took a Cherokee boy with him as driver and companion, and started out among the wild Indians of the plain and mountain, on a philological crusade such as the world never saw. One of the most remarkable features of his experience was the uniform peace and kindness with which his brethren of the prairie received him. They furnished him means, too, to prosecute his inquiries in each tribe or clan. That they should be more sullen and reticent to white men is not wonderful when we reflect that they have a suspicion that all these pretended inquirers in science or religion have a lurking eye to real estate. Several journeys were made. The task was so vast it might have discouraged him. He started on his longest and his last journey. There was among the Cherokees a tradition that part of their nation was somewhere in New Mexico, separated from them before the advent of the whites. Se-quo-yah knew this, and expected in his rambles to meet them. He had camped on the spurs of the Rocky Mountains; he had threaded the valleys of New Mexico; looked at the adobe villages of the Pueblos, and among the race, neither Indian nor Spaniard, with swarthy face and unkempt hair. He had occasion to moralize over those who had voluntarily become the slaves of others even meaner than themselves, who spoke a jargon neither Indian nor Spanish. Catholics in name, who ate red pepper pies, gambled like the fashionable frequenters of Baden, and swore like troopers. It was late in the year 1842 that the wanderer, sick of a fever, worn and weary, halted his ox-cart near San Fernandino, in Northern Mexico. Fate had willed that his work should die with him. But little of his labor was saved, and that not enough to aid any one to develop his idea. Bad nursing, exposure, and lack of proper medical attendance finished the work. He sleeps, not far from the Rio Grande, the greatest of his race. At one time Congress contemplated having his remains removed and a monument erected over them; it was postponed, however. The Legislature of the Little Cherokee Nation every year includes in its general appropriations a pension of three hundred dollars to his widow--the only literary pension paid in the United States. 
50734	----	REPORT OF MR. WOOD'S VISIT TO THE CHOCTAW AND CHEROKEE MISSIONS. 1855. BOSTON: PRESS OF T. R. MARVIN, 42 CONGRESS STREET. 1855. REPORT. At the meeting of the Board held in Utica, New York, September, 1855, the Prudential Committee submitted a special communication in reference to the Choctaw and Cherokee missions, in which they say: "Since the last meeting of the Board, it has seemed desirable that one of the Secretaries should visit the Indian missions in the South West, for the purpose of conferring fully and freely with them in reference to certain questions which have an important bearing upon their work. Mr. Wood, therefore, was directed to perform this service; which he did in the spring of the present year. After his return to New York, he drew up a report of this visit, and presented the same to the Prudential Committee. It is deemed proper that this document should be laid before the Board at the earliest opportunity; and it is herewith submitted. The results obtained by this conference are highly satisfactory to the Committee." The report of Mr. Wood is in the following language: _To the Prudential Committee of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions_: I have to report a visit made by me to the Choctaw and Cherokee missions, in obedience to instructions contained in the following resolutions adopted by you, March 6, 1855: "_Resolved_, 1. That Mr. Wood be requested to repair to the Choctaw Nation, at his earliest convenience, with a view to a fraternal conference with the brethren in that field in respect to the difficulties and embarrassments which have grown out of the action of the Choctaw Council in the matter of the boarding schools, and also in respect to any other question which may seem to require his attention. "2. That, in case the spring meeting of the Choctaw mission shall not occur at a convenient time, he be authorized to call a meeting at such time and place as he shall designate. "3. That on his return from the Choctaw mission he be requested to confer with the brethren of the Cherokee mission, in regard to any matter that may appear to call for his consideration, and that he be authorized to call a meeting for this purpose. "4. That on arriving in New York he be instructed to prepare a report, suggesting such plans and measures for the adoption of the Committee in reference to either of these missions as he may be able to recommend." Leaving New York, March 19, and proceeding by the way of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to Napoleon, thence up the White river, across to Little Rock, and through Arkansas to the Choctaw country, I arrived at Stockbridge, April 11. Including the portions of the days occupied in passing from one station to another, I devoted three days to Stockbridge, three to Wheelock, six to Pine Ridge, three to Good-water, and three to Spencer; the latter a station of the mission of the General Assembly's Board. Five days, with a call of a night and half a day at Lenox, were occupied in the journey to the Cherokee country, in which I spent two days at Dwight, and three at Park Hill; my departure from which was on the 11th of May, just one month from my arrival at Stockbridge. My return to New York was on May 31, ten and a half weeks from the time of leaving it. I should do injustice to my own feelings, and to the members of the two missions, not to state that my reception was everywhere one of the utmost cordiality. The Choctaw mission, when my coming was announced, agreed to observe a daily concert of prayer that it might be blessed to them and the end for which they were informed it was designed. They met me in the spirit of prayer; our intercourse was much a fellowship in prayer; and, through the favor of Him who heareth prayer, its issue was one of mutual congratulation and thanksgiving. The visit, although a short one, afforded considerable opportunity (which was diligently improved) for acquainting myself with the views, feelings, plans and labors of the brethren of the missions. Their attachment to their work, and to the Board with which they are connected, is unwavering. With fidelity they prosecute the great object of their high calling; and in view of the spiritual and temporal transformation taking place around them, as the result of the faithful proclamation of the gospel, we are compelled to exclaim, "What hath God wrought!" It was pleasant to meet them, as with frankness and fraternal affection they did me, in consultation for the removal of difficulties, and the adoption of measures for the advancement of the one end desired equally by them and by the Prudential Committee. Several topics became subjects of conference, on some of which action was taken by the missions; and on others recommendations will be made by the Deputation, that need not be embraced in this report. In respect to them all, there was entire harmony between the Deputation and the missions. In their first resolution, the Committee requested me to repair to the Choctaw Nation, with special reference to the embarrassments and difficulties which have grown out of the action of the Choctaw Council in the matter of the boarding schools. A condensed statement of the action of the Council, and of the missionaries and Prudential Committee, previous to the sending of the Deputation, seems to be here called for. In the year 1842, the Choctaw Council, by law, placed four female seminaries "under the direction and management of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions," subject only to "the conditions, limitations, and restrictions rendered in the act." In accordance with the act, a contract was entered into, by which the schools were taken for a period of twenty years. The "conditions, limitations and restrictions" specified in the act and contract, so far as they bind the Board, are the following: 1. The superintendents and teachers, with their families, shall board at the same table with the pupils. 2. In addition to letters, the pupils shall be taught housewifery and sewing. 3. One-tenth of the pupils are to be orphans, should so many apply for admission. 4. The Board shall appropriate to the schools a sum equal to one-sixth of the moneys appropriated by the Choctaw Council. With these exceptions, the "direction and management" of the schools were to be as exclusively with the Board, as of any schools supported by the funds of the Board. Thus the schools were carried forward until 1853. At the meeting of the Council in that year, a new school law, containing several provisions, (and sometimes spoken of in the plural as "laws,") was enacted, bringing the Board, through its agents, under new "conditions, restrictions and limitations." A Board of Trustees was established, and a General Superintendent of schools provided for, to discharge various specified duties, for the faithful performance of which they are to give bonds in the sum of $5,000. The enactments of this law, affecting the agents of the Board under the existing contract, are the following: 1. The Board of Trustees, convened by the General Superintendent, are to hear and determine difficulties between a trustee and any one connected with the schools; to judge of the fitness of teachers, etc., and request the Missionary Boards to remove any whose removal they may think called for; and, in case of neglect to comply with their wishes, to report the same to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs through the United States Agent. Section 5. 2. The Trustees are to select the scholars from their several districts. Section 7. 3. No slave or child of a slave is to be taught to read or write "_in_ or _at_ any school," etc., by any one connected in any capacity therewith, on pain of dismissal and expulsion from the nation. Section 8. 4. Annual examinations are to take place at times designated by the General Superintendent. Section 10. 5. The Trustees are empowered to suspend any school in case of sickness or epidemics. Section 11. 6. It is made the duty of the General Superintendent and Trustees, promptly to remove, or report for removal, any and all persons connected with the public schools or academies known to be abolitionists, or who disseminate, or attempt to disseminate, directly or indirectly, abolition doctrines, or any other fanatical sentiments, which, in their opinion, are dangerous to the peace and safety of the Choctaw people. Section 13. By a separate act, the Board of Trustees was authorized to propose to the Missionary Boards, having schools under contract with the Nation, the insertion of a clause providing for a termination of the contract by either party on giving six months' notice. * * * * * With respect to the question, "Shall we submit to the provisions and restrictions imposed by this new legislation, as a condition of continued connection with the national schools?" the views of the Prudential Committee and the brethren of the mission have been entirely in declared agreement. As stated in the last Annual Report to the Board, (p. 166,) "the Committee decided at once that they could not carry on the schools upon the new basis; and in the propriety of this action the missionaries concur." The concurrence of the missionaries in this view, viz., that they could not carry on the schools with a change from the original basis to that of the new law, may be seen clearly expressed in their correspondence with the Secretary having charge of the Indian missions; particularly in the following communications: From Messrs. Kingsbury and Byington, as the committee of the mission, under dates of December 14 and 27, 1853; Mr. Kingsbury, January 4, and April 25, 1854; Mr. C. C. Copeland, March 1, 1854; Mr. Stark, August 22, 1854; Mr. Edwards, July 13, 1854; Mr. H. K. Copeland, May 16, 1854. See also letters from Mr. Chamberlain, January 7, and June 20, 1854. In some of these, the declaration is made, that, in the apprehension of the writers, the schools must be relinquished, _if the law should not be repealed_; one specifying, as justificatory reasons, the breach of contract made, and the increased difficulty of obtaining teachers--reasons also assigned by others; another stating that he "never could consent to take charge of a school under such regulations;" a third testifying, not only for himself, but for every other member of the mission, an unwillingness to continue connection with the schools with subjection to the new requirements; a fourth affirming his "feeling" to be "that a strong remonstrance should be presented to the Council, and on the strength of it let the mission lay down these schools;" which, he states, would not involve "giving up the instruction of these children, but would be simply changing the plan," inasmuch as, according to his and others' understanding of the case, the new law not having application to other than the national schools, "at every station it will be found an easy matter to have as large, and in some cases even larger, than our present boarding schools." In certain other communications, the view which the Committee adopted, is exhibited, together with the opinion that it would be better to wait for a movement on the part of the Choctaw authorities before giving up the schools. See letters from Mr. Byington, December 26, 1853; January 3 and 12, April 15, 1854; Mr. Kingsbury, February 1 and 21, 1854; Mr. Chamberlain, January 13, 1854; Mr. Stark, February 6, 1854. This view was also formally announced, as understood by the Committee, in resolutions of the mission at its meeting in May, 1854, embracing a recommendation of a course of procedure with the hope of securing the repeal by the next Council of the obnoxious law. See Minutes, and letters of Mr. C. C. Copeland, May 19, and June 9, 1854. The Prudential Committee, in the exercise of their discretion, as a principal party to the contract, preferred another method, viz., to address the Council directly, and sent a letter, under date of August 1, 1854, to one of the missionaries for presentation. The missionary, with the advice of his brethren given at their meeting in September, (intelligence of which was received at the Missionary House, October 20, thirty-five days subsequent to the meeting of the Board at Hartford,) withheld the letter, on the ground that, in their judgment, its presentation would defeat the object at which it aimed, and be "disastrous to the churches, to the Choctaws, and to the best interests of the colored race." In respect to this action for obtaining the repeal of the school law, there was a difference between the mission and the Committee. The missionaries desired delay, and the leaving of the matter to their management. The decision of the Committee, approved by the Board, "not to conduct the boarding schools in the Choctaw Nation in conformity with the principles prescribed by the recent legislation of the Choctaw Council,"[A] was in agreement with the previously and subsequently expressed sentiments of all the missionaries; the objection felt by some of them to this resolution being, not to the position which it assumes, but to the declaration of it at that time by the Board. This being a determined question, its settlement formed no part of the object for which the Deputation was sent. [Footnote A: Resolution of the Board adopted at Hartford.] Two other questions, however, required careful examination; and on these free conference was had with the brethren at their stations, and in a meeting of the mission held at Good-water, April 25 and 26, Mr. Edwards, who was absent from the mission, and Dr. Hobbs, not being present: 1. The law remaining unrepealed, is it practicable to carry on the schools while refusing conformity to the new "conditions, limitations and restrictions" imposed by it? 2. If so, is it expedient to do it? On the first of these questions, the opinion of the missionaries was in the affirmative. No attempt has been made to carry out these new provisions. The Trustees and General Superintendent have not given the required bond. One of the Trustees informed me that he should not give it, and that in his belief the law would remain a dead letter, if not repealed, as it was his hope that it would be. The course of the missionaries has been in no degree changed by it. The teaching of slaves in these schools has never been practiced or contemplated. The law was aimed at such teaching in their families and Sabbath schools. So the missionaries and the people understand it. It is generally known among the latter that the former are ready to give up these schools, rather than retain them on condition of subjection to this law. Our brethren are now carrying on the schools, and doing in all other respects, just as they were before the new law was enacted; and they have confidence that they may continue to do so. The second question was one of more uncertainty to my own mind, and in the minds of some of the mission. The maintenance of these schools is a work of great difficulty. In the opinion of several of the missionaries, it was at least doubtful whether the cost in health, perplexity, trouble in obtaining teachers, time which might be devoted to preaching, and money, was not too great for the results; and it was suggested that an opportunity, afforded by divine Providence for relieving us from a burden too heavy to sustain for nine years longer, should be embraced. See letters from Mr. Hotchkin, March 21, 1854; Mr. H. K. Copeland, January 23, and July 27, 1854; Mr. Lansing, December 22, 1853, and May 13, 1854. The fact and manner of the suspension of the school at Good-water, in 1853, were portentous of increasing embarrassment from other causes than the new school law; and grave objections exist to the connection with civil government of any department of missionary operations. My observation of the schools, however, interested me much in their behalf. They are doing a good work for the nation. Many of the pupils become Christian wives, mothers and teachers. The people appreciate them highly; and I was assured of a general desire that they should remain in the hands of the mission, unsubjected to the inadmissible new conditions of the recent legislation. In view of all the relations, which after full consideration the subject seemed to have, the following resolution, expressing the sentiment of the Deputation and the mission, was cheerfully and unanimously adopted by the mission; one of the older members, however, avowing some difficulty in giving his assent to the latter part of it, viz: "_Resolved_, That while we should esteem it our duty to relinquish the female boarding schools at Pine Ridge, Wheelock and Stockbridge, rather than to carry them on under the provisions and restrictions of the late school law, yet regarding it as improbable that the requirement so to do will be enforced, we deem it important, in the present circumstances of the Choctaw Nation and mission, to continue our connection with them _on the original basis_, and carry them forward with new hope and energy." Our hope of being allowed to maintain these schools as heretofore, and make them increasingly useful, may be disappointed. Neither the Prudential Committee nor the mission wish to retain them, if they for whose benefit alone they have been taken, prefer that we should give them up. The relinquishment of them would be a release from a weight of labor, anxiety and care, that nothing but our love for the Choctaws could induce us longer to bear. Our desire is only to do them good. A second subject of conference, but the one first considered, was the principles, particularly in relation to slavery, on which the Prudential Committee, with the formally expressed approbation of the Board, aim to conduct its missions. I found certain misapprehensions existing in the minds of a portion of the mission in regard to the origin and circumstances of the action of the Board at the last annual meeting, which I was happy to correct. Several of the members, including one of the two not present at this meeting of the mission, have ever cordially approved the correspondence in which the views of principles entertained by the Committee were stated. Others, being with those just referred to a decided majority of the whole body as at present constituted, have expressed their agreement with those views as freely explained in personal intercourse, with an exhibition of the intended meaning of his own written language, by the Secretary who was the organ of the Committee in communicating them. Others have supposed themselves to differ, in some degree, from these principles when correctly apprehended. A full comparison of views, to their mutual great satisfaction, showed much less difference than was thought to exist between the members of the mission themselves, and between a part of the mission and what the Deputation understands to be the views of the Prudential Committee. A statement of principles drawn up at Good-water, as being in the estimation of the Deputation (distinctly and repeatedly so declared) those which the Committee had set forth in their correspondence, particularly that had with the mission in 1848, was unanimously adopted, as the brethren say, "for the better and more harmonious prosecution of the great objects of the Choctaw mission on the part of the Prudential Committee and the members of the mission, and for the removal of any and all existing difficulties which have grown out of public discussions and action on the subject of slavery; it being understood that the sentiments now approved are not in the estimation of the brethren of the mission new, but such as for a long series of years have really been held by them." The statement is given, with the appended resolution, in the following words: 1. Slavery, as a system, and in its own proper nature, is what it is described to be, in the General Assembly's Act of 1818, and the Report of the American Board adopted at Brooklyn in 1845. 2. Privation of liberty in holding slaves is, therefore, not to be ranked with things indifferent, but with those which, if not made right by special justificatory circumstances and the intention of the doer, are morally wrong. 3. Those are to be admitted to the communion of the church, of whom the missionary and (in Presbyterian churches) his session have satisfactory evidence that they are in fellowship with Christ. 4. The evidence, in one view of it, of fellowship with Christ, is a manifested desire and aim to be conformed, in all things, to the spirit and requirements of the word of God. 5. Such desire and aim are to be looked for in reference to slavery, slaveholding, and dealing with slaves, as in regard to other matters; not less, not more. 6. The missionary must, under a solemn sense of responsibility to Christ, act on his own judgment of that evidence when obtained, and on the manner of obtaining it. He is at liberty to pursue that course which he may deem most discreet in eliciting views and feelings as to slavery, as with respect to other things, right views and feelings concerning which he seeks as evidence of Christian character. 7. The missionary is responsible, not for correct views and action on the part of his session and church members, but only for an honest and proper endeavor to secure correctness of views and action under the same obligations and limitations on this subject as on others. He is to go only to the extent of his rights and responsibilities as a minister of Christ. 8. The missionary, in the exercise of a wise discretion as to time, place, manner and amount of instruction, is decidedly to discountenance indulgence in known sin and the neglect of known duty, and so to instruct his hearers that they may understand all Christian duty. With that wisdom which is profitable to direct, he is to exhibit the legitimate bearing of the gospel upon every moral evil, in order to its removal in the most desirable way; and upon slavery, as upon other moral evils. As a missionary, he has nothing to do with political questions and agitations. He is to deal alone, and as a Christian instructor and pastor, with what is morally wrong, that the people of God may separate themselves therefrom, and a right standard of moral action be held up before the world. 9. While, as in war, there can be no shedding of blood without sin somewhere attached, and yet the individual soldier may not be guilty of it; so, while slavery is always sinful, we cannot esteem every one who is legally a slaveholder a wrong-doer for sustaining the legal relation. When it is made unavoidable by the laws of the State, the obligations of guardianship, or the demands of humanity, it is not to be deemed an offence against the rule of Christian right. Yet missionaries are carefully to guard, and in the proper way to warn others to guard, against unduly extending this plea of necessity or the good of the slave, against making it a cover for the love and practice of slavery, or a pretence for not using efforts that are lawful and practicable to extinguish this evil. 10. Missionaries are to enjoin upon all masters and servants obedience to the directions specially addressed to them in the Holy Scriptures, and to explain and illustrate the precepts containing them. 11. In the exercise of discipline in the churches, under the same obligations and limitations as in regard to other acts of wrong-doing, and which are recognized in the action of ministers with reference to other matters in evangelical churches where slavery does not exist, missionaries are to set their faces against all overt acts in relation to this subject, which are manifestly unchristian and sinful; such as the treatment of slaves with inhumanity and oppression; keeping from them the knowledge of God's holy will; disregarding the sanctity of the marriage relation; trifling with the affections of parents, and setting at naught the claims of children on their natural protectors; and regarding and treating human beings as articles of merchandise. 12. For various reasons, we agree in the inexpediency of our employing slave labor in other cases than those of manifest necessity; it being understood that the objection of the Prudential Committee to the employment of such labor is to that extent only. 13. Agreeing thus in essential principles, missionaries associated in the same field should exercise charity towards each other, and have confidence in one another, in respect to differences which, from diversity of judgment, temperament, or other individual peculiarities, and from difference of circumstances in which they are placed, may arise among them in the practical carrying out of these principles; and we think that this should be done by others towards us as a missionary body. _Resolved_, That we agree in the foregoing as an expression of our views concerning our relations and duties as missionaries in regard to the subject treated of; and are happy to believe that, having this agreement with what we now understand to be the views of the Prudential Committee, we may have their confidence, as they have ours, in the continued prosecution together of the great work to which the great Head of the church has called us among this people. The statement thus approved was read throughout, and was afterwards considered in detail, each member of the mission expressing his views upon it as fully, and keeping it under consideration as long, as he desired to do. After the assent given to it, article by article, on the day following it was again read, and the question was taken upon it as a whole, with the appended resolution, each of the eight members giving his vote in favor of its adoption. It is perhaps proper also to mention that no change by way of emendation, addition or omission of phraseology was found necessary to make it such as any member of the mission would be willing to accept. It should farther be stated, that while the first article was under consideration, the act of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian church, adopted in 1818, was read, and its strongest expressions duly weighed. The document thus considered and referred to, is herewith submitted as a part of this report.[B] [Footnote B: "The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, having taken into consideration the subject of slavery, think proper to make known their sentiments upon it to the churches and people under their care. We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoins that 'all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system; it exhibits rational, accountable and immortal beings in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether they shall receive religions instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the Gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or regard the dictates of justice and humanity. Such are some of the consequences of slavery--consequences not imaginary, but which connect themselves with its very existence. The evils to which the slave is always exposed often take place in fact, and in their very worst degree and form; and where all of them do not take place, as we rejoice to say in many instances, through the influence of the principles of humanity and religion on the mind of masters, they do not--still the slave is deprived of his natural right, degraded as a human being, and exposed to the danger of passing into the hands of a master who may inflict upon him all the hardships and injuries which inhumanity and avarice may suggest. "From this view of the consequences resulting from the practice into which Christian people have most inconsistently fallen, of enslaving a portion of their brethren of mankind--for 'God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the earth'--it is manifestly the duty of all Christians who enjoy the light of the present day, when the inconsistency of slavery, both with the dictates of humanity and religion, has been demonstrated, and is generally seen and acknowledged, to use their honest, earnest, and unwearied endeavors to correct the errors of former times, and as speedily as possible to efface this blot on our holy religion, and to obtain the complete abolition of slavery throughout Christendom, and if possible throughout the world. "We rejoice that the Church to which we belong commenced, as early as any other in this country, the good work of endeavoring to put an end to slavery, and that in the same work many of its members have ever since been, and now are, among the most active, vigorous and efficient laborers. We do, indeed, tenderly sympathize with those portions of our Church and our country where the evil of slavery has been entailed upon them; where a great, and the most virtuous part of the community abhor slavery, and wish its extermination as sincerely as any others--but where the number of slaves, their ignorance, and their vicious habits generally, render an immediate and universal emancipation inconsistent alike with the safety and happiness of the master and the slave. With those who are thus circumstanced, we repeat that we tenderly sympathize. At the same time we earnestly exhort them to continue, and if possible to increase their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery. We exhort them to suffer no greater delay to take place in this most interesting concern, than a regard to the public welfare truly and indispensably demands. "As our country has inflicted a most grievous injury on the unhappy Africans, by bringing them into slavery, we cannot indeed urge that we should add a second injury to the first, by emancipating them in such manner as that they will be likely to destroy themselves or others. But we do think, that our country ought to be governed in this matter by no other consideration than an honest and impartial regard to the happiness of the injured party, uninfluenced by the expense or inconvenience which such a regard may involve. We, therefore, warn all who belong to our denomination of Christians against unduly extending this plea of necessity; against making it a cover for the love and practice of slavery, or a pretence for not using efforts that are lawful and practicable, to extinguish this evil. "And we, at the same time, exhort others to forbear harsh censures, and uncharitable reflections on their brethren, who unhappily live among slaves whom they cannot immediately set free; but who, at the same time, are really using all their influence, and all their endeavors, to bring them into a state of freedom, as soon as a door for it can be safely opened. "Having thus expressed our views of slavery, and of the duty indispensably incumbent on all Christians to labor for its complete extinction, we proceed to recommend--and we do it with all the earnestness and solemnity which this momentous subject demands--a particular attention to the following points. "We recommend to all our people to patronize and encourage the Society lately formed for colonizing in Africa, the land of their ancestors, the free people of color in our country. We hope that much good may result from the plans and efforts of this Society. And while we exceedingly rejoice to have witnessed its origin and organization among the holders of slaves, as giving an unequivocal pledge of their desires to deliver themselves and their country from the calamity of slavery; we hope that those portions of the American union, whose inhabitants are by a gracious Providence more favorably circumstanced, will cordially, and liberally, and earnestly co-operate with their brethren, in bringing about the great end contemplated. "We recommend to all the members of our religious denomination, not only to permit, but to facilitate and encourage the instruction of their slaves in the principles and duties of the Christian religion; by granting them liberty to attend on the preaching of the gospel, when they have opportunity; by favoring the instruction of them in the Sabbath school, wherever those schools can be formed; and by giving them all other proper advantages for acquiring a knowledge of their duty both to God and to man. We are perfectly satisfied that it is incumbent on all Christians to communicate religious instruction to those who are under their authority; so that the doing of this in the case before us, so far from operating, as some have apprehended that it might, as an incitement to insubordination and insurrection, would, on the contrary, operate as the most powerful means for the prevention of those evils. "We enjoin it on all church sessions and presbyteries, under the care of this Assembly, to discountenance, and as far as possible to prevent all cruelty of whatever kind in the treatment of slaves; especially the cruelty of separating husband and wife, parents and children, and that which consists in selling slaves to those who will either themselves deprive these unhappy people of the blessings of the gospel, or who will transport them to places where the gospel is not proclaimed, or where it is forbidden to slaves to attend upon its institutions. And if it shall ever happen that a Christian professor in our communion shall sell a slave who is also in communion and good standing with our church, contrary to his or her will and inclination, it ought immediately to claim the particular attention of the proper church judicature; and unless there be such peculiar circumstances attending the case as can but seldom happen, it ought to be followed, without delay, by a suspension of the offender from all the privileges of the church, till he repent, and make all the reparation in his power to the injured party." See Assembly's Digest, pp. 274-8.] So also was adduced the abundant testimony contained in the Report of the American Board adopted in 1845, as to what in its view slavery, without qualification of place or time, and as it exists in the United States and among the Indians, is: such as its classification of slavery with war, polygamy, the castes of India, and other things which it speaks of as "social and moral evils;" and such language as the following: "The Committee do not deem it necessary to discuss the general subject of slavery as it exists in these United States, or to enlarge on the wickedness of the system, or on the disastrous moral and social influences which slavery exerts upon the less enlightened and less civilized communities where the missionaries of this Board are laboring:" "The unrighteousness of the principles on which the whole system is based, and the violation of the natural rights of man, the debasement, wickedness and misery it involves, and which are in fact witnessed to a greater or less extent wherever it exists, must call forth the hearty condemnation of all possessed of Christian feeling and sense of right, and make its removal an object of earnest and prayerful desire to every friend of God and man:" "Strongly as your committee are convinced of the wrongfulness and evil tendencies of slaveholding, and ardently as they desire its speedy and universal termination, still they cannot think that in all cases it involves individual guilt in such a manner that every person implicated in it can, on scriptural grounds, be excluded from Christian fellowship. In the language of Dr. Chalmers, 'Distinction ought to be made between the character of a _system_, and the character of the persons whom circumstances have implicated therewith; nor would it always be just, if all the recoil and horror wherewith the former is contemplated, were visited in the form of condemnation and moral indignancy upon the latter. Slavery we hold to be a _system_ chargeable with atrocities and evils, often the most hideous and appalling which have either afflicted or deformed our species; yet we must not, therefore, say of every man born within its territory, who has grown up familiar with its sickening spectacles, and not only by his habits been inured to its transactions and sights, but who by inheritance is himself the owner of slaves, that unless he make the resolute sacrifice, and renounce his property in slaves, he is, therefore, not a Christian, and should be treated as an outcast from all the distinctions and privileges of Christian society.'" And the language (quoted approvingly) unanimously uttered by the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland: "Without being prepared to adopt the principle that, in the circumstances in which they are placed, the churches in America ought to consider slaveholding _per se_ an insuperable barrier in the way of enjoying Christian privileges, or an offence to be visited with excommunication, all must agree in holding that whatever rights the civil law of the land may give a master over his slaves as _chattels personal_, it cannot be but sin of the deepest dye to regard and treat them as such; and whosoever commits that sin in any sense, or deals otherwise than as a Christian man ought to deal with his fellow-man, whatever power the law may give him over them, ought to be held disqualified for Christian communion. Farther, it must be the opinion of all, that it is the duty of Christians, when they find themselves unhappily in the predicament of slaveholders, to aim, as far as it may be practicable, at the manumission of their slaves; and when that cannot be accomplished, to secure them in the enjoyment of the domestic relations, and of the means of religious training and education." All this, and more, was immediately before the minds of the members of the mission, and with so much of the connection as to give the true sense, when they declared that slavery is what, in the documents referred to, it is described to be, and made their own the statement of principles above given, as those on which, as missionaries, they should deal with this subject in the circumstances of their field of labor, and when it is to them a practical missionary question. The Cherokee mission in session at Park Hill, May 9, adopted a resolution of concurrence with the Choctaw mission in approving this statement. Excluding two churches then connected with the mission of the Board, and since transferred to another mission, there were in 1848, under the care of the American Board, in the Choctaw Nation, six churches with a total membership of 536 persons, of whom 25 were slaveholders, and 64 were slaves. The churches are now 11 in number, containing 1,094 members; of whom, as nearly as I could ascertain, 20 are slaveholders, (some of them being husband and wife, and generally having but one or two slaves each,) and 60 are slaves. Six of the churches have no slaveholder in them; two have but one each. Of the slaveholders in these churches, four have been admitted since 1848; one by transfer from another denomination, and three on profession of their faith; none of the latter having been received since 1850. Statements were made to me respecting each of these latter cases, which show that the principles assented to by the mission at Good-water, as above presented, were practically carried out in regard to them. In the Cherokee mission, in 1848, there were five churches, having 237 members, of whom 24 were slaveholders, and 23 were slaves. In the five churches now in that mission, there are 207 members, of whom 17 (there is uncertainty in regard to one of this number) are reported as slaveholders. Three have been admitted since 1848 on profession of their faith, and two by letter; one of the latter from a church in New Hampshire. Of these the same remark may be made as above in respect to similar cases among the Choctaws. The Choctaw mission embraces eleven families and three large boarding schools. Five slaves, hired at their own desire, are in the employment of the missionaries. A less number are employed in the Cherokee mission. Gladly would the missionaries dispense with these, could the necessary amount of free labor for domestic service be obtained. Those who employ this slave labor, allege that it is to them a matter of painful necessity. They are known to resort to it unwillingly, and are not regarded as thereby giving their sanction to slavery. Some thus employed have been brought to a saving knowledge of divine truth. The sentiments of these two missions as to the moral character of slavery, and the principles on which they should act with regard to it, are frankly and unequivocally avowed. We are bound to believe them honest in the expression of these sentiments. It is their expectation that the principles thus acknowledged as their own will be those on which the missions will be conducted. The adjudication of particular cases must be left to the missionary. That it be so left, is his right; it is also unavoidable. The position of the missionaries is one of great difficulty, and should be appreciated. That there is such a diversity of judgment among them as men of independent thought and differing mental characteristics, who agree in essential principles, everywhere evince; and that they have, through a use of phraseology leading sometimes to a mutual misunderstanding of each other's views, supposed themselves to differ more widely than, in our conferences, they found themselves really to do, has been intimated. That none of them have sympathy with slavery; that, on the other hand, their influence is directly and strongly adverse to its continuance, while they are doing much in mitigation of its evils and to bless both master and slave, in the judgment of the Deputation, is beyond a doubt. By many they are denounced as abolitionists. Some of their slave-holding church members have left their churches for another connection on this account. Others have disconnected themselves from a system which they have learned to dislike and disapprove. Strong in the confidence and affection of many for whose salvation they have toiled and suffered, by the supporters of slavery, in and out of the nations, they undoubtedly are looked upon with growing suspicion. Surely we should not be willing needlessly to embarrass them in their blessed work. They are worthy of the confidence and warmest sympathy of every friend of the red man and of the black man. God is with them. In the Cherokee mission, the dispensation of his grace is not, indeed, now as in times past; and we have some seriousness of apprehension in regard to the progress of the gospel among that people. Still the divine presence is not wanting. Among the Choctaws rapid advance is making. Converts are multiplying; the fruits of the gospel abound. Both missions need reinforcement. Men filled with the spirit of Christ, able to endure hardness, of practical wisdom, which knows how to do good, and not to do only harm when good is meant, men of faith, energy, meekness and prayer, who will commend themselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God as his servants, are required. It gave me pleasure to assure the missions of the strong desire of the Prudential Committee, and of my future personal endeavors, to obtain such men for them. No philanthropist can behold the change which has been wrought for these lately pagan, savage tribes, now orderly christianized communities, advancing in civilization, to take ere long, if they go on in their course, their place with those whose Christian civilization is the growth of many centuries, without admiration and delight. But there is much yet to be done for them. "This nation," says the Choctaw mission in a published letter, "in its improvements, schools, churches, and public spirit pertaining to the great cause of benevolence, is but an _infant_." We must not expect too much from these churches in which we glory. Much fostering and training do they yet need; and there are many souls yet to be enlightened and saved. Wonderful as are the renovation and elevation which the gospel, taught in its simplicity by faithful men, has already given to these communities, our only hope for them, and for the colored race in the midst of them, is in the continued application of the same power through the same instrumentality. It was the privilege of the Deputation to spend a part of three days, including a Sabbath, at Spencer Academy, an institution containing one hundred male pupils, excellently managed under the charge of the Board of the General Assembly; and to attend there a "big meeting," or a camp meeting, at which several hundreds were present. My intercourse with brethren at that station, and the scenes in which I there mingled; the fellowship in Christ with the heralds of his cross, some of them bowed with the weight of many years of wearing toil and affliction, and hastening to their glorious crown already won by honored names, no longer with them, of our own mission; and the interchange of sympathy with the disciples of Christ, whom God has given them as the fruit of their labor, will ever live among the pleasantest recollections of my life. I am constrained to repeat my testimony to the fraternal and Christian spirit with which the brethren met my endeavors to remove difficulties, strengthen the ties that bind them and the Board together, and clear the way for harmonious and more energetic prosecution of the great work in which we are associated. To a good degree this object, we may hope, has been gained. To Him, whose is their work and ours, and to whom the interests involved are infinitely more precious than to any of us who are connected with them, we commit the future keeping of this great trust. It is due to the Choctaw mission that I communicate to the Committee the following resolution, presented by the Rev. Mr. Byington, and adopted by the mission at the close of its meeting at Good-water: "_Resolved_, That the cordial thanks of the members of the mission be presented to the Rev. Geo. W. Wood, the Secretary of the A. B. C. F. M., who is with us as a Deputation from the Prudential Committee, for his kind, wise and successful efforts in our mission to remove the weight of anxiety which has long pressed down our hearts in connection with the subject of slavery. We now rejoice much in this mutual and kind interchange of thoughts and affections. We would pray for grace ever to walk in the path of life, and that blessings may attend him, while with us and on his way home, his family and brethren during his absence, as well as our mission and the American Board and all its officers. With peculiar sincerity of heart and gratitude to our Savior, we present to him this token of regard for our dear brother, and make this record of divine mercy toward our mission." All which is respectfully submitted, GEO. W. WOOD. _Rooms of the A. B. C. F. M., New York, June_ 13, 1855. This communication of the Prudential Committee was referred to a special committee, consisting of Dr. Beman, Dr. Thomas De Witt, Dr. Hawes, Chief Justice Williams, Doct. Lyndon A. Smith, Dr. J. A. Stearns, and Hon. Linus Child, who subsequently made the following report: Your committee have endeavored to look at this paper in its intrinsic character and practical bearings, and they are happy to state their unanimous conviction, that this visit will mark an auspicious era in the history of these missions. The report of Mr. Wood is characterized by great clearness and precision; and it presents the whole matters pending between the Prudential Committee and these missions fully before us. The conferences of the Deputation with the missionaries appear to have been conducted in a truly Christian spirit; and the results which are set forth in the resolutions, adopted with much deliberation and after full discussion, are such as we may all hail with Christian gratitude. It is the opinion of your committee that the great end which has been aimed at by the Prudential Committee in their correspondence with these missions, for several years past, and by the Board in their resolutions adopted at the last annual meeting, has been substantially accomplished. While your committee admit that there may be some incidental points on which an honest diversity of opinion may exist, yet they fully believe that this adjustment should be deemed satisfactory, and that further agitation is not called for. While your committee cannot take it upon themselves to predict what new developments, calling for new action hereafter, _may_ take place, they are unanimously of the opinion that the Prudential Committee, and these laborious and efficient missionaries on this field of Christian effort, may go forward, on the basis adopted, in perfect harmony in the prosecution of their future work. Your committee feel that the thanks of this Board are due to Mr. Wood and our missionary brethren, for the manner in which they have met, considered, and adjusted these difficult matters which have been long in debate; and at the same time they would not forget that God is the source of all true light in our deepest darkness, and that to him _all the glory is ever due_. The foregoing report of the select committee was adopted by the Board. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes The footnote locations and anchor symbols have been changed from the original document. 
53375	----	OCCONEECHEE THE MAID OF THE MYSTIC LAKE BY ROBERT FRANK JARRETT Author of "Back Home and Other Poems" THE SHAKESPEARE PRESS 410 E. 32d Street New York 1916 Copyrighted, 1916 By R. F. Jarrett PREFACE. Realizing that the memory of a nation is best kept aglow by its songs and the writings of its poets, I have been inspired to write OCCONEECHEE, in order that the once powerful nation known as the Cherokee may be preserved in mind, and that their myths, their legends and their traditions may linger and be transmitted to the nations yet to come. Trusting that a generous people may hail with delight the advent of this new work, I now dedicate its pages to all lovers of music, poetry and fine art. When you've read its pages give or lend This volume to some good old friend. The Author. BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR. Robert Frank Jarrett was born in Asheville, N. C., on July 21st, 1864, and while having resided in other states and cities and visited many of the most important sections of the South, yet has made his principal home within the shadows of the rugged mountain peaks of his native and picturesque home land, the Old North State. He was educated in the field and forest, by rippling stream and rolling rill, studied in the open book of Nature and recited to the Master of Destinies where the shadows of the everlasting hills lock hands with the sunshine of the valley. He is a reader and student of the ancient writers and poets of all ages, singer of the old songs, lover of the new; Servant in official capacity for many years of National, State and Civic governments; humble worker with the busy toilers, and writer of prose and verse from earliest childhood; Author of "Back Home and Other Poems," published in 1911, and many other manuscripts not yet published. Married to Sallie C. Wild, of Franklin, N. C., on Dec. 25th, 1892. For twenty years a resident of Dillsboro, N. C., where orchard and field and dense deep forests have inspired and impelled him on. CONTENTS Page Part I. The Cherokee, 7 Part II. Occoneechee, 21 Part III. Myths of the Cherokee, 127 Part IV. Glossary of Cherokee Words, 197 ILLUSTRATIONS Portrait of Robert Frank Jarrett, Frontispiece Tuckaseigee Falls, above Dillsboro, 9 Along Scott's Creek, below Balsam, 21 Sunset from Mt. Junaluska, 26 Lake Junaluska, near Waynesville, 26 A Glimpse of the Craggies, 37 From Top of Chimney Rock, 37 Graybeard Mountain, 37 Chimney Top, 37 Upper Catawba Falls, Esmeralda, 43 Occoneechee Falls, Jackson County, 43 In the Cherokee Country, 43 Whitewater Falls, 43 The Balsam Mountains in Jackson Co., 51 North from Sunset Rock, Tryon Mt., 51 Balsam Mountains, 67 From Bald Rock, 67 Lower Cullasaja Falls, 73 Mount Pisgah, 77 Indian Mound, Franklin, N. C., 77 Tallulah Falls, Ga., 81 Whiteside Mountain, 91 Tennessee River, above Franklin, 99 Lake Toxaway, 99 Tomb of Junaluska, Robbinsville, 107 Where the Serpent Coiled, 107 Harvesting at Cullowhee, N. C., 117 Craggy Mountains from near Asheville, 117 Sequoya, 129 John Ax, the Great Story Teller, 129 Everglades of Florida, 129 Tuckaseigee River, 139 Kanuga Lake, 153 Lake Fairfield, 153 Pacolet River, Hendersonville, 153 A Cherokee Indian Ball Team, 171 The Pools, Chimney Rock, 171 French Broad River, 185 Broad River, 185 From the Toxaway, 191 Chimney Top Gap, 191 Chimney Rock, 197 Occonestee Falls, 237 Linville Falls, 237 Triple Falls, Buck Forest, 237 High Falls, Buck Forest, 284 Melrose Falls, Tryon, N. C., 284 PART I THE CHEROKEE "I know not how the truth may be, I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." THE CHEROKEE. A brief history of the Cherokee Nation or tribe. This history has been gleaned from the works of Ethnology by James Mooney and from word of mouth, as related to the author during the past thirty years. In the beginning of historical events, we hear of man in his paradisaical home, located somewhere within the boundaries known as ancient Egypt or Chaldea. His home was far away and his former history shrouded in the darkness of countless centuries of the past, and when we contemplate the remoteness of his ancestry, we become lost in the midst of our own research. When historical light began to flash from the Orient, we find man emerging with some degree of civilization from a barbaric state into the advanced degrees of civilized and enlightened tribes. When the maritime navigator, full of visions and dreams, dared to sail for those hitherto undiscovered shores, now known as America, there lived within the realm a wandering, happy, yet untutored, race of men whom we afterwards called Indians, who dwelt in great numbers along the whole distance from Penobscot Bay south to the everglades of Florida. Among the more noted tribes were the Abnaki, Mohawk, Mohican, Huron, Iroquois, Munsi, Erie, Seneca, Susquehanna, Mamrahoac, Powhatan, Monacan, Nollaway, Tuscarora, Pamlico, Catawba, Santee, Uchee, Yamasee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, Showano and Cherokee, but of all of these it is left for us to speak alone of the valiant Cherokee, the most noble of all Red Men, who inhabited that picturesque country in the Appalachian chain of mountains in East Tennessee, Western North Carolina, Northern Georgia, South Carolina and Alabama, and part of Virginia, Kentucky and West Virginia. These are the people of whom little has been said and less written than most of the children of men. Yet of all of the native Americans the Cherokee tribe was the most noble, humane and intelligent. Somewhere in the annals of the Aborigines of America, the Cherokee separated from the great Northern tribe, the Iroquois, and by preference inhabited the hills of the Appalachian range, and here we find them early in the dawn of American history, occupying a country which affords ample environment for the artist, the poet and the painter. Had Homer seen and Michelangelo traveled among the towering hills of the happiest land of earth, the song and the chisel, instead of being draped with the vail of blood, would have inspired the world to look forward to the time when there will be no death serenely sitting upon the throne of war. At one time the Cherokee tribe was the largest and most learned in art and literature of any tribe in the United States, having perhaps as many as twenty-five thousand people, and attained, under Sequoya, whose photograph is herein reproduced, that degree of learning, that many of the tribe became quite familiar with letters and literature, printed from the alphabet invented by this noted man, inventor and devout preacher of the Christian gospel. Sequoya was himself an untutored half-breed, yet to him are we indebted for an alphabet of 76 characters which stands third among the alphabets which have been invented among men, and by which a Cherokee child learns to read as fluently in six months of study as does the average English child in three years of study under our system. The name Cherokee, so far as research reveals, has no meaning or the meaning has been lost or perhaps Anglicized, but we have authority for its use, for the past 375 years. When De Soto's expedition was made through the Appalachian mountains, in 1540, he encountered this great and friendly nation living peacefully in their paradise among the hills and mountains, who received him as they were wont to receive a friendly tribe; so did they ever receive and treat the white neighbor until treaty after treaty had been broken and their homes had been destroyed and every compact violated. Hostilities were in most cases caused by encroaching whites and broken promises and intrigues of the foreigners, who were gradually drawing the cordon around the diminishing tribe. The battle of Horseshoe Bend, which took place in the Tallapoosa river, in Alabama, on the 27th day of March, 1814, was one of the notable events in Cherokee history, where Junaluska, in conjunction with General Jackson, slaughtered or massacred nearly one thousand Creeks, which ended the Creek war and brought much honor to Junaluska and his valiant Cherokee army of more than 500 men. For the terrors which followed the battle of Horseshoe Bend, we have only to refer to history to be able to ascertain the facts concerning the bloody atrocities which were perpetrated upon an oppressed people. Then came the end, which occurred in the year 1838, which culminated in the removal of the band to the Indian Territory, which is now called Oklahoma, (a Choctaw word meaning red people, Okla, people; homa, red). This removal was the most luckless and recreant of all the abuses that had been heaped upon the brave but helpless band of Cherokee. Junaluska, who witnessed the removal, but was permitted to remain with the residue, remarked that had he known that General Jackson (who became President), would have removed the Cherokee in such a brutal manner, he would have killed him at the battle of Horseshoe Bend. The history of the removal of the Cherokee, as told by James Mooney of the Department of American Ethnology, gleaned by him from eye witnesses and actors in the tragedy, may well exceed in weight of grief and pathos any other act in American history. Even the much sung song of the exile of the Arcadians falls far behind it in the sum of death and misery. Under General Winfield Scott, an army of 5,000 volunteers and regular troops were concentrated in the Cherokee country, and by instruction from Washington, D. C., he was directed and gave orders to soldiers to gather all Indians to the various stockades, which had been previously prepared for their reception. From these posts, squads of soldiers were sent to search out, with rifle and bayonet, every small cabin which could be found within the ramifications and deep recesses of the great Appalachian range of mountains, and bring to the forts every man, woman and child to be found within the gates of the granite hills. Families, while sitting peacefully at the noon-day meal; others while performing the matutinal ablution, were suddenly startled by the gleam of bayonets and with blows, curses and oaths from the men called soldiers, the Indians were driven like cattle from their humble homes down the rugged mountain paths, and their houses in many cases were burned and their small possessions destroyed, as the brave but defenceless Cherokee people looked on with that wonderful stoicism which no other race of men ever possessed. Men were seized in the fields, women torn from the wheel and the distaff, and children frightened from the pleasures of play. The vandals who followed in the wake of the soldiery, looting and pillaging, burning and destroying, yet calling themselves civilized Christians, were such a band of outlaws as is seldom seen even among the most savage and barbaric races. Even Indian graves were robbed of the silver pendants and other valuables which had been deposited with the dead. Women who were not able to go, were actually forced at the point of a bayonet to march with the same speed as men. Upon one occasion the soldiers surrounded the house of an old Christian patriot, who when informed as to what was to take place, called his wife, children and grandchildren around him, kneeling down among them offered a last prayer in the sanctuary of his home, in his native tongue, while the soldiers stood astonished, looking on in silence. When his devotions were finished, he arose, bade the household follow him, and he led them into exile, with that becoming Christian fortitude which is seldom witnessed among men. One woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and called up the chickens, fed them for the last time, bade them farewell, then taking her baby upon her back, she extended her hands to her other two small children, then followed her husband into exile, from whence she never returned. A Georgia volunteer, who afterwards became a Colonel in the Confederate service, said, "I have fought through the Civil War and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by the thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the most cruel work I ever witnessed." All were not thus so submissive. One old man named Tsali, "Charlie," was seized, with his wife, his brother, his three sons and their families; exasperated at the brutality accorded his wife, who being unable to travel fast, was prodded with the bayonets to hasten her steps, he urged the other men to join him in a dash for liberty, and as he spoke in Cherokee, the soldiers, although they heard, understood nothing until each warrior suddenly sprang upon the soldier nearest and endeavored to wrench his gun from him. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that one soldier was killed and the rest fled, while the Indians escaped to the mountains. Hundreds of others, some of them from the various stockades, managed also to escape to the hills and mountains from time to time, where those who did not die from starvation subsisted on roots and wild berries until the hunt was over. Finding that it was impossible to secure these fugitives, General Scott finally tendered them a proposition, through Colonel W. H. Thomas, known as Wil-Usdi in Cherokee, their trusted friend and chief, that if they would bring Charlie and his party for punishment, the rest would be allowed to remain until their case could be adjusted by the Government. On hearing of the proposition, Charlie voluntarily came in with his sons, offering himself as a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott, Charlie, his brother and the two elder sons were shot, near the mouth of Tuckaseigee river, a detachment of Cherokee prisoners being compelled to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact of their utter helplessness. From those fugitives thus permitted to remain, originated the present eastern band of Cherokee. When nearly 17,000 Cherokee had been gathered into the stockades, the removal began. Early in June several parties, aggregating about five thousand persons, were brought down by the troops to the old agency on Hiwassee river, at the present Calhoun, Tenn., and to Ross landing (now Chattanooga, Tenn.) and to Gunter's landing (now Guntersville, Ala.) lower down on the Tennessee, where they were put upon steamers and transported down the Tennessee and Ohio to the farther side of the Mississippi, whence their journey was continued by land to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). The removal in the the hottest part of the year was attended with so great sickness and mortality that, by resolution of the Cherokee National Council, John Ross and the other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition that the Cherokee be allowed to remove themselves in the fall, after the sickly season ended. This was granted on condition that all should have started by the 20th of October, except the sick and aged, who might not be able to move so rapidly. Accordingly, officers were appointed by the Cherokee council to take charge of the emigration; the Indians being organized into detachments averaging one thousand each, with two leaders in charge of each department, and a sufficient number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this way the remainder, enrolled at about 13,000, (including a few negro slaves), started on the long march overland late in the fall. Those who thus emigrated under the management of their own officers, assembled at Rattlesnake Springs, near the present Charleston, Tenn., where a final council was held, in which it was decided to continue their old constitution and laws in their new home. Then, in October, 1838, the long procession of exiles was set in motion. A few went by the river route, but nearly all went overland. Crossing, to the north side of the Hiwassee river, at a ferry above Gunter's Creek, they proceeded down along the river, the sick, aged and children, together with their belongings, being hauled in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. It was like an army, 645 wagons, regiment after regiment, the wagons in the center, the officers along the line, and the horsemen on the flank and at the rear. Tennessee river was crossed at Tucker's ferry, a short distance above Jolly's Island, at the mouth of Hiwassee; thence the route lay south of Pikeville, through McMinnville, and on to Nashville, where the Cumberland was crossed. They then went on to Hopkinsville, where the noted chief White Path, in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried him by the roadside, with a box over the grave and poles with streamers around it, that the others coming on behind might note the spot and remember him. Somewhere along that march of death--for the exiles died by tens and twenties every day of the journey--the devoted wife of the noted chief, John Ross, sank down and died, leaving him to go on with bitter pain of bereavement added to the heartbreak at the ruin and desolation of his nation. The Ohio was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland, and the army passed on through southern Illinois until the great Mississippi was reached, opposite Cape Girardean, Missouri. It was now the middle of winter, with the river running full of ice, so that several detachments were obliged to wait some time on the eastern bank for the channel to become clear. Information furnished by old men at Tahlequah after the lapse of fifty years showed that time had not sufficed to wipe out the memory of the miseries of that halt beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket overhead to keep out the January blast. The crossing was at last made, in two divisions, at Cape Girardean and Green's ferry, a short distance below, whence the march was continued on through Missouri to Indian Territory, the later detachment making a northerly circuit by Springfield, because those who had gone before had killed off all the game along the direct route. They had started in October, 1838, and it was now March, 1839, the journey having occupied nearly six months of the hardest part of the year. It is difficult to state positively as to the mortality and loss by reason of the removal of this once happy nation, but as near as can be ascertained, more than four thousand persons perished along the great highway of death. On the arrival in Indian Territory, the exiles at once set about building houses and planting crops, the government having agreed under treaty to furnish them rations for one year after arrival. They were welcomed by their kindred, the "Old Settlers," who held the country under previous treaties of 1828 and 1833. These, however, being already regularly organized under a government and chiefs of their own, were by no means disposed to be swallowed by the governmental authority of the newcomers. Jealousies developed, in which the minority or treaty party of the emigrants, headed by Major Ridge, took sides with the old settlers against John Ross of the National party, which outnumbered the others nearly three to one. While these differences were at their height, the Nation was thrown into a fever of excitement by the news that Major Ridge, his son, John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot--all leaders of the treaty party--had been killed by adherents of the National party, immediately after the adjournment of a general council, which had adjourned after nearly two weeks of debate without having been able to bring about harmonious action. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot near the Arkansas line, his son was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets, while Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home at Park Hill, Indian Territory, all three being killed upon the same day, June 22, 1839, which date marks the decline and fall of a once great and happy people. For fifty years which followed this luckless day in June, Indian Territory became a veritable theater of crime and disorder. From the South meridian of the sunflower state, to the cypress banks of the Red river, and from Fort Smith to the shifting sands of the great plains, for half a century sheltered a coterie of actors that would have made Robin Hood or Kit Carson blush with envy. The soil of the five tribes has been moistened with human blood when there was none to answer the cry for vengeance; when no sound save the deadly snap of the Winchester and the pit-pat of the bronchos' hoofs were there to bear testimony. Now, those who incited intrigue and murder are gone, the desperado is a thing of the past, the brave men who enlisted in the hazardous governmental service to give them battle have disappeared, and the sound of the firing Winchester used in deadly conflict, has been replaced by the reaper and the mower, and toilers in the field of commerce and industry. The Indian tribe has been supplanted by the American Government; and the school and church have taken the place of the chase and the feud. Where the wild flowers nodded far out on the lonely plain, vast fields of wheat and corn whisper the great name of Oklahoma. At this writing the eastern band of Cherokee is about to be dissolved, their lands allotted, and in a few more decades the Cherokee will have passed, and the name will be presented only in old records and in the hearts of their descendants. PART II OCCONEECHEE OCCONEECHEE, The Maid of the Mystic Lake, by Robert Frank Jarrett. I. Far away beneath the shadows Of the towering Smoky range, In the Western North Carolina, Comes a story true, but strange; Of a maiden and her lover, Of the tribe of Cherokee, And she lived far up the mountain, Near the hills of Tennessee. Far above the habitation Of the white man, and the plain, Lived the dark-eyed Indian maiden, Of the Junaluska strain; Junaluska, chief, her father, Occoneechee was his pride, In the lonely little wigwam, High upon the mountain side. There the stream Oconaluftee Hides its source far from the eye, Of the white man in his rovings, Far upon the mountain high; And the forest land primeval, Roamed by doe and wandering bear, And the hissing, coiling serpent, Was no stranger to them there. Catamount and mountain-boomer Sprang from cliff-side into trees, And the eagle, hawk and vulture Winged their course on every breeze. At the footfall of this maiden Sped the gobbler wild and free, From the maiden Occoneechee Flitted butterfly and bee. Occoneechee, forest dweller, Lived amid the scene so wild; In the simple Indian manner Lived old Junaluska's child. Streams of purest limpid water Gushed forth o'er the rock below, And the trout and silver minnow Dwelt in water, cold as snow. Occoneechee's Mother Qualla Passed away from earth to God, When this maiden was a baby And was covered by the sod. High upon the rugged mountain, Far above the haunts of men, With their burdens and their sorrows, And their load of care and sin. Thus the maiden knew no mother, Knew no love as most maids know, Heard no song, as sung by mother, Softly, sweetly, plaintive, slow. When the twilight came at evening, And the wigwam fire was lit, And the bearskin robe was spread out Upon which they were to sit, Junaluska wept his Qualla, Wept the lover who had flown, For she was the only lover That this chieftain's heart had known; And at night, there was no lover To sit by him on the rug, Made of skins of bear and woodchuck, In the wigwam, crude but snug. And at times he'd stand at evening, When the sun was setting low, And would watch with adoration Shifting clouds and scenes below; And his soul would want to wander Where the clime of setting sun Would reveal his long lost Qualla, When his work of life was done. And the tears would fill his eyelids, And emotion shake his frame, When he thought of her departed, Or some friend would speak her name. And he'd call on God the spirit, When he'd see the golden glow Of the radiant splendid sunset, Where he ever longed to go. Then he'd think of Occoneechee, In her adolescent years, How she needed his protection There to drive away her fears. Then he'd cease his deep repining, And his wailing and his grief, For her future and her beauty Brought the chieftain's heart relief. Though the life of Occoneechee Was one lonely strange career, And the solitude and silence Made the romance of it drear, While the wildness of the forest, With the animals that roam, And the birds in great profusion Cheered her little wigwam home, Yet her spirit, like the eagle's, Longed to soar off and be free From the wilds of gorge and mountain, Stream and cliff and crag and tree. And one day there came a red man Wandering up the mountain side, From the vale Oconaluftee Which was every Indian's pride. Tall and handsome, agile runner, And the keenness of his eye Did betray his quick perception To the casual passer-by. Hair hung down in long black tresses, Far below his shoulder-blade, And the brilliant painted feathers By the passing winds were swayed. And the arrows in his quiver Tipped with variegated stone, And the tomahawk and war knife, All the weapons he had known; Yet he knew all of their uses, None could wield with greater skill Tomahawk or knife or arrow, Than this wandering Whippoorwill. Occoneechee, sitting lonely, In a shady little nook, Near the opening, by the wigwam, And the babbling crystal brook; She was bathing feet and ankles, Arms and hands she did refresh, In the iridescent splendor Of the fountain cool and fresh. Whippoorwill, the wandering warrior, Spied the maiden by the pool, 'Neath the spreading tree above her, By the limpid stream so cool; Then he ventured there to tarry, Watch and linger in the wild, Near the maiden and the fountain, Watch this forest-dwelling child. Though a warrior, brave, undaunted By the fiercest, wildest foe, In the battle's hardest struggle, Chasing bear and buck and doe; For his life was used to hardships, Scaling mountains in the chase, Yet he ne'er was known to falter 'Mid the hottest of the race. But he now was moved by caution To approach, with greatest care, The unknown maid, there before him, And the scene so rich and rare; And his brave heart almost failed him As he comes up to her side, And obeisance makes he to her, E'er the chieftain she espied. Occoneechee sprang up quickly From the rock moss-covered seat, All abashed, but lithe and nimble Were her ankles and her feet. "O-I-see-you," were the greetings They exchanged spontaneously, As they moved off together. Occoneechee leads the way, To the quiet little wigwam, Where old Junaluska dwells With the maiden Occoneechee, And for whom his heart up-wells. Spreading out the flowing doe-skin Flat upon the earthen floor, Occoneechee and the warrior Sat and talked the chases o'er. Sat and talked of bear and venison, Sat and smoked the calumet. These the greetings of the warrior, When the maiden first he met. Whippoorwill, the wandering warrior, Tarried for a night and day, Tarried long within the wigwam, And was loath to go away, For the maid and Junaluska To the warrior were so kind, That 'twere hard among the tribesmen Such a generous clan to find. But at dawn upon the morrow, Whippoorwill must wend his way From old Junaluska's wigwam, For too long had been his stay. Kind affection, Junaluska Gave to parting Whippoorwill, As he sauntered from the wigwam, Wandering toward the rugged rill. Now the silence so unbroken Starts a tear-drop in each eye, And the gentle passing zephyr Gathered up the lover's sigh, And the sighs were borne to heaven, Like as lovers' sighs ascend, As the good angelic zephyrs Bear the message, friend to friend. Now each heart was sore and lonely, Sad the parting lovers feel, Yet the hopes of love's devotion Deep into each life did steal. And when Whippoorwill had left them, Good old Junaluska said To his daughter Occoneechee, "Would you like this brave to wed?" Occoneechee, timid maiden, Never thought of love before, For she ne'er had spread the doe-skin Wide upon the earthen floor, For a warrior, brave as he was, One possessed of skill so rare, With his tomahawk and war knife, And such long black raven hair; And she knew not how to answer, Though she felt as lovers do, When they plight their deep devotion To each other to be true. "Occoneechee! child of wild woods, I am growing old and gray, And I feel I soon must leave you, Though I grieve to go away. I can feel the hand of time, child, Pressing down upon my head, And I know it won't be long now Till I'm resting with the dead. "I can hear your mother calling, Sweetly, gently, calling me, Beckoning from the golden sunset, And she calls also for thee. 'Twas just last night she stood beside me, While you lay there sound asleep, And she called me, 'Junaluska!' And her voice caused me to weep. "And she said, 'Dear Junaluska, I have come to tell you where You will find me at the portals Of the Lord's house over there. I will be among the blessed, Be with angels up on high. Have no fears of Death's dark river, Be courageous till you die.' "Then she stood and sang a message O'er you in your lonely bed, For a moment, then departed; And I called, but she had fled. Yet I daily hear her sweet voice, And I see her image there, As she calls us unto heaven, 'Mid the pleasures, O, so rare. "And I soon shall cross the river, And will join her on the strand, With immortals long departed, In the fair, blest, happy land. When I'm gone you'll need protection, By a brave who knows no fear, And when sorrows overflow you, One to wipe away the tear. "Then I'll watch and wait with Qualla, With the chiefs and warriors brave, Who have joined the tribe eternal, Conquered death, hell and the grave. I shall watch then for your coming, And I'll tell the mighty throng That you're coming in the future, And we'll greet you with the song, "That the seraphs sing in glory, Casting gem crowns at the feet, Praising Him who reigns forever On the grand tribunal seat." As he talked his voice grew weaker, And his hand grew very chill, Then the moisture crowned his forehead, And his pulse was deathly still. Then she knew that her dear mother And the great chiefs that had been Had op'ed the gate of heaven wide To let another brave chief in. Then she sobbed out for her father, As a broken-hearted child Will for loved ones just departed, Left so lonely in the wild. But the dead, too soon forgotten, Now lies buried by the side Of his much lamented Qualla, Once his sweet and lovely bride, While their spirits dwell together, Free from care and want and pain, Where the tempest full of sorrow Ne'er can reach their souls again. Years had flown since Occoneechee Saw her loving Whippoorwill, High upon the Smoky Mountain, Near the crystal rippling rill; For the white man had transported Brave and squaw and little child Far away to Oklahoma, To the western hills so wild. Some had gone to the Dakotas, Some had gone to Mexico, Some had joined the tribe eternal; All were going, sure but slow. For the white man's occupation, Cherokee must give their land, And must give up all possessions, Go and join some other band. Yet a residue of tribesmen Were allowed here to remain, 'Mid the mountains and the forest, And the meadows and the plain, But the strong men and the warriors, Most of them had gone away, Far across the mighty mountains Toward the closing of the day. General Jackson's men in blue coats Came and took away the braves, Took away the squaw and papoose, Buried many in their graves, Yet the residue triumphant, Roamed out in the forest wild, Without shelter, food or comfort, For decrepid chief and child. Sad and weary, long and dreary, Moved the Cherokee out West, With their store of skins and venison, And the trinkets they possessed. Up across the Smoky Mountains, Rough and rugged trail and road, Lined by rhododendron blossoms, Close beside where Lufty flowed. When they down the gorge descended, Winding toward the Tennessee, Branch and bough o'erhead were bending And no landscape could they see, And the labyrinthian footway Led through forests dense and dark And the air was sweetly laden With the bruised birchen bark; Hemlocks tall and swaying gently In the sighing passing breeze, And the fir and spreading balsam Joined the cadence of the trees. At the base of birch and hemlock Flowed the Pigeon fierce and bold, With its water clear as crystal, And its fountains icy cold; Flowed the dauntless rapid waters, Fresh and pure and ever free, Rushed o'er cataract and cascade, Ever onward toward the sea. Whippoorwill, the wandering warrior, Shorn of power and of pride, Marched in single file and lonely, With his hands behind him tied. Hands were bound with thongs and fetters-- Thongs and fetters could not hold Brave so gallant young and noble As this valiant warrior bold. For his thoughts of Occoneechee, Who was left far, far behind, With the residue of women, Stirred his brave heart and his mind. On and on for days they traveled By the stream whose silver flow, From the great high Smoky Mountains, Became silent now and slow; For the rocks and rising ridges, Once their progress did impede, Now were fading in the distance, Could not now retard their speed. And the journey, long and tedious, Wore the women, wore the brave, And they sore and much lamented, To be bound as serf or slave; For their free-born spirits never Had been bound by man before, Till the blue-coat Jackson soldier Came and dragged them from their door. Corn was blooming on the lowlands When the journey they betook, And the grass gave much aroma, By the laughing Soco brook; But the suns and moons oft waning Brought the moon of ripening corn To a nation, broken-hearted, With a doubting hope forlorn. Level lands brought no enchantment To a people who had known Naught but freedom till the present, Whose utopian dream had flown; Flown as flows the radiant river, Flown as flows the hopes of youth, From the red man of the forest. They were no more free, forsooth. By and by the Father Waters Came in view of brave and squaw, And the skiff and side-wheel steamer Were the shifting scenes they saw, Plying fast the Father Waters, With a current slow and still, And reverberating whistles Shrieked a medley loud and shrill. And the ferryboat was busy, Plying fast the liquid wave Of the Father Water's current, Bearing squaw and chief and brave, Till the last brave Indian warrior Crossed the Father Waters' tide, Crossed the gentle flowing river, With its current deep and wide. Then they rested from their journey, Rested for a little while, On the bluff above the river, Where they saw her laughing smile. They could see the sun at morning Rise up quickly from his rest, See him hasting to his zenith, Soon to go down in the west. Then the winter came on quickly, Killing corn and grass and cane, And the wind brought cloudy weather, With its snow and mist and rain, And the tribe within the barracks Were disheartened, one and all. And they longed now for their Lufty, With its cascade and its fall. But at last the genial sunshine Took away the ice that froze The corn of hope, from the tribesmen, And the chilly wind that blows, Along the valley, of the river, Over bog and prairie, too; And an order came with springtime, "You the journey must renew." Then they rose up in the morning, Rose before the dawn of day, Rolled and tied the tents together, And were quickly on their way, On their way to Oklahoma, Out across Missouri land, Chief and squaw and wary warrior, Marched the Cherokee brave band. To the western reservation, Where the bison and the owl, And the she-wolf, fox and serpent Writhe and roam and nightly prowl; This the country where they took them, This the country that they gave In exchange for their own country, To the chief and squaw and brave. Leaving all they loved behind them, Leaving all to them most dear, And they settled there so lonely, In a country dry and drear; There to pine away in sorrow, And repining, die of grief; From the solitude and silence Of this land there's no relief. II. Amid the hills of Carolina, Hills impregnant with rich bliss, With their grots and groves and fountains, Hills that love-beams love to kiss; Roamed the dark, but pretty maiden, Occoneechee, lovely child, Roamed she far out in the mountains, 'Mid their solitude so wild. Dreamed she oft here, as she rambled, Of her warrior Whippoorwill, Of her lover, long her lover, Whom she first met near the rill, High upon the Smoky Mountains, Where the sunset's afterglow Holds the secrets of Dame Nature From the sons of men below. Occoneechee sought her lover, Down Oconaluftee's vale, Through the brush and tangled wildwood, Without compass, chart or trail, Where the river Tuckaseigee Dashes down its rocky bed, Near a trail long since deserted, Over which a tribe once sped. Then she wandered down the river, On and on, as on it flows, Wades the river, wades its branches, Follows it where'er it goes Through the laurel brush and ivy, Over spreading beds of fern, Over rock moss-covered ledges, Follows every winding turn, Till it flows into the river, Called the Little Tennessee, Here she lingers long and tarries, And she strains her eyes to see If her vision will reveal him, And abates her breath to hear The voice of Whippoorwill, her lover, One of all to her most dear. Yet no sound came to relieve her, And no vision came to please, And it never dawned upon her, Here among the virgin trees, That her lover was transported, With the brave and chief and child To the land of Oklahoma, Land so lonely, weird and wild. Up the stream she then ascended, Slowly, surely did she march, 'Neath the spreading oak and hemlock, Resting oft beneath their arch. Walls of solid spar and granite Roared their heads up toward the blue, But no wall or hill or river Could impede the maiden true. She now reached the Nantahala, Picturesque in every way, And she rested 'neath the shadow Of the mountain tall and gray; High the mountain, clear the water, That comes rushing down the side Of the mountain from the forest With its unpolluted tide. Speckled beauties swam the water, Swam as only they can do; Deer in herds roamed all the forest, Only Cherokees were few. Eagles, swift upon their pinions, Soared aloft upon the air, They would turn their eyes to heaven, Then down on the maiden fair, As to guard her in her roaming, For she had no other guide, Save one squaw and constellation, And the racing river tide. Birds had ceased their long migration, Not a cloud disturbed the blue Of the canopy of heaven, And the country they passed through. Nightingale and thrush and robin Mated, sang and dwelt serene, In the forest, by the river, With its banks so fresh and green, And each spoke to Occoneechee, In the language Nature gives, Of the flora and the fauna, Where the child of Nature lives. Then she rambled through the mountains, To the summit, grand and high, Where Tusquittee's bald and forest Penetrates the cloudless sky. Unobstructed vision reaches 'Cross the Valley River, wide, To the Hiawassee river, Flowing in its lordly pride. Here the panorama rises In its beauty grand and gay, As you linger on the summit, As you hesitating stay; Visions long out in the distance; Haunt you with enchanted smile, And the reverie of Nature Doth the wanderer beguile. Valleytown, the Indian village, And Aquone, the camping ground, Cheoas vale within the distance, Once where Cherokee were found, Came within the easy focus Of the trained observant eye Of the maiden on the mountain, Near the clearest vaulted sky. Occoneechee looked and wondered, Scanned the mountain, scanned the vale, And she lifted up her voice there, And began to weep and wail; For her lover, long departed, For her lover brave and true, And she wondered if he tarried In the reaches of her view. Still no sight or sound revealed him, Beauty smiled and smiled again, As she sighed and prayed to Nature, Yet her anxious thoughts were vain. For the valley and the mountain, And the river and the rill, Separated Occoneechee From her lover Whippoorwill. Then she to the Hiawassee, Wound the mountain-side and vale, And she made a boat of hemlock, And she left the mountain trail, And she launched the boat of hemlock On the Hiawassee tide, Launched the boat and went within it, Down the silver stream to glide. Down the river set with forest, Nottely joins the quickened pace Of the river and the maiden, In their onward rapid race, And she passes through the narrows, Through the narrows quick she flew, Through the spray and foaming current, With her long hemlock canoe. Faster sped the boat of hemlock, Past the mountains and the shoal, Past the inlet Conasauga, Where Okoee waters roll; Here she stopped to make inquiry Of a relegated brave. If he'd seen her wandering lover, In the forest, by the wave. Then she left the boat of hemlock, Roamed the forest far and wide, Crossed the mountain streams and fountains, With their cliff and foaming tide, Followed far Okoee river, Toccoa laves her weary feet, Ellijay and Coogawattee Do the pretty maiden greet. Not a word in all her wanderings Did she hear of Whippoorwill, Though she roamed through leagues of forest, And by many a rippling rill. Candy creek and Oostanula, Both were followed to their source, With their winding current flowing In their ever onward course. Where the brave had traveled with her, And had told her many tales Of the wars he'd been engaged in, And the windings of the trails, Over which the tribe had traveled In the years that long had flown, And the land now held by strangers, Which his tribe once called their own. And at evening in the autumn, When the leaves turn brown and red, And the hickory and the maple Gild with yellow as they shed, And the poplar and the chestnut, And the beech and chinquapin, Hide the squirrel and the pheasant From the sight of selfish men; Where the grapevine climbs the alder, Clings with tendril to the pine, And the air is sweetly laden With rich odors from the vine; And the walnut and the dogwood Furnish dainties rich and rare, For the chipmunk and the partridge, Which perchance do wander there. Where the otter slide is slickened, And the weasel and the mink Do come creeping down the river, There to bathe and fish and drink, And the red fox roams the forest, And defies the fleetest hound, And the panther in the forest Makes a hideous screaming sound. Here the brave would sit and tell them Tales and myths told oft before, Tales of war and of adventure, By great chiefs now known no more; And one night they heard the shrieking Of a wildcat near the stream, That awakened them from slumber And disturbed their peaceful dream; For a panther, fierce and fearless, Had come creeping down the side Of the cliffs far up the mountain, Near the Hiawassee tide, And they met down near the river, And they fought down near the stream, And they made the night grow hideous With their awful shrieks and scream. Then she took her boat of hemlock, And they launched it on the wave, And they sat upon its gunnels, Occoneechee squaw and brave, And they pushed out in the current, Where the waves were rolling high, And the boat sped through the rapids, Fast as flocks of pigeons fly. Pushed they down and ever onward Toward the placid Tennessee, To the island and the inlet Of the rolling Hiawassee. Here they camped o'er night and rested, Told they tales of long ago, With their memories and sorrows Breathed they out their care and woe. Then they floated down the river, On its smooth, unrippled tide. To the creek of Chicamauga, Where so many braves had died. And they tented near the river, Tied their boat up to the bank, Where John Ross had crossed the river, Where his ferryboat once sank. Wandered through the vale of dryness, Chattanooga's pretty flow, Clear as crystal, pure as sunbeams, Winding hither too and fro. Drank the waters, bathed they in it, Fished and hunted stream and plain, Where the buffalo once wandered, But where none now doth remain. Like a serpent that is crawling, Wriggling, writhing, resting not, Fleeing from a strange invader To some lone secluded spot, Winds and curves and turns forever, In its course that has no end, Swings to starboard and to larboard, Round the Moccasin's great bend. Flows the river on forever, By the nodding flowering tree, Shedding fragrance like a censer, Flows the pretty Tennessee; On her bosom's crest is carried Precious burdens, rich and rare, From the fertile fields about her, And the ozone-laden air. Occoneechee squaw and warrior Rode the silver-flowing tide, in the boat made out of hemlock, Which so long had been their pride; But the time now came for parting, As must come in every life, That is heir to human nature, With its toil and woe and strife. Here Sequatchie's fertile valley, They approached and must ascend, Like the cloud before the sunbeam, Driven by the fiercest wind; Then they hid the boat of hemlock, Sure and safe, then bade adieu, To the boat upon the river, Which had been their friend so true. Then they mounted little ponies, Fresh and sleek and fat and fast, And they sped along the valley, Like the birds upon the blast, Looking for the handsome warrior, Looking hither, glancing there, And quite often on the journey, They would stop to offer prayer; But the valley held the secret; Not a living man could wrest, From the valley rich and fertile, Secrets buried in its breast; Though the tribe had ceased to own it, Though the tribe had passed away, From the valley of Sequatchie, Like the fading of the day, Still the signs and many tokens Told a tale of war and strife, Where the whites had used the rifle, And the braves had used the knife, For the bleaching bones of warriors Were discovered everywhere, And the hideous sight brought sorrow, To this maiden now so fair, Birds were singing in the forest, Merrily and full of glee, And a symphony unrivaled Flooded forestland and lea; With the mellow tones from singers, Varied, versatile and sweet, Came from forest and from meadow, Came the attuned ear to greet. And when evening shade would settle, And the moon full rose to view, And the zephyrs filled the valley, And the flowers suffused with dew, Then the nightingale would lure them Or the mockingbird hold sway, From the advent of Orion, Till the dawning of the day. Stretching meadows lay before them, Rich with fragrance, rare with flowers, Variegated blending colors Lent a rapture to its bowers, That outstripped the fields elysian, Decked with Nature's rarest guise, Pleasure-house for wisest sages, Such as only fools despise. Such the scenes within the valley, As they joyous sped along, Filled with rapture, filled with pleasure, At the scenery and the song. Nature clapped her hands exultant, In the sylvan groves so green, Where the Goddess Proserpina Was enthroned majestic queen. Mighty warriors red with passion, Once had trod this virgin soil, And had rested in the valley, When o'ercome by heat and toil; Sportive maidens once delighted To engage in dance and song, With the warriors in the valley, With the chieftains brave and strong. But the mighty men and maidens Long since ceased this land to roam, Since the pale face armed with power, Killed the braves and burned the home, Took the land and burned the wigwam, Bound the chief and drove away, All the warriors, squaws and maidens, Toward the golden close of day. Happy children, wild with rapture, Laughed with ecstasy and glee, Once had filled the vale with echoes, And had sported lithe and free, All along the hill-locked valley, Played lacrosse and strung the bow, Ran the races, caught the squirrel, In the distant long ago. Sped they like the rolling torrent, Thru the Appalachian chain, With its towering peaks and gorges, 'Mid its sunshine and its rain, Sped along the flowing Chuckey, With its reddened banks of clay, Were delighted by its beauty, Were enticed with it to stay; Saw the rushing, rolling waters Fall and foam and seeth below, Saw the cascade of Watauga Surging hither to and fro; Looked with tireless vision upward, Viewed from summits high and proud, Landscapes grander than Olympus, With their crags above the cloud. "Occoneechee," said the warrior, In a gentle tone, and mild, "I remember all this grandeur, Since I was a little child, I have traveled trail and mountain, Chased Showono, deer and bear, Crossed Kentucky in the chases, Seen the blue-grass state so fair. Once while hotly, I pursuing, Buck with antlers fierce and strong, Came upon a band of white men, With their rifles black and long, Came a flash of rifle powder, Quick as lightning came the sounds, From reverberating rifles, And the bark of baying hounds. They had slain the buck with antlers, And would be upon me soon, If discovered by their captain, By their captain, Daniel Boone; He the hunter, Indian hater, Chief and captain, pioneer, Known to every tribe and tribesman, To be destitute of fear. Quick I back into the forest, Without noise or slightest sound, Lest perchance I draw attention, From the hunter or his hound. 'Twas a wilderness of wildness, Transylvania was its name, Home of coon and hare and turkey, And all sorts of kindred game. Once the noble chiefs and warriors Roamed Kentucky far and wide, Far along the broad Ohio, Strode the Indians by her tide; And they camped and roamed the forest, Dense and dark, supremely grand, Dominated vale and forest, Dominated all the land; Chased the scouting bands of warriors, Who would dare to camp and die, On the soil of old Kentucky, Where the meadow grass grew high; Hiding 'neath the waving grasses, Where the muskrat and the snake, And the hedge hog and the weasel, Lurked in shade of vine and brake. I was with good Junaluska, In the battles and the raids, Where the Creek and the Showano Lent each other all their aids, When upon the Tallapoosa River, at the Horseshoe bend, We joined hands with General Jackson, And by death we made an end, Of the Creeks and all their allies, Who assembled, one and all. To resist our mighty forces, They had built their mighty wall, Built it strong and reinforced it, Not a single spot was weak, For 'twas built by master workmen, By the tribesmen of the Creek. When the work was strong and finished, All the warriors came to dwell In the fortress, by the river, Came they tales of war to tell; Came a thousand of the warriors, With their weapons and their wives, Came and lodged within the fortress, Like the swarming bees in hives; Brought their children and their chattels, Brought they gun, and club and spear, For they thought once in the fortress, That they'd have no harm to fear, But the Cherokee and Jackson Brought out cannon great and small, And they raised the siege of Horseshoe, Throwing many a shell and ball; Into fortress, into village, Flew the missiles thick and fast, Like the rain, among the rigging, Of the sailor's spar and mast, Crushing, crashing stone of fortress, Making splinters of the wall, Of the fortress by the river, With the heavy cannon ball. But it fell not in the fury Of the battle's hottest fray, Stood the test like old Gibraltar, All the night and all the day, And the progress was so slowly, That the battle must be lost, To the Cherokee and Jackson, And so great would be the cost, If some means were not discovered, To dislodge the valiant Creek, Now entrenched within the fortress, Growing strong instead of weak. Junaluska said to Jackson, 'Choose ye this day man or men, Who can breast the tide before you, Who will try to enter in; Who can swim the Tallapoosa, Who can stem the flowing tide, Who are noble, strong and fearless, And have God upon their side. If you have such men among you, Let them come forth one and all, Let them dare to do their duty, Let them dare to stand or fall.' Not one man of all the white men Could be found who dared to try To o'ercome the Tallapoosa, Or would risk his life to die. So your guide whom God has given, Volunteered to risk the wave, With your father, Junaluska, Volunteered, his tribe to save. Then we sought our God in silence, And became resigned to death, That lay out upon the current Of the river's silent breath. Under cover of the darkness, And the solitude of night, We betook the awful peril, With a tremor of delight. Silently we now descended To the deathlike river tide, Following a star's reflection, For a signboard and a guide; To point out the right direction, And to bring us into port, Where the canoes lay at anchor, Near the stolid silent fort. Quick we loosed them from their moorings Each man lashed beside his boat-- Quite a dozen, swift as arrows, And we set them all afloat; Shot them straight across the river, Like a flash at lightning speed, Faster than the fleetest greyhound, Bounding like a blooded steed. When we reached the army's landing, Quick the boats were filled with men; Like a thunderbolt from heaven, Did the deadly work begin. Transports glided o'er the current, Like a shuttle to and fro, Moving Cherokee and white men, To confront a worthy foe. Scaled the ramparts of the fortress, Stormed the inner citadel, And we massacred the inmates! How? No human tongue can tell. Not a woman, child or human Made escape, but all were slain In the fort or in the river, Or upon the gory plain. When the massacre and slaughter Had abated, all the slain Numbered more than a thousand, In the fort or on the plain. Many floated in the river, Many died out in the woods, And were buried in the forest, By erosion or the floods. Sad and silent stood the fortress, All deserted and alone; Not a man or child or matron, Now was left to claim their own. All the warriors and the chieftains Died in conflict true and brave; None were left to tell the story, Or to mark some lonely grave. Cruel man! O God, forgive them! Pity such a cruel race. In their stead, O God of nations, Send some one to take their place, Who is humane, who is human, Who is honest, kind and true, Who when given strength and power, Destroys not, but spares a few. In the lore of ancient nations, In the tales of modern times, In the prose that now remaineth, Nor the poet's splendid rhymes, Is a story told more cruel Than the slaughter of the Creeks, By the Persians, Jews or Romans, Macedonians or Greeks; Where a nation, like a shadow, Vanished quickly and was not, Like a vapor in the valley Passes and is soon forgot. Passes like a fleeing phantom, Like a mist before the sun, Came and tarried for a moment, And forever was undone. Occoneechee, come and travel, To the distant mountains high, Where the summit of the mountains, Tower upward toward the sky. Delectable the splendid mountains, Rich in ferns forever green, And the galaxy of the mountains Are the rarest ever seen. Mortal eyes have never witnessed, Mortal tongue can never tell Of the grandeur and the beauty Of the ravine and the dell. Strange declivities confront you, Then a sudden upright wall Rises like a mystic figure, With a splendid waterfall. I will take you to the summit Of the mountains white with age, And will show you where the tempests Rush and roar with ceaseless rage, Where phenomena electric Makes mysterious display Of their power and their beauty In the distance far away; You can see the flash of lightning, And can hear the thunders roll, With reverberating echoes, That o'erwhelm your very soul, Make you sigh and shake and shudder, Make you tremble like a leaf, Make you crouch in soul and body, Like the life o'ercome with grief. Yet you stand and gaze in wonder, Watch the elements grown dark; Adoration turns to terror, At the least electric spark; Vivid flashes light the heavens, Keep them in perpetual glow, Like aurora borealis From beyond eternal snow. God eternal sends the sunshine, Melts the vapor, chains the cloud, Cages up the lightning flashes, Stops the peels of thunder loud. Changes discord into music, And the soul with it He thrills, From the music on the mountains, Made by leaping, laughing rills. Look! behold the ray that cometh, Fills the earth with hope again, Dissipates the clouds and vapor, With their shadows and their rain. See the sunburst full of glory, Shoot forth rays of gilt and gold, Sung by bards, portrayed by artists Yet its glory ne'er was told. Painters fail to give description, Fail on canvas to portray, Rising sun within the mountains, And the glorious dawn of day; Sages, bards and humble poets, All are pigmies in the eyes Of the one who stands and watches Sunshine from its sleep arise. Picturesque! O scenes eternal! From the dizzy, dizzy heights Of Grandfather, Rone and Linville, From which rivers take their flights. Yadkin, Broad and the Catawbas, Where the Indians used to roam, Are the habitation only Of the white man and his home. High upon the Linville mountains Creeps a silent silver stream, From the shadows of the forest, Like the splendor of a dream, Then it runs amid the boulders, Joins with many sparkling rills, That comes rushing from the forest, Of those high eternal hills, Till its speed becomes augmented, Till you hear the rushing sounds, Of the Linville river raging, As it leaps and falls and bounds, As it dashes through the granite, Falls into the natural pool, Built by nature in the chasm, With its water clear and cool. In the Blue Ridge range of mountains Stand a thousand spires and domes, Built of adamant eternal, From whose base the river roams, Like the maiden Occoneechee, Wanders out replete with tears, Into strange lands, unto strangers, Thru the lapse of passing years, Longing to be reunited, With her fiance forever, From his presence and his wooing, To be separated never. Thus the river and the maiden Rambled through the mountains wild, Seeking for a long lost lover, As a mother seeks her child. Climbs the black dome of the mountain, Richest pinnacle e'er seen; And the landscape lay before her, With its mounds and vales between. Lends enchantment grand and gorgeous, Gives a new lease unto life, And you soon forget you're living In a world of care and strife. Thus Mount Mitchell in the Blue Ridge, Zenith hill among the hills, Sends forth life anew forever, And a thousand rippling rills. In the distance the Savannah's Flows a stream of pure delight, Flows she on, and on forever, Never stopping day or night. For her mission is a true one, And the river ever true, Rolls along the grandest valley, That a river e'er rolled through; Peopled by a population Rich in soul and thought divine, From her source up in the mountains, Till her soul the sea entwines. Turning to the sun that's setting, Setting far beyond the rim, Of the horizon of vision, Where the eyes grow weak and dim, You behold the Swannanoa, Naiad, pure and fresh and sweet, Crystalline, and cool and limpid, Strays some other stream to greet. From the cliffside in the mountains Roll a thousand little streams, Laughing as they greet each other, Where the sunshine never beams; Rippling, idling, swirling slowly, Leaping down a waterfall, You can hear the drops of water, Sweetly to their compeers call. Down the valley glides the river, Murmuring a sad farewell, To the birds and bees and people, Who along its highway dwell; Wishing them a happy future, Wishing them prosperity, While it fills its many missions 'Twixt the mountains and the sea. Bathing rocks, refreshing people, Casting up its silver spray, As it glides along the valley, Flows forever and for aye. Men may move their tents and chattels, Others die or go astray, Still the stream flows fresh forever, Never resting night or day. Giving life unto the flowers, Blooming on its verdant side, As it travels, as it journeys, As its ripples make their stride. In the gloaming of the twilight, When the birds had ceased to fly, And the dazzling dome of heaven Gave resplendence to the sky. Occoneechee, squaw and warrior, Watched the stream, as on it sped, Rippling o'er the pebbly bottom, Lying on its rocky bed; Grasses waving green around them, Nodding boughs bid them adieu, And it wafted them caresses, Like the sunbeams sparkling dew. Precious fragrance filled the valley, From the sweet shrub and the pine, Luscious fruits and ripening melons Lade the apple tree and vine. All along the pretty valley, Harvest fields and curing hay Make the white man rich and happy, Where the warriors used to stray. At the juncture of the river, Where the Indians used to dwell, Where they made their pots of red clay, Made them crude but made them well, Here they tented long and hunted, Fished the Tah-kee-os-tee stream, Strolled along the racing river, Where its rippling waters gleam. Moons passed on, and yet no greetings Came to cheer the wandering maid, Who so long had sought her lover, Till her hopes began to fade, And she felt that she must hasten, Quickly hasten thru the wild, By the rapid river racing, She the nature-loving child. Then they took their little ponies, Girt them with a roebuck hide, Seated on the nimble ponies, Started swiftly on the ride, On to Toxaway the river, On to Toxaway the lake, Where the leaf of vine and alder, Hide the muskrat and the snake. All along the racing river, Gorgeous forest trees are seen, And the wild deer in the forest Dwells beneath the coat of green. Here the beaver, hare and turkey Share their food and come to drink, In the splendid spreading forest, Near the Tah-kee-os-tee's brink. Here they fished and caught the rainbow, Caught the little mountain trout, In the lake and in the river, With their poles both crude and stout; Caught the squirrel and the pheasant, Chased the turkey, deer and bear, Caught a-plenty, all they needed, Yet they had not one to spare. In the sapphire land they lingered Many days and many nights, On the mountains, 'mid the laurel, Looking at the wondrous sights, That will greet you in the mountains, That you see in vales below, As you tread the paths untrodden, As you wander to and fro. In the forest land primeval Where the fountains form their heads, Lies the famous vale of flowers, Splendid valley of pink beds. Every tribe and every hunter Knows this lone secluded spot, From the other vales so famous; When once seen is ne'er forgot. In this vale of flowers and sunshine, Lies the Aidenn, most tranquil, Where the sore and heavy-laden, Gambol peacefully at will; Hear the trill of distant music, Played on Nature's vibrant chime, Resonant with sweetest concord All attuned to perfect time. Here the weary, heavy-laden Soul, may lose his load of care, And the body, sick and wounded, Find an answer to his prayer. Precious incense here arises, From the brasier of the vale That ascends the lofty mountains, By an unseen, trackless trail. Pisgah stands, the peer and rival Of Olympus, famed of old, Where the gods met in their councils, And their consultations held. Looking far across the valleys, They behold on either side, Rivers, vales and gushing fountains, Which forever shall abide. In the distance stands eternal, Junaluska's pretty mound, Which in beauty of the landscape Is the grandest ever found. Rushing streams of purest water, Giving off their silver spray, Add a beauty to the forest, In a new and novel way. And the balsam peaks of fir tree Looks like midnight in the day, Looks like shadows in the sunshine, In the fading far away. Dense and dark and much foreboding Apprehensions do declare, To the one who sleeps beneath them With its flood of balmy air. "Occoneechee, forest dweller, We have traveled many miles, Through the mountains, o'er the valleys, Where the face of Nature smiled; We have tasted of the fountains, Whence breaks forth the Keowee, Nymph of beauty, joy and pleasure, Once the home of Cherokee. We have rested near the water, Seen the fleck and shimmering flow, Of the waters kissed by Nature, Lovely river Tugaloo, Where the Cherokee once rambled, Spoiled 'mid the scenes so wild, Where the forest and the river Have the wood-gods oft beguiled. Wandered o'er the sapphire country, Land which doth the soul delight, With its mounds and vales and rivers; God ne'er made a holier site For the human race to dwell in, Where the human soul can rise, Higher in its aspirations Toward the rich Utopian skies" Here the lyrics sung by Nature, Played upon its strings of gold, Float out on the evening breezes, And its music ne'er grows old, To the soul and life and spirit, Which is bent and bowed with care. This the sweetest land Elysian, To the one who wanders there. Convolutions of the lilies, Tranquil bloom and curve and die, Near the river, 'neath the shadows Of the white pine, smooth and high. Sparkling, gleaming in the sunlight Bursts the water, pure and free, From the rocks high on the mountains, Once the home of Cherokee. Dancing, rippling, roaring, rushing, Comes Tallulah in its rage, Like an eagle bounding forward, From an exit in a cage. In the distance, you behold it Rise and babble, laugh and smile; Then amid the reeds and rushes, Turns and loiters for awhile. Then it curves among the eddies, Hastens on to meet the bend, In the meadows, like the fragrance Borne aloft upon the wind; Silently reflecting sunbeams To the distant verdant hill From its surface calm and placid, Smooth, untarnished little rill; Gleams and glides accelerated, As it gathers, as it grows, As the brook becomes a river, As it ever onward flows; Swirls and turns and dashes downward, Heaves and moans and dashes wild, For a chasm down the canyon, Like a lost, demented child; Furious, frantic, leaps and lashes Down into the great abyss, Falls and foams and seethes forever Where the rocks and river kiss. Tallulah Falls, the work and wonder Of the cycles and the age, Pours its deluge down the ravine, Unobstructed in its rage. Flying fowls of evil omen, Dare not stop it in its flight, Lest the river overwhelm them With its power of strength and might-- Lest the river dash to pieces Bird or beast that would impede Such a torrent as confronts you With its force of fearful speed. Then it rushes fast and furious Into mist and fog and spray, Rises like the ghost of Banquo, Will not linger, stop nor stay. O'er the precipice it plunges, Bounds and surges down the steep, As it gushes forth forever, Toward the blue and boundless deep. In the Appalachian mountains Stands Satulah, high and proud, With its base upon the Blue Ridge, And its head above the cloud. From its top the panorama Rises grandly into view, And presents a thousand landscapes, Every one to Nature true. Round by round the mountains rise up, Round on round, and tier on tier, You behold them in their beauty, Through a vista, bright and clear. Like concentric circles floating, Ebbing on a crystal bay To the distance they're receding, Fading like declining day. Hardby stands the Whiteside Mountain, Like an athlete, strong and tall, Perpendicularly rising As a mighty granite wall; Towering o'er the Cashier's valley, Stretching calmly at its base, Like a bouquet of rich roses Beautifying Nature's vase. High above the other mountains, Whiteside stands in bold relief, With its court house and its cavern Refuge for the soul with grief; Like a monolith it rises To a grand majestic height, Till its crest becomes a mirror, To refract the rays of light. From its summit grand and gorgeous Like a splendid stereoscope, Comes a view yet undiscovered Full of awe, and life and hope. Smiling vales and nodding forests Greet you like a loving child, From the zenith of the mountain, Comes the landscape undefiled. Flying clouds pour forth their shadows, As the curious mystic maze Shrouds the mountains from the vision, With its dark and lowering haze. Fog so dense come stealing o'er you That you know not day from night, Till the rifting of the shadows Makes room for the golden light. In the Blue Ridge, near the headland In the Hamburg scenic mountains, Comes a silver flow of water From a score of dancing fountains, Tripping lightly, leaping gently, Slipping 'neath the underbrush Without noise it creepeth slowly Toward the place of onward rush. Floats along beneath the hemlock, Nods to swaying spruce and pine, Murmurs in its pebbly bottom Holds converse with tree and vine. Winds around the jutting ledges Of translucent spar and flint, With effulgence like the jasper With its glare and gleam and glint. Moving onward, moving ever, In its course o'er amber bed, While the bluejay and the robin Perch in tree top overhead; Perch and sing of joy and freedom, Fill the glen with pleasure's song, As the waters, fresh and sparkling, Rippling, gliding, pass along. Thus the Tuckaseigee river Rises far back in the dell, Where the dank marsh of the mountain Rise and fall, assuage and swell, Till its flow becomes augmented By a thousand little streams Coming from the rocky highlands Through their fissures and their seams. Fills the valley, passes quickly, Trips and falls a hundred feet, Swirls a moment, makes a struggle, Doth the same rash act repeat. Rushes, rages, fumes and surges, Dashes into mist and spray, Heaves and sighs, foments and lashes, As it turns to rush away; Roars and fills the earth and heaven With the pean of its rage, Plunges down deep in the gulches, Where the rocks are worn with age. Maddened by the sudden conflict, Starts anew to rend the wall That confines its turbid waters To the defile and the fall. Once again it leaps and rushes Toward the towering granite wall, And it bounds full many a fathom In its final furious fall. Much it moans and seethes and surges, Starts again at rapid speed, O'er the rocky pot-hole gushes Like a gaited blooded steed. Thus the Tuckaseigee river Falls into the great abyss Down the canyon, rough and rugged, Where the spar and granite kiss. Then it flows still fast and faster, With its flood both bright and clear, Through the cycles ripe with ages Month on month and year on year. Near the apex of the mountains, In the silence of the dale, Where no human foot has trodden Path or road or warrior's trail, From the tarn or seep there drippeth Crystal water bright and free, That becomes a nymph of beauty, Pretty vale of Cullowhee. In the spreading vale the townhouse, And the Indian village stood; In the alcove, well secluded, In the grove of walnut wood. Ancient chiefs held many councils, Sung the war-song, kept the dance, While the squaws and pretty maidens Vie each other in the prance. Cullowhee, thou stream and valley, Once the domicile and home, Of a people free and happy, Free from tribal fear and gloom, Where, O where, are thy great warriors-- Where thy chiefs and warriors bold-- Who once held in strict abeyance Those who plundered you of old? Gone forever are thy warriors, Gone thy chiefs and maidens fair, Vanished like the mist of summer, Gone! but none can tell us where. From their homes were hounded, driven, Like the timid hind or deer, Herded like the driven cattle, Forced from home by gun and spear. "Tell me, vale or rippling water, Tell me if ye can or will, If you've seen my long-lost lover Known as wandering Whippoorwill?" But the water, cool and placid, That comes from the mountain high Swirled a moment, then departing Made no answer or reply. Then the maiden's grief grew greater, As she lingered by the stream Watching for some sign or token Or some vision through a dream; But no dream made revelation, Only sorrow filled her years, And her eyes lost much of luster As her cheeks suffused with tears. Turning thence into the forest Over hill and brook and mound, To the Cullasaja river Through the forest land they wound; Through the tangled brush and ivy, Rough and rugged mountainside, Led the ponies through the forest, Far too steep for them to ride. They descended trails deserted, Where the chieftains used to go, Near the Cullasaja river, Near its rough uneven flow; Camped upon its bank at evening, Heard at night the roar and splash Of the voice of many waters Down the fearful cascade dash. Stood at sunrise where the shadow Of the cliffs cast darkening shade, Where the rainbows chase the rainbow Like as sorrows chased the maid. Traveled down the silver current, Rested often on the way, Strolled the banks and fished the current Of the crystal Ellijay. Pleasantly the winding current Eddies, swirls and loiters free Till it joins the radiant waters Of the little Tennessee; Where the mound stands in the meadow, Once the townhouse capped its crest, There the tribe was wont to gather, Council, plan and seek for rest. To the mound the tribe assembled, From the regions all around, Came from Cowee and Coweeta, Where the Cherokee abound; Came from Nantahala mountains, Skeenah and Cartoogechaye, Nickajack and sweet Iola, And from Choga far away. All the great men and the warriors Brought the women, and their wives, Came by hundreds without number, Like the swarms around the hives; But today there is no warrior, Not a maiden can be found, Tenting on the pretty meadow, Or upon Nik-wa-sa mound. In the Cowee spur of mountains, Stands the Bald and Sentinel, Of the valley and the river, Of the moorland and the dell. Like a pyramid it rises, Layer on layer and flight on flight Till its crest ascends the confines Of the grand imperial height. From its summit far receding, Contours of the mountains rise, Numerous as the constellations In the arched dome of the skies. Far away beyond the valley Double Top confronts the eye, Black Rock rises like a shadow On the blue ethereal sky. Jones' Knob makes its appearance, Highest, grandest height of all Penetrates the vault of heaven, None so picturesque or tall. Wayah, Burningtown and Wesser Raise their bald heads to the cloud High and haughty, rich in beauty And extremely vain and proud. Una and Yalaka mountains Stand so near up by the side Of the Cowee, that you'd take them For its consort or its bride. Festooned, wreathed and decorated With the honeysuckle bloom, And the lady-slipper blossom, There dispels the hour of gloom. Ginseng and the Indian turnip Grow up from their fallow beds In the dark coves of the mountains, With their beaded crimson heads. Fertile fields and stately meadows Stretch along the sylvan streams And surpass the fields Elysian, Seen in visionary dreams. From the summit of the Cowee In the season of the fall, Fog fills all the pretty valley Settles like the deathly pall, Coming from the rill and river, To the isothermal belt, Where the sunbeam meets the fog-line And the frost and ices melt. Jutting tops of verdant mountains Penetrate the fog below, As the islands in the ocean Form the archipelago. Sea of fog stands out before you, With its islands and its reef Silent and devoid of murmur As the quivering aspen leaf. "Occoneechee, look to Northland, See the Smoky Mountains rise, Like a shadow in the valley Or a cloud upon the skies. Many days since you beheld them In their grand, majestic height; Many days from these you've wandered From their fountains, pure and bright. "Hie thee to the Smoky Mountains, Tarry not upon the plain, Linger not upon the border Of the fields of golden grain. Flee thee as a kite or eagle, Not a moment stop or stay, Hasten to Oconaluftee, Be not long upon the way. "I have much to speak unto you E'er I take my final leave, Some will sadden, some will gladden, Some bring joy and some will grieve. All our legends, myths and stories Soon will fall into decay, And I must transmit them to you E'er I turn to go away. "Mount thee, mount thee quick this pony, Spryly spring upon its back, Leave no vestige, sign or token Or the semblance of a track, Whereby man may trace or trail thee, In the moorland or morass, By the radiant river flowing Or secluded mountain pass. "Grasp the reins, hold fast the girdle, Like flamingoes make your flight To the great dome of the mountain That now gleams within your sight. Clingman's Dome, the crowning glory Of the high erupted hills, They will shield you and protect you, With its cliffs and rolling rills." Sped they like the rolling current, Sped they like a gleam of light, Sped they as the flying phantom Or a swallow in its flight, To their refuge in the mountain, To the temple of the earth, Near the lonely spot secluded, That had known her from her birth. Standing, gazing, watching, peering, Through the azure atmosphere, At the wilderness before you And the scene both rich and clear. Cerulean the gorgeous mountains Rise and loom up in your sight, Like a splendid constellation On a crisp autumnal night. 'Twixt the fall and winter season, Comes a tinge of milky haze, Stealing o'er the Smoky Mountains, Shutting out the solar rays, Flooding vales and filling valleys, Coming, creeping, crawling slow, Fills the firmament with shadows As with crystal flakes of snow. Through the haze and mist and shadows You discern a ball of fire, From the rim of Nature rising As a knighted funeral pyre; Yet it moveth slowly upward, Creeps aloft along the sky, As a billow on the ocean Meets the ship, then passes by. This you say is Indian summer, Tepid season of the year, When glad harvest songs ascendeth Full of hope and love and cheer. From Penobscot, down the Hudson, By the Susquehanna wild, Through the Shenandoah valley Roamed the forest-loving child. Roamed the Mohawk and the Huron, Seneca and Wyandot, Delaware and the Mohican, Long since perished and forgot. Powhattan and Tuscarora, And the wandering Showano, Creek and Seminole and Erie, Miami and Pamlico, Chicasaw and the Osages, Kickapoo and Illinois, Ottawas and Susquehannas, Objibwas and Iroquois, Once enjoyed the Indian summers, Once to all this land was heir, Sportive, free and lithe and happy, Chief and maid and matron fair. As the blossoms in the forest Bloom, then fall into decay, So the mighty tribes here mentioned, Flourished, so traditions say; Then the coming of the white man, Spread consternation far and wide; Then decay and desolation Conquered all their manly pride. Treaties made were quickly broken And their homes were burned with fire, Which provoked the mighty tribesmen And aroused their vengeful ire. Furious raids on hostile savage With the powder-horn and gun, Soon reduced the noble red man Slowly, surely, one by one, Till not one now roams the forest, None are left to tell the tale; All their guns and bows are broken, None now for them weep or wail. Only names of streams and mountains Keep the memory aglow, Of the noble, brave and fearless Red men of the long ago. Cherokee, the seed and offspring Residue of Iroquois, Silently are disappearing Without pageantry or noise. Though more civil and more learned And much wiser than the rest, They will be amalgamated, By the white man in the West. Occoneechee and the chieftain Talked of all that they had seen, Of the flow of pretty rivers And the matchless mountains green, Of the ferns and pretty flowers, Parterre of rarest hue, Tint of maroon, white and yellow, Saffron, lilac, red and blue. Held they converse of their travels, Of the wilderness sublime, Of the myths and happy legends Told through yielding years of time. Of the wars and tales forgotten, Of the chiefs and warriors brave Who long since have run their journey, Who now sleep within the grave. At those tales the maiden wept loud, Sought for solace thru a sigh, Much o'ercome by thoughts of loved ones, And she prayed that she might die High upon the Smoky Mountains, Where no human soul can trace The seclusions of the forest To her lonely burial place. Bitterly she wailed in sorrow, Saying "Tell me, tell me why I am left out here so lonely, And my tears are never dry? Why he comes not at my calling, Why he roams some lonely way, Why does he not come back to me-- Why does he not come and stay? "Why and where now does he linger? Tell me, silver, crescent moon, Shall our parting be forever-- Shall our hopes all blast at noon? When love's bright star shines the brightest Shall it be the sooner set? Shall we e'er be reunited, Tell me, while hope lingers yet! "Does he linger in the mountains, Far up toward the radiant sky? Tell me, blessed God of Nature, Tell me, blessed Nunnahi. Has some evil spirit seized him, Hid or carried him away Far beyond the gleaming sunset, Far out toward the close of day? "Will he come back with the morning, Borne upon its wings of light, From the shade that long has lingered, From the darkness of the night? Is there none to bring me answer? Speak, dear Nature, tell me where I may find my long lost lover, Is my final feeble prayer." Then the chieftain, grand and noble, Came and lingered by her side, Like a lover in devotion Lingers near a loving bride. Then in accents like a clarion, Sweet and clear, but gently said, "Whippoorwill, my friend, your lover, Comes again, he is not dead! "I will go and hunt your lover, And will bring him to your side; I will roam the forest ever, And will cease to be your guide; I will find the one you've looked for, And will tell him that you live; I will tell him of your rambles, And will all my future give, "Till I find him in the forest, Or upon the flowing brink Of the Coosa river flowing, Where he used to often drink. In the everglades may linger, 'Neath the shade of some cool palm, Sweetest refuge of the lowlands, With its air of purest balm. "Where the Seminole in silence, Made their refuge, long ago, From the fierce onslaught of Jackson, And exterminating woe. He may listen in the silence And the solitude of night, For some friendly sign or token Whereby he may make his flight. "When I've found him we will travel, We will travel night and day, We will hasten on our journey, Will not linger nor delay, We will speed along the valley Like the wind before the rain, We will neither stop nor tarry, Never from our speed refrain. "We will rush along the river, Like the maddened swollen tide, Like a leaf upon the cyclone Rushing forward in its pride; Over winter's snow and ices We will rush with greatest speed, Like a herd of frightened cattle Or a trained Kentucky steed. "I will tell him of your travels Into lands he's never seen, With their forests and their flowers, And their leaves of living green; How for years you've looked and waited, Watched the trail and mountainside, Watched and hoped long for him coming, That you might become his bride. "I am John Ax, Stagu-Nahi! Much I love the mountains wild! Friend of those who love the forest, Friend of those who love you, child. I bespeak a special blessing To attend you while I go Into strange lands, unto strangers, Hither, thither, to and fro." Then he pressed her to his bosom, Breathed a silent, parting prayer To the Nunnahi in heaven, For the lovely maid so fair; Prayed and blessed her, then departed Thru primeval forests wild, Sped he by the rolling waters, Heard them laugh and saw them smile. Sped he by the Coosa river, Where great brakes of waving cane, Bend before the blowing breezes, Like the waves of wind and rain. Took the trails where once the chieftain Strode at will in lordly pride, By the Coosa river flowing In its smooth, unrippled tide. Downward, onward, free and easy, Swirls and turns and travels slow, As it glitters in the sunlight, As its waters onward go. Sees the trail almost extinguished By the pretty Etawa, Where once dwelt in great profusion, Chief and maid and tawny squaw. Traveled far the Tallapoosa Into fen and deep morass, Through the wildwood, glade and forest Dark defile and narrow pass; Footsore, lame and often hungry, Traveled onward day and night, Like the wild goose speeding forward In its semi-annual flight. O'er the glebes of Alabama, Crossed the hill and stream and dale, To the Tuskaloosa flowing Near the ancient Indian trail, Now deserted and forsaken Is the war path and the land, By the Creek and great Muscogas Wandering, wild, nomadic band. Pensive, lonely and dejected, Penetrated he the wild, Over fen and bog and prairie, Into climates soft and mild. By lagoon and lake and river, By the deep translucent bay, Followed he the sun's direction, Many a night and sunlit day. Crossed the Mississippi delta, Wound through many moor and fen, Saw the shining stars at midnight, And the dawn of days begin; Heard the tramp of bear and bison, Heard the wild wolf's dismal howl, Saw the glowworm in the rushes, Heard the whippoorwill and owl. Heard the alligator bellow, Saw him swim the broad bayou, Saw the egret, crane and heron, Wading stark and tree-cuckoo. Trackless miles spread out before him, Stretching leagues of gama grass Lay across the course he traveled, Lay out where he had to pass. Dangling mosses from the tree tops, Swung by swaying winds and breeze, Cling with tendrils to the branches, Of the mighty live oak trees. Soft as lichens, light as feathers Was the tall untrodden grass, On the prairie and the meadow, And the spreading rich morass. Tranquil, peacefully and quiet Did the moons and moments wane, Till he came to Oklahoma, Into his own tribe's domain; Here he rested for a season, Ate the food and drank for health In the land of Oklahoma, Land of perfect natural wealth. Oklahoma, red man's country, Blest above all other lands, In her natural soil and climate, In her ore-beds and her sands; In her fertile fields and valleys, In her people, true and great, Cherokee and Creek and Choctaws Make the people of the state. Here's a land transformed in beauty, Touched and tilled by busy toil, Responds quickly to the tiller, Products of a generous soil. Fruits and flowers forever growing, Fields of gold and snowy white, Songs of harvest home and plenty Sung to every one's delight. Here with labor, love and patience, There arose an empire great, Which when settled, tilled and treated, Has become a powerful state; Filled with people true and honest, Filled with people thrifty too, And the land is flat and fertile, Best that mortals ever knew. Once where roamed the bear and bison, Where the she wolf and the owl Made their home and habitation, And the foxes used to prowl; Where the serpent coiled and waited, Hid beneath the waving grass To inject his fangs and venom In some human as he'd pass, Now there thrives the busy city, Bristling with the throb and thrill Of the commerce of a nation, Growing greater, growing still. All her farms and fields and ranches, Groan beneath their heavy load Of waving grain and lowing cattle; All the land with wealth is strewed. Then he rose up like the morning, From his slumber and his rest, To converse there with the chieftains Among whom he'd been a guest. Then he spoke of Carolina Toward the rising of the sun, Full of hope and awe and splendor Where his early life begun. And he spoke of Occoneechee In the land of hills and streams, In the land of wooded forests, Land of love and fondest dreams; Land where myths and mirth commingle, Where aspiring peaks point high, To the dials of the morning In the sweet "Land of the sky." Spoke he also of a chieftain, Known to her as Whippoorwill, Who once dwelt within the forest, Near a pleasant little rill, In the dark fens of the mountains, Back where oak and birchen grove Cast their shadows o'er the valley O'er the cliffs and deepest cove. Where glad song of the nightingale Is the sweetest ever heard, And far exceeds in melody, The trill of the mocking-bird. From the matutinal dawning Till the falling shades of night The songster sings in mellow tones To the auditor's delight. Long in silence sat the chieftain, Long he listened quite intent, To the story of the stranger, Catching all he said and meant, Of the maiden of the mountains, Of the trees and songs of bird, And the story lingered with him, Every syllable and word. Then the chieftain made inquiry Of the stranger true and bold, Who now came to tarry with them, Who was growing gray and old, Of the health and habitation Of the Eastern tribal band Who still dwelt amid the Smokies In his own sweet native land; Where his heart felt first the wooing, Where his hope of youth ran high, 'Mid the hills of Carolina In the sweet "Land of the sky." In the land of flowers and sunshine, Land of silver-flowing streams, Land of promise full of blessings And of legends, myths and dreams; Land of pretty maids and matrons, Home where generous hearts are true, Where the sunshine chases shadows Down the vaults of vaporous blue. Where the wild flight of the eagle Soars beyond the keenest eye, In recesses of the heavens, In the blue ethereal sky. Rifting rocks and rolling rivers Doth adorn the hill and vale, Lilting melodies float outward On the vortex of the gale; This the land of Occoneechee, Land that Junaluska saw, Home of warrior, chief and maiden, Land of dauntless brave and squaw. Let us go back to those mountains, Once more let us view those hills, And let me hear the voice once more Of the laughing streams and rills; And let me view with raptured eye The blossom of tree and vine, Once more inhale the sweet ozone, Under tulip tree and pine. Those hills, delectable mountains, Outrival the scenes of Greece, Surpass in beauty and grandeur The Eagle or Golden Fleece. Those shrines and temples of granite, Glad sentinels of the free! There let me roam through dell once more, Let me glad and happy be. Some speak of splendid balmy isles, Far out in the rolling sea, Of spicy groves, and vine-clad hills, And of things which are to be; Of nymphs and naiads of the past, Of lands of the brave and free, But none of these can e'er surpass The hills of Cherokee; The hills where roamed the dusky maid, And the home of Whippoorwill, Where Occoneechee dreamed at night, By the gushing stream and rill. By strange enchanted mystic lake Where the wildest beasts are seen, Far back in the deep recess Of the mountain's verdure green. "Let autumn's wind blow swift its gale, The season of summer flee, But I will soon my lover meet, In the 'land of the brave and free,' I'll leave Tahlequah in the West, With this warrior at my side. We'll travel as the fleetest winds Unless ill fates betide. "While the morrow's stars are glowing, In the dials of the morn, I will start upon the journey, To the land where I was born." So he gathered up his chattels, Springing spryly on his steed, Made inquiry of the warrior, "Which of us shall take the lead?" Then the warrior to the chieftain Quick replied, "I'll lead the way Far across the hill and valley, Mounted on this splendid bay." Then they said to friend and neighbor, Old-time chief and child and squaw, "At the dawning, we will leave you, Leave the town of Tahlequah; "Leave the tribe and reservation, For a journey to the East, Where the tribesmen dwell together, Meet serenely, drink and feast, In a land where peace and pleasure Vie each other in the pace, Where the hopes of life are brightest To the fallen human race." Just then came a gleam like lightning, Shooting forth its silver ray, Which precedes the golden splendor Of the fast approaching day. This the advent and the token For the brave to lead the way Out across the plain and valley Toward the coming king of day. Then they seized the spear and trident, Bow and tomahawk and knife, And they left the scenes of conflict, With its turmoil and its strife; And they journeyed ever eastward, Days and many a-waning moon, Crossing river, lake and prairie, Spreading field and broad lagoon. Saw the Wabash and Missouri, Cumberland and Tennessee, Saw the Holston in its beauty And the town of Chilhowee. Looked down on the Nolachucky, Saw Watauga's crystal flow Gleam from out the moon's reflection From the canyon's depths below. Neptune, who pervades the water, Ne'er beheld a holier sight Than this happy, hopeful chieftain Did that crisp autumnal night. While he looked upon the water Bright and pure and crystalline, Fairest land and purest water Mortal eye had ever seen; He beheld there in his vision Such a Naiad divine, That he put forth his endeavors, That he might the maid entwine; But she flew back like a phantom, Back into the crescent wave, From the presence of the chieftain And the relegated brave; Flew back from him and departed And was lost to human eye; All that now lay out before him Was the stream and earth and sky. Full of disappointing beauty, Was the earth and sky and stream, When divested of the grandeur Of the vision and the dream. Then he rambled through the mountains Over crag and rugged steep, Through the laurel bed and ivy By exertion did he creep; Through the hemlock and the balsam Under oak and birchen tree, Gazing through the heath before him If perchance that he might see In the dim, dark, hazel distance, Far out on the mountainside Occoneechee, pure and lovely, Whom he longed to make his bride; Make his bride and dwell there with her 'Mid aspiring peak and dome; Longed to have her sit beside him, In his peaceful mountain home. Wandered through the Craggy mountains Where no human foot had trod, And no eye had yet beheld it, Save the eye of Nature's God. For the spreading tree and forest Grew from out the virgin soil, And was free from all intrusions Of the white man's skill and toil. Now their speed was much retarded, Trails once plain were now unkept, And the chief and brave lamenting Laid themselves down there and wept; Wept for chiefs like Uniguski, Sequoya and Utsala, In the land of Tuckaleechee And for friends like Wil-Usdi. [1] Turning from his grief and sorrow For the chiefs of long ago, Ceasing all his deep repining From the burden of his woe, Looking far o'er hill and valley He beheld the gilded dome Of the Smokies in the distance, Near old Junaluska's home. Then the chieftain's hope grew stronger, As he looked upon the scene Of that splendid mountain forest With its crest of evergreen; Like a black cloud in the winter, Spreads upon the mountainside, This the forest land primeval That stands there in lordly pride, This the forest land primeval, Where the chieftains used to roam, Joined in chase of bear and bison, Once the red deer's winter home. Black and deep and dense the forest, Steep and high the cliffside stands, Where the Cherokee once wandered In their wild nomadic bands. As they gazed upon the scenery, Weird and wild and full of awe, They were filled with consternation At the sight both of them saw. Passing high up near the zenith Like an eagle in its flight Came the sound of wings and voices, On that moonlit autumn night. Voices like the rolling thunder Came resounding far and near, And the meteoric flashes Filled them full of awe and fear; Till they trembled like the aspen 'Mid the tempest fierce and wild, Till it passes, then reposes, Calmly as a little child. Said the brave then to the chieftain, "This my token to depart, I must quickly make my exit, Though it grieves my soul and heart Thus to leave you in the forest, Out upon the mountainside, Without hope or friend or shelter, With no one to be your guide; "These the Nunnahi in heaven, Come to lead me far away, Over hill and dale and valley, Toward the final close of day. You will miss me in the morning, Miss me at the noon and night, When I'm mounted on my pinions And am lost to human sight. "Yet a moment I'm allotted To transmit to you my will; High here on the Smoky Mountains Near the bright translucent rill, Let me tell you while life lingers In the archives of my breast, Where you'll find sweet Occoneechee When my soul has flown to rest: "She still lingers in the forest, Near the sweet enchanted lake, Near the spirit land she lingers, Underneath the tangled brake. She holds all our myths and legends, Tales as told long years ago. Now I bid you leave me lonely To my fate of weal or woe. "Leave me quick, the spirits call me, Linger not within my sight, Hie thee quickly through the shadows Of this crisp autumnal night. Tell our friend, sweet Occoneechee, That I've gone to join the band Of the braves who have departed For the happy hunting land." Then a shadow passed between them, Like a cloud upon the sky, And the chief was separated There upon the mountain high, From his guide and friend forever, So his eye could never see. Whence he traveled, none returneth To explain the mystery. Thus bereft of friend and neighbor, Whippoorwill began to wail, For some mystic hand to guide him Back into the trodden trail, Where some chief had gone before him In the years that long had flown, Out upon the mystic ages, Now forgotten and unknown. But no spirit, sign or token Came from out the vista fair, Nothing saw, nor nothing heard he, Save the earth and scenery fair. As he stood and gazed in silence, Motionless and calm as death, Stillness reigned on hill and valley And the chieftain held his breath, While he strained his ears and vision, Listening, looking here and there, Waiting, watching, simply trusting For an answer to his prayer. Suddenly he heard the calling Of a voice so sweet and clear, That he answered, quickly answered, Though his heart was filled with fear. And the voice from out the forest, Called as calls the mating bird, In the bower in the springtime, Sweetest call that e'er was heard, Resonant comes, softly trilling, Sweetly to its lingering mate, In the silence of the forest, As they for each other wait. Then the chieftain bounded forward, Like a hound upon the trail, Thru the forest land primeval Over mound and hill and dale; Over ridge and rock and river, Thru the heath and brush and grass, Thru the land of the Uktena, Thru it all he had to pass. Till he reached the mystic region, Far back in the darkest glen, Near the lake of the enchanted Only known to bravest men. Here the bear and owl and panther, Find a cure for every ill, Find life's sweetest panacea, Near the sparkling crystal rill, High upon the Smoky Mountains Resonant with Nature wild, For the wanderer from the distance, And the tawny Indian child. This the forest land primeval, Full of awe and dread and dreams, Full of ghouls and ghosts and goblins, Full of rippling crystal streams. From the stream down in the ravine, Came another gentle call, Like the chirping of the robin, In the hemlocks straight and tall. Once again the call repeated, Then a sudden little trill Floated out upon the breezes, From beside the crystal rill. Then the chieftain whistled keenly Like a hawk upon the wing, When it soars above the mountain, On the balmy air of spring. Then another chirping, chirping, Came from deep down in the vale, And it floated up the mountain Like a leaf upon the gale. Now the chieftain, moved by caution, Watched and moved with greatest care, Down and thru the deepest gulches, Looking here, observing there, For the bird or beast or human, That could send out such a call, From the laurel near the fountain And a splendid waterfall. Suddenly his heart beat faster, At the sight which came to view, Through the opening in the laurel As it parts to let him thru. She was bathing feet and ankles, Arms and hands she did refresh In the iridescent splendor, Of the fountain cool and fresh. Then he bounds forth quick to greet her, E'er she sees him by her side, She the maiden true and holy, Who was soon to be his bride. "O, I see you, Occoneechee!" "And I see you, Whippoorwill!" Were the greetings that they whispered As they met there near the rill. They were married in the morning, He the groom and she the bride, And they lived in bliss together, Many years before they died; Now their spirits dwell together, Near the hidden mystic shore, Of the lake back in the shadows Since their wanderings are o'er. And at night the legends tell us, You can hear a man and bride Hold converse of trail and travel, High upon the mountainside; And the soul of Occoneechee, Lingers near the rippling rill, High upon the Smoky Mountains, With her lover Whippoorwill. PART III MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE "I know not how the truth may be, I tell the tale as 'twas told me." The myths related here are from the great story tellers like Ayunini, or "Swimmer," who was the greatest of all, but while he ranked first and lived during the time that tried men's hearts, having been born about 1835, and died in March, 1899, his stories can only be perpetuated by putting them in print, and we are indebted to him for many of these beautiful stories, which should be perpetuated at least so long as one of the Cherokee tribe shall live. Next in rank of importance comes Itagunahi, better known among the English-speaking people as John Axe, who was born in the year 1800, saw the battle of Horseshoe Bend, witnessed the removal of the Cherokee tribe in 1838. He knew its history and almost all of the myths, legends and stories, transmitted many of them to the white man for record, and while he never spoke English, he was a very versatile and interesting man of the old type of Indians, and strong to the last days; he lived to near 100 years, then passed to the Happy Hunting Grounds. To John D. Wofford, of the Western Reservation or tribe, we are indebted for much information, which would have been lost except for his wonderful knowledge. All the story-tellers prefaced their remarks by saying, "This is what the old folks used to tell us when we were boys." Cherokee myths may be classified as sacred myths, animal stories, local legends, and historical traditions. The sacred myths were not for every one, but only those might hear who observed the proper form and ceremony. In the old times the myth-keepers and priests were accustomed to meet together at night in the asi, or low-built log sleeping house, to recite the traditions and discuss their secret knowledge. At times those who desired instruction from an adept in the sacred lore of the tribe would meet the priest by appointment in the asi, where they sat up all night talking, with only the light of a small fire burning in the middle of the floor. At daybreak the whole party went down to the running stream, where the pupils or hearers of the myths stripped themselves and were scratched upon the naked skin with a bone tooth comb in the hands of the priest, after which they waded out, facing the rising sun, and dipped seven times under the water, while the priest recited prayers upon the bank. The purificatory rite, which was observed more than a century ago by Adair, is also a part of the ceremonial of the ball play, the green-corn dance, and, in fact, every important ritual performance. Before beginning one of the stories of the sacred class the informant would sometimes suggest jokingly that the author first submit to being scratched and, "Go to water." MYTH ONE. HOW THE WORLD WAS MADE. The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break, and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this. When all was water, the animals were above the Galunlati, beyond the arch; but it was very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below the water, and at last Dayunisi, "Beaver's Grandchild," the little Water-beetle, offered to go and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread in every direction until it became an island which we call the earth. It was afterwards fastened to the sky, but no one remembers who did it. At first the earth was flat, and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down, and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and came back again to Galunlati. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the buzzards we see now. He flew all over the earth, low down, near the ground, and it was still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the ground, and wherever they struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again, there was a mountain. When the animals above saw this, they were afraid the whole earth would be mountains, so they called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day. When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the sun and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just overhead. It was too hot this way, and Tsiskagili, the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched red, so that his meat was spoiled; and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the sun another hand-breadth higher in the air, but it was still too hot. They raised it another time, and another, until it was seven hand-breadths high, and just under the sky arch. Then it was right, and they left it so. This is why the conjurers call the highest place "Gulkwagine Digalunlatiyun," "the seven height," because it is seven hand-breadths above the earth. Every day the sun goes along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the starting place. There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything--animals, plants, and people--save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the mountains are the trails by which the people reach the underworld, and the springs at their heads are the doorways by which they enter it, but to do this one must fast and go to water and have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underground are different from ours, because the water in the springs is warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer than the outer air. When the animals and the plants were first made--we do not know by whom--they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep awake when they pray to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake through the first night, but the next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh night, of all the animals, only the owl, the panther and one or two more were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about in the dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees, only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said: "Because you have not endured to the end you shall lose your hair every winter." Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since. MYTH TWO. THE FIRST FIRE. In the beginning there was no fire, and the world was cold, until the Thunders (Ani-Hyuntikwalaski) who lived up in Galunlati, sent their lightning and put fire into the bottom of a hollow sycamore tree, which grew on an island. The animals knew it was there, because they could see the smoke coming out at the top, but they could not get to it on account of the water, so they held a council to decide what to do. This was a long time ago. Every animal that could fly or swim was anxious to go after the fire. The Raven offered, and because he was so large and strong they thought he could surely do the work, so he was sent first. He flew high and far across the water and alighted on the sycamore tree, but while he was wondering what to do next, the heat had scorched all his feathers black, and he was frightened and came back without the fire. The little Screech-owl (Wahuhu) volunteered to go, and reached the place safely, but while he was looking down in the hollow tree a blast of hot air came up and nearly burned out his eyes. He managed to fly home as best he could, but it was a long time before he could see well, and his eyes are red to this day. Then the Hooting Owl (Uguku) and the Horned Owl (Tskili) went, but by the time they got to the hollow tree the fire was burning so fiercely that the smoke nearly blinded them, and the ashes carried up by the wind made white rings about their eyes. They had to come home again without the fire, but with all of their rubbing they were never able to get rid of the white rings. Now, no more of the birds would venture, and so the little Uksuhi snake, the Black Racer, said he would go through the water and bring back some fire. He swam across to the island and crawled through the grass to the tree, and went in by a small hole at the bottom. The heat and smoke were too much for him, too, and after dodging about blindly over the hot ashes until he was almost on fire himself he managed by good luck to get out again at the same hole, but his body had scorched black, and he has ever since had the habit of darting and doubling on his track as if trying to escape from close quarters. He came back, and the great Blacksnake, Gulegi, "The Climber," offered to go for the fire. He swam over to the island and climbed up the tree on the outside, as the blacksnake always does, but when he put his head down into the hole the smoke choked him so that he fell into the burning stump, and before he could climb out again he was as black as the Uksuhi. Now, they held another council, for still there was no fire, and the world was cold, but the birds, snakes and four-footed animals all had some excuse for not going, because they were all afraid to venture near the burning sycamore, until at last Kananeski Amaiyehi (the Water Spider) said she would go. This is not the water spider that looks like a mosquito, but the other one, with black downy hair and red stripes on her body. She can run on the water or dive to the bottom, so there would be no trouble to get over to the island, but the question was, how could she bring back the fire? "I'll manage that," said the spider, so she spun a thread from her body and wove it into a tusti bowl, which she fastened on her back. Then she crossed over to the island and through the grass to where the fire was still burning. She put one little coal of fire into her bowl, and came back with it, and ever since we have had fire, and the spider still keeps her tusti bowl. MYTH THREE. ORIGIN OF THE PLEIADES AND THE PINE. Long ago, when the world was new, there were seven boys who used to spend all their time down by the town-house, playing the gatayusti game, rolling a stone wheel along the ground and sliding a curved stick after it to strike it. Their mothers scolded but it did no good, so one day they collected some gatayusti stones and boiled them in the pot with the corn for dinner. When the boys came home hungry their mothers dipped out the stones and said, "Since you like the gatayusti better than the cornfield, take the stones now for your dinner." The boys were very angry, and went down to the town-house, saying, "As our mothers treat us this way, let us go where we shall never trouble them any more." They began a dance--some say it was the feather dance--and went round and round the town-house, praying to the spirits to help them. At last their mothers were afraid something was wrong and went out to look for them. They saw the boys still dancing around the town-house, and as they watched they noticed that their feet were off the earth, and that with every round they rose higher and higher in the air. They ran to get their children, but it was too late, for they were already above the roof of the town-house--all but one, whose mother managed to pull him down with the gatayusti pole, but he struck the ground with such force that he sank into it and the earth closed over him. The other six children circled higher and higher until they went up to the sky, where we see them now as the pleiades, which the Cherokee still calls "Anitsutsa" (the Boys). The people grieved long after them, but the mother whose boy had gone into the ground came every morning and evening to cry over the spot, until the earth was damp with her tears. At last a little green shoot sprouted up and grew day by day until it became the tall tree that we now call the pine, and the pine is still of the same nature as the stars and holds in itself the same bright light. MYTH FOUR. THE MILKY WAY. Some people in the South had a corn mill, in which they pounded the corn into meal, and several mornings when they came to fill it they noticed that some of the meal had been stolen during the night. They examined the ground, and found the tracks of a dog; so the next night they watched, and when the dog came from the North, and began to eat the meal out of the bowl, they sprang out and whipped him. He ran off howling to his home in the North, with the meal dropping from his mouth as he ran, and leaving behind a white trail where now we see the Milky Way, which the Cherokee calls to this day Gili-utsunstanunyi, "Where the dog ran." MYTH FIVE. THE DELUGE. A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was very angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes, you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worked off so that the bones stuck out. Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions, and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the water went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now, there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the Ghosts had been dancing. MYTH SIX. HOW THE TERRAPIN BEAT THE RABBIT. The Rabbit was a great runner and a great boaster of what she could do. No one thought that a Terrapin was anything but a slow traveler, but he was a great warrior and very boastful, and the two were always disputing about their speed. At last they agreed to decide the matter by a race. They fixed the day and the starting place, and arranged to run across four mountain ridges, and the one who came in first at the end of the race was to be the winner. The Rabbit felt so sure of it that he said to the Terrapin, "You know you can't run. You know you can never win the race, so I'll give you the first ridge and then you'll have three to cross while I go over four." The Terrapin said that would be all right, but that night when he went home to his family he sent for his Terrapin friends and told them he wanted their help. He said he knew he could not outrun the Rabbit, but he wanted to stop the Rabbit's boasting. He explained his plan to his friends and they agreed to help him. When the day came all the animals were there to see the race. The Rabbit was there with them, but the Terrapin was gone ahead toward the first ridge, as they had arranged, and they could hardly see him on account of the tall grass. The word was given and the Rabbit ran off with long jumps up the mountain, expecting to win the race before the Terrapin could get down on the other side. But before he got up the mountain he saw the Terrapin go over the ridge ahead of him. He ran on, and when he reached the top he looked all around, but could not see the Terrapin on account of the long grass. He kept on down the mountain and began to climb the second ridge, but when he looked up again there was the Terrapin just going over the top. Now he was very much surprised, and made his longest jumps to catch up, but when he got to the top there was the Terrapin away in front going over the third ridge. The Rabbit was getting tired now and nearly out of breath, but he kept on down the mountain and up the other ridge until he got to the top just in time to see the Terrapin cross the fourth ridge and thus win the race. The Rabbit could not make another jump, but fell over on the ground, crying, "mi, mi, mi, mi," as the Rabbit does ever since when he is too tired to run any more. The race was given to the Terrapin, and all the animals wondered how he could win against the Rabbit, but he kept still and never told. It was easy enough, however, because all the Terrapin's friends look just alike, and he had simply posted one near the top of each ridge to wait until the Rabbit came in sight and then climb over and hide in the long grass. When the Rabbit came on he could not find the Terrapin and so thought the Terrapin was ahead, and if he had met one of the other Terrapins he would have thought it the same one, because they look so much alike. The real Terrapin had posted himself on the fourth ridge, so as to come in at the end of the race and be ready to answer questions if the animals suspected anything. Because the Rabbit had to lie down and lose the race the conjurer now, when preparing his young men for the ball play, boils a lot of rabbit hamstrings into soup, and sends some one to pour it across the path along which the other players have to come in the morning, so that they may become tired in the same way and lose the game. It is not always easy to do this, because the other party is expecting it and has watchers ahead to prevent it. MYTH SEVEN. THE RABBIT AND THE TAR WOLF. Once there was such a long spell of dry weather that there was no more water in the creeks and springs, and the animals held a council to see what to do about it. They decided to dig a well, and all agreed to help except the Rabbit, who was a lazy fellow, and said, "I don't need to dig for water. The dew on the grass is enough for me." The others did not like this, but they went to work together and dug the well. They noticed by and by that the Rabbit kept sleek and lively, although it was still dry weather and the water was getting low in the well. They said, "That tricky Rabbit steals our water at night," so they made a wolf of pine gum and tar and set it up by the well to scare the thief. That night the Rabbit came, as he had been coming every night, to drink enough to last him all next day. He saw the queer black thing by the well and said, "Who's there?" but the tar wolf said nothing. He came nearer, but the wolf never moved, so he grew braver and said, "Get out of my way or I will kick you." Still the wolf never moved and the Rabbit came up and struck it with its front foot, but the tar held it fast. Now he was angry and said: "Turn my foot loose, or I will strike you with my other front foot"; still the wolf said nothing. Then the Rabbit struck the wolf with his other foot, and it stuck, and the Rabbit said, "Turn my foot loose or I will kick you," and still the wolf was silent, and then the rabbit kicked with his right hind foot so hard that it stuck, and still the wolf said nothing; and the Rabbit said, "If you don't turn my foot loose, I will kick you with my left hind foot, which never fails to accomplish what I want it to do"; yet the wolf was silent, and the Rabbit made his last kick and the foot stuck, just as the others had done. The Rabbit plead with the wolf to let him go, and yet no response came, and, at last, when he found he was stuck fast with his feet, he said: "If you don't turn me loose I will butt you with all my might," and in his desperation, he struck with all his force, and his head stuck fast to the wolf. In the morning all the animals came down to the well to drink as usual, and found the Rabbit stuck fast to the wolf of tar, and they began to discuss what disposition to make of him, so one suggested that they cut his head off, to which the Rabbit replied, "Please do cut my head off, for it is such an easy death to die," but this aroused the suspicion of the animals, so that the fox said, "No, we will not do this for he deserves a harsher death than this," whereupon they all agreed. Then the Wolf suggested that they burn him alive, to which the Rabbit said, "Please Mr. Wolf, have me burned, for that will be so easy," but this did not please the audience, and another suggested that they take him to the briar patch, and throw him into the thickest part of the sharp briars to scratch him to pieces, to which the Rabbit said, "Oh, Mr. Fox, please do not allow me to be thrown into the briars for they stick and scratch me so much that I could never stand the pain"; and they all with one accord exclaimed, "Throw him in," and they threw him into the briars, and the Rabbit sped away as fast as he could, saying, "This is where I was reared, this is my home, and this is all that I could desire." MYTH EIGHT. THE RABBIT AND THE POSSUM AFTER A WIFE. The Rabbit and the Possum each wanted a wife, but no one would marry either of them. They talked the matter over and the Rabbit said, "We can't get wives here; let's go to the next settlement. I'm the messenger for the council, and I'll tell the people that I bring an order that everybody must take a mate at once, and then we'll be sure to get wives." The Possum thought this a fine plan, so they started off together to the next town. As the Rabbit traveled faster he got there first and waited outside until the people noticed him and took him into the town-house. When the chief came to ask him his business the Rabbit said he brought an important message from the council that everybody must get married without delay. So the chief called the people together and told them the message from the council, whereupon every animal took a mate at once, and the Rabbit got a wife. The Possum traveled so slowly that he got there after all the animals had mated, leaving him still without a wife. The Rabbit pretended to feel sorry for him and said, "Never mind, I'll carry the message to the people in the next settlement, and you hurry on as fast as you can, and this time you will get your wife." So he went on to the next town, and the Possum followed close after him. But when the Rabbit got to the town-house, he sent out the word that, as there had been peace so long there that everybody was getting lazy, the council had ordered that there must be war at once, and they must begin right in the town-house. So they all began fighting, but the Rabbit made four great leaps and got away just as the Possum came in. Everybody jumped on the Possum, who had not thought of bringing his weapons on a wedding trip, and so could not defend himself. They had nearly beaten the life out of him when he fell over and pretended to be dead until he saw a good chance to jump up and get away. The Possum never got a wife, but he remembers the lesson, and ever since he shuts his eyes and pretends to be dead when the hunter has him in a close place. MYTH NINE. HOW THE TURKEY GOT HIS BEARD. When the Terrapin won the race from the Rabbit (see Myth Six) all the animals wondered and talked about it a great deal, because they had always thought the Terrapin slow, although they knew that he was a warrior and had many conjuring secrets besides. But the Turkey was not satisfied, and told the others that there must be some trick about it. Said he, "I know the Terrapin can't run--he can hardly crawl--and I'm going to try him." So one day the Turkey met the Terrapin coming home from war with a fresh scalp hanging from his neck and dragging on the ground as he traveled. The Turkey laughed at the sight and said: "That scalp don't look right on you. Your neck is too short and low down to wear it that way. Let me show you." The Terrapin agreed and gave the scalp to the Turkey, who fastened it around his neck. "Now," said the Turkey, "I'll walk a little way and you can see how it looks." So he walked ahead a short distance and then turned and asked the Terrapin how he liked it. Said the Terrapin, "It looks very nice; it becomes you." "Now, I'll fix it in a different way and let you see how it looks," said the Turkey. So he gave the string another pull and walked ahead again. "Oh, that looks very nice," said the Terrapin. But the Turkey kept on walking, and the Terrapin called to him to bring back the scalp, but he only walked the faster and broke into a run. Then the Terrapin got out his bow and by his conjuring art shot a number of cane splits into the Turkey's legs, to cripple him so he could not run, which accounts for all the many bones in the Turkey's legs, that are of no use whatever; but the Terrapin never caught the Turkey, who still wears the scalp from his neck. MYTH TEN. WHY THE TURKEY GOBBLES. A long time ago the Grouse had a fine voice and a good halloo in the ball play. All the animals and birds used to play ball in those days and were just as proud of a loud halloo as the ball players of today. The Turkey had a poor voice, so he asked the Grouse to give him lessons. The Grouse agreed to teach him, but wanted pay for his trouble, and the Turkey promised to give him some feathers to make him a collar. This is how the Grouse got his collar of turkey feathers. They began the lessons, and the Turkey learned very fast until the Grouse thought it was time for the Turkey to try his voice. "Now," said the Grouse, "I'll stand on this hollow log, and when I give the signal by tapping on it, you must halloo as loudly as you can." So he got upon the log ready to tap on it, as a Grouse does, but when he gave the signal the Turkey was so eager and excited that he could not raise his voice for a shout, but only gobbled, and ever since then he gobbles whenever he hears a noise. MYTH ELEVEN. HOW THE KINGFISHER GOT HIS BILL. Some old men tell us that the Kingfisher was meant in the beginning to be a water bird, but as he had not been given either web feet or a good bill he could not make a living. The animals held a council over it and decided to make him a bill like a long sharp awl for a fish-gig or spear. They made him a fish-gig and fastened it on in front of his mouth. Me flew to the top of a tree, sailed out and darted down into the water, and came up with a fish on his gig; and he has been the best gigger ever since. Others say it was this way: A Blacksnake found a yellow-hammer's nest in a hollow tree, and after swallowing the young birds, coiled up in the nest to sleep, and when the mother bird found him there, she went for help to the Little People, who sent her to the Kingfisher. He came, and after flying back and forth past the hole a few times, made one dart at the snake and pulled him out dead. When they looked they found a hole in the snake's head where the Kingfisher had pierced it with a slender tugaluna fish, which he carried in his bill like a lance. From this the Little People concluded that he would make a first-class gigger if he only had the right spear, so they gave him his long bill as a reward, and he has ever since been known among all the fowls and animals as the best fisherman among them. MYTH TWELVE. HOW THE PARTRIDGE GOT HIS WHISTLE. In the old days, when the world was new, the Terrapin had a fine whistle, but the Partridge had none. The Terrapin was constantly going about whistling and showing his whistle to the other animals, until the Partridge became jealous, so one day when they met, the Partridge asked leave of the Terrapin to try the whistle. The Terrapin was afraid to risk it at first, suspecting some trick, but the Partridge said, "I'll give it back right away, and if you are afraid you can stay with me while I practice." So the Terrapin let him have the whistle and the Partridge walked around blowing on it in fine fashion. "How does it sound with me?" asked the Partridge. "O, you do very well," said the Terrapin, walking alongside. "Now, how do you like it," said the Partridge, running ahead and whistling a little faster. "That's fine," answered the Terrapin, hurrying to keep up, "but don't run so fast." "And now how do you like this?" called the Partridge, and with that he spread his wings, gave one long whistle, and flew to the top of a tree, leaving the poor Terrapin to look after him from the ground. The Terrapin never recovered his whistle, and from that and the loss of his scalp, which was stolen from him by the Turkey, he grew ashamed to be seen, and ever since then he shuts himself up in his box when anyone comes near him. MYTH THIRTEEN. HOW THE RED BIRD GOT HIS COLOR. A Raccoon passing a Wolf one day made several insulting remarks, until at last the Wolf became angry and turned and chased him. The Raccoon ran his best, and managed to reach a tree by the river side before the Wolf came up. He climbed the tree and stretched out on a limb overhanging the water. When the Wolf arrived, he saw the reflection in the water, and, thinking it was the Raccoon, jumped at it and was nearly drowned before he could scramble out again, all wet and dripping. He lay down on the bank to dry and fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the Raccoon came down the tree and got some blue-pipe clay and plastered his eyes so that he could not open them and he began to howl and make a whining noise. A little brown bird came along and hearing the Wolf crying, asked what was the matter. The Wolf told his story and said: "If you will get my eyes open, I will show you where to get some nice red paint to paint yourself." "All right," said the brown bird; so he began to peck at the mud and soon got his eyes open. Then the Wolf took him to a rock that had streaks of bright red paint running through it, and the little bird painted himself with it, and has ever since been known as the Red-bird. MYTH FOURTEEN. THE PHEASANT BEATING CORN, THE ORIGIN OF THE PHEASANT DANCE. The Pheasant once saw a woman beating corn in a wooden mortar in front of the house. "I can do that, too," said he, but the woman would not believe it, so the Pheasant went into the woods and got upon a hollow log and "drummed" with his wings, as a Pheasant does, until the people in the house heard him and thought he was really beating corn. In the Pheasant dance, a part of the Green-Corn dance, the instrument used is a drum, and the dancers beat the ground with their feet in imitation of the drumming sound made by the Pheasant. They form two concentric circles, the men beginning on the inside, facing the women in the outer circle; each in turn advancing and retreating at the signal of the drummer, who sits at one side and sings the Pheasant songs. According to the story, there was once a winter famine among the birds and animals. No mast could be found in the woods, and they were near starvation when a Pheasant discovered a holly tree, loaded with red berries, which the Pheasant is very fond of. He called his companions, and they formed a circle about the tree, singing, dancing and drumming with their wings in token of their joy, and thus originated the Pheasant dance. MYTH FIFTEEN. THE RACE BETWEEN THE CRANE AND THE HUMMING-BIRD. The Humming-Bird and the Crane were both in love with a pretty woman. She preferred the Humming-bird, who was as handsome as the Crane was awkward, but the Crane was so persistent that in order to get rid of him she finally told him he must challenge the other to a race and she would marry the winner. The Humming-bird was so swift--almost like a flash of lightning--and the Crane so slow and heavy, that she felt sure that the Humming-bird would win. She did not know that the Crane could fly all night. They agreed to start from her house and fly around the circle of the world to the beginning, and the one who came in first would marry the woman. At the word the Humming-bird darted off like an arrow and was out of sight in a moment, leaving his rival to follow heavily behind. He flew all day, and when evening came and he stopped to roost for the night he was far ahead. But the Crane flew steadily all night, passing the humming-bird soon after midnight, and going on until he came to a creek and stopped to rest about daybreak. The Humming-bird woke up in the morning and flew on again, thinking how easily he would win the race, until he reached the creek, and there found the Crane spearing tadpoles, with his long bill, for breakfast. He was very much surprised and wondered how this could have happened, but he flew swiftly by and soon left the Crane out of sight again. The Crane finished his breakfast and started on, and when evening came he kept on as before. This time it was hardly midnight when he passed the Humming-bird asleep on a limb, and in the morning he had finished his breakfast before the other came up. The next day he gained a little more, and on the fourth day he was spearing tadpoles for dinner when the Humming-bird passed him. On the fifth and sixth days it was late in the afternoon before the Humming-bird came up, and, on the morning of the seventh day the Crane was a whole night's travel ahead. He took his time at breakfast and then fixed himself up as nicely as he could at the creek and came in at the starting place where the woman lived, early in the morning. When the Humming-bird arrived in the afternoon he found that he had lost the race, but the woman declared she would never have such an ugly fellow for a husband as the Crane. Moral. Beware of fine feathers. SNAKE, FISH AND INSECT MYTHS. MYTH SIXTEEN. THE SNAKE TRIBE. The generic name for snake is inadu. They are all regarded as inaduwehi, "supernaturals," having an intimate connection with the rain and the thunder gods, and possessing a certain influence over the other animals and plant tribes. It is said that the snakes, the deer, and the ginseng act as allies, so that an injury to one is avenged by the others. The feeling toward snakes is one mingled with fear and reverence, and every precaution is taken to avoid the killing or offending one, especially the rattlesnake. He who kills a snake will soon see others; and should he kill a second one, so many will come around him, whichever way he may turn, that he will become dazed at the sight of their glistening eyes and darting tongues, and will go wandering about like a crazy man, unable to find his way out of the woods. To guard against this misfortune there are certain prayers which the initiated say in order that a snake may not cross their path, and on meeting the first one of the season the hunter humbly begs of him, "Let us not see each other this summer." Certain smells, as that of the wild parsnip, and certain songs, as those of the Unikawi or town-house dance, are offensive to the snakes and make them angry. For this reason the Unikawi dance is held only late in the fall, after they have retired to their dens for the winter. When one dreams of being bitten by a snake he must be treated the same as for the actual bite, because it is the snake ghost that has bitten him; otherwise the place will swell and ulcerate in the same way, even though it be years afterwards. For fear of offending them, even in speaking, it is never said that a man has been bitten by a snake, but only that he has been "scratched by a briar." Most of the beliefs and customs in this connection have more special reference to the rattlesnake. The rattlesnake is called utsanati, which may be rendered, "he has a bell," alluding to the rattles. According to their myths the rattlesnake was once a man, and was transformed to his present shape that he might save the human race from extermination by the Sun, a mission which he accomplished successfully after others had failed. By the old men he is also spoken of as "The Thunder's Necklace," and to kill one is to destroy one of the most prized ornaments of the Thunder-god. In one of the formulas addressed to the Little Men, the sons of the Thunder, they are implored to take the disease snake to themselves, because, "It is just what you adorn yourselves with." For obvious reasons the rattlesnake is regarded as the chief of the tribe and is feared and respected accordingly. Few Cherokee will venture to kill one except under absolute necessity, and even then the crime must be atoned for by asking pardon of the snake ghost, either through the mediation of a priest or in person according to a set formula. Otherwise, the relatives of the dead snake will send one of their number to track up the offender and bite him, so that he will die. The only thing of which it is said that the rattlesnake is afraid is the plant known as campion, or "rattlesnake's master" (Silene Stella), which is used by doctors to counteract the effect of the bite, and it is believed that a snake will flee in terror from the hunter who carries a small piece of the root about his person. Notwithstanding the fear of the rattlesnake, his rattles, teeth, flesh and oil are greatly prized for occult or medical uses, the snake being killed for this purpose by certain priests who know the necessary rites and formulas for obtaining pardon. MYTH SEVENTEEN. THE UKTENA AND THE ULUNSUTI. Long ago--hilahiyu--when the Sun became angry at the people on earth, and sent a sickness to destroy them, the Little Men changed a man into a monster snake, as large as the trunk of a tree, with horns, which they called the Uktena, "The Keen-eyed," and sent him to kill her. He failed to do the work, and the Rattlesnake had to be sent instead, which made the Uktena so jealous and angry that the people were afraid of him and had him taken to Galunlati, to stay with the other dangerous things. He left others behind him, though, nearly as large and dangerous as himself, and they hide now in the deep pools in the river and about lonely passes in the high mountains, the places which the Cherokee call, "Where the Uktena stays." Those who know say that the Uktena with its horns on its head has a bright blazing crest like a diamond upon its forehead, and scales glittering like sparks of fire upon its body. It has rings or spots along its whole length, and cannot be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head because under this spot are its heart and its life. The blazing spot is called Ulunsuti, "Transparent," and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder-worker of the tribe, but it is worth a man's life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family. Of all the daring warriors who have started out in search of Ulunsu'ti only Agan-uni-tsi ever came back successful. The East Cherokee still keeps the one that he bought. It is like a transparent crystal, nearly the shape of a cartridge bullet, with blood-red streaks running thru the center from top to bottom. The owner keeps it wrapped in a whole deerskin, inside an earthen vessel, hidden away in a secret cave in the mountains. Every seven days he feeds it with the blood of small game, rubbing the blood all over the crystal as soon as the animal has been killed. Twice a year it must have the blood of a deer or some other large animal. Should he forget to feed it at the proper time it would come out of the cave at night in a shape of fire and fly thru the air to slake its thirst with the life blood of the conjurer or some of his people. He may save himself from this danger by telling it, when he puts it away, that he will not need it again for a long time. It will then go quietly to sleep and feel no hunger until it is again brought out to be consulted. Then it must be fed again on blood before it is used. No white man must ever see it, and no person but the owner will venture near it for fear of sudden death. Even the conjurer who keeps it is afraid of it, and changes its hiding place every once in a while so that it cannot learn the way out. When he dies it will be buried with him. Otherwise, it will come out of its cave, like a blazing star, to search for his grave, night after night for seven years, when, if still not able to find him, it will go back to sleep forever where he has placed it. Whoever owns the Ulunsuti is sure of success in hunting, love, rain-making and every other business, but its great use is in life prophecy. When it is consulted for this purpose the future is seen mirrored in the clear crystal as a tree is reflected in the quiet stream below, and the conjurer knows whether the sick man will recover, whether the warrior will return from the battle, or whether the youth will live to be old. MYTH EIGHTEEN. AGAN-UNI-TSI'S SEARCH FOR THE UKTENA. In one of their battles with the Showano, who are all magicians, the Cherokee captured a great medicine-man, whose name was Agan-uni-tsi, "The Ground-Hog's Mother." They had tied him ready for the torture when he begged for his life, and engaged, if they spared him, to find for them the great wonder-worker, the Ulunsuti. Now, the Ulunsuti is like a blazing star set in the forehead of the great Uktena serpent, and the medicine-man who could possess it might do marvelous things, but everyone knew that this could not be, because it was certain death to meet the Uktena. They warned him of all this, but he only answered that his medicine was strong and that he was not afraid. So they gave him his life on that condition and he began the search. The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky Mountains. Knowing this, the magician went first to a gap in the range on the far northern border of the Cherokee country. He searched there and found a monster blacksnake, larger than had ever been known before, but it was not what he was looking for, and he laughed at it as something too small for notice. Coming southward to the next gap he found there a moccasin snake, the largest ever seen, but when the people wondered he said it was nothing. In the next gap he found a green snake and called the people to see it, (the pretty salikwaya), but when they found an immense greensnake coiled up in the path they ran away in fear. Coming on to Utawa-gun-ti, the Bald mountain, he found there a great diyahali (lizard) basking, but, although it was large and terrible to look at, it was not what he was looking for and he paid no attention to it. Going still further south to Walasi-yi, the Frog place, he found a great frog squatting in the gap but when the people who came to see it were frightened like the others and ran away from the monster he mocked at them for being afraid of a frog and went on to the next gap. He went on to Duni-skwa-lgun-yi, the Gap of the Forked Antler, and to the enchanted lake of Atagahi, and at each he found monstrous reptiles, but he said they were nothing. He thought that the Uktena might be hiding in the deep water at Tlanusiyi, the Leech place, on Hiwassee, where other strange things had been seen before, and going there he dived far down under the surface. He saw turtles and water snakes, and two immense sun-perches rushed at him and retreated again, but that was all. Other places he tried, going always southward, and at last on Gahuti mountain he found the Uktena asleep. Turning without noise, he ran swiftly down the mountainside as far as he could go with one long breath, nearly to the bottom of the slope. Then he stopped and piled up a lot of pine-cones, and inside of it he dug a deep trench. Then he set fire to the cones and came back again up the mountain. The Uktena was still asleep, and, putting an arrow to his bow, Agan-uni-tsi shot and sent the arrow through its heart, which was under the seventh spot from the serpent's head. The great snake raised his head, with the diamond in front flashing fire, and came straight at his enemy, but the magician, turning quickly, ran at full speed down the mountain, cleared the circle of fire and the trench at one bound, and lay down on the ground inside. The Uktena tried to follow, but the arrow was thru his heart, and in another moment he rolled over in his death struggle, spitting poison over all the mountainside. The poison drops could not pass the circle of fire, but only hissed and sputtered in the blaze, and the magician on the inside was untouched except by one small drop which struck upon his head as he lay close to the ground; but he did not know it. The blood, too, as poisonous as the froth, poured from the Uktena's wound and down the slope in a stream, but it ran into the trench and left him unharmed. The dying monster rolled over and over down the mountain, breaking down large trees in its path until it reached the bottom. Then Agan-uni-tsi called every bird in all the woods to come to the feast, and so many came that when they were done not even the bones were left. After seven days he went by night to the spot. The body and the bones of the snake were gone, all eaten by the birds, but he saw a bright light shining in the darkness, and going over to it he found, resting on a low-hanging branch, where a raven had dropped it, the diamond from the head of Uktena. He wrapped it up carefully and took it with him, and from that time he became the greatest medicine-man in the whole tribe. When he came down again to the settlement the people noticed a small snake hanging from his head where the single drop of poison from the Uktena had struck him; but so long as he lived he himself never knew that it was there. Where the blood of the Uktena had filled the trench a lake formed afterwards, and the water was black and in this water the women used to dye the cane splits for their baskets. MYTH NINETEEN. THE RED MAN AND THE UKTENA. Two brothers went hunting together, and when they came to a good camping place in the mountains they made a fire, and while one gathered bark to put up a shelter, the other started up the creek to look for a deer. Soon he heard a noise on the top of the ridge as if two animals were fighting. He hurried thru the brush to see what it might be, and when he came to the spot he found a great Uktena coiled around a man and choking him to death. The man was fighting for his life, and called out to the hunter, "Help me, nephew; he is your enemy as well as mine." The hunter took good aim, and, drawing the arrow to the head, sent it thru the body of the Uktena, so that the blood spouted from the hole. The snake loosed its coils with a snapping noise, and went tumbling down the ridge into the valley, tearing up the earth like a water-spout as it rolled. The stranger stood up, and it was the Asgaya Gigagei, the Red Man of the Lightning. He said to the hunter: "You have helped me, and now I will reward you, and give you a medicine so that you can always find game." They waited until it was dark, and then went down the ridge to where the dead Uktena had rolled, but by this time the birds and the insects had eaten the body and only the bones were left. In one place were flashes of light coming up from the ground, and on digging here, just under the surface, the Red Man found a scale of the Uktena. Next he went over to the tree that had been struck by lightning, and gathering a handful of splinters he made a fire and burned the scale of the Uktena to a coal. He wrapped this in a piece of deerskin and gave it to the hunter, saying: "As long as you keep this you can always kill game." Then he told the hunter that when he went back to camp he must hang up the medicine on a tree outside, because it was very strong and dangerous. He told him also that when he went into the cabin he would find his brother lying inside nearly dead on account of the presence of the Uktena scale, but he must take a small piece of cane, which the Red Man gave him, and scrape a little of it into water and give it to his brother to drink, and he would be well again. Then the Red Man was gone, and the hunter could not see where he went. He returned to camp alone, and found his brother very sick, but soon cured him with the medicine from the cane, and that day and the next, and every day after, he found game whenever he went for it. MYTH TWENTY. THE HUNTER AND THE UKSUHI. A man living down in Georgia came to visit some relatives at Hickory-log. He was a great hunter, and after resting for some days, got ready to go into the mountains. His friends warned him not to go toward the north, as in that direction, near a certain large uprooted tree, there lived a dangerous monster Uksuhi snake. It kept constant watch, and whenever it could spring upon an unwary hunter it would coil about him and crush out his life in its folds, and then drag the dead body down the mountainside into a deep hole in Hiwassee river. He listened quietly to the warning, but all they said only made him the more anxious to see such a monster, so, without saying anything of his intentions, he left the settlement and took his way directly up the mountain toward the north. Soon he came to the fallen tree and climbed upon the trunk, and there, sure enough, on the other side was the great Uksuhi stretched out in the grass, with its head raised, but looking the other way. It was as large as a common trunk of a tree, and at the sight of this terrible monster the hunter became so much frightened that he made haste to get down from the log and started to run; but the great snake had heard him approach, and the noise as he started to make his escape, whereupon it turned quickly and pursued him. Up the ridge the hunter ran, the snake close behind him, then down the other side toward the river, but with all his running the Uksuhi gained rapidly, and just as he reached the low ground it caught up with him and wrapped around him, pinning one arm down by his side, but leaving the other free. Now, it gave him a terrible squeeze that almost broke his ribs, and then began to drag him along toward the water. With his free hand the hunter began to clutch at the bushes as they passed, but the snake turned his head and blew its sickening breath into his face, until he had to let go his hold. Again and again this happened, and all the time they were getting nearer and nearer to a deep hole in the river, when, almost at the last moment, a lucky thought came into the hunter's mind. He was sweating all over from his run across the mountain, and suddenly remembered to have heard that snakes cannot bear the smell of perspiration. Putting his free hand into his bosom he worked it around under his armpit until it was covered with perspiration. Then withdrawing it, he grasped at a bush until the snake turned its head, when he quickly slapped his sweaty hand on its nose. The Uksuhi gave one gasp almost as if it had been wounded, loosened its coil, and glided swiftly away thru the bushes, leaving the hunter, bruised but not disabled, to make his way home to the Hickory-log. MYTH TWENTY-ONE. THE USTUTLI. There was once a great serpent, called the Ustutli, that made its haunt upon Cohutta mountain. It was called the Ustutli or "foot" snake, because it did not glide like other snakes, but had feet at each end of its body, and moved by strides or jerks, like a great measuring worm. These feet were three-cornered and flat and could hold to the ground like suckers. It had no legs, but would raise itself up on its hind feet, with its snaky head high in the air until it found a good place to take a fresh hold; then it would bend down and grip its front feet to the ground while it drew its body up from behind. It could cross rivers and deep ravines by throwing its head across, and getting a grip with its front feet, and then swing its body over. Wherever its footprints were found there was danger. It used to bleat like a young fawn, and when the hunter heard a fawn bleat in the woods he never looked for it, but hurried away in the other direction. Up the mountain or down, nothing could escape the Ustutli's pursuit, but along the side of the ridge it could not go, because the great weight of its swinging head broke its hold on the ground when it moved sideways. It came to pass after awhile that not a hunter about Cohutta would venture near the mountain for dread of the Ustutli. At last a man from one of the northern settlements came down to visit some relatives in that neighborhood. When he arrived they made a feast for him, but only had corn and beans, and excused themselves for having no meat because the hunters were afraid to go into the mountains. He asked the reason, and when they told him he said he would go himself tomorrow and either bring in a deer or find the Ustutli. They tried to dissuade him from it, but as he insisted upon going they warned him that if a fawn bleated in the thicket he must run at once and if the snake came after him he must not try to run down the mountain, but along the side of the ridge. In the morning he started out, and went directly to the mountain. Working his way thru the bushes at the base, he suddenly heard a fawn bleat in front. He guessed at once that it was the Ustutli, but he had made up his mind to see it, so he did not turn back, but went straight forward, and there, sure enough, was the monster, with its great head in the air, as high as the pine branches, looking in every direction to discover a deer, or maybe a man, for breakfast. It saw him and came at him at once, moving in jerky strides, every one the length of a tree trunk, holding its scaly head high above the bushes and bleating as it came. The hunter was so badly frightened that he lost his wits entirely and started to run directly up the mountain. The great snake came after him, gaining half its length on him every time it took a fresh grip with its fore feet, and would have caught the hunter before he reached the top of the ridge, but that he suddenly remembered the warning and changed his course to run along the side of the mountain. At once the snake began to lose ground, for every time it raised itself up the weight of its body threw it out of a straight line and made it fall a little lower down the side of the ridge. It tried to recover itself, but now the hunter gained and kept on until he turned the end of the ridge and left the snake out of sight. Then he cautiously climbed to the top and looked over and saw the Ustutli still slowly working its way toward the summit. He went down to the base of the mountain, opened his fire pouch, and set fire to the grass and leaves. Soon the fire ran all around the mountain and began to climb upward. When the great serpent smelled the smoke and saw the flames coming, it forgot all about the hunter and turned to make all speed for a high cliff near the summit. It reached the rock and got upon it, but the fire followed and caught the dead pines about the base of the cliff until the heat made the Ustutli's scales crack. Taking a close grip of the rock with its hind feet, it raised its body and put forth all its strength in an effort to spring across the wall of fire that surrounded it, but the smoke choked it and its hold loosened and it fell among the blazing pine trunks and lay there until it was burned to ashes. MYTH TWENTY-TWO. THE UWTSUNTA. At Nundayeli, the wildest spot in Nantahala river, (in what is now Macon County, North Carolina), where the overhanging cliff is highest and the river far below, there lived in the old time a great snake called the Uwtsunta (or bouncer), because it moved by jerks like a measuring worm, with only one part of its body on the ground at a time. It stayed generally on the east side, where the sun came first in the morning, and used to cross by reaching over from the highest point of the cliff until it could get a grip on the other side, when it would pull over the rest of its body. It was so immense that when it was thus stretched across, its shadow darkened the whole valley below. For a long time the people did not know it was there, but when at last they found out that such a monster inhabited the country, they were afraid to live in the valley, so that it was deserted long before the Indians were removed from the country. MYTH TWENTY-THREE. THE SNAKE BOY. There was a boy who used to go bird hunting every day, and all the birds he brought home to give to his grandmother, who was very fond of him. This made the rest of the family jealous, and they treated him in such fashion that at last one day he told his grandmother he would leave them all, but that she must not grieve for him. Next morning he refused to eat any breakfast, but went off hungry to the woods and was gone all day. In the evening he returned, bringing with him a pair of deer horns, and went directly to the hothouse (Asi), where his grandmother was waiting for him. He told the old woman that he must be alone that night, so she got up and went into the house where the others were. At early daybreak she came again to the hothouse and looked in, and there she saw an immense Uktena that filled the Asi, with horns on its head, but still with two human legs instead of a snake's tail. It was all that was left of her boy. He spoke to her and told her to leave him, and she went away again from the door. When the sun was well up, the Uktena began slowly to crawl out, but it was full noon before it was all out of the Asi. It made a terrible hissing noise as it came out, and all the people ran from it. It crawled on thru the settlement, leaving a broad trail in the ground behind it, until it came to a deep bend in the river, where it plunged in and went under the water. The grandmother grieved much for the boy, until the others of the family got angry and told her that she thought so much of him that she ought to go and stay with him. So she left them and went along the trail made by the Uktena to the river and walked directly into the water and disappeared. Once after that a man fishing near the place saw her sitting on a large rock in the river, looking just as she had always looked, but as soon as she caught sight of him she jumped into the water and was gone. MYTH TWENTY-FOUR. THE SNAKE MAN. Two hunters, both for some reason under a tabu against the meat of a squirrel or turkey, had gone into the woods together. When evening came, they found a good camping place and lighted a fire to prepare their supper. One of them had killed several squirrels during the day, and now got ready to broil them over the fire. His companion warned him that if he broke the tabu and ate squirrel meat he would become a snake, but the other laughed and said that was only a conjurer's story. He went on with the preparation, and when the squirrels were roasted made his supper of them and then lay down by the fire to sleep. Late that night his companion was aroused by groaning, and on looking around he found the other lying on the ground rolling and twisting in agony, and with the lower part of his body already changed to the body and tail of a large watersnake. The man was still able to speak and call loudly for help, but his companion could do nothing, but only sit by and try to comfort him while he watched the arms sink into his body and the skin take on a scaly change that mounted gradually toward the neck, until at last even the head was a serpent's head and the great snake crawled away from the fire and down the bank into the river, and was never seen again. MYTH TWENTY-FIVE. THE RATTLESNAKE'S REVENGE. One day in the olden times, when we could still talk with other creatures, while some children were playing about the house, their mother inside heard them scream. Running outside she found that a rattlesnake had crawled from the grass, and taking up a stick she killed it. The father was out hunting in the mountains, and that evening when coming home after dark thru the gap, he heard a strange wailing sound. Looking about he found that he had come into the midst of a whole company of rattlesnakes, all of which had their mouths open and seemed to be crying. He asked them the reason of their trouble, and they told him that his own wife had that day killed their chief, the Yellow Rattlesnake, and they were just now about to send the Black Rattlesnake to take revenge. The hunter said he was very sorry, but they told him that if he spoke the truth that he must be ready to make satisfaction and give his wife as a sacrifice for the life of their chief. Not knowing what might happen otherwise, he consented. They then told him that the Black Rattlesnake would go home with him and coil up just outside the door in the dark. He must go inside, where he would find his wife awaiting him, and ask her to get him a fresh drink of water from the spring. That was all. He went home and knew that the Black Rattlesnake was following. It was night when he arrived and very dark, but he found his wife waiting with his supper ready. He sat down and asked for a drink of water. She handed him a gourd full from the jar, but he said he wanted it fresh from the spring, so she took a bowl and went out of the door. The next moment he heard a cry, and going out he found that the Black Rattlesnake had bitten her and that she was already dying. He stayed with her until she was dead, when the Black Rattlesnake came out from the grass again and said his tribe was now satisfied. He then taught the hunter a prayer song, and said, "When you meet any of us hereafter sing this song and we will not hurt you; but if by accident one of us should bite one of your tribe, then sing this song over him and he will recover." And the Cherokee have kept this song and sing it until this day. MYTH TWENTY-SIX. THE NEST OF THE TLANUWAS. On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount County, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about half way up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth cannot be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below. There are white streaks in the rock from the cave down to the water. The Cherokee call it Tlanuwai (the place of the Great Mythic Hawk). In the old time, away back soon after the creation, a pair of Tlanuwas had their nest in this cave. They were immense birds, larger than any that live now, and very strong and savage. They were forever flying up and down the river, and used to come into the settlements and carry off dogs and even young children playing near the houses. No one could reach the nest to kill them, and when the people tried to shoot them the arrows only glanced off and were seized and carried away in the talons of the Tlanuwas. At last the people went to a great medicine man, who promised to help them. Some were afraid that if he failed to kill the Tlanuwas they would take revenge on the people, but the medicine man said he could fix that. He made a long rope of linn bark, just as the Cherokee still do, with loops in it for his feet, and had the people let him down from the top of the cliff at a time when he knew that the old birds were away. When he came opposite the mouth of the cave he still could not reach it, because the rocks above hung over, so he swung himself backward and forward several times until the rope swung near enough for him to pull himself into the cave with a hooked stick that he carried, which he managed to fasten in some bushes growing at the entrance. In the nest he found four young ones, and on the floor of the cave were the bones of all sorts of animals and children that had been carried there by the hawks. He pulled the young ones out of the nest and threw them over the cliff into the deep water below, where a great Uktena serpent that lived there finished them. Just then he saw the two old ones coming, and had hardly time to climb up again to the top of the rock before they reached the nest. When they found the nest empty they were furious, and circled round and round in the air until they saw the snake put its head from the water. Then they darted straight downward, and while one seized the snake in his talons and flew far up in the sky with it, his mate struck at it and bit off piece after piece until nothing was left. They were so high up that when the pieces fell they made holes in the rocks, which are still to be seen there, at the place which we call, "Where the Tlanuwa cut it up," opposite the mouth of Citico. Then the two hawks circled up and up until they went out of sight, and they have never been seen any more. MYTH TWENTY-SEVEN. THE HUNTER AND THE TLANUWA. A hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tlanuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had already seen him, and, sweeping down, struck its claws into his hunting pack, and carried him far up into the air. As it flew, the Tlanuwa, which was a mother-bird, spoke and told the hunter that he need not be afraid, as she would not hurt him, but only wanted him to stay awhile with her young ones to guard them until they were old enough to leave the nest. At last they alighted at the mouth of a cave in the face of a steep cliff. Inside, the water was dripping from the roof, and at the farther end was a nest of sticks in which were two young birds. The old Tlanuwa set the hunter down and then flew away, returning soon with a fresh-killed deer, which it tore to pieces, giving the first piece to the hunter and then feeding the two young hawks. The hunter stayed in the cave for many days until the young birds were nearly grown, and every day the old mother bird would fly away from the nest and return in the evening with a deer or a bear, of which she always gave the first piece to the hunter. He grew very anxious to see his home again, but the Tlanuwa kept telling him not to be uneasy, but to wait a little while longer. At last he made up his mind to escape from the cave and finally studied out the plan. The next morning, after the great hawk had gone, he dragged one of the young birds to the mouth of the cave and tied himself to one of its legs with a strap from his hunting pack. Then with the flat side of the tomahawk he struck it several times on the head until it was dazed and helpless, then pushed the bird and himself together off the shelf of rock into the air. They fell far, far down toward the earth, but the air from below held up the bird's wings, so that it was almost as if they were flying. As the Tlanuwa revived it tried to fly upward toward the nest, but the hunter struck it again with his hatchet until it was dazed and dropped again. At last they came down in the top of a poplar tree, when the hunter cut the strap from the leg of the bird and let it fly away, first pulling out a feather from its wing. He climbed down from the tree and went home to the settlement, but when he looked in his pack for the feather, he found that he only had a stone, for the Great Mythic Hawk had power to turn many objects into whatever it pleased. MYTH TWENTY-EIGHT. UTLUNTA, THE SPEAR FINGER. Long, long ago, there lived in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape that she pleased, or that suited her purpose, but in her right form she looked very much like an old woman, excepting that her whole body was covered with a skin as hard as a rock, that no weapon could wound or penetrate, and that on her right hand she had a long, stony finger of bone, like an awl or spear-head, with which she stabbed everyone to whom she could get near enough. On account of this fact she was called Utlunta, "Spear Finger," and on account of her stony skin she was sometimes called Nunyunuwi, "Stone-dress." There was another stone-clothed monster that killed people, but that is a different story. Spear-finger had such power over stone that she could easily lift and carry immense rocks, and could cement them together by merely striking one against another. To get over the rough country more easily she undertook to build a great bridge through the air from Nunyutlugunyi, the "Tree Rock," on Hiwassee, over to Sanigilagi (Whiteside Mountain, in Jackson County, North Carolina,) on the Blue Ridge, and had it well started from the top of "Tree rock" when the lightning struck it and scattered the fragments along the whole ridge, where the pieces can still be seen by those who go there. She used to range all over the mountains about the heads of the streams and in the dark passes of Nantahala, always hungry and looking for victims. Her favorite haunt on the Tennessee side of the Great Smoky Mountains was about the gap on the trail where Chilhowee Mountains come down to the river. Sometimes the old woman would approach along the trail where the children were picking strawberries or playing near the village, and would say to them coaxingly, "Come, my grand children, come to your granny and let granny dress your hair." When some little girl ran up and laid her head in the old woman's lap to be petted and combed, the old witch would gently run her fingers thru the child's hair until it went to sleep, when she would stab the little one thru the heart or back of the neck with the long awl finger, which she had kept hidden under her robe. Then she would take out the liver and eat it. She would enter the house by taking the appearance of one of the family who happened to have gone out for a short time, and would watch her chance to stab some one with her long finger and take out his liver. She could stab him without being noticed, and often the victim did not even know it himself at the time--for it left no wound and caused no pain--but went on about his own affairs, until all at once he felt weak and began to pine away, and was always sure to die, because Spear-finger had taken his liver. When the Cherokee went out in the fall, according to their custom, to burn leaves off from the mountains in order to get the chestnuts on the ground, they were never safe, for the old witch was always on the lookout, and as soon as she saw the smoke rise she knew there were Indians there and she would sneak up and try to surprise one alone. So as well as they could they would try to keep together, and were very cautious of allowing any stranger to approach the camp. But if one went to the spring for a drink, they never knew but it might be the liver-eater that came back and sat with them. At last a great council was held to devise some means to get rid of the old witch before she should destroy everybody. The people came from all around to Nikwasi, (mound now near Franklin, N. C.) and after much talking it was decided that the best way to secure her demise would be to trap her in a pitfall where all the warriors could attack her at once. So they dug a deep pitfall across the path and covered it over with earth and grass as if the ground had never been disturbed. Then they kindled a large fire of brush near the trail and hid themselves in the laurels, because they knew that she would come as soon as she saw the smoke. Sure enough they soon saw an old woman coming along the trail. She looked very much like an old woman that they knew in the village, and although several of the wiser men wanted to shoot at her, the others interfered, because they did not want to hurt one of their own people. The old woman came slowly along the trail, with one hand under her blanket, until she stepped upon the pitfall and tumbled through the brush top into the deep hole below. Then, at once, she showed her true nature, and instead of the old feeble woman there was the terrible Utlunta with her stony skin, and her sharp awl finger reaching out in every direction for some one to stab. The hunters rushed out from the thicket and surrounded the pit, but shoot as true and as often as they could, the arrows struck the stony mail of the witch only to be broken and fall useless at her feet, while she taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit to get at them. They kept out of her way, but were only wasting their arrows when a small bird, Utsugi, the titmous, perched on a tree overhead and began to sing, "un, un, un." They thought it was saying unqhu, heart, meaning that they should aim at the heart of the stone witch. They directed their arrows where the heart should be, but the arrows only glanced off with the flint heads broken. Then they caught the Utsugi and cut off its tongue, so that ever since its tongue is short and everybody knows that it is a liar. When the hunters let it go, it flew straight up into the sky until it was out of sight, and it never came back any more, and the titmouse that we know now is only an image of the other. They kept up the fight without result until another bird, little Tsikilili, the chickadee, flew down from a tree and alighted upon the witch's right hand. The warriors took this as a sign that they must aim there, and they were right, for her heart was on the inside of her hand, which she kept doubled up into a fist, this same awl-hand with which she had stabbed so many people. Now she was frightened in earnest, and began to rush furiously at them with her long awl finger, and to jump about in the pit to dodge the arrows, until at last an arrow struck her just where the awl finger joined her wrist and she fell down dead. Ever since then the Tsikilili is known as a truth-teller, and when a man is away on a journey, if this bird comes and perches near the house and chirps its song, his friends know that he will soon reach his home in safety, and his friends will greet him upon his arrival. MYTH TWENTY-NINE. NUNYUNUWI, THE STONE MAN. This is what the old men used to tell us when we were boys. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt, one man who had gone ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side. While he was looking across he saw an old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining rock. The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in a certain direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the hunter's camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed it several times as if it smelled very good, and then started along the ridge straight for the camp. He moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river. After he had crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again and the old man picked it up and started over the mountain toward the camp. The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nunyunuwi, "Dressed in Stone," who lived in the Nantahala mountains, and was always going about thru the forest looking for some hunter that he might kill and eat him. It was very hard to escape from him, because his cane guided him as a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, for his body was entirely covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save their lives. He could not bear to look upon a woman, and if they could bring to the path seven married women, that the sight of them would kill him, and they would rid themselves of him. So they ran swiftly and brought quickly as many women as they could find, and placed them along the trail, and when the old man came, he saw one woman standing near the trail and the very sight of her made him sick and he cried out, "Yu, my grandchild, I hate the sight of woman!" He hurried past her and in a moment he saw the second woman standing as he had seen the other, and he cried out again, "Yu! my child; I hate the tribe of women, and he hurried past her, and he continued along the trail until he came to the seventh, and by this time he had become so much enraged that he fell down almost dead. Then the medicine-man drove seven sourwood switches through his body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nunyunuwi was a great adawehi and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank lower and lower, until at last when the daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still. Then the medicine-man told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of wadi paint and a magic Ulunsuti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he painted them on the face and breast with the red wadi, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done, whether for hunting success, for working skill, or for long life--that gift was his. MYTH THIRTY. THE HUNTER AND DAKWA. In the old days there was a great fish called the Dakwa, which lived in the Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Dakwai, the "Dakwa place," above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man. Once a canoe filled with warriors was crossing over from the town on the other side of the river, when the Dakwa suddenly rose up under the boat and threw them all into the air. As they came down it swallowed one with a single snap of its jaws and dived with him to the bottom of the river. As soon as the hunter came to his senses he found that he had not been hurt, but it was so hot and close inside the Dakwa that he was nearly smothered. As he groped around in the dark his hand struck a lot of mussel shells which the fish had swallowed, and taking one of these for a knife he began to cut his way out, until soon the fish grew uneasy at the scraping inside his stomach and came up to the top of the water for air. He kept on cutting until the fish was in such pain that it swam this way and that across the stream and thrashed the water into foam with its tail. Finally the hole was so large that he could look out, and found that the fish was resting in shallow water near the shore. The Dakwa soon became so sick from the wound that it vomited the hunter out of its mouth, and he with the others made their escape to Tellico, but the juices in the stomach of the fish made the hair fall from the head of the hunter so that he was bald ever after that. MYTH THIRTY-ONE. ATAGAHI, THE ENCHANTED LAKE. (This is the scene of the myth upon which the story of Occoneechee is founded.) Westward from the headwaters of Oconaluftee river, in the wildest depths of the Great Smoky Mountains, which form the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the enchanted lake of Atagahi, "Gall place." Although all of the Cherokee know that it is there, no one has ever seen it, for the way is so difficult that only the animals know how to reach it. Should a stray hunter come near the place he would know of it by the whirring sound of the wings of thousands of wild ducks and pigeons flying about the lake, but on reaching the spot he would find only a dry flat, without bird or animal or blade of grass, unless he had first sharpened his spiritual vision by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil. Because the lake is not seen, some people think that the lake is dried up long ago, but this is not true. To one that had kept watch and fasted all the night it would appear at daybreak as a wide-extending, but shallow sheet of pure water, fed by springs spouting from the high cliffs around. In the water are all kinds of fish and reptiles, and swimming upon the surface or flying overhead are great flocks of ducks and pigeons, while all about the shore are bear tracks crossing in every direction. It is the medicine lake of the birds and animals, and whenever a bear is wounded by the hunter he makes his way thru the woods to this lake and plunges into the water, and when he comes out upon the other side his wounds are healed, and for this reason the animals keep the lake invisible to the hunter. MYTH THIRTY-TWO. THE BRIDE FROM THE SOUTH. The North went traveling, and after going far and meeting many different tribes he finally fell in love with the daughter of the South and wanted to marry her. The girl was willing, but her parents objected and said, "Ever since you came the weather has been cold, and if you stay here we will all freeze to death." The North pleaded hard, and said if they would let him have their daughter, he would take her back to his own country, so at last they consented. They were married and he took his bride back to his own country, and when they arrived there she found the people all living in ice houses. The next day, when the sun rose, the houses began to leak, and as it climbed higher the houses began to melt, and it grew warmer and warmer, until finally the people came to the young husband and told him he must send his wife home again, or the weather would get so warm that the whole settlement would be melted. He loved his wife and so held out as long as he could, but as the sun grew hotter the people were more urgent, and at last he had to send her home to her parents, but they agreed that she might return once a year for a short season, but that she should never come to live in the North again, for as she was reared in the South, that her whole nature was warm and that she was unfit to dwell in the North. MYTH THIRTY-THREE. THE ICE MAN. Once when the people were burning the woods in the fall, and the blaze set fire to a poplar tree, which continued to burn until the fire went down into the roots and burned a great hole in the ground. It burned, and burned, and the hole grew constantly larger, until the people became frightened and were afraid that it would burn the whole world. They tried to put out the fire, but it had gone too deep, and they did not know what to do. At last some one said there was a man living in a house of ice far in the north who could put out the fire, so messengers were sent, and after traveling a long distance they came to the ice house and found the Ice Man at home. He was a little fellow with long hair hanging down to the ground in two plaits. The messengers told him their errand and he at once said, "O yes, I can help you," and began to unplait his hair. When it was once all unbraided he took it up in one hand and struck it once across the other hand, and the messengers felt the wind blow against their cheeks. A second time he struck his hair across his hand, and a light rain began to fall. The third time he struck his hair across his open hand there was sleet mixed with the rain drops, and when he struck the fourth time great hailstones fell upon the ground, as if they had come out from the ends of the hair. "Go back now," said the Ice Man, "and I shall be there tomorrow." So the messengers returned to their people, whom they found still gathered helplessly about the great burning pit. The next day while they were all gathered about the fire, there came a wind from the north, and they were afraid, for they knew that it came from the Ice Man. But the wind only made the fire blaze higher. The light rain began to fall, but the drops seemed only to make the fire hotter. Then the shower turned to a heavy rain, with sleet and hail that killed the blaze and made clouds of smoke and steam rise from the red coals. The people fled to their homes for shelter, and the storm rose to a whirlwind that drove the rain into every burning crevice and piled great hailstones over the embers, until the fire was dead and even the smoke ceased. When at last it was all over, and the people returned, they found a lake where the burning pit had been, and from below the water came a sound as of embers still crackling. MYTH THIRTY-FOUR. THE HUNTER AND SELU. A hunter had been tramping over the mountains all day long without finding any game, and when the sun went down, he built a fire in a hollow stump, swallowed a few mouthfuls of corn gruel and lay down to sleep, tired out and completely discouraged. About the middle of the night he dreamed and seemed to hear the sound of beautiful singing, which continued until near daybreak, and then appeared to die away in the upper air. All the next day he hunted, with the same poor success, and at night made his lonely camp in the woods. He slept, and the same strange dream came again, but so vividly that it seemed to him like an actual happening. Rousing himself before daylight, he still heard the same song, and feeling sure now that it was real, he went in the direction of the sound and found that it came from a single green stalk of corn (selu). The plant spoke to him, and told him to cut off some of its roots and take them to his home in the settlement, and the next morning to chew them and "go to water" before anyone else was awake, and then to go out again into the woods, and he would kill many deer, and from that time on would always be successful in the hunt. The corn plant continued to talk, teaching him hunting secrets and telling him to be always generous with the game he took, until it was noon and the sun was high, when it suddenly took the form of a woman and rose gracefully into the air and was gone from sight, leaving the hunter alone in the woods. He returned home and told his story, and all the people knew that he had seen Selu, the wife of Kanati. He did as the spirit had directed, and from that time was noted as the most successful of all the hunters in the settlement. MYTH THIRTY-FIVE. THE NUNNEHI AND OTHER SPIRIT FOLKS. The Nunnehi or Immortals, the "People who live everywhere," were a race of spirit people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a great many town-houses, and especially on the tops of the bald mountains, the high peaks where no timber grows. They had large town-houses on Pilot Knob, and in Nik-Wasi mound, in what is now Macon County, North Carolina, and another in Blood Mountain, and at the head of Nottely river in Georgia. They were invisible excepting when they wanted to be seen, and they looked and spoke just like other Indians. They were very fond of music and dancing, and hunters in the mountains would often hear the dance songs and the drum-beating in some invisible town-house, but when they went toward the sound it would shift about and they would hear it behind them or away in some other direction, so that they could never find the place where the dance was. They were a friendly people, too, and often brought lost wanderers to their town-houses under the mountains, and cared for them there until they were rested, and guided them back to their homes. There was a man who lived in Nottely town who had been with the Nunnehi, when he was a boy about twelve years old, and this is the story he tells. One day, when he was playing near the river, shooting at a mark with his bow and arrows, until he became tired, and started to build a fish-trap in the water. While he was piling up the rocks in two long walls, a man came and stood on the bank and asked him what he was doing. The man said, "Well, that is pretty hard work, and you ought to come and rest awhile; come and take a walk up the river." The boy said, "No"; that he was going home to dinner soon. "Come right up to my house," said the stranger, "and I'll give you a good dinner there, and will bring you home again in the morning." So the boy went with him up the river until they came to a house, when they went in, and the man's wife and the other people there were very glad to see him, and gave him a fine dinner, and were very kind to him. While they were eating, another boy that the boy knew very well came in and spoke to him, so that he felt very much at home. After dinner he played with the other children, and slept there that night, and in the morning, after breakfast, the man got ready to take him home. They went down a path that had a cornfield on one side and a peach orchard on the other, until they came to another trail, and the man said, "Go along this trail across that ridge and you will come to the river road that will bring you straight to your home, and now I'll go back to the house." So the man went back to the house, and the boy went on along the trail, but when he had gone a little distance he looked back, and there was no cornfield or orchard or fence or house; nothing but trees on the mountainside. He thought it rather queer, but somehow he was not frightened, and went on until he came to the river trail in sight of his house. There were a great many people standing about talking, and when they saw him they ran toward him shouting, "Here he is! He is not drowned or killed in the mountains!" They told him that they had been hunting him ever since yesterday noon, and asked him where he had been. He told them the story of what had happened, and they said there is no house there, and it was the Nunnehi that had you with them. Once four Nunnehi women came to dance at Nottely town, and danced half of the night with the young men there, and nobody knew that they were Nunnehi, but thought them visitors from another settlement. About midnight they left to go home, and some men who had come out from the town-house to cool off watched to see which way they went. They saw the women go down the trail to the river ford, but just as they came to the water they disappeared, although it was a plain trail, with no place where they could hide. Then the watchers knew that they were Nunnehi. At another time a man was crossing over from Nottely to Hemptown, in Georgia, and heard a drum and the songs of dancers in the hills on one side of the trail. He rode to see who could be dancing in such a place, but when he reached the spot the drum and the songs were behind him, and he was so frightened that he hurried back to the trail and rode all the way to Hemptown as hard as he could to tell the story. He was a truthful man and they believed him. A long time ago a man got lost in the mountains near the head of Oconaluftee river, and it was very cold and his friends thought that he must be frozen to death, but he was taken to a cave by the Nunnehi and given something to eat, and when the weather was more pleasant they conducted him to the main trail and sent him on home to the neighbors in the valley below. MYTH THIRTY-FIVE. THE REMOVED TOWN-HOUSE. Long ago, before the Cherokee were driven from their homes in 1838, the people on Valley river and Hiwassee heard voices of invisible spirits calling them from the skies, and warning them of wars and misfortunes which the future held in store, and inviting them to come and live with the Nunnehi, the Immortals, in their homes under the mountains and under the waters. For days the voice hung in the air, and the people listened until they heard the voice say, "If you would live with us, gather every one in your town-house and fast there seven days, and no one must raise a shout or a warwhoop in all that time. Do this and we will come and you shall see us and we shall take you to live with us." The people were afraid of the evils that were to come, and they knew that the Immortals of the mountains and of the waters were happy forever, so they counciled in their town-house and decided to go with them. Those of Anisgayayitown came all together into their town-house and prayed and fasted for six days. On the seventh day there was a sound from the distant mountains, and it came nearer and grew louder until a roar of thunder was all about the town-house and they felt the ground shake all around them. Now they were frightened, and despite the warning some of them screamed out. The Nunnehi, who had already lifted up the town-house with its mound to carry it away, were startled by the sound and let a part of it fall to the ground, where we now see the mound Setsi. They steadied themselves again and bore the rest of the town-house, with all the people in it, to the top of Tsudayelunyi, near the head of Cheowa, where we can still see it, changed long ago to solid rock, but the people are invisible and immortal. MYTH THIRTY-SIX. THE SPIRIT DEFENDERS OF NIKWASI. Long ago a powerful unknown tribe invaded the country from the southeast, killing people and destroying settlements wherever they went. No leader could stand against them, and in a little while they had wasted all the lower settlements and advanced into the mountains. The warriors of the old town of Nikwasi, on the head of Little Tennessee, gathered their wives and their children into the town-house and kept scouts constantly on the lookout for the presence of danger. One morning, just before the break of day, the spies saw the enemy approaching and at once gave the alarm. The Nikwasi men seized their arms and rushed out to meet the attack, but after a long, hard fight they found themselves overpowered and began to retreat, when suddenly a stranger stood among them and shouted to the chief to call off his men and he himself would drive the enemy back. From the dress and the language of the stranger the Nikwasi people thought him a chief who had come with reinforcements from Overhill settlements in Tennessee. They fell back along the trail, and as they came near the town-house they saw a great company of warriors coming out from the side of the mound as from an open doorway. Then they knew that their friends were the Nunnehi, the Immortals, although no one had ever heard that they lived under Nikwasi mound. The Nunnehi poured out by hundreds, armed and painted for the fight, and the most curious part of it all was that they became invisible as soon as they were fairly outside of the settlement, so that although the enemy saw the glancing arrow or the rushing tomahawk, and felt the stroke, he could not see who sent it. Before such an invisible foe the invaders had to retreat, going first south along the ridge to where joins the main ridge, which separates Tah-kee-os-tee (French Broad) from the Tuckaseigee, and then turning with it to the northeast. As they retreated they tried to shield themselves behind rocks and trees, but the Nunnehi arrows went around them and killed them from the other side, and they could find no hiding place. All along the ridge they fell, until when they reached the head of Tuckaseigee not more than half a dozen were left alive, and in their despair they sat down and cried out for mercy. The Nunnehi chief told them that they deserved their punishment for attacking a peaceful tribe, and he spared their lives and told them to go home and tell their people. It was the custom of the Indians to spare some to carry the news of battle and defeat. Then the Nunnehi went back to the mound, and have been there ever since. They are there now, for when a strong army of Federal troops came to surprise a handful of Confederates in the last war, they saw so many soldiers guarding the town that they were afraid and went away without making an attack. MYTH THIRTY-SEVEN. KANASTA, THE LOST SETTLEMENT. Long ago, while the people still lived in the old town of Kanasta, on Tah-kee-os-tee, (French Broad) two strangers, who looked in no way different from the other Cherokee, came into the settlement one day and made their way into the chief's house. After the first greetings were over, the chief asked them from what town they came, thinking they were from one of the western settlements, but they said, "We are of your people and our town is close at hand, but you have never seen it. Here you have wars and sickness, with enemies on every side, and after awhile a stronger enemy will come and take your country from you. We are always happy, and we have come to invite you to live with us in our town over there," and they pointed toward Tsuwatelda (Pilot Knob). "We do not live forever, and do not always find game when we go for it, for game belongs to Tsulkalu, who lives in Tsunegunyi, but we have peace always and do not think of danger. We go now, but if your people will live with us, let them fast seven days and we will come then and take them." Then they went away toward the west. The chief called the people together into the town-house, and they held a council over the matter and decided at last to go with the strangers. They got all of their property ready for moving, and then went again into the town-house and began their fast. They fasted six days and on the morning of the seventh, before yet the sun was high, they saw a great company coming along the trail from the west, led by the two men who had stopped with the chief. They seemed just like Cherokee from another settlement, and after a friendly meeting they took up a part of the goods to be carried, and the two parties started back together for Tsuwatelda. There was one man visiting at Kanasta, and he went along with them. When they came to the mountain the two guides led the way into a cave, which opened out like a great door in the side of the rock. Inside they found an open country and a town, with houses ranged in two long rows from east to west. The mountain people lived in the houses on the south side, and they had made ready the other houses for the newcomers, but even after the people of Kanasta, with their children and their belongings, had moved in, there were still a large number of houses waiting ready for the next who might come. The mountain people told them that there was another town of a different people, above them in another mountain, and still farther above, at the very top, lived the Ani-Hyuntikwalaski (the Thunders). Now all the people of Kanasta were settled in their new homes, but the man who had only been visiting with them wanted to go back to his own friends. Some of the mountain people wanted to prevent this, but the chief said, "No, let him go if he will, and when he tells his friends they may want to come, too. There is plenty of room for all." Then he said to the man, "Go back and tell your friends that if they want to come and live with us and always be happy, there is a place here ready and waiting for them. Others of us live in Datsunalasgunyi and in the high mountains all around, and if they would rather go to any of them, it will be all the same. We see you wherever you go, and are with you in all of your dances, but you cannot see us unless you fast. If you want to see us, fast four days, and we will come and talk with you; and then if you want to live with us, fast again seven days, and we will come and take you." Then the chief led the man through the cave to the outside of the mountain and left him there, but when the man looked back he saw no cave, but only the solid rock. The people of the Lost Settlement were never seen again and they are still living in Tauwatelda. Strange things happen there, so that the Cherokee know that the mountain is haunted and do not like to go near it. Only a few years ago a party of hunters camped there, and as they sat around their fire at supper time they talked of the story and made rough jokes of the people of old Kanasta. That night they were aroused from sleep by a noise as of stones thrown at them from among the trees, but when they searched they could find nobody, and were so frightened that they gathered up their guns and pouches and left the place. MYTH THIRTY-EIGHT. HEMP-CARRIER. On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee County, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are level now, but fifty years ago the stones were still heaped up in pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlement on Hiwassee and Cheowa, a party was made under Taletanigiski, "Hemp-Carrier," to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief, Tsunulahunski, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died in about the year 1855, who was also the chief and hero of the battle of Horseshoe Bend. For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky Mountains, thru forests and over rivers, until finally they tracked them to their very town in the far Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the town-house, where the women were dancing over the fresh scalps of the Cherokee. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink, the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the town-house never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, "We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the warwhoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?" "Let them come if they will," said the men, and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokees. At once there was an answering shout from the town-house, and the dance came to a sudden close. The Seneca swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and active runners, and managed to get away with the loss of only one man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-Carrier's bravery and success that they gave him seven wives. PART IV GLOSSARY OF CHEROKEE WORDS GLOSSARY OF CHEROKEE WORDS. The Cherokee language has the continental vowel sounds a, e, i, and u, but lacks o, which is replaced by a deep a. The obscure or short u is frequently nasalized, but the nasal sound is seldom heard at the end of a word. The only labial is m, which occurs in probably not more than half a dozen words in the Upper and Middle dialects, and is entirely absent from the Lower dialect, in which w takes its place. The characteristic l of the Upper and Middle dialects becomes r in the Lower, but no dialect has both sounds of these letters, but g and d are medials, approximating the sounds of k and t respectively. A frequent double consonant is ts, commonly rendered ch by the old traders. a as in far. a as in what, or obscure as in showman. à as in law, all. d medial (semisonant), approximating t. e as in they. e as in net. g medial (semisonant), approximating k. h as in hat. i as in pique. i as in pick. k as in kick. l as in lull. `l surd l (sometimes written hl), nearly the Welsh ll. m as in man. n as in not. r takes place of 1 in Lower dialect. s as in sin. t as in top. u as in rule. û as in cut. ûñ û nasalized. w as in wit. y as in you. ' a slight aspirate, sometimes indicating the omission of a vowel. A number of English words, with cross references, have been introduced into the glossary. ada`lanun`sti--a staff or cane. adan`ta--soul. ada`wehi--a magician or supernatural being. ada`wehi`yu--a very great magician; intensive form of ada`wehi. a`gana--groundhog. A`gansta`ta--"groundhog-sausage," from a`gana, ground-hog, and tsista`u, "I am pounding it," understood to refer to pounding meat, etc., in a mortar, after having first crisped it before the fire. A war chief, noted in the Cherokee war of 1760, and prominent until about the close of the Revolution, known to the whites as Oconostota. Also the Cherokee name for Colonel Gideon Morgan of the war of 1812, for Washington Morgan, his son, of the Civil war, and now for a full-blood upon the reservation, known to the whites as Morgan Calhoun. A`gan-uni`tsi--"Ground-hog's mother," from a`gana and uni`tsi, their mother, plural of utsi`, his mother (etsi`, agitsi`, my mother). The Cherokee name of the Shawano captive, who, according to tradition, killed the great Uktena serpent and procured the Ulunsu`ti. Agawe`la--"Old Woman," a formulistic name for corn or the spirit corn. agayun`li--for agayunlige, old, ancient. agida`ta--see eda`ta. agidutu--see edu`tu. Agi'li--"He is rising," possibly a contraction of an old personal name. Agin`-agi'li, "Rising-fawn." Major George Lawrey, cousin of Sequoya, and assistant chief of the Cherokee Nation about 1840. Stanley incorrectly makes it "Keeth-la, or Dog" for gi'li`. agin`si--see eni`si. agi`si--female, applied usually to quadrupeds. Agis`-e`gwa--"Great Female," possibly "Great Doe." A being, probably an animal god invoked in the sacred formulas. agitsi`--see etsi`. Agitsta'ti`yi--"where they stayed up all night," from tsigitsun`tihu, "I stay up all night." A place in the Great Smoky range about the head of Noland creek, in Swain County, N. C. Aguaquiri--see Guaquili. Ahalu`na--"Ambush," Ahalunun`yi, "Ambush place," or Uni`halu`na, "where they ambushed," from akalu`ga, "I am watching." Soco gap, at the head of Soco creek, on the line between Swain and Haywood counties, N. C. The name is also applied to the lookout station for deer hunters. ahanu`lahi--"he is bearded," from ahanu`lahu, a beard. Ahu`lude`gi--"He throws away the drum" (habitual), from ahu`li, drum, and akwade`gu, "I am throwing it away" (round object). The Cherokee name of John Jolly, a noted chief and adopted father of Samuel Houston, about 1800. ahyeli`ski--a mocker or mimic. akta`--eye; plural, dikta`. akta`ti--a telescope or field glass. The name denotes something with which to examine or look into closely, from akta`, eye. akwandu`li--a song form for akwidu`li (-hu,) "I want it." Akwan'ki--see Anakwan`ki. Akwe'ti`yi--a location on Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina; the meaning of the name is lost. Alarka--see Yalagi. aliga`--the red-horse fish (Moxostoma). Alkini`--the last woman known to be of Natchez decent and peculiarity among the East Cherokee; died about 1890. The name has no apparent meaning. ama`--water; in the Lower dialect, awa`; cf. a`ma salt. amaye`hi--"dwelling in the water," from ama` (ama`yi, "in the water") and ehu`, "I dwell," "I live." Amaye'l-e`gwa--"Great island," from amaye'li, island (from ama`, water, and aye'li, "in the middle") and e`gwa, great. A former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, at Big island, a short distance below the mouth of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tenn. Timberlake writes it Mialaquo, while Bartram spells it Nilaque. Not to be confounded with Long-Island town below Chattanooga. Amaye'li-gunahi`ta--"Long-island," from amaye'li, island, and gunahi`ta, long. A former Cherokee settlement, known to the whites as Long-Island town, at the Long-island in Tennessee river, on the Tennessee-Georgia line. It was one of the Chickamauga towns (see Tsikama`gi). ama`yine`hi--"dwellers in the water," plural of amaye`hi. Anada`duntaski--"roasters," i. e., cannibals; from gun`tasku`. "I am putting it (round) into the fire to roast." The regular word for cannibals is Yun`wini`giski, q. v. anagahun`unsku`--the green-corn dance; literally, "they are having a green-corn dance"; the popular name is not a translation of the Cherokee word, which has no reference either to corn or dancing. Anakwan'ki--the Delaware Indians; singular Akwan'ki, a Cherokee attempt at Wapanaqki, "Easterners," the Algonquian name by which, in various corrupted forms, the Delawares are commonly known to the western tribes. Anantooeah--see Ani`Nun`dawe`gi. a'ne`tsa, or anetsa`gi--the ball-play. a'netsa`unski--a ball-player; literally, "a lover of the ball-play." ani`--a tribal and animate prefix. ani`da`wehi--plural of ada`wehi. a`niganti`ski--see dagan'tu. Ani`Gatage`wi--one of the seven Cherokee clans. The name has now no meaning, but has been absurdly rendered "Blind savana," from an incorrect idea that it is derived from Iga`ti, a swamp or savanna, and dige`wi, blind. Ani-Gila`hi--"Long-haired people," one of the seven Cherokee clans; singular, Agila`hi. The word comes from agila`hi (perhaps connected with afi'lge-ni, "the back of (his) neck"), an archaic term denoting wearing the hair long or flowing loosely, and usually recognized as applying more particularly to a woman. Ani`-Gili`--a problematic tribe, possibly the Congaree. The name is not connected with gi`li`, dog. Ani`-Gusa--see Ani`Ku`sa. a`nigwa--soon after; dine`tlana a`nigwa, "soon after the creation." Ani`-Hyun`tikwala`ski--"The Thunders," i. e., thunder, which in Cherokee belief, is controlled and caused by a family of supernaturals. The word has reference to making a rolling sound; cf. tikwale`lu, a wheel, hence a wagon; ama`-tikwalelunyi, "rolling water place," applied to a cascade where the water falls along the surface of the rock; ahyun`tikwala`stihu`, "it is thundering," applied to the roar of a railroad train or waterfall. Ani`-Kawi`--"Deer people," one of the seven Cherokee clans; the regular form for deer is a'wi`. Ani`-Kawi`ta--the Lower Creeks, from Kawi`ta or Coweta, their former principal town on Chattahoochee river near the present Columbus, Ga.; the Upper Creeks on the head streams of Alabama river were distinguished as Ani`-Ku`sa (q. v.) A small creek of Little Tennessee river above Franklin, in Macon county, N. C., is now known as Coweeta creek. Ani`-Kitu`hwagi--"Kitu`hwa people," from Kitu`hwa (q. v.), an ancient Cherokee settlement. Ani`-Ku`sa or Ani`-Gu`sa--the Creek Indians, particularly the Upper Creeks on the waters of Alabama river; singular A`Ku`sa or Coosa (Spanish, Coca, Cossa) their principal ancient town. Ani`-Kuta`ni (also Ani`-Kwata`ni, or incorrectly, Nicotani)--traditional Cherokee priestly society or clan exterminated in a popular uprising. anina`hilidahi--"creatures that fly about," from tsinai`li, "I am flying," tsina`ilida`hu, "I am flying about." The generic term for birds and flying insects. Ani`-Na'tsi--abbreviated Anintsi, singular A-Na'tsi. The Natchez Indians. From coincidence with na`tsi, pine, the name has been incorrectly rendered "Pine Indians," whereas it is really a Cherokee plural name of the Natchez. Anin`tsi--see Ani`Na'tsi. Ani`Nundawe`gi--singular, Nun`dawe`gi; the Iroquois, more particularly the Seneca, from Nundawao, the name by which the Seneca call themselves. Adair spells it Anantooeah. The tribe was also known as Ani`-Se`nika. Ani`-Saha`ni--one of the seven Cherokee clans; possibly an archaic form for "Blue people," from sa'ka`ni, sa`ka`nige`i, blue. Ani`-Sa`ni, Ani`-Sawaha`ni--see Ani`-Sawanu`gi. Ani`-Sawanu`gi (singular Sawanu`gi)--the Shawano Indians. Ani`-sa`ni and Ani`-Sawaha`ni may be the same. Ani`-Se`nika--see Ani`Nundawe`gi. Anisga`ya Tsunsdi` (ga)--"The Little Men"; the Thunder Boys in Cherokee mythology. Ani`-sgayaiyi--"Men town" (?), a traditional Cherokee settlement on Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. Ani`sgi`na--plural of asgi`na, q. v. Ani`-Skala`li--the Tuscarora Indian; singular, Skala`li or A-Skala`li. Ani`skwa`ni--Spaniards; singular, Askwa`ni. Ani`-Suwa`li--or Ani`-Swqa`la--the Suala, Sara or Cheraw Indians, formerly about the headwaters of Broad river, North Carolina, the Xuala province of the De Soto chronicle, and Joara or Juada of the later Pardo narrative. Ani`ta`gwa--the Catawba Indians; singular, Ata`gwa or Tagwa. Ani`-Tsa`guhi--the Cherokee clan, transformed to bears according to tradition. Swimmer's daughter bears the name Tsaguhi, which is not recognized as distinctively belonging to either sex. Ani`-Tsa`lagi`--the Cherokee. Ani`-Tsa'ta--the Choctaw Indians; singular, Tsa'ta. Ani`-Tsi`ksu--the Chickasaw Indians; singular, Tsi`ksu. Ani`-Tsi`skwa--"Bird people"; one of the seven Cherokee clans. Ani`-Tsu`tsa--"The Boys," from atsu`tsa, boy; the Pleiades. Ani`-Wa`di--"Paint people"; one of the seven Cherokee clans. Ani`-Wa'dihi`--"Place of the Paint people or clan"; Paint town, a Cherokee settlement on lower Soco creek, within the reservation in Jackson and Swain counties, North Carolina. It takes its name from the Ani`-Wa`di or Paint clan. ani`wani`ski--the bugle weed, Lycopus virginicus; literally, "the talk" or "talkers," from tsiwa`nihu, "I am talking," awaniski, "he talks habitually." Ani`-Wasa`si--the Osage Indians; singular, Wasa`si. Ani`-Wa`ya--"Wolf people"; the most important of the seven clans of the Cherokee. Ani`-Yun`wiya`--Indians, particularly Cherokee Indians; literally "principal or real people," from yunwi, person, ya, a suffix implying principal or real, and ani`, the tribal prefix. Ani`-Yu`tsi--the Yuchi or Uchee Indians; singular, Yu`tsi. Annie Ax--see Sadayi`. Aquone--a post-office on Nantahala river, in Mason county, North Carolina, site of the former Fort Scott. Probably a corruption of egwani, river. Arch, John--see Atsi. Asa`gwalihu`--a pack or burden; asa`gwal lu`, or asa`gwi li`, "there is a pack on him." asehi`--surely. Ase`nika--singular of Ani`-Se`nika. asga`ya--man. asga`ya Gi`gagei--the "Red Man"; the Lightning spirit. asgi`na--a ghost, either human or animal; from the fact that ghosts are commonly supposed to be malevolent, the name is frequently rendered "devil." Asheville--see Kasdu`yi and Unta`kiyasti`yi. asi--the sweat lodge and occasional winter sleeping apartment of the Cherokee and other southern tribes. It was a low built structure of logs covered with earth and from its closeness and the fire usually kept smoldering within was known to the old traders as the "hot house." asiyu` (abbreviated siyu`)--good; the common Cherokee salute; ga`siyu`, "I am good"; hasiyu`, "thou art good"; a`siyu, "he (it) is good"; astu, "very good." Askwa`ni--a Spaniard. See Ani`skwa`ni. astu`--very good; astu tsiki`, very good, best of all. Astu`gata`ga--A Cherokee lieutenant in the Confederate service killed in 1862. The name may be rendered, "Standing in the doorway," but implies that the man himself is the door or shutter; it has no first person; gata`ga, "he is standing"; stuti, a door or shutter; stuhu, a closed door or passage; stugi`sti, a key, i. e., something with which to open the door. asun`tli, asuntlun`yu--a footlog or bridge; literally, "log lying across," from asi`ta, log. ata`--wood; ata`ya, "principal wood," i. e., oak; cf. Muscogee iti, wood. Ata`-gul kalu`--a noted Cherokee chief, recognized by the British government as the head chief or "emperor" of the Nation, about 1760 and later, and commonly known to the whites as the Little Carpenter (Little Cornplanter, by mistake, in Haywood). The name is frequently spelled Atta-kulla-kulla, Ata-kullakulla or Ata-culculla. It may be rendered "Leaning wood," from ata`, "Wood" and gul kalu, a verb implying that something long is leaning, without sufficient support, against some other object; it has no first person form. Bartram describes him as "A man of remarkably small stature, slender and of a delicate frame, the only instance I saw in the Nation; but he is a man of superior abilities." Ata`gwa--a Catawba Indian. Atahi`ta--abbreviated from Atahitun`yi, "Place where they shouted," from gata`hiu`, "I shout," and yi, locative. Waya gap, on the ridge west of Franklin, Macon county, North Carolina. The map name is probably from the Cherokee wa ya, wolf. Ata-Kullakulla--see Ata`-gul kalu`. a`tali--mountain; in the Lower dialect a`tari, whence the "Ottare" or Upper Cherokee of Adair. The form a`tali is used only in composition; and mountain in situ is atalunyi or gatu`si. a`tali-guli`--"it climbs the mountain," i. e., "mountain-climber"; the ginseng plant, Ginseng quinquefolium; from a`tali, mountain, and guli`, "it climbs" (habitually); tsilahi` or tsili`, "I am climbing." Also called in the sacred formulas, Yun`wi Usdi`, "Little man." Atala`nuwa`--"Tla`nuwa hole"; the Cherokee name of Chattanooga, Tennessee (see tsatanu`gi); originally applied to a bluff on the south side of the Tennessee river, at the foot of the present Market street. a`talulu`--unfinished, premature, unsuccessful; whence utalu`li, "it is not yet time." Ata`lunti`ski--a chief of the Arkansas Cherokee about 1818, who had originally emigrated from Tennessee. The name, commonly spelled Tollunteeskee, Taluntiski, Tallotiskee, Tallotuskee, etc., denotes one who throws some living object from a place, as an enemy from a precipice. A`tari--see a`tali. atasi` (or atasa`, in a dialectic form)--a war-club. atatsun`ski--stinging; literally, "he stings" (habitually). A`tsi--the Cherokee name of John Arch, one of the earliest native writers in the Sequoya characters. The word is simply an attempt at the English name Arch. atsi`la--fire; in the Lower dialect, atsi`ra. Atsi`la-wa`i--"Fire--"; a mountain sometimes known as Rattlesnake knob, about two miles northeast of Cherokee, Swain county, N. C. Atsil`-dihye`gi--"Fire-Carrier"; apparently the Cherokee name for the will-of-the-wisp. As is usually the case in the Cherokee compounds, the verbal form is plural ("it carries fire"); the singular form is ahye`gi. Atsil`-sunti (abbreviated tsil`-sunti)--fleabane (Erigeron canadense); the name signifies "material with which to make fire," from atsi`la, fire, and gasunti, gatsunti or gatlunti, material with which to make something, from fasun`sku (or gatlun`sku), "I make it." The plant is also called ihya`ga. atsil`-tluntu`tsi--"fire-panther." A meteor or comet. A`tsina`--cedar. A`tsina`-k ta`um--"Hanging cedar place"; from a`tsina`, cedar, and k ta`un, "where it (long) hangs down"; a Cherokee name for the old Taskigi town on the Little Tennessee river in Monroe county, Tenn. Atsi`ra--see atsi`la. Atsun`sta ti`yi (abbreviated Atsun`sta ti)--"Fire-light place," referring to the "fire-hunting" method of killing deer in the river at night. The proper form for Chestatee river, near Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Ga. Attakullakulla--see Ata-gul kalu`. awa`--see ama`. awa`hili--eagle; particularly Aquila Chrysaetus, distinguished as the "pretty-feathered eagle." awi`--deer; also sometimes written and pronounced ahawi`; the name is sometimes applied to the large horned beetle, the flying stag of early writers. awi`-ahanu`lahi--goat; literally "bearded deer." awi`-ahyeli`ski--"deer mocker"; the deer bleat, a sort of whistle used by hunters to call the doe by imitating the cry of the fawn. awi`-akta`--"deer eye"; the Rudbeckia or black-eyed Susan. awi`-e`gwa (abbreviated aw-e`gwa)--the elk, literally "great deer." awi`-unade`na--sheep; literally "woolly deer." Awi`Usdi`--"Little Deer," the mythic chief of the Deer tribe. Ax, Annie--see Sadayi`. Ax, John--see Itagu`nahi. awe li--half, middle, in the middle. Ayphwa`si--the proper form of the name commonly written Hiwassee. It signifies a savanna or meadow and was applied to two (or more) former Cherokee settlements. The more important, commonly distinguished as Ayuhwa`si Egwa`hi or Great Hiwassee, was on the north bank of Hiwassee river at the present Savannah ford above Columbus, in Polk county, Tenn. The other was farther up the same river, at the junction of Peachtree creek, above Murphy, in Cherokee county, N. C. Lanman writes it Owassa. Ayrate--see e`ladi`. Ays`sta--"The Spoiler," from tsiya`stihu, "I spoil it"; cf. uya`i, bad. A prominent woman and informant on the East Cherokee reservation. Ayun`ini--"Swimmer"; literally, "he is swimming," from gayunini`, "I am swimming." A principal priest and informant of the East Cherokee, died in 1899. Ayulsu`--see Dayulsun`yi. Beaverdam--see Uy'gila`gi. Big-Cove--see Ka`lanun`yi. Big-Island--see Amaye'l-e`gwa. Big-Witch--see Tskil-e`gwa. Bird-Town--see Tsiskwa`hi. Bloody-Fellow--see Iskagua. Blythe--see Diskwani. Black-fox--see Ina`li. Boudinot, Elias--see Galagi`na. Bowl, The; Bowles, Colonel--see Diwali. Brass--see Untsaiyi`. Brasstown--see Itse`yi. Breadth, The--see Unli`ta. Briertown--see Kanu`gula`yi. Buffalo (creek)--see Yunsa`i. Bull-Head--see Sukwale`na. Butler, John--see Tsan`-uga`sita. Cade's Cove--see Tsiya`hi. Canacaught--"Canacaught, the great Conjurer," mentioned as a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; possibly kanegwa`ti, the water-moccasin snake. Canaly--see hi`gina`lii. Canasagua--see Gansa`gi. Cannastion, Cannostee--see Kana`sta. Canuga--see Kanu`ga. Cartoogaja--see Gatu`gitse`yi. Cataluchee--see Gadalu`tsi. Cauchi--a place, apparently in the Cherokee county, visited by Pardo in 1567. Caunasaita--given as the name of a Lower Chief in 1684; possibly for Kanunsi`ta, "dogwood." Chalaque--see Tsa`lagi. Chattanooga--see Tsatanu`gi. Chattooga, Chatuga--see Tsatu`gi. Cheeowhee--see Tsiya`hi. Cheerake--see Tsa`lagi. Cheraw--see Ani`-Suwa`li. Cheowa--see Tsiya`hi. Cheowa Maximum--see Schwate`yi. Cheraqui--see Tsa`lagi. Cherokee--see Tsa`lagi. Chestatee--see Atsun`sta ti`yi. Chestua--see Tsistu`yi. Cheucunsene--see Tsi`kama`gi. Chilhowee--see Tsu lun`we. Chimney Tops--see Duni`skwa lgun`i. Chisca--mentioned in the De Soto narratives as a mining region in the Cherokee country. The name may have a connection with Tsi`skwa, "bird," possibly Tsiskwa`hi, "Bird place." Choastea--see Tsistu`yi. Chopped Oak--see Digalu`yatun`yi. Choquata--see Itsa`ti. Citico--see Si`tiku`. Clear-sky--see Iskagua. Clennuse--see Tlanusi`yi. Cleveland--see Tsistetsi`yi. Coca--see Ani`-Ku`sa. Coco--see Kuku`. Cohutta--see Gahu`ti. Colanneh, Colona--see Ka`lanu. Conasauga--see Gansa`gi. Conneross--see Kawan`-ura`sunyi. Coosawatee--see Ku`saweti`yi. Cooweescoowee--see Gu`wisguwi`. Coosa--see Ani`-Ku`sa, Kusa. Corani--see Ka`lanu. Cowee`--see Kawi`yi. Coweeta, Coweta--see Ani`-Kawi`ta. Coyatee (variously spelled Cawatie, Coiatee, Coytee, Coytoy, Kai-a-tee)--a former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, some ten miles below the junction of Tellico, about the present Coytee post-office in Loudon county, Tennessee. Creek-path--see Ku`sa-nunna`hi. Crow-town--see Kagun`yi. Cuhtahlatah--a Cherokee woman noted in the Wahnenauhi manuscript as having distinguished herself by bravery in battle. The proper form may have some connection with gatun`lati, "wild hemp." Cullasagee--see Kulse`tsi`yi. Cullowhee, Currahee--see Gulahi`yi. Cuttawa--see Kitu`hwa. Dagan tu--"he makes it rain"; from aga`ska, "it is raining," aga`na, "it has begun to rain"; a small variety of lizard whose cry is said to presage rain. It is also called a`niganti`ski, "they make it rain" (plural form), or rain-maker. dagul ku--the American white-fronted goose. The name may be an onomatope. dagu`na--the fresh-water mussel; also a variety of face pimples. Dagun`hi--"Mussel place," from dagu`na, mussel, and hi, locative. The Mussel shoals on Tennessee river, in northwestern Alabama. It was sometimes called also simply Tsu stanalun`yi, "Shoal's place." Dagu`nawa`lahi--"Mussel-liver place," from dagu`na, mussel, uwe`la, liver, and hi, locative; the Cherokee name for the site of Nashville, Tenn. No reason can now be given for the name. Dahlonega--A town in Lumpkin county, Ga., near which the first gold was mined. A mint was established there in 1838. The name is from the Cherokee dala`nige`i, yellow, whence ate`la-dala`-nige`i, "yellow money," i. e., gold. daksawa`ihu--"he is shedding tears." dakwa`--a mythic great fish; also the whale. Dakwa`i--"dakwa place," from a tradition of a dakwa` in the river at that point. A former Cherokee settlement, known to the traders as Toqua or Toco, on Little Tennessee river, about the mouth of Toco creek in Monroe county, Tenn. A similar name and tradition attaches to a spot on the French Broad river, about six miles above the Warm springs, in Buncombe county, N. C. dakwa`nitlastesti--"I shall have them on my legs for garters"; from anitla`sti (plural dinitla`sti), garter; d-, initial plural; akwa, first person particle; and esti, future suffix. da`liksta`--"vomiter," from dagik`stihu`, "I am vomiting," daliksta`, "he vomits" (habitually); the form is plural. The spreading adder (Heterodon), also sometimes called kwandaya`hu, a word of uncertain etymology. Da` nagasta--for Da` nawa-gasta`ya, "Sharp-war," i. e., "Eager-warrior;" a Cherokee woman's name. Da` nawa-(a)sa tsun`yi, "War-ford," from da` nawa, war, and asa tsun`yi, "a crossing-place or ford." A ford on Cheowa river about three miles below Robbinsville, in Graham county, N. C. Danda`ganu`--"Two looking at each other," from detsi`ganu`, "I am looking at him." A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Lookout Mountain town, on Lookout Mountain creek, near the present Trenton, Dade county, Ga. One of the Chickamauga towns (see Tsi`kama`gi), so-called on account of the appearance of the mountains facing each other across the Tennessee river at Chattanooga. Da`si giya`gi--an old masculine personal name, of doubtful etymology, but commonly rendered by the traders "Shoe-boots," possibly referring to some peculiar style of moccasin or leggin. A chief known to the whites as Shoe-boots is mentioned in the Revolutionary records. Chief Lloyd Welch, of the eastern band, was known in the tribe as Da`si giya`gi, and the same name is now used by the East Cherokee as the equivalent of the name Lloyd. Da`skwitun`yi--"Rafter's Place," from daskwitun`i, rafters, and yi, locative. A former settlement on Tusquittee creek, near Hayesville, in Clay county, North Carolina. dasun`tali--ant; dasun`tali, "stinging ant," the large red cowant (Myrmica?), also called sometimes, on account of its hard body-case, nun`yunu`wi, "stone-clad," after the fabulous monster. Datle`yasta`i--"where they fell down," a point on Tuckasegee river, a short distance above Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina. datsi--a traditional water-monster. Datsi`yi--"Datsi place"; a place on Little Tennessee river, near junction of Eagle creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. Datsu`nalagun`yi--"where there are tracks or footprints," from uta`sinun`yi or ulasgun`yi, footprint. Track Rock gap, near Blairsville, Georgia. Also sometimes called De`gayelun`ha, "place of branded marks." da`yi--beaver. Dayulsun`yi--"place where they cried," a spot on the ridge at the head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina; so-called from an old tradition. da`yuni`si--"beaver's grandchild," from dayi, beaver, and uni`si, son's child of either sex. The water beetle or mellow bug. Degal gun`yi--a cairn, literally "where they are piled up"; a series of cairns on the south side of Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. De`gata`ga--The Cherokee name of General Stamd Watie and of a prominent early western chief known to the whites as Takatoka. The word is derived from tsita`ga, "I am standing," da nita`ga "they are standing together," and conveys the subtle meaning of two persons standing together and so closely united in sympathy as to form but one human body. De`gayelun`ha--see Datsu`nalagun`yi. detsanun`li--an enclosure or piece of level ground cleared for ceremonial purposes; applied more particularly to the green-corn dance ground. The word has a plural form, but cannot be certainly analyzed. De`tsata--a Cherokee sprite. detsinu`lahungu`--"I tried, but failed." Didalaski`yi--"Showering place." In the story (number 17) the name is understood to mean "the place where it rains fire." It signifies literally, however, the place where it showers, or comes down, and lodges upon something animate and has no definite reference to fire (atsi`la) or rain (afaska, "it is raining"); degalasku`, "they are showering down and lodging upon him." Dida`skasti`yi--"where they were afraid of each other," a spot on Little Tennessee river, near the mouth of Alarka creek, in Swain county, N. C. diga`gwani`--the mud-hen or didapper. The name is plural form and implies "lame," or "crippled in the legs" (cf. detsi`nigwa`na, "I am kneeling"), probably from the bouncing motion of the bird when in the water. It is also the name of a dance. Diga`kati`yi--see Gakati`yi. di`galungun`yi--"where it rises, or comes up"; the east. The sacred term is Nunda`yi, q. v. digalun`latiyun--a height, one of a series, from galun`lati, "above." Digalu`yatun`yi--"where it is gashed (with hatchets)"; from tsilu`yu, "I am cutting (with a chopping stroke)," di, plural prefix, and yi, locative. The Chopped Oak, formerly east of Clarkesville, Ga. Digane`ski--"he picks them up" (habitually), from tsine`u, "I am picking it up." A Cherokee Union soldier in the Civil War. digi`gage`i--the plural of gi`gage`i, red. digu`lanahi`ta--for digu`li-anahi`ta, "having long ears," "long-eared"; from gule, "ear" and gunahi`ta, "long." Dihyun`dula`--"sheaths," or "scabbards"; singular ahyun`dula`, "a gun-sheath," or other scabbard. The probable correct form of a name which appears in Revolutionary documents as "Untoola, or Gum Rod." Dikta`--plural of Akta`, eye. dila`--skunk. dilsta`yati--"scissors"; the water-spider (Dolomedes). dinda`skwate`ski--the violet; the name signifies, "they pull each others' heads off." dine`tlana--the creation. di nuski--"the breeder"; a variety of smilax brier. Disga`gisti`yi--"where they gnaw"; a place on Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. diskwa ni--"chestnut bread," i. e., a variety of bread having chestnuts mixed with it. The Cherokee name of James Blythe, interpreter and agency clerk. Distai`yi--"they are strong," plural of astai`yi, "strong or tough." The Tephrosia or devil's shoestring. dista`sti--a mill (generic). dita`stayeski--"a barber," literally "one who cuts things (as with scissors), from tsista`yu, "I cut." The cricket (tala`tu) is sometimes so-called. Diwa`li--"Bowl," a prominent chief of the western Cherokee, known to the whites as The Bowl, or Colonel Bowles, killed by the Texans in 1839. The chief mentioned may have been another of the same name. diya`hali (or duya`hali)--the alligator lizard (Sceloporue undulatus). Diya`hali`yi--"Lizard's place," from diya`hali, lizard, and yi, locative. Joanna Bald, a mountain at the head of Valley river on the line between Cherokee and Graham counties, North Carolina. Double-Head--see Tal-tsu`ska`. Dragging-Canoe--see Tsi`yu-gunsi`ni. Dudun`leksun`yi--"where its legs were broken off"; a place on Tuckasegee river, a few miles above Webster, in Jackson county, N. C. Dugilu`yi (abbreviated Dugilu`, and commonly written Tugaloo, or sometimes Toogelah or Toogoola)--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, the best known being Tugaloo river, so-called from a former Cherokee settlement of that name situated at the junction of Toccoa creek with the main stream, in Habersham county, Ga. The word is of uncertain etymology; but seems to refer to a place at the forks of a stream. Dukas`i, Dukwas`i--The correct form of the name commonly written Toxaway, applied to a former Cherokee settlement in S. C., and the creek upon which it stood, and extreme headstream of Keowee river having its source in Jackson county, N. C. The meaning of the name is lost, although it has been wrongly interpreted to mean "place of shedding tears." Dulastun`yi--"Potsherd place." A former Cherokee settlement on Nottely river in Cherokee county, North Carolina. dule`tsi--"kernels," a goitrous swelling upon the throat. dulu`si--a variety of frog found upon the headwaters of Savannah river. Duniya ta lun`yi--"where there are shelves, or flat places," from aya te`ni, flat, whence da`ya tana lun`i, a shelf, and yi, locative. A gap on the Great Smoky range, near Clingman's dome, Swain county, N. C. Dunidu`lalun`yi--"where they made arrows"; a place on Straight creek, a headstream of Oconaluftee river, in Swain county, N. C. Duni`skwa lgun`i--the double peak known as the Chimney Tops, in Great Smoky Mountains about the head of Deep creek, in Swain county, N. C. On the north side is the pass known as Indian gap. The name signifies a "forked antler," from uskwa lgu, antler, but indicates that the antler is attached in place, as though the deer itself were concealed below. Du`stayalun`yi--"where it made a noise as of thunder or shooting," apparently referring to a lightning strike (detsistaya`hihu, "I make a shooting or thundering noise," might be a first person form used by the personified Thundergod); a spot on Hiwassee river, about the junction of Shooting creek, near Hayesville, in Clay county, N. C. A former settlement along the creek bore the same name. du`stu`--a species of frog, appearing very early in spring; the name is intended for an onomatope. It is the correct form of the name of the chief noted by McKenney and Hall as "Tooantuh or Spring Frog." Dutch--see Tatsi`. duwe ga--a spring lizard. Eagle Dance--see Tsugidu`li ulsgi`sti. Eastinaulee--see U`stana`li. Echota, New--see Gansa`gi. edata--my father (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agida`ta. Edi`hi--"He goes about" (habitually); a masculine name. edutu--my maternal grandfather (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agidu tu; cf. enisi. egwa--great; cf. utanu. egwani--river. Egwanulti--"By the river," from egwa ni, river, and nulati or nulti, near, beside. The proper form of Oconaluftee, the name of the river flowing thru the East Cherokee reservation in Swain and Jackson Counties, N. C. The town, Oconaluftee, mentioned by Bartram as existing about 1775, was probably on the lower course of the river at the present Birdtown, on the reservation, where was formerly a considerable mound. ela--earth, ground. eladi--low, below; in the Lower dialect eradi, whence the Ayrata or Lower Cherokee of Adair, as distinguished from the Ottara (atari, atali) or Upper Cherokee. elanti--a song form for eladi, q. v. Elatse`yi, (abbreviated Elatse)--"Green (verdant) earth," from ela, earth, and itse yi, green, from fresh-springing vegetation. The name of several former Cherokee settlements, commonly known to the whites as Ellijay, Elejoy or Allagae. One of these was upon the headwaters of Keowee river in S. C.; another was on Ellijay creek of Little Tennessee river, near the present Franklin, in Macon Co., N. C.; another was about the present Ellijay in Gilmer Co., Ga.; and still another was on Ellijay creek of Little river, near the present Maryville, in Blount Co., Tenn. Elawa diyi (abbreviated Elawa di)--"Red-earth place," from ela, earth, wadi, brown-red or red paint, and yi, the locative. 1. The Cherokee name of Yellow-Hill settlement, now officially known as Cherokee, the post office and agency headquarters for the East Cherokee, on Oconaluftee river, in Swain Co., N. C. 2. A former council ground known in history as Red Clay; at the site of the present village of that name in Whitfield Co., Ga., adjoining the Tennessee line. Ellijay--see Elatse`yi. eni si--my paternal grandfather (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agani si, cf. edutu. Eskaqua--see Iskagua. Estanaula, Estinaula--see U`stana`li. Etawa ha tsistatla`ski--"Deadwood-lighter," a traditional Cherokee conjurer. eti--old, long ago. Etowah--see I`tawa`. Etsaiyi--see Untsaiyi. etsi--my mother (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agitsi. Euharlee--see Yuha`li. Feather dance--see Tsugidu`li ulsgi`sti. Fightingtown--see Walas`-unulsti yi. Flax-toter--see Tale`danigi`ski. Flying-squirrel--see Ka`lahu`. Frogtown--see Walasi`yi. Gadalu`la--the proper name of the mountain known to the whites as Yonah (from yanu, bear); or upper Chattahoochee river, in White Co., Ga. The name has no connection with Tallulah (see Talulu) and cannot be translated. Gadalu`tsi--in the corrupted form of Cataluchee this appears on the map as the name of a peak, or rather a ridge, on the line between Swain and Haywood counties, N. C., and of a creek running down on the Haywood side into Big Pigeon river. It is properly the name of the ridge only, and seems to refer to a "fringe standing erect," apparently from the appearance of the timber growing in streaks along the side of the mountain; from wadalu`yata, fringe, gadu`ta, "standing up in a row or series." gahawi`siti--parched corn. Gahuti (Gahu`ta and Gwahu`ti in dialect forms)--Cohutta mountains in Murray Co., Ga. The name comes from gahuta`yi, "ashed roof supported on poles", and refers to a fancied resemblance in the summit. Gakati`yi--"place of setting fire"; something spoken in the plural form, Diga`kati`yi, "place of the setting free." A point on Tuckasegee river, about three miles above Bryson City, in Swain Co., N. C. gaktun`ta--an injunction, command or rule, more particularly a prohibition or ceremonial tabu. Tsiga`te`gu. "I am observing an injunction or tabu"; adakte`gi, "he is under tabu regulations." Galagi`na--a male deer (buck) or turkey (gobbler); in the first sense the name is sometimes used also for the large horned beetle (Dynastes tityus). The Indian name of Elias Boudinot, first Cherokee editor. gali`sgisida`hu--"I am dancing about"; from gali`sgia, "I am dancing," and edahu, "I am going about." galunkw`ti`yo--honored; sacred; used in the bible to mean holy, hallowed. galun`lati--above, on high. gane`ga--skin. ganidawa`ski--"the champion catchfly" or "rattlesnake's master" (Silene stellata); the name signifies "it disjoints itself," from ganidawsku`, "it is unjointing itself," on account of the peculiar manner in which the dried stalk breaks off at the joints. Gansagi (or Gansagiyi)--the name of several former settlements in the old Cherokee country; it cannot be analyzed. One of this name was upon Tuckasegee river, a short distance above the present Webster, in Jackson Co., N. C.; another was on the lower part of Canasauga creek, in McMinn Co., Tenn.; a third was at the junction of Conasauga and Coosawatee rivers, where afterwards was located the Cherokee capital, New Echota, in Gordon Co., Ga.; a fourth, mentioned in the De Soto narratives as Canasoga or Canasagua, was located in 1540 on the upper Chattahoochee river, possibly in the neighborhood of Kennesaw mountain, Ga. Gansa`ti`yi--"robbing place," from tsina`sahunsku, "I am robbing him." Vengeance creek of Valley river in Cherokee Co., N. C. The name vengeance was originally a white man's nickname for an old Cherokee woman, of forbidding aspect, who lived there before the Removal. Ganse`ti--a rattle; as the Cherokee dance rattle is made from the gourd, the masculine name, Ganse`ti, is usually rendered by the whites, "rattling-gourd." gatausti--the wheel and stick of the Southern tribes, incorrectly called nettecwaw by Timberlake. Gategwa`--for Gategwa`hi, possibly a contraction of Igat(I)-egwa`hi, "Great-swamp, "thicket place." A high peak southeast from Franklin, Macon Co., N. C., and perhaps identical with Fodderstack mountain. ga`tsu--see hatlu`. Gatu`gitse`yi (abbreviated Gatu`gitse`)--"New-settlement place," from gatu`gi or agatu`gi, town, settlement, itsehi, new, especially applied to new vegetation, and yi, the locative. A former settlement on Cartoogaja creek near the present Franklin, in Macon Co., N. C. Gatugi`yi--"Town building place," or "Settlement place," from gatu`gi, a settlement, and yi, locative. A place on Santeetla creek, near Robbinsville, in Graham Co., N. C. Gatun`iti`yi--"Hemp place," from Gatun`lati, "wild hemp" (Apocynum cannabinum), and yi, locative. A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Hemptown, on the creek of the same name, near Morgantown, in Fannin Co., Ga. Gatun`wa`li--a noted western Cherokee, about 1842, known to the whites as Hardmush or Big-Mush. Gatun`wa`li, from ga`tu`, "bread," and unwa`li, "made into balls or lumps," is a sort of mush or parched corn meal, made very thick, so that it can be dipped out in lumps almost of the consistency of bread. ge`i--down stream, down the road, with the current; tsa`gi, up stream. gese`i--was; a separate word which, when used after the verb in the present tense, makes it past tense without change of form; in the form hi`gese`i it usually accompanies an emphatic repetition. Ge`yagu`ga (for Age`hya`-guga?)--a formulistic name for the moon (nun`da`); it cannot be analyzed, but seems to contain the word age`hya, "woman." See also nun`da`. gi`ga--blood; cf. gi`gage`i, red. gi`ga-danegi`ski--"blood taker," from gi`ga, blood, and ada`negi`ski, "one who takes liquids," from tsi`negia` (liquid). Another name for the tsane`ni or scorpion lizard. gi`gage`i--red, bright red, scarlet; the brown-red of certain animals and clays is distinguished as wa`dige`i. gi`ga-tsuha`li--"bloody-mouth," literally "having blood on the corners of his mouth"; from gi`ga, blood, and tsuhanunsi`yi, the corners of the mouth (aha`li, his mouth). A large lizard, probably the pleistodon. gili--dog; the Lower dialect, gi`ri. Gili-dinehun`yi--"where the dogs live," from gili, dog, dinehu`, "they dwell" (ehu, "I dwell"), and yi, locative. A place on Oconaluftee river, a short distance above the present Cherokee in Swain Co., N. C. Gi`li`-utsun`stanun`yi--"where the dog ran," from gili`, dog, and Utsun`stanun`yi, "footprints made by an animal running"; the Milky way. ginunti--a song form for gunu`tii`, "to lay him (animate object) upon the ground." giri--see gi`li`. Gisehun`yi--"where the female lives," from agi`si, female, and yi, locative. A place on Tuckasegee river a short distance above Bryson City, in Swain Co., N. C. git`lu--hair. (Upper dialect); in Lower and Middle dialects gitsu. Glass, The--see Ta`gwadihi`. Gohoma--A Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. Going-snake--see I`naduna`i. Gorhaleka--a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. Great Island--see Amayel-e`gwa. Gregory Bald--see Tsistu`yi. Guachoula--see Guaxule. Guaquila (Waki la)--a town in the Cherokee country, visited by De Soto in 1540, and again in 1567 by Pardo, who calls it Aguaquiri, and the name may have a connection with waguli, "Whippoorwill," or with u`wa`gi`li, "foam." Guasula--see Guaxule. Gusila--see Guaxule. Guaxule--a town in Cherokee county, visited in 1540 by De Soto. It was probably about at Nacoochee mound in White Co., Ga. gu`day`wu--"I have sewed myself together"; "I am sewing," tsiye`wia`; "I am sewing myself together." gugwe`--the quail or partridge. gugwe`ulasu`la--"partridge moccasin," from guewe, partridge, and ulasula, moccasin or shoe; the lady slipper. Gulahi`yi (abbreviated Gulahi`, or Gurahi`, in the Lower dialect)--"Gula`hi place," so-called from the unidentified spring plant eaten as a salad by the Cherokee. The name of two or more places in the old Cherokee country; one about Currahee mountain, in Habersham Co., Ga., the other on Cullowhee river, an upper branch of Tuckasegee, in Jackson Co., N. C. Currahee Dick was a noted chief about the year 1820. Gu`lani`yi--a Cherokee and Natchez settlement, formerly about the junction of Brasstown creek with Hiwassee river, a short distance above Murphy, in Cherokee Co., N. C. The etymology of the word is doubtful. gule`--acorn. gule`diska`nihi--the turtle-dove; literally "it cries, or mourns, for acorns," from gule, acorn, and diska`nihi`, "it cries for them," (di-. plural prefix, hi, habitual suffix). The turtle-dove feeds upon acorns and its cry somewhat resembles the name, gule. gule`gi--"climber," from tsilahi, "I climb" (second person, hi`lahi; third person, gulahi); the blacksnake. Gul`kala`ski--an earlier name for Tsunu`lahun`ski, q. v. gul`kwa`gi--seven; also the mole-cricket. gul`kwa`gine(-i)--seventh; from gul`kwagi, seven. Gulsadihi (or Gultsadihi`?) a masculine name of uncertain etymology. gunahi`ti--long. Gu`nahitun`yi--Long place (i. e., Long valley), from gunahi`ti, long, and yi, locative. A former settlement known to the whites as Valleytown, where now is the town of the same name on Valley river in Cherokee Co., N. C. The various settlements on Valley river and the adjacent part of Hiwassee were known collectively as "Valley towns." Gun`di`gaduhun`yi (abbreviated Gun`-digadu`hun)--"Turkey settlement" (gu`na, turkey), so-called from the chief, Turkey or Little Turkey. A former settlement, known to the whites as Turkeytown, upon the west bank of Coosa river, opposite the present Center, in Cherokee, Co., Ala. gu`ni--arrow. Cf. Senica, ga`na. gun`nage`i (or gun`nage) black. Gunne`hi--see Nunne`hi. Gunskali`ski--a masculine personal name of uncertain etymology. Gunters Landing, Guntersville--see Ku`sa-Nunna`hi. Gun-tuskwa`li--"short arrows," from guni, arrow, and tsuskwa`li, plural of uska`li, short; a traditional western tribe. Gunun`da`le`gi--see Nunna-hi`dihi. Gusti`--a traditional Cherokee settlement on Tennessee river, near Kingston, Roane Co., Tenn. The name cannot be analyzed. Gu`wisguwi`--The Cherokee name of the chief John Ross, and for the district named in his honor, commonly spelled Cooweescoowee. Properly an onomatope for a large bird said to have been seen formerly at infrequent intervals in the old Cherokee country, accompanying the migratory wild geese, and described as resembling a large snipe, with yellow legs and unwebbed feet. In boyhood John Ross was known as Tsan`usdi, "Little John." Gwal`ga`hi--"Frog-place," from gwal`gu, a variety of frog, and hi, locative. A place on Hiwassee river, just above the junction of Peachtree creek, near Murphy, in Cherokee Co., N. C.; about 1755 the site of a village of refugee Natchez, and later of a Baptist mission. gwehe`--a cricket's cry. Ha!--an introductory exclamation intended to attract attention or add emphasis; about equivalent to Here! Now! Ha`-ma`ma`--a song term compounded of ha! an introductory exclamation, and mama`, a word which has no analysis, but is used in speaking to young children to mean "let me carry you on my back." Hanging-maw--see Uskwa`li-gu`ta. ha`nia-lil`-lil`--an unmeaning dance refrain. Hard-mush--see Gatun`wali. ha`tlu--dialectic form, ga`tsu, "where?" (interrogative). ha`wiye`ehi`, ha`wiye`hyuwe`--unmeaning dance refrains. hayu`--an emphatic affirmative, about equivalent to "Yes, sir." hayuya`haniwa`--an unmeaning refrain in one of the bear songs. he-e!--an unmeaning song introduction. Hemp-carrier--see Tale`danigi`ski. Hemptown--see Gatunlti`yi. hi!--unmeaning dance exclamation. Hickory-log--see Wane`-asun`tlunyi. hi`gina`lii--"(you are) my friend"; afina`lii, "(he is) my friend." In white man's jargon, canaly. Hightower--see I`tawa`. hila`gu?--how many? how much? (Upper dialect); the Middle dialect form is hungu`. hilahi`yu--long ago; the final yu makes it more emphatic. hi`lunnu--"(thou) go to sleep"; from tsi`lihu`, "I am asleep." hi`ski--five; cf. Mohawk wisk. The Cherokee numerals including 10 are as follows: sa`gwu, ta`li, tsa`i, nun`gi, hi`ski, su`tali, gul kwa`gi, tsune`la, aska`hi Hiwassee--Ayuhwa`si. hi`yagu`we--an unmeaning dance refrain. Houston, Samuel--see Ka`lanu. huhu--the yellow-breasted chat, or yellow mocking bird (Icteria virens); the name is an onomatope. hunyahu`ska--"he will die." hwi`lahi`--"thou (must) go." Iau`nigu--an important Cherokee settlement, commonly known to the whites as Seneca, formerly on Keowee river, about the mouth of Conneross creek, in Oconee county, S. C. Hopewell, the country seat of General Pickens, where the famous treaty was made, was near it on the east side of the river. The word cannot be translated, but has no connection with the tribal name, Seneca. igagu`ti--daylight. The name is sometimes applied to the ulunsu`ti (q. v.) and also to the clematis vine. i`hya--the cane reed (Arundinaria) of the Gulf states, used by the Indians for blow-guns, fishing rods and basketry. ihya`ga--see atsil`sunti. inadu`--snake. I`nadu-na`i--"Going snake," a Cherokee chief prominent about eighty years ago. The name properly signifies that the person is "going along in company with a snake," the verbal part being from the irregular verb asta`i, "I am going along with him." The name has been given to a district of the present Cherokee Nation. i`nage`hi--dwelling in the wilderness, an inhabitant of the wilderness; from i`nage`i "wilderness," and ehi, habitual present form of ehu, "he is dwelling"; ge`u, "I am dwelling." I`nage-utasun`hi--"he who grew up in the wilderness," i. e., "He who grew up wild"; from i`nage`i, "wilderness, unoccupied timber land," and utasun`hi, the third person perfect of the irregular verb ga`tunsku`, "I am growing up." Ina`li--Black-fox; the common red fox in tsu`la (in Muscogee, chula). Black-fox was principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1810. Iskagua--Name for "Clear Sky," formerly "Nenetooyah or the Bloody Fellow." The name appears thus in a document of 1791 as that of a Cherokee chief frequently mentioned about that period under the name of "Bloody Fellow." In one treaty it is given as "Eskaqua or Bloody Fellow." Both forms and etymologies are doubtful, neither form seeming to have any reference either to "sky" (galun`lahi) or "blood" (gi`ga). The first may be intended for Ik-e`gwa, "Great day." Istanare--see Ustana`li. Itaba--see I`tawa`. Itagu`nahi--the Cherokee name of John Ax. I`tawa`--The name of one or more Cherokee settlements. One, which existed until the Removal in 1838, was upon Etowah river, about the present Hightower, in Forsyth county, Ga. Another may have been on Hightower creek of Hiwassee river in Towns county, Ga. The name, commonly written Etowah and corrupted to Hightower, cannot be translated and seems not to be of Cherokee origin. A town, called Itaba, Ytaun or Ytava in the De Soto chronicles, existed in 1540 among the Creeks, apparently on Alabama river. Itsa`ti--commonly spelled Echota, Chota, Chote, Choquata (misprint), etc.; a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country; the meaning is lost. The most important settlement of this name, frequently distinguished as Great Echota, was on the south side of Little Tennessee. It was the ancient capital and sacred "Peace town" of the Nation. Little Echota was on Sautee (i. e., Its`ti) creek, a head stream of the Chattahoochee, west of Clarksville, Ga. New Echota, the capital of the Nation for some years before the Removal, was established at a spot originally known as Gansa`gi (q. v.) at the junction of the Oostanaula and Canasauga rivers, in Gordon county, Ga. It was sometimes called Newton. The old Macedonia mission on Soco creek, of the N. C. reservation, is also known as Itas`ti to the Cherokee, as was also the great Nacoochee mound. See Nagutsi`. Itse`yi--"New green place" or "Place of fresh green," from itse`hi, "green or unripe vegetation," and yi, the locative; applied more particularly to a tract of ground made green by fresh springing vegetation, after having been cleared of timber or burned over. A name occurring in several places in the Old Cherokee country, variously written Echia, Echoee, Etchowee, and sometimes also falsely rendered "Brasstown," from a confusion of Itse`yi with untsaiyi`, "brass." One settlement of this name was upon Brasstown creek of Tugaloo river, in Oconee county, S. C.; another was on Little Tennessee river near the present Franklin, Macon county, N. C., and probably about the junction of Cartoogaja (Gatug-itse`yi) creek; a third, known to the whites as Brasstown, was on upper Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Ga. In Cherokee, as in most other Indian languages, no clear distinction is made between green and blue. i`ya--pumpkin. i`ya`-iuy`sti--"like a pumpkin," from i`ya and iyu`sti, like. i`ya`-tawi`skage--"of pumpkin smoothness," from i`ya, pumpkin, and tawi`skage, smooth. Jackson--see Tsek`sini`. Jessan--see Tsesa`ni. Jesse Reid--see Tse`si-Ska`tsi. Joanna Bald--see Diya`hali`yi. Joara, Juada--see Ani`-Sawa`li. John--see Tsa`ni. John Ax--see Itagu`nahi. Jolly, John--see Anu`lude`gi. Junaluska--see Tsunu`lahun`ski. Jutaculla--see Tsulkalu`. ka`gu`--crow; the name is an onomatope. Kagun`yi--"Crow place," from ka`gu`, and yi, locative. ka`i--grease, oil. Kala`asun`yi--"where he fell off," from tsila`asku`, "I am falling off," and yi, locative. A cliff near Cold Spring knob, in Swain county, North Carolina. Ka`lahu`--"All-bones," from ka`lu, bone. A former chief of the East Cherokee, also known in the tribe as Sawanu`gi. Ka`lanu--"The Raven"; the name was used as a war title in the tribe and appears in the old documents as Corani (Lower dialect, Ka`ranu) Colonneh, Colona, etc. It is the Cherokee name for General Samuel Houston or for any person named Houston. Ka`lanu Ahyeli`ski--the Raven Mocker. Ka`lanun`yi--"Raven place," from ka`lanu, raven, and yi, the locative. The proper name of Big-cove settlement upon the East Cherokee reservation, Swain county, N. C., sometimes also called Raventown. kalas`-gunahi`ta--"long hams" (gunahi`ta, "long"); a variety of bear. Kal-detsi`yunyi--"where the bones are," from ka`lu, bone, and detsi`yunyi, "where (yi) they (de--plural prefix) are lying." A spot near the junction of East Buffalo Creek with Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. kama`ma--butterfly. kama`ma u`tanu--elephant; literally "great butterfly," from the resemblance of the trunk and ears to the butterfly's proboscis and wings. kanaha`na--a sour corn gruel, much in use among the Cherokee and other Southern tribes; the tamfuli or "Tom Fuller" of the Creeks. kanane`ski--spider; also, from a fancied resemblance in appearance to a watch or clock. kanane`ski amaye`hi--the water spider. Kana`sta, Kanastun`yi--a traditional Cherokee settlement, formerly on the head-waters of the French Broad river, near the present Brevard, in Transylvania county, North Carolina. The meaning of the first name is lost. A settlement called Cannostee or Cannastion is mentioned as existing on Hiwassee river in 1776. kana`talu`hi--hominy cooked with walnut kernels. Kana`ti--"Lucky Hunter"; a masculine name, sometimes abbreviated Kanat`. The word cannot be analyzed, but is used as a third person habitual verbal form to mean "he is lucky, or successful, in hunting"; the opposite is ukwa`legu, "unlucky, or unsuccessful, in hunting." kanegwa`ti--the water-moccasin snake. Kanuga--also written Canuga; a Lower Cherokee settlement, apparently on the waters of Keowee river, in S. C., destroyed in 1751; also a traditional settlement on Pigeon river, probably near the present Waynesville, in Haywood county, N. C. The name signifies "a scratcher," a sort of bone-toothed comb with which ball-players are scratched upon their naked skin preliminary to applying the conjured medicine; de`tsinuga`sku, "I am scratching it." kanugu` la (abbreviated nungu` la)--"scratcher," a generic term for blackberry, raspberry, and other brier bushes. Kanu`gulayi, or Kanu`gulun`yi--"Brier place," from kanugu`la, brier (cf. Kanu`ga); a Cherokee settlement formerly on Nantahala river, about the mouth of Briertown creek, in Macon county, N. C. Kanun`nawu`--pipe. Kasdu`yi--"Ashes place," from kasdu, ashes, and yi, the locative. A modern Cherokee name for the town of Asheville, Buncombe county, N. C. The ancient name for the same site is Unta`kiyasti`yi, q. v. Katal`sta--an East Cherokee woman potter, the daughter of the chief Yanagun`ski. The name conveys the idea of lending, from tsiyatal`sta, "I lend it"; agatal`sta, "it is lent to him." Kawan`-ura`sunyi--(abbreviated Kawan`-ura`sun in the Lower dialect)--"where the duck fell," from kawa`na, duck, ura`sa (ula`sa), "it fell," and yi, locative. A point on Conneross creek (from Kawan`-ura`sun), near Seneca, in Oconee county, S. C. Kawi`yi (abbreviated Kawi`)--a former important Cherokee settlement commonly known as Cowee, about the mouth of Cowee creek of Little Tennessee river, some 10 miles below Franklin, in Macon county, N. C. The name may possibly be a contraction of Ani`-Kawi`yi, "Place of the Deer clan." Keeowhee--see Keowee. Kenesaw--see Gansa`gi. Keowee--the name of two or more former Cherokee settlements. One sometimes distinguished as "Old Keowee," the principal of the Lower Cherokee towns, was on the river of the same name, near the present Fort George, in Oconee county, of S. C. Another, distinguished as New Keowee, was on the head-waters of Twelve-mile creek, in Pickens county, S. C. According to Wafford the correct form is Kuwahi`yi, abbreviated Kuwahi`, "Mulberry-grove place." Says Wafford, "the whites murdered the name as they always do." Cf. Kuwa`hi. Ke`si-ka`gamu--a woman's name, a Cherokee corruption of Cassie Cockran; ka`gamu is also the Cherokee corruption for "cucumber." Ketoowah--see Kilu`hwa. Kittuwa--see Kitu`hwa. Kitu`hwa--an important ancient Cherokee settlement formerly upon Tuckasegee river, and extending from above the junction of Oconaluftee down nearly to the present Bryson City, in Swain county, N. C. The name, which appears also as Kettooah, Kittoa, Kittowa, etc., has lost its meaning. The people of this and the subordinate settlements on the waters of the Tuckasegee were known as Ani`-Kitu`hwagi, and the name was frequently extended to include the whole tribe. For this reason it was adopted in later times as the name of the Cherokee secret organization, commonly known to the whites as the Ketoowah society, pledged to the defense of Cherokee autonomy. kiyu ga--ground-squirrel; te`wa, flying squirrel; sala`li, gray squirrel. Klausuna--see Tlanusi`yi. Knoxville--see Kuwanda`ta lun`yi. ku!--an introductory explanation, to fix attention, about equivalent to "Now!" kuku`--"cymbling"; also the "jigger weed," or "pleurisy root" (Asclepias tuberosa). Coco creek of Hiwassee river, and Coker post-office, in Monroe county, Tennessee, derive their name from this word. Kulsetsi`yi (abbreviated Kulse`tsi)--"Honey-locust place," from kulse`tsi, honey-locust (Gleditschia) and yi, locative; as the same word, kulse` tsi, is also used for "sugar," the local name has commonly been rendered Sugartown by the traders. The name of several former settlement places in the old Cherokee country. One was upon Keowee river, near the present Fall creek, in Oconee county, S. C.; another was on Sugartown or Cullasagee (Kulse`tsi) creek, near the present Franklin, in Macon county, N. C.; a third was on Sugartown creek, near the present Morgantown, in Fannin county, Ga. Kunnesee--see Tsi`yu-gunsi`ni. Kunstutsi`yi--"Sassafras place," from kunstu`tsi, sassafras, and yi, locative. A gap in the Great Smoky range, about the head of Noland creek, on the line between North Carolina and Sevier county, Tenn. kunu`nu (abbreviated kunun`)--the bullfrog; the name is probably an onomatope; the common green frog is wala`si and there are also names for several other varieties of frogs and toads. Kusa`--Coosa creek, an upper tributary of Nottely river, near Blairsville, Union county, Georgia. The change of accent from Ku`sa (Creek, see Ani`-Ku`sa) makes it locative. Ku`sa-nunna`hi--"Creek trail," from Ku`sa, Creek Indian, and Nunna`hi, path, trail; cf. Suwa`li-nunna`hi. A former important Cherokee settlement, including also a number of Creeks and Shawano, where the trail from the Ohio region to the creek country crossed Tennessee river, at the present Guntersville, in Marshall county, Ala. It was known to the traders as Creek-path, and later as Gunter's landing, from a Cherokee mixed-blood named Gunter. Ku`swati`yi (abbreviated Ku`saweti`)--"Old Creek place," from Ku`sa, a Creek Indian (plural Ani`-ku`sa), uwe`ti, old, and yi, locative. Coosawatee, an important Cherokee settlement formerly on the lower part of Coosawatee river, in Gordon county, Ga. In one document the name appears, by error, Tensawattee. Kuwa`hi--"Mulberry place," from ku`wa, mulberry tree, and hi, locative. Clingman's dome, about the head of Deep creek, on the Great Smoky range, between Swain county, N. C., and Sevier county, Tenn. See also Keowee. Kuwanda`ta lun`yi (abbreviated Kuwanda`ta lun)--"Mulberry grove," from ku`wa, mulberry; the Cherokee name for the present site of Knoxville, in Knox county, Tenn. Kwa`li, Kwalun`yi--Qualla or Quallatown, the former agency for the East Cherokee and now a post-office station, just outside the reservation, on a branch of Soco creek, in Jackson county, North Carolina. It is the Cherokee form for "Polly," and the station was so-called from an old woman of that name who formerly lived near by; Kwa`li, "Polly" Kwalun`yi, "Polly's place." The reservation is locally known as the Qualla boundary. kwandaya`hu--see da`liksta`. la`lu--the jar-fly (Cicada auletes). Little Carpenter, Little Cornplanter--see Ata`-gul kalu`. Long-hair--a Cherokee chief living with his band in Ohio in 1795. The literal Cherokee translation of "Long-hair" is Gitlu`gunahi`ta, but it is not certain that the English name is a correct rendering of the Indian form. Cf. Ani`-Gila`hi. Long Island--see Amaye li-gunahi`ta. Lookout Mountain Town--see Danda`ganu`. Lowrey, Major George--see Agili. Mayes, J. B.--see Tsa`wa Gak`ski. Memphis--see Tsuda`talesun`yi. Mialaquo--see Amaye l-e`gwa. Moses--see Wa`si. Moytoy--a Cherokee chief recognized by the English as "emperor" in 1730. Both the correct form and the meaning of the name are uncertain; the name occurs again as Moyatoy in a document of 1793; a boy upon the East Cherokee reservation a few years ago bore the name of Ma`tayi`, for which no meaning can be found or given. Mussel Shoals--see Dagu`nahi. Nacoochee--see Na`gu tsi. Na`duli--known to the whites as Nottely. A former Cherokee settlement on Nottely river, close to the Georgia line, in Cherokee county, N. C. The name cannot be translated and has not any connection with na tu li, "spicewood." Na`gu tsi`--a former important settlement about the junction of Soquee and Santee rivers, in Nacoochee valley, at the head of Chattahoochee river, in Habersham county, Ga. The meaning of the word is lost and it is doubtful if it be of Cherokee origin. It may have some connection with the name of the Uchee Indians. The great mound farther up Sautee river, in White county, was known to the Cherokee as Itsa`ti. nakwisi` (abbreviated nakusi)--star; also the meadow lark. nakwisi` usdi`--"little star"; the puffball fungus (Lycoperdon?). Na`na-tlu gun`yi (abbreviated Na`na-tlu gun`, or Na`na-tsu gun`)--"Spruce-tree place," from na`na, spruce, tlu gun`i, or tsu gun`i, a tree (standing) and yi, locative, 1. A traditional ancient Cherokee settlement on the site of Jonesboro, Washington county, Tenn. The name of Nolichucky river is probably a corruption of the same word. 2. Nan-tsu gun, a place on Nottely river, close to its junction with Hiwassee, in Cherokee county, N. C. Nanehi--see Nunne`hi. Nantahala--see Nundaye` li. Nashville--see Dagu`nawe`lahi. Natchez--see Ani`-Na'tsi. Nats-asun`tlunyi (abbreviated Nats-asun`tlun)--"Pine-footing place," from na'tsi, pine, asun`tli or asun-tlun`i, footlog, bridge, and yi, locative. A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Pinelog, on the creek of the same name, in Bartow county, Georgia. na'tsi--pine. na`tsiku`--"I eat it" (tsi`kiu`, "I am eating"). na tu li--spicewood (Lindera benzoin). Naye`hi--see Nunne`hi. Nayunuwi--see Nunyunu`wi. nehanduyanu`--a song form for nehadu`yanu`, an irregular verbal form denoting "conceived in the womb." Nellawgitehi--given as the name of a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684. The correct form and meaning are both uncertain, but the final part seems to be the common suffix didi`, "killer." Cf. Ta`gwadiahi`. Nenetooyah--see Iskagua. Nequassee--see Ki`kwasi`. Nettecawaw--see Gatayu`sti. Nettle-carrier--see Tale`danigi`ski. New Echota, Newtown--see Itsa`ti. Nickajack--see Nikutse`gi. Nicotani--see Ani`-Kuta`ni. Nikwasi` (or Nikwsi`)--an important ancient settlement on Little Tennessee river, where now is the town of Franklin, in Macon county, N. C. A large mound marks the site of the town-house. The name appears in old documents as Nequassee, Nucassee, etc. Its meaning is lost. Nikutse`gi (also Nukatse`gi, Nikwatse`gi, or abbreviated Nikutseg`)--Nickajack, an important Cherokee settlement, about 1790, on the south bank of Tennessee river, at the entrance of Nickajack creek, in Marion county, Tenn. One of the Five Chickamauga towns (see Tsikama`gi). The meaning of the word is lost and it is probably not of Cherokee origin, although it occurs also in the tribe as a man's name. In the corrupted form of "Nigger Jack," it occurs also as the name of a creek of Cullasaja river above Franklin, in Macon county, N. C. Nilaque--see Amaye l-e`gwa. Nolichucky--see Na`na-tlugun`yi. Notchy--a creek entering Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tenn. The name evidently refers to Natchez Indian refugees, who formerly lived in the vicinity (see Ani`-Na'tsi). Nottely--see Na`duli`. nu--used as a suffix to denote "and," or "also"; u`le-nu, "and also" na`ski-nu`, "and that," "that also." Nucassee--see Nikwasi`. nu`dunnelu`--he did so and so: an irregular form apparently connected with the archaic forms adunni`ga, "it has just become so," and udunnu, "it is matured, or finished." Nugatsa`ni--a ridge sloping down to Oconaluftee river, below Cherokee, in Swain county, N. C. An archaic form denoting a high ridge with a long gradual slope. nu`na--potato; the name was originally applied to the wild "pig potato" (Phaseolus), now distinguished as mu`na igatehi, "swamp-dwelling potato." nun`da--the sun or moon, distinguished as unu`da` ige`hi, nun`da` "dwelling in the day," and nun`da` sunna`yehi, nun`da "dwelling in the night." In the sacred formulas the moon is sometimes called Ge yagu`ga, or Su`talidihi, "Six-keller," names apparently founded upon myths now lost. nun`da`-dikani--a rare bird formerly seen occasionally in the old Cherokee country, possibly the little blue heron (Floridus cerulea). The name seems to mean "it looks at the sun," i. e., "sun-gazer," from nun`da`, sun, and da`ka na` or detsi`ka na, "I am looking at it." Nundawe`gi--see Ani`-Nundawe`gi. Nun`daye li--"Middle (i. e., Noonday) sun," from nunda`, sun and aye li, middle; a former Cherokee settlement on Nantahala river, near the present Jarrett station, in Macon county, N. C., so-called from the high cliffs which shut out the view of the sun until nearly noon. The name appears also as Nantahala, Nantiyallee, Nuntialla, etc. It appears to have been applied properly only to the point on the river where the cliffs are most perpendicular, while the settlement itself was known as Kanu`gu la`yi, "Briertown," q. v. Nun`dagun`yi, Nunda`yi--the Sun land, or east; from nun`da`, sun, and yi, locative. Used in the sacred formulas instead of di`galungun`yi, "where it rises," the common word. nun`gi--four. See hi`ski. nungu la--see kanugu` la. nunna`hi (abbreviated nunna)--a path, trail or road. Nunna`hi-dihi` (abbreviated Nun`na-dihi`)--"Path-killer," literally, "he kills (habitually) in the path," from nun`nahi, path, and ahihi`, "he kills" (habitually); "I am killing," tsi`ihu`. A principal chief, about the year 1813. Major John Ridge was originally known by the same name, but afterward took the name, Gunun`da le`gi, "One who follows the ridge," which the whites made simply ridge. Nunna`hi-tsune`ga (abbreviated) Nunna-tsune`ga--"white-path," from nunna`hi, path, and tsune`ga, plural of une`ga, white; the form is the plural, as is common in Indian names, and has probably a symbolic reference to the "white" or peaceful paths spoken of in the opening invocation at the green corn dance. A noted chief who led the conservative party about 1828. Nunne`hi (also Gunne`hi; singular Naye`hi)--a race of invisible spirit people. The name is derived from the verb e`hu`, "I dwell, I live," e`hi`, "I dwell habitually," and may be rendered "dwellers anywhere," or "those who live anywhere," but implies having always been there, i. e., "Immortals." It has been spelled Nanehi and Nuhnayie by different writers. The singular form Naye`hi occurs also as a personal name, about equivalent to Eda`hi, "One who goes about." Nuniyu`sti--"potato-like," from nu`na, potato, and iyu`sti, like. A flowering vine with tuberous root somewhat resembling the potato. Nunyu`--rock, stone. Nunyu`-gunwam`ski--"Rock that talks," from nunyu`, rock, and tsiwa`nihu, "I am talking." A rock from which Talking-rock creek of Coosawatee river, in Georgia, derives its name. Nun`yunu`wi--contracted from Nunyu-unu`wi. "Stone-clad," from nunyu, rock, and agwaun`wu, "I am clothed or covered." A mythic monster, invulnerable by reason of his stony skin. The name is also applied sometimes to the stinging ant, dasuntali atatsunski, q. v. It has also been spelled Nayunuwi. Nunyu`-tlu guni (or Nunyu-tsu gun`i)--"Tree-rock," a notable rock on Hiwassee river, just within the N. C. line. Nunyu`-twi`ska--"Slick rock," from nunyu`, rock, and twiska, smooth, slick; the form remains unchanged for the locative. 1. Slick-rock creek, entering Little Tennessee river just within the west line of Graham county, N. C. 2. A place at the extreme head of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Ga. Ocoee--see Uwaga`hi. Oconaluftee--see Egwanul ti. Oconee--see Ukwu`nu. Oconostota--see Agansta`ta. Old Tassel--see Utsi`dsata`. Ooltewah--see Ultiwa`i. Oostinaleh--see U`stana`li. Oothealoga--see Uy`gila`gi. Otacite, Otassite--see Outacity. Otari, Otariyatiqui--mentioned as a place, apparently on the Cherokee frontier, visited by Pardo in 1567. Otari seems to be the Cherokee atari or atali, mountain, but the rest of the word is doubtful. Ottare--see a`tali. Owasta--given as the name of a Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. Ougillogy--see Uy`gila`gi. Outacity--given in documents as the name or title of a prominent Cherokee chief about 1720. It appears also as Otacite, Ottassite, Outassatah, Wootassite and Wrosetasatow (!), but the form cannot be identified, although it seems to contain the personal name suffix diha`, "killer." Timberlake says: "There are some other honorary titles among them, conferred in reward of great actions; the first of which is Outacity or "Man-killer," and the second Colona or "The Raven." Outassatah--see Outacity. Owassa--see Ayuhwa`si. Paint-town--see Ani`-Wa`dihi`. Path-killer--see Nuna`hi-dihi`. Phoenix, Cherokee--see Tsule`hisanun`hi. Pigeon River--see Wayi. Pine Indians--see Ani`-Na'tsi. Pinelog--see Na ts-asun`tlunyi. Qualatchee--a former Cherokee settlement on the headwaters of the Chattahoochee river in Georgia; another of the same name was upon the waters of Keowee river in S. C. The correct form is unknown. Qualla--see Kwali. Quaxule--see Guaxule. Quinahaqui--a place, possibly in the Cherokee country, visited by Pardo in 1567. The form cannot be identified. Quoneashee--see Tlanusi`yi. Rattlesnake Springs--see Utsanatiyi. Rattling-Gourd--see Ganseti. Raventown--see Kalanun`yi. Red Clay--see Elawa`diyi. Reid, Jesse--see Tse`si-Ska`tsi. Ridge, Major John--see Nunna`hi-dihi`. Ross, John--see Gu`wisguwi`. Ross' Landing--see Tsatanu`gi. Sadayi`--a feminine name, the proper name of the woman known to the whites as Annie Ax; it cannot be translated. Sagwa`hi, or Sagwun`yi--"One place," from sa`gwu, one, and hi or yi, locative. Soco creek of Oconaluftee river, on the East Cherokee reservation, in Jackson county, N. C. No satisfactory reason is given for the name, which has its parallel in Tsaska`hi, "Thirty place," a local name in Cherokee county, N. C. sa`gwalt`--horse; from asagwalihu, a pack or burden, asagwal lu`; "there is a pack on him." sa`gwali digu`lanahi`ta--mule; literally "long-eared horse," from sa`gwali, horse, and digu`lanahi`ta, q. v. saikwa`yi--bear-grass (Erynigium) also the greensnake, on account of a fancied resemblance; the name of a former Cherokee settlement on Sallacoa creek of Coosawatee river, in Gordon county, Ga. Sakwi`yi (or Suki`yi; abbreviated Sakwi` or Suki`)--a former settlement on Soquee river, a head stream of Chattahoochee, near Clarksville, Habersham county, Ga. Also written Saukee and Sookee. The name has lost its meaning. sala`li--squirrel; the common gray squirrel; other varieties are kiyu ga, the ground squirrel, and tewa, the flying squirrel; Sala`li was also the name of an East Cherokee inventor who died a few years ago; Sala`lani`ta` "Young-squirrels," is a masculine personal name on the reservation. saligu`gi--turtle, the common water turtle; soft-shell turtle, u`lana`wa; land tortoise or terrapin, tuksi`. Sa`nigila`gi (abbreviated San gila`gi)--Whiteside mountain, a prominent peak of the Blue Ridge, southeast from Franklin, Macon county, N. C. It is connected with the tradition of Utlun`ta. Santeetla--the present map name of a creek joining Cheiwa river in Graham county, N. C., and of a smaller tributary (Little Santeetla). The name is not recognized or understood by the Cherokee, who insist that it was given by the whites. Little Santeetla is known to the Cherokee as Tsundanilti`yi, q. v.; the modern Santeetla creek is commonly known as Nayu`higeyun`i, "Sand-place stream," from "Nuyu`hi, "Sand place" (nayu, sand), a former settlement just above the junction of the two creeks. Sara--see Ani`-Suwa`li. Sa`sa`--goose; an onomatope. Sautee--see Itsa`ti. Savannah--the popular name of this river is derived from that of the Shawano Indians, formerly living upon its middle course, and known to the Cherokee as Ani`Swanu`gi, q. v., to the Creeks as Savanuka, and to some of the coast tribes of Carolina as Savanna. In old documents the river is also called Isundiga, from Isu`nigu or Seneca, q. v., an important former Cherokee settlement upon its upper waters. Sawanu`gi--"Shawano" (Indian); a masculine personal name upon the East Cherokee reservation and prominent in the history of the band. See Ani`Sawanu`gi and Ka`lahu`. Sawnook--see Ka`lahu`. Sehwate`yi--"Hornet place," from se`hwatu, hornet, and yi, locative. Cheowa Maximum and Swim Bald, adjoining bald peaks at the head of Cheowa river, Graham county, N. C. selu--corn; sometimes called in the sacred formulas Agawe`la, "The Old Woman." sel-utsi` (for selu-utsi`)--"corn's mother," from selu, corn, and utsi`, his mother (etsi` or agitsi`, my mother); the bead-corn or Job's-tears (Coix lacryma). Seneca--see Ani`-Nun`dawe`gi (Seneca tribe), and Isu`nigu. (Seneca town.) Sequatchee--see Si`gwetsi`. Sequoya--see Sikwayi. Setsi--a mound and traditional Cherokee settlement on the south side of the Valley river, about three miles below Valleytown, in Cherokee county, N. C.; the name has lost its meaning. A settlement called Tasetsi (Tassetchie in some old documents) existed on the extreme head of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Ga. Sevier--see Tsan`-usdi`. Shoe-boots--see Da`si giya`gi. Shooting creek--see Du`stayalun`yi. Si`gwetsi`--a traditional Cherokee settlement on the south bank of French Broad river, not far from Knoxville, Knox county, Tenn. Near by was the quarry from which it is said the stone for the white peace pipes was obtained. Swquatchee, the name of the river below Chattanooga, in Tenn., is probably a corruption of the same word. si`dwa--hog; originally the name of the opossum, now distinguished as si`kwa utset`sti, q. v. si`kwa utset`sti--opossum; literally "grinning hog," from si`kwa, hog, and utset`sti, "he grins" (habitually). Sikwa`yi--a masculine name, commonly written Sequoya, made famous as that of the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. The name, which cannot be translated, is still in use upon the East Cherokee reservation. Sikwi`a--a masculine name, the Cherokee corruption for Sevier. See also Tsan-usdi`. sinnawah--see tla`nuwa. Si`tiku` (or su`tagu`, in dialectic form)--a former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, at the entrance of Citico creek, in Monroe county, Tenn. The name, which cannot be translated, is commonly spelled Citico, but appears also as Sattiquo, Settico, Settacoo, Sette, Sittiquo, etc. siyu`--see a`siyu`. skinta`--for skin`tagu`, understood to mean "put a new tooth into my jaw." The word cannot be analyzed, but is derived from gantka` (ganta ga in a dialectic form) a tooth in place; a tooth detached is kayu ga. Skwan`-digu gun`yi (for Askwan`-digu gun`yi)--"where the Spaniard is in the water" (or other liquid). A place on Upper Soco creek, on the reservation in Jackson county, N. C. Slick Rock--see Nunyu`tawi`ska. Smith, N. J.--see Tsaladihi`. Snowbird--see Tuti`yi. Soco creek--see Sagwa`hi. Soco Gap--see Ahalu`na. Soquee--see Sakwi`yi. Spray, H. W.--see Wilsini`. spring-frog--see Du`stu`. Standing Indian--see Yunwi-tsulenun`yi. Stand Watie--see De`gataga. Stekoa--see Stika`yi. ste`tsi--"your daughter"; literally, "your offspring"; agwe`tsi, "my offspring"; uwe`tsi, "his offspring"; to distinguish sex it is necessary to add asga`ya, "man" or age`hya, "woman." Stika`yi (variously spelled Stecoe, Steecoy, Stekoah, Stickoey, etc.)--the name of several former Cherokee settlements: 1. Sticoa creek, near Clayton, Babun county, Ga.; 2. on Tuckasegee river at the old Thomas homestead just above the present Whittier, in Swain county, N. C.; 3. on Stekoa creek of Little Tennessee river, a few miles below the junction of Nantahala, in Graham county, N. C. Stringfield--see Tlage`si. stugi`sti, stui`ski--a key. Suck, The--see Un`tiguhi`. Sugartown--see Kulse`tsi`yi. su`nawa`--see tla`nuwa. sunestla`ta--"split noses"; see tsunu liyu` sunestla`ta. sungi--mink; also onion; the name seems to refer to a smell; the various minks are called generically, gaw sun`gi. Suki`yi--another form of Sakwi`yi, q. v. su`li`--buzzard; the Creek name is the same. Sun Land--see Nunda`yi. su`sa`-sai`--an unmeaning song refrain. su`talidihi`--see nun`da`. Suwa`li-nunna`hi (abbreviated Suwa`li-nunna`hi)--"Suwali train," the proper name for the gap at the head of Swannanoa (from Suwa`li-Nun`na`) river east of Asheville, in Buncombe county, N. C. Suwa`ni--a former Cherokee settlement on Chattahoochee river, about the present Suwanee, in Gwinnett county, Ga. The name has no meaning in the Cherokee language and is said to be of Creek origin. Suye`ta--"the Chosen One," from asuye`ta, "he is chosen," gasu`yeu, "I am choosing"; the same form, suye`ta, could also mean mixed, from gasu`yahu, "I am mixing it." A masculine name at present borne by a prominent ex-chief and informant upon the East Cherokee reservation. Swannanoa--see Wuwa`li-nunna`hi. Swim Bald--see Sehwate`yi. Swimmer--see Ayun`ini. tadeya`statakuhi`--"we shall see each other." Tae-keo-ge--see Ta ski`gi. ta`gu--the June-bug (Allorhina nitida), also called tuya-diskalaw tsiski, "one who keeps fire under the beans." Ta`gwa--see Ani`ta`gwa. Ta`gwadihi` (abbreviated Ta`gwadi`)--"Catawba-killer," from Ata`gwa or Ta`gwa, "Cattawba Indian," and dihihi`, "he kills them" (habitually), from tsi`ihu`. "I kill." An old masculine name, still in use upon the East Cherokee reservation. It was the proper name of the chief known to the whites about 1790 as "The Glass," from a confusion of this name with adake`ti, glass, or mirror. Tagwa`hi--"Catawba place," from Ata`gwa or Ta`gwa, Catawba Indian, and hi, locative. A name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country. A settlement of this name, known to the whites as Toccoa, was upon Toccoa creek, east of Clarksville, in Habersham county, Ga.; another was upon Toccoa or Ocoee river, about the present Toccoa, in Fannin county, Ga.; a third may have been on Persimmon creek, which is known to the Cherokee as Tagwa`hi, and enters Hiwassee river some distance below Murphy, in Cherokee county, N. C. Tahkeyostee--see Unta`kiyasti`yi. Tahlequah--see Talikwa`. Tahchee--see Talikwa`. Takatoka--see De`gata`ga. ta`ladu` (abbreviated taldu`)--twelve, from ta`li, two. Cf. tala`tu, cricket. Ta`lasi`--a former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river about Talassee ford, in Blount county, Tenn. The name has lost its meaning. Talassee--see Ta`lasi`. tala`tu--cricket; sometimes also called dita`staye`ski (q. v.), "the barber." Cf. ta`ladu`, twelve. Tale`danigi`ski (Utale`danigi`si in a dialectic form)--variously rendered by the whites "Hemp-carrier," "Nettle-carrier" or "flax-toter," from tale`ta or utale`ta, flax (Linum) or richweed (Pilea pumila), and danigi`ski, "he carries them" (habitually). A former prominent chief on Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. Talihina--given as the name of the Cherokee wife of Samuel Houston; the form cannot be identified. Talikwa` (commonly written Tellico, Teliquo or, in the Indian Territory, Tahlequah)--the name of several Cherokee settlements at different periods, viz.: 1. Great Tellico, at Tellico Plains, on Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tenn.; 2. Little Tellico, on Tellico creek of Little Tennessee river, about ten miles below Franklin, Macon county, N. C. 3. a town on Valley river, about five miles above Murphy, in Cherokee county, N. C.; 4. Tahlequah, established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation, Ind. Ter., in 1839. The meaning of the name is lost. Tali`wa--the site of a traditional battle between the Cherokee and Creeks about 1755, on Mountain (?) creek of Etowah river in upper Georgia. Probably not a Cherokee but a Creek name from the Creek ta`lua or ita`lua, town. Talking-rock--see Nunyu-gunwani`ski. Tallulah--see Talulu`. Tal-tsu`ska`--"Two-heads," from ta`li, two, and tsu`ska`, plural of uska`, (his) head. A Cherokee chief about the year 1800, known to the whites as Doublehead. taluli--pregnant; whence aluli`, (she is) "a mother," said of a woman. Talulu` (commonly Tallulah, and appearing in old documents, from the Lower dialect, as Taruraw, Toruro, Turoree, etc.)--a name occurring in two or more places in the old Cherokee country, viz.: 1. An ancient settlement on the upper part of Tallulah river, in Rabun county, Georgia; 2. a town on Tallulah creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. The word is of uncertain etymology. The dulu`si frog is said to cry talulu`. The noted falls upon Tallulah river are known to the Cherokee as Ugun`yi, q. v. Taluntiski--see Ata`lunti`ski. Tama`li--a name, commonly written Tomotley or Tomatola, occurring in at least two places in the old Cherokee country, viz.: 1. On Valley river, a few miles above Murphy, about the present Tomatola, in Cherokee county, N. C. 2. on Little Tennessee river, about Tomotley ford, a few miles above Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tenn. The name cannot be translated, and may be of Creek origin, as that tribe had a town of the same name upon the lower Chattahoochee river. Tanasi`--a name which cannot be analyzed, commonly spelled Tennessee, occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, viz.: 1. On Little Tennessee river about half-way between Citico and Toco creeks, in Monroe county, Tenn. 2. "Old Tennessee town," on Hiwassee river, a short distance above the junction of Ocoee, in Polk county, Tenn. 3. On Tennessee creek, a head-stream of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, N. C. Tanasqui, visited by Pardo in 1567, may have been another place of the same name. Tanasqui--see Tanasi`. Ta`ski`gi (abbreviated from Ta`skigi`yi or Da`skigi`yi, the locative yi being commonly omitted)--a name variously written Tae-keo-ge (misprint), Tasquiqui, Teeskege, Tuscagee, Tuskegee, etc., derived from that of a foreign tribe incorporated with the Cherokee, and occurring as a local name both in the Cherokee and in the Creek country. 1. The principal settlement of this name was on Little Tennessee river, just above the junction of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tenn.; 2. another was on the north bank of Tennessee river, just below Chattanooga, Tennessee; 3. another may have been on Tuskegee creek of Little Tennessee river, near Robbinsville, Graham county, N. C. Tasquiqui--see Ta`ski`gi. Tassel, Old--see Utsi`dsata`. Tatsi`--"Dutch," also written Tahchee, a western Cherokee chief about 1830. Tatsu`hwa--the redbird. tawa`li--punk. Tawa`li-ukwanun`ti--"Punk-plugged-in," from tawa`li, punk; the Cherokee name of a traditional Shawano chief. tawi`ska, tawi`skage--smooth, slick. Tawi`skala--"Flint"; a Cherokee supernatural, the personification of the rock flint; tawi`skalun`ti, tawi`skala, flint, from tawi`ska, smooth, slick; cf. Iroquois Tawiskaron. Tayunksi--a traditional western tribe; the name cannot be analyzed. Tellico--see Talikwa`. telun`lati--the summer grape (Vitis aestivalis). Tenaswattee--see Ku`saweti`yi. Terrapin--see Tuksi`. tewa--a flying squirrel; sala`li, gray squirrel; kiyu ga, ground squirrel. Thomas, W. H.--see Wil-usdi`. Tikwali`tsi--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, viz.: 1. Tuckalegee creek, a tributary of War-Woman creek, east of Clayton, in Rabun county, Ga.; 2. the Tikiwali`tsi of the story, an important town on Tuckasegee river at the present Bryson City, in Swain county, N. C. 3. Tuckalechee cove, on Little river, in Blount county, Tenn., which probably preserves the aboriginal local name. The name appears in old documents as Tuckarechee (Lower dialect) and Tuckalegee, and must not be confounded with Tsiksi`tsi or Tuckasegee. It cannot be translated. Timossy--see Tomassee. Tlage`si--"Field"; the Cherokee name for Lieutenant-Colonel W. W. Stringfield of Waynesville, N. C., one of the officers of the Cherokee contingent in the Thomas Legion. It is an abbreviated rendering of his proper name. tlage`situn`--a song form for tlage`sia-stun`i, "on the edge of the field," from a stream. tla`meha--bat (dialectic forms, tsa`meha, tsa`weha). tlanu`si`--leech (dialectic form, tsanu`si`). Tlanusi`yi (abbreviated Tlanusi`)--"Leech place," former important settlement at the junction of Hiwassee and Valley river, the present site of Murphy, in Cherokee county, N. C.; also a point on Nottely river, a few miles distant, in the same county. The name appears also as Clennuse, Klausuna, Quoneashee, etc. tla`nuwa (dialetic forms, tsa`nuwa`, su`nawa`, "sinnawah")--a mythic great hawk. tla`nuwa`usdi--"little tla`nuwa`"; probably the goshawk (Astur atricapillus). Tla`nuwa`atsi Yelun`isun`yi--"where the Tla`nuwa cut it up," from tla`nuwa`, q. v., and tsiyelun`isku`, an archaic form for tsigunilun`isku`, "I am cutting it up." A place on Little Tennessee river, nearly opposite the entrance of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tenn. Tla`nuwa`i--"Tla`nuwa place," a cave on the north side of Tennessee river, a short distance below the entrance of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tenn. tlayku`--jay (dialectic form, tsayku`). tlunti`sti--the pheasant (Bonasa umbella), called locally grouse or partridge. tluntu`tsi--panther (dialectic form, tsuntu`ski). tlutlu`--the martin bird (dialectic form, tsutsu`). Tocax--a place, apparently in the Cherokee country, visited by Pardo in 1567. It may possibly have a connection with Toxaway (see Duksa`i) or Toccoa (see Tagwa`hi). Toccoa--see Tagwa`hi. Toco--see Dakwa`i. Tollunteeskee--see Ata`lunti`ski. Tomassee (also written Timossy and Tymahse)--the name of two or more former Cherokee settlements, viz.: 1. On Tomassee creek of Keowee river, in Oconee county, S. C.; 2. On Little Tennessee river, near the entrance of Burningtown creek, in Macon county, N. C. The correct form and interpretation are unknown. Tomatola, Tomotley--see Tama`li. Tooantuh--see Du`stu`. Toogelah--see Dugilu`yi. Toqua--see Dakwa`i. Toxaway--see Dukas`i. Track Rock gap--see Datsu`nalasgun`yi. Tsaga`si--a Cherokee sprite. tsa`gi--upstream, up the road; the converse of ge`i. Tsaiyi`--see Untsaiyi`. Tsa`ladihi`--Chief N. J. Smith of the East Cherokee. The name might be rendered "Charley-killer," from Tsali, "Charley," and dihi`, "killer" (in composition), but is really a Cherokee equivalent for Jarrett (Tsaladi`), his middle name, by which he was frequently addressed. Cf. Tagwadihi. tsal-agayun`li--"old tobacco," from tsalu, tobacco, and agayun`li or agayun`lige, old, ancient; the Nicotiana rustica or wild tobacco. Tsa`lagi` (Tsa`ragi` in Lower dialect)--the correct form of Cherokee. Tsa`li--Charley; a Cherokee shot for resisting the troops at the time of Removal. tsaliyu`sti--"tobacco-like," from tsalu, tobacco, and iyu`sti, like; a generic name for the cardinal-flower, mullein and related species. tsalu or tsalun (in the Lower dialect, tsaru)--tobacco; by comparison with kindred forms the other Iroquoian dialects the meaning "fire to hold in the mouth" seems to be indicated. Lanman spells it tso-lungh. tsameha--see tla`meha. tsa`nadiska`--for tsandiskai`, "they say." tsana`seha`i`--"so they say," "they say about him." tsane`ni--the scorpion lizard; also called gi`ga-danegi`ski, q. v. Tsani--John. Tsantawu`--a masculine name which cannot be analyzed. Tsan-uga`sita--"Sour John"; the Cherokee name for General John Sevier, and also the boy name of the Chief John Ross, afterward known as Gu`wisguwi`, q. v. Sikwi`a, a Cherokee attempt at "Sevier," is a masculine name upon the East Cherokee reservation. tsanu`si`--see tlanu`si`. tsa`nuwa`--see tla`nuwa`. Tsa`ragi`--Cherokee. tsaru--see tsalu. Tsasta`wi--a noted hunter formerly living upon Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina; the meaning of the name is doubtful. Tsatanu`gi (commonly spelled Chattanooga)--the Cherokee name for some point upon the creek entering Tennessee river at the city of Chattanooga, in Hamilton county, Tennessee. It has no meaning in the Cherokee language and appears to be of foreign origin. The ancient name for the site of the present city is Atla`nuwa, q. v. Before the establishment of the town the place was known to the whites as Ross' landing, from a store kept there by Lewis Ross, brother of the chief, John Ross. Tsatu`gi (commonly written Chattooga or Chatuga)--a name occurring in two or three places in the old Cherokee country, but apparently of foreign origin. Possible Cherokee derivations are from words signifying respectively "he drank by sips," from gatu`gia`, "I sip," or "he has crossed the stream and come out upon the other side," from gatu`gi, "I have crossed," etc. An ancient settlement of this name was on Chattooga river, a headstream of Savannah river, on the boundary between South Carolina and Georgia; another appears to have been on upper Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tennessee; another may have been on Chattooga river, a tributary of the Coosa, in northwestern Georgia. Tsa`wa Gakski--Joe Smoker, from Tsawa, "Joe," and gakski, "smoker," from ga`gisku, "I am smoking." The Cherokee name for Chief Joel B. Mayes, of the Cherokee Nation west. Tsawa`si--a Cherokee sprite. tsa`weha--see tla`meha. tsay ku`--see tlay ku`. Tsek`sini`--a Cherokee form for the name of General Andrew Jackson. Tsesa`ni--Jessan, probably a derivative from Jesse; a masculine name upon the East Cherokee reservation. Tse`si-Ska`tsi--"Scotch Jesse"; Jesse Reid, present chief of the East Cherokee, so-called because of mixed Scotch ancestry. tsetsani`li--"thy two elder brothers" (male speaking); "my elder brother" (male speaking), ungini`li. Tsgagun`yi--"Insect place," from tsgaya, insect, and yi, locative. A cave in the ridge eastward from Franklin, in Macon county, N. C. tsgaya--insect, worm, etc. Tsikama`gi--a name, commonly spelled Chickamauga, occurring in at least two places in the old Cherokee country, which has lost any meaning in Cherokee and appears to be of foreign origin. It is applied to a small creek at the head of Chattahoochee river, in White county, Ga., and also to the district about the southern (not the northern) Chickamauga creek, coming into Tennessee river, a few miles above Chattanooga, in Hamilton county, Tenn. In 1777, the more hostile portion of the Cherokee withdrew from the rest of the tribe, and established here a large settlement, from which they removed about five years later to settle lower down the Tennessee, in what were known as the Chickamauga towns or Five Lower towns. tsiki`--a word which renders emphatic that which it follows: as a`stu, "very good," astu` tsiki, "best of all." tsikiki`--the katydid; the name is an onomatope. tsi`kilili`--the Carolina chickadee (Parus carolinensis); the name is an onomatope. Tsiksi`tsi (Tuksi`tsi is dialectic form; commonly written Tuckasegee)--1. a former Cherokee settlement about the junction of the two forks of Tuckasegee, above Webster, in Jackson county, N. C. (not to be confounded with Tikwali`tsi, q. v.). 2. A former settlement on a branch of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Ga. The word has lost its meaning. Tsi`nawi--a Cherokee wheelwright, perhaps the first in the Nation to make a spinning-wheel and loom. The name cannot be analyzed. tsine`u--"I am picking it (something long) up"; in the Lower and Middle dialects, tsinigi`u. tsinigi`u--see tsine`u. tsiska`gili--the large red crawfish; the ordinary crawfish is called tsistu`na. tsi`skwa--bird. tsiskwa`gwa--robin, from tsi`skwa, bird. Tsiskwa`hi--"Bird place," from tsi`skwa, bird, and hi, locative. Birdtown settlement on the East Cherokee reservation, in Swain county, N. C. tsiskwa`ya--sparrow, literally "principal bird" (i. e., most widely distributed), from tsi`skwa, bird, and ya, a suffix denoting principal or real. Tsiskwunsdi`adsisti`yi--"where they killed Little-bird," from Tsiskwunsdi, "little birds" (plural form.) A place near the head of West Buffalo creek, southeast of Robbinsville, in Graham county, N. C. Tsilalu`hi--"Sweet-gum place," from tsila`lu`, sweet gum (Liquidambar) and hi, locative. A former settlement on a small branch of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, just within the line of Towns county, Ga. The name is incorrectly rendered Gum-log (creek). Tsistetsi`yi--"Mouse place," from tsistetsi, mouse, and yi, locative. A former settlement on South Mouse creek, of Hiwassee river, in Bradley county, Tenn. The present town of Cleveland, upon the same creek, is known to the Cherokee under the same name. tsist-imo `gosto--"rabbit foods" (plural), from tsi`stu, rabbit, and uni`gisti, plural of agi`sti, food, from tsiyi`giu "I am eating" (soft food). The wild rose. tsistu--rabbit. tsistu`na--crawfish; the large-horned beetle is also so called. The large red crawfish is called tsiska`gili. Tsistu`yi--"Rabbit place," from tsistu, rabbit, and yi, locative. 1. Gregory bald, high peak of the Great Smoky range, eastward from Little Tennessee river, on the boundary between Swain county, N. C., and Blount county, Tenn. 2. A former settlement on the north bank of Hiwassee river at the entrance of Chestua creek, in Polk county, Tenn, The name of Choastea creek of Tugaloo river, in Oconee county, S. C., is probably also a corruption from the same word. Tsiya`hi--"Otter place," from tsiyu, otter, and yi, locative; variously spelled Cheowa, Cheeowhee, Chewohe, Chewe, etc. 1. A former settlement on a branch of Keowee river, near the present Cheohee, Oconee county, S. C. 2. A former and still existing Cherokee settlement on Cheowa river, about Robbinsville, in Graham county, N. C. 3. A former settlement in Cades Cove, on Cove creek, in Blount county, Tenn. Tsi`yi-gunsi`ni--"He is dragging a canoe," from tsi`yu, canoe (cf. tsi`yu) otter, and gunsi`ni, "he is dragging it." "Dragging Canoe," a prominent leader of the hostile Cherokee in the Revolution. The name appears in documents as Cheucunsene and Kunnesee. Tskil-e`gwa--"Big-witch," from atsikili`, or tskilu`, witch, owl, and e`gwa, big; an old man of the East Cherokee, who died in 1896. Although translated Big-witch by the whites, the name is understood by the Indians to mean Big-owl, having been originally applied to a white man living on the same clearing, and noted for his large staring eyes. tskili` (contracted from atskili`)--1. witch; 2. the dusky-horned owl (Bubo virginianus saturatus). tskwa`yi--the great white heron or American egret. (Herodias egretta). Tsolungh--see tsalu. Tsuda`ye lun`yi--"Isolated place"; an isolated peak near the head of Cheowa river, northeast of Robbinsville, in Graham county, N. C. The root of the word signifies detached, or isolated, whence Uda`ye lun`yi, the Cherokee outlet, in Ind. Ter. Tsunda`talesun`yi--"where pieces fall off," i. e., where the banks are caving in; from adatale`i, "it is falling off," ts, distance prefix, "there," and yi, locative. The Cherokee name for the present site of Memphis, Tenn., overlooking the Mississippi and formerly known as the Chickasaw bluff. Tsu`dinunti`yi--"Throwing-down place"; a former settlement on lower Nantahala river, in Macon county, N. C. Tsugidu`li ulsgi`sti (from tsugidu`li, plural of ugiduli, one of the long wing or tail feathers of a bird, and ulsgi`sti or ulsgi`ta, a dance)--the feather or eagle dance. Tsukilunnun`yi--"Where he alighted"; two bald spots on a mountain at the head of a Little Snowbird creek, near Robbinsville, Graham county, N. C. tsungili`si--plural of ungili`si, q. v. tsungini`si--plural of ungini`si, q. v. tsunkina`tli--"my younger brothers" (male speaking). tsunkita`--"my younger brothers" (female speaking). tsula--fox; cf. tsulu, kingfisher and tlutlu` or tsulsu`, martin. The black fox is ina`li. The Creek word for fox is chula. tsula`ski--alligator; the name is of uncertain etymology. Tsula`sinun`yi--"Footprint place." A place on Tuckasee river, about a mile above Deep creek, in Swain county, N. C. Tsula`wi--see Tsulunwe`i. Tsule`hisanun`hi--"Resurrected One," from di`gwale`hisanun`hi, "I was resurrected." literally, "I was down and have risen." Tsa`lagi`, Tsule`hisanunhi, the Cherokee title of the newspaper known to the whites as the Cherokee Phoenix. The Cherokee title was devised by Worcester and Boudinot as suggesting the idea of the phoenix of classic fable. The Indian name of the recent "Cherokee Advocate" is Tsa`lagi Asdeli`ski. Tsul kalu`--"Slanting-eyes," literally "he has them slanting" (or leaning up against something); the prefix ts makes it a plural form, and the name is understood to refer to the eyes, although the word eye (akta`, plural dikta`) is not a part of it. Cf. Ata`-gulkalu. A mythic giant and ruler of the game. The name has been corrupted to Jutaculla and Tuli-cula. Jutaculla rock and Jutaculla old fields about the head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson, North Carolina, take their name from him. Tsulkalu` tsunegun`yi--see Tsunegun`yi. tsulie`na--the nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis); the word signifies literally "deaf" (a plural form referring to the ear, gule`) although no reason is given for such a name. tsulu--kingfisher. Cf. tsula. Tsulunwe`i--(abbreviated Tsulun`we or Tsula`wi, possibly connected with tsulu, kingfisher)--Chilhowee creek, a north tributary of Little Tennessee river, in Blount county, Tennessee. Tsundanilti`yi--"where they demanded the debt from him"; a place on Little Santeetal river, west of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. The creek also is commonly known by the same name. Tsundige`wi--"Closed anuses," literally "they have them closed," understood to refer to the anus; from dige`wi, plural of ge`wi, closed, stopped up, blind; cf. Tsulkalu`; also Gulisge`wi, "Blind, or closed, ears," an old personal name. Tsun`digwun`tski (contracted from tsun`digwuntsugi, "they have them forked," referring to the peculiar forked tail; cf. Tsulkalu`)--a migratory bird which once appeared for a short time upon the East Cherokee reservation, apparently, from the description, the scissortail or swallow-tailed fly-catcher (Milvulus forficatus). Tsunegun`yi (sometimes called Tsulkalu` Tsunegun`yi)--Tennessee Bald, at the extreme head of Tuckasegee river, on the east line of Jackson county, North Carolina. The name seems to mean "there where it is white," from ts, a prefix indicating distance, une`ga, white, and yi, locative. Tsunil` kalu--the plural form for Tsul kalu, q. v., a traditional giant tribe in the west. tsunis`tsahi--"(those) having topnots or crests," from ustsahu`, "having a topknot," ustsahi`, "he has a topknot" (habitually). Tsuniya`tiga--"Naked People"; literally "They are naked there," from uya`tiga, naked (singular), with the prefix ts, indicating distance. A traditional western tribe. tsun-ka`wi-ye`, tsun-sikwa-ya`, tsun-tsu`la-ya`, tsun-wa`ya-ya`--"I am (tsun or tsi, verbal prefix) a real (ya, ye, noun suffix) deer" (kawi`, archaic for a wi`); opossum, si`kwa; fox, tsula; wolf, waya. Archaic song forms. tsunsdi`--contracted from tsunsdi`ga, the plural of usdi`ga or usdi`, small. Tsunu`lahun`ski--"He tries, but fails" (habitually), from detsinu`lahun`ski (q. v.), "I tried, but failed." A former noted chief among the East Cherokee, commonly known to the whites as Junaluska. In early life he was called Gulkala`ski, a name which denotes something habitually falling from a leaning position (cf. Ata-gul kalu` and Tsul kalu`). tsunu` liyu`sunestla`ta--"they have split noses," (from agwaliyu`, "I have it," and unestlau`, "it is cracked" (as a crack made by the sun's heat in a log or in the earth)); the initial s makes it refer to the nose, kayasa`. Tsusgina`i--"the Ghost country," from asgi`na, "ghost," i, locative, and ts, a prefix denoting distance. The land of the dead; it is situated in Usunhi`yi, the Twilight land, in the west. Tsuta`tsinasun`yi--"Eddy place." A place on Cheowa river at the mouth of Cochran creek, in Graham county, N. C. tsutsu`--see tlutlu`. tsuntu`tsi--see tluntu`tsi. tsuwa`--the mud-puppy or water dog (Menopoma or Protonopsis). Tsuwa`tel`da--a contraction of tsuwa`teldun`yi; the name has lost its meaning. Pilot Knob, north from Brevard, in Transylvania county, N. C. Tsuwa`-uniytsun`yi--"where the water-dog laughed." from tsuwa`, q. v., "water-dog," uniye`tsu, "they laughed" (agiyet`sku, "I am laughing") and yi, locative; Tusquittee Bald, near Hayesville, in Clay county, N. C. Tsuwe`nahi--A traditional hunter, in communication with the invisible people. The name seems to mean "He has them in abundance," an irregular or archaic form for Uwe`nai, "he has abundance," "he is rich," from agwe`nai`, "I am rich." As a masculine name it is used as the equivalent of Richard. Tuckalechee--see Tikwah`tsi. Tuckasegee--see Tsiksi`tsi. Tugaloo--see Dugilu`yi. tugalu`--the cry of the dagulku, goose. tugalu`na--a variety of small fish, about four inches long, frequenting the larger streams (from galu`na, a gourd, on account of its long nose). tuksi`--the terrapin or land tortoise; also the name of a Cherokee chief about the close of the Revolution. Saligu`gi, common turtle; soft-shell turtle, U`lana`wa. Tuksi`tsi--see Tsiksi`tsi. Tuli-cula--see Tsui`kalu`. tulsku`wa--"he snaps with his head," from uska`, head; the snapping beetle. Tuna`i--a traditional warrior and medicine man of old Itsa`ti; the name cannot be analyzed. Turkeytown--see Gun-di`gaduhun`yi. Turniptown--see U`lunyi. Tuskegee--see Ta`ski`gi. Tusquittee Bald--see Tsuwa`-uniyetsun`yi. Tusquittee creek--see Daskwitun`yi. tu`sti--for tusti`ga, a small bowl; larger jars are called diwa`li and unti`ya. tuti--snowbird. Tuti`yi--"Snowbird place," from tu`ti, snowbird, and yi, locative. Little Snow-bird creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. tu`tsahyesi`--"he will marry you." tu`ya--bean. tu`ya-diskalaw`sti`ski--see ti`gu. tu`yahusi`--"she will die." Tymahse--see Tomassee. Uchee--see Ani`-Yu`tsi. uda`hale`yi--"on the sunny side." uda`i--the baneberry or cohosh vine (Actaea?). The name signifies that the plant has something long hanging from it. uda`li--"(it is) married"; the mistletoe, so-called on account of its parasitic habit. U`dawagun`ta--"Bald." A bald mountain of the Great Smoky range, in Yancy county, N. C., not far from Mount Mitchell. Udsi`skala--a masculine name. uga`sita--sour. u`giska`--"he is swallowing it"; from tsikiu`, "I am eating." u`guku`--the hooting or barred owl. ugunste`li (ugunste`lu in dialect form)--the horny-head fish. Ugun`yi--Tallulah falls, on the river of that name, northeast from Clarksville, in Habersham county, Ga. The meaning of the name is lost. Uilata--see U`tlun`ta. uk-ku`suntsuteti`--"it will twist up one's arm." Uk-ku`suntsuti`--"Bent-bow-shape"; a comic masculine name. Uk-kunagi`sti--"it will draw down one's eye." Uk-kwunagi`ta--"eye-drawn-down"; a comic masculine name. uksu`hi--the mountain blacksnake or black racer (coluber obsoletus); the name seems to refer to some pecularity of the eye, akta`, uksuhha`, "he has something lodged in his eye." Ukte`na--"Keen-eyed (?)" from akta`, eye, akta`ti, to examine closely. A mythic great-horned serpent, with a talismanic diadem. Ukte`na-tsuganun`yi--"where the Uktena got fastened." A spot on Tuckasegee river, about two miles above Bryson City, in Swain county, N. C. Ukwu`nu (or Ukwu`ni)--a former Cherokee settlement, commonly known to the whites as Oconee, on Seneca creek, near the present Walhalla, in Oconee county, S. C. Ula`gu`--the mythical original of the yellow-jacket tribe. The word signifies "leader," "boss," or "principal one," and is applied to the first yellow-jacket (d`ska`i) seen in the spring, to a queen bee and to the leader of a working squad. u`lana`wa--the soft-shell turtle; see also saligu`gi and tuksi`. ulasu`la--moccasin, shoe. ule`--and; ule`-nu, and also. ulskwulte`gi--a "pound mill," a self-acting water-mill used in the Cherokee mountains. The name signifies that "it butts with its head" (Uska`, head), in allusion to the way in which the pestles work in the mortar. The generic word for mill is dist`sti. ulstitlu`--literally "it is on his head." The diamond crest on the head of the mythic Uktena serpent. When detached it becomes Ulunsu`ti. Ultiwa`i--a former Cherokee settlement above the present Ooltewah, on the creek of the same name, in James county, Tenn. ulunni`ta--domesticated, tame; may be used for persons as well as animals, but not for plants; for cultivated or domesticated plants the adjective is gunutlun`i or gunusun`i. Ulunsu`ti--"Transparent"; the great talismanic crystal of the Cherokee. ulun`ta--"it has climbed," from tsilahi`, "I am climbing"; the poison oak (Rhus radicans). U`lun`yi--"Tuber place," from U`li`, a variety of edible tuber, and yi, locative. A former settlement upon Turniptown, (for U`lun`yi) creek, above Ellijay, in Gilmer county, Ga. Unacala--see Uni`gadihi`. U`nadanti`yi--"Place where they conjured," the name of a gap about three miles east of Webster, in Jackson county, N. C., and now transferred to the town itself. unade`na--woolly, downy, (in speaking of animals); uwa`nu, wool, down, fine fur (detached from the animal). u`nahu`--see unahwi`. u`nahi`--heart; in Middle and Lower dialects, unahu`. Unaka--see une`ga and Unicoi. unatlunwe`hitu--"it has spirals"; a plant (unidentified) used in conjuration. une`ga--white. une`guhi--"he is (was) mischievous or bad"; tsune`guhi`yu, "you are very mischievous" (said to a child). une`gutsatu`--"(he is) mischievous"; a`gine`gutsatu`, "I am mischievous." Une`lanun`hi--"The Apportioner"; "I am apportioning," gane`lasku`; "I apportion" (habitually), gane`laski. In the sacred formulas a title of the Sun God; in the Bible the name of God. une`stalun--ice. Unicoi--the map name of the Unicoi turnpike, of a gap on the watershed between Chattahoochee and Hiwassee river, in Georgia, and of a county in Tennessee. Probably a corruption of une`ga, white, whence comes also Unaka, the present map name of a part of the Great Smoky range. uni`gisti--foods; singular, agi`sti. Uniga`yata`ti`yi--"where they made a fish trap," from uga`yatun`i, fish trap, and yi, locative; a place on Tuckasegee river, at the mouth of Deep creek, near Bryson City, in Swain county, N. C. Uni`haluna--see Ahalu`na. Unika`wa--the "Town-house dance," so-called because danced inside the town-house. Une`ga-dihi`--"White-man-killer"; from une`ga, "white," for yun`wune`ga, "white person," and dihi`, a noun suffix denoting "killer," "he kills them" (habitually). A Cherokee chief, whose name appears on the documents about 1790. ungida`--"thy two elder brothers" (male speaking). ungini`li--"my elder brother." ungini`si (plural, tsungini`si)--"my daughter's child." u`niskwetu`gi--"they wear a hat," ulskwe`tawa`, hat from uska`, head. The May apple (Podophyllum). unistilun`isti--"they stick on along their whole length"; the generic name for "stickers" and burrs, including the Spanish needle, cockle burr, jimson weed, etc. uni`tsi--her mother; agitsi`, my mother. Uniya`hitun`yi--"where they shot it," from tsiya`ihu`. "I shot," and yi, locative. A place on Tuckasegee river a short distance above Bryson City, in Swain county, N. C. Unli`ta--"(He is) long-winded," an archaic form for the regular word, gunli`ta; an old masculine name. A chief about the year 1790, known to the whites as "The Breath." Untoola--see Dihiyun`dula`. Unta`kiyasti`yi--"Where they race," from takiya`ta, a race, and yi, locative; locally corrupted to Tahkeyostee. The district on the French Broad river, around Asheville, in Buncombe county, N. C. The town itself is known to the Cherokee as Kasdu`yi, "Ashes place," (from kasdu, ashes, and yi, locative), which is intended as a translation of its proper name. Un`tiguhi`--"Pot in water," from or unti`ya, pot, and guli`, "it is in the water" (or other liquid, habitually). The Suck, a dangerous rapid in Tennessee river, at the entrance of Suck creek, about eight miles below Chattanooga, Tenn. Untlasgasti`yi--"Where they scratched"; a place at the head of Hyatt's creek of Valley river, in Cherokee county, N. C. Untoola--see Dihyun`dula`. Untsaili` (also Etsaiyi`, or Tsaiyi`, the first syllable being almost silent)--"Brass." unwada`li--store-house, provision house. Unwada-tsu`gilasun`--"Where the storehouse (unwada`li) was taken off." Either Black Rock or Jones' Knob, northeast of Webster, on the east line of Jackson county, N. C. unun`ti--milk. usdi`ga (abbreviated usdi`)--small; plural tsunsdi`ga, tsundi`. usga`se`ti`yu--very dangerous, very terrible; intensive of usga`se`ti. Uskwale`na--"Big-Head," from uska`, head; a masculine name, perhaps the original of the "Bull-head," given by Haywood as the name of a former noted Cherokee warrior. Uskwa`li-gu`ta--"His stomach hangs down," from uskwa`li, his stomach, and gu`ta, "it hangs down." A prominent chief of the Revolutionary period, known to the whites as Hanging-maw. U`stana`li (from U`stanala`hi or uni`stana`la (a plural form), denoting a natural barrier of rocks (plural) across a stream)--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, and variously spelled Eastinaulee, Eastinora, Estanaula, Eustenaree, Istanare, Oostanaula, Oostinawley, Ustenary, etc. u`stuti--see utsu`gi. Ustu`tli--a traditional dangerous serpent. The name signifies having something on the calf of the leg or on the heel, from ustutun`i "(his) calf of the leg (attached)." It is applied also to the Southern hoop-snake. Usunhi`yi--the "Darkening land," "where it is always getting dark," as at twilight. The name used for the west in the myths and the sacred formulas; the common word is wude`ligun`yi, "there where it (the sun) goes down." u`tanu--great, fully developed. Cf. e`gwa. utawa`hilu--"hand breadth," from uwa`yi, hand. A figurative term used in the myths and sacred formulas. U`tawagun`ta--"Bald place." A high bald peak in the Great Smoky range on the Tenn.-N. C. line, northeast from Big Pigeon river. U`tlun`ta--"He (or she) has it sharp," i. e., has some sharp part or organ; it might be used of a tooth, a finger-nail, or some other attached part of the body. U`tluntun`yi--"U`tlun`ta place"; see U`tlun`ta. A place on Little Tennessee river, nearly off Citico creek, in Blount county, Tenn. U`tsala--"Lichen"; another form of utsale`ta. A Cherokee chief of Removal period in 1838. utsale`ta--lichen, literally "pot scrapings," from a fancied resemblance. utsa`nati`--rattlesnake; the name is of doubtful etymology, but is said to refer to the rattle. Utsa`nati`yi--"Rattlesnake place." Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south from Charlestown, Bradley county, Tenn. utset`sti--"he grins" (habitually). See si`kwa utset`sti. utsi`--her (his) mother; etsi`, agitsi`, my mother. Utsi`dsata`--"Corn-tassel," "Thistle-head," etc. It is used as a masculine name, and was probably the Cherokee name of the chief of Revolutionary times, known as "Old Tassel." utsu`gi--the tufted titmouse (Parus bicolor); also called u`stuti`, "topnot, or tip," on account of its crest. u`tsuti`--fish. Also, many. Uwaga`hi (commonly written Ocoee)--"Apricot place," from uwa`ga, the "apricot vines," or "maypop," (Passiflora incarnata), and hi, locative. A former important settlement on Ocowe river, near its junction with Hiwassee, about the present Benton, in Polk county, Tenn. uwa`yi--hand, paw, generally used with the possessive suffix, as uwaye`ni, "his hand." uwe`la--liver. uwe`nahi--rich; used also as a personal name. Uw`tsun`ta--"Bouncer" (habitual); from k`tsi, "it is bouncing." A traditional serpent described as moving by jerks like a measuring worm, to which also the name is applied. Uyahye`--a high peak in the Great Smoky range, probably on the line between Swain county, N. C., and Sevier county, Tenn. Uy`gila`gi--abbreviated from Tsuyu`gila`gi, "where there are dams," i. e., beaver dams; from gu`gilu`unsku`, "he is damming it." 1. A former settlement on Oothcaloga (Ougillogy) creek of Oostanaula river, near the present Calhoun, in Gordon county, Ga.; 2. Beaverdam creek, west of Clarksville, in Habbersham county, Ga. Valleytown--see Gu`nahitun`yi. Vengeance creek--see Gansa`ti`yi. Wachesa--see Watsi`su. wadan`--thanks! wa`di--paint, especially red paint. wa`dige-aska`li--"his head (is) brown," i. e., "brown-head"; from wadige`i, brown, brown-red, and aska`li, head; the copperhead snake. Wadi`yahi--a feminine name of doubtful etymology. An expert basket-making woman among the East Cherokee, who died in 1895. She was known to the whites as Mrs. Bushyhead. Wafford--see Tsuskwanun`ta. Wa`ginsi--the name of an eddy at the junction of Little Tennessee and the main Tennessee rivers at Lenoir, in London county, Tenn. The town is now known to the Cherokee by the same name, of which the meaning is lost. waguli`--whippoorwill; the name is an onomatope; the Delaware name is wekolis. Wahnenauhi--see Wani`nahi. wa`huhu`--the screech-owl. wa`ka--cow; from the Spanish vaca, as is also the Creek waga and the Arapaho wakuch. wala`si--the common green frog. Walasi`yi--"Frog place." 1. A former settlement, known to the whites as Frogtown, upon the creek of the same name, north of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Ga. 2. Le Conte and Bullhead Mountains in the Great Smoky range on the N. C.-Tenn. line, together with the ridge extending into Sevier county, Tenn., between the Middle and West forks of Little Pigeon river. walas`-unul`sti--"it fights frogs," from wala`si, frog, and unul`sti, "it fights" (habitually); gu`lihu`, "I am fighting." The Prosartes lanuginosa plant. Walas`-unulstiyi`--"Place of the plant," walas`-unul`sti, commonly known to the whites as Fightingtown, from a translation of the latter part of a name; a former settlement on Fighting creek, near Morgantown, in Fannin county, Ga. Walini`--a feminine name, compounded from Wali, another form of Kwali, "Polly," with a suffix added for euphony. Wane`-asun`tlunyi--"Hickory footlog place," from wane`i, hickory, asun-tlun`i (q. v.), footlog, bridge, and yi, locative. A former settlement, known to the whites as Hickory-log, on Etowah river, a short distance above Canton, in Cherokee county, Ga. Wani`nahi`--a feminine name of uncertain etymology; the Wahnenauhi of the Wahnenauhi manuscript. Washington--see Wa`situ`na. Wa`si--the Cherokee form for Moses. Wa`situ`na, Wa`suntu`na (different dialect forms)--a Cherokee known to the whites as Washington, the sole survivor of a Removal tragedy. The name denotes a hollow log (or other cylindrical object) lying on the ground at a distance; the root of the word is asi`ta, log, and the w prefix indicates distance. Wa`sulu`--a large red-brown moth which flies about blossoming tobacco in the evening. Wata`gi (commonly written Watauga, also Wataga, Wattoogee, Whatoga, etc.)--a name occurring in two or more towns in the old Cherokee country; one was an important settlement on Watauga creek of Little Tennessee river, a few miles below Franklin, in Macon county, N. C.; another was traditionally located at Watauga Old Fields, about the present Elizabethton on Wateuga river, in Carter county, Tenn. The meaning is lost. Watau`ga--see Wata`gi. Watsi`sa--a prominent old Cherokee, known to the whites as Wachesa, a name which cannot be translated, who formerly lived on Beaverdam creek of Hiwassee river, below Murphy, in Cherokee county, N. C. From the fact that the Unicoi turnpike passed near his place, it was locally known as Wachesa trail. wa`ya--wolf; an onomatope, an imitation of the animal's howl; cf. the Creek name, yaha. Wa`ya`hi--"Wolf place," i. e., place of the Wolf clan; the form Ani`Wa`ya`hi is not used. Wolftown settlement on upper Soco creek, on the East Cherokee reservation, in Jackson county, N. C. Waya Gap--see A`tahi`ta. Wayeh--see Wayi. Wayi--"Pigeon"; the modern Cherokee name for Big Pigeon river, in western N. C.; probably a translation of the English name. It appears also as Wayeh. Welch, Lloyd--see Da`si`giya`gi. wesa--cat. White-path--see Nunna`hi-tsune`ga. Willstown--a former important settlement, so-called from the half-breed chief known to the whites as Red-headed Will, on Will's creek below Fort Payne, in Dekalb county, Ala. The settlement was frequently called from him Wili`yi, "Will's place," but this was not the proper local name. Wilsini`--The Cherokee name for H. W. Spray, agent and superintendent for the East Cherokee reservation; an adaptation of his middle name, Wilson. Wil-usdi`--"Little Will," from Wili`, Will and usdi`ga or usdi`, little. The Cherokee name for Colonel W. H. Thomas, for many years the recognized chief of the eastern band. Wissactaw--see gahawi`stia. Wolftown--see Wa`ya`hi. Wootassite--see Outacity. Wrosetasatow--see Outacity. Wude`ligun`yi--the west; literally "there where it (the sun) goes down," (w prefixed implies distance, yi, locative). See also Usunhi`yi and wusuhihun`yi. Wuliga`natutun--excelling all others, either good or bad; it may be used as equivalent to wastun, "beyond the limit." wusuhihun`yi--"there where they stay over night," i. e., "the west." An archaic term used by the narrator of the story of Untsaiyi`. Xuala--see Ani-Suwa`li. ya--a suffix denoting principal or real, as tsiskwa`ya, "principal bird," the sparrow; Ani`-Yunwiya`, "principal or real people," Indians. Yahula`li--"Yahu`la place," from Yuhu`la, a Cherokee trader said to have been taken by the spirit people; Yahu`la, seems to be from the Creek yoho`lo, a name having reference to the song (yoholo), used in the "black drink" ceremony of the Creeks; thus a`si-yoho`lo, corrupted into Osceola, signified "the black drink song"; it may, however, be a true Cherokee word, yahu`lu or yahu`li, the name for a variety of hickory, also for the "doodle-bug"; Unyahu`la is a feminine name, but cannot be translated. Yahoola creek, near Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Ga. Yala`gi--Alarka creek of Little Tennessee river, above the junction of Tuckasegee, in Swain county, N. C.; the meaning of the name is lost. yandaska`ga--a faultfinder. Yan-e`gwa--"Big-Bear," from yanu, bear, and egwa, great, large. A prominent chief about the year 1800; the name occurs in treaties as Yonah, Yohanaqua and Yonahequah. ya`nu--bear. Ya`nu-dinehun`yi--"where the bears live," from yanu, bear, dinehu`, "they dwell" (e`hu, "I dwell, I live") and yi, locative. A place on Oconaluftee river, a short distance above the junction with Tuckasegee, in Swain county, N. C. Yanugun`ski--"the bear drowns him" (habitually), from yanu, bear, and tsigun`iska`, "I am drowning him." A noted East Cherokee chief, known to the whites as Yonaguska or Drowning-bear. yan`-utse`stu--"The bear lies on it"; the shield fern (Aspidium). Ya`nu-u`natawasti`yi--"where the bears wash," (from yanu, bear, and yi, locative); a former pond in the Great Smoky Mountains, about the head of Raven Fork, in Swain county, N. C. Yawa`i--"Yawa place"; a place on Yellow creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, N. C. Yellow-Hill--see Elawa`diyi. Yohanaqua--see Yan-e`gwa. yoho-o!--an unmeaning song refrain. Yonaguska--see Ya`nugun`ski. Yonah--1. (mountain) see Gadalu`lu. 2. An abbreviated treaty form for the name of the chief Yana`gwa. Yonahequah--see Yan-e`gwa. Ytaua, Ytava--see I`tawa`. Yu!--an unmeaning song refrain and interjection. Yuha`li--Euharlee creek, of lower Etowah river, in Bartow county, Ga. The name is said by the Cherokee to be a corruption of Yufala (Eufaula), a well known Creek local name. yunsu`--buffalo; cf. Creek yena`sa, Choctaw yanash, Hichitee ya`nasi. Yunsa`i--"Buffalo place"; West Buffalo creek of Cheowa river in Graham county, N. C.; the site of a former Cherokee settlement. yun`wi--person, man. Yun`wi Ama`yine`hi--"Water-dwelling people," from yun`wi, person, and ama`yine`hi, plural of amaye`hi, q. v.; a race of water fairies. Yun`wi Gunahi`ta--"Long Man"; a formulistic name for the river, personified as a man with his head resting on the mountain and his feet stretching down to the lowlands, who is constantly speaking to those who can understand the message. Yun`wini`gisgi--"man-eaters," literally, "They eat people" (habitually), from yun`wi, person, man, and uni, giski, "they eat" (habitually), from tsikiu`, "I am eating"; the Cherokee name for a distant cannibal tribe, possibly the Atakapa or the Tonkawa. Yun`wi-tsulenun`yi--"where man stood," originally yun`wi-dikatagun`yi, "where the man stands," from yun`wi, person, man, tsita`ga, "I am standing," and yi, locative; Standing Indian, a high bald mountain at the head of Nantahala river, in Macon county, N. C. Yun`wi Tsunsdi`--"little people," from yun`wi, person, people, and tsunsdi`ga or tsunsdi, plural of usdi`ga or usdi`, little; the Cherokee fairies. Yun`wi Usdi`--"little man." A formulistic name for ginseng, a`tali-guli`, q. v. Yun`wi-usga`se`ti--"dangerous man, terrible man"; a traditional leader in the westward migration of Cherokee. Yun`wiya`--"Indian," literally, "principal or real person," from yun`wi, person, and ya, a suffix denoting principal or real. yu`we-yuwehe`--an unmeaning song refrain. NOTE [1] Colonel Thomas. 
31801	----	Transcriber's note Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. A printer error has been changed and is listed at the end. All other inconsistencies are as in the original. THE STORY OF OLD FORT LOUDON [Illustration: "The officers expressed their earnest remonstrances." (See page 198.)] The Story of Old Fort Loudon By Charles Egbert Craddock Author of "In the Tennessee Mountains," "The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains," etc., etc. With Illustrations by Ernest C. Peixotto New York The Macmillan Company London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd. 1899 _All rights reserved_ Copyright, 1898, By The Macmillan Company. _Norwood Press_ _J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Norwood, Mass., U.S.A._ Illustrations "The officers expressed their earnest remonstrances" (see page 198) _Frontispiece_ Facing page "What more wonderful? What more fearful?" 16 "The canoe rocked in the swirls" 54 "And oh, the moment of housewifely pride!" 128 "Plunging through the gate and half across the parade ground" 240 Belinda and the Ensign on the moonlit rampart 252 "The men had been hastily formed into a square" 346 "He stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect" 376 The Story of Old Fort Loudon CHAPTER I Along the buffalo paths, from one salt-lick to another, a group of pioneers took a vagrant way through the dense cane-brakes. Never a wheel had then entered the deep forests of this western wilderness; the frontiersman and the packhorse were comrades. Dark, gloomy, with long, level summit-lines, a grim outlier of the mountain range, since known as the Cumberland, stretched from northeast to southwest, seeming as they approached to interpose an insurmountable barrier to further progress, until suddenly, as in the miracle of a dream, the craggy wooded heights showed a gap, cloven to the heart of the steeps, opening out their path as through some splendid gateway, and promising deliverance, a new life, and a new and beautiful land. For beyond the darkling cliffs on either hand an illuminated vista stretched in every lengthening perspective, with softly nestling sheltered valleys, and parallel lines of distant azure mountains, and many a mile of level woodland high on an elevated plateau, all bedight in the lingering flare of the yellow, and deep red, and sere brown of late autumn, and all suffused with an opaline haze and the rich, sweet languors of sunset-tide on an Indian-summer day. As that enchanted perspective opened to the view, a sudden joyous exclamation rang out on the still air. The next moment a woman, walking beside one of the packhorses, clapped both hands over her lips, and turning looked with apprehensive eyes at the two men who followed her. The one in advance cast at her a glance of keen reproach, and then the whole party paused and with tense attention bent every faculty to listen. Silence could hardly have been more profound. The regular respiration of the two horses suggested sound. But the wind did not stir; the growths of the limitless cane-brakes in the valley showed no slight quiver in the delicately poised fibers of their brown feathery crests; the haze, all shot through with glimmers of gold in its gauzy gray folds, rested on the mute woods; the suave sky hung above the purple western heights without a breath. No suggestion of motion in all the landscape, save the sudden melting away of a flake of vermilion cloud in a faintly green expanse of the crystal heavens. The elder man dropped his hand, that had been raised to impose silence, and lifted his eyes from the ground. "I cannot be rid of the idea that we are followed," he said. "But I hear nothing." Although the eldest of the group, he was still young,--twenty-five, perhaps. He was tall, strong, alert, with a narrow, long face; dark, slow eyes, that had a serious, steadfast expression; dark brown hair, braided in the queue often discarded by the hunters of this day. A certain staid, cautious sobriety of manner hardly assorted with the rough-and-ready import of his garb and the adventurous place and time. Both he and the younger man, who was in fact a mere boy not yet seventeen, but tall, muscular, sinewy,--stringy, one might say,--of build, were dressed alike in loose hunting-shirts of buckskin, heavily fringed, less for the sake of ornament than the handiness of a selection of thongs always ready to be detached for use; for the same reason the deerskin leggings, reaching to the thighs over the knee-breeches and long stockings of that day, were also furnished with these substantial fringes; shot-pouch and powder-horn were suspended from a leather belt, and on the other side a knife-hilt gleamed close to the body. Both wore coonskin caps, but that of the younger preserved the tail to hang down like a plume among his glossy brown tangles of curls, which, but for a bit of restraining ribbon, resisted all semblance to the gentility of a queue. The boy was like his brother in the clear complexion and the color of the dark eyes and hair, but the expression of his eyes was wild, alert, and although fired with the earnest ardor of first youth, they had certain roguish intimations, subdued now since they were still and seriously expectant, but which gave token how acceptably he could play that cherished _rôle_, to a secluded and isolated fireside, of family buffoon, and make gay mirth for the applause of the chimney-corner. The brothers were both shod with deerskin buskins, but the other two of the party wore the shoe of civilization,--one a brodequin, that despite its rough and substantial materials could but reflect a grace from the dainty foot within it; the other showed the stubby shapes deemed meet for the early stages of the long tramp of life. The little girl's shoes were hardly more in evidence than the mother's, for the skirts of children were worn long, and only now and then was betrayed a facetious skip of some active toes in the blunt foot-gear. Their dresses were of the same material, a heavy gray serge, which fact gave the little one much satisfaction, for she considered that it made them resemble the cow and calf--both great personages in her mind. But she flattered herself; her aspect in the straight, short bodice that enclosed her stout little rotund figure, and the quaint white mob-cap that encircled her chubby, roseate face, all smiles, and indeterminate nose, and expanded, laughing, red mouth, and white, glittering, irregular teeth, had little in common with the mother whom she admired and imitated, and but for the remnant of the elder's stuff gown, of which her own was fashioned, the comparison with the cow and calf would have failed altogether. She was not even a good imitator of the maternal methods. Of course the days of her own infancy, recent though they were, had long been lost to her limited memory, and a token of the length of time that they had dwelt in the wilderness, and the impressions her juvenile faculties had received therefrom might have been given by the fact that her doll was reared after pappoose fashion; on her back was slung a basket in the manner of the peripatetic cradle of the Indian women, and from this protruded the head and the widely open eyes of a cat slightly past kittenhood, that was adapting its preferences to the conditions of the journey with a discretion which might argue an extension of the powers of instinct in pioneer animals,--a claim which has often been advanced. The cat evidently realized the fact that it was a domesticated creature, that naught was possible for it in these strange woods but speedy destruction by savage beast or man, and that decorous submission became a cat promoted to the estate of a juvenile settler's baby. The cat was as silent and as motionless during the halt as the rest of the party, looking out watchfully over the shoulder of the little three-year-old, who, with perfect and mute trust, and great, serene eyes, gazed up at the face of her father, nothing doubting his infinite puissance and willingness to take care of her. When he spoke and the tension was over, she began to skip once more, the jostled cat putting out her claws to hold to the wicker-work of her basket; the two had ridden most of the day on one of the packhorses, their trifling weight adding but little to the burden of the scanty store of clothing and bedding, the cooking and farming utensils, the precious frying-pan and skillet, the invaluable axe, hand-saw, auger, and hoe,--the lares and penates of the pioneer. There were some surveying-instruments, too, and in the momentary relaxation of suspense the elder of the brothers consulted a compass, as he had done more than once that day. "I thought I heard something," said the boy, shouldering his rifle and turning westward, "but I couldn't say what." "Ah, _quelle barbarie_!" exclaimed the woman, with a sigh, half petulance, half relief. She seemed less the kind of timber that was to build up the great structure of western civilization than did the others,--all unfitted for its hardships and privation and labor. Her gray serge gown was worn with a sort of subtle elegance hardly discounted by the plainness of the material and make. The long, pointed waist accented the slender grace of her figure; the skirt had folds clustered on the hips that gave a sort of fullness to the drapery and suggested the charm of elaborate costume. She wore a hood on her head,--a large calash, which had a curtain that hung about her shoulders. This was a dark red, of the tint called Indian red, and as she pushed it back and turned her face, realizing that the interval of watching was over, the fairness of her complexion, the beauty of her dark, liquid eyes, the suggestion of her well-ordered, rich brown hair above her high forehead, almost regal in its noble cast, the perfection of the details of her simple dress, all seemed infinitely incongruous with her estate as a poor settler's wife, and the fact that since dawn and for days past she had, with the little all she possessed, fled from the pursuit of savage Indians. She returned with a severe glance the laughing grimace of the boy, with which, despite his own fear but a moment ago, he had, in the mobility of the moods of youth, decorated his countenance. "If it were not for you, Hamish," she said to him, "I should not be so terrified. I have seen Indians many a time,--yes,--and when they were on the war-path, too. But to add to their fury by an act of defiance on our part! It is fatal--they have only to overtake us." "What was I to do, Odalie?" said Hamish MacLeod, suddenly grave, and excitedly justifying himself. "There was that red Injun, as still as a stump. I thought he was a stump--it was nearly dark. And I heard the wild turkey gobbling,--you heard it yourself, you sent me out to get it for supper,--you said that one more meal on buffalo meat would be the death of you,--and it was nearly dark,--and--gobble--gobble--gobble--so appetizing. I can hear it yet." With an expression of terror she caught suddenly at his hand as he walked beside her, but he petulantly pulled away. "I mean _in my mind_, Odalie,--I hear it now _in my mind_. And all of a sudden it came to me that it was that stump up on the slope that was gobbling so cheerful, and gobbling me along into gunshot.[1] And just then I was in rifle range, and I fired at the same minute that the stump fired, or the turkey, whichever you choose to call him--What is the reason, Sandy, that Injuns are so apt to load with too little powder?" he broke off, speaking to his brother. "The turkey shot straight--his ball dropped spent just at my feet." "_Quelle barbarie!_" exclaimed Mrs. MacLeod, catching his hand again--this time to give it a little squeeze--impressed with the imminence of the boy's danger and their loss. But Hamish was quite as independent of caresses and approval as of rebuke, and he carelessly twisted his hand away from his sister-in-law as he cocked his head to one side to hear the more experienced hunter's reply. "Because their powder is so precious, and scant, and hard to come by, they economize it," said Alexander MacLeod, as he trudged along behind the packhorses, guarding the rear of his little party with his rifle on his shoulder. "The turkey would better have economized his meat this time," said the boy, swinging round his belt to lift the lid of his powder-horn and peep gloatingly in at the reinforced stores. "He was economical with his powder, but extravagant with his life; for that turkey will gobble no more." He gobbled a brisk and agitated imitation of the cry of the fowl, and then broke off to exclaim, "_Quelle barbarie!_--eh, Odalie?" He looked at his sister-in-law with a roguish eye, as he travestied the tone and manner of her favorite ejaculation, which he was wont to call the "family oath." For indeed they had all come to make use of the phrase, in their varying accent, to express their disaffection with the ordering of events, or the conduct of one another, or the provoking mischance of inanimate objects,--as the gun's hanging fire, or the reluctance of a spark to kindle from flint to make their camp-fire, or the overturning of a pot of buffalo soup, or bear stew, when the famished fugitives were ready to partake in reality of the feast which their olfactory nerves and eyes had already begun. Even the little girl would exclaim, "_Quelle barbarie!_" when thorns caught her skirts and held her prisoner as she had skipped along so low down among the brambles and dense high cane, that one must needs wonder at the smallness of Empire, as expressed in her personality and funny cap, taking its westward way. "_Quelle barbarie!_" too, when the cat's culture in elegant manners required of maternal solicitude a smart box on the ear. And if the cat did not say "_Quelle barbarie!_" with an approved French accent, we all know that she thought it. "So much better for the soul's health than swearing," Hamish was wont to say, when Odalie showed signs of considering the phrase a bit of ridicule of her and her Frenchy forbears. Her grandfather had been a Huguenot refugee, driven out of his country by the religious persecution about the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, seventy odd years previously. Her father had prospered but indifferently in the more civilized section of the New World, and had died early. There his daughter had met her young Scotchman, who was piqued by her dainty disdain of his French accent, which MacLeod had recklessly placed on exhibition, and was always seeking to redeem the impression, finally feeling that he must needs improve it by having a perfect Mentor at hand. He had brought from the land of his birth, which he had quitted in early years, but few distinctive local expressions, yet a certain burr clung to his speech, and combined as incongruously as might be with his French accent. She evidently considered the latter incurable, intolerable, and always eyed him, when he spoke in that language, with ostentatious wonder that such verbal atrocities could be, and murmured gently in lieu of reply--"_Quelle barbarie!_" He found his revenge in repeating a similar slogan, one that had often been as a supplement to this more usual phrase,--"_Partons pour la France aujourd'hui, pour l'amour de Dieu!_" It had been urged by her grandmother in moments of depression, and Odalie, born and reared in the royal province of South Carolina, had always the logic and grace to wince at this ungrateful aspiration to return to France,--the dear France that had been so much too hot to hold them. For the family had rejoiced to escape thence with their lives, even at the forfeiture of all that they possessed. This jesting warfare of words had become established in the MacLeod household, and often recurred, sometimes with a trifle of acrimony. Little they thought how significant it was to be and how it should serve them in their future lives. The sun was going down. Far, far purple mountains, that they might never have seen but for that great clifty gateway, were bathed in the glory of the last red suffusion of the west; the evening star of an unparalleled whiteness pulsated in the amber-tinted lucidity of the sky. The fragrance of the autumn woods was more marked on the dank night air. One could smell the rich mould along a watercourse near at hand, the branch from a spring bubbling up in the solid rock hard by. Odalie had seated herself on the horizontal ledge at the base of one of the crags and had thrown back her hood, against which her head rested. Her large eyes were soft and lustrous, but pensive and weary. "Rest, Odalie, while Hamish and I make the fire, and then you can fix the things for supper," her husband admonished her. It was the first time that they had halted that day, and dinner had been but the fragments of breakfast eaten while on the march. There had been a sudden outbreak of the Cherokee Indians which had driven them from the more frequented way where they feared pursuit,--this, and the fate of the brave who had sought to lure Hamish to his death last night with the mimicry of the gobbler, and was killed in consequence himself. They could not judge whether he had been alone or one of a party; whether his body might be discovered and his death avenged by the death or capture of them all; whether he had been a scout, thrown out to discover the direction they took, and his natural blood-thirstiness had overmastered his instructions, and he must needs seek to kill the boy before his return with his news. With this more recent fear that they were followed they had not to-day dared to build a fire lest its smoke betray to the crafty observation of the Indians, although at a great distance, their presence in this remote quarter of the wilderness, far even from the Indian war-path, that, striking down the valley between the Cumberland range and the eastern mountains, was then not only the road that the Indians followed to battle, but the highway of traffic and travel, the only recognized and known path leading from the Cherokee settlements south of the Tennessee River through this great uninhabited park or hunting-ground to the regions of other Indian tribes on the Scioto and to Western Virginia. Now, however, rest and refreshment were necessary; even more imperative was the need of a fire as a protection to the camp against the encroachments of wild beasts; for wolves were plentiful and roamed the night-bound earth, and the active panther, the great American cougar, was wont to look down from the branches of overhanging trees. The horses were not safe beyond the flare of the flames, to say nothing of wife and child. Therefore the risk of attracting observation from Indians must be run, especially since it was abated by the descending dusk. The little treacherous smoke escaping from the forest to curl against the blue sky need not be feared at night. The darkness would hide all from a distance; as to foes lurking nearer at hand, why, if any such there were, then their fate was already upon them. With the stout heart of the pioneer, Alexander MacLeod heaped the fagots upon the ground and struck the flint and steel together after giving the officious little Josephine a chance to try her luck with the tinder. Soon the dry dead wood was timidly ablaze, while Hamish led the horses to the water and picketed them out. Odalie's eyes followed the boy with a sort of belated yet painful anxiety, thinking how near he had been to parting with that stanch young spirit, and what a bereavement would have been the loss of that blithe element from their daily lives. "_Quelle barbarie!_" she exclaimed suddenly. "_Quelle barbarie!_" Perhaps her husband realized her fatigue and depression and was willing to put his French accent on parade for her amusement; perhaps it was for the sake of the old flouting retort; he theatrically rejoined without looking up, "_Partons pour la France aujourd'hui, pour l'amour de Dieu._" And Josephine, taking the cat out of its basket and kissing its whiskers and the top of its head, was condoling with it on its long restraint:--"_Quelle barbarie, ma poupée, quelle barbarie, ma douce mignonne,_" she poutingly babbled. Alexander MacLeod paused to listen to this affectionate motherly discourse; then glanced up at his wife with a smile, to call her attention to it. She had not moved. She had turned to stone. It seemed as if she could never move again. A waving blotch of red sumach leaves in a niche in the dark wall of the crag hard by had caught her notice. A waving blotch of red leaves in the autumnal dusk,--what more natural? What more wonderful? What more fearful? There was no wind. How could the bough stir? There was no bough. The blotch of color was the red and black of a hideous painted face that in the dusk, the treacherous dusk, had approached very near and struck her dumb and turned her to stone. It had approached so near that she could see its expression change as the sound of the words spoken about the fireside arose on the air. Her mental faculties were rallying from the torpor which still paralyzed her physical being; she understood the reason for this facial change, and by a mighty effort of the will summoned all her powers to avail herself of it. Alexander MacLeod, glancing up with a casual laugh on his face, was almost stunned to see a full-armed and painted Cherokee rise up suddenly from among the bushes about the foot of the cliff. Standing distinctly outlined against the softly tinted mountain landscape, which was opalescent in its illumined hues, faint and fading, and extending his hand with a motion of inquiry toward Odalie, the savage demanded in a lordly tone,--"Flinch? Flanzy?" As in a dream MacLeod beheld her, nodding her head in silent acquiescence,--as easily as she might were she humming a tune and hardly cared to desist from melody for words. She could not speak! The Cherokee, his face smeared with vermilion, with a great white circle around one eye and a great black circle around the other, looked not ill-pleased, yet baffled for a moment. "Me no talk him," he observed. [Illustration: "What more wonderful? What more fearful?"] He had never heard of Babel, poor soul, but he was as subject to the inconvenience of the confusion of tongues as if he had had an active share in the sacrilegious industry of those ambitious architects who builded in the plains of Shinar. "But I can speak English too," said Odalie. "Him?" said the Cherokee, "and him?" pointing at Alexander and then at Hamish--at Hamish, with his recollection of that dead Indian, a Cherokee, lying, face downward, somewhere there to the northward under the dark trees, his blood crying aloud for the ferocious reprisal in which his tribe were wont to glut their vengeance. "Both speak French," said Odalie. The Indian gazed upon her doubtfully. He had evidently only a few disconnected sentences of English at command, although he understood far more than he could frame, but he could merely discern and distinguish the sound of the admired "Flanzy." Odalie realized with a shiver that it was only this trifle that had preserved the lives of the whole party. For even previous to the present outbreak and despite the stipulations of their treaties with the English, the Cherokees were known to have hesitated long in taking sides in the struggle between France and Great Britain, still in progress now in 1758, for supremacy in this western country, and many were suspected of yet inclining to the French, who had made great efforts to detach them from the British interest. "Where go?" demanded the chief, suspiciously. "To Choté, old town," she averred at haphazard, naming the famous "beloved town, [2]city of refuge," of the Cherokee nation. He nodded gravely. "I go Choté,--travel with white man," he remarked, still watchful-eyed. The shadows were deepening; the flames had revealed other dark figures, eight braves at the heels of the spokesman, all painted, all armed, all visibly mollified by the aspect that the dialogue had taken on,--that of an interpreting female for a French husband. "What do--Choté--old town?" demanded the chief. "Buy furs," said Odalie at a venture, pointing at her husband. The Cherokee listened intently, his blanket drawn up close around his ears, as if thus shrouded he took counsel of his own identity. The garment was one of those so curiously woven of the lustrous feathers of wild-fowl that the texture had a rich tufted aspect. This lost manufacture of the Cherokee Indians has been described by a traveler in that region in 1730 as resembling a "fine flowered silk shag." "Ugh!" muttered the chief. "Ugh!" he said again. But the tone was one of satisfaction. The buying and shipping of peltry was at that date a most lucrative business, furs bearing a high price in all the markets of the world, and this region bade fair to be one of the large sources of supply. The Indians profited by selling them, and this, too, was the magnet that was beginning to draw the hardy Carolina hunters westward, despite the hazards. At no other industry elsewhere could commensurate sums of money be earned without outlay beyond a rifle and ammunition and a hunter's cheap lodgement and fare. The Indians early developed a dependence on the supplies of civilization,--guns, ammunition, knives, tools, paints, to say nothing of fire-water, quickly demonstrating their superiority to primitive inventions, and this traffic soon took on most prosperous proportions. Thus, although the Cherokees resented the presence of the white man upon their hunting-ground in the capacity of competitor, and still more of colonist, they were very tolerant of his entrance into their towns and peaceful residence there as buyer and shipper--one of the earliest expressions of middleman in the West--of the spoils of the chase, the trophies of the Indian's skill in woodcraft. Although the British government, through treaties with the Cherokees, sought a monopoly of this traffic as a means of controlling them by furnishing or withholding their necessities as their conduct toward the English colonists on the frontier might render judicious, many of the earlier of these traders were French--indeed one of the name of Charleville was engaged in such commerce on the present site of the city of Nashville as early as the year 1714, his base of supplies being in Louisiana, altogether independent of the English, as he was then one of the traders of Antoine Crozat, under the extensive charter of that enterprising speculator. The French had exerted all their suavest arts of ingratiation with the Cherokees, and as the Indians were now on the point of breaking out into open enmity against the English, the idea of a French trader in furs, which Odalie had suggested, was so acceptable to the Cherokee scheme of things, that for the time all doubt and suspicion vanished from the savage's mind. Vanished so completely, in fact, that within the half-hour the chief was seated with the family-party beside their camp-fire and sharing their supper, and the great Willinawaugh, with every restraint of pride broken down, with characteristic reserve cast to the winds, speaking to the supposed Frenchman, Alexander MacLeod, as to a brother, was detailing with the utmost frankness and ferocity the story of the treatment of the Indians by the Virginians, their allies, in the late expedition against Fort Duquesne. The Cherokees had marched thither to join General Forbes's army, agreeably to their treaty with the English, by which, in consideration of the building of a fort within the domain of their nation to afford them protection against their Indian enemies and the French, now the enemies of their English allies, and to shelter their old men and women and children during such absences of the warriors of the tribe, they had agreed to take up arms under the British flag whenever they were so required. And this the Cherokees had done. Then his painted, high-cheek-boned face grew rigid with excitement, and the eagle feathers bound to his scalp-lock quivered in the light of the fire as he told of the result. His braves hovered near to hear, now catching the broad flare of the flames on their stalwart, erect forms and flashing fire-locks, now obscured in the fluctuating shadow. The pale-faced group listened, too, scarcely moving a muscle, for by long familiarity with the sound, they understood something of the general drift of the Cherokee language, which, barring a few phrases, they could not speak. There had been only a very bloody skirmish,--since known as "Grant's defeat,"--but no fight at Fort Duquesne, not even a formal defence of the works. The French had surely forgotten General Braddock! They had forgotten the fleeing red-coated _Unaka_[A] soldiers who, three years before, had been beaten near there with such terrible slaughter, and their chief warrior, the great Braddock, himself, had been tamed by death--the only foe that could tame him!--and lay now somewhere in those eastern woods. He pointed vaguely with his hand as he spoke, for Braddock's grave had been left unmarked, in the middle of the military road, in order that, passing over it without suspicion, it might not be rifled and desecrated by those savage Indians who had fought with such furious efficiency in the French interest.[3] Willinawaugh paused, and all his braves muttered in applause "Ugh! Ugh!" To the warlike Cherokee the event of a battle was not paramount. Victory or defeat they realized was often the result of fortuitous circumstance. Courage was their passion. "We cannot live without war," was their official reply to an effort on the part of the government to mediate between them and another tribe, the Tuscaroras, their hereditary enemies. But upon this second attempt on Fort Duquesne the British had only to plant their flag, and repair the dismantled works, and change the name to Fort Pitt. For in the night the French had abandoned and fired the stronghold, and finally made their escape down the Ohio River. In all good faith, however, the Cherokees had marched thither to help the Virginians defend their frontier,--far away from home! So far, that the horses of a few of the warriors had given out, and finding some horses running wild as they came on their homeward way through the western region of Virginia, these braves appropriated the animals for the toilsome march of so many hundred miles, meaning no harm; whereupon a band of Virginians fell upon these Cherokees, their allies, and killed them! And his voice trembled with rage as he rehearsed it. For all her address Odalie could not sustain her _rôle_. She uttered a low moan and put her hand before her eyes. For he had not entered upon the sequel,--a sequel that she knew well;--the sudden summary retaliation of the Cherokees upon the defenseless settlers in the region contiguous to the line of march of the returning warriors,--blood for blood is the invariable Cherokee rule! Never, never could she forget the little cabin on the west side of New River where she and her adventurous husband had settled on the Virginia frontier not far from other adventurous and scattered pioneers. They had thought themselves safe enough; many people in these days of the western advance relied on the community strength of a small station, well stockaded, with the few settlers in the cabins surrounded by the palisades; others, and this family of the number, felt it sufficient protection to be within the sound of a signal gun from a neighboring house. But the infuriated homeward-bound Cherokees fell on the first of these cabins that lay in their way, massacred the inmates, and marched on in straggling blood-thirsty bands, burning and slaying as they went. So few were the settlers in that region that there was no hope in uniting for defense. They fled wildly in scattered groups, and this little household found itself in the untried, unfrequented region west of the great Indian trail, meditating here a temporary encampment, until the aggrieved Cherokees on their homeward march should all have passed down the "Warrior's Path" to their far-away settlements south of the Tennessee River. Then, the way being clear, the fugitives hoped to retrace their journey, cross New River and regain the more eastern section of Virginia. Meantime they were slipping like shadows through the dark night into the great unknown realms of this uninhabited southwestern wilderness, itself a land of shadow, of dreams, of the vague unreality of mere rumor. Some intimation of their flight must have been given, for following their trail had skulked the Indian whom Hamish had killed,--a spy doubtless, the forerunner of these Cherokees, who, but for thinking them French, would have let out their spirits into the truly unknown, by way of that great mountain pass opening on an unknown world. If the savages but dreamed of the fate that had befallen their scout!--she hardly dared look at Hamish when she thought of the dead Indian, lest her thought be read. She wondered what had become of her neighbors; where had they gone, and how had they fared, and where was she herself going in this journey to Choté,--a name, a mere name, heard by chance, and repeated at haphazard, to which she had committed the future. This fresh anxiety served to renew her attention. Willinawaugh, still rehearsing the griefs of his people, and the perfidy, as he construed it, of the government, was detailing the perverse distortion of the English compliance with their treaty to erect a great defensive work in the Cherokee nation--the heart of the nation--to aid them in their wars on Indian enemies, and to protect their country and the non-combatants when the warriors should be absent in the service of their allies, the English. Such a work had the government indeed erected, on the south bank of the Tennessee River, mounted with twelve great cannon, not five miles from Choté, old town, and there, one hundred and fifty miles in advance of Anglo-American civilization, lay within it now the garrison of two hundred English soldiers! Odalie's heart gave a great bound! She felt already safe. To be under the protection of British cannon once more! To listen to an English voice! Her brain was a-whirl. She could hear the drums beat. She could hear the sentry's challenge. She even knew the countersign--"God save the king!"--they were saying that to-night at Fort Loudon as the guard turned out;--she did not know it; she never knew it; she was only sure of it! Willinawaugh had never heard of the agriculturist who sowed dragon's teeth and whose crop matured into full-armed soldiers. But he acutely realized this plight as he detailed how the Cherokees had protested, and had sent a "talk" (letter) to the Earl of Loudon, who had been at the time commander-in-chief of the British forces in America, setting forth the fact that the Cherokees did not like the presence of so many white people among them as the two hundred soldiers and the settlers that had gathered about the place. The military occupation made the fort a coercion and menace to the Cherokee people, and they requested him to take away the soldiers and relinquish the fort with its twelve great guns and other munitions of war to the Cherokee nation,--to which suggestion the Earl of Loudon had seemed to turn a deaf ear. Alexander MacLeod, deliberating gravely, realized that under such circumstances the fort would ultimately be used against the English interest that it was designed to foster, by reason of the ever-ready machinations of the French influence among the Cherokees. The fort was evidently intended to afford protection to the Cherokees, but only so long as they were the allies of the English. Much of the night passed in this discourse, but at length Willinawaugh slept, his feet toward the fire, around which the other Indians, all rolled in their blankets, like the spokes of a wheel about a hub, were already disposed. Alexander MacLeod had been nearly the last man to drop out of the conversation. He glanced up to note that Odalie sat still wide awake with her back against the trunk of a great chestnut-oak, her eyes on the fire, the child in her arms. They exchanged a glance which said as plain as speech that he and Hamish and she would divide the watch. Each would rest for two or three hours and watch while the others slept. It behooved them to be cautious and guard against surprise. The recollection of that dead Indian, lying on his face in the woods miles to the north of them, and the doubt whether or not he belonged to this party, and the sense of vengeance suspended like a sword by a hair,--all impinged very heavily on Hamish's consciousness, and in his own phrase he had to harry himself to sleep. Alexander, realizing that, as the ablest of the family, he was their chief means of defense, betook himself to much-needed repose, and Odalie was the only waking human being in many and many a mile. Now and again she heard far away the hooting of an owl, or the scream of a panther, and once, close at hand, the leaves stirred with a stealthy tread and the horses snorted aloud. She rose and threw more lightwood on the flaring fire, and as the flames leaped up anew two bright green eyes in the dusk on the shadowy side of the circle vanished; she saw the snarl of fierce fangs and no more, for the fire burned brilliantly that night as she fed the flames, and far down the aisles of the primeval forest the protective light was dispensed. Above were the dense boughs of the trees, all red and yellow, but through that great gate, the gap in the mountain wall, she could look out on the stars that she had always known, keeping their steadfast watch above this strange, new land. So accustomed was she to nature that she was not awed by the presence of the somber, wooded, benighted mountain range, rising in infinite gloom, and austere silence, and indefinable extent against the pallid, instarred sky. She began to think, woman-like, of that home she had left; in her mind it was like a deserted living thing. And the poor sticks of furniture all standing aghast and alone, the door open and flapping in the wind! And when she remembered a blue pitcher,--a squat little blue jug that had come from France,--left on a shelf by the window with some red leaves in it to do duty as a bouquet,--so relieved was she now of her fears for the lives of them all that she must needs shed tears of regret for the little blue pitcher,--the squat little blue jug that came from France. And how had she selected so ill among her belongings as to what she should bring and what leave? Fifine had a better frock than that serge thing; it would not wear so well, but her murrey-colored pelisse trimmed with the sarcenet ribbon would have added warmth enough. If it were not such a waste of goods she would make over her paduasoy coat for Fifine, for she loved to see a small child very fine of attire. But precious little time she would have for remodeling the paduasoy coat,--a primrose-tinted ground with dark red roses, that had been her "grand'maman's" when new. "I wonder if I expected to live always in a hollow tree, that I should have left that pair of sheets, new ten hundred linen, the ones that I have just woven," she arraigned herself indignantly, as she mentally went over the stock in the pack. "And did I think I should be so idle that I must bring instead so much spun-truck so as to weave others. To think of those new linen sheets! And then too that lovely, quaint little jug--the little squat blue jug that came from France!" Oh, no; Odalie was not at all lonely during the long watch through the night, and did not lack subjects of meditation. The time did not hang heavily on her hands! It hardly seemed that an hour had passed when Hamish, in obedience to some inward monition, turned himself suddenly, looked up, stretched himself to a surprising length, then sat up by the fire, motioning to her to close her eyes. His face was compassionate; perhaps he saw traces of tears about her eyes. He could not know why she had been weeping, or he might have accounted his sympathy wasted. For Hamish looked upon crockery as inanimate and a mere manufacture, yet endowed with a perverse ingenuity in finding occasions to come into disastrous contact with a boy's unsuspecting elbow, and get itself broken and the boy into disgrace. He had his gentle interpretation of her sorrow, and motioned to her, once more, to close her eyes, and pointed up at the skies, where Orion was unsheathing his glittering blade above the eastern mountains--a warning that the night was well-nigh spent and a chill day of early December on the way. And it seemed only an inappreciable interval of time before Odalie opened her eyes again, upon a crimson dawn, with the rime white on the sparse red and brown leaves and bare boughs; to see breakfast cooking under Hamish's ministrations; to see Fifine washing the cat's face with fresh water from the spring--very cold it was, as Fifine herself found it, when it came her turn to try it herself and cry "_Quelle barbarie!_"--to see the Indians getting a party to horse to go back and search for one of their number, who had become separated in some way; to see poor Hamish's face pale with fear and consciousness, and then harden with resolution to meet the worst like a man. At length they set forth in the frosty dawn of a new day, changing their route and making their progress further southward along untried ways she had never thought to travel. The sun came grandly up; the mountain range, wooded to the summit, flaunted in splendid array, red, and yellow, and even purple, with the heavy growths of the sweet-gum trees, and their wealth of lingering foliage. Here and there, along the heights, grim crags showed their beetling precipices, and where the leaves had fallen, covering great slopes with russet hues, the bare boles and branches of the forest rose frosted with fine lace-like effects. Sometimes, with a wild woodland call and a flash of white foam, a cataract dashed down the valley. The feeding deer lifted their heads to gaze after the party with evanescent curiosity and then fell to quietly grazing again: they had not known enough of man to acquire a fear of him. Sometimes arose the bellowing of distant herds of buffalo, filling the Cumberland spurs and coves with a wonted sound, to which they have now long been strangers. Wild turkey, quail, wild duck, wild geese, the latter already beginning their southward migration, were as abundant, one might say, as leaves on the trees or on the ground. There were trout of the finest flavor in these mountain streams, and one might call for what one would for dinner. If one cared for sweets there was honey in the honeycomb in almost any hollow tree, where the wild bees worked and the bear profited; and for fruit and nuts there were the delicious amber persimmons, and the sprightly frost grapes, and walnuts and hickory-nuts and chestnuts galore. The march was far swifter now than the rate that the settlers had maintained before the Indians had joined the party, and the little girl was added to the burden of one of the packhorses, but Odalie, light, active, with her native energy tense in every nerve, and with every pulse fired by the thought that each moment carried her nearer to the cannon of Fort Loudon and safety, kept step valiantly with the pedestrians. Willinawaugh sat at his ease on his horse, which was somewhat jaded by long and continuous marches, or perhaps his patience would not have sufficed to restrain him to the pace of the pioneers and his own unmounted followers. A grave spirit of amity still pervaded the party, but there was little talk. Odalie relegated herself to the subservient manner and subordinate silence befitting a squaw; MacLeod, restricted to the French language and his bit of Cherokee, feared that his interest might lead him beyond the bounds of the simulation their safety required; Hamish was silent, too, partly tamed by the halt which they now and then made on rising ground, when the chief would turn his keen, high-nosed profile, distinct upon the faint tints of the blue mountains beyond, his eagle feathers on his scalp-lock blowing back against the sky, and cast a sharp-eyed glance over the landscape to discern if perchance the search party, from which they had separated, was now coming to rejoin them. These frequent halts were discontinued after two days, when the Indian saw fit to change his proposed line of march, and the rest of his party, if following, could hardly be expected to also deviate from the agreed plan and overtake them. They had hitherto proceeded down a valley, between clifty mountain walls on the one hand, and a high, steep, frowning ridge on the other, running with the same trend in unbroken parallelism. Now it suited Willinawaugh to turn his horse's head straight up these seemingly inaccessible slopes; and without exchanging a glance or venturing a comment his fellow-travelers obediently followed his lead, conscious of the sly and furtive observation of his tribesmen and even of Willinawaugh himself, for the suspicion of the Indian never seems quite allayed but only dormant for a time. He noted naught that could excite it afresh, although it was only by the toil of hours that they could surmount the obstacles of great rocks, could find a deer-path through the dense jungle of the laurel, otherwise impenetrable, could cross foaming mountain torrents so swift and so deep that more than once it seemed that the packhorses, with Odalie also mounted now for the ford, must succumb to the strength of the current. At length the party stood upon the summit, with a dozen wild outliers of the Cumberland and the intervenient coves below their feet; then came a vast spread of undulating country to the eastward, broken here and there by parallel ridges; and beyond rose mountains brown, and mountains purple, and still further, mountains blue; and still beyond and above, a-glimmering among the clouds, so high and so vague, apparently so like the gossamer texture of the vapor that one could hardly judge whether these congeners of the very heavens were earth or sky, mythical peaks or cloud mountains--the Great Smoky Range. In the wide, wide world below, noble rivers flowed, while aloft, like the gods on Olympus, it seemed the travelers could overlook the universe, so vast as to discount all theories of measurement, and mark its varying mood. So clear and limpid was the air that trivial incidents of that great scene were asserted despite the distance, and easily of note,--a herd of buffalo was distinguishable in an open, trodden space about a salt-lick; a fleet of canoes, like a bevy of swallows, winged along the broad surface of the largest of these splendid streams, called the Tsullakee (Cherokee) as Willinawaugh informed them, for these Indians never used the sound represented by our letter R. In the phonetically spelled words in which it seems to occur the sound is more accurately indicated by the letter L. A notable philological authority states that the English rendering of the word "Cherokee" and others of the language in which the letter R appears is derived from the mistaken pronunciation of neighboring tribes and of the French, who called the Tsullakee[B]--_La rivière des Chéraquis_. Odalie could not refrain from asking in what direction was Choté, "beloved town, city of refuge." She had the art to affect to interpret for her husband, but she could not keep the light from her eyes, the scarlet flush of joyful expectation from her cheek, when the savage, with a sweeping wave of his pipe-stem, indicated a region toward the southeast on the banks of a tributary (the Little Tennessee) of that broad and splendid river, which was now running crimson and gold and with a steely glitter, reflecting the sunset, in the midst of the dusky, dull-blue landscape, with the languor of evening slipping down upon it. There it lay in primeval beauty,--the land of hope. Oh, for the spirit of a soothsayer; for one prophetic moment! What did that land hold,--what days should dawn upon it; what hearthstones should be alight; who should be the victor in the conquests of the future, and what of the victim? But they loved this country--the Cherokees; their own, they said, for the Great Spirit gave it them. They even sought to associate with those splendid eastern mountains the origin of the Cherokee people by the oft-reiterated claim that the first of their race sprung from the soil of those noble summits or dropped from the clouds that hover about the lofty domes. And now Willinawaugh broke from the silence that the lack of a common tongue had fostered, and despite that embargo on the exchange of ideas he grew fluent and his enthusiasm seemed to whet the understanding of his listeners, who could realize in some sort the language that they could not speak. They caught the names of the great landmarks. The vast range, on an outlier of which they pitched their camp, as insignificant in proportion as an atom to the universe, he called the Wasioto Mountain, and one of the rivers was the Hoho-hebee, and others were the Coot-cla, the Agiqua, the Canot, the Nonachuckeh. Hamish remembered these names long after they were forgotten by others, and the re-christened Clinch and Holston and French Broad flowed as fairly with their uncouth modern nomenclature as when they were identified by as liquid musical syllables as the lapsing of their own currents; for never did he lose the impression of this night;--never faded the mental picture of the Cherokee chief, the war-paint, vermilion and black and white, on his face as he sat before the fire, the waving of the eagle-feathers on his tufted scalp-lock blotting out half the dull-blue landscape below, which had the first hour of the night upon it, and the moon, blooming like a lily, with a fair white chalice reflected in the dark deeps of the Tsullakee River. And in this hour while Odalie reached out with all tender, tremulous hope to the future the savage told of the past. Of the past,--mysterious, mythical. Of the strange lack of tradition of this new world that was yet so old. For here, in the midst of the Cherokee hunting-ground,--the whole country was but a great uninhabited park heavily stocked with game, the Cherokee settlements being merely a fringe upon its verges,--were vestiges of a previous population; remains of works of defense like forts; fragments of pottery and other manufactures; unfading allegorical paintings high on the face of inaccessible cliffs; curious tiny stone sarcophagi containing pygmy bones, the mysterious evidence of the actual existence of the prehistoric "little people";[4] great burial mounds, with moldering skeletons, and caves entombing mummies of splendid stature and long yellow hair, evidently placed there ages ago, still wearing ornaments of beads and metals, with remnants of strange fabrics of fibers and feathers, and with weapons befitting a high rank and a warlike race. And who were they? And whence did they come? They were always here, said Willinawaugh. So said all the Cherokees. They were always here. And whither did this unknown people go? The Indian shook his head, the flicker of the fire on his painted face. They were gone, he said, when the Tsullakee came. Long gone--long gone! And alas, what was their fate? Odalie looked about at the violet night, at the white moon and the dun shadows, with an upbraiding question, and the night was silent with a keen chill fall of a frost. This was no new world into which they were adventuring. It had witnessed tragedies. It held death. It sealed its lips and embodied oblivion. Oh, for the hopes of the future,--and oh, for the hopes of the dead and gone past! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote A: White.] [Footnote B: It is known now as the Tennessee River.] CHAPTER II The next day when Odalie turned her face once more toward her Mecca of home and peace she felt that she trod on air, although her shoes, ill calculated for hard usage, had given way at last, and suffered the thorns to pierce through the long rifts between sole and upper leather and the stones to still further rend the gaping tatters. MacLeod would not allow himself to comment on it even by a look, lest some uncontrollable sympathy should force him to call a halt, now when he felt that their lives depended on pressing forward and taking advantage of the pacific mood of the Indian and the assumed character of French traders to reach the English fort. Hamish, however, with a dark-eyed, reproachful glance upbraided this apparently callous disregard, and then addressed himself to the task of making light of the matter to Odalie in lieu of other solace. "_Tu ne_ ought _pas l'avoir fait_," he gravely admonished her in his queer French. "_Tu_ ought known better, Odalie!" "Known what better?" demanded Odalie, resenting reprimand in a very un-squawlike fashion. "_Marcher_ in shoes! _Mong Dew!_ _Ces souliers_ couldn't have been made _pour marcher_ in!" he retorted, with a funny grimace. The facial contortion seemed suddenly to anger Willinawaugh, who had chanced to observe them; to suggest recollections that he resented, and the reminder shared in his disfavor. He abruptly wreathed his fierce countenance into a simulacrum of Hamish's facetious mug; he shrugged his shoulders with a genuine French twist; and anything more incongruously and grotesquely frightful and less amusing could hardly be imagined. "Fonny! vely fonny! Flanzy!" he exclaimed harshly. "Balon Des Johnnes!"[5] His unwilling companions gazed at him with as genuine a terror as if the devil himself had entered into him and thus expressed his presence among them. Willinawaugh abruptly discontinued his "fonny" grimace, that had a very ferocity of rebuke, and leaning from his horse with an expression of repudiation, spat upon the ground. Then he began to talk about Baron Des Johnnes and his sudden disappearance from the Cherokee Nation. At Choté, it seemed, was this gay and facetious Frenchman, this all-accomplished Baron Des Johnnes, who could speak seven different Indian languages with equal facility, to say nothing of a trifle or two such as English, Spanish, German, and French, of course!--at Choté, City of Refuge, where, if he had shed the blood of the native Cherokee on his own threshold, his life would have been sacred even from the vengeance of the Indian's brother! And suddenly came the Carolina Colonel Sumter, returning with an Indian delegation that had been to Charlestown, and found the Frenchman here. And with Colonel Sumter was Oconostota, king of the Cherokees, and other head-men, who had just signed a treaty at Charlestown, promising to kill or arrest any Frenchman discovered within the Cherokee Nation. And who so appalled as Oconostota, to see his friend, the gay Baron Des Johnnes, lying on a buffalo skin before the fire, smoking his pipe in the chief's own wigwam. And when Colonel Sumter demanded his arrest Oconostota refused and pleaded the sanctity of the place--the City of Refuge. And Baron Des Johnnes arose very smiling and bland, and bowed very low, and reminded Colonel Sumter that he was in Choté--Old Town! And what said Colonel Sumter? He spoke in the English, like a wolf might talk--"Old Town--or New Town--I'll take _you_ to Charles Town!" And what did the Baron Des Johnnes? Not a Cherokee; not bound by the ever-sacred laws of the City of Refuge! Although surrounded by his friends he struck not one blow for his freedom, as man to man. He suffered himself to be arrested, single-handed, by this wolf of a Colonel--Colonel Sumter--saying in gentle protest, "_Mais, M'sieur!_" "_Mais, M'sieur!_" grimaced Willinawaugh, in mimicry. Then "_Mais M'sieur!_" he threw up both hands. "_Mais, M'sieur!_" he shrieked in harsh derision to the unresponsive skies. Alexander knew that the Baron Des Johnnes had been taken to Charlestown and examined, and although nothing could be proved against him, it had been deemed expedient to ship him off to England. Perhaps the authorities were of opinion that a man with such conversational facilities as eight or ten languages had best be kept where "least said, soonest mended." But for the repeated harsh treatment that the Cherokees sustained from the English settlers, the ingratiating arts of the French might have failed to find so ready a response. Sedate of manner and of a grave cast of mind themselves, the Indians could ill tolerate the levity, the _gaieté de coeur_, of the French, whom they pronounced "light as a feather, fickle as the wind, and deceitful as serpents." With this intimation of Willinawaugh's reserves of irritability the pioneers journeyed on, a trifle more ill at ease in mind, which was an added hardship, since their physical sufferings were intensifying with every long mile of continued effort. They began to wonder how they, supposed to be French, would fare when they should meet other Cherokees, perhaps more disposed than Willinawaugh to adhere to the terms of their treaty to kill or make prisoner every Frenchman who should venture into the Cherokee Nation, yet on the other hand perhaps more competent by virtue of a familiarity with the language to detect and resent the fact that they were not of the French nationality. Already Willinawaugh had counseled that they should go further than Choté, to ply their trade in furs, for Choté was dangerously near the English fort for a Frenchman; one of the Tuckaleechee towns on the Canot River was a preferable location, and he promised to contrive to slip them past Fort Loudon without the commandant's knowledge. They restrained all expression of objection or discomfort and bore their growing distresses with a fortitude that might rival the stoicism of a savage. Only when an aside was possible, MacLeod besought his wife to loose the burden of one of the packhorses and mount the animal herself. She shook her head resolutely. She had already suffered grief enough for the household stores she had left behind. To these precious remaining possessions she clung desperately. "When I can no longer walk," she said, with a flash in her eye which admonished him to desist. They offered no comment on their route, although it seemed that they had climbed the mountain two days ago for the express purpose of descending it again, but on the eastern side. MacLeod, however, at length realized that the Indian was following some faint trace, well distinguishable to his skilled eye, and the difficulties of the steep descent were rendered more tolerable by his faith in the competence of his guide. The packhorses found it hard work filing down the sharp declivities and sustaining the equilibrium of their burden. The chief, with his lordly impatience and superiority to domestic concerns, evidently fumed because of the delay they occasioned, and had he not supposed that the contents of the bales of goods were merchandise and trinkets to be bartered with the Indians for peltry, instead of Odalie's slim resources of housekeeping wares,--sheets, and table-linen and garments, and frugal supplies of flax and seeds,--he would not have suffered the slow progress. Through the new country below, that they had watched from the heights, they went now, the mountains standing sentinel all around the horizon--east and west, and north and south, sometimes nearer, sometimes more distant; always mountains in sight, like some everlastingly uplifting thought, luring a life to a higher plane of being. Now and again the way wended along the bank of a river, with the steeps showing in the waters below as well as against the sky above, and one day when they had but recently broken their camp on its shores there shot out from beneath an overhanging boscage of papaw trees a swift, arrowy thing akin to a fish, akin to a bird--an Indian canoe, in which were three braves. The poor pioneers were exhausted with their long and swift journey; their hearts, which had been stanch within them, could but fail with the failure of physical strength. Their courage only sufficed to hold them to a mute endurance of a dreadful expectation, and a suspense that set every nerve a-quiver. The boatmen had cried out with a wild, fierce note of surprise on perceiving the party, and the canoe was coming straight across to the bank as fast as the winglike paddles could propel it. Willinawaugh rode slowly down to meet them, and in contrast to the usual impassive manners of the Indians he replied to the agitated hail in a tone of tense and eager excitement. There ensued evidently an exchange of news, of a nature which boded little good to the settlers. Dark anger gathered on the brow of the chieftain as he listened when the braves had bounded upon the bank, and more than once he cried out inarticulately like a wild beast in pain and rage. Perhaps it is rare that a man has such a moment in his life as Alexander experienced when one of the savages, a ferocious brute, turned with a wild, untamed, indigenous fury kindling in his eyes, and drawing his tomahawk from his belt smiled fiercely upon the silent, motionless little band, his deadly racial hatred reinforced by a thousand bitter grudges and wrongs. Hamish's fingers trembled on his gun, but ostensibly no one moved. Willinawaugh hastily interposed, speaking but the magic words--"Flanzy--Flinch!" Then still in English, as if to reassure the pioneers--"Go Choté--Old Town--buy fur!" The hatred died out of the fierce Indian faces. The French in the South, as has been said, had always used every art to detach the Cherokees from the British interest, and even now the men who had abandoned Fort Duquesne, escaping down the Ohio River, were sending emissaries up the Tsullakee, to the Lower Towns, there finding fruitful soil in which to sow the seeds of dissension against the English. The assertion that these travelers were French, and the fact that by receiving persons of this nation the Cherokees could requite with even a trivial and diplomatic injury some faint degree of the wrong which they considered they had sustained from the Virginians, was more than adequate to nullify for the time the rage they felt against these pioneers as of the white race. With the instinct of hospitality, which is a very marked element of the Cherokee nature, one of them signed with a free and open gesture to the boat. "_Beaucoup marchez!_" he said, smiling with an innocent suavity like a child, "Svim!" He did not mean literally "swim," and to offer them the facilities of the Tennessee River for that purpose, although this might have been inferred. But the pioneers understood the proffer of the canoe for the remainder of their journey, and a deadly terror seized the heart of Odalie as she marked the demonstrations of the others in pulling Willinawaugh forcibly from his horse in spite of his feigned objections, for the canoe could hold but three persons. Little choice had she, however. Willinawaugh, maintaining the affable demeanor of a guest of conscious distinction, was already seated in the boat, and pointed out Alexander as his preferred companion. For once the Scotchman disregarded the wishes of his guide, philosopher, and friend, and taking his wife by the hand motioned to her to step over the side of the little craft. Odalie could only look reproachfully at him; she could not contend with her lord and master in the presence of savages--such are the privileges of civilization! The Indians, somewhat accustomed by the talk, and on occasion the example, of the French traders, and perhaps by traditions from the white settlements, to the idea of the extreme value that the paleface was wont to place on wife or daughter, scornfully marked the instance, but beyond an expressive "Ugh!" naught was said. The child was lifted to Odalie's arms--the cat strapped pappoose-wise to Josephine's back and accommodating itself quiescently to the situation. Alexander had never intended to embark Odalie and Josephine alone with the Indians, although his will was but a slight thing, so entirely were they now in the power of the savages; he motioned to Hamish to take the paddle, and with the slight mixture of French and Cherokee at his command, intimated to the apparent owner of the boat that he would rather walk by his side and profit by his converse than to be able to sail at will on the water like the swan there--a large and handsome bird, who was giving the finest exhibition of that method of progression to be easily found anywhere, with her white neck arched, her gliding motion, and snowy breast reflected in the clear water. And so Odalie had parted from her husband, without so much as a glance of farewell! Perhaps he dared not look at her. So far they had come together, and now in these wild fastnesses, among these blood-loving fiends in the likeness of humanity, they were separated to meet when?--where? Perchance no more. She could not--would not--leave him thus. She would turn back at the last moment! She would go back! She rose to her feet so precipitately that with the shifting of her weight the canoe careened suddenly and was momentarily in danger of capsizing with all on board. Willinawaugh glanced up with a kindling eye and a ferocious growl. Hamish, throwing himself skillfully on the opposite side, adroitly trimmed the boat. His look of warning, upbraiding and yet sympathizing, steadied Odalie's nerves as she sank back into her place. She tactfully made it appear that she had accidentally come near to dropping the little girl from her grasp and rising to recover her had shaken the poise of the frail craft. Willinawaugh's mutter of dissatisfaction showed that he esteemed the possibility no very great mischance, and set no high store on Josephine. Now and again he eyed the cat, too, malevolently, as if he could ill brook her mannerisms and pampered mien. Hamish had an uncomfortable idea that the Cherokee was not familiar with animals of this kind, and that he harbored a wonder if Kitty would not serve her best and noblest possibilities in a savory stew. But for himself Hamish avoided the Indian's eyes with their curious painted circles of black and white, as much as he might, for whenever their glances met, Willinawaugh's facial contortion to deride the "fonny" disposition he deemed a part of Hamish's supposed French nature so daunted the boy that he bent his head as well as his muscles to the work. That day was like a dream to Odalie, and, indeed, from the incongruity of her mental images she hardly knew whether she was sleeping or waking. One moment it seemed to her that she was in Carolina, in the new frame mansion that she had always thought so fine, sitting on the arm of her grandmother's chair, with her dark hair against the white locks and the snowy cap, while she babbled, in the sweet household patois of French children that has no lexicon, and no rules, and is handed down from one generation to another, her girlish hopes, and plans, and anxieties, to find the grandmother's fine, old, deft hand smooth all the difficulties away and make life easy, and hope possible, and trouble a mere shadow. Alas! that brightening perspective of the colonial garden, where the jasmine, gold and white, clung to the tall trellises, and the clove gillyflower, and the lilies and roses grew in the borders in the broad suffusions of the sunshine, was metamorphosed to the wide spread of the Tennessee River, with the noon-day blaze on its burnished expanse of ripples; and grand'maman had long since ceased her ministry of soothing and consolation, and found her own comfort in the peace and quiet of the grave. And ere Odalie could suffer more than a pang to realize that she was so far from that grave, her head drooped once more--she was asleep. No; she was awake, awake and splendid in a white dress, her beautiful bridal dress in which she had looked a very queen, with her grand'maman's pearl necklace, itself an heirloom, about her white throat. And so, standing at the altar of the little church with Alexander, and much light about her, and a white dress, oh, very white--and suddenly! all the church is stricken to darkness. No; there is light again! It was a flash from a thunder cloud, reflected in sinister, forked lines in the Tennessee River, so that they seemed in the very midst of the lightning, until it vanished into the darkness of a lowering black sky, that overhung the water and made all the woods appear bleak and leafless, though here and there still a red tree blazed. The world was drearier for these grim portents of storm, for all the way hitherto fair weather had smiled upon their progress. Still she could not heed--she did not care even when the rain came down and pitilessly beat upon her white face; she did not know when Fifine crept under the shawl which Hamish threw around her, and that the frightened little girl held to her tight with both arms around her waist, while the pioneer cat very discreetly nestled down in the basket on Josephine's back. She was not roused even by loud voices when later a pettiaugre, a much larger boat than theirs, pulled alongside with eight or ten warriors and remained in close and unremitting conversation with Willinawaugh for several miles. Poor Hamish could hardly sustain himself. He felt practically alone. Odalie was, he thought, on the verge of death from exhaustion and realized naught of her surroundings. His brother had been left in these wild woods with a party of savages, who were as likely to murder him for a whim or for the treasures of the bales which the packhorses carried, as to respect the safe conduct of Willinawaugh and the supposed character of French traders. This, Hamish was aware, hardly sufficed now, so unrestrained was the ferocity of the glances cast upon them by the Indians in the pettiaugre alongside--so like the glare of a savage catamount, ready to leap upon its prey and yet with a joyance in its ferocity, as if this rage were not the pain of anger but the pleasure of it. What subtle influence roused Odalie at last she could hardly have said; perhaps the irresistible torpor of exhaustion had in some sort recruited her faculties. The storm was gone, unseasonable and transient, and only a broken remnant of its clouds hung about the western mountains. Toward the east the sky was clear and a dull fluctuation of sunset, alternating with shadow, was on the landscape. As a sudden suffusion of this broad, low, dusky glare lay upon the scene for a moment, she saw against the dark blue Chilhowee Mountain in the middle distance something glimmering and waving, and as she strained her eyes it suddenly floated broadly forth to the breeze,--the blended cross of St. George and St. Andrew blazoned on the British flag. In one moment she was strong again; alert, watchful, brave, despite that boat close alongside and the alternate questions and remonstrances of the fierce and cruel Indians. One of them, the light of a close and fine discernment in his savage features, was contending that Willinawaugh was deceived; that these were no French people; that the cast of the face of the "young dog" was English; he looked like the Virginia settlers and hunters; even like the men at the fort. Willinawaugh had the air of deigning much to consider the plea that the other Indians preferred. He only argued astutely that they all spoke French among themselves,--man, boy, squaw, and pappoose. They showed gratitude when he had promised them that they should not be obliged to pass the English fort and risk the chance of detection. He intended to slip them up the Tellico River where it flows into the Tennessee a mile on the hither side of the fort and thence make their way to a remoter Indian town than Choté. The skeptical Cherokee, Savanukah, immediately asserted boastfully that he spoke "Flinch" himself and would test the nationality of the boy. Hamish had never had great scholastic advantages and had sturdily resisted those that Odalie would have given him. He remembered with despair the long lines of French verbs in the little dog's-eared green book that all her prettiest sisterly arts could never induce him to learn to conjugate. Why should he ever need more talking appliance than he already possessed, he used to argue. He could tell all he knew, and more besides, in the somewhat limited English vocabulary at his command. "Parlez vous? Parlez, fou!" he was wont to exclaim, feeling very clever. How should he have dreamed that Odalie's little _Vocabulaire Français_ would be more efficacious to save his life than his rifle and his deadly aim? [Illustration: "The canoe rocked in the swirls."] He looked toward her once more in his despair. The boats were now among a series of obstructions formed by floating débris of a recent storm,--many branches of trees, here and there a bole itself, uprooted and flung into the river by the violence of the tempest,--which necessitated careful steering and paddling and watching the current to take them through safely. It threw the two boats apart for a space, prolonging Hamish's suspense, yet serving as a reprieve to the ordeal of his examination as to his proficiency in the French language by the erudite Cherokee. The canoe rocked in the swirls, and although Willinawaugh sat still in stately impassiveness, Odalie and Fifine clung to the gunwale. Hamish's eyes met Odalie's, which were clear, liquidly bright, as if fired with some delightful anticipation, and yet weary and feverishly eager. Oh, this was delirium! She did not realize her surroundings; her intelligence was gone! His poor young heart swelled nearly to bursting as he turned back with aching arms and dazzled eyes and throbbing, feverish pulses to the careful balancing of the paddle, for Willinawaugh was an exacting coxswain. Hamish could not know what vision had been vouchsafed to Odalie in the midst of the gloomy woods while the other Indians and Willinawaugh had wrangled and he had hung absorbed upon their words as on the decrees of fate. Even she at first had deemed it but hallucination, the figment of some fever of the brain--this had been a day of dreams! Yet there it had stood on the river bank with the primeval woods around it, with the red sunset amongst the clouds above it, with the sunset below it, reflected in the current of the river, full of sheen and full of shadow,--a figure, a hunter, looking out at the boats; a white man,--a man she had never before seen. How he stared! She dared make no signal of distress. She only turned her head that she might look back covertly with a face full of meaning. The next moment she saw him mount his horse in the buffalo path in the cane-brake and gallop off at a breakneck speed. But was she sure--had she seen aught, she asked herself, tremulously. For it had been a day of dreams--it had been a day of dreams! And the confluence of the Tellico River with the Tennessee might be so hopelessly near! The progress of both boats was very slow now, upstream against the current and the débris of the storm; even the crew of Indian braves needed to pull with vigor to make the clear water again. When this was reached they rested motionless, the duplication of the pettiaugre and the feather headdress of the Cherokees as clearly pictured in the bright, still reaches of the river as above in the medium of the air between sunset and dusk. They were all looking back, all commenting on Hamish's slow progress. He had the current and his exhaustion both against him, and the most earnest and well-equipped postulant of culture would hardly be eager to go to an examination in the French language when his life was to be the forfeit of failure. The sound of the river was loud on the evening air; a wind was astir on either bank,--a pillaging force, rifling the forest of the few leaves it might still treasure; now and then a scurrying cloud of them fled before the blast against the sky; the evening had grown chill; the boy felt its dank depression in every nerve despite the drops of perspiration that stood upon his brow as he too paddled into the clear water. He held the boat stationary by a great effort. He had come to the end. He could strive no more. He saw Savanukah rise up in the pettiaugre, looking toward him. The next moment the savage turned his head. There was an alien sound upon the air, so close at hand that despite the fret and turmoil of the water, the blare of the wild wind, the tumultuous clashing together of the bare boughs in the black forest, it arrested the attention. Once more it asserted itself against the tumult, and then Hamish, his head spinning around until he thought that the canoe had broken loose from his mechanical plying of the paddle, recognized the regular rhythmical dash of oars. CHAPTER III In the next instant from beyond a curve in the river a boat shot into the current,--a large row-boat, manned by twelve red-coated soldiers, bending to the oars, whose steady strokes sent the craft down the stream with the speed, it seemed, of a meteor. They were alongside and a non-commissioned officer was in diplomatic converse with Willinawaugh before Hamish had regained possession of his faculties. Very diplomatic was the conference, for the corporal had his pacific orders and Willinawaugh was burdened with the grave anxiety to make the facts conform at once to the probabilities, yet sustain the impeccability of his own conduct. A little network of wrinkles, almost like a visible mesh, gathered at the corners of his eyes and gave token of his grave cogitation. The corporal, a dark-haired, blue-eyed, florid young Irishman, looking very stanch and direct and steady, but not without a twinkle of humor which betokened some histrionic capacity to support the situation, speaking partly in English and partly, glibly enough, in very tolerable Cherokee, although incongruously embellished with an Irish brogue, detailed that Captain Stuart had been apprised that there was a band of Indians on the river who had some white people with them, and he wished to know if these white people were French, in which case, according to the treaty made with the Cherokees, they must be arrested and delivered up to the commandant of the fort, or if English, he wished to be assured that they were at liberty to go where they pleased, and were under no restraint. As the officer concluded, having bowed to Odalie with much politeness, considering he was not yet informed as to whether she were of a party of French emissaries, forever sowing dissension amongst the Cherokee allies of the English, he drew himself up very erect, with a complacent mien. He was conscious of being a fine-looking fellow, and he had not seen so handsome a young woman of her evident position in life for a month of Sundays. Nevertheless he kept one eye on Willinawaugh, who was also eminently worthy of his respectful attention. "Ingliss--all Ingliss," said the chief, unexpectedly. The Indians in the pettiaugre, listening attentively, gave no sign of surprise upon this statement, so at variance with the warrior's previous representations. His ruse to shield the travelers now by declaring them English shielded himself as well, for being a chief and head-man he could hardly find a plausible subterfuge to cloak his playing the _rôle_ of guide, philosopher, and friend to people of a nation so obnoxious to his English allies, and establishing them in the very heart of the Cherokee nation, contrary to its many solemn obligations and treaties. After a moment's further reflection, Willinawaugh said again with emphasis, "Ingliss, Ingliss." Perhaps he did not desire to avail himself of the added fluency of explanation which the Cherokee language would have afforded him, and which Corporal O'Flynn evidently understood. "Go Choté--Old Town. Buy fur--man--packhorse," he added, pointing across the woods in the direction in which Alexander MacLeod was presumably still wearily tramping. The corporal for the moment forgot how good-looking he was. He concentrated his whole attention on Willinawaugh's disingenuous countenance, and then turned and cast a long, searching look upon Odalie. The eyes that met his own were swimming in tears, and with an expression of pleading insistence that fairly wrung his heart, although he hardly understood it. If she were English, why then she was free as the air. If French--well, bedad, thin, Corporal O'Flynn wished himself at the bottom of the Tennessee River, for a French lady in grief and under arrest had no right to be so good-looking at all, at all. Here was something wrong, he could but perceive, and yet because of Willinawaugh's diplomacy he could not fix upon it. "What's your name, my lad?" he said abruptly to Hamish. Hamish had his eyes on the water. His fortitude, too, had given way in the sudden relaxation of the strain of suspense. He could not, would not, lift his face and let that boat's crew of stalwart soldiers resting on their oars, the two ranks gazing at him, see the tears in his eyes. "Hamish MacLeod," he made shift to say, and could say no more. "A good English name, bedad, for a Scotch one, and an English accent," Corporal O'Flynn mentally commented, as he looked curiously at the boy, standing with downcast face, mechanically handling the paddle. "Now by the powers," said the young soldier to himself with sudden resolution, "Captain Stuart may undertake the unraveling o' this tangle himself." "English!" he exclaimed aloud. Then with much courtesy of manner, "Captain Stuart desires his compliments, and begs the English party to do him the honor to lie at Fort Loudon to-night and pursue their journey at their convanience." He glanced up at the sky. "It grows late and there are catamounts out, an' other bletherin' bastes, an' their howlin' might frighten the leddy." Odalie, remembering the real dangers that had beset her and catching his serious, unconscious glance as he animadverted on the possibly terrifying vocalizations, burst into momentary laughter, and then into a torrent of tears. At which the corporal, the boat's crew, and the Indian braves gazed at her in blank astonishment. Hysterics were a new importation on the frontier. She controlled with an effort her tendency to laugh, but still wept with the profusion of exhaustion and nervous tension. Willinawaugh's eyes were fixed on her with deep displeasure. "Ugh!" he grunted from time to time. "Ugh!" "Oh, there's bloody murder here, if one could but chance upon the carpse," said the corporal to himself, looking bewildered from her to the boy. And now was demonstrated the fact that although the corporal had but the slightest bit of a brogue in the world, there was a twist in his tongue which showed that he had at some time in his career made a practice of kissing the "Blarney Stone" and was as Irish as County Clare. "Of course Captain Stuart couldn't have known that his valued friend, the great chief, Willinawaugh, was to be passing with the English party, but, sure, he would take it mighty ill if the chief did not stop over, too, and lie at the fort to-night,--an' he so seldom up from Toquoe! Captain Demeré, too, will expect the great chief. My word on't, he will." Now Willinawaugh, an epitome of craft, had no idea of adventuring with his supposed French friends, whom he had endeavored to pass off as English, into the British stronghold, for he doubted their capacity to sustain their character of compatriots; he had no means of judging of their knowledge of the English language and how soon their ignorance might betray them. Since the ruse he had adopted had evidently not sufficed to evade the enforced stoppage at Fort Loudon, he had relinquished the intention to take them on past Choté to some other of the Overhill towns, and let them establish themselves as French traders. He feared that were they once inside the walls of Fort Loudon this design against the agreement with his allies would become transparent. To be sure, it must be soon elucidated, but Willinawaugh was determined to be far away by that time, and, moreover, he could send a "talk" (letter) to Captain Stuart, whose good opinion he greatly coveted, to say that the French trader had deceived him and made him believe that the party was English. At the same time he was too wary to venture into his valued friend's power with this fresh grievance and with stormy times for the two peoples evidently in prospect. But he was flattered, infinitely flattered, as indeed who would not have been, by Corporal O'Flynn's tone and expression of ingenuous eyes and respectful word of mouth. Willinawaugh was glad to have these Choté Cherokees see how highly he was esteemed--he was indeed a great warrior and a "Big Injun" of exclusive privilege. The invitation in no wise was to be extended to the others to pass the night at Fort Loudon--not even to Savanukah, a chief himself, who spoke French! Corporal O'Flynn was now going over in his mind how Willinawaugh might best be insulated, so to speak, that he might not have means to fire the barracks, should that enterprise suggest itself to his fertile brain, or find a way to open the gates, or otherwise afford ingress to confederates without; how to lock him in, and yet not seem to treat him as a prisoner; to leave him at liberty, and yet free to do nothing but that which his hosts should please. All such complicated and contradictory details did Corporal O'Flynn deem himself capable of reconciling--but one such subject was enough. Unfortunately for the triumphant elucidation of these puzzling problems, Willinawaugh, with dignity and a certain gruffness; yet now and again a flicker of covert smile as if to himself, declined to partake of Captain Stuart's hospitality. He had a mission to the head-men of Choté which would not brook delay. Yet he had a message to leave for the English officer. He desired to tell Captain Stuart that he often thought of him! Whenever he heard tales of famous warriors, of British generals, he thought of _him_! He considered these fighting men brave and noble, when he learned of their splendid deeds in battle; and then again, they were as naught in his mind,--for he had once more thought of the great Captain Stuart! The corporal, listening attentively to pick out the meaning of Cherokee and English, made a low bow in behalf of Captain Stuart, with a flourishing wave of his hat. "I'll bear yer message, sir, and a proud man Captain Stuart ought to be the day! An those jontlemen,"--he glanced at the pettiaugre full of Indians,--"be so good as to ask them to lead the way." Then he added in an undertone to his own men, "I am glad on't. I don't want the responsibility of takin' care of the baste. I might be accused of kidnapin' the craythure if anythin' was to happen to 'm,--though as to kids, he's more like the old original Billy-goat o' the whole worruld!" Corporal O'Flynn cast the eye of a disciplinarian about him. It was one of the rules of the tyranny he practiced, thus remote from civilization, that however jocose he might be not a trace of responsive merriment must decorate the faces of the men. They were all now, as was meet, grave and wooden. At the orders in his clear, ringing voice--"Let fall!" and the oars struck the water with emphasis, "Give way!"--Odalie's tears must needs flow anew. She gazed at the dozen fresh, florid young faces, as the boat swung round and they came once more near the canoe, as if they were a vision of saints vouchsafed to some poor groping, distraught spirit,--when they were far indeed from being saints, though good enough in their way, too! They all looked with unconscious sympathy at her as she sat and wept and looked at them, and Corporal O'Flynn, moved by the tears, exclaimed below his breath, "But, be jabbers, afther all, what's the good of 'em now--better have been cryin' yesterday, or mebbe the day before. Back oars! Now--now! Give way!" He was the last in the little fleet, and Hamish paddled briskly now to keep ahead, as he was evidently expected to do, for Corporal O'Flynn intended that his own boat should bring up the rear. As they fared thus along, Odalie noted the inflowing of that tributary, the Tellico River--how solitary, how remote, how possible its loneliness had rendered the scheme of Willinawaugh. Some distance beyond appeared a settler's cabin in an oasis of cultivated land in the midst of the dense cane-brake; then others, now dull and dusky in the blue twilight, with the afterglow of the sunset redly aflare above in the amber sky and below in the gray and glimmering water; now with a lucent yellow flicker from the wide-open door gemming the night with the scintillations of the hearthstone, set like a jewel in the center of the wilderness; now sending forth a babbling of childish voices where the roof-tree had been planted close by the river-side and the passing of the boats had drawn all the household to the brink. How many they seemed--these cabins of the adventurous pioneers! How many happy homes--alas, that there should ever be cause to cry it were better for them had they never been! Odalie began to realize that she owed her liberty and perhaps her life to the first of these settlers who had espied the craft upon the river; as she marked the many windings and tortuous curves of the stream she understood that he must have galloped along some straight, direct route to the fort to acquaint the officers with the suspicious aspect of the Indian party and their white captives. As to the tremendous speed the commandant's boat had made to their rescue,--she blessed anew those reckless young saints who had plied the oars with such fervent effort, which, however, could hardly have effected such speed had it not been too for the swift current running in their favor. Suddenly the fort came into view--stanch, grim, massive, with the great red-clay exterior slopes and the sharp points of the high palisades on the rampart distinct in the blue twilight. It was very different from the stockaded stations of the early settlers with which she had been familiar. This fort had been erected by the British government, and was a work of very considerable strength and admirably calculated for defensive purposes, not only against the subtle designs of the Indians but against possible artillery attacks of the French. There were heavy bastions at the angles and within each a substantial block-house, the upper story built with projections beyond the lower, that would not only aid the advantage which the bastions gave of a flanking fire upon an assailant, but enable a watch to be maintained at all times and from all quarters upon the base of the wooden stockade on the rampart lest an enemy passing the glacis should seek to fire the palisades. But this was in itself well-nigh impracticable. Strong fraises, defending both scarp and counterscarp, prevented approach. The whole was guarded by twelve cannon, grimly pointed from embrasures, and very reassuring their black muzzles looked to one who hoped to ply the arts of peace beneath the protection of their threat of war. Even the great gates were defended, being so thickly studded with iron spikes that not an inch of the wood was left uncovered. They were broadly aflare now, and a trifle in advance of the sentry at the entrance two officers were standing, brilliant with their red coats and cocked hats. They were gazing with a certain curiosity at the boats on the river, for Corporal O'Flynn, having pressed forward and landed first, had left his men resting on their oars and taken his way into the presence of his superior officers to make his report. He had paused for half a dozen words with Hamish MacLeod as the boat passed the canoe, and when Odalie and the boy, with a couple of soldiers at either side maintaining the aspect of a guard, came up the gentle ascent at a slower pace, Captain Stuart was already fully apprised of their long and perilous flight from Virginia. He stood awaiting their approach,--a tall man of about twenty-eight years of age, bluff and smiling, with dense light-brown hair braided in a broad, heavy queue and tied with a black ribbon. He had a fair complexion, considerably sun-burned, strong white teeth with a wide arch of the jaw, and he regarded her with keen steel-blue eyes, steady and unfathomable, yet withal pleasant. He took off his hat and cordially held out his hand. Odalie could do naught but clasp it in both her cold hands and shed tears over it, mute and trembling. With that ready tact which always distinguished him, Captain Stuart broke the tension of the situation. "Do you wish to enlist, Mrs. MacLeod?" he said, his smile showing a glimpse of his white teeth. "His majesty, the king, has need of stout-hearted soldiers. And I will take my oath I never saw a braver one!" And Odalie broke into laughter to blend with her tears, because she divined that it was with the intention of passing on a difficulty that he not ungracefully transferred her hands to the officer standing near with the words, "I have the pleasure of presenting Captain Demeré." However capable Captain Stuart might be of dealing with savages, he evidently shrank from the ordeal of being wept over and thanked by a woman. He has been described by a contemporary historian as "an officer of great address and sagacity," and although he may have demonstrated these qualities on more conspicuous occasions, they were never more definite than in thus securing his escape from feminine tearfulness. Captain Demeré was of a graver aspect. He heard without impatience her wild insistence that the whole available force of the fort should turn out and scour the wilderness for her husband--he even argued the matter. It would be impossible to find Mr. MacLeod at night and the effort might cost him his life. "So marked a demonstration of a military nature would alarm the Indians and precipitate an outbreak which we have some reason to expect. If he does not appear by daylight, the hunters of the fort who always go out shall take that direction and scout the woods. Rest assured everything shall be done which is possible." She felt that she must needs be content with this, and as it had been through the intervention of the officers that she and Hamish and Fifine were set free, it did not lie in her mouth to doubt their wisdom in such matters, or their capacity to save her husband. Looking back to the river, as upon a phase of her life already terminated, she saw the canoe in which she had spent this troublous day already beginning to push out upon the broad current. Willinawaugh, with an Indian from the other crew to paddle the craft, had eluded Captain Stuart, who had reached the water's edge too late for a word with him, and who stood upon the bank, an effective martial figure, and blandly waved his hand in farewell, with a jovial outcry, "_Canawlla! Canawlla!_"[C] The features of the chief were slightly corrugated with those fine lines of diplomatic thought, and even at this distance he muttered the last word he had spoken to the corporal as he swiftly got away from him--"Ingliss!" he said again. "All Ingliss!" As Odalie turned, the interior of the fort was before her; the broad parade, the lines of barracks, the heavy, looming block-houses, the great red-clay wall encircling all, and the high, strong palisades that even surmounted the rampart. It gave her momentarily the sensation, as she stood in its shadow, of being down in a populous and very secure well. There was a pervasive sentiment of good cheer; here and there the flicker of firelight fluctuated from an open door. Supper was either in progress or just over, and savory odors gushed out into the air. The champing of horses and now and then a glad whinny betokened that the corn-bin was open in the stables somewhere in the dusk. She felt as if the wilderness was a dream, for surely all this cordial scene of warmth, and light, and cheer, and activity, could not have existed while she wandered yonder, so forlorn, and desolate, and endangered; in pity of it,--surely it was a dream! Now and again groups of fresh-faced soldiers passed, most of them in full uniform, for there had been a great dress parade during the afternoon, perhaps to impress the Indians with the resources and military strength of the fort; perhaps to attach them by affording that spectacular display, so new to all their experience, so imposing and splendid. Some of the savage visitors lingered, wistful, loath to depart, and were being hustled carefully out of the place by a very vigilant guard, who had kept them under surveillance as a special charge all the afternoon. A few soldiers of the post coming in laden with game wore the buckskin leggings, shirt, and coonskin cap usual among the settlers, for it had been bitterly demonstrated that the thorns of the trackless wilderness had no sort of reverence for the texture of the king's red coat. Even the cat realized the transition to the demesne of civilization and in some sort the wonted domestic atmosphere. She suddenly gave an able-bodied wriggle in the basket on Josephine's back where she had journeyed, pappoose-wise, sprang alertly out, and scampered, tail up and waving aloft, across the parade. Josephine's shriek of despair rang shrilly on the air, and Captain Demeré himself made a lunge at the animal, as she sped swiftly past, with a seductive cry of "Puss! puss!" A young soldier hard by faced about alertly and gave nimble chase; the cry of "Puss! puss!" going up on all sides brought out half a dozen supple young runners from every direction, but Kitty, having lost none of the elasticity of her muscles during her late inaction, darted hither and thither amongst her military pursuers, eluded them all, and scampering up the rampart, thence scaled the stockade and there began to walk coolly along the pointed eminence of this lofty structure as if it were a backyard fence, while the soldier boys cheered her from below. In this jovial demonstration poor Josephine's wailing whimper of despair and desertion was overborne, and with that juvenile disposition to force the recognition and a share of her woe on her elders she forthwith lost the use of her feet, and was half dragged, rather than led, by poor Odalie, who surely was not calculated to support any added burden. She herself, with halting step, followed Captain Demeré across the parade to a salient angle of the enclosure, wherein stood one of the block-houses, very secure of aspect, the formidable, beetling upper story jutting out above the open door, from which flowed into the dusky parade a great gush of golden light. Josephine's whimper was suddenly strangled in her throat and the tears stood still on her cheeks, for as Captain Demeré stepped aside at the door with a recollection of polite society, yielding precedence to the ladies, which formality Odalie marveled to find surviving in these rude times so far on the frontier, Josephine seemed resolved into a stare of dumb amazement, for she had never seen a room half so fine. Be it remembered she was born in the backwoods and had no faint recollection of such refinement and elegances as the colonial civilization had attained on the Carolina coast, and which her father and mother had relinquished to follow their fortunes to the West. And in truth the officers' mess-hall presented a brave barbaric effect that had a sort of splendor all its own. It was a large room, entered through the gorge of the bastion, and its deep chimney-place, in the recesses of which a great fire burned with a searchingly illuminating flare, was ample enough to afford a substantial settee on either hand without impinging on the roomy hearth of flagstones that joined the puncheons of the floor. Around the log walls the suffusion of light revealed a projecting line of deer antlers and the horns of buffalo and elk, partly intended as decoration and trophies of the chase, and partly for utilitarian purposes. Here and there a firelock lay from one to another, or a powder-horn or brace of pistols swung. A glittering knife and now and again a tomahawk caught the reflection of the fire and bespoke trophies of less peaceful pursuit. Over the mantel-shelf a spreading pair of gigantic antlers held suspended a memento evidently more highly cherished,--a sword in its sheath, but showing a richly chased hilt, which Odalie divined was a presentation in recognition of special service. Other and humbler gifts were suggested in the long Indian pipes, with bowls of deftly wrought stone; and tobacco-bags and shot-pouches beaded with intricate patterns; and belts of wampum and gorgeous moccasons; and bows and arrows with finely chiseled flint-heads winged with gayly colored feathers--all hanging from antlers on either side, which, though smaller than the central pair, were still large enough to have stretched with surprise more sophisticated eyes than Fifine's. The variegated tints of the stained quills and shells with which a splendid curious scarlet quiver was embroidered, caught Odalie's attention, and reminded her of what she had heard in Carolina of the great influence which this Captain Stuart had acquired among the Indians, and the extraordinary admiration that they entertained for him. These tokens of Aboriginal art were all, she doubted not, little offerings of the chieftains to attest good-will, for if they had been merely bought with money they would not have been so proudly displayed. There was a continual fluttering movement in the draught from the loop-holes and open door, and lifting her eyes she noted the swaying folds of several banners against the wall, carrying the flare of color to the ceiling, which was formed only by the rude floor of the room above. But in all the medley her feminine eye did not fail to perceive high up and withdrawn from ordinary notice, a lady's silk riding-mask such as was used in sophisticated regions at the period to protect the complexion on a journey,--dainty, fresh, of a garnet hue with a black lace frill, evidently treasured, yet expressively null. And this was doubtless all that was left of some spent romance, a mere memory in the rude military life on the far frontier, barely suggesting a fair and distant face and eyes that looked forth on scenes more suave. With a sentiment of deep respect Odalie observed the six or eight arm-chairs of a rude and untoward manufacture, which were ranged about the hearth, draped, however, to real luxury by wolfskins, for the early settlers chiefly affected rough stools or billets of wood as seats, or benches made of puncheons with a couple of auger-holes at each end, through which four stout sticks were adjusted for legs, which were indeed often of unequal length and gave the unquiet juvenile pioneer of that day a peculiarly acceptable opportunity for cheerily jouncing to and fro. There were several of these benches, too, but placed back against the walls, for the purpose she supposed of affording seats when the festive board was spread at length. An absolute board, this figurative expression implied, for the stern fact set forth a half dozen puncheons secured together with cleats and laid across trestles when in use, but at other times placed against the wall beside the ladder which gave access to the room above. The table was now in the center of the floor, spread with some hasty refreshments, of which Captain Demeré invited the forlorn travelers to partake. At the other end lay a draughtsman's board, a Gunter's scale, a pair of dividers and other materials, where he had been trying to reduce to paper and topographical decorum for transference to an official report a map of the region which Rayetaeh, a chief from Toquoe, who had visited the fort that afternoon, had drawn on the sand of the parade ground with a flint-headed arrow. The officer had found this no slight task, for Rayetaeh was prone to measure distance by the time required to traverse it--"two warriors, a canoe, and one moon" very definitely meaning a month's journey by watercourse, but requiring some actively minute calculation to bring the space in question to the proportional scale. Rayetaeh might be considered the earliest cartographer of this region, and some of his maps, copied from the sand, are extant to this day. Captain Demeré laid the papers of this unfinished task carefully aside, and by way of giving his hospitality more grace took the head of the table himself. But Odalie could not eat, and wept steadily on as if for the purpose of salting her food with tears, and Fifine's hunger seemed appeased by the feast of her eyes. Now and again her head in its little white mob-cap turned actively about, and she seemed as if she might have entered upon a series of questions save for the multiplicity of objects that enthralled her attention at once. Captain Demeré desisted from insistence after one or two well-meant efforts, and the man who had served the table waited in doubt and indecision. "It's a hard life for women on the frontier," the officer observed as if in polite excuse for Odalie's ill-mannered tears that she could not control. "And for men," she sobbed, thinking of Alexander and marveling if the Indians would carry him on without resistance to Choté,--for he could not know she had found lodgement in the fort,--or further still and enslave him--many captives had lived for years in Indian tribes--she had heard of this even in Carolina; or would they murder him in some trifling quarrel or on the discovery of his nationality or to make easier the robbery of the packhorses. Ah, why had she brought so much; why had she hampered their flight and risked their lives for these paltry belongings, treasures to the Indians, worth the shedding of much blood? How could she have sacrificed to these bits of household gear even her own comfort! She remembered, with an infinite yet futile wish to recall the moment, how eagerly Sandy had urged the abandonment of these poor possessions, that she might herself mount the horse and ease her bleeding and torn feet. Is every woman an idolater at heart, Odalie wondered. Do they all bow down, in the verity of their inner worship, to a few fibers of woven stuff and some poor fashioning of potter's clay, and make these feeble, trivial things their gods? It seemed so to her. She had bled for the things she had brought through the wilderness. She had wept for others that she had left. And if for such gear Sandy had come to grief--"I wonder--I wonder if I could find a pretext to care for them still!" But she only said aloud, with a strong effort to control her attention, "And for men, too." "Men must needs follow when duty leads the way," said Captain Demeré, a trifle priggishly. Odalie, trying to seem interested, demanded, lifting her eyes, "And what do women follow?" If Captain Demeré had said what he truly thought, he would have answered:-- "Folly! their own and that of their husbands!" He had had close observation of the fact that the pioneers gave heavy hostages to fate in their wives and children, and a terrible advantage to a savage foe, and the very bravery of so many of these noble helpmeets only proved the value of all they risked. He could not elaborate, however, any scheme by which a new country should be entered first by the settlers aided by a strong occupancy of soldiery, and only when the lands should be cleared and the savages expelled the women and children venture forth. So he said:-- "They follow their destiny." He had a smile in his eyes as if appealing to her clemency not to tax him with ascribing a humbler motive to the women than to the men, as he was only making talk and spoke from a natural deprecation of dangers to non-combatants who of right should be exempt from peril. His eyes, which were large, were of a color between gray and brown--darker than the one and lighter than the other. His hair was brown and smooth; he was slender and tall; his aquiline nose and finely cut lips gave a certain cast of distinction to his face, although the temples were slightly sunken and the thinness of his cheek revealed the outline of the jaw and chin which showed determination and force, despite his mild expression at present. Josephine fixed an amazed stare upon his polished shoes as he crossed his legs, never having seen any men's foot-gear save a buskin of deer hide. "The men have a natural interest in warfare," suggested Odalie, forlornly, seeking to be responsive to his conversational efforts. "Warfare!" exclaimed Captain Demeré, with sudden animation. "Contention with savages is not warfare! It cannot be conducted on a single recognized military principle." He went on to say that all military tactics counted for naught; the merely mechanical methods of moving bodies of troops were unavailable. Discipline, the dexterities of strategy, an enlightened courage, and the tremendous force of _esprit de corps_ were alike nullified. The problem of Indian fighting in America was then far greater than it has been since the scene has shifted to the plains, the densely wooded character of the tangled wilderness affording peculiar advantage to the skulking individual methods of the savage and embarrassing inconceivably the more cumbrous evolutions of organized bodies. But long before Captain Demeré's time, and often since, the futility of opposing regular scientific tactics to the alert wiles of the savage native in his own difficult country has been commented upon by observers of military methods, and doubtless recognized in the hard knocks of experience by those whose fate it has been to try again the experiment.[6] "As to military ethics," he added, "to induce the Indian to accept and abide by the principles governing civilized warfare seems an impossibility. He cannot be constrained for a pledge of honor to forego an advantage. He will not respect his parole. He continually violates and sets at naught the provisions of his solemn treaty." Odalie would not ask if the white man never broke faith with the red--if the Indian had not been taught by example near at hand of what brittle stuff a treaty was made. It was not worth while to reason logically with a mere man, she said to herself, with a little secret sentiment of derision, which served to lighten a trifle the gloom of her mental atmosphere, and since she could not eat and little backwoods Fifine's eyes had absorbed her appetite, it was just as well that Hamish, who had been greatly interested in being shown over the fort by the jolly Corporal O'Flynn, appeared at the door with the intelligence that their quarters were assigned them. The courteous Captain Demeré handed her to the door, and she stepped out from the bizarre decorated mess-hall into the dark night, with the stars showing a chill scintillation as of the approach of winter in their white glitter high in the sky, and the looming bastion close at hand. The barracks were silent; "tattoo" had just sounded; the great gates were closed, and the high walls shut off the world from the deserted parade. Naught was audible in all the night save the measured tread of a sentry walking his beat, and further away, seeming an echo, the step of another sentinel, while out in the wilderness the scream of a wildcat came shrilly on the wind from the darkness where Alexander roamed with savage beasts and still more savage men far from the sweet security so trebly protected here. Not even the flare of another big homelike fire in the cabin assigned to her could efface the impression of the bleak and dark loneliness outside the walls of the fort, and when the three were together, untrammeled by the presence of others, they were free to indulge their grief and their awful terror for husband and brother and father. They could not speak of it, but they sat down on a buffalo rug spread before the fire, and all three wept for the unuttered thought. The suspense, the separation of the little party, seemed unbearable. They felt that they might better have endured anything had they been together. Perhaps it was well for the elder two that their attention was diverted now and again by the effort to console Fifine in a minor distress, for with the ill-adjusted sense of proportion peculiar to childhood she had begun to clamor loudly too for her cat--her _mignonne_, her _douce fillette_ that she had brought so far in her arms or on her back. Alas, poor Fifine! to learn thus early how sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child! For indeed Kitty might have seemed to lie under the imputation of having merely "played baby" in order to secure free transportation. At all events, she was a cat now, the only one in the fort, and for all she knew in the settlement. The _douce mignonne_ was in high elation, now walking the palisades, now peeping in at a loop-hole in the upper story of one of the block-houses where a sentinel was regularly on guard, being able to scan from the jutting outlook not only the exterior of the fort on two sides, but a vast extent of darkling country. In his measured tramp to and fro in the shadowy apartment lighted only by the glimmer of the night without, he suddenly saw a flicker at the loop-hole he was approaching, caught a transient glimpse of a face, the gleam of a fiery eye, and he nearly dropped his loaded firelock in amazement. "By George!" he exclaimed, "I thought that was a blarsted cat!" He had not seen one since he left Charlestown a year before. He walked to the loop-hole and looked far down from the projecting wall and along the parapet of the curtain and the scarp to the opposite bastion with its tower-like block-house. Nothing--all quiet as the grave or the desert. He could hear the river sing; he could see in the light of the stars, and a mere flinder of a moon, the clods of earth on the ground below,--naught else. For the _douce mignonne_, with her back all handsomely humped, had suddenly sprung aside and fled down the interior slope of the rampart into the parade and over to the cook's quarters neighboring the kitchen. She nosed gleefully about among pots and kettles, feeling very much at home and civilized to the verge of luxury; she pried stealthily, every inch a cat, into the arrangements for to-morrow's breakfast, with a noiseless step and a breathless purr, until suddenly a tin pan containing beans was tumultuously overturned, being within the line of an active spring. For the _douce fillette_ had caught a mouse, which few sweet little girls are capable of doing;--a regular domestic fireside mouse, a thing which the _douce fillette_ had not seen in many weeks. The stir in the neighboring cabin did not affright Kitty, and when the officers' cook, a veritable African negro, suddenly appeared with an ebony face and the rolling whites of astonished eyes, she exhibited her capture and was rewarded by a word of commendation which she quite understood, although it was as outlandish as the gutturals of Willinawaugh. When the night was nearly spent, a great star, splendidly blazing in the sorceries of a roseate haze, seemed to conjure into the blackness a cold glimmer of gray light above the high, bleak, serrated summit line of the mountains of the eastern horizon, showing here and there white blank intervals, that presently were revealed as stark snowy domes rising into the wintry silence of a new day. The resonant bugle suddenly sounded the reveillé along the far winding curves of the river, rousing greetings of morning from many a mountain crag, and before the responsive echoes of the forest were once more mute the parade was full of the commotion elicited by the beating of the drums; shadowy military figures were falling in line, and the brisk authoritative ringing voice of the first sergeant was calling the roll in each company. And on the doorstep of Odalie's cabin, when Josephine opened the door, sat the _douce mignonne_ with her most babified expression on her face, now and again mewing noiselessly, going through the motions of grief, and cuddling down in infantile style when with wild babbling cries of endearment the little girl swooped up maternally the renegade cat. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote C: Friendship! Friendship!] CHAPTER IV With the earliest flush of dawn Hamish MacLeod was seeking one of the officers in order to solicit a guide to enable him to go in search of his brother with some chance of success. Captain Stuart, whom he finally found at the block-house in the northwestern bastion, was standing on the broad hearth of the great hall, where the fire was so brightly aflare that although it was day the place had all the illuminated effect of its aspect of last night. The officer's fresh face was florid and tingling from a recent plunge in the cold waters of the Tennessee River. He looked at Hamish with an unchanged expression of his steady blue eye, and drawing the watch from his fob consulted it minutely. "The hunters of the post," he said, still regarding it, "have been gone for more than half an hour. There is no use in trying to overtake them. They have their orders as to what kind of game they are to bring in." He smiled slightly, with the air of a man who in indulgent condescension would humor natural anxiety and overlook the effort of intermeddling, and as he returned the watch to his pocket, Hamish felt dismissed from the presence. The sun was well over the great range of purple bronze mountains in the east, their snowy domes a-glister in the brilliance between the dark slopes below and the blue sky above, and the fort, as he came forth, was a scene of brisk activity. The parade ground had already been swept like a floor, and groups of soldiers were gathered about the barracks busily burnishing and cleaning their arms, pipe-claying belts and rotten-stoning buckles and buttons, and at the further end near the stables horses were in process of being groomed and fed; one of them, young and wild, broke away, and in a mad scamper, with tossing mane and tail, and head erect and hoofs scattering the gravel, plunged around and around the enclosure, baffling his groom. A drill-sergeant was busy with an awkward squad; another squad without arms, in charge of a corporal, was marching and marching, making no progress, but vigorously marking time, whether for exercise or discipline Hamish could hardly determine, for he began to have a very awesome perception of the rigor of authority maintained in this frontier post. He had noticed--and the gorge of a freeman had risen at the sight--a soldier mounted high upon a trestle, facetiously called a horse, and he was well aware that this was by no means a new and a merry game. Hamish wavered a little in his mental revolt against the powers that be, as he noticed the reckless devil-may-care look of the man. He was a ruddy young fellow; he had a broad visage, with a wide, facetious red-lipped mouth, a quick, blithe, brown eye, and a broad, blunt nose. Hamish knew intuitively that this was the typical inhabitant, the native, so to speak, of the guard-house; his sort had ridden the wooden-horse, for many a weary hour in every country under the sun, and when an Indian's tomahawk or a Frenchman's bullet should clear the ranks of him, the gap would be filled by a successor so like him in spirit that he might seem a lineal descendant instead of a mere successor in the line. He had long ago been dubbed the "Devil's Dragoon," and he looked down with a good-humored glance at a bevy of his comrades, who from the door of the nearest log-cabin covertly cast gibes at him, calling out _sotto voce_, "Right about wheel--Trot!--March!" In another quarter of the parade the regular exercise was in progress, and Hamish listened with interest to the voice of the officer as it rang out crisp and clear on the frosty air. "Poise--Firelock!" A short interval while the sun glanced down the gleaming barrels of the muskets. "Cock--Firelock!" A sharp metallic click as of many sounds blent into one. "Take--Aim!" A moment of suspense. "Fire!" A resonant detonation of blank cartridges--and all the live echoes leaped in the woods, while the smoke drifted about the parade and glimmered prismatic in the sun, and then cleared away, escaping over the ramparts and blending with the timorous dissolving mists of the morning. Several Indians had come in through the open gate, some arrayed in feather or fur match-coats and others in buckskin shirt and leggings, with their blankets purchased from the traders drawn up about their ears; they were standing near the walls of one of the block-houses to see the drill. A certain expectancy hung upon this group as they watched the movements of the men now loading anew. "Half-cock--Firelock!" came the order in the peremptory voice of the officer. Once more that sharp, metallic, unnerving click. "Handle--Cartridge!" A sudden swift facial expression went along the line with a formidable effect. With the simultaneous show of strong teeth it was as if each soldier had fiercely snarled like a wild beast. But each had only bitten the end of the cartridge. "Prime!" The eyes of the Indians followed with an unwinking, fascinated stare the swift, simultaneous movement of the rank as of one man, every muscle animated by the same impulse. "Shut--Pan!" Once more the single sound as of many sounds. "Charge with--Cartridge!" The watchful eyes of the Indians narrowed. "Draw--Rammer!" Once more the loud, sharp, clash of metal rising to a menace of emphasis with the succeeding,-- "Ram down--Cartridge!" "Return--Rammer!" And as hard upon the clatter of the ramrods, slipping back into their grooves, came the orders-- "Shoulder--Firelock!" "Advance--Arms!" the Cherokees drew a long breath as of the relief from the tension of suspense. They were evidently seeking to discern the utility of these strange military gyrations. This the Indians, although always alert to perceive and adopt any advantage in arms or military method, despite their characteristic tenacity to their ancient customs in other matters, could not descry. They had, even at this early day, almost discarded the bow and arrow for the firelock, wherever or however it could be procured, but the elaborate details of the drill baffled them, and they regarded it as in some sort a mystery. Their own discipline had always sufficed, and their military manoeuvres, their march in single file or widely extended lines, their skulking approach, stalking under cover from tree to tree, were better suited, as even some of their enemies thought, for military movements, than tactical precision, to the broken character of the country and the dense forest of the trackless wilderness. They noticed with kindling eyes a brisk reprimand administered to Corporal O'Flynn, when Lieutenant Gilmore called attention to the fact that one of the men had used three motions instead of the prescribed two motions in charging with cartridge, and two motions, instead of one, in ramming down cartridge. Corporal O'Flynn's mortification was painted in a lively red on his fresh Irish cheek, for this soldier was of a squad whose tuition in the manual exercise had been superintended by no less a tactician than himself. "Faith, sir," he said to his superior officer, "I don't know what ails that man. He has motion without intelligence. Like thim windmills, ye'll remember, sir, we seen so much on the Continent. He minds me o' thim in the way he whur-r-ls his ar-rms." The lieutenant--they had served together in foreign countries--laughed a trifle, his wrath diverted by the farcical suggestion, and the instant the command to break ranks had been given, Corporal O'Flynn, with the delinquent under close guard, convoyed him to the scene of the exploits of the awkward squad, where he might best learn to discard the free gestures of the windmills of the Continent of Europe. "To disgrace me afore the officers," said Corporal O'Flynn, "and I fairly responsible for ye! I larned ye all ye know--and for ye to show the leftenant how little 'tis! Ye've got to quit that way of loading with ca'tridge with as many motions as an old jontleman feeling for his snuff-box! I'm fairly responsible for yez. I'm yer sponsor in this business. I feel like yer godfathers, an' yer godmothers, an' yer maiden aunt. I never seen a man so supple! Ye have as much use of yer hands as if ye was a centipede!" The matter and manner of this discourse tried the gravity of the awkward squad, but no one dared to laugh, and Corporal O'Flynn himself was as grave as if it were a question of the weightiest importance involved, as he stood by and watched for a time the drill of the men. The Indians turned their attentive eyes to Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré, who were both upon the terre-pleine at the shoulder-point of a bastion where one of the twelve cannon, mounted _en barbette_, looked grimly forth over the parapet. The gunners were receiving some instructions which Stuart was giving in reference to serving the piece; now and again it was pointed anew; he handled the heavy sponge-staff as if in illustration; then stepped swiftly back, and lifted the match, as if about to fire the gun. The Indians loitering in the shade watched the martial figure, the sun striking full on the red coat and cocked hat, and long, heavy queue of fair hair hanging on his shoulders, and as he stood erect, with the sponge-staff held horizontally in both hands, they turned and looked with a common impulse at one another and suddenly spat upon the ground. The sentry in a sort of cabin above the gate--a gate-house, so to speak--maintained a guard within as well as without, for an outer sentinel was posted on the crest of the counterscarp beyond the bridge; he kept his eye on the Cherokees, but he did not note their look. He was not skilled in deciphering facial expression, nor did he conceive himself deputed to construe the grimaces of savages. Gazing without for a moment, he turned back and cast a glance of kindly concern on Hamish MacLeod, who was disconsolately strolling about, not daring to go back and encounter the reproaches of Odalie, who doubtless thought him even now in the wilderness with a searching party, too urgent to admit of the time to acquaint her with so hasty a departure--and yet striving against his eagerness to go on this very errand, relying on the superior wisdom of the officers even while rebelling against it. All that he observed tended to confirm this reliance. How safe it was here! How trebly guarded! Even to his callow experience it was most obvious that whatever fate held in store for this garrison, whose lives were intrusted to the wisdom and precaution of the commandant, surprise was not among the possibilities. He remembered anew poor Sandy, far from these stanch walls, the very citadel of security, within which he felt so recreant; and as he thought again of the perils to which his brother was exposed, and a possibly impending hideous fate, he felt a constriction about his throat like the clutch of a hand. The tears rose to his eyes--and through them as he looked toward the gate he saw Sandy coming into the fort! In the extremity of the revulsion of feeling Hamish gave a sudden shrill yell that rang through the woods like a war-whoop. Even the Indians, still loitering in the diminishing shadow of the block-house, started at the sound and gazed at him amazed, as he dashed across the parade and flung his arms around his brother. Sandy, who had had his own terrors to endure concerning the fate of his family, was not altogether appreciative of their terrors for his sake. He felt amply capable of taking care of himself, and if he were not--why, his scalp was not worth saving! He extricated himself with unflattered surprise from Hamish's frantic embrace that was like the frenzied hug of a young bear and made his ribs crack. "That's enough, Hamish; that's enough!" he said. "Of course I'm safe, all right. That's enough." He advanced with what grace he could command after such an exhibition to shake hands with the two officers near the sally-port and thank them for the shelter the fort had afforded his family. And here was Odalie,--for a good-natured soldier, one of the boat's crew of the previous evening, had instantly run to her cabin with the news of the arrival--restored to her normal poise in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, by the shattering of her dismal forebodings in the glad reality of MacLeod's safety. So composed was her manner, so calmly happy, that Captain Stuart could not forbear to unmask the sham, and let the poor man know how he had been bewept yesterday at even. "We were very glad to take in the wanderers, although I cannot say it was a cheerful scene. I never realized until Mrs. MacLeod reached the gate here the meaning of the phrase 'dissolved in tears.'" Alexander looked anxiously at his wife--had she found the journey, then, so vexatious? "I was tired and dusty," she said demurely, as if in explanation. "My shoes--one of them was in tatters; and, Sandy, I was _so_ ashamed." Captain Stuart stared at her for a moment and broke into a laugh. "That's putting the shoe on the other foot, at all events," he said. He and Captain Demeré, accompanied by the newcomer, turned into the block-house, in order to question Sandy as to any information he might have been able to acquire concerning French emissaries, the disposition of the Cherokees, the devastation of the Virginia settlements, and any further news of General Forbes and the fall of Fort Duquesne now called Fort Pitt. However, Sandy had naught to report, save the angry threat with the tomahawk which gave way upon the assurance that the party was French. In the solitary journey with those who had resigned their boat to Willinawaugh, he had experienced no worse treatment than the destruction of his pocket compass. With this at first they had been highly delighted, but some ten miles from the fort they had been joined by an Indian who declared he had seen such things in Carolina, doubtless among land-surveyors, and who stigmatized it as a "land-stealer," forthwith crushing it with his tomahawk. MacLeod had expected this revelation to bring about ill-feeling, but the party shortly met the hunters of the post, who had insisted on conducting him to the fort on suspicion of being a Frenchman. These pioneers never forgot that day, a rich, languid day of the lingering St. Martin's summer-tide. What though in the early morn the frost had lain in rime as white as snow on the bare branches of the great trees where now the yellow sunshine dripped in liquid light! A tender haze like that of spring suffused the depths of the forest, the gleaming, glancing reaches of the river, the level summit-lines of the great massive purple mountains of the west, and half concealed, and shifting half revealed, always elusively, the fine azure snow-capped domes against the pearl-tinted eastern sky. What though the flowers were dead, the leaves had fled, the woods were bare and rifled,--when the necromancy of the powers of the air filled all the winter day with sweet, subtle odors that excelled the fragrance of summer, as a memory might outvie the value of the reality, seeming to exhale now from the forest, and again from the river, and anon from some quality of the beneficent sunshine, or to exist in ethereal suspension in the charmed atmosphere. Nature was in such blessed harmony, full of graceful analogy; a bird would wing his way aloft, his shadow careering through the sun-painted woods below; a canoe with its swift duplication in the water would fly with its paddles like unfeathered wings down the currents of the river; those exquisite traceries of the wintry woods, the shadows of the leafless trees, would lie on a sandy stretch like some keen etching, as if to illustrate the perfection of the lovely dendroidal design and proportion of the growth it imaged; now and again the voice of herds of buffalo rose thunderously, muffled by distance; a deer splashed into the river a little above the fort, and gallantly breasting the current, swam to the other side, while a group of soldiers standing on the bank watched his progress and commented on his prowess. No shot followed him; the larders were filled, and orders had been given to waste no powder and ball. The newcomers were made most heartily welcome in the settlement near the fort, as newcomers were apt to be in every pioneer hamlet, whatever their quality; for the frontiersmen, in their exposed situation, earnestly appreciated the strength in numbers. But this gratulation was of course infinitely increased when the arrivals were, like these, people of character, evidently so valuable an addition to the community. Finally several of the settlers persisted in carrying off Sandy to look at a fertile nook where the river swung round in a bend, earnestly recommending the rich bottom lands for the growth of corn, and the crest of the hill with a clear free-stone spring for that home he sought to plant in the far west. Hamish went too,--he could not bear Sandy to be out of his sight and was "tagging" after him as resolutely and as unshake-off-ably as when he was four and Sandy was twelve years of age. In their absence Odalie and Josephine and the _douce mignonne_ sat on the doorstep of their latest entertainer, and watched the shadows and sunshine shift in the woods, and listened to the talk of their hostess. And here was where the trail of the serpent began to be manifest; for this old woman was a professed gossip, and Odalie speedily learned the points of view from which the settlement about Fort Loudon ceased to present the aspect of the earlier Paradisaic era. Mrs. Halsing had a hard, set visage, and was very shrewd,--none the worse gossip for that,--and went straight to the weak point, and unraveled the tangle of mystery in any subject that presented itself for discussion. She was thin and angular and uncultivated, and had evidently come of people who had been used to small advantages in education and breeding. Equally humble of origin was another of Odalie's future neighbors, with a sort of homespun dress made after the fashion called a "short gown," a red petticoat, and a pair of moccasons in lieu of shoes. Her face was as broad as the moon, and as bland. Much smiling had worn dimples around her mouth instead of wrinkles in her forehead. She, too, had a keen gleam of discernment in her eyes, but tempered with a perception of the sweetly ludicrous in life, which converted folly into the semblance of fun. She seemed to love her comfort, to judge by her leisurely motions and the way her arms fell into easy foldings, but the wife of a pioneer could never have lived at ease in those days. She sat opposite Mrs. Halsing, by the cabin door, on a bench which the hostess had vacated in her favor, adopting instead an inverted tub, and although admitting as true much that was said, Mrs. Beedie advanced palliating theories which, paradoxically enough, while they did not contradict the main statement, had all the effect of denial. For her part, said Mrs. Halsing, she did not see what anybody who was safe in Virginia or Carolina, or anywhere else, would come to this country for. She wouldn't, except that her husband was possessed! The sight of a road put him into a "trembly fit." He was moving west to get rid of civilization, and he was as uncivilized as a "bar himself, or an Injun." Odalie learned that a number of the men were wild, roving, roaring fellows, who came here because they hated law and order; then, without contradiction, Mrs. Beedie's exposition tended to show that it was a new country with splendid prospects and they desired to take advantage of its opening opportunities; some of them being already poor, sought here cheaper homes, with more chance for development. And, pursuing the interpretation of her side of the shield, Mrs. Halsing detailed the fact that some people love change and adventure, because no matter what the Lord gave 'em they wouldn't fold their hands and be thankful. Were the Rush people poor and oppressed in Carolina? Mighty well off, they seemed to her--had cows, if the wolves hadn't got 'em, and had owned property and held their heads mighty high where they came from, and claimed kin with well-to-do people in England. People said Captain Stuart said he knew who they were--but the Lord only knew what Captain Stuart knew! Then Mrs. Halsing further unfolded the fact that Mrs Rush's husband had been the son of a bishop, but had got among the dissenters, and had been cast out like a prodigal, because he took to preaching. "Preachin' being in the blood, I reckon," Mrs. Beedie palliated. Thereupon he emigrated to America and was seized with a mission to the Indians, that fastened upon him like a plague; and he lost his scalp and his life--not even a red Indian would tolerate the doctrine he set up as the Word! And Mrs. Halsing pursed her lips with a truly orthodox fixity. And now we have no religion at the fort and the settlement. But here Mrs. Beedie took up her testimony with unction and emphasis. We had Captain Stuart! Mrs. Halsing gave a sudden cry of derision like the abrupt squawk of a jay-bird. Captain Stuart was not a humble man. That back of his was never bent! She wondered if his heart had ever felt the need of aught. "Yes," Mrs. Beedie affirmed. "When one of the soldiers died of the pleurisy last winter in the fort and Captain Demeré was ill himself, Captain Stuart read the service all solemn and proper, and had men to march with arms reversed and fire a volley over the grave." Mrs. Halsing rose to the occasion by demanding what good such evidences of religion might do in such a lot as there was at the fort. Forgetting her scorn of the bishop's son, who had taken to Methodism and Indians, she set forth the fact that the whole settlement was given to dances--that the settlers with their wives and daughters, not content with dances at home, must needs go to the fort on state and special occasions, such as Christmas, and there participate in the ball, as they called it, given in the officers mess-hall. They went in daylight, and did not return till daylight, and the fiddle it sang the whole night through! And cards--the soldiers played cards, and the settlers too; and the officers, they played "loo," as they called it, as if that made it any better. Even Captain Demeré! This latter phrase occurred so frequently in Mrs. Halsing's prelection that it created a sort of mitigating effect, and made the enormity it qualified gain a trifle of respectability from the fact that Captain Demeré countenanced it. Odalie knew already that he was the commandant, and it was plain to be seen that Captain Demeré stood first in Mrs. Halsing's estimation. And the officers all, she declared, the captains, the frisky lieutenants, and the ensigns, all drank tafia. "When they can git it," interpolated Mrs. Beedie, with twinkling eyes. "They are deprived, I will say, by the slowness and seldomness of the express from over the mountains. But if they are a sober set, it is against their will, and that I do maintain," Mrs. Halsing added, turning an unflinching front toward Mrs. Beedie. Then resuming her dissertation to Odalie:-- "But there's one thing that rests on my mind. I can't decide which one it belongs to, Captain Stuart or Captain Demeré. Did ye see--I know ye did--a lady's little riding-mask on the shelf of the great hall. Ye must have seen it,"--lowering her voice,--"a love token?" "Oh," said Odalie, in a casual tone and with a slight shrug of the shoulders, not relishing the intrusive turn of the disquisition, "a souvenir, perhaps, from the colonies or over seas." "La, now!" cried Mrs. Halsing, baffled and disconcerted, "you're as French as a frog!" Recovering herself, she resumed quickly. "It's the deceitfulness of Captain Stuart that sets me agin him. Ye must be obleeged to know he can't abide the Injuns. He keeps watch day and night agin 'em. Yet they think everything o' Captain Stuart! They _all_ prize him. Now don't ye know such wiles as he hev got for them must be deceit?" Odalie made an effort to say something about magnetism, but it seemed inadequate to express the officer's bonhomie, when Mrs. Halsing continued: "Ye never know _how_ to take Captain Stuart," she objected. "Before folks he'll behave to Captain Demeré as ceremonious and polite as if they had just met yesterday; but if you hear them talking off together, in another minute he'll be rollicking around as wild as a buck, and calling him 'Quawl--I say Quawl!'" She evidently resented this familiarity to the dignified officer, and Odalie pondered fruitlessly on the possible ridicule involved in being called "Quawl." In this remote frontier fort a strong personal friendship had sprung up between the two senior officers which not only promoted harmony in their own relations, but a unanimity of sentiment in the exertion of authority that redoubled its force, for the garrison was thus debarred from the support on a vexed question of the suspicion of a dissentient mind in high quarters. Stuart had chanced to address his friend as "Paul," in a fraternal aside on an unofficial occasion, and one or two of the Indians overhearing it, and unaccustomed to the ceremony of a surname, had thus accosted him,--to Stuart's delight in the incongruity that this familiarity should be offered to the unapproachable Demeré, rather than to himself, whose jovial methods might better warrant the slack use of a Christian name. Moreover, "Paul" was transmogrified as "Quawl," the Cherokees never definitely pronouncing the letter P; and thereafter in moments of expansive jollity Stuart permitted himself the liberty of imitation in saying "Quawl," and sometimes "Captain Quawl." As Odalie puzzled over this enigma, Mrs. Halsing became more personal still, having noticed during the pause the crystal clearness of her visitor's eyes, the fairness of her complexion, the delicacy of her beauty, her refinement, and the subtle suggestion of elegance that appertained to her manner, and-- "How old be you?" asked Mrs. Halsing, bluntly. "Twenty-one," replied Odalie, feeling very responsible and matronly. "Child," said Mrs. Halsing, solemnly, "why did you ever come to the frontier?" "We were lacking somewhat in this world's goods. And we wish to make a provision for our little girl. We are young and don't care for privation." "You ain't fitten for the frontier." "I walked all the way here from New River," cried Odalie, "and not by the direct route, either--not by the old 'Warrior's Path.' We came by way of the setting sun, as Willinawaugh has it." "You can't work," Mrs. Halsing's eyes narrowed as she measured the figure, slight and delicate despite its erect alertness. "I can spin two hanks of yarn a day, six cuts to the hank," boasted Odalie. "I can weave seven yards of woolen cloth a day--my linen is all ten hundred. And I can hoe corn like a squaw." "That's what you'll be in this country--a squaw! All women are. You'll have to hoe all the corn you can plant." Mrs. Halsing shook her head mournfully from side to side. "I'd like to see the coast towns agin. If I was as young as you I'd not tarry, I'd not tarry in the wilderness." Odalie was all unaffected by her arguments, but this talk, so deadly to the progressive spirit of the pioneer settlements, and so rife then and later, was, she knew, inimical to content. The disaffection of those who remained to complain wrought more evil against the permanence of the settlements than the desertion of the few who quitted the frontier to return to the towns of the provinces. She welcomed, therefore, with ardor the reappearance of Sandy and Hamish from their tour of investigation of the site of their new home, and her eyes sparkled responsively as she noted their enthusiasm. She was glad to be again hanging on Sandy's right arm, while Hamish hung on his left, and Fifine, with her _fillette toute chérie_, toddled on in front. Very cheerful the fort looked to Odalie as they approached. The afternoon dress-parade was on. The men were once more in full uniform, instead of the pioneer garb of buckskin shirt and leggings and moccasons which had won such universal approval, and was so appropriate to general use that it was almost recognized as a fatigue uniform. The sun was reddening upon the still redder ranks of scarlet coats that took even a higher grade of color from the effect of the white belts and the burnished metallic glitter of the gun-barrels. A different effect was afforded by the dress of a small body of militia from the provinces that had recently reinforced the garrison, whose dark blue had a rich but subsidiary tone and abated the glare of the ranks of scarlet, even while heightening the contrast. The Indians, always gathering from their towns up the river to revel in this feast of color and spectacle of military pomp, so calculated to impress them with the superior capacity and knowledge of the arts of warfare possessed by the white race, had mustered in stronger numbers than usual and stood in rows about the walls of the block-houses or along the interior slopes of the rampart. In groups near the gate were some of the Cherokee women, huddled in blankets, although one wore a civilized "short gown" that had a curiously unrelated look to her physiognomy and form. Their countenances were dull and lack-luster, and the elder hag-like and hideous, but as the new settlers passed the group of squaws a broadside of bright black eyes, a fresh, richly tinted, expressionless, young face, and a string of red beads above a buckskin garb that was a sort of tunic, half shirt, half skirt, only partly revealed by the strait folds of a red blanket girt about a slender, erect figure, reminded the observant Odalie of the claim to a certain sort of beauty arrogated for the youthful among these denizens of the woods--a short-lived beauty, certainly. Fifine had caught sight of other children, the families of the settlers having gathered here to witness the parade. Here, too, were many of the men; now a hunter, leaning on his rifle, with a string of quail, which he called "pat-ridges," tied to one another with thongs detached from the fringes of his buckskin shirt and looking themselves like some sort of feathered ornament, as they hung over his shoulder and almost to his knee, and a brace of wild turkeys, young and tender, at his belt; another, attracted from the field by the military music and the prospect of the rendezvous of the whole settlement, still carried a long sharp knife over his shoulder, with which he had been cutting cane, clearing new ground. A powerful fellow leaning on an ax was exhibiting to another and an older settler a fragment of wood he had brought, and both examined with interest the fiber; this was evidently a discovery, the tree being unknown in the eastern section, for these people were as if transplanted to a new world. Odalie's attention was suddenly arrested by a man of gigantic build, wearing the usual buckskin garb, and with a hard, stern, fierce face, that seemed somehow peculiarly bare; he wore no queue, it is true, for at this period many of the hunters cut their hair for convenience, and only the conservative retained that expression of civilization. Under his coonskin cap his head was tied up in a red cotton handkerchief, and as he stood leaning against the red-clay wall of the rampart, talking gravely to another settler, the children swarmed up the steep interior slope of the fortifications behind him and from this coign of vantage busied themselves, without let or hindrance, in pulling off his cap, untying the handkerchief, and with shrill cries of excitement and interest exposing to view the bare poll. For the man had been scalped and yet had escaped with his life. "_Quelle barbarie! Oh, quelle barbarie!_" murmured Odalie, wincing at the sight. Years ago it must have chanced, for the wounds had healed; but it had left terrible scars which the juvenile element of the settlement prized and loved to trace as one might the map of the promised land, were such charts known to mere earthly map-makers. A frequent ceremony, this, evidently, for the shrill cries were of recognition rather than discovery, and when the unknown became a feature it was as a matter of speculation. "Here! here!" exclaimed one wiry being of ten,--his limited corporeal structure, too, was incased in buckskin, the pioneer mother, like other mothers, feeling no vocation toward works of supererogation in the way of patching, and having discovered that skins of beasts resist the clutch of briers and the destructive propensities characteristic of callow humanity better than cloth, even of the stoutest homespun weave,--"here's where the tomahawk knocked him senseless!" "Here's where the scalping-knife began!" cried a snaggle-toothed worthy, from the half-bent posture in which he had been surveying the forlorn cicatrices of the bare poll, and digging his heels into the red-clay slope to sustain his weight. "No, no--here!" advanced another theorist. Odalie turned her head away; it was too horrible!--or she would have seen the tugging climb of Josephine and her triumphant emergence on the slope amongst the boys. They looked at her in surprise for a moment, but without resentment, for it was too good an opportunity to rehearse the history that so enchanted them. "Here, here," the shrill voices began anew. "Here's where the tomahawk hit him a clip!" "An' here," shrieked out another, seizing upon Fifine's chubby little hand that her own soft finger might have the privilege of exploring the wound, "here's where the scalping-knife circled him round!" "The Injun begun here first, but his knife was dull, an' he had to mend his holt!" screeched a third. "An',--an', 'n," vociferated another, almost speechless in the contemplation of so bloody a deed, "ter git a full purchase onto it the Injun held him down by putting a foot on his breast!" He lifted his own bare foot, itself a cruel and savage sight, scarred with the scratching of briers and stone-bruises and the results of what is known as dew-poison--he called it "jew-pizen," and so do those of his ilk to this good day,--and aped the gesture so present to his imagination. Fifine knew only too well what it all meant, as her soft infantile face, incongruously maternal with compassion, bent above the hideous record of a hideous deed. "All this here," cried the first expositor, sparing a sustaining hand to hold her by the elbow,--for her weight not being sufficient to drive her heels into the clay slope, she had given imminent signs of slipping down the incline,--"all this here top of his 'ead ain't the sure enough top; the Injuns scalped that off. This is just sich top as growed since; he ain't got no real top to his 'ead." Fifine's baby hands traveled around this substitute top; her mouth quivered pitifully; then she bent down and kissed the grim wounds in several places with a sputter of babbling commiseration. At this moment Hamish caught sight of her and advanced in great contrition. He flushed to the roots of his hair as he spoke to the man, for as a rule those few fortunate yet unfortunate persons who had chanced to survive the cruel disaster of being scalped were exceedingly sensitive on the subject of their disfigurement--it was usually a subject not to be mentioned. But this settler looked at Hamish in surprise as the boy said, "Pray excuse the little girl, sir. I had lost sight of her and didn't know she was so vexatious with her curiosity." "No, no," returned the stalwart giant, in a singularly languid voice, mild and deep and pacific to the last degree. "It pleases the chil'n, an' don't hurt me." He was busying himself in tying up the horrible exhibition in his red handkerchief preparatory to putting on his coonskin cap, for the brisk interest the children took in disrobing, so to speak, his scalpless head, did not extend to the task of properly accoutering it again, and repairing the disarray they themselves had made, for they had scampered off through the great gate of the fort. His voice gave Hamish a sort of intimation how they had had the hardihood to venture on these familiarities with one so formidable of aspect. Hamish learned afterward that he had lost his scalp rather through this quality of quiet indulgence, so open to treachery, than to inability to keep it. A terrible fighter he was when he was roused, though even then his utmost prowess was exerted without anger. In the Indian fights his friends had often exhorted him to scalp the wretches he slew, as he had been scalped, and thus complete his revenge, for the Indians believed that a scalpless person would be excluded from the happy hunting-grounds of heaven, their fury thus following their foes from this world into the next. "Let 'em have all the heaven they can git," he would remark, wiping his bloody knife upon the mane of his horse. "I expec' to smoke the pipe o' peace with all I meet on Canaan's shore,--Cherokees, Creeks, or Chickasaws,--Reg'lars, Millish, or Settlers." For he was intensely religious and had a queer conglomeration of doctrines that he had picked up here and there in his rambles through this western world. He embraced alike the theory of purgatory and the Presbyterian tenets of predestination and justification. He had acquired the words of "Hail Mary!" from a French Catholic with whom he had hunted on the banks of the Sewanee, as the Indians called it, and Chauvanon, as the Gallic tongue metamorphosed the name,--perhaps these two were the first white men that ever trod those bosky ways,--and he believed faithfully in total immersion as promulgated by the Baptists. He was all for peace, like the Quakers,--peace at any price; and yet when for the entertainment of the boys at a friendly fireside he was urged to recount how many men he had fought and killed, the long list failed only from failure of memory. Hamish expected to hear no more of him after they parted, and he experienced a sort of repulsion which found an echo in Odalie's exclamation, when Captain Demeré proposed that Gilfillan should live with them. "I should recommend a strong stockade if you go as far from the fort as the bend of the river," the officer commented, when the spot they had selected was made known to him. "And with only two gun men," he cogitated, as he paused. "It would not be safe." Then brightening,--for the officers of the post sought to facilitate in every way the prospects of the settlers and the extension of the settlement,--"Take Gilfillan with you; he's an odd fish, but he is equal to any four men, and he has never quite settled down since the massacre on the Yadkin where he lost his wife and children. Take Gilfillan." A group from the fort strolled along the river-bank, and the ripples were red under the red sunset sky, and the eastern mountains were blue and misty, and the western were purple and massive and distinct, and though sedges were sere and the birds gone, summer was in the air, and they talked of hope and home. Captain Demeré's suggestion broke discordantly on the serenity of the hour and the theme. "Oh! oh!" cried Odalie, "and have Fifine forever tracing the map of anguish all around that terrible head, never tiring of 'Here's where the tomahawk hit him a clip!' and 'Here's where the scalping-knife began!'" "What a consideration!" exclaimed the officer, with some asperity. "And if you will excuse me, how very French! The man's rifle--the finest marksman I ever saw--is the point for your consideration. And you find his looks not convenable." "Fifine, herself, will be less likely to have a head like his, perhaps, if he will come and strengthen our station," suggested Alexander MacLeod, astutely. "Oh,--yes, yes!" assented Odalie, with a sudden expression of fright. "Besides," said Captain Stuart, with his bluff nonchalance, "the river-bend will be so easily famous for the good looks of the stationers that a trifle of discount upon Gilfillan will not mar the sum total." "And then," said Captain Demeré, "he is a very exceptional kind of man--you are fortunate to find such a man--for a single man, in the settlements. You would not like it if he were one of the rattling, roaring blades that such irresponsible single fellows are here, usually." "Mighty sprightly company, some of these rufflers," remarked Captain Stuart, with a twinkling eye. "Rarely good company," he averred. "And besides," added Captain Demeré, whose extreme sensitiveness enabled him better to appreciate her sentiment than the others, despite his rebuke, "you need not have him in the same house with you; you can have two cabins within the stockade and connected by the palisades from one house to the other. Otherwise, in the present state of feeling among the Cherokees it would hardly be safe so far from the fort." It had been explained that Alexander was especially solicitous concerning the choice of his location, since the quality of the land had not been well selected in his former home on New River. Here he had found in a comparatively small compass the ideal conjuncture for those growths so essential to the pioneer who must needs subsist on the produce of his own land. In that day and with the extremely limited and difficult means of transportation, no deficit could be filled from the base of a larger supply. The projected station, he thought, would be as safe as any other place outside the range of the guns of the fort, but he welcomed the idea of numbering among its denizens the hardy hunter, Gilfillan, and cared no more for his bald head than he did for the broad, smooth, handsome plait of Captain Stuart's fair hair. MacLeod had all the desperate energy of one who seeks to retrieve good fortune, although no great deal of money was involved in his earlier disasters. His father had had shipping interests, and the loss of a barque and her cargo at sea had sufficed to swamp the young man's financial craft on shore. As to the possessions of his wife's family--they were a few inconsiderable heirlooms, some fine traditions, growing now a trifle stale and moldy with age, and a brave, proud spirit in facing the world, the result of the consciousness of having a fine old record to sustain; her forefathers had been of that class of refugees from religious persecution whose property was of such a character and whose emergency was so imminent that they had fled from France with little else than the garments in which they stood. They had not prospered since, nor multiplied, and Odalie was nearly the last of the family. A certain innate refinement in both, MacLeod's gravity and dignity of carriage and the distinction of Odalie's manner, notwithstanding its simplicity, marked their exceptional quality to a discerning judgment, despite their precarious plight. The two officers had grave doubts as to the wisdom of their adventuring so boldly in the quest of fortune in these savage wildernesses, but both felt that it was well for the community that harbored them, and each knew of isolated instances elsewhere when such folly had been transmuted into a potent sapience by the bounty of uncovenanted good luck. They had experienced a sort of pleasure in the advent of the newcomers, for Sandy's intelligence and information were far above the average, and they were more or less isolated in this remote frontier post from those dainty charms of toilette and manner which Odalie would have found means to practice were she cast away on a desert island, all the more marked, perhaps, from their demure simplicity and a sort of unstudied elegance. It was only a serge gown she wore, of the darkest red hue,--murrey-colored, she called it,--but all faint vestige of the journey had vanished, and over the long, straight bodice of those days was a cape or fichu of fine white cambric, embellished with a delicate tambour, one of those graceful accomplishments which her "grand'maman" had brought from France, and transmitted to a docile pupil as among the arts which should adorn a woman. The deep red and the vivid white of this costume comported well with her fine dark-brown hair, rising straight from her forehead in a heavy lustrous undulation, and drawn back to be gathered into a dense knot, her fair smooth complexion, the contemplative yet suave expression of her large dark eyes, and their heavy, almost diplomatic eyelashes,--for they implied so much that they did not say, and were altogether the most effective feature of that most effective face. Often Sandy, who had taken more notice of those eyes and eyelashes than any one else in the world,--although they had not been unremarked in general,--could not decipher what she meant by them, and at other times he marveled why she should say so much with them instead of with the means which Nature had bestowed for the expression of her views,--of which, too, she made ample use. Those eyelashes, for instance, indicated disdain, reproof, reproach, and yet a repudiation of comprehension when Captain Stuart said significantly that he hoped she found her footing quite satisfactory to-day--she was wearing a spruce pair of prunella brodequins which had come in the pack. With his bluff raillery he inquired of her how she had the conscience to grudge her husband the triumph of knowing that she had shed a tun of tears for his absence yesterday and had demanded of the commandant of the post that the whole strength of the garrison should instantly take the field to search for him. "For discipline," she answered, with placid solemnity. "If he knew that I care enough to weep for him instead of for my shabby shoes, my authority would be shattered. And a mutiny, under any circumstances, is not pretty." The river carried the officer's jovial laughter far along the lapsing current that was growing steely now, reflecting a pale gray sky of very luminous tone, beneath which the primeval woods were dark and gloomy, and the mountains on the east loomed but dimly through the gray mists, while on the west the summit-line was hard and darkly distinct. It was winter, for all the still air; no sound of bird, no chirring of cicada, no rustle of leaf. The voice of the river rose quite alone in the silence, and a single star seemed to palpitate in a white agitation as it listened. And when the party sat down on the rocky ledges of the river-bank, Captain Demeré was beside Odalie, and they talked not of this new country lying before them, with the unread, unrecorded mystery of its past, and the unsolved, impenetrable question of its future, but of his own people. With her delicate tact she had evaded the continual occupation of the general attention with her experiences and expectations, and the details of her new home, and led him to speak of himself and his own interests, which he was insensibly brought to do with little disguise, so potent were the reminiscent effects of the murrey-colored gown, and the dainty freshness of the cambric fichu, and the delicate feminine attraction that hung about her like an exquisite fragrance, and seemed, because of her lack of arrogation, less peculiar to herself than some sweet quality appertaining to the whole species of womankind. She noted how the future of men like these is not with the future of the country. They were not to participate in the prosperity which their presence here might foster. While all the others looked forward they looked backward, or perhaps aside, as at a separate life. Such is the part a garrison must always play. She doubted if many felt it. With Mrs. Halsing, she, too, marveled if Captain Stuart felt the need of aught. But Demeré, looking into the past as the tide of reminiscence rose, said to a sympathetic heart a thousand things of home. Trifles came back, hitherto forgotten; sorrows seared over by time; old jests that had outworn the too frequent laugh at last; resolutions failing midway, half-hearted; friends heretofore dead even to memory; old adventures conjured up anew; affections lingering about an old home, like the scent of roses when the fallen petals have left but the bare stalk; vanished joys, reviviscent with a new throb that was more like pain than pleasure. And if he did not look to the future that sweet December night of Saint Martin's summer by the placid Tennessee River, perhaps it was as well,--oh, poor Captain Demeré! CHAPTER V The next day ushered in a crisis in the affairs of the would-be stationers--the house-raising began. All the men of the settlement gathered to the fore, and the cabins--a substantial double-cabin the larger was, and the other, one room and a loft--went up as if by magic. The stockade, boles of stout young trees sawed off in lengths of twenty feet and sharply pointed at the upper end, the other end deeply sunken into the ground, began to grow apace. The spring was within the enclosure--a point of vast importance in that day, since in times of danger from the Indians it was not necessary to sally forth from the protection of the stockade for the indispensable water-supply for household and cattle. The prospects of many an early station were blighted by overlooking in a period of comparative peace and comfort this urgent advantage, and many a life was taken during some desperate sortie with piggins and pails by the defenders of the stockade, who could have held out valiantly against the savage except for the menace of death by thirst. The officers had urged this point upon the pioneers. "Of course in any emergency," Demeré argued, "the forces at the fort would relieve you at once. But the true military principle ought to govern even in such a minor stronghold. An unfailing water-supply ought to be a definitely recognized necessity in every military post subject to beleaguerment. Otherwise the station can be held only very temporarily; one can lay in provisions and stand a siege, but drouth means death, for surrender is massacre." Nevertheless, eastward at the time, and later in westward settlements, this obvious precaution was often neglected and the obvious disaster as often ensued. The woodland spring within the stockade was a charming and rocky spot with no suggestion of flowing water till one might notice that the moss and mint beneath a gigantic tree were moist; then looking under a broad, flat, slab-like ledge might be descried a deep basin four feet in diameter filled with water, crystal, clear, and brown in the deep shadow--brown and liquid as the eyes of some water-nymph hidden among the rocks and the evergreen laurel. And, oh joy! the day when Odalie kindled her own fire once more on her own hearth-stone--good, substantial flagging; when traversing the passage from one room to another she could look down through the open gate of the stockade at the silvery rushing of the Tennessee in its broad expanse under the blue sky, giving, as it swirled around, a long perspective, down the straight and gleaming reach before it curved anew. And oh, the moment of housewifely pride when the slender stock of goods was unpacked and once more the familiar articles adjusted in their places, her flax wheel in the chimney corner, her china ranged to its best advantage on the shelf; and often did she think about the little blue jug that came from France and marvel what had been its fate! All her linen that was saved, the pride of her heart, made, too, its brave show. She had a white cloth on her table, albeit the table seemed to have much ado to stand alone since its legs were of unequal length, and white counterpanes on her beds, and gay curtains at the windows opening within the stockade--the other side had but loop-holes--on which birds of splendid plumage, cut from East Indian chintz, had been overcast on the white dimity, and which looked when the wind stirred them, for there was no glass and only a batten shutter, as if all the winged denizens of the brilliant tropics were seeking entrance to this happy bower; the room had an added woodland suggestion because of the bark adhering to the logs of the walls, for the timbers of these primitive houses were unhewn, although the daubing and the chinking were stout and close, and with the aid of the great flaring fires stood off Jack Frost with a very valiant bluff. So many things had she brought in small compass. When the fire was a-flicker on a dull wintry afternoon, and the snow a-whirl outside, and the tropical birds quite still on their shadowy perches against the closed batten shutters, Odalie, Hamish, Fifine, and the cat were wont to congregate together and sit on the buffalo rug spread on the puncheon floor beside the hearth, and explore sundry horns of buffalo or elk in which many small articles of varying degrees of value had been compactly packed. They all seemed of an age--and this a young age--when the joyous exclamations arose upon the recognition of sundry treasured trifles whose utility had begun to be missed. "My emery bag!" her eyes dewy with delight, "and oh, my cake of wax!" "And Lord!" exclaimed Hamish, "there's my bullet-mould--whoever would have thought of that!" "And your new ribbon; 'tis a very pretty piece," and Odalie let the lustrous undulations catch the firelight as she reeled it out. "The best taffeta to tie up your queue." [Illustration: "And oh, the moment of housewifely pride!"] "I don't intend to plait my hair in a queue any more," Hamish declared contemptuously. "The men in this country," he continued with a lofty air, "have too much men's work to do to busy themselves with plaiting hair and wearing a bobbing pig-tail at their ears." He shook his own dangling curls as he spoke. Fifine babbled out an assortment of words with many an ellipsis and many a breathy aspiration which even those accustomed to the infant infirmities of her tongue could with difficulty interpret. Both Odalie and Hamish, bending attentive eyes upon her, discerned at last the words to mean that Mr. Gilfillan had no hair to plait. At this Hamish looked blank for a moment and in consternation; Odalie exclaimed, "Oh, oh!" but Fifine infinitely admired Mr. Gilfillan, and nothing doubted him worthy of imitation. "I'll have none, but for a different reason. I'll cut my lovely locks close with Odalie's shears as soon as she finds them," Hamish declared. He did not dream that they were already found and bestowed in a safe nook in a crevice between the chinking where they would not be again discovered in a hurry, for he had earlier expressed his determination to forsake the gentility of long hair in emulation of sundry young wights, the roaring blades of single men about the settlement. Odalie was too tactful to remonstrate. "And oh!" she exclaimed with a sort of ecstasy. "My pouncet-box! how sweet! _delicieux!_" She presented the gold filigree at the noses successively of Hamish and Fifine and the cat, all of whom sniffed in polite ecstasy, but Kitty suddenly wiped her nose with her paw several times and then began to wash her face. "My poppet! my poppet!" cried Fifine, ecstatically, as a quaint and tiny wooden doll of a somewhat Dutch build and with both arms stretched out straight was fished out. She snuggled it up to her lips in rapture, then showed it to the cat, who evidently recognized it, and as it was danced seductively before her on the buffalo rug, put out her paw and with a delicate tentative gesture and intent brow was about to play with it after her fashion of toying with a mouse, when one of her claws caught in a mesh of the doll's bobinet skirt. Now the doll's finery, while limited in compass to minuteness, was very fine, and as Josephine's short shriek of indignation, "_Quelle barbarie!_" arose on the air, the cat turned around carrying the splendidly arrayed poppet off on her unwilling claw--to be lost, who knew where, in the wilderness! The frantic little owner seized the tail of the _mignonne toute chérie_, which sent up a wail of poignant discordance; the romping Hamish, with a wicked mimicry of the infantile babbling cry, "_Quelle barbarie!_" impeded the progress of Fifine by catching the skirt of her little jacket, called a josie; whereupon Odalie, imitating his dislocated French accent and boyish hoarseness in the exclamation, "_Quelle barbarie!_" laid hold upon his long curly hair, held together by a ribbon as an apology for a pig-tail. There ensued an excited scramble around on the buffalo rug before the fire, during which the horn was turned over and some of its small treasures escaped amidst the long fur. This brought Odalie to a pause, for the lost articles were buttons of French gilt, and they must be found in the fur and counted; for did they not belong to Sandy's best blue coat, and could not be dispensed with? In the course of the merry-go-round the cat's claw had become disentangled from the doll's frock. Fifine had released the clutch of reprisal on the cat's tail. Hamish had been visited with a fear that the end of Fifine's josie might give way in rents before her obstinacy would relax; and Odalie had not the heart to pull his hair with more cruelty than she had heretofore indulged. So the magic circle gave way by its own impulse as it had formed, and all the heads were once more bent together in earnest absorption in the search and the subsequent disclosures of the buffalo horn. Such choice symposia as these were usually reserved for the dusk of the afternoon in bad weather when the outdoor work was done, and Odalie--her house all in order--needed more light for her other vocations. It was quite incredible how soon a loom was set up and warping-bars constructed, and all the details in motion of that pioneer home life, which added the labor and interests of domestic manufacture to the other absorbing duties of the housewife that have survived in these times of machinery and delegated responsibility. These were the holiday moments of the day, but once when the mother and the little girl and the cat sat intent upon the rug, their treasures spread before them, Odalie's face paled and her heart almost sprang into her mouth as she heard Hamish's step outside, quick and disordered. As he burst into the room she knew by his eyes that something of grave import had happened. And yet, as she faced him speechless, he said nothing. She noted his uncaring casual glance at that potent fascinator, the buffalo horn, and his hasty, unsettled gesture. He seemed resolved not to speak--then he suddenly exclaimed solemnly:-- "Odalie, there is the prettiest creature in this settlement that you ever saw in your life--and--the gracefullest!" "A fawn?" said the mercurial Odalie, who recovered her poise as suddenly as it was shaken. He looked at her in a daze for a moment. "A fawn? What absurdity!" "Nothing less than a dear, I must needs be sure." He apprehended her sarcasm. Then, too absorbed to be angry, he reverted to himself. "Oh," he cried with bitterness, "why do you let me go about in worshipful company with my hair like this?--" he clutched at his tousled locks. "Yes--yes, I see. It always goes to the head," said Odalie, demurely. "Don't laugh at me," he exclaimed, "but how had you the heart--and Sandy's hair always in such trim-wise, and you and Fifine like people of fashion." Odalie could but laugh in truth; she had known such splendors as colonial life at that day could present and she was well aware how the ill-equipped wife of a pioneer on the furthest frontier failed of that choice aspect. "I thought," she said, still laughing, "that you were ambitious of the fashion of such coiffure as Mr. Gilfillan affects--oh, poor man!--and had made up your mind to plait your hair no more." Hamish took this very ill, and in dudgeon would not divulge the name and quality of the fair maiden the sight of whom had so gone to his head. But it was the next evening only that they were to attend a ball in the officers' mess-hall at the fort, in celebration of the joys of Christmastide, and Odalie perceived the rancor of resentment gradually departing when he came and begged--not her pardon--but that she would do him the infinite favor to plait his hair. Try as he would, and he had tried for an hour, he could not achieve a coiffure that seemed satisfactory to him in the solicitous state of his feelings. This ceremony she performed, perched upon what she called a _tabouret_, which was nothing but a stout, square billet of wood with a cover and valance of a dull blue fustian, while he sat at her feet, and Sandy looked on with outward gravity, but with a twinkle in his sober eyes that made Hamish's blood boil to realize that she had told his brother of the sudden reason for a change of heart touching the mode of wearing his hair, and that they had quietly laughed at him about it. Nevertheless, now he valued every strand of it as if it were spun gold, and would have parted with it as hardly. The Christmas ball was indeed an affair of much splendor. Profuse wreaths of holly, with berries all aflame, decorated the walls of the great hall, and among them the lines of buffalo horns and the antlers of deer and the waving banners showed with enhanced effect. From the centre of the ceiling the mystic mistletoe depended with such suggestively wide-spreading boughs that it might seem that no fair guest could hope to escape the penalty; this was the broad jest of the masculine entertainers. The hosts, all the commissioned officers being present, were in full uniform, seeming brilliant against the decorated walls and in the great flare of the fire; even lace ruffles were to be seen and many a queue was braided and tied as fairly as Hamish's own. A huge Yule log, such as could not be discredited by any that had ever sent up sparks and flame at this sacred season, made the great chimney place one vast scarlet glow; the door of necessity stood open, although the snow was on the ground, and the dark, bare branches of the rows of trees left in military alignment, down the centre of the parade, whitely glimmered with frost and ice akin to the chilly glitter of the wintry stars which they seemed to touch with their topmost boughs. The garrison had been surprised on the previous midnight by the sudden outbreak of the sound on the icy air of certain familiar old Christmas carols sung by a few of the soldiers, who had the memory and the voice to compass the feat, and who had been wont for a time to steal off to the woods to rehearse in secret, in order to bring to the Yule-tide, so surely coming, even to these far-away fastnesses, something of the blithe association and yet the spirit of sanctity of the old remembered Yule-tides of long distances agone both of time and place. The enthusiasm that this reminder awakened nullified all thought of the breach of discipline. The singers were summoned into the hall by the commandant, and the embers stirred up, and they drank his health and the king's as long as he dared let them have the liquor. And now, all unseen in the darkness, the waits were stationed at a little distance to mellow the sound, and were singing these old Christmas carols while the guests gathered. The rough martial voices rang out with a sort of jubilant solemnity and a strongly defined _tempo giusto_, very natural to men who "mark time" for their sins, and whose progress through life is to the sound of the drum. The iterative beat pulsed through the open doors to the groups about the big Yule-tide fires and those coming in out of the dark wilderness, not daring to stir without firelock, knife, and pistol, for fear of a treacherous foe. And in the hearts and minds of the full-armed guests was roused a sentiment not new but half-forgotten, to hear in those confident, mellow, assured tones-- "God rest ye, merry gentlemen, Let nothing ye dismay; For Jesus Christ our Saviour Was born upon this day." Between each stanza when silence came unwelcome to the ear and the chatter of tongues seemed dull and trivial a bugle sang out suddenly, its golden-sweet notes vibrating and ringing in the air in the intervals of this sweet old hymning theme. After this tribute, such as they could pay to the holier character of the day and the reminder of home, the festivity and jollity began. The introduction was auspicious and touched the sense of the picturesque of those to whom life was wont to show but a sordid aspect. The settlers were pleased with the pomp and ceremony of their reception, genuinely delighted with the effect of the carols and the summoning up of old memories and homing thoughts so tenderly stirred, satisfied with themselves and disposed to admire each other. One would hardly have believed that there was so much finery in the settlement--of different dates and fashions, it is true, and various nationalities. The wife of one settler wore a good gown of brocade, although her husband seemed quite assured in his buckskins. Two or three heads were held the higher from a proud consciousness of periwigs[7] and powder. Mrs. Halsing had a tall, curious comb of filigree silver and great silver ear-rings, a sad-colored stuff gown, but a queer foreign apron across which were two straight bands of embroidery of a pattern and style that might have graced a museum; Odalie, the expert, determined that the day was not far distant when she should sue for the privilege of examining the stitch. She herself was clad in the primrose-flowered paduasoy, with a petticoat of dark red satin and all her Mechlin lace for a fichu, while pearls--her grand'maman's necklace--were in her dark hair. Mrs. Beedie had woven her own frock with her own sturdy hands, and with a fresh mob-cap on her head and a very fresh rose on her cheek actively danced the whole night through. The widow of the man who had come hither to forward his passion for the ministry to the Indian savages, and who had lost his life in the fruitless effort, now probably deemed dissent a grievous folly and had returned to earlier ways of thinking and conventional standards. She wore no weeds--one could not here alter the fashion of one's dress, the immutable thing, for so transitory a matter as grief. She regarded the scene with the face of one who has little share, although she wore a puce-colored satin with some fine lace frills and a modish cap on her thin hair. But the daughter! With a lordly carriage of her delicate head that might have been reminiscent of her grandfather, the bishop, and yet joyous girlish red lips, full and smiling and set about with deep dimples; with her hair of red-gold, and sapphire eyes, she was eminently calculated to shatter what poor remnant of peace of mind the young ensign and two young lieutenants who clustered about her had been able to keep in this desert place--the more precarious since it was well understood that the fair Belinda had high expectations, and as to matrimonial bait hoped for the opportunity to "bob for whale." This gay exile herself, born and reared in the provinces and surrounded always by the little court her beauty summoned about her, did not look forward to a life on the frontier. She anticipated at some time an invasion of England and a life worthy the brilliance of her aspect, and occasionally when her interlocutors were such as could attribute to her no braggart pride, she would mention that she had relatives there--of good quality--who would doubtless be glad to receive her. The mother, poor sad-visaged martyr of deceit, would only draw her thin wrinkled collapsed lips the closer, holding hard hidden the fact that the girl's father had been looked upon by these relatives "of good quality" as a monster of ingratitude, and at the same time as a candidate for a strait waist-coat, whose apostasy and voluntary exile had hastened the good bishop's old age and broken his heart; that the children of the ingrate would be avoided by this conventional clique, like the leprosy, and esteemed sure to develop sooner or later terrible and infinitely inconvenient heresies, and occasion heaven only knew what bouleversement in any comely and orthodox and reasonable method of life. She had not much vigor of sentiment, but such flicker of hatred as could burn among the ashes of her nature glowed toward those who had cut her husband off and ostracized him, and made of his earnest sacrificial effort to do his duty, as it was revealed to him, a scoff, a burlesque, a reproach, and a bitter caricature. She knew, too, how much of money, of dress, and of connections it would require to return to that country where they would have no base from which to organize the brave campaign that the brilliantly equipped daughter contemplated with such gay and confident courage. The girl's brother, however, Hamilton Rush, five years her senior, forgetting that he was the grandson of a prelate and the son of a martyr by election, bent all the energies he had inherited from both in the effort to build up home and wealth and a fair future in this rich land, which held out such bounties to the strong hand and the brave heart. He was here to-night, looking on at the scene of pleasure with as absent and absorbed a face as a London stockbroker might have worn in the midst of a financial crisis. The brilliant mirage before the shining anticipative eyes of the fair Belinda did not preclude her from entering with youthful ardor into these festivities now _faute de mieux_ garbed in a canary-colored tabby, of which the moiré effect, as we should say nowadays, glistened and shoaled in the light and the luster of the silk. It was worn opening over a skirt of white satin with yellow stripes, enclosing in each a delicate pattern of a vine of roses in several natural tints from pink to a deep purplish red, all having that sere sort of freshness which comes from solicitous preservation rather than newness--like a pressed flower; one might imagine that garbed thus the galvanized widow had captured the affections of the bishop's son, not then perhaps so severely ascetic of outlook. But Miss Belinda danced as graciously with the ensign as if she had no splendid ulterior views, and graced the minuet which Odalie and Captain Demeré led. Hamish looking at them thought that though she was as unlike Odalie as a splendid tulip differs from the stately, tender sweetness of the aspect of a white rose, they both adorned the dance like flowers in a parterre. He resolved with a glow of fraternal pride that he would tell Odalie how beautiful she was in her primrose-tinted gown and deep red jupon with her dark hair rolled high, and its string of white pearls, her step so deliberate and smooth with its precision of grace as with uplifted clasped hands she and the officer opened the dance. This minuet was a splendid maze to Hamish's limited experience, as the firelight glowed and flashed on the scarlet uniforms and the delicate, dainty tints of the gowns of the ladies, giving out the gloss of satin and now and again showing the soft whiteness of a bare arm held upward to the clasp of a partner's hand in a lace ruffle and a red sleeve in the graceful attitudes prescribed by the dance. The measured and stately step, the slow, smooth whirl, the swinging changing postures, the fair smiling faces and shining eyes, all seemed curiously enhanced by the environment--the background of boughs of holly on the walls, and the military suggestions of the metallic flashing of the arms resting on the line of deer antlers that encircled the room--it was like a bird singing its roundelay perched in a cannon's mouth. Hamish himself stood against the wall, and for a time it may be doubted if any one saw how very handsomely his "lovely locks" were plaited, so did he court the shadows. Sandy noted with secret amusement how persistently the boy's eyes followed the beautiful Miss Rush, for it was evident that she was nineteen or twenty years of age, at least three years older than her latest admirer. Despite his sudden infatuation, however, Hamish was a person of excellent good sense, and he soon saw the fatuity of this worship from afar. "Let the ensign and the lieutenants pine to death," he thought--then with the rough old frontier joke, "I'm saving _my_ scalp for the Injuns." Nevertheless he was acutely glad that his hair was like a gentleman's, and when he finally ventured out of the crowd he secured, to his great elation, a partner for one of the contra-dances that succeeded the minuet, for the men so greatly outnumbered the women that this argued considerable enterprise on a newcomer's part. Hamish had determined to dance, if with nobody but Mrs. Halsing; but there were other girlish flowers, somewhat overshadowed by the queens of the parterre, whom he found when his eyes had lost their dazing gloat upon the beauty of the belle of the settlement--mere little daisies or violets, as near half wild as himself, knowing hardly more of civilized society than he did. Most of these were clad in bright homespun; one or two were so very young that they found it amazing sport, and in truth so did he, although he had the style of patronizing the enterprise, to plunge out of the great hall and scamper across the snowy parade to a room, emptied by the gradual exhaustion of the munitions it had contained, and now devoted to the entertainment of the children of the settlers, who it is needless to say had come necessarily with the elder members of the pioneer families to participate in the gayeties of the fort. It was a danger not to be contemplated to leave them in the wholly deserted settlement; so, sequestered here in this big room, bare of all but holly boughs upon the wall and a great fire and a bench or two about the chimney corner, they added _éclat_ to the occasion of the officers' ball by reason of the enthusiastic spirit that pervaded the Christmas games under the direction of Corporal O'Flynn. He had been delegated to supervise and control the juvenile contingent, being constituted master of the revels. With his wild Irish spirit aflame he was in his element. A finer looking Bruin than he was when enveloped in a great bearskin never came out of the woods, and certainly none more active as he chased the youthful pioneers, who were screaming shrilly, from one side of the hall to the other. As "Poor Puss" he struggled frantically for a corner, failing, however, when a settler of the advanced age of four, but mighty enterprising, made in swiftly between his knees, gave him a tremendous fall, and gained the coveted goal. "Mily, mily bright" was infinitely enlivened by the presence of the recruits from the ball-room, and the romp became tumultuous when Hamish undertook the _rôle_ of one of the witches that waited by the way to intercept those--among whom was the corporal--who sought to get there by "candle-light," and who were assured that they could do this if their "legs were long enough." When he pursued the soldier and his juvenile party from one side of the room to the other, winding and doubling and almost tumbling into the fire, the delighted screams of the children were as loud and shrill as if they were all being scalped, and caused the sentries in the block-house towers to look in surprise and doubt in that direction more than once, and finally brought Captain Stuart from the officers' quarters to see for himself what was going on. As he stood in the door with his imperious face, his bluff manner, his military dress, and his great muscular height, the children, inspired by that love of the incongruous which always characterizes childhood, swarmed about him with the insistence that he should be blindfolded in Blindman's Buff. And surely he proved the champion blind man of the world! After one benighted stumbling rush half across the room, amidst a storm of squealing ecstasy, he plunged among his pygmy enemies with such startling success as to have caught two or three by the hair of their heads with one hand, while with the other he was laying about him with such discrimination that his craft became apparent. He was not playing fair!--he could see!--he peeped! he peeped! and his laugh being much resented, he was put to the door by his small enemies, who evidently expected him to feel such repentance as he might experience if he were to be court-martialed. O'Flynn, watching him go off across the snowy shadowy parade, noticed that he did not at once return to the open door of the great hall where the swirl of the dance could be seen in a kaleidoscopic glow of color, and whence the glad music came forth in a mellow gush of sound; but stood at some little distance watching the progress of the corporal of the guard, who with the relief was on his way to the posts of the sentinels; then Stuart disappeared within one of the block-houses, evidently ascending to the tower; after an interval he came out and again traversed the parade, going diagonally across the whole enclosure without doubt to the block-house at the further bastion; thus from these two coigns of vantage he could survey the whole of the region on the four sides of the fort. "I'll go bail, ould Foxy," said Corporal O'Flynn, apostrophizing his superior officer under his breath, "that there's nothin' that your sharp eyes doesn't see--if it's just a snake takin' advantage o' the privacy o' the dark hour to slough his skin. But I'd give ye," he hesitated, "me blessin', if you'd tell me what 'tis ye're lookin' for. I want to know, not from a meddlesome sphirit, but jist from sheer curiosity--because my mother was a woman an' not a witch." For Captain Stuart had encountered a difficulty in these simple backwoods Christmas festivities which was altogether unexpected. He had diligently considered the odds against success, in which, however, the chief seemed the lack of appropriate refreshment, for one could not serve venison and buffalo and wild fowl to hunters as luxuries, and the limited compass and utilitarian character of the goods sent from the base of supplies over the mountains rendered even the accumulation of the requisite materials for the punch-bowl a matter of forethought and skilled strategy. After the wheat-bread had been secured to make the ramequins this feature came near to being dropped because of the difficulty of obtaining the simple ingredients of eggs and cheese to compound the farce wherewith they should be spread. But this too had been accomplished. The method of providing for the safety and entertainment of the children of the settlers, without whom they could not leave home yet whose presence would have hindered if not destroyed the enjoyment of the elders, seemed a stroke of genius. The soldiers and non-commissioned officers were satisfactorily assigned a share in the entertainment appropriate to their military rank and in consonance with their taste, and were even now carousing gayly in their quarters, where there was more Christmas spirit in circulation than spirituous liquor, for the commandant's orders were niggardly indeed as to serving out the portions of tafia, not in the interests of temperance so much as of discipline in view of their perilous situation so far from help, so alone in the midst of hordes of inimical savages; his parsimony in this regard passed with them as necessity, since they knew that rum was hard to come by, and even this meager dole was infrequent and a luxury. Therefore they drank their thimbleful with warm hearts and cool heads; the riotous roared out wild songs and vied with one another in wrestling matches or boxing encounters; the more sedate played cards or dominoes close in to the light of the flaring fire, or listened with ever fresh interest to the great stories often told by the gray-headed drum-major who had served under the Duke of Cumberland in foreign lands, and promptly smote upon the mouth any man who spoke of his royal highness as "Billy the Butcher";[8] for there were Scotchmen in the garrison intolerant of the title of "Hero of Culloden," having more or less remote associations with an experience delicately mentioned in Scotland as "being out in the Forty-five." With each fresh narration the drum-major produced new historical details of the duke's famous fields and added a few to the sum of the enemies killed and wounded, till it seemed that if the years should spare him, it would one day be demonstrated that the warlike William Augustus had in any specified battle slain more men by sword and bayonet and good leaden ball than were ever mustered into any army on the face of the earth. All the soldiers were in their spruce parade trim, and every man had a bunch of holly in his hat. Even the Indians had been considered. In response to the invitation, they had sent the previous day their symbolic white swan's wings painted with streaks of white clay, and these were conspicuously placed in the decorated hall. The gates of the fort that morning had been flung wide open to all who would come. Tafia--in judiciously small quantities, it is true--was served to the tribesmen about the parade, but the head-men, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, Willinawaugh, Rayetaeh, Otacite, more than all, Oconostota, the king of the Cherokee nation, were escorted to the great hall of the officers' quarters, the latter on the arm of Captain Stuart himself; the Indian king, being a trifle lame of one leg,--he was known among the soldiers as "Old Hop,"--was evidently pleased by the exceptional attention and made the most of his infirmity, leaning heavily on the officer's arm. Arrayed in their finest fur robes with beautiful broad collars of white swan's down about their necks, with their faces mild and devoid of paint, seated in state before the great fire, the head-men were regaled with French brandy, duly diluted, and the best Virginia tobacco, offered in very curious pipes, which, with some medals and gorgets imported for the purpose, were presented as gifts when the ceremony was concluded, and which the Cherokees accepted with a show of much pleasure; indeed, they conducted themselves always under such circumstances with a very good grace and a certain dignity and propriety of feeling which almost amounted to good breeding. This was maintained when, invited by the commandant, they witnessed the dress parade, especially elaborate in honor of the occasion, and they listened attentively when Captain Stuart made a short address to the troops on the subject of the sacred character of the day and adjured them in a frank and soldierly fashion to have a care that they maintained the moral discipline in which they had all been drilled and gave no advantage to the Enemy because they were here, cut off from the main body of Christianity, so far from the ministrations of a chaplain and the beneficent usages of civilization. "Every soldier learns command from obedience," he said. "And if I should send a detail from the ranks on some special duty, the file-leader would know how to command it, although he had never given an order in his life. You are each, with all your spiritual forces, detached on special duty. You are veteran soldiers of the Cross and under marching orders!" Oconostota, with a kingly gesture, signified that the interpreter should repeat in his ear this discourse, and now and again nodded his head during its translation with cogitation and interest, and as if he understood and approved it. He watched too, as if with sympathy, the ranks go suddenly down upon their knees, as the commandant read the collect for the day followed by the unanimous delivery of the Lord's prayer, in their hearty, martial voices. After the tap of the drum had given a resonant "Amen!" they marched off upon the word and broke ranks; and such little observance as the fort could offer in commemoration of the event was over. The Indians all realized this, and were soon loitering out of the great gate, the commandant receiving their compliments upon the good behavior of his "young men" and their fine appearance, an elaborate and flowery speech of farewell. Then Oconostota took his presents, by far the largest and most elaborate of the collection, and, leaning on Stuart's arm, left the fort, the officer attending him in this fashion down to the river-bank, where his pettiaugre awaited him. Stuart evolved, apparently without effort, a felicitous phrase of farewell and esteem, graded carefully to suit the rank of the other head-men who followed with Captain Demeré and several lieutenants. These words, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, a Cherokee of an intelligent, spirited countenance, either had the good feeling or the art to seem to especially value. "Such smoke as goes up from this pipe between my face and your face, my friend," he said through the interpreter, "shall never come between you and me. I shall always see you very clear, for I know your heart. Your ways are strange; you come from a far place; but I know you well, for I know your heart." He laid his hand for a moment on the broad chest of the red coat of the tall, blond officer, then stepped into the canoe, and the little craft shoved off to join a very fleet of canoes, so full was the shining surface of the river of Indians who had come from the towns above to the celebration of the "big Sunday"[D] at the fort. Captain Stuart felt relieved that all had gone off so well and that they were rid of the Cherokees for the day. But now the unforeseen was upon him, the fatally uncovenanted event for which none can prepare. An express had come after nightfall from over the mountains, bringing, besides the mail, rumors of another Indian outbreak on the South Carolina frontier. A number of settlers had been massacred, and the perpetrators of the deed had escaped unpunished. Stuart, charging the man to say nothing of his news to blight the Christmas festivities--since the reports might not be true--sent him to make merry among the soldiers. Anxiety had taken possession of that stout heart of Stuart's. When the settlers had begun to gather to the ball, the earliest arrivals brought no suggestion of difficulty. The next comers, however, had seen straggling bands of Indians across the river, but they were mentioned casually and with no sense of premonition. The guests to enter last had been somewhat surprised to notice numbers of canoes at the landing-place, and presently Captain Stuart was called aside by the officer of the day, who stated that in making the rounds he had learned that the sentinel at the gate had reported having observed bands of Indians lurking about on the edge of the woods, and that quite a number had come, singly and in groups, to the gate to demand admission. The gathering of the white people had roused their attention evidently. They had always held the cannon-mounted fort and the presence of the soldiery as a menace, and they now sought to discern what this unprecedented assemblage might portend. If their entrance were resisted, they who so often frequented the place, it was obviously inimical to them. They had heard--for the transmission of news among the Indians was incredibly swift--of the massacres on the frontier and feared some effort at reprisal. The scanty numbers of the garrison invited their blood-thirsty rapacity, but they were awed by the cannon, and although entertaining vague ideas concerning the management and scope of artillery, realized its terrible potencies. Perhaps it was with some idea of forcing an entrance by surprise--that they might be within the walls of the fort and out of the range of the guns at this critical juncture of the massing of the forces of the settlers and the garrison--that a party of thirty or forty Cherokees suddenly rushed past the sentinel on the counterscarp, who had hardly time to level his firelock and to call lustily on the guard. The guard at once turning out, the soldiers met the onset of the savages at the gate and bore them back with the bayonet. There was the sudden, quick iterative tramp on the frozen ground of a man running at full speed, and as Stuart dashed through the sally-port he called out "Bar the gates! Bar the gates!" in a wild, imperative voice. In another moment he was standing outside among the savages, saying blandly in Cherokee, of which he had mastered sundry phrases--"How now, my friends,--my best friends!" and holding out his hand with his frank, genial manner first to one of the Indians, then to another. They looked upon his hand in disdain and spat upon the ground. The sentry in the gate-house above, his firelock ready leveled to his shoulder, gazed down at the officer, as he stood with his back to the heavy iron-spiked oaken gates; there was light enough in the reflection of the snow, that made a yellow moon, rising higher and higher into the blue night and above the brown, shadowy woods, seem strangely intense of color, and in the melancholy radiation from its weird, gibbous disk to show the officer's calm, impassive face; his attitude, with his arms folded, the rejected hand withdrawn; even the gold lace on his red coat and the color of his hair in the thick braid that hung down under his cocked hat. Even the latent expectation might be discerned in his eyes that the interval of silence would prove too irksome to the hot impulse, which had nerved the rush on the gates, to be long continued, and that the moment would reveal the leader and the purpose of the demonstration. A Cherokee stepped suddenly forward--a man with a tuft of eagle feathers on his scalp-lock quivering with angry agitation, his face smeared with vermilion, clad in the buckskin shirt and leggings that the settlers had copied from the Indians, with pistols at his belt as well as a firelock in one hand--the barrel sawed off short to aid its efficacy. The air was bitterly cold, but the blood blazed hot in his face; in Cherokee he spoke and he paused for no interpreter; if the _unaka_ Captain did not understand him, so much the worse for the _unaka_ Captain. Through his teeth the tense swift utterances came in half-suppressed breathless tones, save when a sudden loud exclamation now and again whizzed out on the air like the ascent of a bursting rocket. His fury was such that even without the disguise of the paint on his face, Stuart might hardly have recognized him were it not for his peculiarly sinewy, slight elegance of shape. He had advanced one foot and he brandished his tomahawk--a furious gesture, but without immediate intention, for now and again he thrust the weapon into his belt. "The white captain calls on his friends--and where are they? Not on the outside of these great guns that bar us from our own. The fort is ours! _To-e-u-hah!_ It is our own. _To-e-u-hah!_[E] Did we not bargain for it in solemn treaty! Did we not make our peace and smoke our pipe and give our belts of white wampum and sign names to the treaty we made with the white English? _Wahkane?_[F] Did we not join his cause and fight his battles and shed our blood in his wars against the French? _Wahkane_, John Stuart, _wahkane_? And for what? That the great King George should build us some forts in our nation to protect our women and children, our old men and our young boys while the Cherokee braves are away fighting the battles of this great King George against the French--yes, and to make strong the arm of our warriors should the French come here with the great guns like these, that make naught of the small gun,"--he looked scornfully at the firelock and shook it in his left hand--"and the bow and arrows--"he spat upon the ground. "And what does the great Earl of Loudon? He builds this fort for which we have paid with our blood! blood! blood!--these guns bought with long marches and burnt towns and the despiteful usage of the Virginians"--once more he spat upon the ground. "And then he sends his redcoat soldiers to hold our fort from us and man our great guns and be a threat and a danger forever to our peace and make us slaves to the fear of the great cannon! _Yo-he-wah! Yo-he-wah!_[G] And when we send a talk to tell him this, he sends more soldiers! And the white men gather together for grief to the red man, and take the Indians' fort paid for with the Indians' blood and turn the great cannon against him who bought them with a dear price, and bar out his entrance from his own"--the foam flew from his lips. "You call on your friend--where?" He turned a scornful fiery face to look at the scornful fiery faces about him. "Where?" "Here!" Captain Stuart's calm, full voice struck the vibrating air at least an octave lower than the keen, high vociferation of the Cherokee. "Here is my friend! That is the moon, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, _neus-se a-nan-to-ge_"[H]--he lifted his arm and with his debonair, free gesture pointed at it. "Another sun has not risen. And yet this day, and before the sun was high, you told me that naught should come between you and me. You told me that even a cloud coming between you and me could not separate us because you knew my heart--and my heart swelled with pride at your words." He hesitated for a moment; he detected a sudden change in the Indian's face. "My heart swelled with pride," he went on, firmly, "for I believed you! And I believe you still, for"--he laid his hand on the Cherokee's breast in imitation of the gesture of Atta-Kulla-Kulla as he repeated Atta-Kulla-Kulla's words--"for I know _your heart_." There was a moment of tense silence. Then not waiting for the dramatic effect to be lost, he continued: "And now, if you say it is not well to shut the gates on this array of braves, I open them! I come here because I am sent--a _unaka_ soldier has no will of his own. He is held to a strict law, and has no liberty such as your young fighting men, who sometimes grow rash, however, and make the wisdom of the plans of your 'beloved men,' your sage councils, mere folly. The Earl of Loudon sent the garrison here. Perhaps if you send a 'talk' to the new head-man, General Amherst, he will take the soldiers away. I go or stay according to orders--I march at a word. But to-night the children of the settlers make merry. I told you this morning of our religion. This day is the festival of the Child. So the children make merry--you can hear them now at their play." And indeed there was a sharp, wild squealing upon the air, and Stuart hoped that the beat of the dancing feet might be supposed to be of their making and the sound of the music for their behoof--for the dance of the Indians often heralds war and is not for sheer joy. "The parents bring them here and share their mirth. For this is the festival of the Child. Now your warriors are brave and splendid and terrible to look upon. If they go through the gates, the little children would be smitten with fear; the heart of a little child is like a leaf in the wind--so moved by fear. Do not the Cherokee children flee from me--who am not a great warrior and have not even paint for my face--when I come to visit you at Nachey Creek. Say the word--and I open the gates." There was something in this Cherokee which Stuart saw both then and afterward, and which also attracted the attention of others, that indicated not only an acute and subtle intelligence and a natural benignity, but a wide and varied scope of emotion, truly remarkable in a savage without education, of course, and without even the opportunity of observing those of a higher culture and exercising sentiments esteemed of value and grace in a civilized appraisement. Yet he was experiencing as poignant a humiliation to be convicted of an ungenerous attitude of mind and upbraided with a protest belied as if he had been a Knight of the Round Table, bred to noble thoughts as well as to chivalrous deeds of arms, and had never taken the scalp of a child or treacherously slain a sleeping enemy. Stuart could feel the Cherokee's heart beat fast under his hand. Atta-Kulla-Kulla grasped it suddenly in his own, gripping it hard for a moment, while with his other hand he waved a command for his men to retire, which they did, slowly, with lowering, surprised eyes and clouded brows. "Go back!" he said to Stuart. "Hold the gate fast. You make your feast. Keep it. I believe your words. And because--" there was a slight convulsion of his features--"of the wicked ways of the wicked Earl Loudon I have forgot to-night my words I said to-day, I say them again--and I do not always forget!" He turned suddenly and went down toward the river, the sad, yellow moon sending his brown, elongated shadow with its quivering tuft of feathers far along the stretches of white snow. Captain Stuart paused for a moment, leaning heavily against the gate; then as he slipped within it and into the shadow of the wall, he was full glad to hear the dancing feet, all unconscious of the danger that had been so near, and the childish treble scream of the unscalped children. "A little more, and there would have been another massacre of the innocents," he said, walking slowly across the parade; he had hardly the strength for a speedier gait. He rescinded the order concerning the hour at which "tattoo" and "lights out" should sound. "For," he thought, noticing the cheerful groups in the soldiers' quarters, "I could get them under arms much more quickly if awake than by drumming them up out of their beds in barracks." He carried no sign of the agitation and the significance of the interview just past when he returned to the prismatic tinted swirl of the dancing figures in the flaring light of the great fire, made more brilliant by the glow of the holly boughs and the flutter of banners and the flash of steel from the decorated walls about them. He, too, trod a gay measure with the fair Belinda Rush, and never looked more at ease and care-free and jovially imperious than in the character of gallant host. Even in the gray dawn as he stood at the sally-port of the fort and there took leave of the guests, as group by group departed, he was as debonair and smiling throughout the handshaking as though the revels were yet to begin. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote D: The Indians in North Carolina called the Christmas holidays _Winick-kesbuse_, or "the Englishman's God's moon."] [Footnote E: It is most true.] [Footnote F: Is it not so?] [Footnote G: It has been maintained that this exclamation constantly used by the Cherokees in solemn adjuration signified "Jehovah."] [Footnote H: Literally "the sun of the night."] CHAPTER VI Breakfast, the rigorous cleaning of the quarters, guard mounting, and inspection, followed in their usual sequence, but the morning drills were omitted to give the opportunity to recruit from the vigils of the previous night, protracted, as the soldiers began to suspect, that they might be in readiness to respond to an onslaught of the savages. For Captain Stuart made no effort to restrain the story of the scene at the gate, since the sentries were already cognizant of it; he always saw fit to maintain before the troops an attitude of extreme frankness, as if the officers suppressed no intelligence, whatever its character, even with the intention of conducing to the public good. In the great hall in the block-house of the northwestern bastion, when the officers were congregated about the fire, in the rude arm-chairs, and their pipes lighted, he divulged without reserve the news which the express had brought. In an instant all the garnered sweetness of the retrospect of the little holiday they had made for themselves and their co-exiles was turned to gall. It even held bitter dregs of remorse. "And we were dancing all the night through while you knew this horrible thing!" exclaimed Captain Demeré, his voice tense with reproach. "Lord!--it happened three weeks ago, Paul," returned Stuart, "if it happened at all! Some of the settlers had already come. I did not feel qualified to balk the children and the young people of their enjoyment--or the elders, either. The world will go on after such tragedies. It must, you know." He pulled at his pipe, meditatively. "To have called a halt could have done those poor fellows no good," he nodded toward the south, "and might have done us incalculable harm. There had already been a demonstration of the Indians, before the express came in, because they had noticed the gathering of the guests, and I thought the settlers safer congregated in the fort until daybreak than going home scattered through the night. This is no time or place to give ceremonious deference to questions of feeling." "Was there a demonstration of the Indians last night, Captain?" asked Lieutenant Gilmore. Stuart detailed both occurrences at the gate. "Without the chief's guaranty I don't see how we could have let the settlers go this morning," he concluded. Demeré frowned deeply as he sat upright in his chair and gazed at the fire. "You have great presence of mind in these queer emergencies, John," he said. "For my life I could not have thought how to get rid of them peaceably--to offer to open the gates!" "I can't soothe the Indians," said Ensign Whitson, with a quick flush. "My gorge rises at the very sight of them." "If a dog licks my hand, I must needs pat him on the head," said Stuart, lounging easily among the soft rugs that covered the chair. "But if a wolf licks your hand, sir, would you pat him on the head?" asked the ensign. "A wolf will not lick my hand," retorted the superior officer. "Besides, my young friend, bear this in mind,--if this dog is not patted on the head, he will fly not only at my throat, but at the throat of the garrison and of the settlement as well." There was silence for a time, while the flames of the great fire sprang elastically upward in the strong draught with an impetuous roar. The holly boughs and the banners stirred fitfully on the wall. The men's heads were surrounded by tobacco smoke. Demeré sat upright, meditative, with one elbow on the table. Stuart was lolling far back in the soft fur rugs that covered the great chair, his hat on the floor behind him, where it had fallen off his dense, blond hair, which so much attracted the curiosity and admiration of the swarthy Indians. "And then," he said suddenly, drawing some official letter-books and files from the table, and fluttering the pages with one hand while he held the pipe-stem with the other, "were we not admonished to be diplomatic in such matters? We had our orders to cultivate the graces of our manners! The Earl of Loudon desired that we should," and he began to read aloud, "'You can best retain our confidence by promoting, in every way in your power, the preservation of peace with the Cherokees.'" He shoved the papers away on the table, and laughing, put the stem of his pipe between his teeth. "Now," he said, "I am as much disposed toward peace as a man of war may decently be. I only wish my lord could have won Oconostota to his lordship's pacific way of thinking. A garrison of two hundred soldiers is not likely to prove very overbearing to a neighbor who can muster three thousand fighting men armed with British muskets. My lord's advice was timely." He glanced with raillery at Demeré, and laughed again. While the individual soldier is but a factor in a great machine, and moves only as one motor element acts and reacts on another, making naught of his own volition or intelligence, it being his "to do and die," the courage and strength of character which make this abnegation of will and mind possible are the greater from the fact that the reasoning faculties cannot by the same process be annulled. He sees the convergence of the circumstances drawing to the event; whether consciously or not he deliberates upon the validity of the policy unfolded; he often goes to meet disaster, perceiving its undisguised approach from afar off. And yet he goes unfalteringly. "When our government armed these savage fiends against the French,--civilized men and 'palefaces' like ourselves," said Captain Demeré, "and the American colonists fought with them as allies, side by side, despite their hideous barbarities, we fell upon our own sword." "Honors are easy," returned Captain Stuart, lightly. "Have the French armed no Indian allies? Did they not do it first?" "We are not wont to look so far afield for our warrant," Demeré retorted testily. Then resuming: "These barbarous beasts are no fit allies for English arms. They degrade our spirit, and destroy our discipline, and disgrace our victories. I would rather suffer any honorable defeat than win through their savageries." He was unconsciously the advance guard of that sentiment which caused the Earl of Chatham, nearly twenty years afterward, to declare in the House of Lords that it was a reflection on the honor of the nation that the scalping-knife and the tomahawk should be the aids of the British firelock and sword, and wreak their savage deeds under the sanction of the same brave banner; but even then Lord Gower was able to retort that, when still Mr. Pitt the "great Commoner," and the ruling spirit of the ministry, he, himself, had without scruple employed American savages in warfare. As yet, however, this objection was but a sensitive protest in the heart and mind of an obscure officer, the commandant of a merely temporary post on the furthest western frontier.[9] The papers had been pushed near Demeré's elbow, and he began to look over them disaffectedly. "Hear Governor Lyttleton," he said, and read in a tone that was itself a commentary: "'Use all means you think proper to induce our Indians to take up the hatchet. Promise a reward to every man who shall bring in the scalp of a Frenchman or a French Indian.'" "As if one could be sure of a dead man's nationality or allegiance by seeing the hair on his scalp," said Whitson, as ever readily disgusted. Stuart sought to take an unprejudiced view. "I never looked upon war as a pastime or an elegant accomplishment," he declared, watching the wreaths rise from the deep bowl of his long pipe. "War is war, and when we call it civilized we only mean that invention has multiplied and elaborated our methods of taking life. A commander can but use the surest means to his end against his enemy that the circumstances afford. A soldier is at best but the instrument of the times." "And what of the torture, the knife, the fagot?" demanded Demeré, excitedly. "What do you think of them?" "I never, dear Captain Demeré, think of them, in a garrison of two hundred men in a little mud fort on the frontier, with the Cherokees three thousand strong just outside, toward whom I have been admonished to mind my pretty manners. But since you are so keen to reason it out, I will remind you that until comparatively recently the torture was one of our own methods of punishment, or coercion, tending to the disclosure of secret conspiracies or any other little matter that the government might want to know and could not otherwise find out, and was practiced, thumb-screws, iron-boot, and all, in the worshipful presence of men of high estate--councils, commissions, and what not! Men and women--women, too!--have been burned alive in England under due authority because their style of piety was not acceptable. They were Christians, to be sure, but not exactly the highest fashion of Christian. You will say all this was long ago. Granted! but if such practices still obtain in such an oligarchy as Oconostota's realm,--the frontier being, paradoxically, a little in the rear of the times,--should we be surprised? No! I don't think of such things. I keep my mind on the discipline of the garrison, and control my temper very nicely when in the presence of the Cherokee kings, and bless God and the Earl of Loudon for the cannon at the embrasures and the powder and ball in the magazine." He leaned forward suddenly to examine with momentary interest the sole of his boot as he sat with his leg crossed, then with a bantering "Eh, Captain Quawl?" he glanced up with a smile of _camaraderie_ at Captain Demeré as if to test the effect of his argument, and finally laughed outright at his friend's silent gravity. Such arguments were the ordinary incidents in the great hall of the block-house of the northwest bastion. The time hung heavily on the hands of the officers of the garrison. For beyond the military routine, a little hunting and fishing, a little card and domino playing, a little bout now and again of fencing, there was naught to relieve the monotony, for books were few and the express with mail from over the mountains infrequent, and therefore discussions in familiar conclave on abstract subjects, protracted sometimes for hours, filled the breach. Often these questions developed on paper, for a continual correspondence, as regular as might be compassed, was maintained with the officers of Fort Prince George, another frontier post, estimated as three hundred miles distant from Charlestown, yet still two hundred miles from Fort Loudon. As a matter of public policy it was deemed expedient that the commandants of the two posts should keep each other informed as to the state of the country about their respective strongholds, of the condition of the settlers, the temper of the Indians, the masked movements of French emissaries. In dearth of official intelligence, as the express necessarily went back and forth with mail and dispatches from Charlestown, the correspondence sympathetically expanded into personal interests, for the conditions surrounding both posts were in many respects similar. Fort Prince George also was a work designed with special reference to the military needs of that region and the character of its possible assailants. The defenses consisted of a rampart of clay, eight feet high, surmounted by a strong stockade, forming a square with a bastion at each angle; four small cannon were mounted on each bastion, and a deep ditch surrounded the whole; there was a natural glacis where the ground fell away on two sides of the quadrangle and on the others a strong abatis had been constructed at a short distance from the crest of the counterscarp. Within the fort were two block-houses and barracks for a garrison of one hundred men. The sequestered, remote situation of each post developed a certain mutual interest and the exchange of much soldierly chaff; the names and disposition of even the subalterns were elicited in this transmitted gossip of the forts; in default of news, details of trivial happenings were given, unconsciously fertile in character-drawing; jokes, caricatures, good stories,--and thus at arm's length sprung up a friendship between men who had never seen one another and who were possibly destined never to meet. Of course all this gayety of heart vanished from the paper when serious tidings or despondent prospects were at hand, but even in the succinct official statements an undertone of sympathy was perceptible, and the slightest nerve of thought, of danger, of joy, of dissatisfaction touched at Fort Loudon thrilled in kind at Fort Prince George. The attention of the group about the fire of the officers' mess-hall had seldom been brought to themes so grave as the news of the recent massacre, holding so definite and possible a personal concern, and after the evening of the Christmas ball life at Fort Loudon began to seem more serious and the current event to be scanned and questioned as to a probable bearing on the future. Even Odalie's optimistic mind, forever alert to hope and fair presage, felt the influence of the atmospheric change of the moral conditions. But the fact was revealed to her in an incident sufficiently startling. That morning after the festivity, when gayly rowing down the bleak river to MacLeod's Station, as the bend had begun to be called, she looked blithely enough over the stream's gray stretches of ruffled steel to the snowy slopes of the banks, and to the brown woods, and beyond to the dark bronze and dusky blue mountains as they stretched away in varying distance. The dull suffusive flare of carmine beginning to show above them seemed a spell to drive the day-star out of the sky, to bid the weird mists hie home with the fancies of the night, to set a wind keenly astir in a new dawn. All this she watched with eyes as clear, as soft, as confiding as if it were a May morning coming over the mountains, scattering the largesse of the spring--new life, new hopes, new strength, and all the glad inspiration of success that has a rarer, finer flavor than the actual consummation of the triumph. The stationers landed at the bend, and she was glad of her home as she took her way within the enclosure of the high stockade. She looked around at it, still leading the sleepy Fifine by one hand and only half hearing Hamish's enthusiastic sketches of the boys and girls in the settlement, with whom he had made fast friends. The snow was heavy on the roofs of the two log cabins and the shanty of poles that served as a barn, and lay in fluffy masses between the sharp points of the palisades and on the bare boughs of sundry great trees that Odalie had insisted should not be cut away with the rest in the enclosure or "girdled" like those outside in the field. The smoke still curled up lazily from the chimneys, and after she had uncovered the embers and donned her rough homespun dress and housewifely apron and cap, and had the preparations for breakfast well under way, she went to the door and called aloud in the crisp, chill air to "Dill," as Gilfillan was christened by Fifine,--the name being adopted by all the family,--insisting that he should not cook his own breakfast but join them. "There are going to be 'flim-flams,'" she shouted triumphantly. Then with a toss of the head--"Short eating!" It had chanced that one day when the lonely pioneer had dined with his fellow-stationers he had remarked approvingly of certain dishes of French cookery acquired from her Grand'maman's receipts--"I dunno what ye might call them flim-flams, Mrs. MacLeod, but they make powerful short eatin'." He and she and Fifine had become fast friends, and it was indeed a happy chance that had thrown the lonely man into this cordial and welcoming atmosphere of home. Even his terribly ghastly head Odalie had begun to forget, so deeply did she pity him for other things,--for the loss of wife and children and friends in the terrible Yadkin massacre; for the near approach of age,--and stalwart as he was, it was surely coming on; for the distortions of his queer religion, which was so uncouth as to be rendered hardly the comfort it might have been otherwise. "I can't see how you can mention it," she said one day, with wincing eyes, when he was telling Hamish, who manifested that blood-thirsty imagination peculiar to boys, how he was conscious throughout the whole ordeal of scalping; how the tomahawk hit him a clip; how the Indian, one whom he had trusted, put his foot on his breast for a better purchase on the knife. "Why, Mrs. MacLeod," Dill replied, "it makes me thankful to think he took nothing but the scalp. If he had mended his holt a little he could have took my whole head, and where would I have been now!" "By the grace of God you would be a saint in Paradise," said Odalie, presenting the orthodox view. "Yes," he admitted, "I've always feared there might be more in that notion of the Injuns about the scalpless being shut out of heaven than we know about--revelation, mebbe." "No, no!" and horrified at this interpretation she made her meaning clear. After that she undertook the _rôle_ of missionary in some sort, and in quiet unobtrusive ways suggested bits of orthodox doctrine of much solace to his ruminating spirit, and sometimes on dreary, icebound days he and she and Fifine sat on the crudely fashioned benches before the fire and sang psalms and hymns together till the station rang with the solemn choiring. "Dill" came in now, bringing his own knife for breakfast, and a very cheery face under his coonskin cap and red handkerchief, and when the "short eating" was disposed of all three men took their axes to chop up a tree for fuel, close outside the stockade, for the great chimney-places had capacious maws, and the weather was fast hardening to a freeze. Presently Odalie heard the quick strokes of their axes, alternating with sharp clangs, the blows ringing out briskly on the icy air. The house was very still. Fifine had fallen asleep on the rug before the fire, having peevishly declined the folly of being disrobed and put to bed in the daytime, to recuperate from the exhaustion attendant upon her first ball. As she could not stay awake without whimpering, Odalie saw with satisfaction her little distorted countenance, round head, and chubby body collapse on the opposite side of the fireplace. Odalie herself sat down to rest for one moment on the befrilled block of wood which she complimented by calling a _tabouret_. Once she roused herself, smoothed out the expanse of her white apron over her blue homespun dress, then careful to permit the attitude to foster no crumple in her stiff, sheer, white mob-cap on the lustrous folds of dark hair, she leaned her head against the rude chimney. How long she sat there she did not know. While sleeping she saw the faces of Indians, and when she gradually woke she thought she still slept. For there beside the fire were the Indian faces of her dream! She was stifled and dumbly sought to cry out, for this was surely some terror of the nightmare. But no! without was the light of the wan wintry day, showing in a vague blear at the half-open door, and within, the dull glow of the fire, sunken now to a vermilion mass of embers. On the opposite side of the hearth lay Fifine on the rug, sleeping still, with the sleeping cat in her arms--and between were Indian faces, the Indian faces of her dream! Odalie breathed more freely, for they were women's faces--two women, muffled to the ears in red blankets, were calmly seated on the rug before the fire as if they had long been there gazing at her with blank, expressionless faces. She still heard the regular strokes of the axes of the men of the station, as just outside the stockade they resolutely pursued the chopping of the tree. She could not understand how the two women, unobserved by them, had slipped in at the open gate; Odalie was able to smile faintly at a prevision of Sandy's amazement at his own negligence. One of the Indian women smiled in return, a bright-eyed demonstration, and suddenly Odalie remembered the young Cherokee beauty she had noted at the sally-port, watching the parade, the day after her arrival at Fort Loudon. The other, encouraged, began to speak, and to speak in French--a curious, dislocated patter. Asking how she had acquired the language, Odalie was informed that this was the squaw of Savanukah, and that he had journeyed as guide and hunted much with a French trader who had formerly dwelt at Choté, and hearing them talk the squaw, too, had learned. "And how did you know that I speak French?" asked Odalie. The elder woman pointed at the girl, who laughed and tucked down her head like a child. She was obviously solicitous that Odalie should observe the many strings of red beads about her neck; these she now and again caught in her fingers and drew forward, and then looked down at them with her head askew like a bird's. Odalie, with ready tact, let her eyes rest attentively on them, and smiled again. Her instinct of hospitality was so strong that it was no effort to simulate the gracious hostess. It was one of Hamish's stock complaints, often preferred in their former home when visitors were an intrusion and their long lingering a bore, that if the Enemy of Mankind himself should call, Odalie would be able to muster a smile, and request him to be seated, and offer him a fan of her best turkey feathers, and civilly hope that the climate of his residence was not oppressive to _him_! "And how do _you_ know that I am French?" she asked, with a delightful expression of her fascinating eyes. The soldier had told her,--the handsome young brave who talked to her one day at Choté,--the girl said in fairly good English. Odalie asked her name, and, as it was given, exclaimed that it was a whole sentence. Both the Cherokee women laughed at this in the pleasure of _camaraderie_, and the elder translated the name as the "Wing of the flying Whip-poor-will." The young Indian girl came to be known afterward at MacLeod's Station as Choo-qualee-qualoo, the Cherokee word which imitates the note of the bird. Recurring to the subject, she attempted to describe the soldier, by way of identification, as having hair the color of the lace on the Captain's red coat. Odalie was able to recollect a certain smart young soldier, who as orderly had one day accompanied Captain Stuart on a visit of ceremony to Oconostota, at his seat of government at Choté--old town. While the young orderly had led the horse of the English Captain up and down before the door of the chief's great council-house, Choo-qualee-qualoo had been set to ask him some questions, and as she told this the little minx laughed with her sharp white teeth shining, and looked like some sly little animal, malevolent, yet merry, and of much grace. Willinawaugh, she continued, believed that he had been duped by MacLeod into affording him and his family safe conduct on his journey hither, under the pretext that he was French, and therefore an enemy to the English, whom Willinawaugh hated; for the newcomer, MacLeod, and his brother, had been suffered to build a house and settle here among the English, while if Frenchmen they would have been hung as spies at the great gate of the fort or sent direct to Charlestown as prisoners. So Willinawaugh had set her to weave her toils about the young soldier and discover the truth from him, as he walked the officer's fine horse up and down, and the tall English Captain and the great warrior, Oconostota, smoked their pipes in the council chamber. Thus it had chanced that the unsuspicious orderly, free with his tongue, as a young man is apt to be in the presence of a pretty girl, told all that Choo-qualee-qualoo asked to know, as far as he knew it himself, and sooth to say, a trifle further. He gave forth the fact that MacLeod was English--that is Scotch, which he made as one of the same tribe, and so was the brother. But the wife was French--he himself had overheard her talking the frog-eaters' lingo--and, by George, she was a stunner! The baby was hers, and thus a mixture of English and French; as for the cat, he could not undertake to pronounce upon the animal's nationality, for he had not the pleasure of the acquaintance of its parents. Choo-qualee-qualoo laid down this last proposition with a doubting gravity, for the young man had promulgated it as if with a sense of its importance and a weighty soberness, although he laughed at most that he said himself and at everything that any one else said. He saw fit to remark that he did not understand how that sober-minded Sawney--meaning the Scotchman--had ever contrived to capture such a fine woman, but that was always the way with these dull prigs. Now as for such rattling blades as himself and his Captain--who would have been disposed to lay the flat of his sword smartly across the shoulders of the orderly, could he have dreamed of mention in such irreverent fellowship--they had no chance with the women, and for his own part this made him very sad. And he contrived to look so for about a minute, as he led the Captain's horse up and down before the door of the council-house, while Choo-qualee-qualoo, at one end of his beat, stood among a clump of laurel and talked to him as he came and went, and Willinawaugh, in the shadowy recesses of a neighboring hut, watched through the open door how his scheme took effect. It made him very sad, the soldier said, mournfully, for the girls to like other fellows better than him--as they generally did! And Choo-qualee-qualoo broke off to say here that she did not discern why such preference should be, for this soldier's hair was the color of the Captain's gold lace on his red coat (the orderly was called "Carrots" by his comrades), and he had a face with--and at a loss she dabbled the tips of her fingers delicately about the bridge of her nose and her eyes to intimate the freckles on his fair skin, which beauty-spots she evidently admired. The Scotchman's French wife was a stunner, the orderly was good enough to declare again, and everybody else thought so too. But he had overheard Captain Demeré say to Captain Stuart that her husband had no right to bring her to this western wilderness, and that that terrible journey of so many hundred miles, keeping up on foot with men, was enough to have killed her; and Captain Stuart had replied that she would make a fine pace-setter for infantry in heavy marching order. The orderly protested that for his part, if he were a condemned fine woman like that, he wouldn't live in a wilderness--he would run away from the Scotchman and go back to wherever she came from. Handsomest eyes he ever saw--_except two eyes_! Here Choo-qualee-qualoo gave Odalie a broadside glance which left no doubt as to whose eyes this exception was supposed to refer, and put two or three strands of the red beads into her mouth, showing her narrow sharp teeth as she laughed with pleasure and pride. Thus it was that Odalie was apprised of the fact that she was regarded by the Indians as a French prisoner in the hands of the English, and that the young soldier's use of the idea of capture by her husband, figuratively, as in the toils of matrimony, was literally construed. Her first impulse was to repudiate this suggestion of captivity, of detention against her will. Then her strong instinct of wisdom,--for she had no foresight in the matter,--that made Hamish sometimes charge her with being as politic as Captain Stuart himself, moved her to reserve this detail for the consideration of the commandant of the fort, as every matter, however trivial, that bore upon the growing enmity of the Cherokees toward the English amongst them, and their disposition to fraternize with the French, was important. The two captains listened with serious attention when she detailed this conversation to them, having repaired to the fort for the purpose, and being received as a guest of much distinction in the great hall, summarily cleared of the junior officers, and, not so summarily, of the clouds of tobacco smoke. They both instantly commended her course in leaving the impression on the minds of the Indian women as it had chanced to be made, and in dismissing them in unimpaired good humor with some little presents--a tiny mirror set locket-wise and an ivory bobbin wound around with red thread. The women had evidently derived special pleasure from the slyness and presumable secrecy of their interview, skulking out with a craft of concealment that completely eluded the notice of Sandy and "Dill," and this had given Odalie a sense of disapprobation and repulsion. "Why should you care?" demanded Demeré, always sympathetic with a woman's whim-whams, even when he could not feel with them. "No amount of explanation could enable the Indian women to comprehend the situation from your standpoint." And Captain Stuart could not restrain his laughter at her discomfiture. "Do you consider yourself so free, then? Do you call it freedom--in the holy _bonds_ of matrimony? I had no idea how much you object to hear the clanking of your chains!" As he noted her long-lashed glance of disdain,--"Doesn't the holy Scripture call it a 'yoke,'" he persisted, bursting out laughing afresh. She would not reply but sat listening to Captain Demeré, who began to reason,--"This impression on the part of the Cherokee women might afford us--I don't know how--some means of learning and frustrating the treacherous plans of the savages. It gives us a source of information through you that we can trust." "I don't relish the deceitful part assigned to me," she protested. "What would we do with any information, Mrs. MacLeod, supposing we gain aught of value," returned Demeré with some haughtiness, "except to use it for the defense of the fort, and your own outlying station? Are we here to wage war or to maintain peace?" She was silent, a trifle mortified because of her own mortification to be supposed a mere captive. "Everybody else knows that you are the commanding officer at MacLeod's Station," said Stuart in pretended consolation, only half smothering a laugh. "Besides," Demeré argued, gravely, "you will never be able to convince them of the facts. Of course you know I intend no disparagement to you when I say they will believe that young soldier's rodomontade in preference to your word--being women of such extreme ignorance." "Why, the man ought to be gagged!" exclaimed Stuart, in delight at her seriousness. The color mounted to Odalie's cheek. She had but entered her twenties, and despite her matronly arrogations she felt very young, now and then. Notwithstanding her humble pioneer status, she retained much of the aristocratic traditions inherited from her "Grand'maman"; she was beginning to feel it a great liberty that the young orderly should have expressed his admiration of her, although of course he was not aware that it would be repeated. She objected that he should know that she knew of it. "I hope you will not acquaint him with the circumstances," she said, stiffly. "By no means," said Demeré, appreciating her scruples. "That sort of thing is beyond discipline. The men in a garrison will tell everything they know or think they know." Odalie sat for a moment longer. "I think," she said, recovering her equanimity after a fashion, "that since I immediately placed the information of this ludicrous _contretemps_ at your disposal, for whatever you may make it worth, I should be promised exemption from the kind of raillery--and jokes--which Captain Stuart--frequent mention of chains, and bond-slave, and matrimonial noose and--such things," she paused, rising and looking at Stuart, wistfully remonstrant, for she could but notice how her chagrin ministered to his mischievous delight. "How _can you_, Mrs. MacLeod!" he cried. "Captain 'Quawl' will have me clapped into irons at the first offence! And this is the vaunted tender-heartedness of women!" Even Captain Demeré joined in the laugh at her, only becoming grave to insist that she should not, without notice to him, divulge the fact that she was not French, but of Carolinian birth and parentage, and the further fact--and his serious face relaxed--that she, herself, was the commandant at MacLeod's Station, and that Sandy and Hamish, Fifine and "Dill," were the mere minions of her power. She found discretion the better part of valor, and thought it wise to laugh a little at herself and her own pride, although the dimples came and went in very red cheeks, and her eyes were so bright as they rested on the merry face of the big blond officer that they might be said to flash. She diverted with difficulty Hamish's attention from Captain Demeré's half-finished map on the table at the other end of the room, over which the boy had been poring during the entire interview, and then they took their leave. Little did any of the party realize how important the mistaken impression of the Cherokee women was to prove! CHAPTER VII The winter wore gradually away. While the snows were still on the ground, and the eastern mountain domes were glittering white against a pale blue sky, all adown the nearer slopes the dense forests showed a clear garnet hue, that betokened the swelling of congregated masses of myriads of budding boughs. Even the aspect of more distant ranges bespoke a change, in the dull soft blue which replaced the hard lapis-lazuli tint that the chill, sharp weather had known. For the cold had now a reviviscent tang--not the bleak, benumbing, icy deadness of the winter's thrall. And while the flames still flared on the hearth, and the thumping of the batten and the creak of the treadle resounded most of the day from the little shed-room where Odalie worked at her loom, and the musical whir of her spinning-wheel enlivened all the fire-lit evenings as she sat in the chimney corner, the thaws came on, and brought the mountain snows down the Tennessee River with a great rushing turbulence, and it lifted a wild, imperious, chanting voice into the primeval stillness. A delicate vernal haze began to pervade the air, and a sweet placidity, as if all nature were in a dream, not dead,--an expectant moment, the crisis of development. Now and again Odalie and Fifine would come to the door, summoned by a loud crackling sound, as of a terrible potency, and watch wincingly the pervasive flare of the great elastic yellow and vermilion flames springing into the air from the bonfires of the piles of cane as the cleared land was transformed from the cane-brake into fields. And soon the ploughs were running. Oh, it was spring in this loveliest of regions, in this climate of garnered delights! As the silvery sycamore trees, leaning over the glittering reaches of the slate-blue river, put forth the first green leaves, of the daintiest vernal hue, Odalie loved to gaze through them from the door of the cabin, perchance to note an eagle wing its splendid flight above the long, rippling white flashes of the current; or a canoe, as swift, as light, cleave the denser medium of the water; or in the stillness of the noon a deer lead down a fawn to drink. She was wont to hear the mocking-bird pour forth his thrilling ecstasy of song, the wild bee drone, and in the distance the muffled booming thunder of the herds of buffalo. Who so quick to see the moon, this vernal moon,--surely not some old dead world of lost history, and burnt-out hopes, and destroyed utilities, but fair of face, virginal and fresh as the spring itself,--come down the river in the sweet dusk, slowly, softly, pace by pace, ethereally refulgent, throwing sparse shadows of the newly leaved sycamore boughs far up the slope, across the threshold that she loved, with the delicate traceries of this similitude of the roof-tree. "Oh, this is home! home!" she often exclaimed, clasping her hands, and looking out in a sort of solemn delight. "Why don't you say that in French, Odalie?" Hamish would mischievously ask. For his researches into the mysteries of the French language, although not extensive, had sufficed to acquaint him with the fact that the tongue has no equivalent for this word, and to furnish him with this home-thrust, as it were. Odalie, always rising with spirit to the occasion, would immediately inquire if he had seen or heard of Savanukah lately, and affect to be reminded to urge him to put himself in preparation to be able to stand an examination in French by that linguistic authority by conjugating the reflective verb _S'amuser_. "So much you might, Hamish, _amuse yourself_ with Savanukah." "I am not disturbed, now," Hamish would declare, "since we have made interest with the family. I'd just get your friend, Mrs. Savanukah, to intercede for me." For Odalie had to run the gauntlet of a good deal of merriment in the family circle because of her close acquaintance with the Indian women. Their visits annoyed her extremely. If she went for an afternoon's talk with Belinda Rush,--the two had become fast friends,--she deprecated leaving her scanty store of possessions lest their dainty order be disturbed by the Indian intruders in her absence. She dared not quit Fifine, whom it was sometimes inconvenient to take, even though the child's father was inside the stockade, lest she be kidnapped, so covert and sly was their slipping in and out, for somehow they were never discovered at the moment of entrance. Nevertheless, she treated her Cherokee callers with such sweet patient courtesy that it is not to be wondered that they came again and again. She gave them trifles that she could spare, and a share of the seeds of vegetables which she had brought with her, and this they received with real and unfeigned gratitude, for the women were the gardeners among the Cherokees and the tillers of the soil. Odalie herself had that strong nerve of sympathy with the springing growths of the earth that made every turned furrow of the rich mould a delight to her. It was not work--it partook of the nature of a pastime, wrought for the love of it, when following her husband's plough she dropped the Indian corn and covered it with her hoe. She loved the soft, tender, sprouting blades, as they put strongly forth; she loved hardly less the quickly springing weeds even as she cut them mercilessly away with her hoe. She loved the hot sun, and the clear, fresh wind that came rushing down the rushing river, and the delicious delicate perfume of its waterside ferns, and the cool, sleeping shadows in the dark mysteries of the woods, and the solemnity of the great mountains on the eastern horizon, and the song of a thrush in mid-air above it all. And when the clouds gathered and came the soft, soft falling of the steady spring rain, she loved the interval it afforded for the setting of things in order within, and once more she and Hamish and Fifine and the cat were congregated on the buffalo rug in front of the fire, which had dwindled to an ember kept from meal to meal, to sort treasures brought with them in the small compass of a buffalo horn,--seeds now, the seeds of certain simple flowers, a bulb and a root or two,--the precious roots of an eglantine and a clematis vine. And now that the chance of killing frosts was overpast, Odalie and Fifine were grubbing much of the time in the ground and Hamish often came and grubbed too. The seeds were sown and grew apace; the bulbs and roots throve; the vines began to clamber over the support of a rude bower of saplings built above the door; and soon when Odalie sat here beside her spinning-wheel, in her white linen dress with its broad collar of her own hand-wrought lace, to enjoy the cool air from the mountains, and the color of the red sunset on the river, she had a canopy of vines above her head, and between her upward glance and the sky, a blooming rose, faintly pink, and a bird's nest with four blue eggs. Captain Demeré, coming in at the gate of the stockade one afternoon, exclaimed in surprise and pleasure at the prettiness and the completeness of this rude comfort. There was but one room in the house with a floor; the seats were only puncheon benches with rough staves for legs thrust through auger-holes and one or two of her befrilled "tabourets"; the table was of like manufacture; the beds and pillows were mere sacks filled with dried balsam fringes from the great fir-trees, and supported on the rudest frames; but the fresh aromatic fragrance the fir dispensed, the snow-white linen the couches displayed, the flutter of the quaint bird-decorated curtains at the windows, the array of the few bits of treasured old china, the shelf of precious old books, the cluster of purple and white violets arranged in a great opaline pearly mussel-shell from the river, in default of vase, in the center of the wabbly table, the dainty freshness and neatness of the whole--"This is _home_!" he declared. "I accept a new anthropological dogma. Man is only the fort-builder--woman is the home-maker!" "Yes," said Odalie in content and pride, surveying her treasures, as she conducted him about the place, for he had not been here since the completion of the improvements; "I often say that this is _home_!" "But never in French," put in Hamish at her elbow. Nevertheless, this did not contribute to alter Captain Demeré's opinion that the frontier was no place for women, though that would imply, with his later conclusions, no place for home. He went away wearing in his buttonhole a sprig of sweetbrier, which he declared again reminded him so of home. He had not thought to find it here, and memory fell upon him unprepared and at a disadvantage. The moon was up when he stepped into his boat, and the orderly, bending to the oars, shot straight out into the river. Long, burnished white lines lay upon its gleaming surface, and looking back Demeré could see beyond the shadow and sheen of the sloping bank the cleared space, where the moonbeams fell in unbroken splendor before the stockade, and through its open gate the log-cabin with its primitive porch, where, young and beautiful, she sat in her white dress in the bright light beside the silent little flax-wheel. Home undoubtedly! As the boat headed up the river he looked moodily at the ripples, glancing in the moonbeams, and noted with a keen new sensitiveness the fragrance of the eglantine, reminiscent of summers dead and gone, and life as fleeting and frail as the transitory flower. For the news that came in these days from over the mountains was always heavy news,--rumors of massacres, now of a single individual in some exposed and dangerous situation, and again of settlers surprised and overcome by numbers within the defenses of their own stanch stockade. All along the frontier the spirit seemed to extend, first toward the north and then southward, and it was apparently only a question of time when the quiet and peace that encircled Fort Loudon should be summarily broken. Many of the pioneers, could they now have returned to Virginia or the Carolinas without danger, would have forever relinquished their new homes, and have set forth on their long journey without delay. But the Cherokees about them, personally known to them and apparently without individual animosity, seemed a slighter menace than the probable encounter with wild wandering bands, glutted with blood yet thirsting still for vengeance. In one of Demeré's reports about this time, early in the year 1759, he says: "We are living in great harmony here--no 'bad talks' at all." Again and again he and Captain Stuart, accompanied only by an orderly to mark their sense of confidence, went to Choté to confer in a friendly way with the king and half-king, and seek to induce them to take some order with these depredators, and restore the peace of the border. The great council-house at Choté was a curious circular structure, formed of withes and willows and wand-like timbers, woven together in a dome-like shape to the height of twenty feet, with a diameter of thirty feet at the base; the whole was covered over with a thick coating within and without of the deeply and richly tinted red clay of that region, and pierced by no window or chimney or other outlet than the tall and narrow doorway. The last time the two officers together sought the presence of the kings in the _Ottare_ district, as the mountainous region was called,--the towns designated as the _Ayrate_ settlements signified the lower country,--they were received here, and Stuart, from the moment of their entrance, knew that their mission was hopeless. They had recently been ordered to demand the surrender to them of certain notable Cherokees, for having been concerned in the distant border murders, and who lived in the towns of Citico and Tellico hard by, close at hand to both Choté and Fort Loudon. They realized that this measure was at once displeasing and impracticable to the kings, whose authority could not compass the surrender of their tribesmen to the justice of the gibbet, after the expiatory methods of the English, and who foresaw that such compliance would but provoke reprisal on the paleface and further outbreaks. Sitting motionless on buffalo rugs, a number of which were spread over the floor of the room, on which the two officers were also invited to be seated, the Indians advanced none of the equivocal statements and doubtful promises and fallacious expectations of peace as heretofore, but kept their eyes fixed upon the ground, while the officers once more expressed their earnest remonstrances and made their summary demand, implicitly obeying their orders, although this extreme and impolitic measure was secretly deprecated by both. The "talk" was conducted by means of the services of an interpreter, an Indian, who stood behind the great chiefs and recited, now in Cherokee and now in English, and always with a wooden, expressionless accent, as if he were a talking machine and understood not a word for which he furnished the equivalent, in deference to the great company not permitting his mind to take part in the deeper significance of the ideas they interchanged. He kept his eyes fixed upon the blank wall opposite, and effaced his individuality as far as possible. But after the first sentences of merely formal greeting, the wooden clapper of the interpreter's tongue vibrated back and forth with Cherokee only, for the Indian chiefs said nothing to be rendered into English. Silent and stony they sat, looking neither to the right nor left, unmoved by urgency, stolid to remonstrance, and only when Demeré with a flash of fire suggested that Governor Lyttleton of South Carolina, or General Amherst the new "head-man," who was now commander-in-chief of the army, would soon take fierce measures to retaliate these enormities, there was a momentary twinkle in the crafty eyes of Oconostota, and he spoke briefly. The interpreter woodenly repeated:-- "I can well believe you, for after an English treaty we have fraud and then force and at last bloodshed." Stuart, the sombre red shadow of the terra-cotta walls hardly dulling the glare of his red uniform, sat looking out, quite placid and self-poised, through the open portal at the scattered huts of the town, at the occasional passing of an Indian's figure, at Chilhowee Mountain in the middle distance, densely green with the dark lush growths of summer, and beyond at the domes of the Great Smoky range, a soft velvet blue against the hard turquoise blue of the sky. The object, however, on which his eyes fixed most intently was the bright spot of color of the orderly's red coat, like a buoy, one might say, against the glimmering river, in the foreground, as he rested on his oars in the glow of the sunset, while the little boat swung idly in the shallows. Not again did either of the chiefs speak. Demeré flushed with anger as sentence after sentence rang out in English, now from Stuart's lips, now from his own,--cogent, persuasive, flattering, fruitless; repeated by the interpreter in Cherokee, and followed by a blank pause. Finally Demeré rose, and with a curt phrase of formal farewell, to which neither of the chiefs responded, bowed angrily, and walked out, pausing near the entrance to wait for Stuart, who with blandest ceremony was taking his leave,--saying how much he hoped there would be no interruption to the kind friendship with which the great men had personally favored them, and which they so highly valued; and how earnestly he desired to express their thanks for the interview, although it grieved him to perceive that the chiefs felt they could say so little on the subject that had brought him hither. He could not have bowed with more respectful formality if he were quitting the presence of General Amherst himself, the cocked hat in his right hand sweeping low as he made his obeisance; but he could detect in both faces no change of expression, except that the eye of Oconostota twinkled with derision or anger or pleasure--who can say? He left them sitting motionless there in the deep red dusk reflected down from the terra-cotta walls, and the interpreter, looking as wooden as his voice sounded, standing bolt upright behind them. Stuart did not comment on the character of the audience vouchsafed as, shoulder to shoulder, he and Demeré took their way down to the boat, where the young soldier awaited them. He only said, "I have been uneasy about that orderly all the time for fear our presence here did not protect him, as he was not on the ever-sacred soil of the 'beloved city of refuge'--Choté--old town. I wished we had taken the precaution of ordering him ashore. Affairs are near the crisis, Paul." They seated themselves, and the young soldier pulled out from the shore, Demeré, both angry and cast down, realizing as he had not heretofore the imminence of the peril to the settlement. Dusk was upon the river; stars began to palpitate elusively in the pallid sky; shadows mustered thick along the bank. Suddenly a sound, sharp, discordant, split the air, and a rifle-ball whizzed past between the two officers and struck the water on the further side of the boat. The unarmed orderly seemed for a moment as if he would plunge into the river. "Steady--steady--give way," said Stuart. Then to Demeré, who had his hand on his pistol, and was casting a keen glance along the shore preparatory to taking aim,--"Why do you return the fire, Paul? To make our fate certain? We should be riddled in a moment. I have counted nearly fifty red rascals in those laurel bushes." Why the menace was not repeated, whether the skulking braves feared the displeasure of their own authorities, or the coolness of the little group extorted their admiration, so quick to respond to an exhibition of stoical courage, no further demonstration was offered, and the boat was pulled down the five miles from Choté to Fort Loudon in better time perhaps than was ever made with the same weight on that river. The landing was reached, to the relief even of the phlegmatic-seeming Stuart. "So ends so much," he said, as he stepped out of the boat. "And I go to Choté--old town--no more." But he was destined one day to retrace his way, and, sooth to say, with a heavier heart. The season waxed to ripeness. The opulent beauty of the early summer-tide was on this charmed land. Along the heavily-wooded mountain sides the prodigal profusion of the blooming rhododendron glowed with a splendor in these savage solitudes which might discredit the treasures of all the royal gardens of Europe. Vast lengths of cabling grape-vines hung now and again from the summit of one gigantic tree to the ground, and thence climbed upward a hundred feet to the topmost boughs of another, affording ambush for Indians, and these darkling coverts began to be craftily eyed by the soldiers, whose daily hunt for the provisions of the post carried them through many dense jungles. Everywhere the exquisite mountain azalea was abloom, its delicate, subtle fragrance pervading the air as the appreciation of some noble virtue penetrates and possesses the soul, so intimate, so indissoluble, so potent of cognition. It seemed the essential element of the atmosphere one breathed. And this atmosphere--how light--how pure! sheer existence was a cherished privilege. And always on this fine ethereal medium came the echo of woe; blended with the incense of the blooming wild grape seemed the smell of blood; the rare variety of flame-tinted azaleas flaring on some high, secluded slope showed a color reminiscent only of the burning roof-trees and stockades of destroyed homes. Peace upon the august mountains to the east, veiling their peaks and domes in stillness and with diaphanous cloud; peace upon the flashing rivers, infinitely clear and deep in their cliff-bound channels; and peace upon all the heavily-leaved shadowy forests to the massive westward range, level of summit, stern and military of aspect, like some gigantic rampart! But the mind was continually preëmpted by the knowledge that in the south were murder and despair, in the east were massacre and pillage, that rapine was loosed upon the land, and that this external fixity of calm was as unstable as the crystalline sphere of a bubble to collapse at a touch. Every ear was strained to a whisper; the express from over the mountain was met afar off by stragglers from the settlement, and came, delivering by word of mouth such news as he personally possessed, before his package was rendered up to the officers at the fort. Every heart seemed subject to the tension of suspense except such organ as might serve Captain Stuart for the cardiacal functions. He appeared wholly engrossed in perfecting the details of battalion drill, and the attention of the garrison was concentrated on these military maneuvers; even the men of the settlement, especially the rattling single men, were drawn into these ranks, the garrison not being strong enough to furnish the complement desired. In their buckskin hunting-shirts and leggings, with their muscular, keen activity, their ready practice, and their suppleness in handling their rifles, the pioneers made what he was pleased to call "a very pretty body of fencibles." His praise and their evident advance in proficiency gratified them, although the tactical arts of war in the heavy growths of this wild and rocky country were at a discount, since the defeat of that martinet and military precisian, General Braddock. Thus the afternoon drill at the fort became of increasing public interest, and afforded the social opportunity of a rendezvous for the whole settlement; and despite the growing disaffection of the Cherokees, now and again groups of Indian spectators appeared at the gate. Stuart's tact never deserted him; one day when ordering a knot of pioneers near the sally-port to "fall in"--for he himself drilled the fencibles--he motioned too, with his imperious gesture, to half a dozen braves who were standing hard by, as if he made no difference between them and the other civilian neighbors. One moment of astounded doubt, then they "fell in" as front-rank men, evidently infinitely flattered and marvelously quick in adapting the manual exercise they had often witnessed. Now and again there was an expression of keen interest on their stolid faces, and more than once when woe befell the effort to ploy the battalion into double column to form square and the movement became a contortion, they laughed out gutturally--that rare Indian mirth not altogether pleasant to hear. And as they went home in the red sunset to Citico, and Great Tellico, and Tennessee Town and Choté, from along the river banks came their harsh cries--"Shoulder firelock!" or "Fa'lock," as they rehearsed it. "Feex Bay'net! Pleasant A'hms!" It became evident that they rehearsed their learning, suiting the action to the word, once too often,--for they returned no more. Whatever might have been the advantage of their acquiring the secret of the military maneuvers from so competent and patient an instructor as the condescending Captain Stuart, the powers that were at Choté had no mind to expose their stalwart young braves to the winning wiles of that magnetic commander, and permitting them to acquire among the troops, perchance, a personal regard for the officer and an _esprit de corps_ in addition to a more available military spirit. If he had had a scheme and the scheme had failed there was no intimation to that effect on the imperturbable exterior he maintained. It had always been known that Captain Stuart was somewhat fond of the pleasures of the table, and he suddenly developed a certain domesticity in this regard. He desired to experiment on the preserving of some "neat's tongues,"--as he politely called those of the buffalo,--and for the sake of this delicacy utilized a floorless hut, otherwise unoccupied, at the further end of the whole enclosure, as a smokehouse. Often smoke was seen issuing thence, but with this understanding it created no surprise. Sometimes the quartermaster-sergeant and two or three other non-commissioned officers were seen pottering about it. Now and again Captain Demeré stood at the door and looked in. One day it chanced that Hamish, who had secured two tongues, desiring to offer them as a small tribute, came up close to him, in his deft, noiseless deerskin buskins, before Captain Demeré was aware. As he turned and saw the boy, he instantly let the door in his hand fly back--not, however, before the quick young fellow had had a dissolving view of the interior. A fire smoked in the center of the chimneyless place, half smothered with stones that constituted at once a hearth and protection from the blaze, but one flickering shred of flame revealed not only the tongues which Captain Stuart coveted, but rows of haunches and saddles of venison and bear hams, and great sections of buffalo meat, as well as pork and beef. The boy understood in an instant, for the hunters from the fort provided day by day for the wants of the garrison from the infinite reserves of game in the vast wilderness without; these were preparations against a state of siege, kept secret that the garrison might not be dispirited by so gloomy a prospect, possibly groundless, and the settlement with its women and children affrighted. Hamish, with a caution beyond his years, affected to see naught, made his little offering, and took his way and his speculations homeward. There he was admonished to say nothing of the discovery; it was very proper, Sandy thought, for the garrison to be prepared even against remote contingencies. Hamish dutifully acquiesced, although he could but feel very wise to know the secret workings of Captain Stuart's subtle mind and divine his hidden plans, when that officer seemed to grow gravely interested in the development and resources of the country, in which he had no share save the minimum of space that the ramparts enclosed. He speculated adroitly about mineral wealth in gossiping with the groups of settlers at the gates after the drill. He told some strange stories that Atta-Kulla-Kulla had recounted of the vestiges of previous vanished inhabitants of this country--of certain evidences of ancient mining ventures where still lay curious outlandish tools; he felt certain of the existence of copper and lead, and he believed most faithfully too in the proximity of gold; for his own part, he declared, he thought the geological formation indicated its presence. These themes, transferred to the great hall, served to fill it with eager discussions and clouds of tobacco smoke, and to detain the settlers as long as the regulations would admit of the presence of visitors. As to iron and other minerals, the springs indicated iron ore beyond a doubt, and he inquired earnestly had any one ever tried to obtain salt by the usual primitive process of boiling and evaporation at the big salt-lick down the river? Thus nobody was surprised when Captain Stuart and the quartermaster and a detail of soldiers and a lot of big cauldrons were reported to be actively engaged in the effort to manufacture salt down at the lick. No necessary connection was apprehended between the circumstances when four packhorses came over the mountain laden with salt, for even after that event Captain Stuart continued the boiling and stirring that went on down at the lick. Hamish wondered how long he would care to keep up the blind, for the need of salt for the preservation of more meat had by this last importation been satisfied. Perhaps Stuart himself felt it a relief when one day it chanced that some buffalo bulls met at the salt-lick,--as if by appointment,--and the battle that ensued among them was loud and long and stormy. So numerous were the contestants, and so fiercely did the conflict wage, that the officer and his force were compelled to climb to a scaffold built in one of the gigantic trees, used by the settlers who were wont to wait here for the big game and fire down upon them without the danger of being trampled to death. This battle had other observers: a great panther in the same tree crouched on a limb not far above the soldiers, and sly and cowardly as the creature is, gazed at them with a snarling fierce distention of jaws, plainly unaware of any weapons that could obviate the distance, and counting on a lingering remnant of the party as evidently as on the slain bison to be left on the ground when the battle should be over. Now and again came a glimpse of the stealthy approach of wolves, which the tumult of the conflict had lured to the great carcass of the defeated. Although the salt-makers waited in much impatience through several hours for the dispersal of the combatants, and were constrained to fire their pistols almost in the faces of the wolves and panthers, Captain Stuart's chief emotions seemed expressed in admiring the prowess of a champion in the fight, whom he identified as the "big _yanasa_[I] that was the pivot man of the wheeling flank," and, on his return, in guying the quartermaster on the loss of the great cauldrons, for their trampled remains were unrecognizable; but indeed, this worthy's countenance was lugubrious enough to grace the appellation of chief mourner, when he was apprised of the sad ending of the salt-making episode, for he loved a big kettle, as only a quartermaster or a cook can, in a country in which utensils are small and few and not to be replaced. That Stuart felt more than he seemed to feel was suspected by Demeré, who was cognizant of how the tension gave way with a snap one day in the autumn of that year of wearing suspense. Demeré looked up with a changed face from the dispatches just received--the first express that had come across the mountains for a month, having dodged and eluded bands of wandering Indian marauders all the way. "Governor Lyttleton has taken the field," he said. "_At last!_" cried Stuart, as in the extremity of impatience. For upon the massacre of all the inmates of a strong station, carried by storm, in addition to other isolated murders up and down the frontier, the royal governor of South Carolina had initiated a series of aggressive measures; asked aid of North Carolina, urged Virginia to send reënforcements and provisions to Fort Loudon (it being a place which from its remote situation was very difficult at all times to victual, but in the event of a Cherokee war entirely cut off from means of supply), and by great exertions succeeded in mustering a force of eight hundred militia and three hundred regulars to advance into the Indian country from the south. The vigor and proportions of this demonstration alarmed the Cherokees, grown accustomed to mere remonstrance and bootless threats. They had realized, with their predominant military craft, the most strongly developed of their mental traits, that the occupation of all the available forces of the government in Canada and on the northwestern frontiers crippled the capacity to make these threats good. Thus they had reveled in a luxury of fancied impunity and a turbulent sense of power. Now they were smitten with consternation to perceive the cloud upon the horizon. Suddenly the privileges of trade which they had forfeited,--for they had become dependent on the supplies of civilization, such as ammunition, guns, tools, blankets, etc., and certain stores in transit to them had been, by Governor Lyttleton's instructions, intercepted by Captain Coytmore, the commandant at Fort Prince George;--the opportunities of a strong alliance that they had discarded; the advantageous stipulations of the treaties they had annulled; all seemed precious when annihilated by their own act. The Upper towns and the Lower towns--the _Ottare_ and the _Ayrate_--met in solemn conclave at Choté to consider the situation. Fort Loudon, hard by, maintained quiet and keen watch and strict discipline. The drums beat, the bugles sounded for the measured routine. The flag waved in the sunshine, slipping up to meet the dawn, fluttering down as the last segment of the vermilion disk slipped behind the dark, level, rampart-like summit of the distant Cumberland range, and the sunset-gun boomed till the echoes blared faintly even about the council-chamber at Choté, where the warriors were gathered in state. Whether the distant thunderous tone of that potent force which the Indians admired, and feared, and sought to comprehend beyond all other arms of the service, the artillery, suggested anew the untried menace of Lyttleton's invasion of their country with a massed and adequate strength; whether they had become desirous now to regain those values of trade and alliance that they had thrown away in haste; whether their repeated reprisals had satiated their greed of vengeance for their comrades, slain on the return march from aiding the defense of the Virginia frontier; whether they were inspired only by their veiled deceit and savage craft, in which they excelled and delighted, and which we now call diplomacy, exercised between the enlightened statesmen of conferring and Christian nations,--whatever motive urged their decision, no gun barrel was sawed off, an unfailing preparation for battle, no corn pounded, no knife whetted, no face painted, no bow strung, no mysterious scalp-dance celebrated--the Cherokees were not upon the war-path! A deputation of their "beloved men" went to forestall the martial advance of the Carolinians--Oconostota, the "great warrior," with his many wrinkles, and his crafty eye, and his port of meaning that heralded events; and Atta-Kulla-Kulla, of whom all had heard, whose courage was first of the brain and then of the hand, whose savage instincts were disciplined by a sort of right judgment, an intelligence all independent of education, or even of that superficial culture which comes of the observation of those of a higher and trained intellect; and also Willinawaugh, fierce, intractable, willing to treat for peace, to be sure, but with a mental reservation as to how far it might serve his purposes. Savanukah was of the delegation, doubtful, denying, with a dozen devices of duplicity; he could not at times understand the English he spoke fairly well, and the French, in which he could chaffer smartly and drive a bargain, nor even the Cherokee, for which he kept a deaf ear to hinder a settlement he deprecated with the hated English--invaluable at a council was Savanukah! Of the number, too, was Tennessee Warrior, who fought, and did nothing but fight, and was ready and willing to fight again, and yet again, and to-morrow! He was always silent during the conferences, studying with successive scowls the faces of the white men. He knew nothing about numbers, and did not yearn to handle the match, and make the big gun howl; he had but to paint his face, and whet his scalp-knife, and load his firelock, and blaze away with as deadly an aim as a pioneer's. What need had the Tennessee Warrior for diplomacy? If there was to be any fighting the Tennessee Warrior would rejoice in going along to partake. If there was to be only diplomacy, and diplomacy were long continued with peace unbroken, then the white men and the red men might be sure of one thing--of hearing the Tennessee Warrior snore! He was an excellent selection to go to a council. Then there was Bloody Fellow, Eskaqua, who had scant need of vermilion, so sure he was to paint himself red in another way. And Tus-ka-sah, the Terrapin of Chiletooch, and old Abram, Ooskuah, of Chilhowee, and Otassite, the Man-Killer of Hiwassee, and old Tassel, Rayetaeh of Toquoe,--about thirty-five in all,--went in a body to Charlestown to negotiate for peace, and some of them signed. These chiefs who signed were Oconostota, Atta-Kulla-Kulla, Otassite, Kitagusta, Oconnocca, and Killcannokea. The day on which they set forth Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré, themselves in council in the great hall at Fort Loudon, heard the news of the departure of the delegation on this errand, looked at each other in amazement, and fell into bursts of laughter. Had their sense of triumph been such as to find joy in reprisal they might have relished the fact that the anxieties, the secret fear, the turmoil of doubt, which Oconostota had occasioned to them, were returned to him in plenitude on his arrival in Charlestown. Governor Lyttleton had not yet set out, but the military forces summoned forth were already entered upon their long and toilsome march from various distant districts to the appointed rendezvous at Congaree, and thither the commander of the expedition felt that he must needs forthwith repair to meet them. "I did not invite you to come here," he said to Oconostota, and despite the remonstrance of the delegation, and doubtless thinking he could treat with the savages to more effect at the head of an armed force invading their country, he postponed hearing their "talk" till he should have joined his little army, but offered them safe-conduct in accompanying his march. "Not a hair of your head shall be touched," he declared. Returning thus, however, almost in the humiliated guise of prisoners, in fact under a strong guard, accompanying a military force that was invading Cherokee soil, comported little indeed with Oconostota's pride and his sense of the yet unbroken power of his nation. The coercions of this virtual captivity extended to the stipulations of the treaty presently formulated. While ratifying previous pledges on the part of the Indians to renounce the French interest, and providing for the renewal to them of the privileges of trade, this treaty required of them the surrender of the murderers concerned in the massacres along the frontier; pending the delivery of these miscreants to the commandant at Fort Prince George, and as a guarantee of the full and faithful performance of this compact, the terms dictated the detention at the fort, as hostages, of twenty-two of the Cherokee delegation now present.[10] Oconostota himself was numbered among the hostages to be detained at Fort Prince George until the surrender of the Cherokee murderers, but the representations of Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who was at liberty, compassed the king's release, urging his influence with his nation and the value of his counsels in the British interest for the restoration of peace. The little band of Cherokees, helpless among overwhelming numbers, was hardly in a position to openly withstand these severe measures proposed, and consequently the treaty thus signed on the 26th day of December, 1759, might have been expected to prove of but slight cohesive properties. The hostages remained of necessity at Fort Prince George; the few Indians of the unfortunate embassy who retained their freedom began to scatter, sullen, fierce, disconsolate, to their towns; the army, already discontented, mutinous, and eager to be gone because of the devastations of the smallpox in a neighboring Indian village, and the appearance of that disease among a few of the volunteers, set out upon its homeward march, without striking a blow, from an expedition that cost the province the sum of twenty-five thousand pounds sterling. Oconostota and Willinawaugh, sitting together on the ground, in the flickering sunlight and the sparse wintry shadows of the leafless woods, looking like two large rabbits of some strange and very savage variety, watched the rear-guard file over the hill in the narrow blazed way that seemed a very tolerable road in that day. When the last man had vanished, they listened for a long time to the throb of the drum--then the sound was lost in the distance; a mere pulsing in the air continued, discriminated by the keen discernment of the Indians. At last, when not even a faint ripple of sound-waves could be felt in the still atmosphere, Oconostota keeled over suddenly and laid his ear to the ground. No vague reverberation, no electrical thrill, no stir of atom of earth striking against atom; nothing! The army was gone! The two savage old rabbits squatted again upright and seemed to ruminate on the situation. Then, as if with a single impulse, they looked at each other and broke into sudden harsh gutturals of triumphant laughter. FOOTNOTES: [Footnote I: Buffalo.] CHAPTER VIII Peace was welcome--so welcome. Hence the turning of the soil by the pioneers commenced betimes in the chill spring with heartfelt thankfulness to be anew between the stilts of a plow. The sap was rising; the winter had gone like a quiet sleep ensuing on the heavy tumults of troubled dreams. One day a wren came and perched in a loop-hole of the block-house of the northwestern bastion and sang very loud and sweet and clear, till all the men sitting about the fire turned to look at it, amazed at its temerity, and enjoying in a lazy, sensuous way the jubilance and thrilling crystalline purity of its tone. Two of the youngsters, Lieutenant Gilmore and Ensign Whitson, ready to wager anything on anything, disputed as to the size of the creature,--if it had on no feathers,--one maintaining that it was two inches long, the other, an inch and a half. The bird brought a straw and arranged it carefully in place in the loop-hole, and then singing, flew away, and came back with a feather. His intention was evident. "My young friend," said Stuart, carelessly eyeing him, "you are a fine figure of a settler, but that loop-hole is ours!" "Let him have it," said Demeré. "We shall never need it." The door opened suddenly, and the orderly, saluting, announced the express from over the mountains. At once there ensued a great stir of the tobacco smoke, and a laying aside of pipes in any coign of vantage to better handle the mail from home, as soon as the official dispatches should be read. And then, "Here's something from Fort Prince George," said Demeré, from where he sat at the rude table with the papers scattered before him. "A goodly packet," he continued, as he broke the seal, in the expectant, pleased silence of the others. "Ensign Milne is writing--both the official communication and a long personal letter," noting the signature. At the first glance along the lines his face fell. "Captain Coytmore is dead," he said in a low voice. Murdered by the Indians he had been, in front of the fort, in the presence of the officers of his own command! As the news was unfolded, startled, amazed glances were exchanged; no word was spoken; the silence was only broken by the low, tense voice as Demeré read, and now and again the wren's clear, sweet, reedy note, full of joyance, of life, as the bird fluttered in and out and builded his nest in the loop-hole. Without warning the blow had fallen. One morning it happened, the 16th of February, when naught of moment seemed to impend. On the bank of the Keowee River opposite to Fort Prince George, two Indian women appeared, and as they loitered, seeming to have something in hand, the sentinel called the attention of an officer of the fort,--Doharty it was,--who at once went out to speak to them, thinking they might have some news. He called out to them, having a trifle of Cherokee at command, but before they could answer they were joined by Oconostota, the king of the Indian tribe, arrayed in his buckskin shirt and leggings, and mounted upon a very excellent chestnut horse. He told Doharty that he desired to speak to the commandant of the fort. Doharty, thinking it a matter of importance, and possibly having reference to the surrender of some of the murderers of the settlers in exchange for the hostages, went in great haste and summoned Captain Coytmore, who instantly came, accompanied by Lieutenant Bell with Foster, the interpreter, following. The writer detailed that he himself was within, engaged in inspection duty as officer of the day, or his interest and curiosity would have carried him in their company. In expectation of developments they all went down to the water's edge, and Coytmore asked the chief if he would not ford the stream and come over. But Oconostota stated that he was in haste touching matters of great moment which he wished to impart to the royal governor of South Carolina. It was imperative that he should treat of the subject in person, and thus he would go to Charlestown to see Governor Lyttleton if Captain Coytmore would send a white man to accompany him as a safeguard in the white settlements. Captain Coytmore seemed to consider for a moment whom he could send; and then, evidently desirous of furthering any pacific negotiation, said that he could detail a man for that duty. Oconostota replied that that courtesy was all he would ask of the commandant--a white man as a safeguard. He himself would furnish a horse for the man to ride. He had come prepared for the purpose, and he lifted a bridle, which he had brought over one arm, to show it. He then remarked that he would get the horse, which he had left a little distance back, while Captain Coytmore gave the man his instructions. So saying, he lifted up the bridle in his hand, whirling it three times around his head, and wheeling his horse, galloped off, while from an ambush amongst the trees and underbrush a fire of twenty or thirty muskets was poured upon the little group at the river bank. Captain Coytmore was shot through the left breast and died that day. Bell and Foster were each wounded in the leg. Doharty and the sentinel had much ado to get them into the fort with Coytmore's help, for the commandant was able to run to shelter with the rest through the sally-port, and until Parker, who the writer said had had considerable experience as a chirurgeon, examined Coytmore's wound, neither he nor the others knew that it was mortal. Milne, being now the officer in command, thought it fit to order the hostages into irons, fearing some outbreak within the fort as well as an attack from without. One and twenty stalwart savages were dangerous inmates at large, with the freedom of the parade as they had had much of the time. They resisted; one of the soldiers was killed in the effort to shackle them, for arms appeared among them, evidently brought and secreted by their friends who had been permitted to visit them, much leniency having been accorded them, being hostages and not themselves criminals. Another soldier was wounded in the head with a tomahawk. Upon the death of their comrade, and the announcement that the commandant was dying, the garrison was seized with an uncontrollable frenzy, fell upon the hostages, and within five minutes had slaughtered the last man of them. "I know you will feel for me," Milne wrote. "I dared scarce reprimand the men, for they were full of fury. I see here and there signs of sullenness. They watch me--their way of showing regret. I can scarcely blame--yet the Cherokees were hostages and I am sorry; I was much alone, with the temper of the soldiers to consider. Coytmore dead, and Bell gone into a delirium with the fever--his wound bled very little--the ball is near the bone. Doharty had been ill of a pleurisy and seems to relapse. On the night after, I sat for a time in the block-house where we had laid the commandant, feeling very low in my mind. There is one of the men a bit of a joiner, and a great billet of the red cedar, used in building the fort, being left over, he made a decent coffin, the wood working easily and with a fine grain and gloss. I could hear as I sat there the tapping of his mallet and chisel as he worked on the coffin, while Coytmore lay with the flag over him, his sword and hat by his side--there was no fire, because of him, and only a candle at his head, or I think the savages would have seen the light. But the work being finished and everything still, they supposed all asleep. I cannot think why they did not smell the blood--for the ground of the room where the hostages lay reeked of it. Twenty-one!--I could not think how I could bury them inside the fort and I dared not send out a detail, nor do I think the men would obey--the barracks seemed steeped in the smell, though none there. Of a sudden, the night being fine and chill as I sat there with Coytmore, a sentry outside the door, I heard a great voice like a wind rushing. I thought I had been sleeping. And again I heard it--words in Cherokee. _O-se-skinnea co-tan-co-nee!_ I slipped outside the block-house where was the sentinel, much startled, and bade him fetch the interpreter, alive or dead. He came limping--not greatly hurt. The words he said meant, "Good tidings for the unhappy." Then as we stood there other words sounded signifying 'Fight manfully and you will be assisted!' They were spoken to the hostages and close to the rampart hard by their hut, unknowing their--I cannot think how they should not smell the blood! Then from a greater distance came the "Whoo-whoop!" and a thick hail of musketry. The men got under arms very quick and tractable, and I think wished to atone. The fire of the savages had no effect, the balls being buried in the earth of the escarp, or falling spent within the fort. But we were kept at it all night, the men tireless and dutiful. The savages now and then paused at first, expecting some token from the hostages. Then they fought with great persistence--realizing. With what loss we do not know, since they carried off their dead. Sure, how strange 'tis to be fighting all night, firing through the loop-holes of the block-house around Coytmore, with never a word from him, an order, or a sign. I miss him more since he is out of sight. I am afraid to speak of burying the savages inside the fort, along with the commandant and Private Mahone--and yet I _must_ get rid of them. Twenty-one!--in so narrow an enclosure---- "Much gratified by a deputation of Indians, realizing at last, and asking for bodies. Would not open gates for fear of surprise. Had each hoisted up and slipped out of embrasure; could hardly force men to touch them. I said, 'You were too quick once!'--drew my pistol. The Indians seemed mighty glad to get them, yet women went off howling. Soldiers seemed relieved to find in the hut tomahawks buried in ground, and a phial of liquid, which they think was poison for well. I poured this out on the earth, and broke bottle. Men's spirits improve--quite cheerful. Hope you have better luck at Ft. Loudon. Pray some one of you write to me! Bell and the others too ill to send remembrances--doubtless would." The circle listened in appalled silence, and when the reading was concluded, except here and there a murmur of commiseration, or a deep imprecation, hardly a stir was in the room until the joyous notes of the building wren arose, so clear that they had a suggestion of glitter, if the quality of light can ever be an attribute of sound. Then Captain Stuart asked for the letter and silently read it from end to end, while a fragmentary conversation concerning the personality of the slain hostages, all men of great note in their respective towns, began to be prosecuted by the others. That evil days were upon the land hardly admitted of a doubt, and they fell to discussing the improbability of measures of relief and reprisal being undertaken so early after the bootless return of Governor Lyttleton's troops without striking a blow. The Cherokees, too, were surely cognizant of the fact that it was scarcely possible in view of the great expense of mustering and sending forth this force that such an expedition would again be soon set on foot. Acting upon this theory, and always instigated by the subtle French, their demonstration probably heralded a systematic and vigorous outbreak all along the frontier, to exterminate the settlers and free their land forever from the encroachments of the hated English. This view was confirmed by an attack which presently ensued on Fort Ninety-six, and being without effect, the repulsed Indian forces drew off and fell upon the more defenseless settlements, ravaging the frontier throughout the borders of the two Carolinas and Virginia and practicing all the horrible atrocities of savage warfare. The settlers about Fort Loudon quaked in their little log-cabins and looked upon their limited clearings in the wilderness and their meager beginnings of a home, and wondered if it were worth coming so far and risking so much to attain so little. As yet, save for glances of a flashing ire and sullen silence, the Indians had made no demonstration, but it was a period of poignant doubt, like waiting for the falling of a sword suspended by a hair. One day Odalie was startled by seeing Fifine, seated on the threshold, persistently wreathing her countenance into a grimace, which, despite the infantile softness of her face and the harsh savagery of the one she imitated, was so singularly recognizable that the mother took her hands from the bread-trough where she was mixing the pounded corn meal and went near to hear what the child was saying:-- "Fonny! Fonny!" with the terrible look of malevolent ridicule with which Willinawaugh had rebuked Hamish's poor pleasantries on that heart-breaking journey hither. Odalie's pulses seemed to cease to beat. The child could hardly have remembered an incident of so long ago without some recent reminder. "Where, Josephine? Where did you see Willinawaugh?" But Fifine had no mind to answer, apprehending the agitation in the sharp tones, and translating it as displeasure. She drew her countenance straight in short order, and put a meditative forefinger in her mouth as she looked up doubtfully at her mother. Odalie changed her tone; she laughed out gayly. "Fonny! Fonny!" and she too imitated the Indian. Then exclaimed--"_Oh_, isn't it droll, Fifine?" And Fifine, deceived, banged her heels hilariously against the door-step, laughing widely and damply, and crying, "Fonny! Fonny!" in infantile derision. "You didn't see 'Fonny' yesterday. No, Fifine! No!" Odalie had the air of detracting from some merit on Fifine's part, and as she played her little _rôle_ she trembled so with a realization of terror that she could scarcely stand. Yes, Fifine protested with pouts and anger. She _had_ seen him; she had seen him, only yesterday. "Where, Fifine, where?" cried Odalie bewildered, for the child sat upon the threshold all the day long, while the mother spun and wove and cooked within the sound of the babble of her voice, the gates of the stockade being closed in these troublous times, and always one or more of the men at work hard by in the fields without. The mystery was too fraught with menace to be disregarded, but Odalie hesitated, doubting the policy of this direct question. Fifine's interest, however, was suddenly renewed and her importance expanded. "Him wasn't all in," she explained. "Him top-feathers--him head--an' him ugly mouf!" She looked expectantly and half doubtfully at her mother, remembering her seeming anger. "Oh, how droll! One might perish with laughter!" screamed Odalie, with a piercing affectation of merriment, and once more Fifine banged her heels hilariously against the door-step, as she sat on the threshold, and cried in derision, "Fonny! Fonny!" "Where, Fifine? At the stockade? Some hole?" Fifine became angry at this suggestion, for had not "Dill" built the stockade, and would he build a stockade so Indians might get through and cut off her curls--she bounced them about her head--that Dill said were "'andsomer than any queen's." But Odalie _knew_ she had seen "Fonny" at the stockade, and Fifine contradicted, and after a spirited passage of "Did!" "Didn't!" "Did!" "Didn't!" Fifine arose to go and prove her proposition. There at the little spring, so sylvan sweet, so full, yet with the merest trickle of a branch that hardly wet the mint, so shyly hidden amongst its rocks, was a fissure. Odalie had often noted it; dark it was, for the shadows fell on it, and it might be deep; limited--it would but hold her piggin, should she thrust it there, or admit a man's head, yet not his shoulders--and this was what it had done yesterday, for protruding thence Fifine maintained she had seen Willinawaugh's face with "him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf!" Odalie laid her ear to the ground to listen; smooth, quiet, full, she heard the flow of water, doubtless the branch from the little spring always brimming, yet seeming to send so tiny a rill over the slopes of the mint. There was evidently a cave beneath, and they had never dreamed of it! She began to search about for fissures, finding here and there in the deep herbage and the cleft rocks one that might admit the passage of a man's body. She remembered the first sudden strange appearance of the Cherokee women at her fireside, and afterward, and that Sandy and Hamish and Dill often declared that watch the gate as they might they never saw the squaws enter the stockade nor issue therefrom. Doubtless they had come through the cave, that had a hidden exit. Her heart throbbed, her eyes filled; "I ought to be so thankful to discover it in time--to think how safe we felt here when the gates were locked! But, oh, my home! my sweet, sweet home!" The way the men's faces fell when they were summoned, and stood and looked at the slope, might make one pity them. It represented the hard labor of nearly two years--and it was all to begin anew. When Sandy, with the vigorous Scotch thrift, began to show how easily the stockade might be moved to exclude the spring, Gilfillan shook his head warningly. A station should never be without water. Sooner or later its days were numbered. As to the stockade, it was futile. Twenty--nay, fifty men might be surprised and massacred here. For the ordinary purposes of life the place was useless. Hamish, after the first sharp pang, was resolved into curiosity; he must needs slip through the fissure and into the cave below. When Odalie ceased her tears to remonstrate, he declared that he could get out of any cave that Willinawaugh or Choo-qualee-qualoo could, and then demanded to be tied to her apron-string to be drawn up again in case he should prove unable to take care of himself. He went down with a whoop, somewhat like Willinawaugh's own war-cry, then called out that the coast was clear, and asked for his rifle to be handed to him. Following the wall with his hand and the sound of the water he took his way through a narrow subterranean passage, so densely black that it seemed he had never before known what darkness was. He could hear naught but the wide, hollow echo of the flow of the stream, but never did it touch his feet; and after he had progressed, as he judged, including the windings of his way, some five or six miles, he began to recollect a little, meager stream, yet flowing with a good force for its compass, that made a play in the current not a quarter of a mile, not more than one thousand feet, from the fort. So well founded was his judgment of locality that when the light first appeared, a pale glimmer at the end of a long tunnel, growing broader and clearer on approach, and he reached an archway with a sudden turn, seeming from without a mere "rock-house"--as a grotto formed by the beetling ledges of a cliff is called in that region--and with no further cavernous suggestion, the first thing that caught his eye was the English flag flying above the primitive block-houses and bastions and out-works of Fort Loudon, while the little stream gathered all its strength and hied down through the thick underbrush to join the Tennessee River. The officers heard with evident concern of the disaster that had befallen MacLeod Station, and immediately sent a runner to bid the stationers come to the fort, pending their selection of a new site and the raising of new houses. So Odalie, with such few belongings as could be hastily collected once more loaded on a packhorse, again entered the gates of Fort Loudon with a heavy heart. But it was a cheery group she encountered. The soldiers were swaggering about the parade in fine form, the picture of military jollity, and the great hall was full of the officers and settlers. An express had come in with news of a different complexion. Long delayed the bearer had been; tempted to turn back here, waiting an opportunity there, now assisted on his backward journey by a friendly Indian, and again seeing a dodging chance of making through to Loudon, he had traveled his two hundred miles so slowly that the expedition he heralded came hard on the announcement of its approach. While the tidings raised the spirits of the officers and the garrison, it was evident that the movement added elements of danger and developed the crisis. Still they consisted with hope, and with that sentiment of good cheer and jovial courage which succeeded the reading of the brief dispatch from Fort Prince George. Advices just received from Charles Town. General Amherst detaches Colonel Montgomery with adequate force to chastise Indians. Discussions of the situation were rife everywhere. There was much talk of the officer in command of the expedition, a man of distinguished ability and tried courage, and the contradictory Gilmore and Whitson found themselves in case to argue with great vivacity, offering large wagers of untransferable commodities,--such as one's head, one's eyes, one's life,--on the minor point, impossible to be settled at the moment, as to whether or not he spelled his name with a final "y," one maintaining this to be a fact, the other denying it, since he was a younger brother (afterward succeeding to the title) of the Earl of Eglinton, who always spelled his name Montgomerie. It might have afforded them further subject for discussion, and enlarged their appreciation of the caricature of incongruity, could they have known that some two years later three of these savage Cherokee chiefs would be presented to His Majesty King George in London by the Earl of Eglinton, where they were said to have conducted themselves with great dignity and propriety. Horace Walpole in one of his letters chronicles them as the lions of the hour, dining with peers, and having a vocal celebrity, Mrs. Clive, to sing on one of these occasions in her best style for their pleasure. In fact, such was the grace of their deportment, that several of the newspapers seemed to deduce therefrom the failure of civilization, since the aboriginal state of man could show forth these flowers of decorum, a point of view that offends to the quick a learned historian, who argues astutely throughout a precious half-page of a compendious work that the refinements of spiritual culture are still worth consideration, seeming to imply that although we cannot all be Cherokee chieftains, and take London by storm,--in a manner different, let us say in passing, from their previous reduction of smaller cities,--it is quite advisable for us to mind our curriculum and our catechism, and be as wise and good as we may, if not distinguished. Perhaps the Cherokees acted upon the intuitive perception of the value of doing in Rome as the Romans do. And that rule of conduct seems earlier to have been applied by Colonel Montgomery. However he spelled his name, he was sufficiently identifiable. He came northward like an avenging fury. Advancing swiftly with a battalion of Highlanders and four companies of the Royal Scots,[11] some militia and volunteers, through that wild and tangled country, he fell on Little Keowee Town, where with a small detachment he put every man to the sword, and, by making a night march with the main body of his force, almost simultaneously destroyed Estatoe, taking the inhabitants so by surprise that the beds were warm, the food was cooking, loaded guns exploded in the flames, for the town was promptly fired, and many perished thus, the soldiers having become almost uncontrollable on discovering the body of an Englishman who had only that morning suffered death by torture at the hands of the savages. Sugaw Town next met this fate--in fact, almost every one of the Ayrate towns of the Cherokee nation, before Colonel Montgomery wiped his bloody sword, and sheathed it at the gates of Fort Prince George, having personally made several narrow escapes. These details, however, were to Fort Loudon like the flashes of lightning of a storm still below the horizon, and of which one is only made aware by the portentous conditions of the atmosphere. The senior officers of the post began to look grave. The idea occurred to them with such force that they scarcely dared to mention it one to the other, lest it be developed by some obscure electrical transmission in the brain of Oconostota, that Fort Loudon would offer great strategic value in the possession of the Indians. The artillery, managed by French officers, who, doubtless, would appear at their appeal, might well suffice to check the English advance. The fort itself would afford impregnable shelter to the braves, their French allies and non-combatants. Always they had coveted it, always they claimed that it had been built for them, here in the heart of their nation. Stuart was not surprised by the event. He only wondered that it had not chanced earlier. That night the enmity of the Indians was prefigured by a great glare suddenly springing into the sky. It rose above the forests, and from the open spaces about Fort Loudon, whence the woods had been cleared away, one could see it fluctuate and flush more deeply, and expand along the horizon like some flickering mystery of the aurora borealis. But this baleful glare admitted of no doubt. One needed not to speculate on unexplained possibilities of electrical currents, and resultant thrills of light. It only epitomized and materialized the kindling of the fires of hate. It was Odalie's little home; much that she valued still remained there--left to be quietly fetched to the fort next day. Their flitting had taken place at dusk, with but a load of wearing apparel, and it was supposed that the rest was quite safe, as the Cherokees were not presumed to be apprised of their absence. The spinning-wheel and the loom; her laborious treasures of home-woven linen for bed and table; the fine curtains on which the birds flickered for the last time; the beds and pillows, adding pounds on pounds of dry balsam needles to the fire; the flaunting, disguised tabourets, showing themselves now at their true value, and burning stolidly like the chunks of wood they were; the unsteady tables and puncheon benches; all the uncouth, forlorn little makeshifts of her humble housekeeping, that her embellishing touch had rendered so pretty, added their fuel to the flames which cast long-glancing lines of light up and down the silvery reaches of the river she had loved. Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré, who had gone instantly to the tower in the block-house by the gate, on the report of a strange, distant light, saw her as they came down, and both paused, Demeré wincing a trifle, preferring not to meet her. She was standing beside one of the great guns and had been looking out through the embrasure. The moon was directly overhead above the parade, and the shadows of the palisades fell outward. The officers could not avoid her; their way led them down near at hand and they needs must pass her. She turned, and as she stood with one hand on the big cannon, her white dress richly a-gleam in the moonlight, she looked at them with a smile, something of the saddest, in her eyes. "If I wanted to scream, Mrs. MacLeod, I should scream," exclaimed Demeré, impulsively. She laughed a little, realizing how he would have upbraided the futility of tears had she shed them--he was always so ready with his staid, kind, undeniably reasonable rebukes. "No," she said, "I am trying to remember that home is not in a house, but in the heart." "I think you are trying to show us the mettle of a soldier," said Demeré, admiringly. "Mrs. MacLeod would like the king's commission!" cried Stuart, breaking the tension with his bluff raillery, striking the cannon a smart tap with the butt of the pistol he carried in his hand, while the metal gave out a deep, hollow resonance. "Her unbridled ambition was always to be the commanding officer!" Both Stuart and Demeré thought more seriously of the demonstration as affecting the public weal than did the pioneers of the settlement. Still hoping for the best, it seemed to them not unnatural that an abandoned station should be fired as merely wanton mischief, and not necessarily with the knowledge or connivance of the head-men of the Cherokees. The next day, the hunters of the fort went out betimes as usual, and Hamish found it agreeable to make one of the party. Corporal O'Flynn was among the number, and several horses were taken to bring in the game; a bright, clear day it was, of that sweet season when the spring blooms gradually into the richness of summer. The wind was fresh; the river sang; the clouds of a glittering whiteness, a flocculent lightness, floated high in the blue sky. Suddenly the sentry at the gate called out sharply for the corporal of the guard. The men, lounging about the parade, turned to look and listen. [Illustration: "Plunging through the gate and half across the parade ground."] The hoof-beats of a horse coming at frantic speed smote first upon the ear; then across the open space to which the glacis sloped, with snorting head and flying mane and tail, the frightened creature galloped, plunging through the gate and half across the parade ground; a soldier was on his back, leaning forward upon the animal's neck, his arms clasped about it, the stirrups and his position alone retaining him in the saddle; for he was dead--quite dead. Too dead to answer any of the dozen questions hurled at him as the soldiers caught the bridle; when the horse whirled he reeled out of the saddle, so hopelessly dead that they asked him no more. The good sorrel would have told much, if he might, as he stood, snorting and tossing his head, and trembling in every fiber, his eyes starting out of their sockets, yet, conscious he was among his friends, looking from one to another of the soldiers as they handled him, with an earnest appeal for sympathy and consolation which implied some terrible ordeal. Before an order could be given the crack of rifles came from the woods, and a few of the hunters were seen bursting from the forest, one by one, and coming at a double-quick up the slope of the glacis. Hamish and O'Flynn were the last. They had been together a little distant from the others. Now and again they had heard the report of firearms, multiplied into something like a volley. "Listen at them spalpeens wastin' powdher," the corporal exclaimed once, wroth at this unsoldierly practice. "Must they have twenty thrys to hit a big black buffalo? Just lemme git 'em into the gyard house wunst agin--time they git out they'll be fit to worship the outside o' the dure; it'll look so strange an' good to 'm." It was a wolf-trap which he was exploiting at the moment, made of logs cumbrously adjusted and baited with buffalo meat, and within it now were two large, handsome specimens whose skins were of value, and who had evidently resolved to part with those ornamental integuments as reluctantly as might be; they were growling and plunging at the timbers with a most ferocious show of fangs and the foam flying from their snarling jaws. The sun sifted down through the great trees and the soft green shadows on the man and boy, both clad in the hunter's buckskin shirt and leggings. Corporal O'Flynn had knelt down outside the pen the better to see in the shadow the two plunging wild beasts. "I'm afeared to shoot so close lest I might singe yer hair, but I can't stand on ceremony, me dears," he said, addressing the wolves, as he drew his pistol. "Bedad, I _must_ go and stop that wastin' o' powdher!" The next moment something suddenly sang aloud in the wilderness--a wild, strange, sibilant strain. It seemed materialized as it whizzed past Hamish's ear, and so long had it been since he had heard the flight of the almost discarded arrow that he did not recognize the sound till he heard a sharp exclamation of pain and saw the shaft sticking in O'Flynn's right arm, pinning it to the logs of the wolf-trap. The claws of the wild beasts, reaching through, tore now the buckskin and now the flesh from his chest, as he pluckily struggled to free himself; the pistol went off in his grasp and one of the wolves fell in convulsive agonies; the other, dismayed, shrank back. Hamish caught up O'Flynn's loaded gun, looking about warily for Indians, and prudently reserving his fire. He saw naught, and the next moment he realized that O'Flynn was fainting from the pain. He knew that the straggler who had shot the arrow had sped swiftly away to summon other Cherokees, or to secure a gun or more arrows. He risked his life in waiting only a moment, but with the fellow-feeling which was so strong among the pioneers of the Tennessee Valley that it would induce two men at parting, having but one knife between them, to break and share the blade, to divide the powder that meant life in that wild country equally to the last grain. Hamish did not for one instant contemplate any other course. He rushed to O'Flynn and sought to release him, but the flint of the arrow that had gone through the heavy muscular tissues of the arm still stuck fast in the strong fiber of the logs of the trap, and the blood was streaming, and once more the wolf was angrily plunging against the side of the pen. Suddenly the boy remembered the juvenile account of the scalping of "Dill." Calling piteously to O'Flynn not to mind, if he could help it, Hamish placed one firm foot against the straight back of the soldier, and bracing himself with his left arm around a stanch young tree, he pulled at the arrow with all his might. There was a ripping sound of flesh, a human scream, a creak of riving wood, and Corporal O'Flynn lay face downward on the ground, freed, but with the shaft still in his arm, the blood spurting from it, and the wolf plunging and snarling unheeded at the very hair of his head. CHAPTER IX With a great effort Hamish dragged O'Flynn, who was a heavy, muscular fellow, out of the reach of the wolf. Fortunately there chanced to be a spring branch near at hand, and the ice-cold water hurriedly dashed into the corporal's face, together with an earnest reminder of the hideous danger of death and torture by the Indians, and a sense of the possibility of escape, served to sufficiently restore him to enable him to get upon his feet, unsteadily enough, however, and with Hamish's help make his way toward the fort at a pretty fair speed. He fainted after they crossed the ditch, and the great gates closed. These two were the last of the hunters who found rescue; the others who had straggled in previously, reported having been fired upon by Indians, and that several dead soldiers were left upon the ground. The parade was a scene of wild turmoil, far different from its usual orderly military aspect. The settlers and their families, alarmed at last, had fled for refuge to the fort, bringing only a small portion of their scanty possessions. Women were weeping in agitation and terror of the dangers passed, and in despair because of the loss of their little homes, which the Indians were even now pillaging; children were clinging about their mothers and peevishly plaining, their nerves unstrung by the rush and commotion, and the unaccustomed aspect of the place; bundles of clothing and bedding lay about on the ground; the pioneers moved hither and thither, now seeking to adjust discomforts and clear the domestic atmosphere, now aiding in the preparations for an expected attack. Odalie, who had braced up her heart, found little to encourage her as she went from one to another of the matrons and sought to comfort them with the reflection that it might have been worse. "For my own part," she declared, "I think of what might have been. If my household gear were not sacrificed we should have been at home last night when the Indians came and found us gone and sacked and fired the house. And such a little thing to save us--Fifine's talk of seeing Willinawaugh." "Him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf," reiterated Fifine, who had become impressed with the belief that she had done something very clever indeed, and was enchanted to hear it celebrated. Odalie's exertions were more appreciated at the hospital, where she assisted in dressing the wounds and caring for the comfort of the soldiers who had been shot. Afterward, still determined to make the best of things and to help all she could, she discovered a mission to tax her powers in offering to assist in what manner she might the quarter-master-sergeant. That functionary looked as if the conundrum of the created world had suddenly been propounded to him. He was a short, square, red-faced man, with light, staring, gray eyes, and they seemed about to pop out of his head whenever the finding of quarters for another family was required of him. "Why couldn't they have brought some conveniences, such as knives and forks and cups and platters, instead of fool trifles?" he demanded fiercely, aside, as he turned away from one group who were as destitute of all appliances as if they had expected to peck off the ground, or drink out of the bubbles of the spring branch. "I have got none to spare except those of the poor fellows who were killed and Corporal O'Flynn's, for he will be equal to nothing but spoon-meat for one while." "Oh, the poor settlers,--I pity them,--and poor Mr. Green,--I feel very guilty, for I came here just such a charge on the resources of the fort, myself." He paused pudgily, as if he were mentally in full run and had brought up with a short stop. "Oh, you--" he exclaimed, in the tone of making an exception, "you are you." He felt equal to any arrangements for merely military mortals, but the "squaw question," as he mentally called it, overwhelmed him. With a lot of anxious, troubled, houseless women and querulous, distraught, frightened children, and difficult half-grown boys,--and the commandant's general orders to quarter them all to their satisfaction and to furnish whatever was necessary,--the strain might have proved too great for the old bustling sergeant, and like undue pressure on the boiler of one of our modern locomotives, which he much resembled, as he went back and forth puffingly, might have exploded his valuable faculties, but for Odalie's well-meant hints. "I should give Mrs. Halsing the larger room if I were you," she suggested. "Mrs. Beedie is a friend of mine and I will answer for it that she won't mind." Or--"If I might suggest, I wouldn't put Mrs. Dean and the twin babies next to Mrs. Rush. Nervous headaches and other people's twin babies won't keep step--not one bit. Put them next to me. I am conveniently deaf at times." And Mrs. Halsing said, "That French thing flirts with every man in the fort, from the commandant down to Mrs. Dean's one-year-old boy twin!" For Odalie was presently conveying this juvenile personage about in her arms, and he left off a whimper, characteristic of no particular age or sex, to exhibit a truly masculine interest in the big soldiers with their bright uniforms and clanking accouterments, and although constrained by the force of the concussion to blink and close his eyes whenever the great guns were fired, he fairly wheezed and squealed with manly ecstasy in the sound--for a cannonade had begun, seeking to deter the plunder of the deserted houses in the settlement. The din suddenly ceased; the active military figures paused in the swift preparations that were in progress to meet the expected attack; the confusion and stir of the groups of settlers' families in the parade were petrified in a sort of aghast disarray; amongst them appeared half a dozen stalwart fellows bearing a stretcher, on which lay the body of the dead soldier whom the horse had brought into the fort, his young boyish face all smooth again and serenely upturned to the serene sky. He was dressed in his uniform, with his belt and gloves freshly pipeclayed and glittering white. His melancholy progress from the crowded barracks to a vacant building where were kept the spare arms,--called the armory,--there to wait the few remaining hours of his sojourn in these familiar scenes, served to deepen the gloom with the thought of the others of the little band, lying out in the woods, who would not receive even such simple honors of sepulture as the fort could bestow. But after the next day, when the poor young soldier was buried (the children wept dreadfully at the sound of the muffled drum, the troops being touched by their sympathetic tears, and Captain Demeré read the burial service and alluded feelingly to the other dead of the garrison, to whom they could only do reverence in the heart and keep their memory green)--after all this the place took on an air of brisk cheerfulness and the parade ground presented somewhat the appearance of the esplanade of a watering-place, minus the wealth and show and fashion. In the evenings after the dress-parade and the boom of the sunset-gun, the elder women sat about in the doors and porches, and knitted and gossiped, and the men walked up and down and discussed the stale war news from Europe--for the triumphs of British arms were then rife in all the world--or sat upon the grass and played dominoes or cards; the soldiers near the barracks threw horseshoes for quoits; the children rollicked about, shrill but joyous; Odalie and Belinda Rush in their cool fresh linen dresses, arm in arm, the admiration of all beholders, strolled up and down with measured step and lissome grace; and the flag would slip down, and the twilight come on, and a star tremble in the blue summer sky; and the sweet fern that overhung the deep clear spring, always in the shadow of the oaks near one of the block-houses, would give out a fresh, pungent fragrance. Presently the moon would shed her bland benediction over all the scene, and the palisades would draw sharp-pointed shadows on the dark interior slope, and beside each cannon the similitude of another great gun would be mounted; a pearly glister would intimate where the river ran between the dense glossy foliage of the primeval woods, and only the voice of the chanting cicada, or the long dull drone of the frogs, or the hooting of an owl, would come from the deserted village, lying there so still and silent, guarded by the guns of the fort. And after a little Odalie would be strolling on her husband's arm in the moonlight, and would silently gaze about with long, doubting, diplomatic eyelashes and inquiring eyes when asked where was Belinda Rush,--which conduct induced Mrs. Halsing's comment as to Mrs. MacLeod's proclivity toward matchmaking. For in the neighborhood of the northwestern bastion one might see, if one were very keen, sitting in the moonlight on the tread of the banquette, Belinda Rush and Ensign Whitson--talking and talking--of what?--so much!--in fact so much that at other times Ensign Whitson had little to say, and Lieutenant Gilmore pined for lack of contradiction, and his powers of argument fell away. Captain Demeré and Captain Stuart, on their way to a post of observation in the block-house tower, came near running over these young people seated thus one moonlight night--to Captain Demeré's manifest confusion and Captain Stuart's bluff delight, although both passed with serious mien, doffing their hats with some casual words of salutation. Despite his relish of the episode, Stuart glanced down at them afterward from the block-house tower and said, in a tone of commiseration, "Poor little love-story!" "Why preëmpt ill-fortune for them, John?" broke out Demeré, irritably. "Bless you, my boy, I'm no prophet!" exclaimed Stuart easily. [Illustration: Belinda and the Ensign on the moonlit rampart.] The expected attack by the Indians took place one night late, in the dead hour, after the sinking of the moon, and with all the cunning of a designed surprise. The shadowy figures, that one might imagine would be indistinguishable from the darkness, had crept forward, encompassing the fort, approaching nearly to the glacis, when the crack of a sentry's firelock rang out, splitting the dead silence, and every cannon of the twelve roared in hideous unison, for the gunners throughout the night lay ready beside the pieces. A fusillade ill-directed upon the works, for the besiegers encountered the recoil of the surprise they had planned, met a furious response from the loop-holes where the firelocks of the garrison were reënforced by the rifles of the backwoodsmen. Every man had been assigned his post, and it seemed that the wild alarum of the drum had hardly begun to vibrate on the thrilling air when each, standing aside from the loop-hole according to orders, leveled his weapon without sighting and fired. Wild screams from without, now and again, attested the execution of these blind volleys into the black night, and the anguish that overcame the stoical fortitude of the warlike Cherokee. The crashing of the trees, as the cannon on all sides sent the heavy balls thundering beyond the open space into the forest, seemed to indicate that the retreat of the assailants was cut off, or that it must needs be made under the open fire of the artillery. How the movement fared the defenders could ill judge, because of the tumult of their own rapidly delivered volleys--all firing to the word, the "fencibles" adopting the tactics of the garrison in which they had been so well drilled--and the regular reverberations of the rapidly served cannon. They only knew when the ineffectual fire of the assailants slackened, then ceased; the crash of riving timber, and now and again a hideous yell from the forest, told of the grim deed wrought beyond the range of the firelock by the far-reaching great guns. It was soon over, and although the garrison stood ready at their posts for an hour or more afterward, till the night was wearing into dawn, no further demonstration was made. "Vastly fine! They will not return to the attack,--the fun's over," Captain Stuart cried hilariously;--his face and hands were as black with powder "as if he had been rubbing noses with the cannon," Corporal O'Flynn said, having crawled out of the hospital on his hands and knees to participate in the fight in some wise, if only as spectator. "They have had a lesson," said Demeré, with grim triumph, "how severe, we can't judge till we see the ground." This satisfaction, however, was to be denied them, for the corporal of the guard presently brought the report of a sentinel whose sharp eyes had descried, in the first faint gray siftings of the dawn through the black night, parties of Indians, chiefly women, carrying off the dead and disabled, and now and then a wild, shuddering groan or a half-smothered cry of the wounded attested their errand of mercy. "They ought to show a white flag," said Demeré, exactingly, like the martinet he was. "And they ought to wear top-boots on their feet, and Steinkirks around their gullets, and say their prayers, but they don't," retorted Stuart in high good humor, for his rigorous discipline and persistent formality were exerted only on his own forces; he cared not to require such punctiliousness of the enemy since it did not serve his interest. "Let them take the carrion away. We don't want to play scavenger for them--from an ambuscade they could make it mighty hot for us! And we should be compelled to do it for sanitary reasons--too close to the fort to let the bodies lie there and rot." And with this prosaic reminder Captain Demeré was content to dispense with the polite formality of a flag of truce. They never knew what the loss might be on the Indian side, nor did the braves again venture within gunshot. Now and then the cannon sought to search the woods and locate the line, but no sound followed the deep-voiced roar, save the heavy reverberations of the echo from up and down the river and the sullen response of the craggy hills. The cannonade had served to acquaint the Cherokees with an accurate estimate of the range of the guns. The fact that a strong cordon was maintained just beyond this, was discovered when the post hunters were again sent out, on the theory that the repulse of the Indians had been sufficiently decisive to induce a suspension of hostilities and a relinquishment of their designs to capture the fort, if not a relapse into the former pacific relations. The hunters were driven back by a smart fire, returning with one man shot through the leg, brought in by a comrade on horseback, and four others riding double, leaving their slain horses on the ground. It became very evident that the Cherokees intended to maintain a blockade, since the fort obviously could not be carried by storm, and the commandant was proof against surprise. To send the hunters out again was but to incur the futile loss of life and thus weaken the garrison. The supply of fresh game already in the fort being exhausted, the few head of cattle and the reserves of the smoke-house came into use. The very fact that such reserves had been provided put new heart into the soldiers and roused afresh the confidence of the settlers, who had begun to quake at the idea of standing a siege so suddenly begun, without warning or preparation, save indeed for the forethought for all emergencies manifested by the senior officers. Both Demeré and Stuart became doubly popular, and when there was a call for volunteers to run the blockade and severally carry dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, they had but to choose among all the men in the fort. The tenor of these dispatches was to apprise Colonel Montgomery of the blockade of Fort Loudon and ask relief, urging him to push forward at once and attack the Ottare towns, when valuable assistance could be rendered him by the ordnance of the fort, as well as by a detachment of infantry from the forces of the garrison attacking the Indians on the flank in support of the aggressions of his vanguard. Gilfillan was selected as the earliest express sent out, and loud and woeful was Fifine's outcry when she discovered that her precious "Dill" was to be withdrawn from her sight. But when he declared that he needs must go to keep the Indians from cutting off her curls and starving out the garrison--Mrs. Dean's twin babies were represented as the most imminent victims, so much more precious than one, "being philopenas" as O'Flynn admonished her--she consented, and tearfully bade him adieu. And he kissed her very gravely, and very gravely at her request kissed the cat. So with these manifestations of his simple affection he goes out of these pages beyond all human ken, and into the great unknown. For Dill returned no more. His long backwoods experience, his knowledge of Indian character, his wide familiarity with the face of the country, and many by-ways and unfrequented routes, his capacity to speak the Cherokee language, all combined to suggest his special fitness for the dangerous part he had undertaken to play. The next express, going two days later and following the beaten track, was a man who had frequently served in this capacity and knew half the Indians of the Lower Towns and Middle Settlements by name--a quick-witted pioneer, "half-trader, half-hunter, and half-packman," as he often described himself, and he had been in the country, he boasted, "ever since it was built." The choice of these two men was evidently specially judicious, and after the mysterious disappearance of each, being smuggled out of the fort in dead silence and the darkest hour of the deep night, the garrison settled down to a regular routine, to wear away the time till they might wake some morning to hear the crack of Montgomery's musketry on the horizon, or the hissing of his grenades burning out their fuses and bursting among the dense jungles, where the Cherokees lay in ambush and blockaded Fort Loudon. The military precision and order maintained continued as strict as heretofore. It argued no slight attention to detail and adroit handling of small opportunities that the comfort of the soldiers was in no wise reduced by the intrusion into their restricted domain of so considerable a number of people, many unprovided with the most ordinary conveniences of life. Even in such a matter as table and cooking utensils the food of the companies was served as heretofore, and only after the military had breakfasted or dined, or supped, could their precious pewter platters and cups be borrowed by the families, to be rigorously cleaned and restored before the preparations began for the next meal. Every utensil in the place did double duty, yet not one failed to be ready for service when required. Mrs. Halsing ventured to cavil, and suggested that she had always heard elsewhere that it was polite to serve ladies and children first, instead of giving a lot of hulking soldiers precedence. "Why, madam," Demeré said, with rebuking severity, "the men are the muscles of our defense, and must be kept in the best possible physical condition." Nothing was allowed to interfere with the regular hours of the troops or break their rest. Tattoo and "lights out" had the same meaning for the women and children and wild young boys as for the soldiery; no boisterous callow cries and juvenile racing and chasing were permitted on the parade; no belated groups of gossipers; no nocturnal wailing of wickedly wakeful infants in earshot. "A-body would think the men was cherubim or seraphim the way the commandant cares for them," plained Mrs. Halsing. The supplies were regulated by the same careful supervision and served out duly by weight and allowance. Somewhat frugal seemed this dole, especially to those who had lived on the unlimited profusion of the woodland game, yet it was sufficient. No violent exercise, to which the men had been accustomed, required now the restoring of exhausted tissues by a generous food supply. There was ample provision, too, made for the occupation of the men's attention and their amusement. The regular cleaning of quarters, inspection, drill and guard duties, and dress-parades went on as heretofore, with the "fencibles" as an auxiliary body. The rude games of ball, ring toss, leap-frog were varied sometimes by an exhibition, given under the auspices of the officers, of feats of strength; certain martial Samsons lifted great weights, made astonishing leaps, ran like greyhounds competing with one another in a marked-off course, or engaged in wrestling-matches--to the unbounded applause of the audience, except the compassionate Fifine, who wept loudly and inconsolably whenever a stalwart fellow caught a fall. One rainy evening, in the officers' mess-hall, the society of the fort was invited to hear the performance of a clever but rascally fellow, more used to ride the wooden horse than to any other occupation, who was a bit of a ventriloquist. Among other feats he made Fifine's cat talk, and tell about Willinawaugh with "him top-feathers, him head, an' him ugly mouf," to the great relish of his comrades (who resented the fact that the Indians, exceedingly vain of their own personal appearance,[12] were accustomed to speak of the paleface as the "ugly white people"); to the intense, shrieking delight of the elder children; and to the amazement of Fifine, who could not understand afterward why the _douce mignonne_ would not talk to her. When the pretended conversation of the cat grew funnily profane, Captain Demeré only called out "Time's up," from the back of the hall, and the fellow came sheepishly down from the platform, holding the borrowed kitty by the nape of the neck, and half the audience did not catch the funny swear that he attributed to the exemplary feline. Then there was a shadow-pantomime, where immaterial roisterers "played Injun," and went through the horrid details of scalping and murders, with grotesque concomitant circumstances,--such as the terrifying ricochet effects on an unsophisticated red-man of riving a buzz-wig from the head of his victim in lieu of a real scalp, and the consequent sudden exchange of the characters of pursued and pursuer,--all of which, oddly enough, the people who stood in imminent danger of a horrible fate thought very funny indeed. One evening the commandant devised a new plan to pass the time. All were summoned to the parade ground to share in an entertainment designated as "Songs of all nations." "An' I could find it in my stommick to wish it was to share in 'Soups of all nations,'" said Corporal O'Flynn to a comrade. For it seemed that the quartermaster-sergeant had docked his rations by an ounce or two, a difference that made itself noted in so slender a dole and a convalescent's appetite. It was a night long to be remembered. The great coils of Scorpio seemed covered with scintillating scales, so brilliant were the stars. No cloud was in the sky, unless one might so call that seeming glittering vapor, the resplendent nebulose clusters of the Galaxy. A wind was moving through the upper atmosphere, for the air was fresh and cool, but below was the soft, sweet stillness of the summer night, full of fragrant odors from the woods, the sound of the swift-flowing river, the outpour of the melody of a mocking-bird that had alighted on the tip of the great flagstaff, and seemed to contribute thence his share to the songs of all nations. He caught upon his white wing and tail-feathers, as he flirted them, the clear radiance of the moon,--not a great orb, but sending forth a light fair enough to be felt in all that sidereal glitter of the cloudless sky, to show the faces of Odalie and Belinda and others less comely, as the ladies sat in chairs under the line of trees on one side of the parade with a group of officers near them, and the soldiers and "single men" and children of the settlers filling the benches of the post which were brought out for the occasion. So they all sang, beginning with a great chorus of "Rule Britannia," into which they threw more force and patriotism than melody. Then came certain solo performances, some of which were curious enough. Odalie's French chansonnettes acquired from her grand'maman, drifting out in a mellow contralto voice, and a big booming proclamation concerning the "Vaterland," by the drum-major, were the least queerly foreign. Mrs. Halsing, after much pressing, sang an outlandish, repetitious melody that was like an intricate wooden recitative, and the words were suspected of being Icelandic,--though she averred they were High Dutch, to the secret indignation of the drum-major, who, as O'Flynn afterward remarked, when discussing the details of the evening, felt himself qualified by descent to judge, his own father-in-law having been a German. The men who had sung in the Christmas carols remembered old English ditties,-- "How now, shepherd, what means that, Why that willow in thy hat?" and "Barbara Allen." Corporal O'Flynn, in the most incongruously sentimental and melancholy of tenors, sang "Savourneen Deelish eileen ogg." The sober Sandy gave a rollicking Scotch drinking-song that seemed to show the very bead on the liquor, "Hey the browst, and hey the quaigh!". The officers' cook, a quaint old African, seated cross-legged on the ground, on the outskirts of the crowd, piped up at the commandant's bidding, and half sang, half recited, in a wide, deep, musical voice, and an unheard-of language that excited great interest for a time; but interpreting certain manifestations of applause among the soldiers as guying, he took himself and his ear-rings and a gay kerchief, which he wore, to the intense delight of the garrison, as a belt around the waistband of his knee-breeches, to his kitchen, replying with cavalier insubordination,--pioneer of the domestic manners of these days,--to Captain Stuart's remonstrances by the assertion that he had to wash his kettle. There were even cradle songs, for Mrs. Dean, who certainly had ample field for efforts in that line, sang a sweet little theme, saying she knew nothing else, and a big grenadier, whose hair was touched with gray, and who spoke in a deep sonorous voice (the Cherokees had always called him _Kanoona_, "the bull-frog"), respectfully requested to know of the lady if she could sing one that he had not heard for forty years, in fact, not since his mother sang it to him. One or two of the settlers, hailing originally from England, remembered it too, and some discussion ensued touching the words and the exact turn of the tune. In the midst of this a wag among the younger pioneers mischievously suggested that the grenadier should favor them with a rendition of his version, and the big soldier, in the simplicity of his heart and his fond old memories, in a great bass voice that fairly trembled with its own weight, began "Bye-low, bye-low"; and the ventriloquist who had made the cat swear, and who so often rode the wooden horse, was compelled during the performance to wear his hat adjusted over his face, for his grin was of a distention not to be tolerated in polite society. Perhaps because of the several contradictory phases of interest involved in this contribution to the entertainment, it held the general attention more definitely than worthier vocal efforts that had preceded it, and the incident passed altogether unnoticed, except by Captain Stuart, when the corporal of the guard appeared in the distance, his metal buttons glimmering from afar in the dusk as he approached, and Captain Demeré softly signaled to him to pause, and rising quietly vanished in the shadow of the block-house. He encountered Stuart at the door, for he had also slipped away from the crowd, himself, like a shadow. "Dispatches?" he asked. "The express from Fort Prince George," Demeré replied, his voice tense, excited, with the realization of an impending crisis. CHAPTER X Demeré was not a man to consider an omen and attach weight to trifling chances, yet he was in some sort prepared for disaster. Within the hall a pair of candles stood on the table where it was the habit to transact official business,--to write letters; to construct maps of the country from the resources of the information of the officers and the descriptions of the Indians; to make out reports and the accounts of the post. Writing materials were kept in readiness here for these purposes--a due array of quills, paper, inkhorn, wafers, sealing-wax, sand-box, and lights. As the door was opened the candles flickered in the sudden draught, bowed to the wicks grown long and unsnuffed, and in another moment were extinguished, leaving the place in total darkness, with the papers on which hung such weighty interests of life and death, of rescue or despair, unread in his hand. "The tinder-box--the flint--where are they? Cannot you strike a spark?" he demanded, in agitated suspense, of Stuart, who made more than one fruitless effort before the timorous flame was started anew on the old and drooping wicks, which had to be smartly snuffed before they would afford sufficient light to discern the hasty characters, that looked as if they might have been written on a drumhead--as in fact they were. "Here--read them, John--I can't," said Demeré, handing the package to Stuart, and throwing himself into a chair to listen. Although the suspense had been of the kind that does not usually herald surcease of anxiety, he was not prepared for the face of consternation with which Stuart silently perused the scrawled lines. "From Montgomery!" he exclaimed. "But our dispatches evidently have never reached him." For in the bold strain of triumph Colonel Montgomery acquainted the commandant of Fort Loudon with the successful issue of his campaign, having lost only four men, although he had burned a number of Indian towns, destroyed incalculable quantities of provisions, killed and wounded many braves, and was carrying with him a train of prisoners, men, women, and children. He was now on the march to the relief of Fort Prince George, which the savages had invested, where the garrison was in much distress, not for the want of provisions but for fuel to cook food, since the enemy was in such force that no sortie could be made to the woods to procure a supply. Two of his prisoners he had set at liberty, Fiftoe, and the old warrior of Estatoe, that they might acquaint the nation of his further intentions, for, if the Indians did not immediately sue for peace and deliver up the principal transgressors to justice, he would sally forth from Fort Prince George on another foray, and he would not hold his hand till he had burned every Cherokee town of the whole nation. He deputed Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré to offer these terms to the Upper towns, and let them know that they were admitted to this clemency solely in consideration of the regard of the government for Atta-Kulla-Kulla. This chieftain, the half-king of the Cherokee tribe, had deprecated, it was understood, the renewal of the war, since he had signed the last treaty at the Congarees, and having shown himself friendly on several occasions to the British people his majesty's government esteemed him as he deserved. The two officers gazed silently at one another. Montgomery was obviously entirely unaware of their situation. Here they were, penned up in this restricted compass, besieged by an enemy so furious that even a hat showing but for one moment above the palisades,--for the soldiers had tried the experiment of poising an old busby on the point of a bayonet,--would be riddled in an instant. Often a well-directed bullet would enter the small loop-holes for musketry, and thus, firing from ambush, endanger the sentinel as he stood within the strong defenses. More than once arrows, freighted with inflammable substances, all ablaze, had been shot into the fort with the effort to fire the houses; it was dry weather mostly, with a prospect of a long drought, and the flames thus started threatened a conflagration, and required the exertions of the entire garrison to extinguish them. This proclivity necessitated eternal vigilance. Ever and anon it was requisite that the cannon should renew their strong, surly note of menace, and again send the balls crashing through the forest, and about the ears of the persistent besiegers. Only the strength of the primitive work saved the garrison from instant massacre, with the women and children and the settlers who had sought safety behind those sturdy ramparts. Of the ultimate danger of starvation the officers did not dare to think. And from this situation to be summoned to send forth threats of sword and fire, and to offer arrogant terms of peace, and to demand the surrender, to the justice of the gibbet, of the principal transgressors in the violation of the treaty! There were no words that could express what they felt. They could only look at one another, each conscious of the other's sympathy, and say nothing. Outside, Odalie, Belinda, and Ensign Whitson were singing a trio, the parts somewhat at haphazard, the fugue-like effects coming in like the cadences of the wind, now high, now low, and in varying strength. The stars still glittered down into the parade; the moon cast a gentle shadow along the palisades; the sentries in the block-house towers, the gunners lying flat beneath their great cannon, feeling the dew on their faces, looking toward the moon, the guard ready to turn out at the word,--all listened languorously, and drank in the sweets of the summer night with the music. A scene almost peaceful, despite the guarded walls, and the savage hordes outside, balked, and furious, and thirsting for blood. "Let us see the express, Paul," said Stuart at last. The express had repeatedly served as a means of communication between Fort Loudon and Fort Prince George, and as he came in he cautiously closed the door. He was a man of war, himself, in some sort, and was aware that a garrison is hardly to be included in the conference between commanders of a frontier force and their chosen emissary. With the inside of his packet his brain was presumed to have no concern, but in such a time and such a country his eyes and ears, on his missions to and fro, did such stalwart service in the interests of his own safety that he was often able to give the officers at the end of his route far more important news, the fruits of his observation, than his dispatches were likely to unfold. He was of stalwart build, and clad in the fringed buckskin shirt and leggings of the hunter, and holding his coonskin cap in his hand. He had saluted after the military fashion, and had evidently been enough the inmate of frontier posts to have some regard for military rank. He waited, despite his look of having much of moment to communicate, until the question had been casually propounded by Stuart: "Well, what can you tell us of the state of the country?" then in disconnected sentences the details came in torrents. Montgomery's campaign had been something unheard of. His "feet were winged with fire and destruction,"--that was what Oconostota said. Oh, yes, the express had seen Oconostota. But for Oconostota he could not have made Fort Loudon. He had let him come with the two warriors, set free by Montgomery to suggest terms of peace and spread the news of the devastation, as a safe-guard against any straggling white people they might chance to meet, and in return they afforded him safe-conduct from the Cherokees. The devastation was beyond belief,--dead and dying Indians lying all around the lower country, and many were burned alive in their houses when the towns were fired. Many were now pitifully destitute. As the fugitives stood on the summits of distant hills and watched their blazing homes and great granaries of corn--"I could but be sorry for them a little," declared Major Grant of Montgomery's command. But the result was not to be what Montgomery hoped. The Cherokees were arming anew everywhere. They would fight now to the death, to extermination,--even Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who had been opposed to breaking the treaty. Oh, yes, he had seen Atta-Kulla-Kulla. The chief said he would not strike a blow with a feather to break a treaty and his solemn word. But to avenge the blood of his kindred that cried out from the ground he would give his life, if he had as many years to live as there were hairs on his head! The express added that Atta-Kulla-Kulla had been sitting on the ground in his old blanket, with ashes on his head, after the council agreed to break the treaty. But now he was going round with his scalp-lock dressed out with fresh eagle-feathers, and armed with his gun, and tomahawk, and scalp-knife, and wearing his finest gear, and with all his war-paint on--one side of his face red, and the other black, with big white circles around his eyes,--"looks mighty keen," the man exclaimed with a sort of relish of the fine barbaric effect of the fighting trim of the great warrior. Then his face fell. "And I told Oconostota that I would not deliver his message to you, Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré, sir," he hesitated; "it was not fit for your worshipful presence; and he said that the deed might go before the word, then." "What message did he send?" asked Demeré, with flashing eyes. "Well, sir, he said Fort Loudon was theirs,--that it was built for the Cherokees, and they had paid the English nation for it in the blood they had shed in helping the Virginians defend their frontier against the French and their Indian allies. But you English had possessed the fort; you had claimed it; and now he would say that it was yours,--yours to be burnt in,--to be starved in,--to die in,--to leave your bones in, till they are thrust forth by the rightful owner to be gnawed by the wolf of the wilderness." There was a momentary silence. "Vastly polite!" exclaimed Captain Stuart, with a rollicking laugh. "Lord, sir," said the man, as if the sound grated upon him, "they are a dreadful people. I wouldn't go through again what I have had to risk to get here for--any money! It has been full three weeks since I left Oconostota's camp. He is with the Lower towns--him and Atta-Kulla-Kulla, but Willinawaugh is the head-man of the force out here. They seemed to think I was spying,--but they have got so many men that I just doubts but what they want you should know their strength." "You will go back to Colonel Montgomery at Fort Prince George with dispatches?" said Demeré. The man's expression hardened. "Captain Demeré," he said, "and Captain Stuart, sir, I have served you long and faithful. You know I bean't no coward. But it is certain death for me to go out of that sally-port. I couldn't have got in except for that message from Oconostota. He wanted you to hear that. I believe 'Old Hop' thinks Willinawaugh can terrify you out of this place if they can't carry it by storm. I misdoubts but they expects Frenchmen to join them. They talk so sweet on the French! Every other word is Louis Latinac! That French officer has made them believe that the English intend to exterminate the Cherokees from off the face of the earth." He paused a moment in rising discontent,--to have done so much, yet refuse aught! "I wouldn't have undertook to bring that message from Oconostota except I thought it was important for you to have your dispatches; it ain't my fault if they ain't satisfactory." He cast a glance of the keenest curiosity at the papers, and Captain Stuart, lazily filling his pipe, took one of the candles in his hand and kindled the tobacco at the blaze. "Nothing is satisfactory that is one-sided," he said easily. "We don't want Colonel Montgomery to do all the talking, and to have to receive his letters as orders. We propose to say a word ourselves." A gleam of intelligence was in the scout's eyes. It was a time when there was much professional jealousy rife in the various branches of the service, and he had been cleverly induced to fancy that here was a case in point. These men had a command altogether independent of Colonel Montgomery, it was true, but he was of so much higher rank that doubtless this galled them, and rendered them prone to assert their own position. He bent his energies now, however, to a question touching his pay, and answering a seemingly casual inquiry relative to the fact that he had heard naught of Gilfillan and the other express, was dismissed without being subjected to greater urgency. The two maintained silence for a time, the coal dying in Captain Stuart's pipe as he absently contemplated the fireless chimney-place filled now with boughs of green pine. Demeré spoke first. "If we can get no communication with Colonel Montgomery it means certain death to all the garrison." "Sooner or later," assented Stuart. The problem stayed with them all that night. They were forced to maintain a cheerful casual guise in the presence of their little public, and the appearance of the express put great heart into the soldiery. The fact that the commandant was in the immediate receipt of advices from Colonel Montgomery and his victorious army seemed itself a pledge of safety. The express was turned loose among them to rehearse the exploits of Montgomery's troops,--the splendid forced marches they made; the execution of their marksmanship; the terror that the Cherokees manifested of their sputtering grenades, hurled exploding into the ambuscades by the stalwart grenadiers at the word,--"Fall on"; the interest of the Indians in the sound of the bagpipes and in the national dress, the plaid and philibeg, of the Highlanders, which, although now generally proscribed by law, was continued as a privilege granted to those enlisted in regiments in the British army. He told of the delight of the Highlanders in the sight of the Great Smoky Mountains, how they rejoiced to climb the crags and steep ravines even of the foothills. He repeated jokes and gibes of the camp outside Fort Prince George, for Montgomery had overtaken him and raised the siege before he reached the fort, so difficult was the slow progress of the express among the inimical Cherokees. He detailed Colonel Montgomery's relish of the sight of a piece of field artillery which Ensign Milne showed him; that officer had mounted it one day before the siege when he was with a detail that he had ordered into the woods to get fuel for the post, and a band of Cherokees had descended upon him,--"a Quaker," he called it; you might have heard Colonel Montgomery laugh two hundred miles to Fort Loudon, for of course it wouldn't fight,--a very powerful Friend, indeed,--only a black log mounted between two wheels, which the soldiers had been in the habit of using to ease up the loads of wood. But the Indians were deceived, and with their terror of artillery got out of range in short order, and the soldiers made their way back into the fort under the protection of their "little Quaker." When the barracks were lost in slumber, and the parade was deserted but for the moon, and the soft wind, and the echo of the tramp of the sentry, Captain Stuart went over to Captain Demeré's house, and there until late the two discussed the practicabilities, that each, like a blind trail, promised thoroughfare and led but to confusion. The officers did not dare to call for volunteers to carry dispatches to Montgomery, in the face of the fact that the express just arrived could not be prevailed on to return. Without, moreover, some assurance of the safety of the messengers previously sent out, no man would now so lightly venture his life as to seek to slip through the vigilant savage hordes. To explain the terrors of the crisis to the garrison would be to have the ferocious Cherokees without, and panic, mutiny, and violence within. Yet a man must go; a man who would return; a man who would risk torture and death twice. "For we must have some assurance of the delivery of our dispatches," Stuart argued. "I am anxious as to the homing qualities of our dove that we are about to send out of this ark of ours," he said, as he lay stretched out at full length on the buffalo rug on the floor, in the moonlight that fell so peacefully in at the window of his friend's bedroom. Demeré was recumbent on his narrow camp-bed, so still, so silent, that more than once Stuart asked him if he slept. "How can I sleep,--with this sense of responsibility?" Demeré returned, reproachfully. But Stuart slept presently, waking once to reply to Demeré's remark that a married man would have the homing quality desired, the fort holding his family; Stuart declared that no one would be willing to leave wife and children to such protection as other men might have presence of mind to give them in a desperate crisis. The mere communication might create a panic. "Of all things," said Stuart, as he lay at his stalwart length, his long, fair hair blowsing in the wind over the rug, "I am most afraid of fear." When Demeré presently asked him if he were quite comfortable down there, his unceremonious presence placing him somewhat in the position of guest, his silence answered for him, and he did not again speak or stir until the drums were sounding without and the troops were falling in line for roll-call. Neither gave sign of their vigil; they both were exceedingly spruce, and fresh, and well set up, to sustain the covert scrutiny of the garrison, who regarded them as a sort of moral barometer of the situation, and sought to discern in their appearance the tenor of Montgomery's official dispatches. That morning, when Stuart went with his spy-glass to reconnoiter from the tower of one of the block-houses, he noted, always keenly observant, a trifle of confusion, as he entered, in the manner of the sentinel,--the smart, fair-haired, freckled-faced young soldier whose services were sometimes used as orderly, and whose name was Daniel Eske. The boy immediately sought to appear unconcerned. The officer asked no question. He raised the glass to his eye and in one moment discerned, amongst the laurel jungles close to the river, an Indian, a young girl, who suddenly lifted her arm and gracefully waved her hand toward the bastion. Stuart lowered the glass and gravely looked a grim inquiry at the young soldier. Daniel Eske answered precipitately: "For God's sake, sir, don't let this go against me. I'm not holding any communication with the enemy,--the red devils. That baggage, sir, has been twice a-waving her hand to me when I have been on guard here. I never took no notice, so help me God,--Captain,--I--" The distance being minimized by the lens, Stuart could discern all the coquettish details of the apparition; the garb of white dressed doe skin--a fabric as soft and flexible, the writers of that day tell us, as "velvet cloth"--the fringed borders of which were hung with shells and bits of tinkling metal; the hair, duly anointed, black and lustrous, dressed high on the head and decorated with small wings of the red bird; many strings of red beads dangled about the neck, and the moccasons were those so highly valued by the Indians, painted an indelible red. With a definite realization of the menace of treachery in her presence, Stuart's face was stern indeed as he looked at her. All at once his expression changed. "Do as I bid you," he said to the sentry, suddenly remembering "Wing-of-the-Flying-Whip-poor-will," and her talk of the handsome young orderly with his gold hair and freckles, and his gossip touching the Scotchman's beautiful French wife, whom she regarded merely as a captive. "Wait till she waves again. But no,--she is going,--show yourself at the window,--must risk a shot now and then." The loop-hole here attained the size of a small window, being commanded only by the river, which would expose any marksman to a direct return fire. "Now, she sees you," exclaimed Stuart, as the young fellow's face appeared in the aperture, gruff, sheepish, consciously punished and ridiculous,--how could he dream of Stuart's scheme! "Take off your hat. Wave it to her. Wave it with a will, man! There,--she responds. That will do." Then, with a change of tone, "I advise you, for your own good, to stay away from that window, for if any man in this garrison is detected in engaging in sign language with the enemy he will certainly be court-martialed and shot." "Captain," protested the boy, with tears in his eyes, "I'd as lieve be shot now, sir, as to have you think I would hold any communication with the enemy,--the warriors. As to that girl,--the forward hussy came there herself. I took no notice of her waving her hand. I'd--" But Captain Stuart was half down the ladder, and, despite young Eske's red coat, and the fact that he smelled powder with more satisfaction than perfume, and could hear bullets whizzing about his head without dodging, and had made forced marches without flinching, when he could scarce bear his sore feet to the ground, the tears in his eyes overflowed upon the admired freckles on his cheek, and he shed them for the imputation of Captain Stuart's warning as to communicating with the enemy. That officer had forgotten him utterly, except as a factor in his plan. He sat so jocund and cheerful beside the table in the great hall that Odalie, summoned thither, looked at him in surprise, thinking he must have received some good news,--a theory corrected in another moment by the downcast, remonstrant, doubtful expression on Demeré's face. He rose to offer her a chair, and Stuart, closing the door behind her, replied to something he had already said:-- "At all events it is perfectly safe to lay the matter before Mrs. MacLeod." To this Demeré responded disaffectedly, "Oh, certainly, beyond a doubt." "Mrs. MacLeod," said Stuart deliberately, and growing very grave, as he sat opposite to her with one hand on the table, "we are trusting very deeply to your courage and discretion when I tell you that our situation here is very dangerous, and the prospect nearly desperate." She looked at him silently in startled dismay. She thought of her own, of all that she loved. And for a moment her heart stood still. "You know that all received methods, all military usages, fail as applied to Indian warfare. You can be of the greatest service to us in this emergency. Will you volunteer?" There was a little smile at the corner of Stuart's lip as he looked at her steadily. "No, no, I protest," cried Demeré. "Tell her first what she is to do." "No," said Stuart, "when you agreed to the plan you expressly stipulated that you were to have no responsibility. Now if Mrs. MacLeod volunteers it is as a soldier and unquestioningly under orders." "It is sudden," hesitated Odalie. "May I tell my husband?" "Would he allow you to risk yourself?" asked Stuart. "And yet it is for yourself, your husband, your child, the garrison,--to save all our lives, God willing." Odalie's color rose, her eyes grew bright. "I know I can trust you to make the risk as slight as it may be,--to place me in no useless danger. I volunteer." The two men looked at her for one moment, their hearts in their eyes. Then Captain Stuart broke out with his reassuring raillery. "I always knew it,--such a proclivity for the military life! In the king's service at last." Odalie laughed, but Captain Demeré could not compass a smile. Stuart's next question she thought a bit of his fun. "Have you here," he said, with deep gravity, "some stout gown, fashioned with plaits and fullness in the skirt, and a cape or fichu,--is that what you call it,--about the shoulders? And, yes,--that large red hood, calash, that you wore the first day you arrived at the fort,"--his ready smile flickered,--"on an understanding so little pleasing to your taste. Go get them on, and meet me at the northwestern bastion." The young soldier, Daniel Eske, still standing guard in the block-house tower, looked out on a scene without incident. The river shone in the clear June daylight; the woods were dark, and fresh with dew and deeply green, and so dense that they showed no token of broken boughs and riven hole, results of the cannonade they had sustained, which still served to keep at a distance, beyond the range of the guns, the beleaguering cordon of savages, and thus prevent surprise or storm. Nevertheless there were occasional lurking Indians, spies, or stragglers from the main line, amongst the dense boughs of the blooming rhododendron; he saw from time to time skulking painted faces and feathers fluttering from lordly scalp-locks, which rendered so much the more serious and probable the imputation of communicating with the enemy that the presence and gestures of Choo-qualee-qualoo, still lingering there, had contrived to throw upon him. Her folly might have cost him his life. He might have been sentenced to be shot by his own comrades, discovered to be holding communication with the enemy, and that enemy the Cherokees,--good sooth! Suddenly rampant in his mind was a wild strange suspicion of treachery. His abrupt cry, "Halt, or I fire!" rang sharply on the air, and his musket was thrust through the window, aiming in intimidation down alongside the parapet, where upon the exterior slope of the rampart the beautiful Carolina girl, the French wife of the Scotch settler, had contrived to creep through the embrasure below the muzzle of the cannon, for the ground had sunk a trifle there with the weight of the piece or through some defect of the gabions that helped build up the "cheek," and she now stood at full height on the berm, above the red clay slope of the scarp, signing to Choo-qualee-qualoo with one hand, and with the other motioning toward the muzzle of his firelock, mutely imploring him to desist. How did she dare! The light tint of her gray gown rendered her distinct against the deep rich color of the red clay slope; her calash, of a different, denser red, was a mark for a rifle that clear day a long way off. He was acutely conscious of those skulking braves in the woods, all mute and motionless now, watching with keen eyes the altercation with the sentry, and he shuddered at her possible fate, even while, with an unrealized mental process, doubts arose of her loyalty to the interests of the garrison, which her French extraction aided her strange, suspicious demonstration to foster. He flushed with a violent rush of resentment when he became aware that Choo-qualee-qualoo was signing to him also, with entreating gestures, and so keen-eyed had the Indian warfare rendered him that he perceived that she was prompted to this action by a brave,--he half fancied him Willinawaugh,--who knelt in the pawpaw bushes a short distance from the Cherokee girl and spoke to her ever and anon. "One step further and I fire!" he called out to Odalie, flinching nevertheless, as he looked down into her clear, hazel, upturned eyes. Then overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility he raised the weapon to fire into the air and lifted the first note of a wild hoarse cry for "Corporal of the guard,"--and suddenly heard O'Flynn's voice behind him:-- "Shet up, ye blethering bull-calf! The leddy's actin' under orders." And not only was O'Flynn behind him but Stuart. "Sign to Mrs. MacLeod that she may go," said that officer, "but not for long. Shake your head,--seem doubtful. Then take your hat and wave it to the Cherokee wench, as if you relent for her sake!" "Oh, sir,--I can't," exclaimed the young soldier even while he obeyed, expressing the revolt in his mind against the action of his muscles. "It's mighty hard to kape the girls away from ye, but we will lend ye a stick nex' time," said Corporal O'Flynn, in scornful ridicule of his reluctance, not aware of the imputation of colloguing with the enemy to which the long-range flirtation with Choo-qualee-qualoo had seemed to expose him in Captain Stuart's mind. Captain Stuart had placed in a loop-hole the muzzle of a firelock, which he sighted himself. O'Flynn leveled another, both men being of course invisible from without; as the young sentinel obeyed the order to openly lounge in the window and look toward Choo-qualee-qualoo he could see within the parapet that the gunners of the battery were standing to their shotted pieces, Captain Demeré, himself, in command. With this provision against capture, or for revenge, one might fear, rather than protection, Odalie took her way down the steep slope amongst the impeding stakes of the fraises, thickly sown, and looking, it might seem, like dragons' teeth in process of sprouting. More than once she paused and glanced up at the sentinel leaning in the window with his firelock and entreated by signs his forbearance, which he seemed to accord qualified, doubtful, and limited. She soon crossed the ditch, the glacis, so swift she was, so sure and free of step, and paused in the open space beyond; then Choo-qualee-qualoo, too, began to advance. Better protected was the Cherokee girl, for she carried in her hand, and now and again waved, laughingly, as if for jest, a white flag, a length of fluttering cambric and lace. "By the howly poker!" exclaimed Corporal O'Flynn, beneath his breath, "that is the cravat of a man of quality,--some British officer of rank, belike." He glanced with anxiety at Captain Stuart, whose every faculty seemed concentrated on the matter in hand. "The Cherokees know that a white flag is a sign which we respect, and that that squaw is as safe with it as if she were the commandant of the post. I only wish Mrs. MacLeod could have a like security." This aspiration had the effect of fastening O'Flynn's eye and mind to the sighting of his firelock and obliterating his speculations concerning the cravat as spoil stripped from some slain officer of rank. The two women met in the open space, with the rifles of how many keen-sighted, capricious savages leveled toward the spot Demeré hardly dared to think, as he watched Odalie in a sort of agony of terror that he might have felt had she been a cherished sister. They stood talking for a time in the attitudes and the manner of their age, which was near the same, swinging a little apart now and then, and coming together with suddenly renewed interest, and again, with free, casual gestures, and graceful, unconstrained pose, they both laughed, and seemed to take a congenial pleasure in their meeting. They sat down for a time on a bit of grass,--the sward springing anew, since it was so little trodden in these days, and with a richness that blood might have added to its vigor. Odalie answered, with apparent unsuspiciousness, certain shrewd questions concerning the armament of the fort, the store of ammunition, the quantity of provisions, the manner in which Stuart and Demeré continued to bear themselves, the expectation held out to the garrison of relief from any quarter,--questions which she was sure had never originated in the brain of Choo-qualee-qualoo, but had been prompted by the craft of Willinawaugh. Odalie, too, had been carefully prompted, and Stuart's anticipatory answers were very definitely delivered, as of her own volition. Then they passed to casual chatting, to the presentation of a bauble which Odalie had brought, and which seemed to touch Choo-qualee-qualoo to the point of detailing as gossip the fact that the attack on the white people had been intended to begin at MacLeod Station, Willinawaugh retaining so much resentment against the Scotchman to whom he had granted safe-conduct, thinking him French, when he only had a French squaw as a captive. Savanukah, who really spoke French, had made capital of it, and had rendered Willinawaugh's pretensions ridiculous in the eyes of the nation, for Willinawaugh had always boasted, to Savanukah at least, that he understood French, although it was beneath his dignity to speak it. This was done to reduce Savanukah's linguistic achievements, and to put him in the position of a mere interpreter of such people, when Savanukah was a great warrior, and yet could speak many languages, like the famous Baron Des Johnnes. And what was there now at MacLeod Station? Nothing: stockade, houses, fields, all burnt! Great was the wrath of Willinawaugh! This talk, however, was less to the taste of Choo-qualee-qualoo than questions and answers concerning the young sentinel, whom the Cherokees had named _Sekakee_, "the grasshopper," as he was so loquacious; she often paused to put the strings of red beads into her mouth, and to gaze away at the glittering reaches of the river with large liquid eyes, sending now and then a glance at the window where that gruff young person leaned on his firelock. Savanukah's wife said _Sekakee_ must be hungry, Choo-qualee-qualoo told Odalie. Was _Sekakee_ hungry? She would bring him some beans. Savanukah said they would all be hungry soon. And the fort would be the Indians', and there would be nobody in the land but the Cherokees, and the French to carry on trade with them--was Odalie not glad that she was French?--for there had been great fighting with the English colonel's men, and Willinawaugh had told her to tell the captains English both that fact: much blood did they shed of their own blood, as red as their own red coats! Odalie regarded this merely as an empty boast, the triumphs of Montgomery's campaign rife this day in the garrison, but it made her tremble to listen. Nevertheless, she had the nerve to walk with Choo-qualee-qualoo almost to the water-side, near the shadowy covert of the dense woods. Nothing lurked there now,--no flickering feather, no fiercely gay painted face. Her confidence seemed the ally of the Indians. The French captive of the Carolina Scotchman would be to them like a spy in the enemy's camp! Perhaps the ordeal made the greater draughts on the courage of the men who stood in the shelter of the works and sighted the guns. The tension grew so great as she lingered there in the shadows that cold drops stood on Demeré's face, and the hand with which Stuart held the firelock trembled. "It's a woman that can't get enough of anything," O'Flynn muttered to himself. "I'll have the lockjaw in me lungs, for I'm gittin' so as I can't move me chist to catch me breath." But Odalie turned at last, and still signaling anxiously to the sentry, as if to implore silence and forbearance, she crossed the open space with her swift, swinging step, climbed the red clay slope among the spiked staves of the fraises, knelt down, slipped through the embrasure, and was lifted to her feet by Demeré, while the gunners stood by looking on, and smiling and ready to cry over her. Twice afterward, the same detail, all enjoined to secrecy, loaded their cannon, and stood with burning matches ready to fire at the word, while the maneuver was repeated; an interval of a day or so was allowed to elapse on each occasion, and the hour was variously chosen--when it was possible for the French woman to escape, as Choo-qualee-qualoo was given to understand. Both times Demeré protested, although he had accorded the plan his countenance, urging the capricious temper of the Indians, who might permit Mrs. MacLeod's exit from the fort one day, and the next, for a whim, or for revenge toward her husband, who had incurred their special enmity for outwitting them on his journey hither, shoot her through the heart as she stood on the crest of the counterscarp. And of what avail then the shotted cannon, the firelocks in the loop-holes! "You know they are for our own protection," he argued. "Otherwise we could not endure to see the risk. The utmost we can do for her is to prevent capture, or if she is shot to take quick vengeance. Loading the cannon only saves _our_ nerves." "I admit it," declared Stuart,--"a species of military sal-volatile. I never pretended to her that she was protected at all, or safe in any way,--she volunteered for a duty of great hazard." Demeré, although appreciating the inestimable value to the garrison of the opportunity, was relieved after the third occasion, when Alexander MacLeod, by an accident, discovered the fact of these dangerous sorties in the face of a savage enemy, no less capriciously wicked and mischievous than furious and blood-thirsty. His astonished rage precluded speech for a moment, and the two officers found an opportunity to get him inside the great hall, and turning the key Stuart put it in his pocket. "Now, before you expend your wrath in words that we may all regret," he said, sternly, "you had best understand the situation. Your wife is not a woman to play the fool under any circumstances, and for ourselves we are not in heart for practical jokes. Mr. MacLeod, we have here more than three hundred mouths to feed daily, nearly three hundred the mouths of hearty, hungry men, and we have exhausted our supply of corn and have in the smoke-house barely enough salted meat to sustain us for another fortnight. Then we shall begin to eat the few horses. We are so closely beleaguered that it has proved impossible to get an express through that cordon of savages to the country beyond. To communicate with Colonel Montgomery as early as practicable is the only hope of saving our lives. Mrs. MacLeod's sorties from the fort are a part of our scheme--the essential part. You may yet come to think the dearest boon that fate could have given her would have been a ball through her brain as she stood on the escarp--so little her chances are worth!" This plain disclosure staggered MacLeod. He had thought the place amply victualed. A rising doubt of the officers' capacity to manage the situation showed in his face. Stuart interpreted the expression. "You see,--the instant disaster is suggested you can't rely on us,--even you! And if that spirit were abroad in the garrison and among the settlers, we should have a thousand schemes in progress, manipulated by people not so experienced as we, to save themselves first and--_perhaps_ the others. The ammunition might be traded to the Cherokees for a promise of individual security. The gates might be opened and the garrison delivered into the enemy's hands by two or three as the price of their own lives. Such a panic or mutiny might arise as would render a defense of the place impracticable, and the fort be taken by storm and all put to the sword, or death by torture. We are keeping our secret as well as we can, hoping for relief from Montgomery, and scheming to receive assurance of it. We asked Mrs. MacLeod's help, and she gave it!" The logic of this appeal left MacLeod no reply. "How could you!" he only exclaimed, glancing reproachfully at his wife. "That is what I have always said," cried Stuart, gayly, perceiving that the crisis was overpast. "How _could_ she!" There was no more that Odalie could do, and that fact partially reconciled the shuddering MacLeod to the past, although he felt he could hardly face the ghastly front of the future. And he drew back wincingly from the unfolding plans. As for Odalie, the next day she spent in her room, the door barred, her hair tossed out of its wonted perfection of array, her dress disordered, her face and eyes swollen with weeping, and when she heard the great guns of the fort begin to send forth their thunder, and the heavy shot crashing among the boughs of the forest beyond, she fell upon her knees, then rose, wild and agitated, springing to the door, yet no sooner letting down the bar than again replacing it, to fall anew upon her knees and rise once more, too distraught for the framing of a prayer. Yet at this same moment Mrs. MacLeod, in her familiar gray serge gown and red calash, was seen, calm and decorous, walking slowly across the parade in the direction of the great hall of the northwest bastion. The soldiers who met her doffed their hats with looks of deep respect. Now and again she bowed to a settler with her pretty, stately grace,--somewhat too pronounced an elegance for the wife of so poor a man as MacLeod, it was thought, he being of less ornamental clay. She hesitated at the door of the block-house, with a little air of diffidence, as might befit a lady breaking in upon the time of men presumed to be officially busy. The door opened, and with a bow of mingled dignity and deprecation she entered, and as the door closed, Hamish dropped the imitation of her manner, and bounded into the middle of the room with a great gush of boyish laughter, holding out both arms and crying, "Don't I look enticing! To see the fellows salaaming to the very ground as I came across the parade!--what are you doing to my frock, Captain Demeré?" he broke off, suddenly. "It's just right. Odalie fixed it herself." "Don't scuffle up these frills so," Captain Demeré objected. "Mrs. MacLeod is wont to wear her frock precisely." "Did O'Flynn mistake you for Mrs. MacLeod?" asked Stuart, relishing the situation despite his anxiety. "I wish you could have seen the way he drew down that red Irish mouth of his," said Hamish, with a guffaw, "looking so genteel and pious!" "I think it passes," said Demeré, who was not optimistic; but now he too was smiling a little. "It passes!" cried Stuart, triumphantly. For the height of Odalie and Hamish was exactly the same--five feet eight inches. Hamish, destined to attain upward of six feet, had not yet all his growth. The full pleated skirt with the upper portion drawn up at the hips, and the cape about the shoulders, obviated the difference between Odalie's delicately rounded slenderness and Hamish's lank angularity. The cape of the calash, too, was thrown around the throat and about the chin and mouth, and as she was wont to hold her head down and look up at you from out the dusky red tunnel of its depths the difference in the complexion and the expression of the hazel eyes of each was hardly to be noticed in passing. To speak would have been fatal, but Hamish had been charged not to speak. His chestnut curls, brushed into a glossy similarity, crept out and lay on the folds of the red cape of the calash with a verisimilitude that seemed almost profane. Admonished by Stuart to have heed of long steps, and the dashing swing of his habitual gait, he was leaning on Sandy's arm, as they went out, in an imitation of Odalie's graceful manner. The young sentry, Daniel Eske,--no one else was permitted at these times to stand guard in this block-house tower,--noted this, with the usual maneuver of Mrs. MacLeod's escape through the embrasure, and he was filled with ire. He had fancied that her husband did not know of this recklessness, as he was half inclined to think it, although evidently some fine-spun scheme of Captain Stuart's; it seemed especially futile this evening, so near sunset, and the odd circumstance of the cannonade having sufficed to clear every Indian out of the forest and the range of the guns. Mrs. MacLeod could not speak to Choo-qualee-qualoo now, he argued within himself; the girl would not be there in the face of this hot fire! How rapidly Mrs. MacLeod walked; only once she paused and glanced about her as if looking for the Cherokee girl,--what folly!--for with a flash of fire and a puff of white smoke, and a great sweeping curve too swift to follow with the eye, each successive ball flew from the cannon's mouth over her head and into the woods beyond. From the opposite bank of the river an Indian, crouched in the cleft of a rock, yet consciously out of the range, watched her progress for one moment, then suddenly set off at a swift pace, doubtless to fetch the young squaw, so that when the firing should cease she could ascertain from the French woman what the unusual demonstration of the cannonade might signify. It was only for a moment that the sentry's attention was thus diverted, but when he looked again the gray gown, the red calash, the swiftly moving figure had disappeared. The gunners had been ordered to cease firing, and the usual commotion of sponging out the bore, and reloading the guns, and replacing all the appliances of their service, was interrupted now and again by the men looking anxiously through the embrasure for Mrs. MacLeod's return. They presently called up an inquiry to the sentinel in the tower, presuming upon the utility of the secret service to excuse this breach of discipline. "Why," said the soldier, "I took my eye off her for one minute and she disappeared." "You mean you shut your eyes for five minutes," said Corporal O'Flynn, gruffly, having just entered. "Captain Stuart told me that he himself opened the little gate and let her in by the sally-port. And there she is now, all dressed out fresh again, walking with her husband on the parade under the trees. An' yonder is the Injun colleen,--got here too late! Answer her, man, according to your orders." Against his will the young sentinel leaned out of the window with a made-to-order smile, and as Choo-qualee-qualoo waved her hand and pointed to the empty path along which Odalie was wont to come, he intimated by signs that she had waited but was obliged to return to the fort and was now within, and he pointed down to the gorge of the bastion. To-morrow when there should be an eastern sky she would come out, and Choo-qualee-qualoo signed that she would meet her. Then she lingered, waving her hand now and again on her own account, and he dutifully flourished his hat. "Gosh," he exclaimed, "if treachery sticks in the gizzard like this pretense there is no use in cord or shot,--the fellow does for himself!" He was glad when the lingering twilight slipped down at last and put an end to the long-range flirtation, for however alert an interest he might have developed, were it voluntary, its utility as a military maneuver blunted its zest. Choo-qualee-qualoo had sped away to her home up the river; the stars were in the sky, and in broken glimmers reflected in the ripples of the current. The head-men among the cordon, drawn around Fort Loudon, sat in circles and discussed the possible reasons of the sudden furious cannonade, and the others of minor tribal importance listened and adjusted their own theories to the views advanced; the only stragglers were the spies whom the cannonade had driven from the woods that afternoon, now venturing back into the neighborhood, looking at the lights of the fort, hearing often hilarious voices full of the triumph of Montgomery's foray, and sometimes finding on the ground the spent balls of the cannonade. It had so cleared the nearer spaces that it had enabled Hamish, in a guise become familiar to them, to gain the little thicket where Choo-qualee-qualoo and Odalie were wont to conclude their talks. Close by was the mouth of the cavernous passage that led to MacLeod's Station, which no Indians knew the white people had discovered. With a sudden plunge the boy was lost to sight in its labyrinthine darkness, and when Hamish MacLeod emerged at the further end five miles away, in his own garb, which he had worn beneath the prim feminine attire,--this he had carefully rolled into a bundle and stowed in a cleft in the rocks of the underground passage,--he issued into a night as sweet, as lonely, and as still, in that vast woodland, as if there were no wars or rumors of wars in all the earth. But, alas! for the sight of Odalie's home that she had loved and made so happy, and where he had been as cherished as Fifine herself,--all grim, charred ashes; and poor Dill's cabin!--he knew by this time that Dill was dead, very dead, or he would have come back to them. The fields, too, that they had sown, and that none would reap, trampled and torn, and singed and burnt! Hamish gave but one sigh, bursting from an overcharged heart; then he was away at full speed in the darkness that was good to him, and the only friend he had in the world with the power to help him and his. Captain Demeré that night was more truly cheerful than he had been for a long time, despite his usual port of serene, although somewhat austere, dignity. "The boy has all the homing qualities you desired in an express," he said to Stuart. "He will come back to his brother's family as certainly as a man with wife and children, and yet in quitting them he leaves no duty to devolve on others." "Moreover," said Stuart, "we have the satisfaction of knowing that he safely reached the mouth of the underground passage without detection. He could not have found the place in a dark night. In the moonlight he would have been seen, and even if we had protected his entrance by a cannonade, and cleared the woods, his exit at the other end of the passage would have been intercepted. Disguised as Mrs. MacLeod, seeking to meet Choo-qualee-qualoo in bold daylight, he passed without a suspicion on the part of the Indians. And we know that the exit of the passage at MacLeod Station is fully three miles in the rear of the Indian line. I feel sure that the other two expresses never got beyond the Indian line. This is the best chance we have had." "And a very good chance," said Demeré. Stuart could but laugh a little, remembering that Demeré had thought the plan impracticable, and, although there was no other opportunity possible, had protested against it on the point of danger involved to Mrs. MacLeod. Stuart, himself, had quaked on this score, and had seized on this ingenious device only as a last resort. "Mrs. MacLeod is fine timber for a forlorn hope," he said reflectively. The matter had been so sedulously guarded from the knowledge of the garrison, save such share as was of necessity divulged to the men who fired the guns, the young sentinel, and Corporal O'Flynn,--and even they were not aware that there had been a sortie of any other person than Mrs. MacLeod,--that Hamish's absence passed unnoticed for several days, and when it was announced that he had been smuggled out of the fort, charged with dispatches to Colonel Montgomery, no one dreamed of identifying him with the apparition in the gray gown whom the gunners had seen to issue forth and return no more. Even Corporal O'Flynn accepted the statement, without suspicion, that Captain Stuart had let Mrs. MacLeod in at the sally-port. These excursions, he imagined, were to secure information from Choo-qualee-qualoo. The announcement that an express was now on the way was made to encourage the men, for the daily ration had dwindled to a most meager portion, and complaints were rife on every hand both among the soldiery and the families of the settlers. A wild, startled look appeared in many eyes, as if some ghastly possibility had come within the range of vision, undreamed-of before. The facts, however, that the commandant was able to still maintain a connection beyond the line of blockading Cherokees, that Hamish had been gone for more than a week, that decisive developments of some sort must shortly ensue, that the officers themselves kept a cheerful countenance, served to stimulate an effort to sustain the suspense and the gnawing privation. Continual exertions were made in this direction. "Try to keep up the spirits of the men," said Demeré to O'Flynn one day. "I do, sor," returned O'Flynn, his cheek a trifle pale and sunken. "I offer meself to 'm as an example. I says to the guard only to-day, sor, says I,--'Now in affliction ye see the difference betune a person of quality, and a common spalpeen.' An' they wants to know who is this person of quality, sor. And I names meself, sor, being descended from kings of Oirland. An', would ye belave me, sor, not one of them bog-trotting teagues but what was kings of Oirland, too, sor." Corporal O'Flynn might have thought his superior officer needed cheering too, for the twinkle in his eye had lost none of its alluring Celtic quality. The distressing element of internecine strife and bickerings was presently added to the difficulties of the officers, who evidently faced a situation grievous enough in itself without these auxiliary troubles. Certain turbulent spirits opined loudly that they, the humbler people, had advantage taken of them,--that the officers' mess was served in a profusion never abated, while the rest starved. Captain Stuart and Captain Demeré would not notice this report, but the junior officers were vehement in their protestations that they and their superiors had had from the beginning of the scarcity the identical rations served out to the others, and that their gluttony had not reduced the general supply. The quartermaster-sergeant confirmed this, yet who believed him, as Mrs. Halsing said, for he carried the keys and could favor whom he would. That he did not favor himself was obvious from the fact that his once red face had grown an ashen gray, and the cheeks hung in visible cords and ligaments under the thrice-folded skin, the flesh between having gradually vanished. The African cook felt his honor so touched by this aspersion on his master's methods that he carried his kettles and pans out into the center of the parade one day and there, in insubordinate disregard of orders, cooked in public the scanty materials of the officers' dinner. And having thus expressed his indignant rage he sat down on the ground among his kettles and pans and wept aloud in a long lugubrious howl, thus giving vent to his grief, and requiring the kind offices of every friend he had in the fort to pacify him and induce him to remove himself, his pans, and his kettles from this unseemly conspicuousness. At the height of the trouble, when Stuart and Demeré, themselves anxious and nervous, and greatly reduced by the poor quality and scarcity of food, sat together and speculated on the problem of Montgomery's silence, and the continued absence of the express, and wondered how long this state of things could be maintained, yearning for, yet fearing the end,--talking as they dared not talk to any human being but each to the other,--Ensign Whitson burst into the room with an excited face and the news that there had been a fight over in the northeast bastion at the further side of the terrepleine. Captain Stuart rose, bracing his nerves for the endurance of still more. "A food riot? I have expected it. Have they broken into the smoke-house?" Whitson looked wild for one moment. "Oh, no, sir,--not that!--not that! Two Irishmen at fisticuffs,--about the Battle of the Boyne!--Corporal O'Flynn and a settler." For the first time in a week Stuart laughed with genuine hilarity. "Mighty well!" he exclaimed. "Let us settle the important questions between the Irish Catholics and the Irish Protestants before we go a step further!" But Demeré was writhing under the realization of a relaxed discipline, although when O'Flynn presented himself in response to summons he was so crest-fallen and woe-begone and reduced, that Demeré had not the heart to take summary measures with the half-famished boxer. "O'Flynn," he said, "do you deem this a fitting time to set the example of broils between the settlers and soldiers? Truly, I think we need but this to precipitate our ruin." Stuart hastily checked the effect of this imprudent phrase by breaking in upon a statement of Corporal O'Flynn's, which seemed to represent his right arm as in some sort a free agent, mechanically impelled through the air, the hand in a clinched posture, in disastrous juxtaposition with the skulls of other people, and that he was not thinking, and would not have had it happen for nothing, and-- "But _is_ the man an Irishman?" asked Stuart. "He has no brogue." "Faith, sor," said the repentant O'Flynn, glad of the diversion, "he hits loike an Oirishman,--I don't think he is an impostor. My nose feels rather limber." O'Flynn having been of great service in the crisis, they were both glad to pass over his breach of discipline as lightly as they might; and he doubtless reaped the benefit of their relief that the matter was less serious than they had feared. The next day, however, the expected happened. The unruly element, partly of soldiers with a few of the settlers, broke into the smoke-house and discovered there what the commandant was sedulously trying to conceal,--_nothing_! It stunned them for the moment. It tamed them. The more prudential souls began now to fear the attitude of the officers, to turn to them, to rely again upon their experience and capacity. When the two captains came upon the scene, Demeré wearing the affronted, averse, dangerous aspect which he always bore upon any breach of discipline, and Stuart his usual cool, off-hand look as if the matter did not greatly concern him, they listened in silence to the clamor of explanations and expostulations, of criminations and recriminations which greeted them. Only a single sentence was spoken by either of them,--a terse low-toned order. Upon the word, Corporal O'Flynn with a squad of soldiers rushed briskly into the crowd, and in less than two minutes the rioters were in irons. "Jedburgh justice!" said Stuart aside to Demeré, as they took their way back across the parade. "Hang 'em first, and try 'em afterward." The bystanders might argue little from Demeré's reticent soldierly dignity, but Stuart's ringing laugh, as he spoke aside to his brother officer, his cheerful, buoyant, composed mien, restored confidence as naught less than the sound of Montgomery's bugles outside the works might have done. Doubtless he was apprised of early relief. Surely he did not look like a man who expected to live on horse-flesh in the midst of a mutinous garrison, with the wild savages outside, and within that terrible strain upon the courage,--the contemplation of the sufferings of non-combatants, the women and children, who had entered into no covenant and received no compensation to endure the varying chances of war. Yet this prospect seemed close upon him before that day was done. The orderly routine had slipped again into its grooves. The hungry men, brisk, spruce, were going about their various military duties with an alacrity incongruous with their cadaverous aspect. The sentinels were posted as usual, and Captain Stuart, repairing according to his wont to a post of observation in the block-house tower of the northwest bastion, turned his glass upon the country beyond, lowered it suddenly, looking keenly at the lens, as if he could not believe his eyes, and again lifted it. There was no mistake. On the opposite side of the river, looking like some gigantic monkey capering along on a pair of thin bare legs, was a stalwart Indian, arrayed for the upper part of his person in a fine scarlet coat, richly laced, evidently the spoil from some British officer of high rank. Perhaps no apparition so grotesque ever sent a chill to so stout a heart. Stuart was no prophet, quotha. But he could see the worst when it came and stared him in the eyes. CHAPTER XI Stuart and Demeré argued the matter in their secret conclaves. Both admitted that although Montgomery had had only four or five men killed, among them no officers, on his first expedition, he might have again taken the field, and this was as they hoped. He was advancing; he must be near. The trophy of the fine red coat meant probably that he had lost an officer of value;--perhaps meant less--the personal disaster of the capture of baggage or the necessity of throwing it away. Montgomery had advanced,--that was indubitable. Nevertheless,--and perhaps it was the lowering influence of the scanty fare on which they had so long subsisted,--both officers dreaded the suspense less than the coming disclosure. Stuart felt all his nerves grow tense late one day in the red July sunset, when there emerged from the copse of pawpaw bushes, close to the river where Odalie had once been wont to repair to talk to Choo-qualee-qualoo, a tall form, arrayed in a gray gown, a trifle ill-adjusted, with a big red calash drawn forward on the head, that walked at a somewhat slashing gait across the open space toward the glacis. He thanked heaven that Mrs. MacLeod was ill in her bed, although he had some twenty minutes ago been sending to her through her husband expressions of polite and heartfelt regret and sympathy. "Why, I hardly thought Mrs. MacLeod was well enough to take a walk," he observed to the sentry. Daniel Eske naturally supposed that Mrs. MacLeod had slipped out before he had gone on duty, having just been sent to the relief of the previous sentinel. Stuart went down to the embrasure, assisted the supposed lady to her feet as she slipped through, and ceremoniously offered her his arm as she was about to plunge down the steep interior slope in a very boyish fashion. They found Demeré in the great hall, and both officers read the brief official dispatch with countenances of dismay. "This says that you can explain the details," said Demeré, with dry lips and brightly gleaming eyes. "Oh, yes," said Hamish. "All the time that I was at Fort Prince George the commandant was writing letters to Governor Bull--for Lyttleton has been appointed to Jamaica--and hustling off his expresses to South Carolina. He sent three, and said if he heard from none by return he would send more." For this was the appalling fact that had fallen like a thunderbolt,--Colonel Montgomery had with his command quitted the country and sailed for New York. His orders were to strike a sudden blow for the relief of Carolina and return to head-quarters at Albany at the earliest possible moment. No word of the grievous straits of the garrison of Fort Loudon had reached him. He had, indeed, advanced from Fort Prince George, which he had made the base of his aggressive operations against the Cherokees, but not for the relief of Fort Loudon, for neither he nor the commandant of Fort Prince George knew that that post was in danger. The overtures to the Cherokees for peace having proved fruitless, Colonel Montgomery had sought to make peace by force. In pursuance of this further effort he pushed forward with great energy and spirit, but encountered throughout disasters so serious as to cripple his enterprise, culminating finally in a result equivalent to a repulse. The Indians, in the skulking methods peculiar to their warfare, harassed his march, hanging upon the flanks of the main body, and firing in detail from behind trees and rocks, from the depths of ravines and the summits of hills of the broken, rugged wilderness. Never did they present any front that it was possible to charge and turn. The advance-guard, approaching through a narrow valley, the town of Etchoee, which the Indians had abandoned, fell into an ambuscade of considerable strength, and there he lost Captain Morrison of the Rangers, and ten or twelve men who fell at the first fire. The vanguard, discouraged, began to give way, when the light infantry and grenadiers were detached for its support. They succeeded in locating the chief strength of the Cherokees sufficiently to drive the savages back, despite the disastrous results of their scattered fire. The main body, coming up, encamped near Etchoee, on a level space which proved, however, to be commanded by eminences in the vicinity. Thence the Indians poured destructive volleys into the British ranks, and only after repeated charges the soldiers succeeded in dislodging them. Impetuously attacked on the flank, the Cherokees suffered severely at the hands of the Royal Scots before being able to get out of their reach. The terrible aspect of the painted savages, and their nerve-thrilling whoops with which the woods resounded, failed also to affect the courage of the wild Highlanders, and all the troops fought with great ardor. But Colonel Montgomery deemed it impossible to penetrate further through the wilderness, hampered as he was by seventy wounded men whom he could not leave to the mercies of so savage an enemy, by the loss of many horses, by the necessity--which was yet almost an impossibility--of carrying a train of cattle and other provisions with him in so rugged, trackless, and heavily wooded a region, and relinquished the attempt, thinking the terrible losses which the Indians had sustained would prove sufficient punishment and dispose them to peace. He was even compelled to sacrifice a considerable portion of his stores, throwing away bags of flour in large numbers in order to effect the release of the packhorses to transport his wounded. His dead he sunk heavily weighted into the rivers, that the bodies might not be dragged from their graves and scalped by the Indians. His return march of sixty miles to Fort Prince George, which was accomplished with great regularity, was marked by the same incidents that had characterized his advance,--the nettling fire of the masked enemy, the futile response, and the constant loss of men and horses. And so he was gone, and all the hopes that had clustered about his advance had gone with him! To Fort Loudon remained only two remote chances,--that Governor Bull of South Carolina might be able to act on the belated information and send out an expedition of relief; yet this was to the last degree improbable, since the province, after its first expensive expedition against the Cherokees, had been compelled to appeal for its own protection to the British commander-in-chief, the militia being practically disabled by the ravages of smallpox. But even at the best could such an expedition reach them in time? The other possibility of succor lay in Virginia, and it was obvious wisdom to embrace both chances. Stuart knew that Demeré's quill, scraping over the paper, was fashioning the appeal to the royal governor of that province, even while Hamish was still speaking, and he, himself, wrote supplemental letters to other persons of note, that the news of their desolation, failing to carry in one direction, might be spread in another. "Now, Hamish," he said, smiling behind the candle as he held the wax in it for the seal, "can you do as much again?" "Where? When?" demanded Hamish, in surprise. "To Virginia. To-night." Hamish's eyes stretched very wide. "You won't wait for Governor Bull? The officers at Fort Prince George said they would lay their lives that Governor Bull would respond." "We must try Virginia, too. My boy, we are starving. To-morrow we begin to eat the horses,--then there may be a dog or two." Hamish rose precipitately. "Where is Sandy? Where is Odalie?" Stuart pushed him back into his chair, sternly giving him to understand that the only possible hope of saving their lives was to get away as quickly as might be with the dispatches for Virginia. "Without seeing Sandy and Odalie?" said Hamish, his lip quivering. "We have not the time to spare. Besides, would they let you risk it again, even for them?" And Hamish was suddenly diverted to telling of his risks, of all the escapes, by flood and fell, that he had made;--how often he had been shot at from ambush; how he had swum rivers; how he had repeatedly hidden from the Indians by dropping himself down into the hollows of trees, and once how nearly he had come to getting out no more, the place being so strait that he could scarcely use his constricted muscles to climb up to the cavity that had let him in. He had not so much trouble on the return trip; Ensign Milne had procured for him a good horse, and a rifle--he had had a brace of pistols--the horse was a free goer--as fresh now as if he had not been a mile to-day. "And where is he now?" asked Demeré, a look of anxiety on his face. "At MacLeod Station, hitched there with a good saddle on him and saddle-bags half full of corn." "Come, Hamish," said Stuart, rising, "you must be off; some Indian might find the horse." Hamish's eyes filled with tears,--to leave Odalie and Sandy without a word! He could not endure for the men to see these tears, although they thought none the less well of him for them. "Let me drop a tear in farewell for Odalie," he said, trying to be very funny, brushing his right eye with his right hand. "And for Sandy," his left eye with his left hand. "And Fifine," his right eye with his right hand. "And the cat," his left eye with his left hand. There could be nothing unmanly or girlish in this jovial demonstration! "Come, you zany!" exclaimed Stuart, affecting to think these tremulous farewells very jocose. "Yes," said Demeré, seriously, "we do not know how soon the Indians may discover our use of that passage,--up to this time it has been our only hope." Hamish gathered up his calash, and the precise Demeré assisted him to adjust it and his disordered dress more after the manner in which Odalie wore it. Hamish, as directed, took Stuart's arm as they went out, his eyes still full of tears, and for his life he could not control the tremor of emotion, not of fear, in the fibers of his hand, which he was sure the officer must note. But Stuart's attention was fixed on the skies. It was later than in those days when Odalie was wont to keep tryst with Choo-qualee-qualoo, now nearly a month ago. Still he fancied that in the afterglow of the sunset the Indians might discern the color and the style of the costume. Now and then a ball flew from the cannon to the woods, to clear the forest of too close observers,--whatever risk there was must needs be dared. The cannoneers summoned to this queer duty looked at "Mrs. MacLeod" curiously, as she slipped through the embrasure and made her way with a swinging agility down the slope amongst the fraises and then off through the gloaming at a fresh, firm pace. Then they gazed at Stuart, who presently bade them cease firing, and they had no excuse to wait to see her return. A queer move, they thought it, a very queer move! Hope had grown so inelastic because of the taut tension to which its fine fibers had been subjected, that Stuart felt a thrill of merely mechanical apprehension when the next day Daniel Eske, the young soldier, came in, desiring to make a special report to him. While on guard duty he had heard a deep subterranean explosion, which had been reported to the officer of the day. Later, Choo-qualee-qualoo had come, waving her flag of truce, and after waiting vainly for Mrs. MacLeod, she had ventured up the slope of the scarp, knowing full well that she was safe under that white flag. She had brought a bag of beans, which she had given him,--he bit his lip and colored with vexation, consciously ridiculous in speaking of his feminine admirer to his superior officer,--and he had taken the opportunity to ask some questions about affairs outside the fort, upon which she detailed that an Indian--it was Savanukah--had seen Mrs. MacLeod, as he thought, enter the subterranean passage that used to lead to MacLeod Station. At first he had considered it a slight matter, since the Carolinian's French wife had come so often to talk to Choo-qualee-qualoo. But it somehow flashed into his mind how this woman had walked,--with what a long stride, with what strength, and how fast! And suddenly he realized that it was a man, despite the full skirts and flutterings of capes and calash. So Savanukah ran swiftly to his boat and pulled down the river, and made MacLeod Station just in time to see a youth, arrayed in buckskins, issue from the cave and mount a tethered horse. Savanukah fired at him, but without effect, and the young man wheeled in his saddle and returned the fire with such accuracy that even at the distance and in the twilight the ball, although nearly spent, struck Savanukah in the mouth with such force as to knock out a tooth. Then the boy made off with a tremendous burst of speed. And the gray gown and the calash which the youth had worn were found inside the passage. And great was the wrath of Willinawaugh! He had blown up with powder both ends of the passage,--like thunder, _een-ta-qua ros-ke_,--use could no more be made of it. But some were sorry, wishing the paleface to return by that way, so that he might be stabbed in the dark windings of the passage. This was impossible now, Choo-qualee-qualoo said, for the spring had burst forth, forced in a new direction, and was flooding all that part of the slope, flowing outside instead of within, and Willinawaugh could not now change its disposition if he would. Stuart breathed more freely. If Hamish should return alone, which God forbid, and not with an armed force, the external changes wrought at MacLeod Station would preclude his effort to enter into the cavern, and force him to devise some other method of approach. He wondered at Willinawaugh--to destroy so promising a trap! But rage may overpower at times the most foxy craft. The dull days, dragging on, seemed each interminable while the beleaguered garrison watched the impassive horizon and awaited developments, and hoped against hope. The wonted routine came to be abridged of necessity; the men on their reduced fare were incapable of drill duty; the best hope was that they might make shift to stand to their arms should a sudden attack require the exertion of all their reserve force in the imminent peril of their lives. The diet of horse-flesh proved not only unpalatable but insanitary, perhaps because the animals had thus far shared the physical distresses of the siege, and were in miserable plight, and there were as many men on the sick list as the hospital could accommodate; this misfortune was mitigated to a degree when Choo-qualee-qualoo brought another bag of beans to the hero of the long-range flirtation, and he generously offered to share the food with his fellow-sufferers. Odalie suggested its devotion to hospital uses; and a few days of a certain potage which she compounded of the beans and her economic French skill, and administered with her own hands to the invalids, with her own compassionate smiles, and with a sauce of cheering words, put a number of the stouter fellows on their feet again. The efforts to amuse and entertain had given way under the stress of a misery that could form no compact with mirth, but from time to time the officers made short spirited addresses to the troops to animate and encourage their hope, and continue to the utmost their power of resistance. And the exhalation of every sigh was with a thought of South Carolina, and the respiration of every breath was with a prayer toward Virginia. As the number of horses had greatly diminished, and the discovery was made that certain lean dogs had gone to the kitchen on an errand far different from the one that used to lure them to the pots, about which they had been wont to greedily and piteously snuff and whine, the quiescent waiting and reliance on the judgment and the capacity of the commandant to extricate the garrison from this perilous plight gave way anew. Criticisms of the management grew rife. The return of Hamish MacLeod, at the moment when starvation seemed imminent, and his instant departure at so great a peril, for the circumstances of his escape had been learned by the soldiers from the confidences of Choo-qualee-qualoo to young Eske, who was always free with his tongue, implied that Hamish's earlier mission had failed, and that no troops were now on the march to their succor. They, too, had seen the capering Indian in the red coat of an officer of rank, the lace cravat of a man of quality which Choo-qualee-qualoo flourished, and they deduced a shrewd surmise of Montgomery's repulse. The men who had earliest revolted against the hardships now entertained rebellious sentiments and sought to foster them in others. Although, as ringleaders in the food riot, they had been summarily placed in irons, their punishment had been too brief perhaps for a salutary moral effect. Demeré's severity was always theoretical,--a mental attitude one might say. The hardship of adding shackles to the agonies of slow starvation so preyed upon his heart that he had ordered the prisoners released before a sober reflection had done its full work. The exemplary conduct, for a time, of the culprits had no sufficient counterpart in chastened hearts, for they nourished bitterness and secretly agitated mutiny. The crisis came one morning when the meager supply of repulsive food had shrunken to the scope of a few days' rations, the quantity always dwindling in a regularly diminishing ratio; it had recently barely enabled the men to sustain the usual guard duty, and they lay about the parade at other times, or at full length on the porches of the barracks, too feeble and dispirited to stir hand or foot without necessity. Corporal O'Flynn, one of the few officers fit for duty, with a shade of pallor on his face a trifle more ghastly than that of starvation, reported that five men had failed to respond to roll-call, and upon investigation it was found that they had burrowed out of the fort in the darkness, seeking to desert to the enemy, but their intentions being mistaken, or their overtures scorned, they had been stabbed and scalped at the edge of the forest, and there their bodies were visible in the early rays of the sun. "May become unpleasant when the wind shifts," remarked Stuart easily, and without emotion apparently, "but we are spared the duties of punishing deserters according to their deserts." Demeré's face had shown a sudden nervous contraction but resumed its fixed reserved expression, and he said nothing. Corporal O'Flynn's report, however, was not yet exhausted. He hesitated, almost choked. The blood rushed so scarlet to his face that one might have wondered, at the show it made, that he had so much of that essential element in circulation in his whole thin body. He lifted his voice as if to urge the concentration of Stuart's attention which seemed so casual--he had it the next moment. "I feel like a traitor in tellin' it, sor," said O'Flynn, "I'm just one of the men meself, an' it breaks me heart intirely to go agin 'em with the officers. But me duty as a soldier is to the commandant of the fort, an' as a man to the poor women an' childer." He choked again, so reluctant was he in unfolding the fact that this was but the first step, providentially disastrous, of a plan by which the fort and the officers were to be abandoned, the rank and file determining to throw themselves on the mercy of the savages, since even to die at their hands was better than this long and futile waiting for succor. Through Choo-qualee-qualoo some negotiations with the enemy had been set on foot, of which O'Flynn was unaware hitherto, being excluded from their councils as a non-commissioned officer, but after the result of the desertion in the early hours before dawn, Daniel Eske, thoroughly dismayed, had once more reverted to his reliance on the superior wisdom of the commandant, and had seen fit to disclose the state of affairs to the corporal, whose loyalty to his superior officers was always marked. O'Flynn was commended, cautioned to be silent, and the door closed. The two captains looked blankly at one another. "The catastrophe is upon us," said Stuart. "Fort Loudon must fall." In this extremity a council of war was held. Yet there seemed no course open even to deliberation. On the one hand rose mutiny, starvation, and desertion; but to surrender to such an enemy as the Cherokees meant massacre. Their terrible fate held them in a remorseless clutch! At last, with some desperate hope, such as the unsubstantial illusion with which drowning men catch at straws, that the Indians might make and keep terms, it was agreed that Captain Stuart, at his earnest desire, should be the officer to treat with the enemy and secure such terms of capitulation as they could be induced to hold forth. It might be imagined that the little band of officers, in their hard stress, had become incapable of any further vivid emotion, but in vicarious terror they watched Stuart step forth boldly and alone from the sally-port, a white flag in his hand, and arrayed, in deference to the Indians' love of ceremony and susceptibility to compliment, in full uniform. He stood on the parapet of the covered way, motionless and distinct, in the clear light of the morning, against the background of the great red clay embankments. He was evidently seen, for through a spy-glass Demeré in the block-house tower noted the instant stillness that fell like a spell upon the Indian line; the figures of the warriors, crouching or erect, seemed petrified in the chance attitude of the moment. That he was instantly recognized by skulking scouts in the woods was as evident. His tall, sinewy figure; his long, dense, blond hair, with its heavy queue hanging on the shoulders of his red coat; a certain daring, martial insouciance of manner, sufficiently individualized him to the far-sighted Cherokees, and the white flag in his hand--a token which they understood, although they did not always respect it--intimated that developments of moment in the conduct of the siege impended. There was no sudden shrill whistling of a rifle ball, and Demeré, thinking of the fate of Coytmore on the river-bank at Fort Prince George, began to breathe more freely. A vague sense of renewed confidence thrilled through the watching group. Stuart had stipulated that he should go alone--otherwise he would not make the essay. The presence of two or three armed men, officers of the fort, intimated suspicion and fear, incurred danger, and yet, helpless among such numbers, afforded no protection. The others had yielded to this argument, for he knew the Indian character by intuition, it would seem. He was relying now, too, upon a certain personal popularity. He had somehow engaged the admiration of the Indians, yet without disarming their prejudice--a sort of inimical friendship. They all realized that any other man would have now been lying dead on the glacis with a bullet through his brain, if but for the sheer temptation to pick him off neatly as a target of uncommon interest, whatever his mission might have betokened. How to accomplish this mission became a problem of an essential solution, and on the instant. Not a figure stirred of the distant Cherokee braves; not one man would openly advance within range of the great guns that carried such terror to the Indian heart. Stuart stood in momentary indecision, his head thrown back, his chin up, his keen, far-seeing gray-blue eyes fixed on the motionless Indian line. Through the heated August air the leaves of the trees seemed to quiver; the ripples of the river scintillated in the sun; not a breath of wind stirred; on the horizon the solidities of the Great Smoky Mountains shimmered ethereal as a mirage. Suddenly Stuart was running, lightly, yet at no great speed; he reached the river-bank, thrust a boat out from the gravel, and with the flag of truce waving from the prow he pushed off from the shore, and began to row with long, steady strokes straight up the river. He was going to Choté! The observers at Fort Loudon, petrified, stared at one another in blank amazement. The observers at the Cherokee camp were freed from their spell. The whole line seemed in motion. All along the river-bank the braves were speeding, keeping abreast of the swift little craft in the middle of the stream. The clamors of the guttural voices with their unintelligible exclamations came across the water. It was like the passing of a flight of swallows. In less than five minutes the boat, distinctly visible, with those salient points of color, the red coat and the white flag against the silver-gray water, had rounded the bend; every Indian runner was out of sight; and the line of warriors had relapsed into their silent staring at the fort, where the garrison dragged out three hours of such poignant suspense as seldom falls to the lot of even unhappy men. The sun's rays deepened their intensity; the exhausted, half-famished sentries dripped with perspiration, the effects of extreme weakness as well as of the heat, as they stood shouldering their firelocks and anxiously watching from the loop-holes of the block-house towers, the roofs of which, blistering in the sun, smelled of the wood in a close, breathless, suffocating odor which their nerves, grown sensitive by suffering, discriminated like a pain. The men off duty lay in the shadow of the block-houses, for the rows of trees had vanished to furnish fuel for the kitchen, or on the porches of the barracks, and panted like lizards; the officers looked at one another with the significance of silent despair, and believed Stuart distraught. Demeré could not forgive himself that he had been persuaded to agree that Stuart should appear. Beyond the out-works, however, they had had no dream of his adventuring. To try the effect of a personal appearance and invitation to a conference was the extent of the maneuver as it was planned. There was scant expectation in Fort Loudon that he would be again seen alive. When the tension of the sun began to slacken and the heat to abate; when the wind vaguely flapped the folds of the flag with a drowsing murmur, as if from out of sleep; when the chirr of the cicada from the woods grew vibratory and strident, suggestive of the passing of the day's meridian, and heralding the long, drowsy lengths of the afternoon to come, the little boat, with that bright touch of scarlet, shot out from behind the wooded bend of the river, and in a few minutes was beached on the gravel and Stuart was within the gates of Fort Loudon. He came with a face of angry, puzzled excitement that surprised his brother officers, whose discrimination may have been blunted in the joy of his safe and unexpected return and the fair promises of the terms of capitulation he had secured. Never had a vanquished enemy been more considerately and cordially entreated than he at Choté. Oconostota and Cunigacatgoah had come down to the river-bank on the news of his approach and had welcomed him like a brother. To the great council-hall he was taken, and not one word would Oconostota hear of his mission till food was placed before him,--fish and fowl, bread, and a flask of wine! "And when Oconostota saw that I had been so nearly starved that I could hardly eat--Lord!--how his eyes twinkled!" cried Stuart, angrily. But Oconostota had permitted himself to comment on the fact. He said that it had grieved him to know of the sufferings from famine of his brother and the garrison--for were they not all the children of the same Great Father! But Captain Stuart must have heard of the hideous iniquities perpetrated by the British Colonel in burning the Cherokee towns in the southern region, where many of the inhabitants perished in the flames, and slaying their warriors who did naught but defend their own land from the invaders--the land which the Great Spirit had given to the Cherokees, and which was theirs. And, now that the terrible Colonel Montgomery had been driven out with his hordes, still reeking with Cherokee blood, it was but fit that the Cherokees should take possession of Fort Loudon, which was always theirs, built for them at their request, and paid for with their blood, shed in the English service, against the enemies of the English colonists, the French, who had always dealt fairly with the Cherokees. Captain Stuart bluntly replied that it did not become him to listen to reflections upon the methods in which British commanders had seen fit to carry out the instructions of the British government. They had, doubtless, acted according to their orders, as was their duty. For his own mission, although Fort Loudon could be held some space longer, in which time reënforcements, which he had reason to think were on the march, might come to its relief, the officers had agreed that the sufferings of the garrison were such that they were not justified in prolonging their distress, provided such terms of capitulation could be had as would warrant the surrender of the fort. As the interpreter, with the wooden voice, standing behind the chief, gabbled out this rebuke of the Cherokee king's aspersions on Montgomery, Stuart's ever quick eye noted an expression on the man's face, habitually so blank and wooden,--he remembered it afterward,--an expression almost applausive. Then his attention was concentrated on the circumlocutions of Oconostota, who, in winding phrase almost affectionate, intimated the tender truth that, without waiting for these reënforcements, the enfeebled garrison could be overpowered now and destroyed to the last man by a brisk onslaught, the Cherokees taking the place by storm. Stuart shook his head, and his crafty candor strengthened the negation. "Not so long as the great guns bark," he declared. "They are the dogs of war that make the havoc." Then Oconostota, with that greed of the warlike Cherokee for the details concerning this great arm of the British service, the artillery, always coveted by the Indians, yet hardly understood, listened to a description of the process by which these guns could be rendered useless in a few minutes by a despairing garrison. Their cannoneers could spike them after firing the last round. And of what value would the fort be to the Cherokees without them,--it would be mere intrenchments with a few dead men,--the most useless things under the sun. The English government would bring new guns, and level the works in a single day. The great chief knew the power of England. In the days when Moy Toy sent his delegation to London, of which he and Atta-Kulla-Kulla were members, to visit King George, they had seen the myriads of people and had heard many great guns fired in salute to the princely guests, and had assisted at the review of thousands and thousands of soldiers. And with the reminder of all these overpowering military splendors of his great enemy, Oconostota began to feel that he would be glad to secure possession of these few of King George's great guns uninjured, fit to bark, and, if occasion should offer, to bite. From that point the negotiation took a stable footing. With many a crafty recurrence on the part of Stuart to the coveted artillery at every balking doubt or denial, it was agreed that the stronghold should be evacuated;--"That the garrison of Fort Loudon march out with their arms and drums, each soldier having as much powder and ball as their officer shall think necessary for their march, and all the baggage they may chuse to carry: That the garrison be permitted to march to Virginia or Fort Prince George, as the commanding officer shall think proper, unmolested; and that a number of Indians be appointed to escort them and hunt for provisions during their march: That such soldiers as are lame or by sickness disabled from marching, be received into the Indian towns and kindly used until they recover, and then be allowed to return to Fort Prince George: That the Indians do provide for the garrison as many horses as they conveniently can for their march, agreeing with the officers and soldiers for payment: That the fort, great guns, powder, ball, and spare arms, be delivered to the Indians without fraud or further delay on the day appointed for the march of the troops." These terms of capitulation were signed by Paul Demeré, Oconostota, and Cunigacatgoah, and great was the joy the news awoke among the garrison of Fort Loudon. The sick arose from their beds; the lame walked, and were ready to march; almost immediately, in the open space beneath the terrible great guns, were men,--settlers, soldiers, and Indians,--trying the paces of horses, and chaffering over the terms of sale. Provisions were brought in; every chimney sent up a savory reek. Women were getting together their little store of valuables in small compass for the journey. Children, recently good from feeble incapacity to be otherwise, were now healthily bad, fortified by a generous meal or two. And Fifine was stroking the cat's humped back, as the animal munched upon the ground bits of meat thrown prodigally away, and telling her that now she would not be eaten,--so had that terror preyed upon the motherly baby heart! Odalie had some smiling tears to shed for Hamish's sake, in the earnest hope that he might be as well off, and those whom she had consoled in affliction now in their prosperity sought to console her. The officers were hilarious. They could hardly credit their own good fortune--permitted to surrender Fort Loudon, after its gallant defense to the last extremity, to the savage Cherokees, upon just such terms as would have been dictated by a liberal and civilized enemy! Demeré, after the first burst of reproach that Stuart should have so recklessly endangered himself, and of joy that his mission had been so successfully accomplished, was cheerfully absorbed in destroying such official papers as, falling into the hands of the French, might be detrimental to the British interest. Of them all, only Stuart was doubtful, angry, disconsolate. Perhaps because some fiber of sensitive pride, buried deep, had been touched to the quick by Oconostota's ill-disguised triumph; or he realized that he had labored long here, and suffered much uselessly, and but for the threatened desertion of the garrison felt that the fort might still be held till relief could reach it; or he was of the temperament that adorns success, or even stalwart effort, but is blighted by failure; or he was only staggered by the completeness of his prosperous negotiations with the Cherokees and doubtful of their good faith,--at all events he had lost his poise. He was gloomy, ruminative, and broke out now and again with futile manifestations of his disaffection. Demeré, burning letter-books and other papers on the hearth of the great chimney-place of the hall, looked up from the table where he sorted them to remind Stuart, as he strode moodily to and fro, not to leave things of value to fall into the hands of the enemy. Stuart paused for a moment with a gloomy face. Then, "They shall not have this," he said angrily. The little red silk riding-mask, that was wont to look down from the wall, null and inexpressive, with no suggestion in its vacant, sightless orbs of the brightness of vanished eyes, with no faint trace of the fair face that it had once sheltered, save as memory might fill the blank contour, began to blaze humbly as he thrust it among the burning papers on the hearth. An odd interpretation of things of value, certainly--a flimsy memento of some bright day, long ago, and far away, when, not all unwelcome, he had ridden at a lady's bridle-rein. Demeré looked at him with sudden interest, seemed about to speak, checked himself and said nothing. And thus with this souvenir the romance of Stuart's life perished unstoried. More characteristic thoughts possessed him later. He came to Demeré's bedside that night as he lay sleeping in quiet peace, even his somnolent nerves realizing the prospect of release. Stuart roused him with a new anxiety. There was a very considerable quantity of powder in the fort, far more than the Indians, unacquainted with the large charges required for cannon, suspected that they possessed. By surrendering this great supply of powder, Stuart argued, as well as the guns, they only postponed not precluded their destruction. Brought down with the guns to Fort Prince George in the hands of French cannoneers, this ample supply of artillery would easily level those works with the ground. The French officers, who they had reason to suspect were lurking in the Lower Towns, would be unlikely to have otherwise so large a store of ammunition in reach, capable of maintaining a siege, and before this could be procured for the service of the surrendered cannon some reënforcements to the commandant of Fort Prince George would arrive, or an aggressive expedition be sent out from South Carolina. "At all events this quantity of powder in the hands of the Cherokees makes it certain that a siege of Fort Prince George will follow close on the fall of Fort Loudon," Stuart declared. Demeré raised himself on his elbow to gaze at Stuart by the light of the flickering candle which the visitor held in his hand. "I am afraid that you are right," Demeré said, after a grave pause. "But how can we help it?" "Hide the powder,--hide it," said Stuart excitedly. "Bury it!" "Contrary to the stipulations and our agreement," returned Demeré. Stuart evidently struggled with himself. "If these fiends," he exclaimed,--the triumph of Oconostota had gone very hard with him,--"were like any other enemy we could afford to run the chance. But have we the right to submit the commandant of Fort Prince George and his garrison--to say nothing of ourselves and our garrison, hampered as we are with women and children, taking refuge with him,--to the risk of siege and massacre, fire and torture, compassed by materials practically furnished by us,--on a delicate question of military ethics?" "If we do not keep our word, how can we expect Oconostota to keep his word?" asked Demeré. "But do we really expect it? Have we any guarantee?" Once more Stuart hesitated, then suddenly decided. "But if you have scruples"--he broke off with a shrug of the shoulders. "I should leave Oconostota enough powder to amuse him with the guns for a while, but not enough to undertake a siege. The government will surely occupy this place again. I expect to find the powder here when I come back to Fort Loudon." His words were prophetic, although neither knew it. He cast a hasty glance at Demeré, who again objected, and Stuart went out of the door saying nothing further, the draught flickering, then extinguishing, the flame of the candle in his hand. It was very dark about midnight when the whole place lay locked in slumber. The sentries, watchful as ever in the block-house towers and at the chained and barred gates, noted now and again shadowy figures about the region of the southeast bastion,--the old exhausted smoke-house had been in that locality,--and thence suppressed voices sounded occasionally in low-toned, earnest talk. No light showed save in glimpses for a while through the crevices in the walls of the building itself, and once or twice when the door opened and was suddenly shut. There Corporal O'Flynn and three soldiers and Captain Stuart himself, armed with mattocks, dug a deep trench in the tough red clay, carefully drawing to one side the dead ashes and cinders left by the fires of his earnest preparations against the siege. Then the lights were extinguished, and from the great traverse, in which was the powder magazine, they brought ten heavy bags of powder, and laid them in the trench, covering them over with the utmost caution, lest a mattock strike a spark from a stone here and there in the earth. At last, still observing great care, they tramped the clay hard and level as a floor, and spread again the ashes and cinders over the upturned ground, laying the chunks of wood together, as they had burnt half out after the last fire many weeks ago. When Captain Stuart inveigled Captain Demeré thither the next morning, on some pretext concerning the removal of the troops, he was relieved to see that although Demeré was most familiar with the place he had not even the vaguest suspicion of what lay under his feet, for this was the best test as to whether the work had been well done. It was only at the moment of departure, of rendering up the spare arms, and serving out ammunition to the soldiers for the journey, that he was made aware how mysteriously the warlike stores had shrunken, but Oconostota's beadlike eyes glistened with rapture upon attaining the key of the magazine with its hoard of explosives, unwitting that it had ever contained more. The soldiers went out of the gates in column, in heavy marching order, their flags and uniforms making a very pretty show for the last time on the broad open spaces about Fort Loudon. For the last time the craggy banks and heavily wooded hills of the Tennessee River echoed to the beat of the British drums. Behind, like a train of gypsies, were the horses purchased from the Indians, on which were mounted the women and little girls, with here and there a sick soldier, unable to keep his place in the ranks and guyed by his comrades with reviving jollity, in the face of hope and freedom, as "a squaw-man." The more active of the children, boys chiefly, ran alongside, and next in order came the settlers, now in column as "fencibles," and again one or two quitting the ranks to cuff into his proper place some irrepressible youngster disposed to wander. In the rear were the Indian safe-guards through the Cherokee nation, with their firelocks and feathers and scanty attire that suggested comfort this hot day. For the August sun shone from a sky of cloudless blue; a wind warm but fresh met them going the other way; the dew was soon dried and the temperature rose; the mountains glimmered ethereally azure toward the east with a silver haze amongst the domes and peaks, and toward the west they showed deeply and densely purple, as the summit lines stretched endlessly in long parallel levels. And so these pioneers and the soldiers set forth on their way out of the land that is now Tennessee, to return no more; wending down among the sun-flooded cane-brakes, and anon following the trail through the dense, dark, grateful shades of the primeval woods. So they went to return no more,--not even in the flickering guise of spectral visitants to the scenes that knew them once,--scarcely as a vague and vagrant memory in the country where they first planted the home that cost them so dearly and that gave them but little. Nevertheless, a hearty farewell it bestowed this morning,--for they sang presently as they went, so light and blithe of heart they were, and the crags and the hills, and the rocky banks of that lovely river, all cried out to them in varying tones of sweet echoes, and ever and again the boom of the drums beat the time. CHAPTER XII The definite ranks were soon broken; the soldiers marched at ease in and out amongst the Indians and the settlers, all in high good humor; jest and raillery were on every side. They ate their dinner, still on the march, the provisions for the purpose having been cooked with the morning meal. Thus they were enabled, despite the retarding presence of the women and children, and the enfeebling effects of the long siege, to make the progress of between fifteen and twenty miles that day. They encamped on a little plain near the Indian town of Taliquo. There, the supper having been cooked and eaten--a substantial meal of game shot during the day's march--and the shades of night descending thick in the surrounding woods, Captain Stuart observed the inexplicable phenomenon that every one of their Indian guards had suddenly deserted them. The fact, however contemplated, boded no good. The officers, doubtless keenly sensitive to the renewal of anxiety after so slight a surcease of the sufferings of suspense, braced themselves to meet the emergency. A picket line was thrown out; sentinels were posted in the expectation of some imminent and startling development; the soldiers were ordered to sleep on their arms, to be in readiness for defense as well as to gain strength for the morrow's march and rest from the fatigues of the day. The little gypsy-looking groups of women and children, too, were soon hushed, and naught was left the anxious senior officers but to sleep if they might, or in default, as they lay upon the ground, to watch the great constellations come over the verge of the gigantic trees at the east of the open space, and deploy with infinite brilliance across the parade of the sky, and in glittering alignment pass over the verge of the western woods and out of sight. So came the great Archer, letting fly myriads of arrows of flakes of light in the stream near the camp. So came in slow, gliding majesty the Swan, with all the splendor of the Galaxy, like infinite unfoldings of white wings, in her wake. So came the Scorpio, with coil on coil of sidereal scintillations, and here and again the out-thrust dartings of a malign red star. And at last so came the morn. Demeré, who had placed himself, wrapped in his military cloak, on the ground near Stuart, that they might quietly speak together in the night without alarming the little camp with the idea of precautions and danger and plotting and planning, noted first a roseate lace-like scroll unrolled upon the zenith amidst the vague, pervasive, gray suggestions of dawn. He turned his head and looked at his friend with a smile of banter as if to upbraid their fears;--for here was the day, and the night was past! A sudden wild clamor smote upon the morning quiet. The outposts were rushing in with the cry that the woods on every side were full of Cherokees, with their faces painted, and swinging their tomahawks; the next moment the air resounded with the hideous din of the war-whoop. Demeré's voice rose above the tumult, calling to the men to fall in and stand to their arms. A volley of musketry poured in upon the little camp from every side. Demeré fell at the first fire with three other officers and twenty-seven soldiers. Again and again, from the unseen enemy masked by the forest, the women and children, the humble beasts of burden,--fleeing wildly from side to side of the space,--the soldiers and the backwoodsmen, all received this fusillade. The men had been hastily formed into a square and from each front fired volleys as best they might, unable to judge of the effect and conscious of the futility of their effort, surrounded as they were on every side. Now and again a few, impelled by despair, made a wild break for liberty, unrestrained by the officers who gave them what chance they might secure, and with five or six exceptions these were shot down by the Indians after reaching the woods. The devoted remnant, fighting until the last round of ammunition was exhausted, were taken prisoners by the triumphant savages. Stuart, his face covered with blood and his sword dripping, was pinioned before he could be disarmed, and then helpless, hopeless, with what feelings one may hardly imagine, he was constrained to set forth with his captor on the return march to Fort Loudon. [Illustration: "The men had been hastily formed into a square."] The Cherokees could hardly restrain their joy in thus taking him alive. So far-famed had he become among them, so high did they esteem his military rank, so autocratic seemed his power in the great stronghold of Fort Loudon, with his red-coated soldiers about him, obeying his words, even saluting his casual presence, that it afforded the most æsthetic zest of revenge, the most acute realization of triumph, to contemplate him as he stood bound, bloody, bareheaded in the sun, while the very meanest of the lowest grade of the tribesmen were free to gather round him with gibes and menacing taunts and buffets of derision. His hat had been snatched off in order to smite him with it in the face; his hair, always of special interest to the Indians because of its light brown color and dense growth, was again and again caught by its thick, fair plait with howls of delight, and if the grasp of the hand unaided could have rent the scalp from the head, those fierce derisive jerks would have compassed the feat; more than one whose rage against him was not to be gratified by these malevolently jocose manifestations of contempt, gave him such heavy and repeated blows over the head with the butt of their firelocks that they were near clubbing the prisoner to death, when this circumstance attracted the attention of his captor, Willinawaugh, who was fain to interfere. Stuart, regretting the intervention, realized that he was reserved to make sport for their betters in the fiercer and more dramatic agonies of the torture and the stake. His fortitude might well have tempted them. In a sort of stoical pride he would not wince. Never did he cry out. He hardly staggered beneath the crushing blows of the muskets, delivered short hand and at close quarters, that one might have thought would have fractured his skull. That the interposition of Willinawaugh was not of the dictates of clemency might be inferred from the manner in which the return journey was accomplished. Forced to keep pace with his captor on horseback Stuart traveled the distance from Taliquo Town to Old Fort Loudon in double-quick time, bareheaded, pinioned, in the blazing meridian heat of a sultry August day. He hoped he would die of exhaustion. In the long-continued siege of Fort Loudon, necessitating much indoor life, to which he was little used, the texture of his skin had become delicate and tender, and now blistered and burned as if under the touch of actual cautery. With the previous inaction and the unaccustomed exposure the heat suggested the possibility of sunstroke to offer a prospect of release. But he came at last to the great gates of Fort Loudon with no more immediate hurt than a biting grief deep in his heart, the stinging pain of cuts and bruises about his head and face, and a splitting, throbbing, blinding headache. Not so blinding that he did not see every detail of the profane occupancy of the place on which so long he had expended all his thought and every care, in the defense of which he had cheerfully starved, and would with hearty good-will have died. All the precise military decorum that characterized it had vanished in one short day. Garbage, filth, bones, broken bits of food lay about the parade, that was wont to be so carefully swept, with various litter from the plunder of the officers' quarters, for owing to the limited opportunity of transportation much baggage had been left. This was still in progress, as might be judged from the figures of women and men seen through the open doors and now again on the galleries, chaffering and bargaining over some trifle in process of sale or exchange. Indian children raced in and out of the white-washed interiors of the barracks which had been glaringly clean; already the spring branch was choked by various débris and, thus dammed, was overflowing its rocky precincts to convert the undulating ground about it into a slimy marsh. Myriads of flies had descended upon the place. Here and there horses were tethered and cows roamed aimlessly. Idle savages lay sprawling about over the ground, sleeping in the shade. In the block-houses and towers and along the parade, where other braves shouldered the firelocks, the surrendered spare arms, mimicking the drill of the soldiers with derisive cries of "Plesent _Ahms_!" "Shouldie _Fa'lock_!" "Ground _Fa'lock_!" only such injury as bootless folly might compass was to be deplored, but upon the terrepleine in the northeast bastion several Cherokees were working at one of the great cannons, among whom was no less a personage than Oconostota himself, striving to master the secrets of its service. The box of gunner's implements was open, and Stuart with a touch of returning professional consciousness wondered with that contempt for ignorance characteristic of the expert what wise project they had in progress now. For the gun had just been charged, but with that economy of powder, the most precious commodity in these far-away wilds, for which the Indians were always noted. The ball, skipping languidly out, had dropped down the embankment outside and rolled along the ground with hardly more force than if impelled down an alley by a passable player at bowls, barely reaching the glacis before coming to a full halt. Realizing the difficulty, the gun under the king's directions was shotted anew; erring now in the opposite extreme, it was charged so heavily that, perhaps from some weakness in the casting, or the failure to duly sponge and clean the bore, or simply from the expansive force of the inordinate quantity of powder, the piece exploded, killing two of the savages, serving as gunners, and wounding a third. The ball, for the cannon had been improperly pointed by some mischance, struck the side of the nearest block-house, and as its projectile force was partly spent by the explosion, the tough wood turned it; it ricochetted across the whole expanse of the enclosure, striking and killing an Indian lying asleep on the opposite rampart. A vast uproar ensued, and Stuart could have laughed aloud in bitter mirth to see Oconostota almost stunned alike by the surprise and the force of the concussion, timorously and dubiously eying the wreck. Then, with a subdued air of renunciation and finality, "Old Hop," as the soldiers called him, came limping carefully down the steep ramp from the terrepleine, evidently just enlightened as to the dangers lurking about the breech of the cannon, well as he had long been acquainted with the menace of its muzzle. The fury of the savages bore some similarity to the ricochet forces of the misdirected cannon-ball. Stuart plainly perceived himself destined to bear the brunt of the infuriating mishap in which, although he had no agency, he might be suspected of taking secret and extreme delight. It was for a moment a reversal of the red man's supremacy in the arts of war, that had been demonstrated by the results of the siege, the acquisition of the ordnance, the surprise and the massacre of the capitulated garrison. In the stress of the noisy moment, when the corpses had been carried off and the howling women and their friends had followed them to their assigned homes in the barracks, several braves, including Oconostota himself, had become aware of Stuart's return and gathered around him. Nothing could have been more acutely malevolent than Oconostota's twinkling eyes; no words could have shown a keener edge of sarcasm than his greeting of the officer once more by the title of his dear brother. Stuart, impolitic for once, disdained to respond, and, grimly silent, eyed him with a sort of stoical defiance that struck the Indian's mummery dumb. There was a moment of inaction as they all contemplated him. His vigor, his fortitude, his rank, the consciousness how his proud spirit raged in his defeat and despair, all combined to render him a notable victim and promised a long and a keen extension of the pleasures of witnessing his torture. And at that instant of crisis, as if to seal his doom, a great guttural clamor arose about the southeast bastion, and here was Willinawaugh, with wild turbulent gesticulations, and starting gleaming eyes, and a glancing upheaving tomahawk, for in the perspective a dozen hale fellows were dragging out of the pit beneath the old smoke-house the ten bags of powder that Stuart had concealed there--only two nights ago, was it?--it seemed a century! How had they the craft to find them, so securely, so impenetrably were they hidden! Stuart's store of Cherokee enabled him to gather the drift of the excited talk. One of the Indians, with the keen natural senses of the savage, had smelled the freshly turned clay--_smelled it_ in that assortment of evil odors congregated in the parade!--and had sought to discover what this might be so recently buried. Fraud! Fraud! the cry went up on every side. Unmasked fraud, and Stuart should die the death! He had violated the solemn agreement by which the garrison was liberated; he had surrendered the spare arms and the cannon indeed, but only a fraction of the powder of the warlike stores--and he should die the death and at once. Stuart wondered that he was not torn to pieces by the infuriated savages, protesting their indignation because of his violation of the treaty,--while his garrison, under the Cherokees' solemn agreement of safe-conduct, lay in all their massacred horrors unburied on the plains of Taliquo. The cant of the Cherokees, their hypocrisy, and their vaunting clamor of conscience made them seem, if one were disposed to be cynical, almost civilized! Doubtless, but for Oconostota's statesmanlike determination to sift the matter first, Stuart could not have been torn from among the tribesmen and dragged to the seclusion of his own great mess-hall, where the door was closed and barred in their distorted faces as they followed with their howls. He was required to stand at one end of the grievously dismantled room and detail his reason for this reserve of the powder. Had he grounds to suspect any renewal of the English occupancy? Had he knowledge of forces now on the march in the expectation of raising the siege of Fort Loudon? Oconostota pointed out the desirability of telling the truth, with a feeling allusion to the Great Spirit, the folly of seeking to deceive the omniscient Indian, as the discovery of the powder sufficiently illustrated, and the discomforts that would ensue to Captain Stuart, should it be found necessary to punish him for lying, by burning him alive in his own chimney-place, admirably adapted for the purpose. Oconostota sat now with his back to it, with all his council of chiefs in a semicircle about him, on the buffalo rug on the broad hearth. The Indian interpreter Quoo-ran-be-qua, the great Oak, stood behind him and looked across the length of the room at Captain Stuart, the only other person standing, and clattered out his wooden sentences. Stuart could make no further effort. His capacity to scheme seemed exhausted. He replied in his bluff, off-hand manner, his bloody head held erect, that they now had more powder than was good for them,--witness the bursting of that costly great gun! He had buried the powder in the hope of further English occupancy of the fort, which he had, however, no reason to expect; it was only his hope,--his earnest hope! He had left them spare arms, great guns, ball, powder,--much powder,--and if he had seen fit to reserve some store he could say, with a clear conscience, that it was done only in the interests of peace and humanity, and because of doubts of their good faith,--how well grounded the blood shed this day upon the plains of Taliquo might testify! His friends, his comrades, were treacherously murdered under the safe-conduct of the Cherokee nation. And if he were to die too, he was fully prepared to show with what courage he could do it. His eyes flashed as he spoke; they seemed to transmit a spark across the room to the dull orbs of the interpreter. And what was this? Stuart's knowledge of the Cherokee language enabled him to discern the fact that after a moment's hesitation Quoo-ran-be-qua was clacking out a coherent statement to the effect that the concealment of the powder was Captain Demeré's work, and wrought unknown to Stuart during his absence on his mission to Choté, where, as the great chiefs well knew, he was detained several hours. Stuart stared in astonishment at the interpreter, who, blandly secure in the conviction that the prisoner did not comprehend the Cherokee language, maintained his usual stolid aspect. Whether Stuart's courage so enforced admiration, or whatever quality had secured for him the regard of the higher grade of Indians, the interpreter had sought, by an unrecognized, unrewarded effort, to save the officer's life by a sudden stroke of presence of mind,--a subterfuge which he supposed, in his simplicity, undiscoverable. There were milder countenances now in the circle, and Stuart's attention was presently concentrated upon an eager controversy between Atta-Kulla-Kulla and Willinawaugh that was curiously enough, at this moment of gravest council, sitting in judgment on the disposal of a human life, a matter of chaffer, of bargain and sale. Willinawaugh had already refused a new rifle and a horse--and then two horses besides, and, still untempted, shook his head. And suddenly the interest in the concealment of the powder collapsed, and they were all looking at Willinawaugh, who gazed much perplexed down at the ground, all his wrinkles congregated around his eyes, eager to acquire yet loath to trade, while Atta-Kulla-Kulla, keen, astute, subtle, plied him with offers, and tempting modifications of offers, for the Cherokees of that date were discriminating jockeys and had some fine horses. The wind came in at the loop-holes and stirred the blood-clotted hair on the prisoner's brow, and the suspension of the mental effort that the examination cost him was for a moment a relief; the shadowy dusk of the ill-lighted room was grateful to his eyes, the heavy, regular throbbing of his head grew less violent. He could even note the incongruity of the situation when he saw that Willinawaugh resisted upon the point that the matter was with him a question of character! The chief said he had lost his standing in public estimation because he had allowed the Englishman, MacLeod, and his brother, to deceive him on the pretense of being French,--for although he (Willinawaugh) spoke French himself, and that better than some people who had lost their front tooth, he could not understand such French as the two Scotchmen spoke, nor, indeed, as some Cherokees spoke, with their front tooth out. Savanukah, seated on the rug an expression of poignant mortification on his face, his lips fast closed over the missing tooth, only muttered disconsolately, in his mingled French and Cherokee jargon, "_C'est dommage! Sac-llé bleu! Noot-te![J] Ugh! en vérité--O-se-u!_"[K] Willinawaugh, pausing merely for effect, continued. He himself was not an interpreter, to be sure; he was a Cherokee war-captain, with a great reputation to sustain. He had captured the prisoner, and it ill accorded with his honor to yield him to another. "_Cho-eh!_"[L] said Atta-Kulla-Kulla, softly. And Stuart became aware, with a start that almost dislocated his pinioned arms, that it was the transfer of his custody, the purchase of himself, over which they were bargaining. "_Nankke--soutare_,"[M] urged Atta-Kulla-Kulla. Again Willinawaugh shook his head. Was he some slight thing,--_seequa, cheefto_, an opossum, a rabbit? "_Sinnawah na wora!_"[N] he cried sonorously. For months, he said, he had besieged that man in his great stronghold of Fort Loudon. Like a panther he had watched it; like a spider he had woven his webs about it; like a wolf by night he had assaulted it; like a hawk he had swooped down upon it and had taken it for the Cherokee nation; and it was a small matter if he, who spoke French so well, had not comprehended an Englishman who spoke French like an unknown tongue, and had let him pass, being deceived! Would the great chief, whose words in whatever language were of paramount importance, accept a money price? As several gold pieces rolled out on the buffalo rug, the wrinkles so gathered around Willinawaugh's eyes that those crafty orbs seemed totally eclipsed. He wagged his head to and fro till "him top-feathers" temporarily obliterated the squad of henchmen behind him, in woe that he could not take the money, yet not in indecision. For lo, he said, who had done so much as he, whose prestige had been touched for a trifle, whose best-beloved brother, Savanukah, had maligned him--for the sake of an Englishman who could not speak French so that it could be understood. He had let that Englishman pass--it was a small matter, and if any had sustained harm it was he himself--for the English brother in the French squaw's dress had escaped through his lines, and came near raising the siege, perhaps--because of the French squaw's dress. But he was not there, and he gave the English boy no front tooth! At this reiterated allusion, Savanukah's guttural grunt, _O-se-u!_ was almost a groan. "Rifle, six horses, seven pieces of gold in ransom," said Atta-Kulla-Kulla, slowly massing his wealth. Once more Willinawaugh shook his head. His prestige had suffered because of aspersions. Yet he had besieged the fort and reduced the two captains and their splendid cannon--this for the Cherokee nation! He had followed hard on the march of the garrison, and with Oconostota and his force had surrounded them and killed many, and captured the great Captain Stuart alive!--this for the revenge of the Cherokee nation! But the scalp of the great Captain Stuart, with its long fair hair, like none others, was a trophy for himself--this he should wear at his belt as long as he should live, that when he told how he had wrought for the Cherokee nation none should say him nay! Oconostota suddenly showed a freshened interest. He turned to Atta-Kulla-Kulla, who sat on his right hand, and in an eager, low voice spoke for a moment; the half-king seeming anxious, doubtful, then nodded in slow and deliberative acquiescence. Meantime Willinawaugh's words flowed on. And--he lifted his fierce eyes in triumph to the captive's face--for all those weary days of beleaguerment, for every puff of smoke from the shotted guns, for every blaze they belched, for every ball, death freighted, they vomited, for every firelock that spoke from the loop-holes in the midnight attack, would be meted out Captain Stuart's penalty--in pangs, with knives, with cords, with hot coals, with flames of fire! The time had come to reward his patience! "You have done well," said Atta-Kulla-Kulla, "you should think well on your reward!" And he laid before Willinawaugh a fine gold watch--an English hunting watch, with a double case, and the works were running; doubtless, it was another trophy from the slaughtered officers of Colonel Montgomery's harassed march. Willinawaugh was stricken dumb. Stuart, in whose heart poor Hope, all bruised and bleeding, with wings broken but about to spread anew, astonished, overcome, with some poignant pang of gratitude that the semblance of kindness should be again extended to him by aught on earth, felt a stifling suffocation when Oconostota's voice broke in on his behalf, for naught from the crafty Cherokee king boded good. The "Great Warrior" declared that Willinawaugh's deeds spoke for themselves--not in French, not in English, but in the Cherokee tongue--in flame and in blood, in courage and in victory. The prisoner's scalp was no great matter in the face of the fact of Fort Loudon. The long fair hair of the English Captain to hang at his belt if he liked, but here was Fort Loudon to swing forever at the silver belt of the Tennessee River! He thought the great Willinawaugh had a right to choose his reward--the goods or the scalp. The scalp Atta-Kulla-Kulla could not wear, not having taken it. And the great Willinawaugh could be present and rejoice when Atta-Kulla-Kulla should choose to burn the captive; for whom he, himself, and Atta-Kulla-Kulla had devised a certain opportunity of usefulness to the Cherokee nation before Stuart should be called upon to expiate his crimes at the stake to satisfy the vengeance of his conqueror. And who so glad as Willinawaugh to lose naught of his satisfaction--neither his material nor immaterial reward? who now so glad to protest that he would waive any personal gratification that stood in the way of utility to the Cherokee nation? He had the watch in his hand, dangling by the gold chain and seals; the ticking caught his ear. He held it up close, with an expression of childish delight that metamorphosed his fierce face and seemed actually to freshen the expression of "him top-feathers." In obedience to a motion of Atta-Kulla-Kulla's hand, Stuart followed him out to the parade in the red rays of the sinking sun,--how often thence had he watched it go down behind the level ramparts of the Cumberland Mountains! They passed through the staring motley throng to Captain Demeré's house which the half-king had chosen for his own quarters. It was a log-cabin, floored, and of two rooms with a roofed but open passage between, not unlike the cabins of the region of the present day. Here the Cherokee paused, and with a pass or two of the scalping-knife cut the ropes that pinioned Stuart, opened the door of Demeré's bedroom and with an impassive face sternly motioned him to enter. The door was closed and Stuart was alone in the quarters reserved for the chief. It had not yet been invaded by the filthy plundering gangs without, and its order and military neatness and decorum affected his quivering nerves as a sort of solace--as of a recurrence of the sane atmosphere of right reason after a period of turbulent mania. And suddenly his heart was all pierced by grief and a sense of bereavement. He had realized his friend was dead, and he felt that this might fairly be considered the better fate. But somehow the trivial personal belongings so bespoke the vanished presence that he yearned for Demeré in his happy release; the shaken nerves could respond to the echo of a voice forever silenced; he could look into vacancy upon a face he was destined to see never again. His jaded faculties, instead of reaching forward to the terrible future, began to turn back vaguely to the details of their long service together; as a reflex of the agitation he had endured he could not, in the surcease of turmoil, compass a quiet mind; he began to experience that poignant anguish of bereavement, self-reproach. He remembered trifling differences they had had in the life they lived here like brothers, and his own part in them gnawed in his consciousness like a grief; he repented him of words long ago forgiven; he thought of personal vexations that he might have sought to smooth away but carelessly left in disregard; and when he lay down in the darkness on the narrow camp-bed with his friend's pillow under his head, Demeré's look this morning, of affectionate banter, with which he had turned on the ground as they lay in the bivouac was so present to his mind that the tears which all his pains and griefs were powerless to summon, sprang to his eyes. But the weary physical being sunk to rest, and then in the midst of his somnolent mental impressions was wrought a change. Demeré was with him still,--not in the guise of that white, stark face, upturned now to the stars on the plains of Taliquo,--but in his serene, staid presence as he lived; together they were at Fort Loudon, consulting, planning, as in its happier days; now it was the capacity of the spring which they wished to enlarge, and this they had done with blasting-powder; now it was the device to add to the comfort of the garrison by framing the little porches that stood before the doors of the barracks; now it was the erection of an out-work on the side exposed to assault by the river, and they were marking off the ravelin,--Corporal O'Flynn and a squad, with the tapes,--and directing the fashioning of the gabions, the Indians peacefully sitting by the while like some big, unintelligent, woodland animals, while the great, basket-like frames were woven of white oak splints and then filled with the solid earth. He was trying to tell Demeré that he was afraid something would happen to that second gun in the barbette battery on the northeast bastion, for the metal always rang with a queer vibration, and he had had a dream that Oconostota had overcharged and fired it, and it had exploded; and as Demeré was laughing at this folly Stuart realized suddenly the fact that the day was coming in to him again there in his friend's place, as it would come no more to Demeré, though dawning even now at Taliquo Plains where he lay. Instead of that essential presence, on which Stuart had leaned and relied, and which in turn had leaned and relied on him, there was in his mind but a memory, every day to grow dimmer. Nevertheless, he rose, refreshed and strengthened with the stimulus of that unreal association, which was yet so like reality, with the comrade of his dreams. The orderly instincts of a soldier, as mechanical as the functions of respiration, enabled him, with the use of fresh linen from his friend's relinquished effects, to obliterate the traces of the experiences of the previous day, and fresh and trim, with that precise military neatness that was so imposing to the poor Indian, who could not compass its effect, he went out to meet the half-king with a gait assured and steady, a manner capable and confident, and an air of executive ability, that bade fair for the success of any scheme to which he might lend his aid. Now and again he marked a glance of deep appreciation from the subtle Atta-Kulla-Kulla,[13] the result of much cogitation and effort at mental appraisement. He feared that important developments were to ensue, and after breakfast, at which meal he was treated like a guest and an equal, and not in the capacity of slave, as were most captives, his host notified him that his presence would be necessary at a council to be held at Choté. Too acute, far too acute was Atta-Kulla-Kulla not to recognize and comment upon the different aspect of life at Fort Loudon. "The red man cannot, without use, become capable of handling the advantages of the white man," he said in excuse of the anarchy everywhere, with all the riot and grotesqueness and discomfort incident to being out of one's sphere. At Choté the Cherokees would have seemed as easy, as appropriate, as graceful, as native as the deer. And at Choté Oconostota seemed as native as the fox. There he sat on the great buffalo rugs, even his faculties much more at command in his wonted place, under the dusky red walls of the clay-daubed dome of the council-chamber. And there Captain Stuart learned the reason of the Cherokee king's interference yesterday to postpone his fate. For Oconostota had evolved the bold project of the reduction of Fort Prince George. This would consummate the triumph of the fall of Fort Loudon, rid the greater portion of the Cherokee country of the presence of the English, and, with their strongholds in the hands of the Indians, reinforced by a few French gunners, prevent them from ever renewing foothold. The powder left by Stuart he had found, in experimenting with the guns, was not enough for a siege, but with the discovery of the ten extra bags, the supply would prove most ample. The ammunition, together with the guns, was to be at once removed and transported thither, laborious though it might prove. Stuart attempted to set forth the great difficulties of the undertaking, but was met at every point by the foresight and ingenuity of Oconostota, who had considered evidently each detail. It was plain that the project was feasible, for the Indian, too lazy in peace to hoe a row of beans, is capable in war of prodigies of valorous industry. Stuart began to feel singularly placed, since he did not perceive in this his personal concern, to be thus admitted to a council of war with the enemy. The affability of Oconostota he knew was insincere, but being in the Cherokee king's power the fraud of his amiability was more acceptable than the ferocity of his candor. "You will accompany the expedition," said the king of the Cherokees, suavely. "In what capacity?" Stuart asked, also politic, seeking to disguise his anxiety, for any hesitation or refusal would renew his straits of yesterday, Atta-Kulla-Kulla being as eager, as capable, and even more subtle in planning the campaign than Oconostota. "You will write the letters to the commandant of Fort Prince George, summoning him in our names to surrender, and"--with a twinkle of the eye--"advising him in your own name to comply." Stuart bowed in bland acquiescence. "And the commandant will find it very easy reading between the lines of any letters I shall write him," he said to himself. Nevertheless, he still sought to dissuade them. In ignorance of the state of the defenses at Fort Prince George, the strength of the works, the supply of ammunition and provisions, the difficulties that might have arisen in communicating with Charlestown, he sought to avert the dangers of a siege and a possible ultimate disaster such as had befallen Fort Loudon. But although he spoke with force and readiness it was very guardedly. "If the great Cherokee kings would please to consider the experience which I have had in the management of cannon, I should like to represent that such an attack on Fort Prince George can but be a duel with artillery. I am not well acquainted with the armament of Fort Prince George," he declared, "but it may well chance that the cannon, captured by the Cherokees at so great a cost, may be disabled under a heavy fire and lost to Fort Loudon, which would then become mere intrenchments, to be leveled by a single brisk cannonade." Atta-Kulla-Kulla, his quick, keen, fiery face aglow, informed him that they would leave a reserve of cannon at Fort Loudon, his advice having been to take with them only six of the great guns and two coehorns. Stuart was baffled for a moment by the definiteness and the military coherence of these plans. He rallied, however, to say that the gunners of Fort Prince George were trained men, doubtless, and drilled with frequent target practice. And a commander of skill, such as theirs, was essential to the effectiveness of an aggressive demonstration. A flicker of triumph illuminated Atta-Kulla-Kulla's spirited face. They were provided in this emergency also. He, the great Captain Stuart, would command the artillery of the expedition, the guns to be served by Indians as cannoneers under his direction; nicety of aim was not essential; a few days' practice would suffice, and at short range Fort Prince George was a large target. For his life Stuart could not control his countenance; the color flared to the roots of his hair; his eyes flashed; his hand trembled; he could not find his voice; and yet angry as he was, he was both amazed and daunted. Oconostota broke in upon his speechless agitation in a smooth, soothing voice to remind him of the clemency he enjoyed in that his life had been spared, and only yesterday, even at the supreme moment of the discovery of the treachery of his garrison in the concealment of the powder. They had not acquainted Willinawaugh with their designs, for Oconostota himself would lead the expedition. (Stuart as a military man realized a necessity, that sometimes supervenes in more sophisticated organizations, which they felt of curbing the power of a possibly too successful and a too aspiring subordinate.) How generous, declared Oconostota, had been the intercession of the noble Atta-Kulla-Kulla,--half-king of the Cherokees,--who had given in effect all his wealth to ransom him, a mere _eeankke_, a prisoner, from his warlike captor, the great Willinawaugh, that this military service might be rendered in exchange for his life. Stuart's eyes turned away; he sought to veil their expression; he looked through the tall narrow door of the red clay walls at the waters of the Tennessee River, silver-shotted and blue as ever, still flowing down and down beyond the site of Fort Loudon--unmindful of its tragic fate, unmindful! The august domes of the Great Smoky Mountains showed now a dull velvet blue against the hard blue of the turquoise sky, and anon drew a silver shimmer of mists about them. Chilhowee Mountain, richly bronze and green, rose in the middle distance, and he was vaguely reminiscent of the day when he watched the young soldier rocking in his boat on the shallows close to the shore, the red coat giving a bright spot of color to the harmonious duller tones of the landscape, and wondered were it possible among these friendly people that the lad could be in danger of a stealthy rifle shot. Now there were no red coats,--nevermore were they to be seen here! Between himself and the water he watched only the white swaying of a tall cluster of the great ethereally delicate snowy blossoms, since known as the Chilhowee lily. He kept his eyes still averted, his voice deepening with the seriousness of his sentiment as he replied that this was impossible--he could not undertake the command of the Cherokee artillery against Fort Prince George; he was bound by his oath of fidelity which he had sworn to the English government; he could not bear arms against it. A choking chuckle recalled his gaze to the dusky red interior of the council-chamber. Oconostota's countenance was distorted with derision, and his twinkling eyes were swimming in the tears of the infrequent laughter of the grave Indian--even Atta-Kulla-Kulla's face wore a protesting smile of scorn as of a folly. Twice Oconostota sought to speak, and he sputtered, and choked, and could not, for his relish of the thought in his mind. Then with a deep mock-seriousness he demanded slowly if it were fireproof. And relapsed into his shaking chuckle. "What?" demanded Stuart, uncomprehending. "This oath of yours--to the English government. Does this fidelity so clothe your body that it will not burn and crisp and crinkle in the anguish as of your hell? Does your oath harden your flesh as a rock, that arrows and knives shall not pierce it and sting and ache as they stick there waiting for the slow fires to do their work? Will your oath restore sight to your eyes when a red-hot iron has seared them?" He could say no more for the chuckling delight that shook and shook his lean old body. Atta-Kulla-Kulla spoke in reproach. The Cherokee kings had offered Captain Stuart life and practically liberty in exchange for this service. If he denied it and talked of his oath, it was but just that vengeance should take its way. Many a Cherokee had fallen dead from the fire of his garrison of Loudon, both of great guns and small, and their blood called still from the ground. A wise man was Captain Stuart, and he would choose wisely. He was a hearty man, still young, and in full vigor, and, although his life had been but little worth of late, he was loath to throw it away. He began to temporize, to try to gain time. He sought to talk discontentedly of the project, as if he found it infeasible. The commandant, he said, as if he contemplated him only as the leader of an opposing force, would fight at an infinite advantage within the strong defenses of Fort Prince George, while he outside, without intrenchments except such hasty works as could be thrown up in a night, and beaten down by the enemy's cannonade in the morning, could but expect to have his guns soon silenced. A regular approach would be impracticable. The Indians were not used to fight unscreened. They would never open a parallel under fire, and a vigilant defense would make havoc among the working parties. He noted the effect of the unfamiliar military theories upon the Indians, as they both seemed to anxiously canvass them. "You cannot skulk behind a tree with cannon," he continued. "The artillery, to be able to command the fort with its fire, would be within range of the enemy's batteries, and without efficient cover it would be necessary, in serving each piece, for the gunners to be exposed to fire all the time." An interval of deep, pondering silence ensued. At length Atta-Kulla-Kulla said he believed there would be little or no fight on account of the prisoners. "What prisoners?" demanded Stuart, shortly. Then Oconostota explained, with his blandest circumlocutions, that, partly as a check upon his dear brother's good faith, bound as he was by his oath of fidelity to the English government,--and he almost choked with the relish of his derision every time he mentioned it,--and to make sure that he should handle the guns properly, and fire them with due effect,--not aiming them wildly, so that the balls might fly over the fort, or fall short, not spiking the guns, or otherwise demolishing them, all of which his great knowledge of the arm rendered possible, and the ignorance of the poor red man unpreventable, they had determined to take with them the remnant of the garrison, their lives to be pledges of his good conduct and effective marksmanship; and if at last his earnest and sincere efforts should prove unavailing, and the commandant should continue to hold out and refuse to surrender when finally summoned, these, the countrymen and fellow-soldiers of that officer, should be singly tortured and burned before his eyes, within full sight and hearing of Fort Prince George. As the fiendish ingenuity of this scheme was gradually unfolded, Stuart sat stunned. All the anguish he had suffered seemed naught to this prospect. He staggered under the weight of responsibility. The lives of the poor remnant of his garrison,--more, their death by fire and torture,--hung upon such discretion as he could summon to aid his exhausted powers in these repeated and tormented ordeals. He said nothing; he could not see and he did not care for the succession of chuckles in which Oconostota was resolved at the delightful spectacle of his dismay. The Cherokee had beaten this man of resource at his little game of war, and now had outmaneuvered him at his mastercraft of scheming! FOOTNOTES: [Footnote J: Tooth!] [Footnote K: Very excellent.] [Footnote L: Three.] [Footnote M: Four--six.] [Footnote N: The great hawk is at home!] CHAPTER XIII Stuart seemed utterly vanquished--his spirit gone. In silence he was conducted back to his quarters in Demeré's house at Fort Loudon. And as there he sat in the spare, clean room, in the single chair it contained, with one elbow on the queer, rough little table, constructed according to a primitive scheme by the post carpenter, he stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect so close before him. He had not now the solace of solitude in which he might have rallied his faculties. On the buffalo rug on the floor Atta-Kulla-Kulla reclined and smoked his long-stemmed pipe and watched him with impenetrable eyes. Once he spoke to him of the preparations making without, selecting the men for the gunners of the expedition. Stuart lifted his head abruptly. "I will not go!" he cried in sudden passion. "So help me, God! I will die first!--a thousand deaths. So help me, God!" He lifted his clinched right hand in attestation and shook it wildly in the air. [Illustration: "He stared forward blankly at the inevitable prospect."] He had a momentary shame in thus giving way to his surcharged feelings, but as he rose mechanically from his chair his restless eyes, glancing excitedly about the room, surprised an expression of sympathy in the face of the Cherokee as he lay coiled up on the rug. "Atta-Kulla-Kulla!" Stuart exclaimed impulsively, holding out both arms, "feel for me! Think of me! The poor remnant of the garrison! My 'young men'! My own command! I will die first, myself, a thousand deaths!" Atta-Kulla-Kulla began to argue, speaking partly in Cherokee and now and again in fragmentary English. Neither the one nor the other might be the victim. The commandant at Fort Prince George would yield under this strong coercion. "Never! Never!" cried Stuart. "His duty is to hold the fort. He will defend it to the last man and the last round of ammunition and the last issuance of rations. For his countrymen to be tortured and burned in his sight and hearing would doubtless give him great pain. But his duty is to his own command, and he will do it." Atta-Kulla-Kulla seemed doubtful. "And then," argued Stuart, "would such torturing and burning of the surrendered garrison of Fort Loudon before the eyes of the garrison of Fort Prince George be an inducement to them to surrender too, and perhaps meet the same fate? Be sure they will sell their lives more dearly! Be sure they will have heard of the massacre of the soldiers under the Cherokees' pledge of safe-conduct on the plains of Taliquo." "_To-e-u-hah!_" Atta-Kulla-Kulla broke out furiously. "_To-e-u-hah!_ It is most true!" His countenance had changed to extreme anger. He launched out into a bitter protest that he had always contemned, and deprecated, and sought to prevent this continual violation of their plighted word and the obligations of their treaties on the part of the Cherokee nation. It invariably hampered their efforts afterward, as it was hampering them now. It took from their hand the tool of negotiation, the weapon of the head-men, and left only the tomahawk, the brute force of the tribe. _Wahkane, wahkane!_ Was it not so when the treaty of Lyttleton was broken and Montgomery, the Terrible, came in his stead? And when the Cherokees had driven him out, and had taken their revenge on him for the blood which had been shed in his first foray, of what avail to massacre the garrison evacuating Fort Loudon, the possession of which had been for so long a coveted boon, and thus preclude a peaceful rendering of Fort Prince George and the expulsion of all English soldiery from Cherokee soil! Stuart, cautiously reticent, let him dilate upon all the wrongs wrought in council by the disregard of his advice, only now and again dropping a word as fuel to the flame. Cautiously, too, he led to the topic of the regard and the admiration which the acute mind and the more enlightened moral sentiment of this chief had excited in the English authorities, and the service this official esteem would have been to the headstrong nation if they had availed themselves of it. For was not Montgomery instructed to offer them terms on _his_ account only? Their cruelty Atta-Kulla-Kulla was brought to perceive had despoiled them of the fruits of their victory; they might have, for all their patience and all their valor, and all their statecraft, only a few more scalps here and there; for presently the great English nation would be pressing again from the south, with Fort Prince George as a base, and the war would be to begin anew. Deep into the night Atta-Kulla-Kulla dwelt on the treachery toward him,--for he had known naught of the enterprise of the massacre--that had so metamorphosed victory into disaster. The moonlight was coming in at the window, reminding Stuart of that night when he lay at length on the rug and consulted with Demeré and anxiously foreboded events, the news of Montgomery's departure from the country having fallen upon them like a crushing blow. How prescient of disaster they had felt--but how little they had appraised its force! Paler now was the moon, more melancholy, desolate to the last degree as it glimmered on the white-washed walls of the bare, sparely furnished room. His attention had relaxed with fatigue as he still sat with his elbow on the table, his head on his hand, vaguely hearing the Indian councillor droning out his griefs of disregarded statesmanship and of the preferable attitude of affairs, so rudely, so disastrously altered. Suddenly his tone changed to a personal note. "But it was ill with you, starving with your young men, in this place--long days, heap hungry." "They seem happy days, now," said Stuart drearily, rousing himself. "And to-morrow--and yet next day?" asked Atta-Kulla-Kulla. Stuart stirred uneasily. "I can only die with what grace and courage I can muster," he said reluctantly. He glanced about him with restless eyes, like a hunted creature. "I cannot escape." He looked up in sudden surprise. The Indian was standing now, gazing down at him with a benignity of expression which warranted the character of bold and forceful mind, and broad and even humane disposition, which this Cherokee had won of his enemies in the midst of the bloodshed and the treachery and the hideous cruelty of the warfare in which he was so much concerned. "John Stuart," he said, "have I not called you my friend? Have I not given all I possess of wealth to save your life? Do I not value it, and yet it is yours!" Stuart had forgotten the chief's words that Christmas night at the great gates, but they came back to him as Atta-Kulla-Kulla repeated them, anew. "I know your heart, and I do not always forget! I do not _always_ forget!" In Stuart's amazement, in the abrupt reaction, he could hardly master the details of the unfolded plan. The Cherokee declared he had made up his mind to a stratagem, such as might baffle even the designs of Oconostota. He doubted his own power to protect his prisoner, should the king learn that Stuart still refused his services in the expedition to Fort Prince George. Oconostota's heart was set upon the reduction of this stronghold, and so was that of all the Cherokee nation. And yet Atta-Kulla-Kulla could but perceive the flagrant futility of the expectation of the surrender of the garrison on the coercion that Oconostota had devised, especially as Fort Prince George was so much nearer than Fort Loudon to communication with the white settlements. "I contemplate the fact before it happens, they only afterward," he said. On the pretext of diverting Stuart's mind after his glut of horrors, and in affording him this recreation to secure an influence over him, eminently in character with the wiles of the Cherokee statesman, he gave out that he intended to take his prisoner with him for a few days on a hunting expedition. The deer were now in prime condition, and Captain Stuart was known by the Indians to be specially fond of venison. In the old days at Fort Loudon they had often taken note of this preference, and stopped there to leave as a gift a choice haunch, or saddle, or to crave the privilege of nailing a gigantic pair of antlers to vie with the others on the walls of the great hall. Stuart himself was a famous shot, and was often called by them in compliment _A-wah-ta-how-we_, the "great deer-killer." The project created no surprise, and Stuart saw with amazement the door of his prison ajar. One might have thought in such a crisis of deliverance no other consideration could appeal to him. But his attachment to the British interest seems to have been like the marrow in his bones. He demanded of Atta-Kulla-Kulla the privilege of being accompanied by two men of the garrison of his own choice. The chief cast upon him a look of deep reproach. Did he fear treachery? Had his friend, his brother, deserved this? "I ask much of a friend--nothing of an enemy," declared Stuart, bluffly. "You know my heart--trust me." Atta-Kulla-Kulla yielded. If he experienced curiosity, the names of the two men which Stuart gave him afforded no clue as to the reason for their selection; one was a gun-smith, an armorer of uncommon skill, and Stuart knew that he was capable of dismounting and removing the cannon, without injury, through the tangled wilderness to Fort Prince George, should coercion overcome his resistance to the demands of the savages; the other, an artillery-man of long experience and much intelligence, himself adequately fitted to take command of the guns of the expedition, with a good chance of a successful issue. The massacre had swept away most of the cannoneers, and Stuart was aware that the infantrymen left of the garrison would be hardly more capable of dealing with the problems of gun service than was Oconostota, their careless and casual observation being worth little more than his earnest, but dense ignorance. Nevertheless, with his exacting insistence on the extreme limit of demand, he begged Atta-Kulla-Kulla, whose patience was wearing dangerously thin, to let him see them, speak to them for one moment. "You can hear all I say--you who understand the English so well." As he stepped into the old exhausted store-room, where the soldiers were herded together, squalid, heart-broken, ill, forlorn, Atta-Kulla-Kulla outside closing the door fast, a quavering cheer went up to greet Stuart. For one moment he stood silent while their eyes met--a moment fraught with feeling too deep for words. Then his voice rang out and he spoke to the point. He wanted to remind them, he said, how the action of the garrison had forced the surrender and left the officers no choice, no discretion; however the event would have fallen out, it would not have happened thus. "But I did not come here to mock your distress," he protested. "I wish to urge you to rely upon me now. I have hopes of securing the ransom of the garrison by the government,"--again a pitiful cheer,--"and as I may never be allowed to see you again this is my only chance. _Be sure of this_,--no man need hope for ransom who affords the Cherokees the slightest assistance in any enterprise against Fort Prince George, or takes up arms at their command." He smiled, and waved his hat in courteous farewell, and stepped backward out of the door, apparently guarded by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, while that quavering huzza went up anew, the very sound almost breaking down his self-control. The next day Stuart, accompanied by Atta-Kulla-Kulla, the warrior's wife, his brother, the armorer, and the artillery-man,--the supposititious hunting party,--set gayly and leisurely forth. But once out of reach of espionage they traveled in a northeastern direction with the utmost expedition night and day through the trackless wilderness, guided only by the sun and moon. What terrors of capture, what hardships of fatigue, what anxious doubt and anguish of hope they endured, but added wings to the flight of the unhappy fugitives. Nine days and nights they journeyed thus, hardly relaxing a muscle. On the tenth day, having gained the frontiers of Virginia, they fortunately fell in with a party of three hundred men, a part of Bird's Virginia regiment, thrown out for the relief of any soldiers who might be escaping in the direction of that province from Fort Loudon, for through Hamish's dispatches its state of blockade and straits of starvation had become widely bruited abroad. With the succor thus afforded and the terror of capture overpast, the four days' further travel were accomplished in comparative ease, and brought the fugitives to Colonel Bird's camp, within the boundaries of Virginia. Here Stuart parted from Atta-Kulla-Kulla, with many a protestation and many a regret, and many an urgent prayer that the chief would protect such of the unhappy garrison as were still imprisoned at Fort Loudon until they could be ransomed, measures for which Stuart intended to set on foot immediately. So the half-king of the Cherokees went his way back to his native wilds, loaded by Stuart with presents and commendations, and in no wise regretting the radical course he had taken.[14] Stuart had instantly sent off messengers to apprise the commandant of Fort Prince George of the threatened attack, and to acquaint the governor of South Carolina with the imminence of its danger and the fall of Fort Loudon, for Governor Bull had expected Virginia to raise the siege of Loudon, unaware that that province had dropped all thought of the attempt, finding its means utterly inadequate to march an army thither through those vast and tangled wildernesses carrying the necessary supplies for its own subsistence. Provisions for ten weeks were at once thrown into Fort Prince George, and a report was industriously circulated among the Indians that the ground about it on every side had been craftily mined to prevent approach.[15] Stuart found that Hamish MacLeod, after performing his mission and setting out for his return to the beleaguered fort with the responsive dispatches, had succumbed to the extreme hardship of those continuous journeys throughout the wild fastnesses, many hundred miles of which were traversed on foot and at full speed under a blazing summer sun, and lay ill of brain-fever at one of the frontier settlements. There Stuart saw him--still so delirious that, although recognizing the officer in some sort, he talked wildly of pressing dispatches, of the inattention and callous hearts of officials in high station, of delays and long waitings for audience in official anterooms, of the prospect of any expedition of relief for the fort, of Odalie, and red calashes, and Savanukah, and rifle-shots, and Fifine, and "top-feathers," and Sandy--Sandy--Sandy; always Sandy! Later, Stuart was apprised that the boy was on the way to recovery when he received a coherent letter from Hamish, who had learned that Stuart was using every endeavor--moving heaven and earth as the phrase went--to compass the ransom of the survivors of the garrison still at Fort Loudon or the Indian villages in its neighborhood. Hamish had heard of the fall of the fort and the massacre of the evacuating force, and still staggering under the weight of the blow, he reminded Stuart peremptorily enough of the services which Odalie had rendered in venturing forth from the walls under the officer's orders, when he dared not seek to induce a man to volunteer nor constrain one to the duty, and to urge upon his consideration the fact that she might be justly esteemed to have earned her ransom and that of her husband and child. Hamish had an immediate reply by a sure hand. If it could avail aught to Mrs. MacLeod or any of her household, Stuart wrote with an uncharacteristic vehemence of protest, every influence he could exert, every half-penny he possessed, every drop of his blood would be cheerfully devoted to the service, so highly did he rate the lofty courage which had given to Fort Loudon its only chance of relief, and which under happier auspices would undoubtedly have resulted in raising the siege. Whatever might be forgotten, assuredly it would not be the intrepid devotion of the "forlorn hope" of Fort Loudon. Hamish, left to his own not overwise devices, decided to return to the country where he had quitted all that was dear to him, dangerous though that return might be. And, indeed, those wild western woods included the boundaries of all the world to him--elsewhere he felt alone and an alien. It seemed strange to realize that there were other people, other interests, other happenings of moment. He long remembered the sensation, and was wont to tell of it afterward, with which he discovered, camping one night at the foot of a tree--for he journeyed now by easy stages, keeping sedulously from the main trail through the forest--the traces of a previous presence, a bit of writing cut on the bark of the tree. "Daniel Boon," it ran, "cilled a bar on tree in the year 1760." That momentous year--that crucial time of endeavor and fluctuating hope and despair and death--a hunter here, all unaware of the maelstrom of mental and physical agony away there to the south in the shadow of the same mountain range, was pursuing his quiet sylvan craft, and slaughtering his "bar" and the alphabet with equal calm and aplomb. Perhaps it was well for the future career of the adventurous young fellow that he fell in with some French traders, who were traveling with many packhorses well laden, and who designed to establish themselves with their goods at one of the Lower Towns of the Cherokees; they urged that he should attach himself to their march, whether from a humane sense of diminishing his danger, or because of the industry and usefulness and ever ready proffer of aid in the frank, bright, amiable boy, who showed a quality of good breeding quite beyond their custom, yet not unappreciated. They warned him that it would be certain death to him, and perhaps to his captive relatives, should he in a flimsy disguise, which he had fancied adequate, of dyeing his hair a singular yellow and walking with a limp, which he often alertly forgot, venture into the villages of those Cherokees by whom he had been so well known, and against whose interest he had been employed in such vigorous and bold aggression. The traders showed some genuine feeling of sympathy and a deep indignation, because of the treachery that had resulted in the massacre of the garrison of Fort Loudon,--although the English were always the sworn foe of the French. The leader of the party, elderly, of commercial instincts rather than sylvan, albeit a dead shot, and decorated with ear-rings, had a great proclivity toward snuff and tears, and often indulged in both as a luxury when Hamish with his simple art sought to portray the characters of the tragedy of the siege; and as the Frenchman heard of Fifine and Odalie, and Stuart and Demeré, and all their sufferings and courage and devices of despair--"_Quelle barbarie!_" he would burst forth, and Hamish would greet the phrase with a boyish delight of remembrance. Two or three of the party made an incursion into Choté when they reached its neighborhood, and returned with the news that the ransom of such of the garrison as were there had taken place, and they had been delivered to the commandant of Fort Prince George, but certain others had been removed to Huwhasee Town and among them were the French squaw, the pappoose, and the Scotchman. In his simplicity Hamish believed them, although Monsieur Galette sat late, with his delicate sentiments, over the camp-fire that night, and stared at it with red eyes, often suffused with tears, and took snuff after his slovenly fashion until he acquired the aspect of a blackened pointed muzzle, and looked in his elevated susceptibility like some queer unclassified baboon. But at Huwhasee Town Hamish heard naught of those his memory cherished. He was greatly amazed at the courage with which Monsieur Galette urged upon the head-men that some measures should be taken to induce Oconostota to remove that fence, of which they had heard at Choté, which had been built of the bones of the massacred garrison, and give them burial from out the affronted gaze of Christian people. This was not pleasing, he said, not even to the French. He was evidently growing old and his heart was softening! Lured by a vague rumor expressed among the party that those he sought had been removed to a remote Indian town on the Tsullakee River, Hamish broke away from Monsieur Galette, despite all remonstrances, to seek those he loved in the further west--if slaves, as Monsieur Galette suggested, he would rather share their slavery than without them enjoy the freedom of the king. And, constrained to receive two snuffy kisses on either cheek, he left Monsieur Galette shedding his frequent tears to mix with the snuff on his pointed muzzle. And so in company with a French hunter in a canoe, Hamish went down the long reaches of the Tsullakee River, coming after many days to their destination, to find only disappointment and a gnawing doubt, and a strange, palsying numbness of despair. For the French traders here, reading Monsieur Galette's letter, looked at one another with grave faces and collogued together, and finally became of the opinion that the members of the family he sought were somewhere--oh, far away!--in the country where now dwelt the expatriated Shawnees, and that region, so great an Indian traveler as he was must know was inaccessible now in the winter season. It would be well for him to dismiss the matter from his mind, and stay with them for the present; he could engage in the fur trade; his society would be appreciated. With the well-meaning French flattery they protested that he spoke the French language so well--they made him upon his proficiency their felicitations. Poor Hamish ought to have known from this statement what value to attach to what they said otherwise, conscious as he was how his verbs and pronouns disagreed, and dislocated the sense of his remarks, and popped up and down out of place, like a lot of puppets on a disorganized system of wires. These traders were not snuffy nor lachrymose; they were of a gay disposition and also wore ear-rings--but they all looked sorrowfully at him when he left them, and he thought one was minded to disclose something withheld. And so down and down the Tsullakee River he went, and after the junction of the great tributary with the Ohio, he plied his paddle against the strong current and with the French hunter came into the placid waters of the beautiful Sewanee, or Cumberland, flouted by the north wind, his way winding for many miles in densest wintry solitudes. For this was the great hunting-ground of the Cherokee nation and absolutely without population. His adventures were few and slight until he fell in with Daniel Boon, camping that year near the head waters of the Sewanee, who listened to his story with grave concern and a sane and effective sympathy. He, too, advised the cessation of these ceaseless wanderings, but he thought Stuart's letter evasive, somehow, and counseled the boy to write to him once more, detailing these long searches and their futility. Hamish had always realized that Stuart's sentiments, although by no means shallow, for he was warmly attached to his friends, were simple, direct, devoid of the subtlety that sometimes characterized his mental processes. Life to him was precious, a privilege, and its environment the mere incident. He now replied that he had not dared divulge all the truth while Hamish MacLeod was in the enfeebled condition that follows brain-fever, and had been loath, too, to rob him of hope, only that he might forlornly mourn his nearest and dearest. But since the fact must needs be revealed he could yet say their sorrows were brief. In that drear dawn on the plains of Taliquo the mother and child were killed in the same volley of musketry, and afterward, as he ordered from time to time the ranks to close up, he saw Sandy, who had been fighting in line with the troops, lying on the ground, quite dead. "You may be sure of this," Stuart added; "I took especial note of their fate, having from the first cared much for them all." The terrible certainty wrought a radical change in Hamish. From the moment he seemed, instead of the wild, impulsive, affectionate boy, a stern reserved man. In the following year he enlisted in a provincial regiment mustered to join the British regulars sent again by General Amherst to the relief of the Carolina frontier; for the difficulties in Canada being set at rest, troops could be put in the field in the south, and vengeance for the tragedy of Fort Loudon became a menace to the Cherokees, who had grown arrogant and aggressive, stimulated to further cruelties by their triumphs and immunity. Nevertheless, Atta-Kulla-Kulla went forth to meet the invaders, and earnestly attempted to negotiate a treaty. It was well understood now, however, that he was in no sense a representative man of his nation, and his mission failed. Lieutenant-Colonel James Grant, on whom Colonel Montgomery's command had now devolved, at the head of this little army of British regulars and provincials, preceded by a vanguard of ninety Indian allies and thirty white settlers, painted and dressed like Indians, under command of Captain Quentin Kennedy,--in all about twenty-six hundred men,--continued to advance into the Cherokee country. At Etchoee, the scene of the final battle of Colonel Montgomery's campaign in the previous year, they encountered the Cherokees in their whole force--the united warriors of all the towns. A furious battle ensued, both sides fighting with prodigies of valor and persistence, that resulted in breaking forever the power of the Cherokee nation. Three hours the rage of the fight lasted, and then the troops, pushing forward into the country, burned and slew on every side, wasting the growing crops all over the face of the land, and driving the inhabitants from the embers of their towns to the refuge of caves and dens of wild beasts in the mountains. They stayed not their hand till Atta-Kulla-Kulla came again, now to humbly sue for peace and for the preservation of such poor remnant as was left of his people. After this the colonists came more rapidly into the region. A settlement sprang up at Watauga, the site of one of Hamish's old camps as he had journeyed on his fruitless search for those who had made his home and the wilderness a sort of paradise. But the place, far away from Loudon though it was, seemed sad to him. The austere range of mountain domes on the eastern horizon looked down on him with suggestions which they imparted to none others who beheld them. He and they had confidences and a drear interchange of memories and a knowledge of a past that broke the heart already of the future. He was glad to look upon them no more! His mind had turned often to the trivial scenes, the happier times, when, unbereaved of hope, he had hunted with the Frenchman on the banks of the beautiful Sewanee River. And he welcomed the project of a number of the pioneers to carry their settlement on to the region of the French Salt Lick, which other hunters had already rendered famous, and with a few of these he made his way thither by land while the rest traveled by water, the way of his old journey in search of his lost happiness. And here he lived and passed his days. He heard from Stuart from time to time afterward, but not always with pleasure. It is true that it afforded him a sentiment of deep gratification to learn that the Assembly of South Carolina had given Stuart a vote of thanks for his "courage, good conduct and long perseverance at Fort Loudon," with a testimonial of fifteen hundred pounds currency, and earnestly recommended him to the royal governor for a position of honor and profit in the service of the province; the office of Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the South having been created, Stuart's appointment thereto by the Crown was received with the liveliest public satisfaction, it being a position that he was pronounced in every way qualified to fill.[16] For some years this satisfaction continued, failing only when, in the growing differences between the colonists and Great Britain, Stuart, wholly devoted to the royal cause, conceived himself under obligations to carry out the instructions which the British War Department sent to him and the four royal governors of the southern provinces to use every endeavor to continue the Indians in their adherence to the British standard as allies against all its enemies; even concocting a plan with General Gage, Governor Tonyn, Lord William Campbell, and other royalists,--which plan happily failed,--to land a British army on the western coast of Florida, whence, joined by tories and Indians, the united force should fall upon the western frontiers of Carolina at the moment of attack on the eastern coast by a British fleet, in the hope that the province thus surrounded would be obliged to sue the royal government for peace. Hamish had had some opportunity at Fort Loudon to observe the tenacity with which Stuart at all hazards adhered to his "instructions and the interest of the government," but in this crisis it ceased to appear in the guise of duty. In such a time it seemed to Hamish an independent, enlightened judgment partook of the values of a pious patriotism. A permanent breach in their friendship was made when Stuart wrote to Hamish to call his attention to the fact that the MacDonalds of Kingsburgh and the MacLeods and other leal Scotch hearts in the southern provinces were fighting under the royal banner. Hamish replied succinctly that "on whatever side the MacLeods fought, with whatever result, be sure the thing would be well done." As if to illustrate the fact, he himself some time afterward set forth with the "mountain men" to march against the royalists under Ferguson, and was among the victors in the battle of King's Mountain. In the earlier times of the settlement of the State, fraught with troubles with the Indians, who, more timorous than formerly, were yet more skulking, Hamish was wont to take with hearty good-will to the rifle, the knife, the pistol, and the firebrand. He was with Sevier on more than one of those furious forays, when vengeance nerved the hand and hardened the heart, for many of the pioneers avenged the slain of their own household. But as he grew old, the affinity of his hand for the trigger slackened, and he liked only the blaze of the benignant fireside; sometimes he would laugh and shake his gray head and declare that he reminded himself of Monsieur Galette, with his theories of sweet peace in that fierce land, and his soft heart and his sinewy old hand that could send a bullet so straight from the bore of his flintlock rifle. And so great a favorite did Monsieur Galette become in Hamish's fireside stories, so often clamored for, that he would ask his grandchildren, clustering about him, if they would like him better with a muzzle of snuff and a pair of ear-rings and a tear-discoursing eye, and declare that he must take measures to secure these embellishments. And so, gradually, by slow degrees, he was led on to talk of the past,--of the beautiful Carolina girl who had been his brother's wife, of the quaint babble of Fifine, of Stuart and Demeré, of Corporal O'Flynn, and the big drum-major, and the queer old African cook, and the cat that had been so cherished--but he never, never ventured a word of Sandy, to the last day of his life; Sandy!--for whom he had had almost a filial veneration blended with the admiring applausive affection of the younger brother for the elder. When he had grown very old--for he died only in 1813--he had a beneficent illusion that might come but to one standing, as could be said, on the borderland of the two worlds. It came in dreams, such perhaps as old men often dream, but his experiences made it the tenderer. Sometimes in the golden afternoon of summer, as he sat in placid sleep, with his long, white hair falling about his shoulders, one of his wrinkled, veinous hands lying on the arm of his chair would tremble suddenly and contract with a strong grasp, and he would look up, at naught, with a face of such joyous recognition and tender appeal, that the children, playing about, would pause in their mirth and ask, with awe, what had he seen. And it seemed that he had felt his hand caught with a certain playful clasp such as years ago--more than half a century--Odalie was wont to give it, when she had been waiting for him long, and would wait no longer. And looking up, he could see her standing there, waiting still, smiling serenely, joyously as of yore; and so she would stand till the dream vanished in the reality of the children clustering around his knees, besieging him once more for the story of Old Fort Loudon. NOTES 1 Page 8. In addition to luring an enemy within shot by the mimicry of the voice of bird or beast the Indians' consummate art of ambuscade enabled them to imitate the footprints of game by affixing the hoofs of deer or buffalo or the paws of bear to their own feet and hands, and thus duplicate the winding progress of these animals for miles with such skill as to deceive not merely the white settlers, new to the country, but Indian enemies of other tribes, expert woodmen like themselves. 2 Page 18. The name of this famous town is variously given. Adair spells it as Choàte. Bancroft inclines to Chotee. Bartram has it as Chote-Great. Some of the old maps show it as Chotte. Modern historians of Tennessee, Hayward, J. G. M. Ramsey, Putnam, and others make it Chota, but most of the earlier writers concerning this region adopt the French rendering and call it Choté; Hewatt, however, David Ramsey, and others use the _accent grave_, Chotè. This town, seldom alluded to without the phrase "old town" or "beloved town," to distinguish it from another Indian village of the same name among the Lower Towns, was a veritable "city of refuge," and the only one of the Cherokee nation. A murderer, even if a white man and the victim a Cherokee, might live for years here secure from vengeance. Although there is an instance known of a malefactor, who sought an asylum here and was prevented from landing, being held down in the Tennessee River until drowned, still the rule was inviolable that if the refugee could but gain a footing on the ever-sacred soil, he was as safe as if clinging to the horns of an altar. This fact contributed, with other confirmatory circumstances of usage and tradition, to continue the speculations touching the identity of the American Indians with the lost tribes of Israel. Humboldt says that from the most remote times of the Missions the opinion has been entertained that the languages of the American Indians and the Hebrew display extraordinary analogies. He ascribes this fact to the position of the personal and possessive pronouns at the end of the nouns and verbs, and the numerous tenses of the latter, a characteristic of both the Indian and Hebrew tongues which naturally struck the attention of the monks. An analogy, however, does not go far to prove an identity of origin. He refers to Adair as among travelers "somewhat credulous who have heard the strains of the Hebrew Hallelujah among the Chickasaws and Choctaws of North America,"--and he might have added the Cherokees also. James Adair, however, could hardly be called a traveler. He published in London in 1775 the results of his observation during a residence of forty years as a trader among the Chickasaws and neighboring tribes. He adduces many analogies of their languages with the Hebrew, and calls attention to many customs for which he seeks to discern precedent in the Mosaic dispensation. How much he had read of previous speculations it is impossible to say. He protests that he is but a trader and not "a skillful Hebraist," by his vocation obliged to write far from all libraries, literary associations, and conversation with the learned, compelled even to keep his papers secret from the observation of the Indians, always very jealous of the enigmatical "black marks" of the traders' correspondence, but he quotes largely from many writers both English and foreign--the Reverend Mr. Thorowgood, Don Antonio de Ulloa, Acosta, Benzo, etc., and shows considerable aptness of logic in adapting his theories to his investigations into the structure of the Indian languages. Such nice verbal distinctions, such order and symmetry, such a train of subtle and exact religious terms, he argues, could not be invented by a people so ignorant and illiterate as the modern Indian, and contends that they obviously bear all the distinctive marks of a language of culture. He further declares that one of the Chickasaw prophets, _the Loache_, assured him that they had once had an "old beloved speech," which in the course of time and national degeneration they had lost. In this connection, but entirely apart from all Hebraic analogies, one is moved to wonder if there were also among them a reminiscence of an "old beloved character," and if the extraordinary invention of the Cherokee character of the "syllabic alphabet" by the Indian, Guest, early in the present century, partly partakes of the nature of tradition. 3 Page 22. The high value which the French government placed on the services of these allies may be inferred from a remark which has come down from a council of state, in reference to their conduct in this battle: "_Quoique je n'approuve pas qu'on mange les morts, cependant il ne faut pas quereller avec ces bonnêtes gens pour des bagatelles._" 4 Page 38. Among others bearing witness to these strange relics, Timothy Flint says, in his _History and Geography of the Mississippi Valley_: "In this state [Tennessee] burying grounds have been found where the skeletons seem all to have been pigmies. The graves in which the bodies were deposited are seldom more than two feet or two feet and a half in length. To obviate the objection that these are all the bodies of children, it is affirmed that the skulls are found to have possessed the _dentes sapientiæ_ and must have belonged to persons of mature age. The two bodies that were found in the vast limestone cavern in Tennessee, one of which I saw at Lexington, were neither of them more than four feet high; the hair seemed to have been sandy, or inclining to yellow. It is well known that nothing is so uniform in the present Indian as his lank, black hair. From the pains taken to preserve the bodies, and the great labor of making the funeral robes in which they were folded, they must have been of the 'blood royal' or personages of consideration in their day." (Hayward, in his quaint and rare _Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee_, referring to the curious method of interment, in a copperas cave, of two mummies, both of full size, however, arrayed in fabrics of great beauty, evincing much mechanical skill in manufacture, also mentions the hair on the heads of both as long, and of a yellow cast and a fine texture.) Webber, in his _Romance of Natural History_, gives the size of the diminutive sarcophagi of the supposed pygmies found in Tennessee as three feet in length by eighteen inches in depth. Hayward also mentions the pygmy dwellers of Tennessee, and another writer still, describing one of these singular graveyards of the "little people," states that the bones were strong and well formed, and that one of the skeletons had about its neck ninety-four pearls. The painfully prosaic hypothesis of certain craniologists that such relics were only those of children is, of course, rejected by any person possessed of the resources of imagination. 5 Page 40. This name is also given in one or two instances as Dejean, and several dates both earlier and later have been assigned to the disastrous visit to Choté to which reference is here made. 6 Page 82. Washington readily recognized the futility of the cumbrous regular military methods in a rough, unsettled country. On the Forbes expedition, to counteract the French and their Indian allies, Washington continually sent out small parties of the Cherokees under his command. "Small parties of Indians," said he, "will more effectually harass the enemy by keeping them under continual alarms than any parties of white men can do." However, "with all his efforts," says Irving, "he was never able to make the officers of the regular army appreciate the importance of Indian allies in these campaigns in the wilderness." But the fact has been taught elsewhere, both earlier and later than Washington's day. General Gordon, in his journal, says of the Soudan: "A heavy lumbering column is nowhere in this land. Parties of forty or sixty men moving swiftly about will do more than any column. Native allies, above all things, at whatever cost. It is the country of the irregular, not of the regular. I can say I owe the defeats in this country to having artillery with me, which delayed me much, and it was the artillery with Hicks which in my opinion did for him." And as if he himself merely turned back a leaf instead of the pages of centuries, he here inserts an extract from Herodotus: "Cambyses marched against the Ethiopians without making any provision for the subsistence of his army or once considering that he was going to carry his arms to the remotest parts of the world, but as a madman ... before the army had passed over a fifth of the way all the provisions were exhausted, and the beasts of burden were eaten.... Now if Cambyses had then led his army back he would have proved himself a wise man. He, however, went on ... the report was that heaps of sand covered them over, and they disappeared." Gordon comments, "Hicks' army disappeared. The expedition was made into these lands." 7 Page 137. This pride flourished probably too far on the frontier to be deteriorated by the knowledge of the gradual decline in the popularity of the periwig then in progress, for only a few years later the wig-makers of London found it necessary to petition the king, setting forth their distresses occasioned by the perversity of the men of his realm in persisting in wearing their own hair. The most definite outcome of this proceeding was the sprightly travesty of the petition, appearing in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ on behalf of the carpenters, entreating his majesty to wear a wooden leg himself, and to require this of all his subjects, since otherwise the advent of peace bade fair to ruin the joiner's trade in wooden legs. 8 Page 148. The Duke of Cumberland has never been considered what is prettily called a "lovely character." His temperament, which would not even brook that certain gentlemen, whom he denominated with a profane adjective "old women," should talk to him "about humanity" (and it may be said in passing that these hopeful "old women" were most obviously condemned to disappointment at least), his rigid discipline of his own troops, and his unparalleled brutality to the enemy, leave the devotion exhibited for him by his soldiers to be accounted for only by the admiration which they felt for his personal courage, which was very great, and of which Walpole tells a good story about this time,--of course before the days of anæsthetics: "The Duke of Cumberland is quite recovered after an incision of many inches into his knee. Ranby [the surgeon] did not dare to propose that a hero should be tied, but was frightened out of his senses when the hero _would_ hold the candle himself, which none of his generals could bear to do: in the middle of the operation the Duke said 'Hold!' Ranby said, 'For God's sake, Sir, let me proceed now--it will be worse to renew it.' The Duke repeated, 'I say, hold!' and then calmly bade them give Ranby a clean waistcoat and cap; 'for,' said he, 'the poor man has sweated through these.' It was true; but the Duke did not utter a groan." 9 Page 168. It is with a renewal of confidence in the better aspects of human nature, and the genuineness of such sanctions as control civilized war that we realize that the French and English officers encountering dangers so far transcending legitimate perils as those pervading Indian fighting manifested individually, now and again, a true and soldierly sympathy with one another, and sought to protect the helpless in their power, often liberating those exposed to torture at the hands of their savage allies. For the methods of the Indians were by no means ameliorated by association with their civilized comrades, and they could scarcely be held subject to any control. Washington himself, whose capacity in authority amounted to a special genius, even when only a young provincial officer, could not restrain his Indian allies from scalping the slain, and in several instances it required his utmost exertions to prevent a like fate from befalling his own living prisoners. 10 Page 217. Governor Lyttleton on the request of Atta-Kulla-Kulla released Oconostota, Fiftoe, the chief warrior of Keowee Town, and the head warrior of Estatoe, who the next day surrendered two other Indians to be held as substitutes. Although it has been generally said that there were twenty-two hostages, only twenty-one seem to have been detained, and it is therefore possible that Oconostota was liberated without exchange, on account of his position and influence in the tribe, being always known as the "Great Warrior." The names of the hostages detained are as follows: Chenohe, Ousanatanah, Tallichama, Tallitahe, Quarrasatahe, Connasaratah, Kataetoi, Otassite of Watogo, Ousanoletah of Jore, Kataletah of Cowetche, Chisquatalone, Skiagusta of Sticoe, Tanaesto, Wohatche, Wyejah, Oucachistanah, Nicolche, Tony, Toatiahoi, Shallisloske, and Chistie. 11 Page 236. Bancroft says this detached force comprised six hundred Highlanders and six hundred Royal Americans. Adair says it consisted of twelve hundred Highlanders. Other historians add to this number a body of grenadiers. Hewatt, who writes almost contemporaneously, publishing in 1779, and who was a resident of Charlestown, where the force landed and whence it departed, states that it consisted of a battalion of Highlanders and four companies of the Royal Scots, and it was there joined by a company of South Carolina Volunteers. He further mentions that upon Colonel Montgomery's return to New York he left four companies of his force in Charlestown, upon the urgent request of the governor and assembly, to aid the defense of the Carolina frontier, and that these were of the royal regiment under the command of Major Frederick Hamilton. The Royal Scots, being one of the oldest and most celebrated of military organizations, has the peculiar claim on the consideration of all the world, that having been the body-guard of King Louis XI. of France, the renowned Scottish Archers, it must surely bear on the ancient and illustrious rolls the ever-cherished name of Quentin Durward, for are we not told that the venerable commander of the guard, Lord Crawford, entered it there himself? And if it is not now to be seen, why--so much the worse for the ancient and illustrious rolls! 12 Page 261. The personal vanity of the Cherokees was so great that after discovering the functions of a mirror the men were never without one. Even in their most unimpeded war-trim they carried a mirror slung over one shoulder and consulted it from time to time with pleasure doubtless. When the small-pox broke out among them, those whose appearance had suffered from that disease could not endure to survive their disfigurement, and promptly took their own lives, although suicides were buried without the highly esteemed honors usually paid to the dead. 13 Page 366. The temperament of Atta-Kulla-Kulla seems far more complex than the simple traits attributed usually to untrained character. Apart from his savage craft, courage, and a sort of natural eloquence which he shared with his tribe, the close discernment shown in some of his speeches still extant, his magnanimity, his capacity to receive and assimilate new impressions, his diplomatic talents, all suggest a versatile mind, and he also possessed a caustic wit to which he was wont to give rein touching the oft-broken promises of one of the governors of South Carolina, from whom it is related he had received many letters which he said "were not agreeable to the old beloved speech." He kept them regularly piled in a bundle in the order in which he had received them, and often showed them. "'The first,' he used to say, 'contained a _little_ truth,' and he would devise fantastic excuses for the failure of the rest of it, urging the governor's perplexing rush of official business which had occasioned him to forget his strong promises. 'But count,' said he, 'the lying black marks of this one'--and he would descant minutely on every circumstance of it." His patience, he would declare, was exhausted, and he felt that the letters were "nothing but an heap of broad black papers and ought to be burnt in the old year's fire." The old year's fire was a symbol of departed values, the new year's fire being kindled with great ceremony by the Cheera-taghe, or prophets, "men of the divine fire." 14 Page 386. It is pleasant to know that this strong friendship suffered no diminution by reason of time and distance. Bartram relates that when he traveled in the Cherokee country in 1773 he met descending the heights a company of Indians all well mounted on horses. "I observed a chief at the head of the caravan, and as they came up I turned off from the path to make way in token of respect, which compliment was accepted and gracefully and magnanimously returned, for his highness, with a gracious and cheerful smile, came up to me and clapping his hand on his breast offered it to me, saying, 'I am Ata-Cul-Culla,' and heartily shook hands with me, and asked me if I knew it. I answered that the good spirit who goes before me spoke to me and said 'that is the great Ata-Cul-Culla.'" The chief then asked him if he came direct from Charlestown, and if his friend John Stuart were well. Mr. Bartram was able to his great pleasure to reply that he had seen John Stuart very recently, and that he was well. 15 Page 386. French emissaries were shortly in the vicinity of this fort. At a great meeting of the Cherokee nation the indefatigable Louis Latinac struck a hatchet into a log, crying out, "Who will take up this for the king of France?" Saloué, the young warrior of Estatoe, instantly laid hold of it, exclaiming, "I am for war!" And in indorsement of this compact many tomahawks were brandished, already red with British blood. 16 Page 397. As an interesting example of the appropriate and successful method to address barbarous peoples, the historian Hewatt gives entire the text of a speech to several tribes of Indians which Stuart, in his capacity of superintendent of Indian affairs for the South, delivered at a general congress at Mobile, attended by Governor Johnstone and many British officers and soldiers. It is strikingly apt, and despite the figurative language for which the Indians had so strong a preference, it is direct and simple, bold yet conciliatory, dignified in tone, but with a very engaging air of extreme candor, and it may be that Stuart's influence over them lay chiefly in fair and impartial measures and the faithful performance of promises. Among the writers of that date he is rarely mentioned without some reference to his mental ability, which seems to have been very marked, or to the exact and strict fidelity with which he followed the letter and spirit of his instructions. A certain fling, however, by one who had wanted the office to which Stuart was afterward appointed is so deft a bit of character-drawing in few words that, regardless of its obvious spite, it is worth repeating,--"a haughty person, devoted to parade, and a proud uniform." * * * * * Transcriber's note The following change has been made to the text: Page 290: "or such people" changed to "of such people". 
46493	----	SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION--BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY. THE CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS: A NARRATIVE OF THEIR OFFICIAL RELATIONS WITH THE COLONIAL AND FEDERAL GOVERNMENTS. BY CHARLES C. ROYCE. Fifth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology to the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, 1883-1884, Government Printing Office, Washington, 1887, pages 121-378. CONTENTS. Page. Introduction 129 Cessions of land--Colonial period 130 Cessions of land--Federal period 131 Treaty of November 28, 1785 133 Material provisions 133 Historical data 134 De Soto's expedition 134 Early traditions 136 Early contact with Virginia colonists 138 Early relations with Carolina colonists 138 Mention by various early authors 139 Territory of Cherokees at period of English settlement 140 Population 142 Old Cherokee towns 142 Expulsion of Shawnees by Cherokees and Chickasaws 144 Treaty relations with the colonies 144 Treaty relations with the United States 152 Proceedings at treaty of Hopewell 153 Treaty of July 2, 1791 158 Material provisions 158 Historical data 160 Causes of dissatisfaction with boundary of 1785 160 Tennessee Company's purchase 162 Difficulties in negotiating new treaty 162 Survey of new boundaries 163 Treaty of February 17, 1792 169 Material provisions 169 Historical data 169 Discontent of Cherokees 169 War with Cherokees 170 Treaty of June 26, 1794 171 Material provisions 171 Historical data 171 Complaints concerning boundaries 171 Cherokee hostilities 173 Intercourse act of 1796 173 Treaty of October 2, 1798 174 Material provisions 174 Historical data 175 Disputes respecting territory 175 Treaty of October 24, 1804 183 Material provisions 183 Historical data 184 New treaty authorized by Congress 184 Wafford's settlement 186 Further negotiations authorized 187 Treaty of October 25, 1805 189 Material provisions 189 Treaty of October 27, 1805 190 Material provisions 190 Historical data respecting this treaty and the preceding one 190 Continued negotiations authorized 190 Controversy concerning "Doublehead" tract 192 Treaty of January 7, 1806 193 Material provisions 193 Treaty of September 11, 1807 194 Material provisions 194 Historical data 195 Controversy concerning boundaries 195 Explanatory treaty negotiated 197 Treaty of March 22, 1816, ceding land in South Carolina 197 Material provisions 197 Treaty of March 22, 1816, defining certain boundaries, etc 198 Material provisions 198 Historical data 199 Colonel Earle's negotiations for the purchase of iron ore tract 199 Tennessee fails to conclude a treaty with the Cherokees 201 Removal of Cherokees to the west of the Mississippi proposed 202 Efforts of South Carolina to extinguish Cherokee title 204 Boundary between Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws 205 Roads through the Cherokee country 208 Treaty of September 14, 1816 209 Material provisions 209 Historical data 210 Further purchase of Cherokee lands 210 Treaty of July 8, 1817 212 Material provisions 212 Historical data 214 Policy of removing Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi River 214 Further cession of territory by the Cherokees 216 Treaty of February 27, 1819 219 Material provisions 219 Historical data 221 Cherokees west of the Mississippi--their wants and condition 221 Disputes among Cherokees concerning emigration 222 Public sentiment in Tennessee and Georgia concerning Cherokee removal 223 Treaty concluded for further cession of land 225 Status of certain Cherokees 228 Treaty of May 6, 1828 229 Material provisions 229 Historical data 231 Return J. Meigs and the Cherokees 231 Tennessee denies validity of Cherokee reservations 232 United States agree to extinguish Indian title in Georgia 233 Treaty of May 6, 1828--Continued. Cherokee progress in civilization 240 Failure of negotiations for further cession of lands 241 Cherokee Nation adopts a constitution 241 Cherokee affairs west of the Mississippi 242 Treaty of February 14, 1833 249 Material provisions 249 Historical data 251 Conflicting land claims of Creeks and Cherokees west of the Mississippi 251 Purchase of Osage half-breed reserves 252 President Jackson refuses to approve treaty of 1834 252 Treaty of December 29, 1835 253 Material provisions 253 Treaty of March 1, 1836 (supplementary articles) 257 Material provisions 257 Historical data 258 Zealous measures for removal of Eastern Cherokees 258 General Carroll's report on the condition of the Cherokees 259 Failure of Colonel Lowry's mission 262 Decision of Supreme Court in "Cherokee Nation v. Georgia" 262 Failure of Mr. Chester's mission 262 Decision of Supreme Court in "Worcester v. Georgia" 264 Disputed boundaries between Cherokees and Creeks 266 Cherokees plead with Congress and the President for justice 272 Cherokees propose an adjustment 274 Cherokees memorialize Congress 275 Treaty negotiations resumed 278 Report of Major Davis 284 Elias Boudinot's views 285 Speech of General R. G. Dunlap 285 Report of General John E. Wool 286 Report of John Mason, Jr. 286 Henry Clay's sympathy with the Cherokees 287 Policy of the President criticised--Speech of Col. David Crockett 288 General Winfield Scott ordered to command troops in Cherokee country 291 John Ross proposes a new treaty 291 Cherokees permitted to remove themselves 292 Dissension among Cherokees in their new home 292 Cherokees charge the United States with bad faith 296 Per capita payments under treaty of 1835 297 Political murders in Cherokee Nation 297 Adjudication commissioners appointed 298 Treaty of August 6, 1846 298 Material provisions 298 Historical data 300 Cherokees desire a new treaty 300 Feuds between the "Ross," "Treaty," and "Old Settler" parties 301 Death of Sequoyah, or George Guess 302 Old Settler and Treaty parties propose to remove to Mexico 302 More political murders 303 Negotiation of treaty of 1846 304 Affairs of the North Carolina Cherokees 313 Treaty of August 6, 1846--Continued. Proposed removal of the Catawba Indians to the Cherokee country. 317 Financial difficulties of the Cherokees 318 Murder of the Adairs and others 319 Financial distresses--New treaty proposed 320 Slavery in the Cherokee Nation 321 Removal of white settlers on Cherokee land 322 Fort Gibson abandoned by the United States 322 Removal of trespassers on neutral land 323 John Ross opposes survey and allotment of Cherokee domain 324 Political excitement in 1860 324 Cherokees and the Southern Confederacy 326 Cherokee troops for the Confederate army 328 A Cherokee Confederate regiment deserts to the United States 329 Ravages of war in the Cherokee Nation 332 Treaty of July 19, 1866 334 Material provisions 334 Treaty of April 27, 1868 (supplemental) 340 Material provisions 340 Historical data 341 United States desire to remove Indians from Kansas to Indian Territory 341 Council of southern tribes at Camp Napoleon 341 General council at Fort Smith 341 Conference at Washington, D.C. 345 Cession and sale of "Cherokee strip" and "neutral lands" 348 Appraisal of confiscated property--census 351 New treaty concluded but never ratified 351 Boundaries of the Cherokee domain 354 Delawares, Munsees, and Shawnees join the Cherokees 356 Friendly tribes to be located on Cherokee lands west of 96° 358 East and north boundaries of Cherokee country 365 Railroads through Indian Territory 366 Removal of intruders--Cherokee citizenship 367 General remarks 371 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page. PLATE VII. Earliest map showing location of the Cherokees. 1597 128 VIII. Map of the former territorial limits of the Cherokee Nation of Indians, exhibiting the boundaries of the various cessions of land made by them to the colonies and to the United States. 1884[1] IX. Map showing the territory originally assigned to the 379 Cherokee Indians west of the Mississippi River; also, the boundaries of the territory now occupied or owned by them. 1884[1] [Illustration: EARLIEST MAP SHOWING LOCATION OF THE CHEROKEES--1597.] THE CHEROKEE NATION OF INDIANS. By CHARLES C. ROYCE. INTRODUCTORY. An historical atlas of Indian affairs has for some time past been in course of preparation under the direction of the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution. The chief aim of this atlas is to show upon a series of State and Territorial maps the boundaries of the various tracts of country which have from time to time been acquired through the medium of treaty stipulation or act of Congress from the several Indian tribes resident within the present territory of the United States from the beginning of the Federal period to the present day. Accompanying this atlas will be one or more volumes of historical text, wherein will be given with some detail a history of the official relations between the United States and these tribes. This will treat of the various negotiations for peace and for the acquisition of territory, the causes rendering such negotiations necessary, and the methods observed by the Government through its authorized agents in this diplomacy, as well as other matters of public concern growing out of the same. The following monograph on the history of the Cherokees, with its accompanying maps, is given as an illustration of the character of the work in its treatment of each of the Indian tribes. The maps are intended to show not only the ancestral but the present home of the Cherokees, and also to indicate the boundaries of the various tracts of territory purchased from them by the Colonial or Federal authorities from time to time since their first contact with the European settlements. A number of purchases made prior to the Federal period by individuals were unauthorized and unrecognized by the Colonial authorities, and their boundaries, though given in the text, are not laid down upon the map, because the same areas of territory were afterwards included within the limits of Colonial purchases. In the preparation of this article, more particularly in the tracing out of the various boundary lines, much careful attention and research have been given to all available authorities or sources of information. The old manuscript records of the Government, the shelves of the Congressional Library, including its very large collection of American maps, local records, and the knowledge of "old settlers," as well as the accretions of various State historical societies, have been made to pay tribute to the subject. In the course of these researches the writer has been met in his inquiries with a degree of courtesy and kindly assistance that merits public recognition. Among others who have shown an earnest desire to promote the object of these investigations are Hon. John M. Lea, vice-president State Historical Society of Tennessee; General Robert N. Hood, Spencer Munson, and R. H. Armstrong, of Knoxville, Tenn. The writer is also deeply indebted to the Hon. Hiram Price, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and E. L. Stevens, chief clerk, for the readiness with which they afforded him access to the records and files of the Indian Bureau. This permission was earnestly supplemented by the intelligent assistance and encouragement of Mr. C. A. Maxwell, chief of the Land Division, as well as that of R. F. Thompson and Paul Brodie, of the same Bureau, both of whom have taken special and constant pains to aid these researches. To Captain Adams, of the Bureau of Topographical Engineers, the hearty thanks of the writer are due for many courtesies extended in the examination of the voluminous and valuable collection of maps belonging to that branch of the public service, and equal credit must be given to Mr. G. P. Strum, principal draughtsman of the General Land Office, and his assistants, for their uniform courtesy in affording access to the official plats and records of that Bureau. The officers of the Congressional Library have also shown a marked degree of courtesy and interest. * * * * * The various cessions of land by the Cherokees alluded to in the text are numerically designated upon the accompanying maps, and are as follows: COLONIAL PERIOD. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- No.| Date and designation | Description of cession. | Color. | of Cherokee Treaties. | | ---+-------------------------+--------------------------------+------- 1 |Treaty of 1721 with South|Tract in South Carolina between |Red. | Carolina. | Santee, Saluda, and Edisto | | | Rivers. | 2 |Treaty of Nov. 24, 1755, |Tract in South Carolina between |Blue. | with South Carolina. | Wateree and Savannah Rivers. | 3 |Treaty of Oct. 14, 1768, |Tract in Southwestern Virginia. |Mauve. | with British | | | Superintendent of | | | Indian Affairs. | | 4 |Treaty of Oct. 18, 1770, |Tract in Virginia, West |Red. | at Lochaber, S.C. | Virginia, Northeastern | | | Tennessee, and Eastern | | | Kentucky, which is overlapped | | | by No. 7. | 5 |Treaty of 1772 with |Tract in Virginia, West |Yellow. | Virginia. | Virginia, and Eastern | | | Kentucky. | 6 |Treaty of June 1, 1773, |Tract in Georgia, north of Broad|Mauve. | with British | River. | | Superintendent of | | | Indian Affairs. | | 7 |Treaty of March 17, 1775,|Tract in Kentucky, Virginia, and|Blue. | with Richard Henderson | Tennessee (overlaps No. 4). | | _et al._ | | 8 |Treaty of May 20, 1777, |Tract in Northwestern South |Red. | with South Carolina and| Carolina. | | Georgia. | | 9 |Treaty of July 20, 1777, |Tract in Western North Carolina |Green. | with Virginia and North| and Northeastern Tennessee. | | Carolina. | | 10 |Treaty of May 31, 1783, |Tract in Georgia, between Oconee|Green. | with Georgia. | and Tugaloo Rivers. | ----------------------------------------------------------------------- FEDERAL PERIOD. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- No. | Date and designation | Description of cession. | Color. | of Cherokee Treaties. | | ------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+----- 10_a_ |Treaty of Nov. 28, 1785, |Tract in Western North Carolina.|Yellow. | with United States. | | 10_b_ | do |Tract in Southern and Western |Green. | | Kentucky and Northern | | | Tennessee. | 11 |Treaty of July 2, 1791, |Tract in Western North Carolina |Brown. | with United States. | and Eastern Tennessee. | 12 |Treaty of Oct. 2, 1798, |Tract in Tennessee, between |Red. | with United States. | Hawkins' Line, Tennessee River| | | and Chilhowee Mountain. | 13 | do |Tract in North Carolina, between|Red. | | Pickens and Meigs line. | 14 | do |Tract in Tennessee, between |Red. | | Clinch River and Cumberland | | | Mountain. | 15 |Treaty of Oct. 24, 1804, |Tract in Georgia, known as |Red. | with United States. | Wafford's Settlement. | 16 |Treaty of Oct. 25, 1805, |Tract in Kentucky and Tennessee,|Yellow. | with United States. | west of Tennessee River and | | | Cumberland Mountain. | 17 |Treaty of Oct. 27, 1805, |Tract in Tennessee of one |Green. | with United States. | section at Southwest Point. | 18 | do |First island in Tennessee River |Mauve. | | above the mouth of Clinch | | | River. | 19 |Treaty of Jan. 7, 1806, |Tract in Tennessee and Alabama, |Red. | with United States. | between Tennessee and Duck | | | Rivers. | 20 | do |Long or Great Island in Holston |Red. 21 |Treaty of Mar. 22, 1816, |Tract in northwest corner of |Blue. | with United States. | South Carolina. | 22 |Treaty of Sept. 14, 1816,|Tract in Alabama and |Green. | with United States. | Mississippi. | 23 |Treaty of July 8, 1817, |Tract in Northeastern Georgia. |Yellow. | with United States. | | 24 | do |Tract in Southern Tennessee. |Green. 25 | do |Tract in Northern Alabama, |Blue. | | between Cypress and Elk | | | Rivers. | 26 | do |Tract in Northern Alabama, |Blue. | | above mouth of Spring Creek on| | | Tennessee River. | 27 |Treaty of Feb. 27, 1819, |Tract in Northern Alabama and |Yellow. | with United States. | Southern Tennessee. | 28 | do |Tract in Southern Tennessee, |Red. | | on Tennessee River. | 29 | do |Tract in Tennessee, North |Mauve. | | Carolina, and Georgia. | 30 | do |Jolly's Island, in Tennessee |Red. | | River. | 31 | do |Small tract in Tennessee, at and|Green. | | below the mouth of Clinch | | | River. | 32 | do |Tract of 12 miles square, on |Mauve. | | Tennessee River, in Alabama. | 33 | do |Tract of 1 mile square, in |Green. | | Tennessee, at foot of | | | Cumberland Mountain. | 34 | do |Tract of 1 mile square, at |Green. | | Cherokee Talootiske's | | | residence. | 35 | do |Tract of 3 square miles, |Green. | | opposite mouth of Hiwassee | | | River. | 36 |Treaty of Dec. 29, 1835, |Tract in Alabama, Georgia and |Blue. | with United States. | Tennessee, being all remaining| | | lands east of the Mississippi | | | River. | 37 |Treaty of May 6, 1828, |This treaty was with the |Green. | with United States. | Cherokees residing west of the| | | Mississippi, and they ceded | | | the lands in Arkansas granted | | | them by treaties of 1817 and | | | 1819, receiving in exchange a | | | tract further west. | | | These latter boundaries were | | | subsequently modified and | | | enlarged by the treaties of | | | Feb. 14, 1833, and Dec. 29, | | | 1835. | 38 |Treaty of July 19, 1866, |Tract known as "Neutral Land," |Red. | with United States. | in Kansas, ceded in trust to | | | be sold by the United States | | | for the benefit of the | | | Cherokees. | 39 | do |Tract known as "Cherokee Strip,"|Yellow. | | in Kansas, ceded in trust to | | | be sold for the benefit of the| | | Cherokees by the United | | | States. | 40 | do |Tract sold to Osages. |Green. 41 | do |Tract sold to Kansas or Kaws. |Red. 42 | do |Tract sold to Pawnees. |Red. 43 | do |Tract sold to Poncas. |Red. 44 | do |Tract sold to Nez Percés. |Yellow. 45 | do |Tract sold to Otoes and |Yellow. | | Missourias. | 46 |Present country of the |This is the country now actually|Red. | Cherokees east of 96° | occupied and to be permanently| | W. longitude. | retained by the Cherokees. | 47 |Present country of the |This is the remnant of the |Blue. | Cherokees west of 96° | country dedicated by the treaty| | W. longitude. | of July 19, 1866, to the | | | location of other friendly | | | tribes. The Cherokees retain | | | their title to and control over| | | it until actual purchase by and| | | location of other tribes | | | thereon. | ------+-------------------------+--------------------------------+----- The arrangement of the historical text has seemed to the writer to be that best suited to the object in view. As will be observed, an abstract of the salient provisions of each treaty is given, beginning with the first treaty concluded between the Cherokee Nation and the United States of America. In each instance, immediately following this abstract, will be found the historical data covering the period and the events leading to its negotiation, as well as those of the subsequent period intimately connected with the results of such treaty. TREATIES WITH THE CHEROKEES. TREATY CONCLUDED NOVEMBER 28, 1785.[2] _At Hopewell, on the Keowee River, in South Carolina, between Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin, and Lachlane M'Intosh, Commissioners Plenipotentiary of the United States, and the Headmen and Warriors of all the Cherokees._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. The United States give peace to the Cherokees and receive them into favor and protection on the following conditions: 1. The Cherokees to restore to liberty all prisoners citizens of the United States or subjects of their allies; also, all negroes and other property taken from citizens during the late war. 2. The United States to restore to the Cherokees all Indian prisoners taken during the late war. 3. The Cherokees to acknowledge themselves under the exclusive protection of the United States. 4. The boundary line between the Cherokees' hunting-ground and the United States to be as follows, viz: Begin at the mouth of Duck River on the Tennessee; thence northeast to the ridge dividing the waters falling into the Cumberland from those falling into the Tennessee; thence eastwardly along said ridge to a northeast line to be run, which shall strike Cumberland River 40 miles above Nashville; thence along said line to the river; thence up the river to the ford where the Kentucky road crosses; thence to Campbell's line near Cumberland Gap; thence to the mouth of Claud's Creek on Holstein; thence to Chimney-Top Mountain; thence to Camp Creek, near the mouth of Big Limestone on Nolichucky; thence southerly six (6) miles to a mountain; thence south to the North Carolina line; thence to the South Carolina Indian boundary, and along the same southwest over the top of Oconee Mountain till it shall strike Tugaloo River; thence a direct line to the top of Currohee Mountain; thence to the head of the south fork of Oconee River. 5. Citizens of the United States or persons other than Indians who settle or attempt to settle on lands west or south of said boundary and refuse to remove within six months after ratification of this treaty to forfeit the protection of the United States, and the Indians to punish them or not, as they please: _Provided_, That this article shall not extend to the people settled between the fork of French Broad and Holstein Rivers, whose status shall be determined by Congress. 6. The Cherokees to deliver up for punishment all Indian criminals for offenses against citizens of the United States. 7. Citizens of the United States committing crimes against Indians to be punished by the United States in the presence of the Cherokees, to whom due notice of the time and place of such intended punishment shall be given. 8. Retaliation declared unjust and not to be practiced. 9. The United States to have sole right of regulating trade with the Indians and managing their affairs. 10. Traders to have liberty to trade with the Cherokees until Congress shall adopt regulations relative thereto. 11. Cherokees to give notice of any designs formed by other tribes against the peace, trade, or interests of the United States. 12. Cherokees to have the right to send a deputy of their choice to Congress whenever they think fit. 13. The hatchet to be forever buried between the United States and Cherokees. HISTORICAL DATA. FERNANDO DE SOTO'S EXPEDITION. The Cherokee Nation has probably occupied a more prominent place in the affairs and history of what is now the United States of America, since the date of the early European settlements, than any other tribe, nation, or confederacy of Indians, unless it be possible to except the powerful and warlike league of the Iroquois or Six Nations of New York. It is almost certain that they were visited at a very early period following the discovery of the American continent by that daring and enthusiastic Spaniard, Fernando De Soto. In determining the exact route pursued by him from his landing in Florida to his death beyond the Mississippi, many insuperable difficulties present themselves, arising not only from an inadequate description on the part of the historian of the courses and distances pursued, but from many statements made by him that are irreconcilable with an accurate knowledge of the topographic detail of the country traversed. A narrative of the expedition, "by a gentleman of Elvas," was published at Evora in 1557, and translated from the Portuguese by Richard Hakluyt, of London, in 1609. From this narrative it appears that after traveling a long distance in a northeasterly direction from his point of landing on the west coast of Florida, De Soto reached, in the spring of 1540, an Indian town called by the narrator "Cutifachiqui." From the early American maps of De L'Isle and others, upon which is delineated the supposed route of De Soto, this town appears to be located on the Santee River, and, as alleged by the "gentleman of Elvas," on the authority of the inhabitants, was two days' journey from the sea-coast. The expedition left Cutifachiqui on the 3d of May, 1540, and pursued a northward course for the period of seven days, when it came to a province called Chelaque, "the poorest country of maize that was seen in Florida." It is recorded that the Indians of this province "feed upon roots and herbs, which they seek in the fields, and upon wild beasts, which they kill with their bows and arrows, and are a very gentle people. All of them go naked and are very lean." That this word "Chalaque" is identical with our modern Cherokee would appear to be almost an assured fact. The distance and route pursued by the expedition are both strongly corroborative of this assumption. The orthography of the name was probably taken by the Spaniards from the Muscogee pronunciation, heard by them among the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. It is asserted by William Bartram, in his travels through that region in the eighteenth century, that in the "Muscogulge" language the letter "r" is not sounded in a single word, but that on the contrary it occurs very frequently in the Cherokee tongue.[3] Through this province of Chalaque De Soto passed, still pursuing his northward course for five days until he reached the province of "Xualla," a name much resembling the modern Cherokee word Qualla. The route from Cutifachiqui to Xualla lay, for the most part, through a hilly country. From the latter province the expedition changed its course to the west, trending a little to the south, and over "very rough and high hills," reaching at the end of five days a town or province which was called "Guaxule," and two days later a town called "Canasagua," an orthography almost identical with the modern Cherokee name of Canasauga, as applied to both a stream and a town within their Georgia limits. Assuming that these people, whose territory De Soto thus traversed, were the ancestors of the modern Cherokees, it is the first mention made of them by European discoverers and more than a century anterior to the period when they first became known to the pioneers of permanent European occupation and settlement. _Earliest map._--The earliest map upon which I have found "Chalaqua" located is that of "Florida et Apalche" by Cornely Wytfliet, published in 1597.[4] This location is based upon the narrative of De Soto's expedition, and is fixed a short distance east of the Savannah River and immediately south of the Appalachian Mountains. "Xualla" is placed to the west of and near the headwaters of the "Secco" or Savannah River. EARLY TRADITIONS. Haywood, in his Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, records many of the traditions concerning the origin and the primal habitat of the Cherokees. He notes the fact that they were firmly established on the Tennessee or Hogohege River before the year 1650, and exercised dominion over all the country on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains, including the headwaters of the Yadkin, Catawba, Broad, and Savannah Rivers, and that from thence westward they claimed the country as far as the Ohio, and thence to the headwaters of the Chattahoochee and Alabama. One tradition which he alleges existed among them asserts their migration from the west to the upper waters of the Ohio, where they erected the mounds on Grave Creek, gradually working eastward across the Alleghany Mountains to the neighborhood of Monticello, Va., and along the Appomattox River. From this point, it is alleged, they removed to the Tennessee country about 1623, when the Virginians suddenly and unexpectedly fell upon and massacred the Indians throughout the colony. After this massacre, the story goes, they came to New River and made a temporary settlement there as well as one on the head of the Holston; but, owing to the enmity of the northern Indians, they removed in a short time to the Little Tennessee and founded what were known as "Middle Settlements." Another tribe, he alleges, came from the neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, and settled lower down the Tennessee. This branch called themselves "Ketawanga," and came last into the country. The tradition as to those who came from Virginia seeks also to establish the idea that the Powhatan Indians were Cherokees. The whole story is of the vaguest character, and if the remainder has no stronger claims to credibility than their alleged identity with the Powhatans, it is scarcely worthy of record except as a matter of curiosity. In fact the explorations of De Soto leave almost convincing proof that the Cherokees were occupying a large proportion of their more modern territory nearly a century prior to their supposed removal from the Appomattox. Pickett, in his History of Alabama, improves upon the legend of Haywood by asserting as a well established fact what the latter only presumes to offer as a tradition. However, as affording a possible confirmation of the legend related by Haywood concerning their early location in Eastern Virginia, it may be worth while to allude to a tradition preserved among the Mohican or Stockbridge tribe. It appears that in 1818 the Delawares, who were then residing on White River, in Indiana, ceded their claim to lands in that region to the United States. This land had been conditionally given by the Miamis many years before to the Delawares, in conjunction with the "Moheokunnuks" (or Stockbridges) and Munsees. Many of the latter two tribes or bands, including a remnant of the Nanticokes, had not yet removed to their western possessions, though they were preparing to remove. When they ascertained that the Delawares had ceded the lands to the United States without their consent, they objected and sought to have the cession annulled. In connection with a petition presented to Congress by them on the subject in the year 1819, they set forth in detail the tradition alluded to. The story had been handed down to them from their ancestors that "many thousand moons ago" before the white men came over the "great water," the Delawares dwelt along the banks of the river that bears their name. They had enjoyed a long era of peace and prosperity when the Cherokees, Nanticokes, and some other nation whose name had been forgotten, envying their condition, came from the south with a great army and made war upon them. They vanquished the Delawares and drove them to an island in the river. The latter sent for assistance to the Mohicans, who promptly came to their relief, and the invaders were in turn defeated with great slaughter and put to flight. They sued for peace, and it was granted on condition that they should return home and never again make war on the Delawares or their allies. These terms were agreed to and the Cherokees and Nanticokes ever remained faithful to the conditions of the treaty. The inference to be drawn from this legend, if it can be given any credit whatever, would lead to the belief that the Cherokees and the Nanticokes were at that time neighbors and allies. The original home of the Nanticokes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland is well known, and if the Cherokees (or at least this portion of them) were then resident beyond the Alleghanies, with sundry other powerful tribes occupying the territory between them and the Nanticokes, it is unlikely that any such alliance for offensive operations would have existed between them. Either the tradition is fabulous or at least a portion of the Cherokees were probably at one time residents of the Eastern slope of Virginia. The Delawares also have a tradition that they came originally from the west, and found a tribe called by them Allegewi or Allegans occupying the eastern portion of the Ohio Valley. With the aid of the Iroquois, with whom they came in contact about the same time, the Delawares succeeded in driving the Allegans out of the Ohio Valley to the southward. Schoolcraft suggests the identity of the Allegans with the Cherokees, an idea that would seem to be confirmatory of the tradition given by Haywood, in so far as it relates to an early Cherokee occupancy of Ohio. EARLY CONTACT WITH VIRGINIA COLONISTS. Whatever the degree of probability attending these legends, it would seem that the settlers of Virginia had an acquaintance with the Cherokees prior to that of the South Carolina immigrants, who for a number of years after their first occupation, confined their explorations to a narrow strip of country in the vicinity of the sea-coast, while the Virginians had been gradually extending their settlements far up toward the headwaters of the James River and had early perceived the profits to be derived from the Indian trade. Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, equipped an expedition, consisting of fourteen Englishmen and an equal number of Virginia Indians, for the exploration of the country to the west of the existing settlements. The party was under the command of Capt. Henry Batt, and in seven days' travel from their point of departure, at Appomattox, they reached the foot of the mountains. The first ridge they crossed is described as not being very high or steep, but the succeeding ones "seemed to touch the clouds," and were so steep that an average day's march did not exceed three miles. They came upon extensive and fertile valleys, covered with luxuriant grass, and found the forests abounding in all kinds of game, including turkeys, deer, elk, and buffalo. After passing beyond the mountains they entered an extensive level country, through which a stream flowed in a westward course, and after following it for a few days they reached some old fields and recently deserted Indian cabins. Beyond this point their Indian guides refused to proceed, alleging that not far away dwelt a powerful tribe that never suffered strangers who discovered their towns to return alive, and the expedition was therefore compelled to return. According to the historian, Burke, this expedition took place in 1667, while Beverly, not quite so definite, assigns it to the decade between 1666 and 1676.[5] It is believed that the powerful nation of Indians alluded to in the narrative of this expedition was the Cherokees, and, if so, it is apparently the first allusion made to them in the history of the colonial settlements. That the Virginians were the first to be brought in contact with the Cherokees is further evidenced by the fact that in 1690 an Indian trader from that colony, bearing the name of Daugherty, had taken up his residence among them, which is alleged by the historian[6] to have been several years before any knowledge of the existence of the Cherokees reached the settlers on Ashley River in South Carolina. EARLY RELATIONS WITH CAROLINA COLONISTS. The first formal introduction of the Cherokees to the notice of the people of that colony occurred in the year 1693,[7] when twenty Cherokee chiefs visited Charleston, with proposals of friendship, and at the same time solicited the assistance of the governor in their operations against the Esau and Coosaw tribes, who had captured and carried off a number of Cherokees. The Savannah Indians, it seems, had also been engaged in incursions against them, in the course of which they had captured a number of Cherokees and sold them to the colonial authorities as slaves. The delegation urgently solicited the governor's protection from the further aggressions of these enemies and the return of their bondaged countrymen. The desired protection was promised them, but as their enslaved brethren had already been shipped to the West Indies and sold into slavery there, it was impossible to return them. The extreme eastern settlements of the Cherokees at this time were within the limits of the present Chester and Fairfield districts, South Carolina, which lie between the Catawba and Broad Rivers.[8] MENTION BY VARIOUS EARLY AUTHORS. We next find an allusion to the Cherokees in the annals of Louisiana by M. Pericaut, who mentions in his chronicle of the events of the year 1702, that "ten leagues from the mouth of this river [Ohio] another falls into it called Kasquinempas [Tennessee]. It takes its source from the neighborhood of the Carolinas and passes through the village of the Cherokees, a populous nation that number some fifty thousand warriors," another example of the enormous overestimates of aboriginal population to which the earlier travelers and writers were so prone. Again, in 1708, the same author relates that "about this time two Mobilians who had married in the Alibamon nation, and who lived among them with their families, discovered that that nation was inimical to the Mobilians as well as the French, and had made a league with the Cheraquis, the Abeikas, and the Conchaques to wage war against the French and Mobilians and burn their villages around our fort." On various early maps of North America, and particularly those of De L'Isle, between the years 1700 and 1712, will be found indicated upon the extreme headwaters of the Holston and Clinch Rivers, "gros villages des Cheraqui." These villages correspond in location with the great nation alluded to in the narrative of Sir William Berkeley's expedition. Upon the same maps will be found designated the sites of sundry other Cherokee villages, several of which are on the extreme headwaters of the "R. des Chaouanons." This river, although indicated on the map as emptying into the Atlantic Ocean to the west of the Santee, from its relation to the other streams in that vicinity, is believed to be intended for the Broad River, which is a principal northwest branch of the Santee. Other towns will also be found on the banks of the Upper Catawba, and they are, as well, quite numerous along the headwaters of the "R. des Caouilas" or Savannah and of the Little Tennessee. Mention is again found of the Cherokees in the year 1712, when 218 of them accompanied Colonel Barnwell in his expedition against the hostile Tuscaroras and aided in the subjugation of that savage tribe, though along the route of Barnwell's march the settlers were very nearly persuaded that they suffered greater damage to property from the freebooting propensities of their Indian allies than from the open hostilities of their savage enemies. The old colonial records of South Carolina also contain mention in the following year (1713) of the fact that Peter St. Julien was arraigned on the charge of holding two Cherokee women in slavery.[9] In 1715 the Yamassees, a powerful and hitherto friendly tribe, occupying the southwesterly portion of the colony of South Carolina and extending to and beyond the Savannah River, declared open hostilities against the settlers. In the desperate struggle that ensued, we find in full alliance with them the Cherokees, as well as the Creeks and Appalachians. In his historical journal of the establishment of the French in Louisiana, Bernard de la Harpe states that "in January, 1716, some of the Cheraquis Indians, who lived northeast of Mobile, killed MM. de Ramsay and de Longueil. Some time after, the father of the latter gentleman, the King's lieutenant in Canada, engaged the Iroquois to surprise this tribe. They sacked two of their villages and obliged the rest to retreat towards New England." TERRITORY OF CHEROKEES AT PERIOD OF ENGLISH SETTLEMENT. At the time of the English settlement of the Carolinas the Cherokees occupied a diversified and well-watered region of country of large extent upon the waters of the Catawba, Broad, Saluda, Keowee, Tugaloo, Savannah, and Coosa Rivers on the east and south, and several of the tributaries of the Tennessee on the north and west. It is impossible at this late day to define with absolute accuracy the original limits of the Cherokee claim. In fact, like all other tribes, they had no definite and concurrent understanding with their surrounding savage neighbors where the possessions of the one left off and those of the other began. The strength of their title to any particular tract of country usually decreased in proportion to the increase of the distance from their villages; and it commonly followed as a result, that a considerable strip of territory between the settlements of two powerful tribes, though claimed by both, was practically considered as neutral ground and the common hunting ground of both. As has already been stated, the extreme eastern settlements of the Cherokees in South Carolina in 1693 were in the district of country lying between the Catawba and Broad Rivers, and no claim has been found showing the existence at any time of any assertion of territorial right in their behalf to the east of the former stream. But nevertheless, on Bowen's map of 1752 (obviously copied from earlier maps), there is laid down the name of "Keowee Old Town." The location of this town was on Deep River in the vicinity of the present town of Ashborough, N. C. It was a favorite name of the Cherokees among their towns, and affords a strong evidence of at least a temporary residence of a portion of the tribe in that vicinity. A map executed by John Senex in 1721 defines the Indian boundary in this region as following the Catawba, Wateree, and Santee Rivers as far down as the most westerly bend of the latter stream, in the vicinity of the boundary line between Orangeburg and Charleston districts, whence it pursued a southwesterly course to the Edisto River, which it followed to the sea-coast. The southern portion of this boundary was of course a definition of limits between Carolina and the Creeks, or rather of certain tribes that formed component parts of the Creek confederacy. No evidence has been discovered tending to show an extension of Cherokee limits in a southerly direction beyond the point mentioned above on the Edisto River, which, as near as can be ascertained, was at the junction of the North and South Edisto. Following from thence up the South Edisto to its source the boundary pursued a southwesterly course, striking the Savannah River in the vicinity of the mouth of Stevens Creek, and proceeding thence northwardly along the Savannah. On the borders of Virginia and North Carolina the ancient limits of the Cherokees seem to be also shrouded in more or less doubt and confusion. In general terms, however, it may be said that after following the Catawba River to its source in the Blue Ridge the course of those mountains was pursued until their intersection with the continuation of the Great Iron Mountain range, near Floyd Court-House, Va., and thence to the waters of the Kanawha or New River, whence their claim continued down that stream to the Ohio. At a later date they also set up a claim to the country extending from the mouth of the Kanawha down the Ohio to the ridge dividing the waters of the Cumberland from those of the Tennessee at the mouths of those streams, and thence following that ridge to a point northeast of the mouth of Duck River; thence to the mouth of Duck River on the Tennessee, and continuing up with the course of the latter river to Bear Creek; up the latter to a point called Flat Rock, and thence to the Ten Islands in Coosa River, &c. That portion of the country thus covered, comprising a large part of the present States of West Virginia and Kentucky, was also claimed by the Six Nations by right of former conquest, as well as by the Shawnees and Delawares. Adair, a trader for forty years among the Cherokees, who traveled extensively through their country about the middle of the eighteenth century, thus specifically outlines the boundaries of their country at that period: "The country lies in about 34 degrees north latitude at the distance of 340 computed miles to the northwest of Charlestown,--140 miles west-southwest 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 '_Otarre_,' the one signifying 'low' and the other 'mountainous.'" POPULATION. In point of numbers the Cherokee population now considerably exceeds that first enumerated by the early colonial authorities. As early as 1715 the proprietors of the South Carolina Plantation instructed Governor Robert Johnson to cause a census to be taken of all the Indian tribes within that jurisdiction, and from his report it appears that the Cherokee Nation at that time contained thirty towns and an aggregate population of 11,210, of whom 4,000 were warriors. Adair alleges that in 1735, or thereabouts, according to the computation of the traders, their warriors numbered 6,000, but that in 1738 the ravages of the small-pox reduced their population one-half within one year. Indeed, this disaster, coupled with the losses sustained in their conflicts with the whites and with neighboring tribes, had so far wasted their ranks that a half century after the census taken by Governor Johnson they were estimated by the traders to have but 2,300 warriors.[10] By the last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs the total population is estimated to number 22,000.[11] It is true that considerable of this increase is attributable to the fact that several other small tribes or bands, within a few years past, have merged their tribal existence in that of the Cherokees. Independent of this fact, however, they have maintained a slow but steady increase in numbers for many years, with the exception of the severe losses sustained during the disastrous period of the late southern rebellion. OLD CHEROKEE TOWNS. It is perhaps impossible to give a complete list of the old Cherokee towns and their location; but in 1755 the authorities of South Carolina, in remodeling the old and prescribing new regulations for the government of the Indian trade, divided the whole Cherokee country into six hunting districts, viz: 1. _Over Hill Towns._--Great Tellico, Chatugee, Tennessee, Chote, Toqua, Sittiquo, and Talassee. 2. _Valley Towns._--Euforsee, Conastee, Little Telliquo, Cotocanahut, Nayowee, Tomatly, and Chewohe. 3. _Middle Towns._--Joree, Watoge, Nuckasee. 4. _Keowee Towns._--Keowee, Tricentee, Echoee, Torsee, Cowee, Torsalla, Coweeshee, and Elejoy. 5. _Out Towns._--Tucharechee, Kittowa, Conontoroy, Steecoy, Oustanale, and Tuckasegee. 6. _Lower Towns._--Tomassee, Oustestee, Cheowie, Estatoie, Tosawa, Keowee, and Oustanalle. About twenty years later, Bartram,[12] who traversed the country, gives the names of forty-three Cherokee towns and villages then existing and inhabited as follows: -----+---------------------+------------------------------------------ No. | Name. | Where situated. -----+---------------------+------------------------------------------ 1 | Echoe | } 2 | Nucasse | } On the Tanase east of 3 | Whatoga | } Jore Mountains. 4 | Cowe | } | | 5 | Ticoloosa | } 6 | Jore | } Inland, on the branches 7 | Conisca | } of the Tanase. 8 | Nowe | } | | 9 | Tomothle | } 10 | Noewe | } 11 | Tellico | } 12 | Clennuse | } On the Tanase over the Jore 13 | Occunolufte | } Mountains. 14 | Chewe | } 15 | Quanuse | } 16 | Tellowe | } | | 17 | Tellico | } 18 | Chatuga | } Inland towns on the branches of 19 | Hiwasse | } the Tanase and other waters over 20 | Chewase | } the Jore Mountains. 21 | Nuanba | } | | 22 | Tallase | } 23 | Chelowe | } 24 | Sette | } 25 | Chote, great | } 26 | Joco | } Overhill towns on the Tanase or 27 | Tahasse | } Cherokee River. 28 | Tamahle | } 29 | Tuskege | } 30 | -- -- Big Island | } 31 | Nilaque | } 32 | Niowe | } | | 33 | Sinica | } Lower towns east of the mountains on 34 | Keowe | } the Savanna or Keowe River. 35 | Kulsage | } | | 36 | Tugilo | } Lower towns east of the mountains 37 | Estotowe | } on Tugilo River. | | 38 | Qualatche | } Lower towns on Flint River. 39 | Chote | } | | 40 | Estotewe, great | } 41 | Allagae | } Towns on waters of other rivers. 42 | Jore | } 43 | Naeoche | } -----+---------------------+------------------------------------------ Mouzon's map of 1771 gives the names of several Lower Cherokee towns not already mentioned. Among these may be enumerated, on the Tugalco River and its branches, Turruraw, Nayowee, Tetohe, Chagee, Tussee, Chicherohe, Echay, and Takwashnaw; on the Keowee, New Keowee, and Quacoretche; and on the Seneca, Acounee. In subsequent years, through frequent and long continued conflicts with the ever advancing white settlements and the successive treaties whereby the Cherokees gradually yielded portions of their domain, the location and names of their towns were continually changing until the final removal of the nation west of the Mississippi.[13] EXPULSION OF SHAWNEES BY CHEROKEES AND CHICKASAWS. In the latter portion of the seventeenth century the Shawnees, or a portion of them, had their villages on the Cumberland, and to some extent, perhaps, on the Tennessee also. They were still occupying that region as late as 1714, when they were visited by M. Charleville, a French trader, but having about this time incurred the hostility of the Cherokees and Chickasaws they were driven from the country. Many years later, in the adjustment of a territorial dispute between the Cherokees and Chickasaws, each nation claimed the sole honor of driving out the Shawnees, and hence, by right of conquest, the title to the territory formerly inhabited by the latter. The Chickasaws evidently had the best of the controversy, though some concessions were made to the Cherokees in the matter when the United States came to negotiate for the purchase of the controverted territory. TREATY RELATIONS WITH THE COLONIES. _Treaty and purchase of 1721._--The treaty relations between the Cherokees and the whites began in 1721, when jealousy of French territorial encroachments persuaded Governor Nicholson of South Carolina to invite the Cherokees to a general congress, with a view to the conclusion of a treaty of peace and commerce. The invitation was accepted, and delegates attended from thirty-seven towns, with whom, after smoking the pipe of peace and distributing presents, he agreed upon defined boundaries and appointed an agent to superintend their affairs.[14] _Treaty of 1730._--Again, in 1730, the authorities of North Carolina commissioned Sir Alexander Cumming to conclude a treaty of alliance with the Cherokees. In April of that year the chiefs and warriors of the nation met him at Requasse, near the sources of the Hiwassee River, acknowledged King George as their sovereign, and sent a delegation of six warriors to carry the crown of the nation (consisting of five eagle tails and four scalps) to England and do homage to the King, where they concluded a treaty of peace and commerce at Dover on the 30th of June. In this treaty they stipulated: 1. To submit to the sovereignty of the King and his successors. 2. Not to trade with any other nation but the English. 3. Not to permit any but English to build forts or cabins or plant corn among them. 4. To apprehend and deliver runaway negroes. 5. To surrender any Indian killing an Englishman.[15] _Treaty and purchase of 1755._--November 24, 1755, a further treaty was concluded between the Cherokees and Governor Glenn, of South Carolina. By its terms the former ceded to Great Britain a territory which included the limits of the modern districts of Abbeville, Edgefield, Laurens, Union, Spartanburg, Newberry, Chester, Fairfield, Richland, and York, and deeds of conveyance were drawn up and formally executed therefor.[16] This cession included a tract of country between the Broad and Catawba Rivers which was also claimed and generally conceded to belong to the Catawba Nation, the boundary line between the latter and the Cherokees being usually fixed as the Broad River.[17] One of the main objects of this treaty was to prevent an alliance between the Cherokees and the French. _Treaty of 1756._--In the year 1756 Hugh Waddell was commissioned by the authorities of North Carolina to treat with the Cherokees and Catawbas. In pursuance of this authority he concluded a treaty of alliance with both nations.[18] Governor Glenn, also, in the same year erected a chain of military posts on the frontiers of his recent purchase. These consisted of Fort Prince George, on the Savannah, within gunshot of the Indian town of Keowee; Fort Moore, 170 miles farther down the river; and Fort London, on the south bank of Tennessee River, at the highest point of navigation, at the mouth of Tellico River.[19] _Captain Jack's purchase._--A grant signed by Arthur Dobbs, governor of North Carolina, et al., and by The Little Carpenter, half king of the Over-Hill Cherokees, made to Capt. Patrick Jack, of Pennsylvania, is recorded in the register's office of Knox County, Tennessee. It purports to have been made at a council held at Tennessee River, March 1, 1757, consideration $400, and conveys to Captain Jack 15 miles square south of Tennessee River. The grant itself confirmatory of the purchase by Captain Jack is dated at a general council held at Catawba River, May 7, 1762.[20] _Treaty of 1760._--The French finally succeeded in enlisting the active sympathy of the Cherokees in their war with Great Britain. Governor Littleton, of South Carolina, marched against the Indians and defeated them, after which, in 1760, he concluded a treaty of peace with them. By its terms they agreed to kill or imprison every Frenchman who should come into their country during the continuance of the war between France and Great Britain.[21] _Treaty of 1761._--The hostile course of the Cherokees being still continued, the authorities of South Carolina in 1761 dispatched Colonel Grant with a force sufficient to overcome them. After destroying their crops and fifteen towns he compelled a truce, following which Lieutenant Governor Bull concluded a treaty with them at Ashley Ferry, or Charleston.[22] By this instrument the boundaries between the Indians and the settlements were declared to be the sources of the great rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1767 the legislature of North Carolina made an appropriation and the governor appointed three commissioners for running a dividing-line between the western settlements of that province and the Cherokee hunting grounds.[23] _Treaty and purchase of 1768._--Mr. Stuart, the British superintendent of Indian affairs, on the 14th of October, 1768, concluded a treaty with the Cherokees at Hard Labor, South Carolina. Therein it was agreed that the southwest boundary of Virginia should be a line "extending from the point where the northern line of North Carolina intersects the Cherokee hunting grounds about 36 miles east of Long Island in the Holston River; and thence extending in a direct course north by east to Chiswell's mine on the east bank of the Kenhawa River, and thence down that stream to its junction with the Ohio."[24] This treaty was made in pursuance of appeals from the Indians to stop further encroachments of settlers upon their lands and to have their boundaries definitely fixed, especially in the region of the north fork of Holston River and the headwaters of the Kanawha. _Treaty and purchase of 1770._--The settlements having encroached beyond the line fixed by the treaty of 1768, a new treaty was concluded on the 18th October, 1770, at Lochabar, South Carolina. A new boundary line was established by this treaty commencing on the south bank of Holston River six miles east of Long Island, and running thence to the mouth of the Great Kanawha.[25] _Treaty and purchase of 1772._--The Virginia authorities in the early part of 1772 concluded a treaty with the Cherokees whereby a boundary line was fixed between them, which was to run west from White Top Mountain in latitude 36° 30'.[26] This boundary left those settlers on the Watauga River within the Indian limits, whereupon, as a measure of temporary relief, they leased for a period of eight years from the Indians in consideration of goods to the value of five or six thousand dollars all the country on the waters of the Watauga. Subsequently in 1775 [March 19] they secured a deed in fee simple therefor upon the further consideration of £2,000.[27] This deed was executed to Charles Robertson as the representative or trustee of the Watauga Settlers' Association, and embraced the following tract of country, viz: All that tract on the waters of the Watauga, Holston, and Great Canaway or New River, beginning on the south or southwest of Holston River six miles above Long Island in that river; thence a direct line in nearly a south course to the ridge dividing the waters of Watauga from the waters of Nonachuckeh and along the ridge in a southeasterly direction to the Blue Ridge or line dividing North Carolina from the Cherokee lands; thence along the Blue Ridge to the Virginia line and west along such line to the Holston River; thence down the Holston River to the beginning, including all the waters of the Watauga, part of the waters of the Holston, and the head branches of New River or Great Canaway, agreeable to the aforesaid boundaries. _Jacob Brown's purchase._--Jacob Brown, in 1772, for a horse load of goods leased from the Cherokees a tract on the Watauga and Nonachuchy Rivers. Three years later (March 25, 1775) for a further consideration of ten shillings he secured from them a deed in fee for the leased tract as well as an additional tract of considerable extent. The boundary of the first of these bodies of land ran from the mouth of Great Limestone Creek, thence up the same and its main fork to the ridge dividing the Wataugah and Nonachuchy Rivers; thence to the head of Indian Creek, where it joins the Great Iron Mountains, and along those mountains to the Nonachuchy River; across the Nonachuchy River, including its creeks, and down the side of Nonachuchy Mountain against the mouth of Great Limestone Creek and from thence to the place of beginning. The second purchase comprised a tract lying on the Nonachuchy River below the mouth of Big Limestone on both sides of the river and adjoining the tract just described. Its boundaries were defined as beginning on the south side of the Nonachuchy River below the old fields that lie below the Limestone on the north side of Nonachuchy Mountain at a large rock; thence north 32° west to the mouth of Camp Creek on the south side of the river; thence across the river; thence pursuing a northwesterly course to the dividing ridge between Lick Creek and Watauga or Holston River, thence along the dividing ridge to the rest of Brown's lands; thence down the main fork of Big Limestone to its mouth; thence crossing the Nonachuchy River and pursuing a straight course to the Nonachuchy Mountains and along such mountains to the beginning.[28] _Treaty and purchase of 1773._--On the 1st of June, 1773, a treaty was concluded jointly with the Creeks and Cherokees by the British superintendent whereby they ceded to Great Britain a tract beginning where the lower Creek path intersects the Ogeechee River, thence along the main channel of that river to the source of the southernmost branch thereof; thence along the ridge between the waters of Broad and Oconee Rivers up to the Buffalo Lick; thence in a straight line to the tree marked by the Cherokees near the head of the branch falling into the Oconee River [on the line between Clarke and Oglethorpe Counties, about 8 miles southeast of Athens]; thence along the said ridge 20 miles above the line already run by the Cherokees, and from thence across to the Savannah River by a line parallel to that formerly marked by them. _Henderson's purchase by the treaty of 1775._--On the 17th of March, 1775, Richard Henderson and eight other private citizens concluded a treaty with the Cherokees at Sycamore Shoals, on Watauga River. By its terms they became the purchasers from the latter (in consideration of £10,000 worth of merchandise) of all the lands lying between Kentucky and Cumberland Rivers, under the name of the Colony of Transylvania in North America. This purchase was contained in two deeds, one of which was commonly known as the "Path Deed," and conveyed the following described tract: "Begin on the Holston River, where the course of Powell's Mountain strikes the same; thence up the river to the crossing of the Virginia line; thence westerly along the line run by Donelson * * * to a point six (6) English miles east of Long Island in Holston River; thence a direct course towards the mouth of the Great Kanawha until it reaches the top of the ridge of Powell's Mountain; thence westerly along said ridge to the beginning." This tract was located in Northeast Tennessee and the extreme southwestern corner of Virginia.[29] The second deed covered a much larger area of territory and was generally known as the "Great Grant." It comprised the territory "beginning on the Ohio River at the mouth of the Kentucky, Cherokee, or what, by the English, is called Louisa River; thence up said river and the most northwardly fork of the same to the head-spring thereof; thence a southeast course to the ridge of Powell's Mountain; thence westwardly along the ridge of said mountain to a point from which a northwest course will strike the head-spring of the most southwardly branch of Cumberland River; thence down said river, including all its waters, to the Ohio River; thence up said river as it meanders to the beginning."[30] This tract comprises nearly the whole of Central and Western Kentucky as well as part of Northern Central Tennessee. Although a literal reading of these boundaries would include all the territory watered by the Cumberland River and its branches, the general understanding seems to have been (and it is so specifically stated in the report of the treaty commissioners of 1785) that Henderson's purchase did not extend south of Cumberland River proper.[31] The entire purchase included in both these deeds is shown as one tract on the accompanying map of cessions and numbered 7. In this connection it is proper to remark that all of these grants to private individuals were regarded as legally inoperative, though in some instances the beneficiaries were permitted to enjoy the benefits of their purchases in a modified degree. All such purchases had been inhibited by royal proclamation of King George III, under date of October 7, 1763,[32] wherein all provincial governors were forbidden to grant lands or issue land warrants locatable upon any territory west of the mountains or of the sources of streams flowing into the Atlantic. All private persons were enjoined from purchasing lands from the Indians. All purchases made of such lands should be for the Crown by the governor or commander-in-chief of the colony at some general council or assembly of the Indians convened for that purpose. In the particular purchase made by Henderson and his coadjutors, the benefits thereof were afterwards claimed by the authorities of Virginia and North Carolina for those States, as the successors of the royal prerogative within their respective limits. In consideration, however, of Henderson's valuable services on the frontier, and in compensation for his large expenditures of money in negotiating the purchase, the legislature of North Carolina in 1783 granted to him and those interested with him a tract of 200,000 acres,[33] constituting a strip 4 miles in width from old Indian town on Powell's River to the mouth, and thence a strip down the Clinch River for quantity 12 miles in width. The legislature of Virginia also granted them a tract of like extent upon the Ohio River, opposite Evansville, Indiana.[34] _Treaties and purchases of 1777._--In consequence of continued hostilities between the Cherokees and the settlers, General Williamson in 1776 marched an army from South Carolina and destroyed the towns of the former on Keowee and Tugaloo Rivers. General Rutherford marched another force from North Carolina and Colonel Christian a third from Virginia, and destroyed most of their principal towns on the Tennessee.[35] At the conclusion of hostilities with the Cherokees, following these expeditions, a treaty with them was concluded May 20, 1777, at De Witt's or Duett's Corners, South Carolina, by the States of South Carolina and Georgia. By the terms of this treaty the Indians ceded a considerable region of country upon the Savannah and Saluda Rivers,[36] comprising all their lands in South Carolina to the eastward of the Unacaye Mountains. Two months later (July 20) Commissioners Preston, Christian, and Shelby, on the part of Virginia, and Avery, Sharpe, Winston, and Lanier, for North Carolina, also concluded a treaty with the Cherokees, by which, in the establishment of a boundary between the contracting parties, some parts of "Brown's line," previously mentioned, were agreed upon as a portion of the boundary, and the Indians relinquished their lands as low down on Holston River as the mouth of Cloud's Creek. To this treaty the Chicamauga band of Cherokees refused to give their assent.[37] The boundaries defined by this treaty are alluded to and described in an act of the North Carolina legislature passed in the following year, wherein it is stipulated that "no person shall enter or survey any lands within the Indian hunting grounds, or without the limits heretofore ceded by them, which limits westward are declared to be as follows: Begin at a point on the dividing line which hath been agreed upon between the Cherokees and the colony of Virginia, where the line between that Commonwealth and this State (hereafter to be extended) shall intersect the same; running thence a right line to the mouth of Cloud's Creek, being the second creek below the Warrior's Ford, at the mouth of Carter's Valley; thence a right line to the highest point of Chimney Top Mountain or High Rock; thence a right line to the mouth of Camp or McNamee's Creek, on south bank of Nolichucky, about ten miles below the mouth of Big Limestone; from the mouth of Camp Creek a southeast course to the top of Great Iron Mountain, being the same which divides the hunting grounds of the Overhill Cherokees from the hunting grounds of the middle settlements; and from the top of Iron Mountain a south course to the dividing ridge between the waters of French Broad, and Nolichucky Rivers; thence a southwesterly course along the ridge to the great ridge of the Appalachian Mountains, which divide the eastern and western waters; thence with said dividing ridge to the line that divides the State of South Carolina from this State."[38] _Emigration of Chicamauga band._--The Cherokees being very much curtailed in their hunting grounds by the loss of the territory wrested from them by the terms of these two treaties, began a movement further down the Tennessee River, and the most warlike and intractable portion of them, known as the Chicamaugas, settled and built towns on Chicamauga Creek, about one hundred miles below the mouth of the Holston River. Becoming persuaded, however, that this creek was infested with witches they abandoned it in 1782, and built lower down the Tennessee the towns usually called "The Five Lower Towns on the Tennessee." These towns were named respectively Running Water, Nickajack, Long Island Village, Crow Town, and Lookout Mountain Town. From thence marauding parties were wont to issue in their operations against the rapidly encroaching settlements.[39] Although comparative peace and quiet for a time followed the heroic treatment administered to the Indians by the expeditions of Williamson, Rutherford, Christian, and others, reciprocal outrages between the whites and Indians were of frequent occurrence. The situation was aggravated in 1783 by the action of the assembly of North Carolina in passing an act (without consulting the Indians or making any effort to secure their concurrence) extending the western boundary of that State to the Mississippi River, reserving, however, for the use of the Cherokees as a hunting ground a tract comprised between the point where the Tennessee River first crosses the southern boundary of the State and the head waters of Big Pigeon River.[40] _Treaty and purchase of 1783._--On the 31st of May of this same year, by a treaty concluded at Augusta, Ga., the Cherokee delegates present (together with a few Creeks, who, on the 1st of November succeeding, agreed to the cession) assumed to cede to that State the respective claims of those two nations to the country lying on the west side of the Tugaloo River, extending to and including the Upper Oconee River region.[41] With the provisions of this treaty no large or representative portion of either nation was satisfied, and in connection with the remarkable territorial assertions of the State of North Carolina, together with the constant encroachments of white settlers beyond the Indian boundary line, a spirit of restless discontent and fear was nourished among the Indians that resulted in many acts of ferocious hostility. _Treaties with the State of Franklin._--In 1784, in consequence of the cession by North Carolina to the United States of all her claims to lands west of the mountains (which cession was not, however, accepted by the United States within the two years prescribed by the act) the citizens within the limits of the present State of Tennessee elected delegates to a convention, which formed a State organization under the name of the State of Franklin and which maintained a somewhat precarious political existence for about four years. During this interval the authorities of the so-called State negotiated two treaties with the Cherokee Nation, the first one being entered into near the mouth of Dumplin Creek, on the north bank of French Broad River, May 31, 1785.[42] This treaty established the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of the Tennessee as the dividing line between the possessions of the whites and Indians, the latter ceding all claim to lands south of the French Broad and Holston, lying east of that ridge. The second treaty or conference was held at Chote Ford and Coytoy, July 31 to August 3, 1786. The Franklin Commissioners at this conference modestly remarked, "We only claim the island in Tennessee at the mouth of Holston and from the head of the island to the dividing ridge between the Holston River, Little River, and Tennessee to the Blue Ridge, and the lands North Carolina sold us on the north side of Tennessee." They urged this claim under threat of extirpating the Cherokees as the penalty of refusal.[43] TREATY RELATIONS WITH THE UNITED STATES. This general history of the Cherokee Nation and the treaty relations that had existed with the colonial authorities from the period of their first official contact with each other is given as preliminary to the consideration of the history and provisions of the first treaty negotiated between commissioners on the part of the United States and the said Cherokee Nation, viz, the treaty concluded at Hopewell, on the Keowee River, November 28, 1785, an abstract of the provisions of which is hereinbefore given.[44] The conclusion of this treaty marked the beginning of a new era in the relations between the whites and Cherokees. The boundaries then fixed were the most favorable it was possible to obtain from the latter without regard to previous purchases and pretended purchases made by private individuals and others. Although the Indians yielded an extensive territory to the United States,[45] yet, on the other hand, the latter conceded to the Cherokees a considerable extent of territory that had already been purchased from them by private individuals or associations, though by methods of more than doubtful legality. The contentions between the border settlers of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, as well as of the authorities of those States, with the Cherokees and Creeks, concerning boundaries and the constantly recurring mutual depredations and assaults upon each other's lives and property, prompted Congress, though still deriving its powers from the Articles of Confederation, to the active exercise of its treaty-making functions. It was, therefore, determined[46] to appoint commissioners who should be empowered under their instructions, subject, of course, to ratification by Congress, to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokees, at which the boundaries of the lands claimed by them should be as accurately ascertained as might be, and the line of division carefully marked between them and the white settlements. This was deemed essential in order that authoritative proclamation might be made of the same, advising and warning settlers against further encroachments upon Indian territory. PROCEEDINGS AT TREATY OF HOPEWELL. The commissioners deputed for the performance of this duty were Benjamin Hawkins, Andrew Pickens, Joseph Martin, and Lachlan McIntosh. They convened the Indians in council at Hopewell, S. C., on the 18th of November, 1785.[47] Hopewell is on the Keowee River, 15 miles above the junction of that river with the Tugaloo. The commissioners announced to the Indians the change of sovereignty from Great Britain to Congress that had taken place in the country as a consequence of the successful termination of the Revolution. They further set forth that Congress wanted none of the Indian lands, nor anything else belonging to them, but that if they had any grievances, to state them freely, and Congress would see justice done them. The Indian chiefs drafted a map showing the limits of country claimed by them, which included the greater portion of Kentucky and Tennessee, as well as portions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Being reminded by the commissioners that this claim covered the country purchased by Colonel Henderson, who was now dead, and whose purchase must therefore not be disputed, they consented to relinquish that portion of it. They also consented that the line as finally agreed upon, from the mouth of Duck River to the dividing ridge between the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, should be continued up that ridge and from thence to the Cumberland in such a manner as to leave all the white settlers in the Cumberland country outside of the Indian limits. At the time, it was supposed this could be accomplished by running a northeast line from the ridge so as to strike the Cumberland _forty miles above Nashville_. This portion of the boundary, not having been affected by the treaty of 1791 (as was supposed by the Cherokees), was reiterated in that treaty in a reverse direction. But the language used--whether intentional or accidental--rendered it susceptible of a construction more favorable to the whites. This language read, "Thence down the Cumberland River to a point from which a southwest line will strike the ridge which divides the waters of Cumberland from those of Duck River, 40 miles above Nashville." As this line was not actually surveyed and marked until the fall of 1797,[48] and as the settlements in that locality had in the meantime materially advanced, it became necessary, in order to exclude the bulk of the settlers from the Indian country, to take advantage of this technicality. The line was consequently so run (from a point on said dividing ridge 40 miles above Nashville) that it struck the Cumberland River about 1 mile above the mouth of Rock Castle River, a distance of perhaps 175 to 200 miles above Nashville. This line was surveyed by General James Winchester, who, under date of November 9, 1797, in a letter to General Robertson, describes a portion of it as running as follows: From Walton's road to the Fort Blount road, which it crosses near the two springs at the 32-mile tree; crosses Obey's River about 6 or 7 miles from the mouth; Achmugh about 2 miles above the Salt Lick; the South Fork of Cumberland, or Flute River, 5 or 6 miles from the mouth, and struck Cumberland River about a mile above the mouth of Rock Castle. He also adds that the total length of the line (from the dividing ridge to Cumberland River above Rock Castle) is 138-11/16 miles. The Fort Blount here mentioned was on the south side of Cumberland River, about 6 miles in a direct line, southwest of Gainesboro', and the road led from there to Walton's road, which it joined at or near the present site of Cooksville.[49] Walton's or Caney Fork road led from Carthage in an easterly direction, and before the organization of Putnam County formed the boundary line between Overton and White counties, from whence it continued easterly through Anderson's Cross Roads and Montgomery to Wilson's, in Knox County. The "Two Springs," are about 2 or 3 miles northwest of Cooksville.[49] There is much difficulty in determining the absolute course of the "Winchester line," from the meager description contained in his letter above quoted. Arrowsmith and Lewis, in their Atlas, published in 1805, lay down the line as pursuing a perfectly straight course from its point of departure on the dividing ridge to its termination on the Cumberland above the mouth of Rock Castle River. Their authority for such a definition of the boundary is not given. If such was the true course of the line, the description given in General Winchester's letter would need some explanation. He must have considered Obey's River as emptying into Wolf River in order to bring his crossing of the former stream reasonably near the distance from its mouth specified by him. He must also have been mistaken in his estimate of the distance at which the line crossed above the mouth of the South Fork of the Cumberland. The line of Arrowsmith and Lewis would cross that stream at least 12 miles in a direct line above its mouth, instead of five or six. It is ascertained from correspondence with the officers of the Historical Society of Tennessee, that the line, after crossing the Fort Blount road at the "Two Springs," continued in a northeasterly direction, crossing Roaring Fork near the mouth of a small creek, and, pursuing the same course, passed to the east of the town of Livingston. "Nettle Carrier," a Cherokee Indian of some local note, lived on the headwaters of Nettle Carrier's Creek, about four or five miles east of Livingston, and the line passed about half-way between his cabin and the present site of that village.[50] Thence it continued to the crossing of Obey's River, and thence to the point of intersection with the Kentucky boundary line, which is ascertained to have been at the northeast corner of Overton County, Tennessee, as originally organized in 1806. From this point the line continued to the crossing of Big South Fork, at the place indicated by General Winchester, and thence on to the Cumberland at the terminal point one mile above the mouth of Rock Castle River. In the interest of clearness a literal following of the line indicated in General Winchester's letter, and also that given by Arrowsmith and Lewis, are shown upon the accompanying map. At the conference preliminary to the signing of the treaty of 1785, the Indians also asserted that within the fork of the French Broad and Holston Rivers were 3,000 white settlers who were there in defiance of their protests. They maintained that they had never ceded that country, and it being a favorite spot with them the settlers must be removed. The commissioners vainly endeavored to secure a cession of the French Broad tract, remarking that the settlers were too numerous to make their removal possible, but could only succeed in securing the insertion of an article in the treaty, providing for the submission of the subject to Congress, the settlers, in the mean time, to remain unmolested.[51] _Protest of North Carolina and Georgia._--During the pendency of negotiations, William Blount, of North Carolina, and John King and Thomas Glasscock, of Georgia, presented their commissions as the agents representing the interests of their respective States. They entered formal protests in the names of those States against the validity of the treaty, as containing several stipulations which infringed and violated the legislative rights thereof. The principal of these was the right, as assumed by the commissioners, of assigning to the Indians, territory which had already been appropriated, by act of the legislature in the case of North Carolina, to the discharge of bounty-land claims of the officers and soldiers of that State who had served in the Continental line during the Revolution.[52] There were present at this treaty, according to the report of the commissioners, 918 Cherokees, to whom, after the signature and execution thereof, were distributed as presents goods to the value of $1,311-10/90. The meagerness of the supply was occasioned, as the commissioners explained, by their expectancy of only meeting the chiefs and headmen.[53] _Location of boundaries._--In the location of the boundary points between the Cherokees and whites, recited in the fourth article of the treaty, it is proper to remark that-- 1. The route of the line along the ridge between Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers, and from thence to the Cumberland, at a point 40 miles above Nashville, has already been recited. 2. "The ford where the Kentucky road crosses the river" (Cumberland) is at a point opposite the mouth of Left-Hand Fork, about 12 or 13 miles slightly west of north of Cumberland Gap. From the point "40 miles above Nashville" to this ford, the commissioners adopted, as they declare, the line of Henderson's Purchase; while from the "Kentucky Ford" to the mountain, 6 miles south of the mouth of Camp Creek on Nolichucky, they followed the boundary prescribed by the treaty of July 20, 1777, with Virginia and North Carolina.[54] 3. "Campbell's line" was surveyed in 1777-'78 by General William Campbell, as a commissioner for marking the boundary between Virginia and the Cherokees. It extended from the mouth of Big Creek to the high knob on Poor Valley Ridge, 332 poles S. 70° E. of the summit of the main ridge of Cumberland Mountain, a short distance west of Cumberland Gap.[55] The point at which the treaty line of 1785 struck Campbell's line was at the Kentucky road crossing, about 1-1/2 miles southeast of Cumberland Gap. 4. The treaty line followed Campbell's line until it reached a point due north of the mouth of Cloud's Creek. From this point it ran south to the mouth of that creek, which enters the Holston from the north, 3 miles west of Rogersville. 5. The line from Cloud's Creek pursued a northeasterly direction to Chimney Top Mountain, which it struck at a point about 2 miles to the southward of the Long Island of Holston River. 6. "Camp Creek, near the mouth of Big Limestone, on the Nolichucky" (which is the next point in the boundary line), is a south branch of Nolichucky River in Greene County, Tennessee, between Horse and Cove Creeks, and empties about 6 miles southeast of Greeneville. It was sometimes called McNamee's Creek. 7. The mountain "six miles to the southward of Camp Creek" was in the Great Smoky or Iron Range, not far from the head of that creek. 8. "Thence south to the North Carolina line, thence to the South Carolina Indian boundary." This line was partially surveyed in the winter of 1791, by Joseph Hardin, under the direction of Governor Blount.[56] It ran southeasterly from the mouth of McNamee's or Camp Creek, a distance, as stated by Governor Blount, of 60 miles to Rutherford's War Trace, although the point at which it struck this "Trace," which is given in Governor Blount's correspondence as being 10 or 12 miles west of the Swannanoa settlement, is only a trifle over 50 miles in a direct line from the mouth of Camp Creek. The "Rutherford's War Trace" here spoken of was the route pursued by General Griffith Rutherford, who, in the summer of 1776, marched an army of 2,400 men against the Cherokees. He was re-enforced by Colonels Martin and Armstrong at Cathey's Fort; crossed the Blue Ridge at Swannanæ Gap; passed down and over the French Broad at a place yet known as the "War Ford;" continued up the valley of Hominy Creek, leaving Pisgah Mountain to the left and crossing Pigeon River a little below the mouth of East Fork; thence through the mountains to Richland Creek, above the present town of Waynesville; ascended that creek and crossed Tuckaseigee River at an Indian village; continued across Cowee Mountain, and thence to the Middle Cherokee Towns on Tennessee River, to meet General Williamson, from South Carolina, with an army bent on a like mission.[57] The boundary between western North Carolina and South Carolina was not definitely established at the date of the survey of Hardin's line and, as shown by an old map on file in the Office of Indian Affairs, the point at which a prolongation of Hardin's line would have struck the South Carolina Indian boundary was supposed to be on or near the 35th degree of north latitude,[58] whereas it was actually more than 20 miles to the north of that parallel and about 10 miles to the north of the present boundary of South Carolina. The definite establishment of this treaty line of 1785 in this quarter, however, became unnecessary by reason of the ratification in February, 1792, of the Cherokee treaty concluded July 2, 1791,[59] wherein the Indian boundary line was withdrawn a considerable distance to the west. 9. The line along the "South Carolina Indian boundary" ran in a southwesterly direction from the point of contact with the prolongation of Hardin's line, passing over "Ocunna" Mountain a short distance to the northwestwardly of Oconee Station and striking the Tugaloo River at a point about 1 mile above the mouth of Panther Creek.[58] 10. The line from Tugaloo River pursued a west of south course to Currahee Mountain, which is the southern terminus of a spur of the Alleghany Mountains, and is situated 4 miles southwest of "Toccoa Falls" and 16 miles northwest of Carnesville, Georgia. 11. From "Currahee Mountain to the head of the south fork of Oconee River," the line pursued a course south 38° west[58] to the source of that stream, now commonly known as the Appallachee River, and was the terminal point of the boundary as defined in this treaty. This line was surveyed in 1798[60] under the direction of Col. Benj. Hawkins. It is also a pertinent fact in connection with the boundaries defined by this treaty (as already stated in connection with Henderson's treaty), that although a literal reading of the description contained in Henderson's "Great Grant" of 1775 would include all the country watered by the tributaries of the Cumberland, the commissioners who negotiated this treaty of Hopewell in 1785 did not consider Henderson's Purchase as extending south of the Cumberland River proper, except in its course from Powell's Mountain to the head of the most southwardly branch of that river. This branch was considered by these commissioners of 1785 as being the Yellow River, whose source was at best but imperfectly known. They specifically state that they accept the boundaries of Henderson's Purchase in this direction,[61] and as the boundary defined by them between Powell's Mountain and Yellow River was "Campbell's line," they must have considered that line as being the southern limit of Henderson's Great Grant. [Footnote 1: In pocket at the end of volume.] [Footnote 2: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 18.] [Footnote 3: I am informed by Colonel Bushyhead, principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, that Bartram is mistaken in his latter assumption. The letter "r" was never used except among the Overhill Cherokees, and occurred very infrequently with them.] [Footnote 4: The full title of this work is "Descriptionis Ptolemaicæ Augmentum; sive Occidentis Notitia, brevi commentario illustrata, studio et opera, Cornely Wytfliet, Louaniensis. Lovanii, Typis Iohannis Bogardi, anno Domini MDXCVII."] [Footnote 5: Campbell's Virginia, p. 268.] [Footnote 6: Logan's South Carolina, Vol. I, p. 168.] [Footnote 7: Martin's North Carolina, Vol. I, p. 194.] [Footnote 8: Logan's South Carolina, Vol. I, p. 141.] [Footnote 9: Logan's South Carolina, Vol. I, p. 182.] [Footnote 10: Adair's American Indians.] [Footnote 11: Report Commissioner Indian Affairs for 1883, p. 272.] [Footnote 12: Bartram's Travels in North America from 1773 to 1778, p. 371.] [Footnote 13: From a distribution roll of Cherokee annuities paid in the year 1799 it appears that there were then 51 Cherokee towns, designated as follows: Oostinawley, Creek Path, Aumoia, Nicojack, Running Water, Ellijay, Cabben, High Tower, Pine Log, High Tower Forks, Tocoah, Coosawaytee, Crowtown, Shoemeck, Aumuchee, Tulloolah, Willstown, Acohee, Cuclon, Duck-town, Ailigulsha, Highwassee, Tennessee, Lookout Mountain, Noyohee, Tusquittee, Coosa, Nantiyallee, Saukee, Keyukee, Red Bank, Nukeza, Cowpens, Telassee, Buffalo Town, Little Tellico, Rabbit Trap, Notley, Turnip Mountain, Sallicoah, Kautika, Tausitu, Watoga, Cowee, Chillhoway, Chestuee, Turkey Town, Toquah, Chota, Big Tellico, and Tusskegee.] [Footnote 14: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 46.] [Footnote 15: Martin's North Carolina, Vol. II, pp. 3, 9, and 11.] [Footnote 16: Hewat's History of South Carolina and Georgia, Vol. II, pp. 203, 204.] [Footnote 17: Broad River was formerly known as Eswaw-Huppedaw or Line River. See Mills' Statistics of South Carolina, p. 555.] [Footnote 18: Williamson's North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 87.] [Footnote 19: Martin's North Carolina. Vol. II, p. 87.] [Footnote 20: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 68.] [Footnote 21: Martin's North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 106.] [Footnote 22: Ib., Vol. II, p. 152.] [Footnote 23: Ib., Vol. II, p. 226.] [Footnote 24: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 76.] [Footnote 25: Ib., p. 102.] [Footnote 26: Ib., p. 109.] [Footnote 27: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 119.] [Footnote 28: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 110, 121.] [Footnote 29: There seems to be a confused idea in this description as to the identity of Powell's Mountain. This was doubtless occasioned by a lack of definite knowledge concerning the topography of the country. This ridge, as it is commonly known, does not touch the Holston River, but lies between Powell's and Clinch Rivers. The mountains supposed to be alluded to in that portion of the description are a spur of the Clinch Mountains, which close in on the Holston River, near the mouth of Cloud's Creek.] [Footnote 30: Mann Butler's Appeal, pp. 26, 27.] [Footnote 31: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38.] [Footnote 32: Martin's North Carolina, Vol. II, p. 339.] [Footnote 33: Haywood's Tennessee, pp. 16, 17.] [Footnote 34: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 204.] [Footnote 35: Letter of Governor Blount to Secretary of War, January 14, 1793. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 431.] [Footnote 36: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 431, and Ramsey's Tenn., p. 172.] [Footnote 37: Haywood's Tennessee, p. 451.] [Footnote 38: Scott's Laws of Tennessee and North Carolina, Vol. I, p. 225.] [Footnote 39: Letter of Governor Blount to Secretary of War, January 14, 1793. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 431, also page 263.] [Footnote 40: Report of Senate Committee March 1, 1797. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 623. Also Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 276.] .] [Footnote 41: Carpenter and Arthur's History of Georgia, p. 253.] [Footnote 42: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 299.] [Footnote 43: Ib., p. 345.] [Footnote 44: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 18.] [Footnote 45: See Nos. 10_a_ and 10_b_ on accompanying map of Cherokee cessions.] [Footnote 46: By resolution of Congress, March 15, 1785.] [Footnote 47: Report of Treaty Commissioners, dated Hopewell, December 2, 1785. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 40.] [Footnote 48: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 628, and letter of General Winchester to General Robertson, November 9, 1797.] [Footnote 49: Letter of Hon. John M. Lea, of Nashville, Tenn., to the author.] [Footnote 50: Letter of Geo. H. Morgan, of Gainesborough, Tennessee.] [Footnote 51: Report of Treaty Commissioners. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38.] [Footnote 52: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 44.] [Footnote 53: Journal of Treaty Commissioners. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 43.] [Footnote 54: Report of Treaty Commissioners in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38.] [Footnote 55: Letter of Return J. Meigs to Secretary of War, May 5, 1803; also, letter of Hon. John M. Lea, Nashville, Tennessee.] [Footnote 56: Letter of Governor Blount to Secretary of War, December 16, 1792, in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 631.] [Footnote 57: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee.] [Footnote 58: Old manuscript map on file in Indian Office, Washington, D. C.] [Footnote 59: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 39.] TREATY CONCLUDED JULY 2, 1791; PROCLAIMED FEBRUARY 7, 1792.[62] _Held on bank of Holston River, near the mouth of French Broad, between William Blount, governor of the Territory south of Ohio River and superintendent of Indian affairs, representing the President of the United States, on the part and behalf of said States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee Nation on the part and behalf of said nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. Perpetual peace declared between the United States and the Cherokee Nation. 2. Cherokees to be under sole protection of the United States and to hold no treaty with any State or individuals. 3. Cherokees and the United States to mutually release prisoners captured one from the other. 4. Boundary between the United States and the Cherokees defined as follows: Beginning at the top of Currahee Mountain, where the Creek line passes it; thence a direct line to Tugelo River; thence northeast to Ocunna Mountain and over same along South Carolina Indian boundary to the North Carolina boundary; thence north to a point from which a line is to be extended to the River Clinch that shall pass the Holston at the ridge dividing waters of Little River from those of Tennessee River; thence up Clinch River to Campbell's line and along the same to the top of Cumberland Mountain; thence a direct line to Cumberland River where the Kentucky road crosses it; thence down Cumberland River to a point from which a southwest line will strike the ridge dividing waters of Cumberland from those of Duck River 40 miles above Nashville; thence down said ridge to a point from which a southwest line will strike the mouth of Duck River. To prevent future disputes, said boundary to be ascertained and marked by three persons appointed by the United States and three persons appointed by the Cherokees. To extinguish all claim of Cherokees to lands lying to the right of said line, the United States agree to immediately deliver certain valuable goods to the Cherokees and to pay them $1,000 annually. 5. Citizens of United States to have free use of road from Washington District to Mero District and of navigation of Tennessee River. 6. The United States to have exclusive right of regulating trade with the Cherokees. 7. The United States solemnly guarantee to the Cherokees all their lands not herein ceded. 8. Citizens of the United States or others not Indians settling on Cherokee lands to forfeit protection of the United States and be punished as the Indians see fit. 9. Inhabitants of the United States forbidden to hunt on Cherokee lands, or to pass over the same without a passport from the governor of a State or Territory or other person authorized by the President of the United States to grant the same. 10. Cherokees committing crimes against citizens of the United States to be delivered up and punished by United States laws. 11. Inhabitants of the United States committing crimes or trespass against Cherokees to be tried and punished under United States laws. 12. Retaliation or reprisal forbidden until satisfaction has been refused by the aggressor. 13. Cherokees to give notice of any designs against the peace and interests of the United States. 14. Cherokees to be furnished with useful implements of husbandry. United States to send four persons to reside in Cherokee country to act as interpreters. 15. All animosities to cease and treaty to be faithfully carried out. 16. Treaty to take effect when ratified by the President of the United States by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. [Footnote 60: See resolution of Georgia legislature, June 16, 1802. It is however stated by Return J. Meigs, in a letter to the Secretary of War dated December 20, 1811, that this line was run by Colonel Hawkins in 1797.] [Footnote 61: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38.] [Footnote 62: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 39.] HISTORICAL DATA. CAUSES OF DISSATISFACTION WITH THE BOUNDARY OF 1785. The boundary line prescribed by the treaty of November 28, 1785, had been unsatisfactory to both the Cherokees and the whites. On the part of the former the chief cause of complaint was the non-removal of the settlers in the fork of the French Broad and Holston Rivers and their evident disposition to encroach still farther into the Indian country at every opportunity. The whites, on the other hand, were discontented because further curtailment of the Cherokee territory had not been compelled by the commissioners who negotiated the treaty, and the State authorities of North Carolina and Georgia had protested because of the alleged interference by the General Government with the reserved rights of the States.[63] In retaliation for the intrusions of the whites the Indians were continually engaged in pilfering their stock and other property. The state of affairs resulting from this continual friction rendered some decisive action by Congress necessary. A large portion of the land in Greene and Hawkins Counties, Tennessee, had been entered by the settlers under the laws of North Carolina, whereby she had assumed jurisdiction to the Mississippi River.[64] These lands were south and west of the treaty line of 1785, as were also the lands on the west side of the Clinch upon which settlements had been made. Settlers to the number of several thousand, south of the French Broad and Holston, were also within the Cherokee limits.[65] It is true that the authorities of the so-called State of Franklin had in the years 1785 and 1786 negotiated two treaties with the Cherokees, obtaining cessions from the latter covering most, if not all, of these lands,[66] but neither the State of North Carolina nor the United States recognized these treaties as of any force or validity. These trespasses called forth under date of September 1, 1788, a proclamation from Congress forbidding all such unwarrantable intrusions, and enjoining all those who had settled upon the hunting ground of the Cherokees to depart with their families and effects without loss of time. General Knox, Secretary of War, under date of July 7, 1789, in a communication to the President, remarked that "the disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokees requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so direct and manifest contempt of the authority of the United States be suffered with impunity, it will be in vain to attempt to extend the arm of government to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have no faith in such imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will ridicule a government which shall, on paper only, make Indian treaties and regulate Indian boundaries."[67] He recommended the appointment of three commissioners on the part of the United States, who should be invested with full powers to examine into the case of the Cherokees and to renew with them the treaty made at Hopewell in 1785; also to report to the President such measures as should be necessary to protect the Indians in the boundaries secured to them by that treaty, which he suggested would involve the establishment of military posts within the Indian country and the services of at least five hundred troops. President Washington, on the same day, transmitted the report of the Secretary of War, with the accompanying papers, to Congress. He approved of the recommendations of General Knox, and urged upon that body prompt action in the matter. Congress, however, failed to take any decisive action at that session, and on the 11th of August, 1790, President Washington again brought the subject to the attention of that body. After reciting the substance of his previous communication, he added that, notwithstanding the treaty of Hopewell and the proclamation of Congress, upwards of five hundred families had settled upon the Cherokee lands, exclusive of those between the fork of the French Broad and Holston Rivers.[68] He further added that, as the obstructions to a proper conduct of the matter had been removed since his previous communication, by the accession of North Carolina to the Union and the cession to the United States by her of the lands in question,[69] he should conceive himself bound to exert the powers intrusted to him by the Constitution in order to carry into faithful execution the treaty of Hopewell, unless it should be thought proper to attempt to arrange a new boundary with the Cherokees, embracing the settlements and compensating the Cherokees for the cessions they should make. _United States Senate authorizes a new treaty._--Upon the reception of this message the Senate adopted a resolution advising and consenting that the President should, at his discretion, cause the treaty of Hopewell to be carried into execution or enter into arrangements for such further cession of territory from the Cherokees as the tranquillity and interests of the United States should require. A proviso to this resolution limited the compensation to be paid to the Cherokees for such further cession to $1,000 per annum and stipulated that no person who had taken possession of any lands within the limits of the proposed cession should be confirmed therein until he had complied with such terms as Congress should thereafter prescribe. Accordingly, instructions were issued to William Blount, governor of the Territory south of the Ohio River and _ex-officio_ superintendent of Indian affairs, to conclude a treaty of cession with the Cherokees.[70] TENNESSEE COMPANY'S PURCHASE. In the mean time the troubles between the Indians and the settlers had become aggravated from divers causes. Prominent among these was the fact that Georgia had by act of her legislature disposed of 3,500,000 acres of vacant land lying south of Tennessee River to the Tennessee Company. This association undertook to effect a settlement in the year 1791 at or near the Muscle Shoals.[71] The matter coming to the notice of the Secretary of War was made the subject of a strong protest by him to the President.[72] The latter issued his proclamation forbidding such settlement. The company persisted in the attempt, and as the President had declared such act would place them without the protection of the United States, the Indians were left free to break up and destroy the settlement, which they did.[73] DIFFICULTIES IN NEGOTIATING NEW TREATY. In pursuance of Governor Blount's instructions, he convened the Indians at White's Fort, on the present site of Knoxville, Tenn.; and after a conference lasting seven days, succeeded, with much difficulty and with great reluctance on the part of the Cherokees, in concluding the treaty of July 2, 1791.[74] In his letter to the Secretary of War,[75] transmitting the treaty, he asserts the greatest difficulty to have been in agreeing on a boundary, and that the one fixed upon might seem singular. The reason for this peculiarity of description was owing to the fact that the Indians insisted on beginning on the part where they were most tenacious of the land, in preference to the mouth of Duck River, where the Hopewell treaty line began. The land to the right of the line was declared to belong to the United States, because no given point of the compass would describe it. In accordance with his instructions, Governor Blount proposed to the Indians that the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of the Tennessee should form a part of the boundary. To this the Indians would not agree, but insisted on the straight line which should cross the Holston where that ridge should strike it. Governor Blount explains that this line is not so limited by the treaty as to the point at which it shall leave the north line or at which it shall strike the Clinch, but that it might be so run as either to include or leave out the settlers south of the ridge; the only stipulations respecting it being that it should cross the Holston at the ridge, and should be run by commissioners appointed by the respective parties. He urged that the line should be run immediately after the ratification of the treaty, as settlers were already located in the immediate vicinity of it, and more were preparing to follow. The President transmitted the treaty to the Senate with his message of October 26, 1791,[76] and Senator Hawkins, from the committee to whom it was referred, reported it back to the Senate on the 9th of November following, recommending that the Senate advise and consent to its ratification.[77] On the 19th of the same month the Secretary of War advised Governor Blount that the treaty had been ratified by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, and inclosed him 50 printed copies for distribution, although the United States Statutes at Large [Vol. VII, p. 39] give the date of the proclamation of the treaty as February 7, 1792.[78] [Footnote 63: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 44.] [Footnote 64: Protest of Col. William Blount to Treaty Commissioners of 1785. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 44, and Ramsey's Annals of Tenn., p. 549. Also Scott's Laws of Tennessee and North Carolina, Vol. I.] [Footnote 65: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 38.] [Footnote 66: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, p. 345.] [Footnote 67: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 53.] [Footnote 68: Ib., p. 83.] [Footnote 69: The assembly of North Carolina proceeded in 1789 to mature a plan for the severance of Tennessee, and passed an act for the purpose of ceding to the United States of America certain western lands therein described. In conformity with one of the provisions of the act, Samuel Johnson and Benjamin Hawkins, Senators in Congress from North Carolina, executed a deed to the United States on the 25th of February, 1790. Congress accepted the cession by act of April 2, 1790, and Tennessee ceased to be a part of North Carolina.] [Footnote 70: These instructions were issued in pursuance of the advice and consent of the Senate, under date of August 11, 1790. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 135.] [Footnote 71: This act of the Georgia legislature bore date of December 21, 1789. A prior act, bearing date February 7, 1785, had been passed, entitled "An act for laying out a district of land situated on the river Mississippi, within the limits of this State, into a county, to be called Bourbon." See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 114.] [Footnote 72: January 22, 1791. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 112.] [Footnote 73: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 549-556.] [Footnote 74: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 39.] [Footnote 75: July 15, 1791. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 628.] [Footnote 76: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 123.] [Footnote 77: Ib., p. 135.] [Footnote 78: Ib., p. 629.] SURVEY OF NEW BOUNDARIES. The Secretary also intrusted the matter of the survey of the new boundary to the discretion of Governor Blount, and suggested the appointment of Judge Campbell, Daniel Smith, and Col. Landon Carter as commissioners to superintend the same. This suggestion was subsequently modified by the appointment of Charles McLung and John McKee in place of Smith and Carter. Governor Blount designated the 1st of May as the date for the survey to commence. Andrew Ellicott was appointed surveyor, he having been previously appointed to survey the line under the Creek treaty of 1790.[79] Before these arrangements could be carried out, the Secretary of War again wrote Governor Blount,[80] remarking that while it was important the line should be run, yet as the United States, in their military operations, might want the assistance of the Cherokees, perhaps it would be better policy to have the lines ascertained and marked after rather than before the campaign then about to commence against the Indians northwest of the Ohio.[81] It was thus determined, in view of numerous individual acts of hostility on the part of the Cherokees and of the desire to soothe them into peace and to engage them as auxiliaries against the northern Indians, to temporarily postpone the running of the line. After considerable correspondence between Governor Blount and the Cherokee chiefs in council, the 8th of October, 1792, was fixed upon as the date for the meeting of the representatives of both parties at Major Craig's, on Nine-Mile Creek, for the purpose of beginning the survey.[82] In the mean time an increased spirit of hostility had become manifest among the Cherokees and Creeks, the five lower towns of the former having declared war, and an Indian invasion of the frontier seemed imminent. Governor Blount, therefore, in the latter part of September,[83] deemed it wise to call fifteen companies of militia into immediate service, under the command of General Sevier, for the protection of the settlements. Notwithstanding this critical condition of affairs, the boundary line commissioners on the part of the United States assembled at the appointed time and place. After waiting until the following day, the representatives of the Cherokees putting in no appearance, they proceeded to inspect the supposed route of the treaty line. After careful examination they came to the conclusion that the ridge dividing the waters of Tennessee and Little Rivers struck the Holston River at the mouth and at no other point.[84] They then proceeded to run, but did not mark, a line of experiment from the point of the ridge in a southeast direction to Chilhowee Mountain, a distance of 17-1/2 miles, and also from the point of beginning in a northwest direction to the Clinch River, a distance of 9 miles. From these observations they found that the line, continued to the southeast, would intersect the Tennessee River shortly after it crossed the Chilhowee Mountain, and in consequence would deprive the Indians of all their towns lying on the south side of the Tennessee. This rendered apparent the necessity of changing the direction of the line into a more nearly east and west course, and led the commissioners to express the opinion that the true line should run from the point of the ridge south 60° east to Chilhowee Mountain and north 60° west to the Clinch. The course thus designated left a number of the settlers on Nine-Mile Creek within the Indian limits.[85] The records of the War Department having been almost completely destroyed by fire in the month of November, 1800, it is with great difficulty that definite data can be obtained concerning the survey of this and other Indian boundaries prior to that date. It has, however, been ascertained that the above mentioned line was not actually surveyed until the year 1797. _Journal of Col. Benjamin Hawkins._--The manuscript journal of Col. Benjamin Hawkins, now in the possession of the Historical Society of Georgia, shows that instructions were issued by the Secretary of War on the 2d of February, 1797, appointing and directing Col. Benjamin Hawkins, General Andrew Pickens, and General James Winchester as commissioners on the part of the United States to establish and mark the lines between the latter and the Indian nations south of the Ohio. These instructions reached Colonel Hawkins at Fort Fidius, on the Oconee, on the 28th of February. Notice was at once sent to General Pickens at his residence at Hopewell, on the Keowee, and also to General Winchester, through Silas Dinsmoor, at that time temporary agent for the Cherokee Nation, to convene at Tellico, on Tennessee River, on the 1st of April following, for the purpose of determining and marking the Cherokee boundary line pursuant to the treaty of 1791. Colonel Hawkins joined General Pickens at Hopewell, from which point they set out for Tellico on the 23d of March, accompanied by Joseph Whitner, one of their surveyors, as well as by an escort of United States troops, furnished by Lieut. Col. Henry Gaither. Passing Ocunna station, they were joined by their other surveyor, John Clark Kilpatrick. They reached Tellico block-house on the 31st of March, and were joined on the following day by Mr. Dinsmoor, the Cherokee agent. Here they were visited by Hon. David Campbell, who, in conjunction with Charles McLung and John McKee, had been appointed in 1792, as previously set forth, to survey and mark the line. Mr. Campbell informed them that he and his co-commissioners, in pursuance of their instructions, did in part ascertain and establish the boundary and report the same to Governor Blount, and that he would accompany the present commissioners and give them all the information he possessed on the subject. About the same time confidential information was received that General Winchester would not attend the meeting of his co-commissioners, and that this was understood to be in pursuance of a scheme to postpone the running of the line in the interest of certain intruders upon Indian land. On the 7th of April the commissioners set out to examine the location and direction of the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of Tennessee, at the same time noting that "we received information that the line run between the Indians and white inhabitants by the commissioners, mentioned on the 3d instant by Mr. Campbell, was by order, for the express purpose of ascertaining a line of accommodation for the white settlers, who were then over the treaty line." By arrangement they met a number of the interested settlers at the house of Mr. Bartlett McGee on the 9th, and by them were advised that the ridge between the sources of Nine-Mile, Baker's, Pistol, and Crooked Creeks "is that which divides the waters running into Little River from those running into the Tennessee." Proceeding with their observations, they set out for the point on this ridge "where the experiment line for fixing the court-house of Blount County passes the ridge between Pistol Creek and Baker's Creek, due east from a point on the Tennessee 13-1/2 miles, and this point on the Tennessee is 1-1/2 miles south from a point from where a line west joins the confluence of the Holston and Tennessee." The point on the ridge here spoken of was 2-1/2 miles north of Bartlett McGee's and 1 mile north of the source of Nine-Mile Creek. The commissioners state that in noting observations they count distances in minutes, at the rate of 60' to 3 miles. From the foregoing point they proceeded west 8' to a ridge dividing Pistol and Baker's Creeks; turned south 6' to the top of a knoll, having on the right the falling grounds of Gallagher's Creek. This knoll they called "Iron Hill." Continuing south 11', they crossed a small ridge and ascended a hill 4' SSW., crossing a path from Baker's Creek to the settlements on Holston. From here the ridge bore SSW. 1 mile, SW. by W. 1 mile, SSW. 3 miles, and thence NW., which would make it strike the Holston River near the mouth of that stream. This corresponded with the observations of the previous commissioners who had run the experimental line. This inspection convinced the commissioners that a considerable number of the white settlers were on the Indian land. The latter were quite anxious that some arrangement should be made for their accommodation in the coming conference with the Indians, but received no encouragement from the commissioners further than an assurance that they should be permitted to gather their crops of small grain and fruit before removal. Being asked by the commissioners why the line run by Mr. Campbell and his confrères was known by three names, "that of experience, of experiment, and the treaty line with the Indians," they answered that "it was not the treaty line, but a line run to see how the citizens could be covered, as they were then settled on the frontier; that they understood this to be the direction to the commissioners, and that they conformed to it and ran the line as we had noticed in viewing the lands between the two rivers." The settlers also said, "the law, as they were likely to be affected, had been incautiously worded. They understood from it that the line from Clinch to cross the Holston at the ridge would turn thence south to the South Carolina Indian boundary on the North Carolina line. We replied that this understanding of it was erroneous. There was no such course in the treaty, and they should never suppose that the Government would be capable of violating a solemn guarantee; that, although the expression was 'thence south,' yet it must be understood as meaning southeastwardly, to the point next called for, as the point is in that direction and far to the east; that the lands in question had moreover been expressly reserved by the State of North Carolina for the Indians, and the occupants had not, as some others had, even the plea of entry in the land office of that State." The law referred to above by the settlers and the commissioners was the act of Congress approved May 19, 1796, entitled "An act to regulate trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes and to preserve peace on the frontiers." This act recited the course of the Indian boundary as established by treaty with the various tribes extending from the mouth of Cuyahoga River along the line described in the treaty of 1795 at Greenville, to the Ohio River and down the same to the ridge dividing the Cumberland and Tennessee Rivers; thence, up and along said ridge and continuing according to the Cherokee treaty of 1791 to the river Clinch; "thence down said river to a point from which a line shall pass the Holston, at the ridge which divides the waters running into Little River from those running into the Tennessee; thence _south_ to the North Carolina boundary," etc. Owing to fears for their personal safety caused by the hostile tone of the settlers toward them, it was not until the 25th of April that a representative delegation of the Cherokees was convened in council by the commissioners. There were present 147 chiefs and warriors. Commissioners were appointed by them to act on behalf of their nation, in conjunction with those on behalf the United States, to run and mark the boundary line, and an agreement was reached that Messrs. Hawkins and Pickens should have authority to select the necessary sites for the proposed military posts within their country. During the council a delegation of the intruding settlers presented themselves but were not allowed to attend the deliberations, being advised by the commissioners "that it was not in contemplation to make a new treaty but to carry the treaty of Holston into effect; that we did not expect much light on this subject from the Indians; that we should form our decision from the instrument itself and not from interested reporters on either side; that all who were on the Indian lands could not be relieved by us; * * * that he (Captain Henly) and most of the deputation lived on this side of the line of experiment, and that they had informed us that that line was merely to ascertain how the citizens could be accommodated and _on this side of the true line_ intended in the treaty; that to accommodate them a new treaty must be had and a new line agreed on, and, in our opinion, at this time it could not be effected; that the Indians were much alarmed for their situation, and viewed every attempt to acquire land as a violation of the solemn guaranty of the Government; that we need not expect ever to obtain fairly their consent to part with their land, unless our fellow-citizens would pay more respect than we saw they did to their treaties. Following this conference with the Indians, the commissioners proceeded (examining the country carefully en route) to South West Point, at the mouth of Clinch River, which they reached on the 6th of May, and the journal of Colonel Hawkins concludes with this day's proceedings. It is learned, however, from an old map of the line now on file in the office of Indian Affairs, that the survey was not begun until more than three months after their arrival at South West Point. From another map in the same office it appears that the line as surveyed extended from a point about 1,000 yards above South West Point in a course S. 76° E. to the Great Iron Mountain, and was known as "Hawkins Line."[86] From this point the line continued in the same course until it reached the treaty line of 1785, and was called "Pickens Line." The supposition is that as the commissioners were provided with two surveyors, they separated, Colonel Hawkins with Mr. Whitner as surveyor running the line from Clinch River to the Great Iron Mountains, and General Pickens with Colonel Kilpatrick as surveyor locating the remainder of it. This supposition is verified so far as General Pickens is concerned by his own written statement.[87] From the point where it struck the Clinch River, the line of cession by this treaty of 1791 followed up the course of that river until it struck Campbell's line at a point 3 or 4 miles southwest of the present town of Sneedville. From this point it became identical with the boundary line prescribed by the treaty of November 28, 1785 at Hopewell. The tract of country ceded by this treaty comprised the territory within the present limits of Sevier, Cocke, Jefferson, Hamblen, Grainger, and almost the entirety of Knox, as well as portions of Roane, Loudon, Anderson, Union, Hancock, Hawkins, Sullivan, Washington, Greene, and Blount Counties in Tennessee, together with a portion of North Carolina lying principally west of the French Broad River. [Footnote 79: Ib., p. 628-630.] [Footnote 80: January 31, 1792. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.] [Footnote 81: It may not be uninteresting as a historical incident to note the fact that at the time of General Wayne's treaty at Greeneville, in 1795, a band of Cherokees had settled on the head-waters of the Scioto River in Ohio. Not presenting themselves at the conferences preceding that treaty, General Wayne sent them a special message through Captain Long Hair, one of their chiefs, with the information that if they failed to conclude articles of peace with him they would be left unprotected. They sent a delegation to assure General Wayne of their desire for peace, saying that as soon as they gathered their crop of corn they would return to their tribe, which they did.] [Footnote 82: American State Papers. Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 630. According to the original manuscript journal of Col. Benj. Hawkins, Major Craig's house was 1/4 mile below the source of Nine-Mile Creek.] [Footnote 83: September 27, 1792. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 630.] [Footnote 84: Report of Boundary Commissioners, November 30, 1792. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 630.] [Footnote 85: Report of Boundary Commissioners, November 30, 1792. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 630.] [Footnote 86: See preamble to treaty of 1798; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, pp. 639-641; letters of Indian Bureau, War Department, December 13 and 14, 1828; also, old manuscript maps in Office of Indian Affairs, Nos. 716 and 749. By the former of these maps it appears that the survey of "Hawkins Line" from Clinch River was begun August 13, 1797, and that "the line commences on the Clinch, one-fourth mile above the ferry, in view of South West Point. (The ferry was 600 yards above the point.) From this point the view through the vista or street passing Captain Wade's garden to the right S. 26 W. the same side of the river above N. 47 W. The beginning tree, a Spanish oak, marked U. S. on the north side and C. on the south; on the oak 1797. A wahoo marked U. S. and C. under the U. S. Aug. 13, continues the line 4 cuts 7 strikes to the Cumberland road, here a white oak marked U. S. and C. The mile trees have U. S. and C. marked on them," etc.] [Footnote 87: Letter of Gen. Andrew Pickens to Hon. Mr. Nott, of South Carolina, January 1, 1800. See American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 104.] TREATY CONCLUDED FEBRUARY 17, 1792; PROCLAIMED FEBRUARY 17, 1792. _Held at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, between Henry Knox, Secretary of War, on behalf of the United States, and certain chiefs and warriors, in behalf of themselves and the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. This treaty was negotiated as, and declared to be, an additional article to the treaty of July 2, 1791, and provided as follows: 1. That the annual sum to be paid to the Cherokees by the United States, in consideration of the relinquishment of lands, made in treaty of 1791, be $1,500 instead of $1,000. HISTORICAL DATA. DISCONTENT OF THE CHEROKEES. As stated in considering the treaty of July 2, 1791, the Secretary of War notified Governor Blount[88] that the President had ratified the same, and inclosed printed copies thereof to him for distribution. This was equivalent to its official promulgation, although the treaty as printed in the United States Statutes at Large gives February 17, 1792, as the date of proclamation. But, whichever may be the correct date, during the interval elapsing between them, a Cherokee delegation, without the invitation or knowledge of the United States authorities, proceeded to Philadelphia (then the seat of Government), where they arrived on the 28th of December, 1791, bringing with them from Governor Pinckney and General Pickens, of South Carolina, evidence of the authenticity of their mission.[89] The delegation consisted of six, besides the interpreter, and was headed by Nen-e-too-yah, or the Bloody Fellow. They were kindly received by the President, who directed the Secretary of War to ascertain their business. Conferences were thereupon held with them, lasting several days, at which the Indians detailed at great length their grievances and made known their wants. _Causes of complaint._--The substance of their communications was to the effect that when they were summoned by Governor Blount to the conference which resulted in the treaty of July 2, 1791, they were unaware of any purpose on the part of the Government to secure any further cession of land from them; that they had protested vigorously and consistently for several days against yielding any more territory, but were met with such persistent and threatening demands from Governor Blount on the subject that they were forced to yield; that they had no confidence that the North Carolinians would attach any sacredness to the new boundary, in fact they were already settling beyond it; and that the annuity stipulated in the treaty of 1791, as compensation for the cession, was entirely inadequate. They therefore asked an increase of the annuity from $1,000 to $1,500, and furthermore demanded that the white people who had settled south of the ridge dividing the waters of Little River from those of the Tennessee should be removed, and that such ridge should be the barrier. President Washington, believing their demand to be a just one, and also desiring that the delegation should carry home a favorable report of the attitude and disposition of the Government toward them, submitted the matter to the Senate[90] and requested the advice of that body as to the propriety of attaching an additional article to the treaty of 1791 which should increase the annuity from $1,000 to $1,500. _Annuity increased._--To this proposition the Senate gave its advice and consent,[91] and what is mentioned in the United States Statutes at Large as a treaty concluded and proclaimed February 17, 1792,[92] became the law of the land. WAR WITH CHEROKEES. This concession did not, however, in any large degree heal the differences and antagonisms existing between the Indians and the border settlers, with whom they were brought in constant contact. Even while the treaty of 1792 was being negotiated by the representatives of the Cherokees at the capital of the nation, a portion of their young warriors were consummating arrangements for the precipitation of a general war with the whites, and in September, 1792, a party of upwards of 700 Cherokee and Creek warriors attacked Buchanan's Station, Tenn., within 4 miles of Nashville. They were headed by the Cherokee chief John Watts, who was one of the signers of the treaty of Holston, and had he not been severely wounded early in the attack, it is likely the station would have been destroyed.[93] A year later, between twelve and fifteen hundred Indians of the same tribes invaded the settlements on the Holston River and destroyed Cavitt's Station, 7 miles below Knoxville.[94] In fact, the intermediate periods between 1791 and 1795 were filled up by the incursions of smaller war parties, and it was not until the latter year that the frontiers found any repose from Indian depredations. The general tranquillity enjoyed after that date seems to have been occasioned by the wholesome discipline administered to the tribes northwest of the Ohio by General Wayne, in his victory of August 20, 1794, and as a result of the expedition of Major Ore, with his command of Tennesseeans and Kentuckians, in September of the same year, against the Lower Towns of the Cherokees, wherein two of those towns, Running Water and Nickajack, were destroyed.[95] [Footnote 88: November 19, 1791. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.] [Footnote 89: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 203.] [Footnote 90: January 18, 1792.] [Footnote 91: January 20, 1792.] [Footnote 92: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 42.] [Footnote 93: This attack was made about midnight on the 30th of September, 1792. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 294.] [Footnote 94: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 468.] TREATY CONCLUDED JUNE 26, 1794; PROCLAIMED JANUARY 21, 1795.[96] _Held at Philadelphia, Pa., between Henry Knox, Secretary of War, on behalf of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors representing the Cherokee Nation of Indians._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. The treaty of July 2, 1791, not having been fully carried into effect, by reason of some misunderstanding, this treaty was concluded to adjudicate such differences, and contains the following provisions: 1. The treaty of July 2, 1791, declared to be in full force in respect to the boundaries, as well as in all other respects whatever. 2. The boundaries mentioned in the 4th article of treaty of July 2, 1791, to be ascertained and marked after ninety days' notice shall have been given to the Cherokee Nation of the time and place of commencing the operation by the United States commissioners. 3. The United States agree, in lieu of all former sums, to furnish the Cherokees with $5,000 worth of goods annually, as compensation for all territory ceded by treaties of November 28, 1785, and July 2, 1791. 4. Fifty dollars to be deducted from Cherokee annuity for every horse stolen by Cherokees from whites and not returned within three months. 5. These articles to be considered as additions to treaty of July 2, 1791, as soon as ratified by the President and Senate of the United States. HISTORICAL DATA. COMPLAINTS CONCERNING BOUNDARIES. The destruction of the official records renders it very difficult to ascertain the details of the misunderstandings alleged in the preamble of this treaty of June 26, 1794,[97] to have arisen concerning the provisions of the treaty of 1791. But it is gathered from various sources that the principal cause of complaint was in reference to boundaries. After that treaty was concluded, however, it became evident that there would be difficulty in determining satisfactorily where the ridge came in contact with the Holston, inasmuch as the white settlers in the vicinity could not agree upon it. The Indians also changed their minds in some respect as to the proper course of the line; but, in view of the fact that settlers were encroaching with great persistency upon their territory, they saw the necessity of taking immediate steps to have the boundary officially surveyed and marked. They also revived an old claim to pay for lands yielded by them in the establishment of the treaty line of 1785, for which they had received no compensation. _Increase of annuity._--In the conference preceding the signature of this treaty of 1794 they insisted that for this and other reasons an increase should be made in the annuity provided by the treaty of 1791, as amended by that of 1792. This was agreed to by the United States, and the annuity was increased from $1,500 to $5,000. _Boundary line to be surveyed._--It was also agreed that the treaty line of 1791 should be promptly surveyed and marked after ninety days' notice had been given to the Cherokees of the time when and the place where the survey should begin. This, as has already been stated in connection with the treaty of 1791, had been so far performed in the fall of 1792 as to run but not mark a preliminary line for a short portion of the distance, but in spite of the additional agreement in this treaty of 1794 the actual and final survey did not take place until 1797,[100] three years after the conclusion of this treaty and more than seven years after it was originally promised to be done. The treaty of 1794 was concluded by the Secretary of War himself with a delegation of the Cherokees who had visited Philadelphia for that purpose. It was communicated by President Washington to the Senate on the 30th of December, 1794.[101] CHEROKEE HOSTILITIES. While this treaty was being negotiated, and for some months thereafter, a portion of the Cherokees were engaged in the bitterest hostilities against the white settlements, which were only brought to a close, as has been incidentally remarked in discussing the treaty of 1792, by the expedition of Major Ore against the Lower Cherokee towns in September, 1794. _Peace conference._--Following this expedition the hostile Cherokees sued for peace, and at their request a conference was held with them by Governor Blount, at Tellico Block House, on the 7th and 8th of November of that year.[102] This council was attended by Col. John Watts, of Willstown, principal leader of the hostiles; Scolacutta, or the Hanging Maw, head chief of the nation, and four hundred other chiefs and warriors. A general disposition seemed to be manifested among them to abandon their habits of depredation and secure for themselves and their families that peace to which they, as well as their white neighbors, had long been strangers. Governor Blount met them in a friendly spirit and sought, by every means in his power, to confirm them in their good disposition. In reporting the facts of this conference to the Secretary of War he asserted one of the most fruitful causes of friction between the whites and Indians to be the stealing and selling of horses by the latter, for which they could always find a ready and unquestioned market among unscrupulous whites. As measures of frontier protection he suggested the continuance of the three military garrisons of Southwest Point at the mouth of the Clinch, of Fort Granger at the mouth of the Holston, and of Tellico Block House, opposite the remains of old Fort Loudon, and also the erection of a military post, if the Cherokees would permit it, on the north bank of the Tennessee, nearly opposite the mouth of Lookout Mountain Creek. Subsequently[103] he held a further conference with the Cherokees and endeavored to foster hostilities between them and the Creeks by urging the organization of a company of their young warriors to patrol the frontiers of Mero District for its protection against incursions of the Creeks. To this the leading Cherokee chiefs refused assent, not because of any objection to the proposition, but because they desired time for preparation. INTERCOURSE ACT OF 1796. Early in the following year[104] President Washington, in an emphatic message, laid before Congress a communication from Governor Blount setting forth, the determination of a large combination of persons to take possession of certain Indian lands south and southwest of the Cumberland, under the pretended authority of certain acts of the legislature of North Carolina, passed some years previous, for the relief of her officers and soldiers of the Continental line. In view of the injustice of such intrusions and the mischievous consequences which would of necessity result therefrom, the President recommended that effective provision should be made to prevent them. This eventuated in the passage of the act of Congress, approved May 19, 1796,[105] providing for the government of intercourse between citizens of the United States and the various Indian tribes. [Footnote 95: Report of Maj. James Ore to Governor Blount, September 24, 1794. He left Nashville September 7, with 550 mounted infantry, crossed the Tennessee on the 12th, about 4 miles below Nickajack, and on the morning of the 13th destroyed Nickajack and Running Water towns, killing upwards of 50 and making a number prisoners. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 632.] At the treaty of 1791, Governor Blount, as he alleges, sought, by every means in his power, to have the boundary of the cession follow, so far as might be, the natural barrier formed by the dividing ridge between the waters of Little River and those of the Tennessee,[98] and such in fact was the tenor of his instructions from the Secretary of War; but the Indian chiefs unanimously insisted that the boundary should be a straight line, running from the point where the ridge in question should strike the Holston, and assumed as evidence of the crookedness of Governor Blount's heart the fact that he desired to run a crooked line.[99] [Footnote 96: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 43.] [Footnote 97: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 43.] [Footnote 98: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.] [Footnote 99: Letter of Governor Blount to Secretary of War, March 2, 1792. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.] [Footnote 100: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 628.] [Footnote 101: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 543.] [Footnote 102: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536.] [Footnote 103: January 3, 1795. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 536.] [Footnote 104: February 2, 1796. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 581.] TREATY CONCLUDED OCTOBER 2, 1798.[106] _Held near Tellico, in the Cherokee Council House between George Walton and Lieut. Col. Thomas Butler, commissioners on behalf of the United States, and the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. Owing to misunderstandings and consequent delay in running the boundary line prescribed by the treaties of 1791 and 1794, and the ignorant encroachment of settlers on the Indian lands within the limits of such boundaries before their survey, it became desirable that the Indians should cede more land. The following treaty was therefore concluded: 1. Peace and friendship are renewed and declared perpetual. 2. Previous treaties acknowledged to be of binding force. 3. Boundaries of the Cherokees to remain the same where not altered by this treaty. 4. The Cherokees cede to the United States all lands within the following points and lines, viz: From a point on the Tennessee River, below Tellico Block House, called the Wild Cat Rock, in a direct line to the Militia Spring near the Maryville road leading from Tellico. From the said spring to the Chill-howie Mountain by a line so to be run as will leave all the farms on Nine Mile Creek to the northward and eastward of it, and to be continued along Chill-howie Mountain until it strikes Hawkins's line. Thence along said line to the Great Iron Mountain, and from the top of which a line to be continued in a southeastwardly course to where the most southwardly branch of Little River crosses the divisional line to Tuggaloe River. From the place of beginning, the Wild Cat Rock, down the northeast margin of the Tennessee River (not including islands) to a point one mile above the junction of that river with the Clinch, and from thence by a line to be drawn in a right angle until it intersects Hawkins's line leading from Clinch. Thence down the said line to the river Clinch; thence up the said river to its junction with Emmery's River; thence up Emmery's River to the foot of Cumberland Mountain. From thence a line to be drawn, northeastwardly along the foot of the mountain until it intersects with Campbell's line. 5. Two commissioners to be appointed (one by the United States and one by the Cherokees) to superintend the running and marking of the line, immediately upon signing of the treaty, and three maps to be made after survey for use of the War Department, the State of Tennessee, and the Cherokee Nation respectively. 6. Upon signing the treaty the Cherokees to receive $5,000 cash and an annuity of $1,000, and the United States to guarantee them the remainder of their country forever. 7. The United States to have free use of the Kentucky road running between Cumberland Mountain and river, in consideration of which the Cherokees are permitted to hunt on ceded lands. 8. Notice to be given the Cherokees of the time for delivering annual stipends. 9. Horses stolen by either whites or Indians to be paid for at $60 each (if by a white man, in cash; if by an Indian, to be deducted from annuity). All depredations prior to the beginning of these negotiations to be forgotten. 10. The Cherokees agree that the United States agent shall have sufficient ground for his temporary use while residing among them. This treaty to be binding and carried into effect by both sides when ratified by the Senate and President of the United States. HISTORICAL DATA. DISPUTES RESPECTING TERRITORY. In the year 1797 the legislature of the State of Tennessee addressed a memorial and remonstrance to Congress upon the subject of the Indian title to lands within that State. The burden of this complaint was the assertion that the Indian title was at best nothing greater than a tenancy at will; that the lands they occupied within the limits of the State had been granted by the State of North Carolina, before the admission of Tennessee to the Union, to her officers and soldiers of the Continental line, and for other purposes; that the treaties entered into with the Cherokees by the United States, guaranteeing them the exclusive possession of these lands, were subversive of State as well as individual vested rights, and praying that provision be made by law for the extinguishment of the Indian claim.[107] This was communicated to Congress by the President. Mr. Pinckney, from the committee of the House of Representatives to which the matter was referred, submitted a report,[108] accompanied by a resolution making an appropriation for the relief of such citizens of the State of Tennessee as had a right to lands within that State, by virtue of the cession out of the State of North Carolina, provided they had made actual settlement thereon and had been deprived of the possession thereof by the operation of the act of May 19, 1796, for regulating intercourse with the Indian tribes. The sum to be appropriated, it was declared, should be subject to the order of the President of the United States, to be expended under his direction, either in extinguishing the Indian claim to the lands in question, by holding a treaty for that purpose, or to be disposed of in such other manner as he should deem best calculated to afford the persons described a temporary relief. _New treaty._--The House of Representatives, on considering the subject, passed a resolution directing the Secretary of War to lay before them such information as he possessed relative to the running of a line of experiment from Clinch River to Chilhowie Mountain by order of Governor Blount, to which the Secretary responded on the 5th of January, 1798.[109] Following this, on the 8th of the same month, President Adams communicated a message to the Senate, setting forth that the situation of affairs between some of the citizens of the United States and the Cherokees had evinced the propriety of holding a treaty with that nation, to extinguish by purchase their right to certain parcels of land and to adjust and settle other points relative to the safety and convenience of the citizens of the United States. With this view he nominated Fisher Ames, of Massachusetts, Bushrod Washington, of Virginia, and Alfred Moore, of North Carolina, to be commissioners, having authority to hold conferences and conclude a treaty with the Cherokees for the purposes indicated.[110] The Senate concurred in the advisability of the proposed treaty, but Fisher Ames and Bushrod Washington having declined, George Walton and John Steele were associated with Mr. Moore, and detailed instructions were given for their guidance.[111] By these instructions they were vested jointly and severally with full powers to negotiate and conclude a treaty with the Cherokees, limited only by the scope of the instructions themselves. The Cherokee agent had already been directed to notify the Indians and the commandant of United States troops in Tennessee to furnish an escort sufficient for the protection of the negotiations. _Further purchase of Cherokee lands proposed._--The commissioners were directed as a primary consideration to secure, if possible, the consent of the Cherokees to the sale of such part of their lands as would give a more convenient form to the State of Tennessee and conduce to the protection of its citizens. Especially was it desirable to obtain their consent to the immediate return of such settlers as had intruded on their lands and in consequence had been removed by the United States troops, such consent to be predicated on the theory that the Cherokees were willing to treat for the sale to the United States of the lands upon which these people had settled. They were directed to renew the unsuccessful effort made by Governor Blount in 1791 to secure the consent of the Cherokees that the boundary should begin at the mouth of Duck River and run up the middle of that stream to its source and thence by a line drawn to the mouth of Clinch River. The following alternative boundary propositions were directed to be submitted for the consideration of the Indians, in their numerical order, viz: 1. A line (represented on an accompanying map by a red dotted line) from a point on the ridge dividing the waters of the Cumberland from the Tennessee River, in a southwest direction, until it should strike the mouth of Duck River; thence from the mouth to the main source of the river; thence by a line over the highest ridges of the Cumberland Mountains to the mouth of Clinch River; thence down the middle of the Tennessee River till it struck the divisional line under the treaties of 1791 and 1794; thence along said line to its crossing of the Cunchee Creek running into Tuckasegee; thence to the Great Iron Mountains; thence a southeasterly course to where the most southerly branch of Little River crossed the divisional line to Tugaloo River. 2. A line (represented on said map by a double red line) beginning at the point 40 miles above Nashville, as ascertained by the commissioners (and laid down on said map); thence due east till it struck the dotted line on Cumberland Mountains; along said mountains to the junction of Clinch and Tennessee Rivers; and down the Tennessee to the extent of the boundary described in the first proposition. 3. A line (dotted blue) beginning at a point 56 miles from the point 40 miles above Nashville, on the northeast divisional line, being 1-1/2 miles south of the road called Walton's or Caney Fork road; thence on a course at the same distance from the said road to where it crosses Clinch River; thence resuming the remaining boundary as described in the first proposition. 4. A line (being a double blue line on the map) beginning at a point one mile south of the junction of the Clinch and Tennessee Rivers; thence westerly along the course of the road 1-1/2 miles south thereof until it entered into Cumberland Mountains; thence a northeasterly course along the ridges of said mountains on the west of Powell's Valley and River to the source of the river next above Clear Fork, and thence down the middle of the same to the northeast divisional line; the Tennessee River and the further line thence, as described in the first proposition, to be the remaining boundary. In case the Indians should accept the first proposition and cede the tract therein described, or a greater quantity, the commissioners were to solemnly guarantee the Cherokees the remainder of their country and agree to their payment by the United States of either an annuity of $4,000, or to deliver them, on the signing of the treaty, goods to the amount of $5,000 and the further sum of $20,000 in four equal annual installments. Refusing the first and accepting the second proposition, they were to receive the same guarantee, and an annuity of $3,000, or $5,000 at once in goods and $15,000 in three equal annual installments. Refusing the first and second and accepting the third proposition, the same guarantee was offered and an annuity of $2,000, or $5,000 in goods on signing the treaty and $10,000 in two equal annual installments. Accepting the fourth proposition, to the exclusion of the other three, the same guarantee was to be given, together with an annuity of $1,000, or $5,000 in goods on signing the treaty and the same amount during the year 1799. It was also represented by the Secretary of War that the arts and practices used to obtain Indian land in defiance of treaties and the laws, at the risk of involving the whole country in war, had become so daring, and received such countenance from persons of prominent influence, as to render it necessary that the means to countervail them should be augmented. To this end, as well as to more effectually secure to the United States the advantages of the land which should be obtained by the treaty, the commissioners were instructed to secure the insertion into the treaty of provisions of the following import: 1. That the new line should be run and marked by two commissioners, one of whom should be appointed by the treaty commissioners and the other by the Indians. They should proceed immediately upon the signing of the treaty to the execution of that duty, upon the completion of which three maps thereof should be prepared, one for the use of the Secretary of War, one for the executive of the State of Tennessee, and one for the Cherokees. 2. That the Cherokees should at all times permit the President of the United States to employ military force within their boundaries for the arrest and removal of all persons seeking to make unauthorized negotiations with or to incite their hostility toward the United States or any of its citizens, or toward any foreign nation or Indian nation or tribe within the limits and under the protection of the United States; also, of all persons who should settle on or who should attempt to reside in the Indian country without the written permission of the President. 3. That the treaty should not be construed either to affect the right or title of any ejected settler upon the Indian lands to the tract theretofore occupied by him or in any manner to enlarge his right or claim thereto; and that all Indian land purchased by the contemplated treaty, which had not been actually occupied as aforesaid, should remain subject to the operation of all the provisions of the proposed as well as any former treaty and of the laws of the United States relative to Indian country, until such time as said lands should be sold by and under the authority of the United States. This provision was intended to prevent any further intrusion on any part of the land ceded by the State of North Carolina to the United States; as also upon the land set apart to the Cherokee Indians by the State of North Carolina, by act of her legislature, passed May 17, 1783, described as follows, viz: "Beginning on the Tennessee, where the southern boundary of this State intersects the same, nearest to the Chicamauga towns; thence up the middle of the Tennessee and Holston to the middle of French Broad; thence up the middle of French Broad River (which lines are not to include any island or islands in the said river) to the mouth of Big Pigeon River; thence up the same to the head thereof; thence along the dividing ridge, between the waters of Pigeon River and Tuckasege River, to the southern boundary of this State." 4. The United States should have the right to establish such military posts and garrisons within the Indian limits for their protection as should be deemed proper. In case it should be found impracticable to obtain Duck River or a line that should include within it the road leading from Southwest Point to Cumberland River for a boundary, the commissioners were to stipulate for certain parcels of land lying on such road at convenient distances from each other for the establishment of houses of entertainment for travelers. Also in case the cession obtained should not include both sides of the ferry on Clinch River, to secure a limitation upon the rates of toll that should be charged by the occupant. The commissioners repaired to Knoxville, where they ascertained it to be the desire of the Indians that the treaty negotiations should be held at Oostenaula, the Cherokee capital. To this the commissioners objected, but agreed to meet the Indians at Chota, which they concluded to change to Tuckasege, and, finally, before the date fixed for the meeting, June 25, again changed it to Tellico, where the conference was held.[112] _Tennessee commissioners attend the council._--In the mean time[113] Governor Sevier of Tennessee designated General Robertson, James Stuart, and Lachlan McIntosh as agents to represent the interests of that State at the treaty, and gave them minute instructions covering the following points,[114] viz: 1. To obtain as wide an extinguishment of the Cherokee claim north of the Tennessee River as possible. 2. An unimpeded communication of Holston and Clinch Rivers with the Tennessee and the surrender of the west bank of the Clinch opposite South-West Point. 3. To secure from future molestation the settlements as far as they had progressed on the northern and western borders of the State and the connection of Hamilton and Mero districts, then separated by a space of unextinguished hunting ground 80 miles wide. 4. To examine into the nature and validity of the claim recently set up by the Cherokees to lands north of the Tennessee River; whether it rested upon original right or was derived from treaties; or was founded only upon temporary use or occupancy. The council opened early in July. The "Bloody Fellow," a Cherokee chief, at the outset delivered a paper which he stated to contain their final resolutions, and which covered a peremptory refusal to sell any land or to permit the ejected settlers to return to their homes. After seeking in vain to shake this determination of the Cherokees, further negotiations were postponed until the ensuing fall, and the commissioners departed. On the 27th of August, the Secretary of War addressed some additional instructions upon the subject to George Walton and Lieut. Col. Thomas Butler as commissioners (John Steele having resigned and Alfred Moore having returned to his home in North Carolina), authorizing them to renew the negotiations. The original instructions were to form the basis of these negotiations, but if it should be found impracticable to induce the Indians to accede to either of the first three propositions, an abandonment of them was to take place, and resort was to be had to the fourth proposition, which might be altered in any manner as to boundaries calculated to secure the most advantageous results to the United States.[115] The council was resumed at Tellico on the 20th of September, but it was found, during the progress thereof, that there was no possibility of effecting the primary objects of the State agents of Tennessee. General Robertson failed to attend. General White (who had been appointed in the place of Stuart) was there, but Mr. McIntosh resigned and Governor Sevier himself attended in person. The treaty was finally concluded on the 2d of October, by which a cession was secured covering most of the territory contemplated by the fourth proposition, with something additional. It included most if not all the lands from which settlers had been ejected by the United States troops, and they were permitted to return to their homes. The road privilege sought to be obtained between East and Middle Tennessee was also realized, except as to the establishment of houses of entertainment for travelers.[116] President Adams transmitted the treaty to the Senate,[117] and that body advised and consented to its ratification. _Boundary lines surveyed._--In fulfillment of the provisions of the fifth article of the treaty concerning the survey of boundary lines, the President appointed Captain Butler as a commissioner to run that portion of the line described as extending from Great Iron Mountain in a southeasterly direction to the point where the most southerly branch of Little River crossed the divisional line to Tugaloo River, which trust he executed in the summer of 1799.[118] Owing to the unfortunate destruction of official records by fire, in the year 1800, it is impossible to ascertain all the details concerning this survey, but it was executed on the theory that the "Little River" named in the treaty was one of the northernmost branches of Keowee River. This survey seems not to have been accepted by the War Department, for on the 3d of June, 1802, instructions were issued by the Secretary of War to Return J. Meigs, as a commissioner, to superintend the execution of the survey of this same portion of the boundary. Mr. Thomas Freeman was appointed surveyor.[119] From the letter of Commissioner Meigs, transmitting the plat and field notes of survey,[120] it appears that much difference of opinion had existed as to what stream was meant by the "Little River" named in the treaty, there being three streams of that name in that vicinity. Two of these were branches of the French Broad and the other of Keowee River. If the line should be run to the lower one of these two branches of the French Broad, it would leave more than one hundred families of white settlers within the Indian territory. If it were run to the branch of Keowee River, it would leave ten or twelve Indian villages within the State of North Carolina. It was therefore determined by Commissioner Meigs to accept the upper branch of French Broad as the true intent and meaning of the treaty, and the line was run accordingly, whereby not a single white settlement was cut off or intersected, and but five Indian families were left on the Carolina side of the line.[121] _Status of certain territory._--In this connection it is pertinent to remark that the State of North Carolina claimed for her southern boundary the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude. The line of this parallel was, however, at that time supposed to run about 12 miles to the north of what was subsequently ascertained to be its true location. Between this supposed line of 35° north latitude and the northernmost boundary of Georgia, as settled upon by a convention between that State and South Carolina in 1787, there intervened a tract of country of about 12 miles in width, from north to south, and extending from east to west, from the top of the main ridge of mountains which divides the eastern from the western waters to the Mississippi River. This tract remained, as was supposed, within the chartered limits of South Carolina, and in the year 1787 was ceded by that State to the United States, subject to the Indian right of occupancy. When the Indian title to the country therein described was ceded to the United States by the treaty of 1798 with the Cherokees, the eastern portion of this 12-mile tract fell within the limits of such cession. On its eastern extremity near the head-waters of the French Broad River, immediately at the foot of the main Blue Ridge Mountains, had been located, for a number of years prior to the treaty, a settlement of about fifty families of whites, who by its ratification became occupants of the public domain of the United States, but who were outside the territorial jurisdiction of any State. These settlers petitioned Congress to retrocede the tract of country upon which they resided to South Carolina, in order that they might be brought within the protection of the laws of that State.[122] A resolution was reported in the House of Representatives, from the committee to whom the subject had been referred, favoring such a course,[123] but Congress took no effective action on the subject, and when the State boundaries came to be finally adjusted in that region the tract in question was found to be within the limits of North Carolina. _Yellow Creek settlement._--After that portion of the boundary of the country ceded by the treaty of 1798 which extended along the foot of Cumberland Mountain until it intersected "Campbell's Line" had been surveyed, complaint was made by certain settlers on Yellow Creek that by the action of the surveyors in not prolonging the line to its true point of termination, their homes had been left within the Indian country. Thereupon the Secretary of War instructed Agent Meigs[124] to go in person and examine the line as surveyed with a view to ascertaining the truth concerning the complaints. It was ascertained that the "point" of Campbell's Line was not on Cumberland Mountain proper, but on the ridge immediately east thereof, known as Poor Valley Ridge. This ridge is nearly as lofty as the main range, and Colonel Campbell, in approaching it from the east, had mistaken it for that range and established his terminal point accordingly. The surveyors under the treaty of 1798, assuming the correctness of Colonel Campbell's survey, had made the line of their survey close thereon. By such action the Indian boundary in that locality was extended 332 poles further to the east than would have been the case had the true reading of the treaty been followed. A number of families of settlers on Yellow Creek, together with a tract of about 2,500 acres of land, were thus unfortunately left within the Indian country. All efforts of Agent Meigs to secure a relinquishment of this strip of territory from the Indians were, however, ineffectual.[125] [Footnote 105: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 496.] [Footnote 106: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 62.] [Footnote 107: This address and remonstrance will be found in full in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, page 625.] [Footnote 108: December 20, 1797.] [Footnote 109: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 629.] [Footnote 110: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 631.] [Footnote 111: These instructions were dated March 2, 1798. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 639] [Footnote 112: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 693, 695.] [Footnote 113: June 20, 1798.] [Footnote 114: Ramsey's Annals of Tennessee, pp. 693, 695.] [Footnote 115: American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 640.] [Footnote 116: By act of September 27, 1794, the legislature of the territory southwest of the Ohio authorized the raising of a fund for cutting and clearing a wagon road from Southwest Point to Bledsoe's Lick on the Cumberland. The funds for this purpose were to be raised by a lottery managed by Cols. James White, James Winchester, Stockley Donelson, David Campbell, William Cocke, and Robert Hayes. The Indians not having granted the necessary right of way, its construction was necessarily postponed, but subsequently, by act of the legislature of Tennessee passed November 14, 1801, the Cumberland Road Company was incorporated and required to cut and clear a road from the Indian boundary on the east side of Cumberland Mountain to the fork of the roads leading to Fort Blount and Walton's Ferry.] [Footnote 117: January 15, 1799.] [Footnote 118: See letter of General Pickens to Representative Nott, of South Carolina, January 1, 1800. American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 103.] [Footnote 119: Letter of Secretary of War to Return J. Meigs, in Indian Office records.] [Footnote 120: Dated October 20, 1802.] [Footnote 121: Commissioner Meigs mentions that the accompanying plat and field notes of Mr. Freeman, the surveyor, will give more abundant details regarding this survey. After a careful search, however, no trace has been found among the Indian Office records and files of the plat and field notes in question. There is much difficulty in ascertaining the exact point of departure of "Meigs Line" from Great Iron Mountains. In the report of the Tennessee and North Carolina boundary commissioners in 1821 it is stated to be 31-1/2 miles by the course of the mountain ridge in a general southwesterly course from the crossing of Cataluche Turnpike; 9-1/2 miles in a similar direction from Porter's Gap; 21-1/2 miles in a northeasterly direction from the crossing of Equovetley Path, and 33-1/2 miles in a like course from the crossing of Tennessee River. All of these courses and distances follow the crest of the Great Iron Mountains. It is stated to the author, by General R. N. Hood, of Knoxville, Tenn., that there is a tradition that "Meigs Post" was found some years since about 1-1/2 miles southwest of Indian Gap. A map of the survey of Qualla Boundary, by M. S. Temple, in 1876, shows a portion of the continuation of "Meigs Line" as passing about 1-1/2 miles east of Quallatown. Surveyor Temple mentions it as running "S. 50° E. (formerly S. 52-1/2° E.")] [Footnote 122: See memorial of Matthew Patterson and others, dated "French Broad, 8th January, 1800," printed in American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 104.] [Footnote 123: This resolution was reported by Mr. Harper, from the committee to whom it was referred, to the House of Representatives, April 7, 1800, and is printed in American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 103.] [Footnote 124: February 7, 1803. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 125: See report of Agent Return J. Meigs to the Secretary of War, May 5, 1803, on file in the Office of Indian Affairs.] TREATY CONCLUDED OCTOBER 24, 1804; PROCLAIMED MAY 17, 1824.[126] _Held at "Tellico Block House," Tennessee, between Daniel Smith and Return J. Meigs, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the principal chiefs representing the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. It is agreed and stipulated that-- 1. The Cherokee Nation relinquish and cede to the United States a tract of land bounding southerly on the boundary line between the State of Georgia and the Cherokee Nation, beginning at a point on the said boundary line northeasterly of the most northeast plantation in the settlement known by the name of Wafford's Settlement, and running at right angles with the said boundary line 4 miles into the Cherokee land, thence at right angles southwesterly and parallel to the first mentioned boundary line so far as that a line to be run at right angles southerly to the said first mentioned boundary line shall include in this cession all the plantations in Wafford's Settlement, so called, as aforesaid. 2. In consideration of this cession the United States agree to pay the Cherokees $5,000, in goods or cash, upon the signing of the treaty, and an annuity of $1,000. HISTORICAL DATA. NEW TREATY AUTHORIZED BY CONGRESS. Congress, under date of February 19, 1799,[127] appropriated $25,000 to defray the expense of negotiating a treaty or treaties with the Indians, and again, on the 13th of May, 1800,[128] appropriated $15,000 to defray the expense of holding a treaty or treaties with the Indian tribes southwest of the Ohio River, with the proviso that nothing in the act should be construed to admit an obligation on the part of the United States to extinguish for the benefit of any State or individual the Indian claim to any lands lying within the limits of the United States. Pursuant to the authority conferred by these enactments, President Jefferson appointed[129] General James Wilkinson, Wm. R. Davie, and Benj. Hawkins as commissioners, and they were instructed by the Secretary of War to proceed to negotiate treaties with the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. _Objects of the treaty._--The objects sought to be attained with the Cherokees were to secure their consent, 1st. To cede to the United States all that portion of their territory lying to the northward of a direct line to be run from a point mentioned in treaty of October 2, 1798, on Tennessee River, 1 mile above its junction with the Clinch, to the point at or near the head of the West Fork of Stone's River, on the ridge dividing the waters of the Cumberland and Duck Rivers which is struck by a southwest line from the point where the Kentucky road crosses Cumberland River, as described in the treaty of Holston. 2. That the Tennessee River should be the boundary from its mouth to the mouth of Duck River; that Duck River should be the boundary thence to the mouth of Rock Creek; and that a direct line should be run for a continuation of the boundary from the mouth of Rock Creek to the point on the ridge that divides the waters of Cumberland from Duck River. 3. That a road should be opened from the boundary line to a circular tract on Tennessee River at the mouth of Bear River, reserved to the United States by treaty of 1786 with the Chickasaws. From this point the road should continue until it reached the Choctaw territory, where it was to connect with a road through the country of the latter to Natchez. The entire line of this road must be open to the free use of citizens of the United States. 4. In case the Indians should refuse to cede any of the lands designated, the commissioners were instructed to obtain, if possible, a cession of all the land lying northward of the road leading from Knoxville to the Nashville settlements, run conformably to the treaty of 1791. If they should be unwilling to grant this, then to ask for a strip of land from 1 to 5 miles in width, to include the said road in its whole extent across their lands. Whether success or failure should attend the first or second objects of their mission, the commissioners were to seek the consummation of the third proposition for a road to the Bear Creek reservation, which would otherwise be of no practical value to the United States. If consent was obtained to the first three proposals or to the alternative marked 4th, an annuity of $1,000 was authorized and an immediate sum not exceeding $5,000 in cash or goods. If, as had been represented to the War Department, the Cherokees and Chickasaws both claimed the land on either side of Tennessee River for a considerable distance, the commissioners were instructed that they must obtain the assent of both tribes to the opening of the road. Six days after the issuance of these instructions, a delegation of Cherokees, headed by Chief "Glass," arrived in Washington, and obtained an interview with the Secretary of War.[130] They represented that the promise had been made them, at the treaty of 1798, that they would never be asked to cede any more land. Now they learned that the United States was about to hold another treaty with them to secure further cessions. They also desired to know whether the United States or the settlers got the land theretofore ceded, and why they had not been furnished with the map showing the boundary lines by the treaty of 1798, as had been promised them. In his reply,[131] after seeing the President, the Secretary of War informed them that no desire existed to purchase any more land from them unless they were anxious to sell; that the map should be at once furnished them; that the States of Kentucky and Tennessee had been formed out of the lands already purchased from them, and the main object of the proposed treaty with their nation was to secure the right of way for roads through their country in order to maintain communication between detached white settlements. The delegation strenuously objected to the proposed "Georgia" road and were informed that the matter would not be pressed, but that the road to Bear River and Natchez was a necessity. As a result of the visit of this delegation, the instructions to Messrs. Wilkinson, Davie, and Hawkins were modified,[131] it being stated by the Secretary of War that he had been mistaken as to part of the line between the United States and the Cherokees. He therefore directed that the second object of their instructions should be suspended as regarded both the Cherokees and the Chickasaws. Commissioner Davie having declined his appointment, General Andrew Pickens was substituted in his stead.[132] _Failure of negotiations._--It is only necessary to observe that the commissioners failed in the accomplishment of any of their designs with the Cherokees. WAFFORD'S SETTLEMENT. Prior to the survey and marking of the boundary line near Currahee Mountain in Georgia, provided for by the Cherokee treaty of 1785 and the Creek treaty of 1790, which survey did not occur until 1798, one Colonel Wafford, in company with sundry other persons, had formed a settlement in that vicinity, which proved to be within the limits of the Indian country. Inasmuch as it was supposed these parties had ignorantly placed themselves within the Indian line and had made considerable and valuable improvements, the Government was indisposed to use harsh or forcible means for their ejection, but rather approved of the urgent appeals from Colonel Wafford and his neighbors to make an effort to secure the relinquishment from the Indians of a tract sufficient to embrace their settlement. The Government had been laboring under the impression that these lands belonged to the Creeks, but the delegation of the Cherokees, headed by "The Glass," who visited Washington in the summer of 1801, claimed them as Cherokee territory, and asked for the removal of the settlers. Commissioners Wilkinson, Hawkins, and Pickens had been instructed[133] to negotiate with the Creeks for the purchase of this tract, but they having reported, upon examination, that the title was undoubtedly in the Cherokees, were directed[134] to report upon the expediency of applying to the Cherokees for a cession of the same. Such an application having at this time been unfavorably received by the Cherokees, nothing further was done in the matter until the winter of 1803,[135] when the Secretary of War directed a conference to be held with them for the double purpose of securing a cession or a lease for seven years of the "Wafford Settlement" tract and the Indian consent to a right of way for a road through their country from Southwest Point or Tellico Factory to Athens, Ga., with the establishment of the necessary houses of entertainment for travelers along such route. For this latter concession he was authorized to offer them the sum of $500. The Cherokees having refused both these propositions, Agent Meigs was directed[136] to secure the granting of the road privilege, if possible, by offering Vann[137] and other men of influence among them a proper inducement to enlist their active co-operation in the matter. This latter method seems to have been effective, for later in the season[138] the Secretary of War transmitted to the governors of Georgia and Tennessee an extract from an agreement entered into with the Cherokees providing for an opening of the desired road, stating that, as the United States had no funds applicable to the laying out and construction of such a road, it would be proper for the legislatures of those States to make the necessary provision therefor. The clamor for more land by the constant tide of immigration that was flowing into Kentucky, Tennessee, and Georgia from the North and East became more and more importunate. The desire to settle on Indian land was as potent and insatiable with the average border settler then as it is now. FURTHER NEGOTIATIONS AUTHORIZED. Notwithstanding the recent and oft-repeated refusals of the Cherokees to part with more land, a new commission, consisting of Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith, was appointed and instructed[139] by the Secretary of War to negotiate a treaty for the cession of lands in Kentucky, Tennessee, or Georgia, and particularly of the tract near the Currahee Mountain, including the Wafford settlement. They were authorized to pay for the first cession a sum not exceeding $14,000, coupled with an annuity of $3,000, and for the "Wafford tract" not exceeding $5,000, together with an annuity of $1,000, and were directed to give "Vann," a Cherokee chief, $200 or $300 to secure his influence in favor of the proposed purchase. _Purchase of Wafford settlement tract._--In pursuance of these instructions a conference was held with the Cherokees at Tellico, Tenn.,[140] at which they concluded the arrangements for the cession of the Wafford tract, but failed in their further objects. The treaty was signed on the 24th of October, and transmitted to the Secretary of War a week later,[141] two persons having been appointed to designate and run the lines of the ceded tract, which was found to be 23 miles and 64 chains in length and 4 miles in width.[142] _Singular disappearance of treaty._--No action having been taken looking toward the ratification of this treaty for several years ensuing, Return J. Meigs, in the winter of 1811,[143] addressed a letter to the Secretary of War calling attention to it, setting forth the fact that its consideration had theretofore been postponed on account of a misunderstanding in relation to the limits of the ceded tract, but that the Cherokees had now of their own motion, and at their own expense, had a survey made of 10 miles and 12 chains in length in addition to the original survey, which would make the tract ceded 33 miles and 76 chains in length, and which would include the plantation of every settler who could make the shadow of a claim to settlement prior to the survey of the general boundary line run in 1797[144] by Colonel Hawkins. He therefore concluded that there could be no reason for further postponing the ratification of the treaty, and urged that it be done without delay. Notwithstanding this letter of Agent Meigs no further notice seems to have been taken of the treaty, and it had been entirely lost sight of until attention was again called to it by a Cherokee delegation visiting Washington early in 1824, nearly twenty years after its conclusion.[145] After diligent search among the records of the War Department, Secretary Calhoun reported[146] that no such treaty could be found and no evidence that any such treaty had ever been concluded. Whereupon the Cherokee delegation produced their duplicate copy of the treaty together with other papers relating to it. The Secretary of War, after receiving a reply[147] to a letter addressed by him to Colonel McKee, of the House of Representatives (who was one of the subscribing witnesses to the treaty), became satisfied of its authenticity, and the President thereupon[148] transmitted the Cherokee duplicate to the Senate, which body advised and consented to its ratification. It was duly proclaimed by the President on the 17th of May, 1824.[149] [Footnote 142: Commissioner Smith in his letter of October 31, 1804, to the Secretary of War, states that two persons on the part of the United States, to be accompanied by two Cherokee chiefs, had been designated to run the boundaries of this cession. The propriety was then urged on the Cherokees by the commissioners of making a cession of the lands lying between East and West Tennessee. Several days were consumed in urging this proposal, and a majority of the chiefs were probably in favor of it, but Commissioner Smith remarks that a majority, unless it amounts almost to unanimity, is not considered with them sufficient to determine in matters of great interest, particularly in making cessions of lands.] [Footnote 126: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 228.] [Footnote 127: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. I, p. 618.] [Footnote 128: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. II, p. 82.] [Footnote 129: The President's appointment of these commissioners bore date of June 18, 1801.] [Footnote 130: This interview occurred, as shown by the Indian Office records, on the 30th of June, 1801, and was adjourned to meet again on the 3d of July.] [Footnote 131: July 3, 1801. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 132: July 16, 1801. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 133: July 17, 1801. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 134: June 10, 1802. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 135: February 19, 1803. See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 136: May 30, 1803.] [Footnote 137: "Vann" was a half-breed of considerable ability and shrewdness, and was at this time perhaps the most influential chief among the Cherokees. His home was on the route of the proposed Georgia road, and when the road was constructed he opened a store and house of entertainment for travelers, from which he derived a considerable income.] [Footnote 138: Letter of Secretary of War to governors of Georgia and Tennessee, dated November 21, 1803.] [Footnote 139: April 4, 1804.] [Footnote 140: October 10, 1804. See letter of Daniel Smith to Secretary of War, October 31, 1804.] [Footnote 141: October 31, 1804.] [Footnote 143: December 20, 1811.] [Footnote 144: It is stated in a resolution of the Georgia legislature, passed June 16, 1802, that this line was surveyed by Colonel Hawkins in 1798.] [Footnote 145: The letter of the Cherokee delegation calling attention to this matter is dated January 19, 1824.] [Footnote 146: February 6, 1824.] [Footnote 147: April 15, 1824.] [Footnote 148: April 30,1824.] [Footnote 149: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 228.] TREATY CONCLUDED OCTOBER 25, 1805; PROCLAIMED APRIL 24, 1806.[150] _Held at Tellico, Tenn., between Return J. Meigs and, Daniel Smith, commissioners on behalf of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen of the Cherokees, representing that nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. All former treaties providing for peace and prevention of crimes are continued in force. 2. The Cherokees cede to the United States all the land which they have heretofore claimed lying to the north of the following boundary line: Beginning at the mouth of Duck River; thence up the main stream of the same to the junction of the fork at the head of which Fort Nash stood, with the main south fork; thence a direct course to a point on the Tennessee River bank opposite the mouth of Hiwassa River. If the line from Hiwassa should leave out Field's settlement, it is to be marked around his improvement and then continued the straight course; thence up the middle of the Tennessee River (but leaving all the islands to the Cherokees) to the mouth of Clinch River; thence up the Clinch River to the former boundary line agreed upon with the said Cherokees, reserving at the same time to the use of the Cherokees a small tract lying at and below the mouth of Clinch River; from the mouth extending thence down the Tennessee River from the mouth of Clinch to a notable rock on the north bank of the Tennessee in view from Southwest Point; thence a course at right angles with the river to the Cumberland road; thence eastwardly along the same to the bank of Clinch River, so as to secure the ferry landing to the Cherokees up to the first hill and down the same to the mouth thereof, together with two other sections of one square mile each, one of which is at the foot of Cumberland Mountain, at and near the place where the turnpike gate now stands, the other on the north bank of the Tennessee River where the Cherokee Talootiske now lives. And whereas from the present cession made by the Cherokees, and other circumstances, the sites of the garrisons at Southwest Point and Tellico are become not the most convenient and suitable places for the accommodation of the said Indians, it may become expedient to remove the said garrisons and factory to some more suitable place; three other square miles are reserved for the particular disposal of the United States on the north bank of the Tennessee opposite to and below the mouth of Hiwassa. 3. In consideration of the foregoing cession the United States agree to pay $3,000 at once in merchandise, $11,000 in 90 days, and an annuity of $3,000. 4. The United States to have the use of two roads through the Cherokee country, one from the head of Stone's River to Georgia road, and the other from Franklin to the Tombigbee settlements, crossing the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals. 5. Treaty to take effect upon ratification by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. [Footnote 150: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 93.] TREATY CONCLUDED OCTOBER 27, 1805; PROCLAIMED JUNE 10, 1806.[151] _Held at Tellico, Tenn., between Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith, commissioners on behalf of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen of the Cherokees, representing that nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The Cherokees cede the section of land at Southwest Point, extending to Kingston, reserving the ferries and the first island in Tennessee River above the mouth of Clinch River. 2. The Cherokees consent to the free and unmolested use by the United States of the mail road from Tellico to Tombigbee so far as it passes through their country. 3. In consideration of the foregoing the United States agree to pay the Cherokees $1,600 within 90 days. 4. Treaty to be obligatory on ratification by the President by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. HISTORICAL DATA RESPECTING BOTH TREATIES. CONTINUED NEGOTIATIONS AUTHORIZED. The commissioners (Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith) who were appointed and instructed under date of April 4,1804, and who negotiated the treaty of October 24, 1804, with the Cherokees, it will be remembered, failed in the object of their instructions, except as to the single matter of securing the cession of a tract covering the settlement of Colonel Wafford and others near Currahee Mountain. They were, however, directed to continue their negotiations from time to time until the full measure of their original instructions should be secured. _Treaties of October 25 and 27, 1805, considered together._--This course was pursued, and after several fruitless conferences the commissioners succeeded in concluding the treaties of October 25, 1805, and October 27, 1805. Inasmuch as these two treaties were negotiated by the same commissioners, acting under the same instructions and at the same conference, they will be considered together. The treaties were upon their conclusion transmitted to the Secretary of War,[152] and, upon submission to the Senate, that body duly advised and consented to their ratification. They were ratified and proclaimed by the President on the 24th of April and 10th of June, 1806, respectively.[153] _Secret agreement with Doublehead._--Following the transmission of the treaties to the Secretary of War by the commissioners, the latter addressed[154] an explanatory communication to him, in which they set forth that by the terms of the treaty of October 25, 1805, there were reserved three square miles of land, "for the particular disposal of the United States, on the north bank of the Tennessee, opposite and below the mouth of Hiwassa." This reservation, they affirmed, was predicated ostensibly on the supposition that the garrison at Southwest Point and the United States factory at Tellico would be placed thereon during the pleasure of the United States, but that they had stipulated with "Doublehead," a Cherokee chief, that whenever the United States should find this land unnecessary for the purposes mentioned it was to revert to him (Doublehead), provided that he should retain one of the square miles to his own use, but should relinquish his right and claim to the other two sections in favor of John D. Chisholm and John Riley in equal shares. _Purchase of site for State capital._--The cession by the treaty of October 27, 1805, of the section of land at Southwest Point was secured upon the theory that the State of Tennessee would find Kingston a convenient and desirable place for the establishment of the State capital. A subsequent change of circumstances and public sentiment, however, caused it to be located seven years later at Nashville. _Boundaries surveyed._--On the 11th of July, 1806, the Secretary of War notified Return J. Meigs of his appointment as commissioner to superintend the running and marking of the line "from the junction of the fork at the head of which Fort Nash stood with the main south fork of Duck River to a point on the Tennessee River bank opposite the mouth of Hiwassee River." He was also to superintend the survey of the lines of the reserved tracts agreeably to the treaty of October 25, 1805. He was directed to appoint a surveyor, but before running the line from Duck to Tennessee Rivers above described, to have him survey and mark the lines of the 3-mile tract reserved opposite to and below the mouth of Hiwassee, and also, when completed, to designate the most suitable site for the military post, factory, and agency, each site to be 300 feet square and 40 rods distant from the others. Commissioner Meigs followed the letter of his instructions and caused the lines to be surveyed in accordance therewith. The line from Duck River to the mouth of Hiwassee was begun on the 9th and finished on the 26th of October, 1806. The point of departure at the west end of the boundary line was a red elm tree, trimmed and topped, standing on the extreme point of land formed by the confluence of that branch of Duck River at the head of which Fort Nash stood, with the main south fork of the river. The eastern terminus of the line was a mulberry tree on the north bank of Tennessee River opposite the mouth of Hiwassee River, 73 miles and 166 poles from the beginning.[155] CONTROVERSY CONCERNING "DOUBLEHEAD" TRACT. Colonel Martin, who was employed by Commissioner Meigs, also surveyed under the latter's direction during the same month the four small reserved tracts described in the treaty of October 25, 1805.[155] One of these afterwards produced much controversy. The language of the treaty called for three square miles on the north bank of Tennessee River, _opposite to and below_ the mouth of Hiwassee River. Colonel Meigs, who was one of the commissioners who negotiated the treaty and was therefore entirely familiar with its intent, caused this tract to be surveyed adjoining the main line of cession, extending from Duck River to the mouth of Hiwassee and north of that line, which placed the tract opposite to and _above_ the mouth of Hiwassee, instead of "opposite to and below" the mouth of that river.[156] As above stated, while this reserve was ostensibly for the location of a military post and factory or trading establishment, it was really intended for the Cherokee chief Doublehead and other influential persons, as the price of their influence in securing from the Cherokees the extensive cession of land granted by the treaty. This was sought to be secured by means of a secret article attached to the treaty. This article was reported to the War Department by the treaty commissioners[157] and made a matter of record, but it was never sent to the State Department nor to the Senate for the advice and consent of that body. After Agent Meigs had erected the Hiwassee garrison buildings on the tract, suit was brought in 1809 by Colonel McLung against the agent for the recovery of the land and mesne profits, basing his claim to title upon a grant from the State of North Carolina, of date long prior to the treaty of 1805. The suit was decided in the plaintiff's favor by the Tennessee courts. Subsequently, in 1838, John Riley made application to the Government for compensation for the loss of his one-third interest in this tract. The question was submitted to the Attorney-General of the United States for his opinion. He decided that the secret article, not having been submitted to the Senate for approval, was not to be considered as any part of the treaty; but that, if the commissioners had any authority for making such an agreement, the defective execution of their powers ought not to prejudice parties acting in good faith and relying on their authority; nevertheless, no relief could be had except through the action of Congress. This secret article was also applicable to the small tract at and below the mouth of Clinch River, to the 1 mile square at the foot of Cumberland Mountain, and to the 1 mile square on the north bank of the Tennessee River, where Cherokee Talootiske lived. The first mentioned tract was also intended for the benefit of Doublehead, who leased it February 19, 1806, to Thomas H. Clark for twenty years. Before the expiration of the lease Doublehead was killed by some of his own people. December 10, 1820, the State of Tennessee assumed to grant the tract to Clark.[158] The other two tracts alluded to of one square mile each were intended for Cherokee Talootiske. May 31, 1808, Talootiske perpetually leased his interest in the Cumberland Mountain tract to Thomas H. Clark. September 17, 1816, Clark purchased the interest of Robert Bell in the same tract, the latter deriving his alleged title under a grant from North Carolina to A. McCoy in July, 1793. This tract was also included in a grant from North Carolina to J. W. Lackey and Starkey Donaldson, dated January 4, 1795. The tract on Tennessee River, Talootiske sold to Robert King, whose assigns also claimed the title under the aforesaid grant from North Carolina to Lackey and Donaldson.[158] From the phraseology of the treaty in making these several reservations, it was concluded advisable in subsequent negotiations to secure a relinquishment of the tribal title thereto, which was done by the treaty of July 18, 1817. [Footnote 151: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 95.] [Footnote 152: November 2, 1805. See letter of transmittal of Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith.] [Footnote 153: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, pp. 93 and 95.] [Footnote 154: January 10, 1806.] [Footnote 155: See field notes of Colonel Martin on file in office of Indian Affairs.] [Footnote 156: Letter of R. J. Meigs to Secretary of War, March 4, 1811.] [Footnote 157: Letter of Meigs and Smith to Secretary of War, January 10, 1806.] TREATY CONCLUDED JANUARY 7, 1806; PROCLAIMED MAY 23, 1807.[159] _Held at Washington City, D. C., between Henry Dearborn, Secretary of War, specially authorized thereto by the President of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen of the Cherokee Nation, duly authorized and empowered by said nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The Cherokees relinquish to the United States all claim to "all that tract of country which lies to the northward of the river Tennessee and westward of a line to be run from the upper part of Chickasaw Old Fields, at the upper point of an island called Chickasaw Island on said river, to the most easterly head-waters of that branch of said Tennessee River called Duck River, excepting the two following described tracts, viz: one tract bounded southerly on the said Tennessee River, at a place called the Muscle Shoals; westerly, by a creek called Te Kee, ta, no-eh, or Cyprus Creek, and easterly, by Chu, wa, lee, or Elk River or Creek, and northerly by a line to be drawn from a point on said Elk River, ten miles on a direct line from its mouth * * * to a point on the said Cyprus Creek, ten miles on a direct line from its junction with the Tennessee River. The other tract is to be two miles in width on the north side of Tennessee River, and to extend northerly from that river three miles, and bounded as follows, viz: Beginning at the mouth of Spring Creek and running up said creek three miles on a straight line; thence westerly two miles at right angles with the general course of said creek; thence southerly on a line parallel with the general course of said creek to the Tennessee River; thence up said river by its waters to the beginning, which first reserved tract is to be considered the common property of the Cherokees who now live on the same, including John D. Chesholm, Au, tow, we, and Cheh Chuh, and the other reserved tract, on which Moses Melton now lives, is to be considered the property of said Melton and of Charles Hicks, in equal shares. * * * Also relinquish * * * all right or claim * * * to the Long Island in Holston River." 2. The United States agree to pay, in consideration of the foregoing cession, $2,000 in money upon the ratification of the treaty; $8,000 in four equal annual installments; to erect a grist-mill within one year in the Cherokee country; to furnish a machine for cleaning cotton; and to pay the Cherokee chief, Black Fox, $100 annually during his life. 3. The United States agree to urge upon the Chickasaws to consent to the following boundary between that nation and the Cherokees south of Tennessee River, viz: Beginning at the mouth of Caney Creek near the lower part of Muscle Shoals, and run up said creek to its head, and in a direct line from thence to the Flat Stone, or Rock, the old corner boundary. 4. The United States agree that the claims of the Chickasaws to the two tracts reserved by article 1 of this treaty, on north side of the Tennessee River, shall be settled by the United States in such manner as will secure the title to the Cherokees. [Footnote 158: See report of Commissioner Indian Affairs to Secretary of War, December 9, 1834.] [Footnote 159: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 101.] TREATY CONCLUDED SEPTEMBER 11, 1807; PROCLAIMED APRIL 22, 1808.[160] _Held at upper end of Chickasaw Island, in Tennessee River, between James Robertson and Return J. Meigs, acting under authority of the Executive of the United States, and a delegation of Cherokee chiefs representing said nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. This treaty is simply an elucidation of the first article of the treaty of January 7, 1806, and declares that the eastern limits of the tract ceded by the latter treaty "shall be bounded by a line so to be run from the upper end of the Chickasaw Old Fields, a little above the upper point of an island, called Chickasaw Island, as will most directly intersect the first waters of Elk River; thence carried to the great Cumberland Mountain, in which the waters of Elk River have their source; then along the margin of said mountain, until it shall intersect the lands heretofore ceded to the United States at the said Tennessee ridge." In consideration of this concession, the United States agree to pay to the Cherokees $2,000 and to permit the latter to hunt upon the tract ceded until the increase of settlements renders it improper. HISTORICAL DATA. CONTROVERSY CONCERNING BOUNDARIES. Shortly after the conclusion of the treaties of October 25 and 27, 1805, a delegation of Cherokee chiefs and headmen visited Washington. Messrs. Return J. Meigs and Daniel Smith, the commissioners who had negotiated those treaties, accompanied them. The Secretary of War, Hon. Henry Dearborn, was specially deputized by the President to conduct negotiations with them for the purchase of such portions of their country as they might feel willing to sell, but more especially to extinguish their claim to the region of territory lying to the north and east of Tennessee River and west of the head waters of Duck River. The negotiations were concluded and the treaty was signed on the 7th of January, 1806,[161] and the President transmitted the same to the Senate on the 24th of the same month; but that body did not consent to its ratification for more than a year afterwards.[162] At the time of the conclusion of this treaty, it was supposed by all the parties thereto that the eastern limit of the cession therein defined would include all of the waters of Elk River, the impression being that the headwaters of Duck River had their source farther to the east than those of the Elk.[163] The region of country in question had for many years been claimed by both the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, and the Government of the United States, not desiring to incur the animosity of either of these Indian nations, had preferred rather to extinguish by purchase the claim of each. With this end in view, a treaty had already been concluded with the Chickasaws, under date of July 23, 1805,[164] resulting in their relinquishment of all claim to the land north of Duck River lying east of the Tennessee and to a tract lying between Duck and Tennessee Rivers, on the north and south, and east of the Columbian Highway, so as to include all the waters of Elk River. It had been the intention that the eastern boundary of the cession made by both these nations should be coincident from the head of Chickasaw Island northward, but when the country came to be examined with a view to running the line, it was found that a strict adherence to the test of the Cherokee cession would leave about two hundred families of settlers on the headwaters of Elk River still within the Indian country.[165] In the mean time the Chickasaws, having learned that the United States had purchased of the Cherokees their supposed claim to the territory as far west as the Tennessee River, including a large region of country to the westward of the limits of the cession of 1805 by the former, construed that fact as a recognition of the sole and absolute title of the Cherokees thereto, and became in consequence very much excited and angered. They were only pacified by an official letter of assurance from the Secretary of War, addressed to Maj. George Colbert, their principal chief,[166] wherein he stated that in purchasing the Cherokee right to the tract in question the United States did not intend to destroy or impair the right of the Chickasaw Nation to the same; but that, being persuaded no actual boundary had ever been agreed on between the Chickasaws and Cherokees and that the Cherokees had some claim to a portion of the lands, it was thought advisable to purchase that claim, so that whenever the Chickasaws should be disposed to convey their title there should be no dispute with the Cherokees about it. The Cherokees by this treaty also relinquished all claim they might have to the Long Island or Great Island, as it was sometimes called, of Holston River. This island was in reality outside the limits of the country assigned the Cherokees by the first treaty between them and the United States, at Hopewell, in 1785, but they had always since maintained that no cession had ever been made of it by them, and it was deemed wise to insert a specific clause in the treaty under consideration to that effect.[167] _Boundaries to be surveyed._--Early in 1807[168] the Secretary of War notified Agent Meigs that Mr. Thomas Freeman had been appointed to survey and mark the boundary line conformably to both the treaty of 1805 with the Chickasaws and of 1806 with the Cherokees, as well as to survey the land ceded between the south line of Tennessee and the Tennessee River, lying west of the line from about the Chickasaw Old Fields to the most eastern source of Duck River. He was also advised that General Robertson and himself had been designated to attend and superintend the running of such boundary lines. Furthermore, that it was desirable that the eastern line of both cessions should be one and the same, for although by the Chickasaw treaty the whole waters of Elk River were included, it was evident their claim to any lands east of the line agreed upon by the Cherokees was more than doubtful; that, therefore, the United States ought not to insist on such a line as would go to the eastward of the one defined in the Cherokee treaty, unless the latter could be prevailed upon to extend the same, in which event they were authorized to offer the Cherokees a moderate compensation therefor. EXPLANATORY TREATY NEGOTIATED. This led, upon the assembly of the commissioners and surveyor at Chickasaw Old Fields, in the fall of 1807 (for the purpose of surveying and marking the boundary lines in question), to the negotiation of an explanatory treaty with certain of the Cherokee chiefs, on the 11th of September, 1807,[169] whereby it was agreed that the Cherokee cession line should be extended so far to the eastward as to include all the waters of Elk River and thereby be made coincident and uniform with the Chickasaw line. _Secret article._--The ostensible consideration paid for this concession, as shown by the treaty, was $2,000; but it was secretly agreed that $1,000 and two rifles should be given to the chiefs with whom the treaty was negotiated.[170] President Jefferson transmitted this latter treaty to the Senate on the 29th of March, 1808, and having received the consent of that body to its ratification, it was proclaimed by the President on the 22d of April following. [Footnote 160: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 103.] [Footnote 161: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 101.] [Footnote 162: May, 1807.] [Footnote 163: Message of President Jefferson to U. S. Senate, March 29, 1808, and letter of R. J. Meigs, September 28, 1807. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753.] [Footnote 164: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII.] [Footnote 165: President Jefferson to U.S. Senate, March 29, 1808. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753.] [Footnote 166: February 21, 1806. Indian Office records.] [Footnote 167: On the return home of the Cherokee delegation that visited Washington in 1801, "The Glass," a noted Cherokee chief, represented to his people that the Secretary of War had said, "One Joseph Martin has a claim on the Long Island of Holston River." This the Secretary of War denied, in a letter dated November 20, 1801, to Col. R.J. Meigs.] [Footnote 168: April 1. Indian Office records.] [Footnote 169: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 103.] [Footnote 170: Letter of Return J. Meigs to Secretary of War, September 28, 1807, in which he says: "With respect to the chiefs who have transacted the business with us, they will have their hands full to satisfy the ignorant, the obstinate, and the cunning of some of their own people, for which they well deserve this _silent_ consideration."] TREATY CONCLUDED MARCH 22, 1816; RATIFIED APRIL 8, 1816.[171] _Held at Washington City, D. C., between George Graham, specially authorized as commissioner therefor by the President of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen duly authorized and empowered by the Cherokee Nation._ [Footnote 171: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 138.] MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The Cherokees cede to the State of South Carolina the following tract: Beginning on the east bank of Chattuga River, where the boundary line of the Cherokee Nation crosses the same, running thence with the said boundary line to a rock on the Blue Ridge, where the boundary line crosses the same, and which rock has been lately established as a corner to the States of North and South Carolina; running thence south sixty-eight and a quarter degrees west, twenty miles and thirty-two chains, to a rock on the Chattuga River at the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, another corner of the boundaries agreed upon by the States of North and South Carolina; thence down and with the Chattuga to the beginning. 2. The United States promise that the State of South Carolina shall pay to the Cherokee Nation, in consideration of the above cession, $5,000, within ninety days after the ratification of the treaty by the President and Senate, provided the Cherokee Nation and the State of South Carolina shall also ratify the same. TREATY CONCLUDED MARCH 22, 1816;[172] RATIFIED APRIL 8, 1816.[173] _Held at Washington City, D. C., between George Graham, specially authorized as commissioner therefor by the President of the United States, and certain chiefs and headmen duly authorized and empowered by the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The north boundary of the lands ceded by the Creek treaty of 1814, as between such cession and the Cherokees, is declared to extend from a point on the west bank of Coosa River opposite the lower end of the Ten Islands and above Fort Strother, in a direct line, to the Flat Rock or Stone on Bear Creek, a branch of the Tennessee, which line shall constitute the south boundary of the Cherokee country lying west of Coosa River and south of Tennessee River. 2. The Cherokees concede to the United States the right to lay off, open, and have the free use of all roads through their country north of said line necessary to convenient intercourse between the States of Tennessee, Georgia, and Mississippi Territory; also the free navigation of all rivers within the Cherokee territory. The Cherokees agree to establish and maintain on the aforementioned roads the necessary ferries and public houses. 3. In order to prevent future disputes concerning the boundary above recited, the Cherokees agree to appoint two commissioners to accompany the United States commissioners appointed to run said line. 4. When the United States appoint a commissioner to lay off a road as provided for above, the Cherokees shall also appoint one to accompany him, who will be paid by the United States. 5. The United States agree to reimburse individual Cherokees for losses sustained by them in consequence of the marching of militia and United States troops through their territory, amounting to $25,000. HISTORICAL DATA. Subsequent to the ratification of the treaty of September 11, 1807, with the Cherokees, no other treaty receiving the final sanction of the Senate and President was concluded with them until March 22, 1816;[174] but in the interval sundry negotiations and matters of official importance were conducted with them, which it will be proper to summarize. COLONEL EARLE'S NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE PURCHASE OF IRON-ORE TRACT. In the early part of the year 1807, Col. Elias Earle, of South Carolina, proposed to the Secretary of War the establishment of iron works, with suitable shops, in the Cherokee Nation, on substantially the following conditions, viz: That a suitable place should be looked out and selected where sufficient quantities of good iron ore could be found, in the vicinity of proper water privileges, for such an establishment; that the Indians should be induced to make a cession of a tract of land, not less than 6 miles square, which should embrace the ore bed and water privilege; that so much of the land so ceded as the President of the United States should deem proper should be conveyed to him (Earle), including the ore and water facilities, whereon he should be authorized to erect iron works, smith shops, and so forth. Earle, on his part, engaged to erect such iron works and shops as to enable him to furnish such quantities of iron and implements of husbandry as should be sufficient for the use of the various Indian tribes in that part of the country, including those on the west side of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers; also to deliver annually to the order of the Government of the United States such quantities of iron and implements as should be needed for the Indian service, and on such reasonable terms as should be mutually agreed upon. The Secretary of War referred the propositions of Colonel Earle to the President of the United States, who gave them his sanction, and accordingly Agent Meigs, of the Cherokees, was instructed[175] to endeavor to procure from the Cherokees such a cession as was proposed, so soon as Colonel Earle should have explored the country and selected a suitable place for the proposed establishment. Colonel Earle made the necessary explorations, and found a place at the mouth of Chickamauga Creek which seemed to meet the requirements of the case. Thereupon Agent Meigs convened the Indians in council at Highwassee, Tennessee, at which Colonel Earle was present, and concluded a treaty[176] with them. By its terms, in consideration of the sum of $5,000 and 1,000 bushels of corn, the Cherokees ceded a tract of country 6 miles square at the mouth of Chickamauga Creek, on the south side of Tennessee River, to be laid off in square form so as to include the creek to the best advantage for such site. The treaty also contained a proviso that in case the ore supply should fail at this point, the United States should have full liberty to procure it within the Cherokee territory at the most suitable and convenient place. Twenty-five hundred dollars of the consideration was at once paid in cash to the Indians and 1,000 bushels of corn agreed to be delivered to them the following spring. Colonel Earle carried the treaty to Washington at the next session of Congress for ratification.[177] President Jefferson transmitted it to the Senate with a favorable message,[178] but before any action was taken by that body it was ascertained that the tract selected and ceded was within the limits of the State of Tennessee. The matter of ratification was therefore postponed, with the hope that the State of Tennessee would consent to relinquish her claim to the land. In this the President was disappointed. No further action was taken for several years, until, it having become evident that no concession would be made in the matter by the legislature of Tennessee, the United States Senate[179] unanimously rejected the treaty. In consequence of this action, Colonel Earle made claim[180] against the Government either for the value of his time and expenses incurred in exploring the Cherokee country, selecting the site, and procuring the conclusion of the treaty, or, as an alternative, that the consent of the Cherokees should be secured to the cession of another tract of similar area and character. The latter proposition was accepted, and Agent Meigs was advised[181] that Mr. Earle had been granted permission to select some other site suitable for his iron works, and instructed that in case he did so, negotiations should again be opened with the Cherokees for an exchange of the tract covered by the cession of 1807 for the one newly selected. Success, however, does not seem to have attended this second attempt, and Agent Meigs was advised[182] by the Secretary of War that $985 had been paid Colonel Earle for damages sustained by him in the Cherokee country while detained there by the Indians, which amount must be deducted from the Cherokee annuity. A third attempt of a similar character was made in 1815, when[183] Colonel Earle was appointed to negotiate, in conjunction with the Indian agent, a treaty with the Cherokees or Chickasaws for the purchase of a 6-mile square tract for the erection of his proposed iron works. Like the previous efforts, it was without results.[184] TENNESSEE FAILS TO CONCLUDE A TREATY WITH THE CHEROKEES. Congress on the 18th of April, 1806,[185] had passed an act entitled "An act to authorize the State of Tennessee to issue grants and perfect titles to certain lands therein described, and to settle claims to the vacant and unappropriated lands within the same." This act, for the purpose of defining the limits of the vacant and unappropriated lands in the State of Tennessee, thereafter to be subject to the sole control and disposition of the United States, established the following described line, viz: Beginning at the place where the eastern or main branch of Elk River intersects the southern boundary of Tennessee; running thence due north until such line shall intersect the northern or main branch of Duck River; thence down the waters of Duck River to the military boundary line established by North Carolina in 1783; thence with the military line west to the place where it intersects Tennessee River; thence down the waters of Tennessee River to where it intersects the northern line of Tennessee. The act further provided that upon the execution by the State of Tennessee (through her Senators and Representatives in Congress, duly authorized thereto) of a deed of relinquishment to the United States of all the claim of that State to lands lying south and west of the described line, the United States should thereupon cede and convey to the State of Tennessee all claim to the land north and east of the line, with certain conditions and limitations therein prescribed, and with the proviso that nothing contained in the act should be construed to affect the Indian title. Predicated upon this act of Congress, the legislature of Tennessee passed an act, on the 3d of December, 1807,[186] appropriating $20,000 for the purpose of holding a treaty or treaties with the Cherokees (when authorized so to do by the Federal Government) for the purpose of extinguishing their claim to all or any part of the lands within the territorial limits of Tennessee lying to the north and east of the line described in the act of Congress just mentioned. Congress having assented to the request of Tennessee, the Secretary of War appointed[187] Return J. Meigs a commissioner to superintend the negotiations with the Cherokees about to be held with them by the two commissioners appointed on the part of that State. Mr. Meigs was advised that all the expenses incident to the holding of the treaty, as well as any consideration that should be agreed upon in case of a cession by the Indians, should be borne by the State of Tennessee, and that the only lands the commission were authorized to treat for was that portion of the territory described in the act of April 18, 1806, as being ceded to Tennessee which should be found to lie east of the line established by Robertson and Meigs, running from the upper part of Chickasaw Old Fields northwardly so as to include all the waters of Elk River. The jealousy with which the Cherokees regarded a proposition for the sale of more land, and their especial aversion toward the people and government of Tennessee, prevented success from attending these negotiations in any degree. REMOVAL OF CHEROKEES TO THE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI PROPOSED. It had been the policy of the Federal Government, from the beginning of its official relations with the Indian tribes, to encourage and assist the individuals of those tribes in grasping and accepting the pursuits and habits of civilized life, with a view to their preparation for the condition in which the rapidly encroaching white settlements would in a few years inevitably place them. With the disappearance of game the hunter must become a tiller of the soil or a herdsman, with the alternative of starvation. This humane policy, begun systematically in the first administration of Washington,[188] took the form of a considerable annual expenditure in the purchase for the Indians of hoes, plows, rakes, and other agricultural implements, as well as looms, cards, and spinning wheels. Among the northwestern tribes these efforts at industrial civilization were productive of trifling results. The southern tribes, however, and more especially the Creeks and Cherokees, had, in considerable numbers, manifested a partial though gradually increasing tendency toward self-support. Many of them, in addition to raising the necessaries of life, were producers in a limited degree of cotton, from which their women had learned to make a coarse article of cloth; others owned considerable herds of cattle and hogs, and altogether these tribes had made a degree of progress which was alike commendable to themselves and encouraging to the Government. However, the persistent and unremitting demands of the border settlers for more land, backed by the thorough sympathy and influence of the State governments of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, as well as by their Senators and Representatives in Congress, acted as a powerful lever for moving the Congress and Executive of the United States to seek the complete possession of the Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, and Chickasaw lands. As early as 1803[189] President Jefferson had suggested the desirability of the removal of these tribes beyond the Mississippi River, although the first official action taken in this direction was contained in the fifth section of an act of Congress approved March 26, 1804, erecting Louisiana into two Territories. This act appropriated $15,000 to enable the President to effect the desired object. This was supplemented in 1808,[190] when the Secretary of War, in a letter to Agent Meigs giving permission for a delegation of Cherokees to visit Washington, instructed him to improve every opportunity of securing the consent of the Cherokees to an exchange of their lands for a tract west of the Mississippi. The delegation here spoken of (composed of what were known as Upper Cherokees) visited Washington about the 1st of May, 1808, and, in the course of a discussion of the subject with the Secretary of War, took occasion to complain of an unequal distribution of annuities between the Upper and Lower Cherokees, and advanced a proposition that a dividing line be run between the territory of these two branches of the tribe, inasmuch as the former were cultivators of the soil, and desired to divide their lands in severalty and become citizens of the United States, while the latter were addicted to the hunter life and were indisposed to adopt civilized habits.[191] This proposition met with the personal approval of the Secretary of War. He instructed the agent[192] to ascertain the sentiments of the nation upon such a proposition, to the end that, if possible, those who adhered to aboriginal habits could be induced to accept a country in the newly acquired Territory of Louisiana, in lieu of their proportionate share of the country then occupied by the Cherokee Nation. In pursuance of this plan, the agent lost no opportunity of impressing upon the Cherokees the importance of the approaching crisis in their tribal affairs, and the necessity that some practical method should be adopted to solve the problem of subsistence involved in the rapid diminution of game. Many of the Lower or "hunter" Cherokees became persuaded of the necessity of looking out a new home, and early in January, 1809,[193] President Jefferson addressed a "talk" to them, approving their project and promising facilities for the transportation of a delegation to visit the Arkansas and White River countries, where, in case they found a suitable location, the United States would assign them a sufficient area of territory for their occupation in exchange for their share of the Cherokee domain east of the Mississippi. Based upon this proposition, a pioneer delegation of the Indians visited that country in the year 1809, and upon their report large numbers (about 2,000, as reported by Agent Meigs) of the nation signified their intention of removal as early as the autumn of that year. The United States authorities were not as yet prepared to defray the pecuniary expense of so large a migration. The agent was therefore directed to discourage for the present anything except the removal of individual families.[194] The situation remained unchanged until the spring of 1811,[195] when the Secretary of War informed Agent Meigs that time and circumstances had rendered it expedient to revive the subject of a general removal and exchange of lands. The latter was advised that it was very desirable to secure a cession of the Cherokee lands lying within the States of Tennessee and South Carolina, and that in case the whole nation could be brought to agree to the proposition of ceding these tracts, as the proportionate share of the "emigrant party," in exchange for lands to be assigned such party on White and Arkansas Rivers, he would be authorized and directed to negotiate a treaty with the Cherokee Nation for that purpose. From this time the subject remained _in statu quo_ for several years, except that small parties of Cherokees, consisting of a few individuals or families, continued to emigrate to the "promised land." It is perhaps interesting to state, in connection with this emigration movement of the Cherokees, that it was primarily inaugurated shortly after the treaty of 1785, at Hopewell, when a few of those dissatisfied with the terms of that instrument embarked in pirogues, and, descending the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi Rivers, reached and ascended the Saint Francis, then in the Spanish province of Louisiana, where they formed a settlement, from whence in a few years they removed to a more satisfactory location on White River. Here they were joined from time to time by their dissatisfied eastern brethren, in families and small parties, until they numbered, prior to the treaty of 1817, between two and three thousand souls. EFFORTS OF SOUTH CAROLINA TO EXTINGUISH CHEROKEE TITLE. On the 31st of December, 1810, the governor of South Carolina transmitted to the President a resolution of the legislature of that State urging an extinguishment of the Cherokee Indian title to lands within her State limits.[196] The Secretary of War, in his letter of acknowledgment,[197] assured the governor that measures would soon be taken to bring about the desired cession if possible. Nothing of importance seems, however, to have been done until the winter of 1814, when Agent Meigs was appointed[198] a commissioner for the purpose of negotiating a treaty with this end in view. He was instructed that the State of South Carolina would have an agent present, authorized to defray the expenses of the treaty and to adjust the compensation that should be agreed upon in consideration of the proposed cession, agreeably to the provisions of the twelfth section of an act of Congress approved March 30, 1802, for regulating trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes. These negotiations not having proved successful, the Secretary of War authorized Agent Meigs[199] to bring a delegation of the Cherokees to Washington for this and other purposes of negotiation. This delegation arrived early in the spring of 1816, and the Hon. George Graham, being specially authorized by the President, concluded a treaty on the 22d of March of that year.[200] Therein, in consideration of the sum of $5,000, to be paid by the State of South Carolina within ninety days from the date of its ratification by the President and Senate, subject also to ratification by the Cherokee national council and by the governor of South Carolina, the Cherokees ceded to that State all claim to territory within her boundaries. This treaty was transmitted[201] to the Senate by President Madison, and ratified and proclaimed, as set forth in the abstract of its provisions hereinbefore given, on the 8th of April, 1816. BOUNDARY BETWEEN CHEROKEES, CREEKS, CHOCTAWS, AND CHICKASAWS. The lines of demarkation between the respective possessions of the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations had long been a subject of dispute between them. People living in a state of barbarism and principally dependent upon the chase for a livelihood, necessarily roam over a vast amount of territory within which no permanent habitations have been established by themselves. An accurate definition of the boundaries between them and their nearest neighbors pursuing a similar mode of life is unnecessary so long as no disturbing factor is brought into the case. But contact with an ever-encroaching tide of civilization renders essential an accurate definition of limits. The United States, in several of its numerous treaties for the acquisition of territory from these four tribes, had been met with conflicting claims as to its ownership. In order that future disputes and embarrassments of this character should be avoided, the authorities of the United States entertained the idea of causing a boundary line to be run and marked between the adjoining territory of these tribes. The Indian agents were advised by the Secretary of War[202] that the subject was under consideration, the plan being to constitute a commission, consisting of two representatives selected by each tribe and of the United States agents for those tribes, who should, after full examination of the country and the subject, agree upon and fix their respective boundaries. Owing, however, to the complicated state of our foreign relations and the feverish condition of mind manifested by the border tribes, soon followed by war with England and with the Creek Indians, it became necessary to drop further negotiations on the subject, and the matter was not again revived in this form. After the treaty of 1814 with the Creeks, however, whereby General Jackson exacted from them, as indemnity for the expenses of the war, the cession of an immense tract of country in Alabama and Georgia,[203] the question of the proper limits of this cession on the north and west became a subject of controversy between the United States and the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The United States authorities at Washington were anxious that nothing should occur in the adjustment of these boundaries which should cause a feeling of irritation among those tribes. Commissioners had been appointed in the summer of 1815 to survey and mark the boundaries of this Creek cession, and in August of that year we find the Secretary of War giving instructions to Agent Meigs, of the Cherokees, to meet the boundary commissioners, with a few of the principal Cherokee chiefs, at the point on Coosa River where the south boundary of the Cherokee Nation crossed the same, in order that the Cherokees should be satisfied that the commissioners began at the proper point. Several additional reminders were given the agent, during the progress of the survey, that the matter of boundary was a question of fact to be ascertained and determined from the best attainable evidence, and that care must be taken that no injustice should be done the Cherokees.[204] In the following spring[205] a delegation of Cherokees was brought to Washington, by direction of the War Department, and, pending the completion of treaty negotiations with them, the boundary commissioners were instructed not to mark the line between the Cherokees and the Creek cession until further orders. These negotiations resulted in a second treaty of March 22, 1816[206] (the one for the cession of the tract in South Carolina bears the same date), wherein it was declared that the northern boundary line of the Creek cession of 1814 should be established by the running of a line from a point on the west bank of Coosa River opposite to the lower end of the Ten Islands, above Fort Strother, directly to the Flat Rock or Stone on Bear Creek, said Flat Rock being the southwest corner of the Cherokee possessions, as defined by the treaty with them concluded January 7, 1806. This boundary brought forth a vigorous though unavailing protest from General Jackson, who argued that the Cherokees never had any right to territory south of the Tennessee and west of Coosa River, but that it belonged to the Creeks and was properly within the limits of their cession of 1814.[207] All efforts were fruitless in securing any further cession of lands, either north or south of the Tennessee.[208] Previous to the visit of the Cherokee delegation to Washington and to the instructions given, as referred to above, to the boundary commissioners to suspend the running of the boundary line between the Creek cession and the Cherokees pending negotiations with the latter, General Coffee had been engaged in surveying the line from Coosa River to the Tennessee River.[209] As a result of the negotiations with the Cherokees, additional instructions were given the boundary commissioners[210] (accompanying which was a copy of the Cherokee treaty concluded on the 22d of March preceding) to run and mark the boundary line therein agreed upon from the lower end of the Ten Islands, on Coosa River, to the Flat Rock, on Bear Creek. They were advised that the surveys already made by General Coffee might be of advantage to them, though from an examination of his report it did not appear he had taken any notice of the point at which this line was to terminate, notwithstanding he seemed to have had in view the treaty made with the Cherokees in the year 1806, which proposed Caney Creek and a line from its source to the Flat Rock as the boundary between the Cherokees and Chickasaws. Coffee's line had already excited the jealousy and opposition of the Chickasaws, and on the same day final instructions were given the commissioners to run the line from Coosa River to Flat Rock, Major Cocke, the Chickasaw agent, was directed to advise the Chickasaws that in agreeing upon this line with the Cherokees the United States had in no degree interfered with the conflicting claims of the Chickasaws south of that line and east of Coffee's line; that from an examination of the treaties with the Chickasaws and Cherokees, and especially that of 1786 with the former tribe, it appeared that a point called the Flat Rock was considered a corner of the lands belonging to them, and had since been considered as the corner to the Cherokee, Creek, and Chickasaw hunting grounds. It is proper to state in this connection that for many years an uncertainty had existed in the minds of both the Indians and the United States authorities as to the exact location of this Flat Rock,[211] and whether it was on Bear Creek or on the headwaters of the Long Leaf Pine, a branch of the Black Warrior River. The line as finally run by the commissioners from Flat Rock, on Bear Creek, to Ten Islands, pursued a course bearing S. 67° 56' 27" E. 118 miles and 40 perches.[212] It may be interesting also to quote from a letter[213] from William Barnett, one of the United States boundary commissioners, to his co-commissioner, General Coffee, in which, he states that he has just returned from the council at Turkeytown, at which the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Creeks were represented, and that the principal purpose of the council was to agree upon and adjust their several boundaries. He notes the fact that the Creeks and Cherokees had agreed to make a joint stock of their lands, with a privilege to each nation to settle where they pleased. The Creeks and Choctaws had fixed on the ridge dividing the waters of the Black Warrior and the Cahawba as their former boundary. The Chickasaws and Cherokees could come to no understanding as to their divisional line, the former alleging that they had no knowledge of any lands held by the latter on the south side of the Tennessee River adjoining them; that they always considered the lands so claimed by the Cherokees as belonging to the Creeks, and in support of this they had exhibited to him a number of affidavits in proof that their line ran from the mouth of a small creek emptying into the Tennessee near Ditto's Landing (opposite Chickasaw Island), up the same to its source, thence to the head of the Sipsey Fork of the Black Warrior, and down the same to the Flat Rock, where the Black Warrior is 200 yards wide; that they had no knowledge of any place on Bear Creek known as Flat Rock, and that running the line to the last mentioned place would be taking from them a considerable tract of country, to which they could by no means consent.[214] ROADS THROUGH THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY. In order to secure a proper system of communication between the Tennessee and the Lower Alabama and Mississippi settlements, the United States had long desired the establishment of sufficient roads through the Indian country between those points. The Indians, however, were shrewd enough to perceive that the granting of such a permission would be but an entering wedge for splitting their country in twain, and afford excuse for the encroachments of white settlers. The establishment of new thoroughfares had therefore been regarded with extreme jealousy and had never been yielded to by them except after a persistency of urging that bordered on force. In the spring of 1811[215] Agent Meigs was advised by the Secretary of War of the expediency of having a road opened without delay from the Tennessee to the Tombigbee, and also one from Tellico. Both these propositions would require the consent of the Creeks, and for the purpose of securing the most advantageous routes it was contemplated that Captain Gaines should make a journey of exploration and survey of the country between the Alabama and Coosa Rivers on the south and Tennessee and Hiwassee Rivers on the north. The fruition of these plans was also postponed on account of the ensuing war with the Creeks, and the subject was not again broached until after their subjugation. In the spring of 1814 the legislature of Tennessee transmitted two memorials to Congress on the subject, and, by direction of the Secretary of War, Agent Meigs was again instructed[216] to ascertain the bent of the Indian mind in relation thereto. The result was the conclusion, with the approval of the President, of two agreements between the Cherokees and the agents of certain road companies for the opening of two roads through the country of the latter from Tennessee to Georgia. But when the treaty of March 22, 1816, came to be negotiated at Washington, the United States authorities, after much persuasion, procured the insertion therein of an article conceding to the United States a practically free and unrestrained permission for the construction of any and all roads through the Cherokee country necessary to convenient intercourse between the northern and southern settlements. [Footnote 172: Two treaties appear of the same date and negotiated by the same parties. It is to be noted that the first controls a cession to the State of South Carolina and the second defines certain other concessions to the United States.] [Footnote 173: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 139.] [Footnote 174: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, pp. 138 and 139.] [Footnote 175: February 28, 1807.] [Footnote 176: December 2, 1807. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 753.] [Footnote 177: Letter of Return J. Meigs to Secretary of War, December 3, 1807.] [Footnote 178: March 10, 1808. See American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. I, p. 752.] [Footnote 179: January 10, 1812.] [Footnote 180: In March, 1812.] [Footnote 181: May 14, 1812.] [Footnote 182: March 24, 1814.] [Footnote 183: February 3, 1815.] [Footnote 184: A full history of Colonel Earle's attempt to secure a site for the erection of iron works will be found among the records and files of the Office of Indian Affairs.] [Footnote 185: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. II, p. 381. See also amendment to this act by act of February 18, 1841, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. V, p. 412.] [Footnote 186: Scott's Laws of North Carolina and Tennessee.] [Footnote 187: March 26, 1808.] [Footnote 188: See report of General Knox, Secretary of War, to President Washington, July 7, 1789; Creek treaty of 1790; Cherokee treaty of 1791, etc.] [Footnote 189: Confidential message of President Jefferson to Congress, January 18, 1803.] [Footnote 190: March 25.] [Footnote 191: See letter of Secretary of War to Col. R. J. Meigs, May 5, 1808.] [Footnote 192: May 5, 1808.] [Footnote 193: January 9, 1809] [Footnote 194: Letter of Secretary of War to Col. R. J. Meigs, November 1, 1809.] [Footnote 195: March 27, 1811.] [Footnote 196: Indian Office files.] [Footnote 197: March 28, 1811.] [Footnote 198: December 26.] [Footnote 199: November 22, 1815.] [Footnote 200: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 138.] [Footnote 201: March 26, 1816.] [Footnote 202: May 8, 1811.] [Footnote 203: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 120.] [Footnote 204: Letter of Secretary of War to Agent Meigs, November 22, 1815.] [Footnote 205: March, 1816.] [Footnote 206: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 139.] [Footnote 207: Letter from General Jackson to Secretary of War, June 10, 1816.] [Footnote 208: Letter from Secretary of War to United States Senators from Tennessee, April 4, 1816.] [Footnote 209: See letter of Secretary of War to Barnett, Hawkins, and Gaines, April 16, 1816.] [Footnote 210: April 16, 1816. These boundary commissioners were William Barnett, Col. Benjamin Hawkins, and Maj. E. P. Gaines.] [Footnote 211: Letter of General Jackson to Secretary of War, June 10, 1816; also from Commissioner Barnett, June 7, 1816.] [Footnote 212: Old map on file in General Land Office.] [Footnote 213: June 7, 1816.] [Footnote 214: From a letter of Agent Meigs bearing date December 26, 1804, it seems that he was just in receipt of a communication from the Chickasaw chiefs relative to their claim to lands on the north side of Tennessee River. The chiefs assert that part of their people formerly lived at a place called Chickasaw Old Fields, on the Tennessee, about 20 miles above the mouth of Elk River; that while living there they had a war with the Cherokees, when, finding themselves too much separated from their principal settlements, they removed back thereto. Afterwards, on making peace with the Cherokees, their boundaries were agreed on as they are defined in the instrument given them by President Washington in 1794. They further state that they had a war with the Shawnees and drove them from all the waters of the Tennessee and Duck Rivers, as well as conflicts with the Cherokees, Choctaws, and Creeks, in which they defeated all attempts of their enemies to dispossess them of their country. Agent Meigs remarks that he is convinced the claim of the Chickasaws is the best founded; that until recently the Cherokees had always alluded to the country in controversy as the hunting ground of the four nations, and that their few settlements within this region were of recent date.] TREATY CONCLUDED SEPTEMBER 14, 1816; PROCLAIMED DECEMBER 30, 1816.[217] _Held at Chickasaw Council House, between Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, General David Merriwether, and Jesse Franklin, commissioners plenipotentiary on the part of the United States, and the delegates representing the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. To perpetuate peace and friendship between the United States and the Cherokees and to remove all future dissensions concerning boundaries it is agreed: 1. Peace and friendship are established between the United States and Cherokees. 2. The Cherokee Nation acknowledge the following as their western boundary: South of the Tennessee River, commencing at Camp Coffee, on the south side of the Tennessee River, which is opposite the Chickasaw Island; running from thence a due south course to the top of the dividing ridge between the waters of the Tennessee and Tombigby Rivers; thence eastwardly along said ridge, leaving the headwaters of the Black Warrior to the right hand until opposed by the west branch of Wells' Creek; down the east bank of said creek to the Coosa River, and down said river. 3. The Cherokees cede all claim to land south and west of the above line. In consideration for such cession the United States agree to pay an annuity of $6,000 for ten years and the sum of $5,000 within sixty days after ratification of the treaty. 4. The boundary line above described, after due notice given to the Cherokees, shall be ascertained and marked by commissioners appointed by the President, accompanied by two representatives of the Cherokee Nation. 5. The Cherokee Nation agree to meet the United States treaty commissioners at Turkeytown, on Coosa River, September 28, 1816, to confirm or reject said treaty; a failure to so meet the commissioners to be equivalent to ratification. Ratified at Turkeytown by the whole Cherokee Nation, October 4, 1816. HISTORICAL DATA. FURTHER PURCHASE OF CHEROKEE LANDS. On the 27th of May, 1816, the Secretary of War instructed Agent Meigs to endeavor, at the next session of the national council of the Cherokees, to obtain a cession of the Cherokee claim north of Tennessee River within the State of Tennessee. For this proposed cession he was authorized to pay $20,000, in one or more payments, and $5,000 in presents; also to give Colonel Lowry, an influential chief among them, a sum equal to the value of his improvements.[218] He was further instructed to make an effort to secure the cession of the lands which they had declined to sell the previous winter and which lay to the west of a line drawn due south from that point of the Tennessee River intersected by the eastern boundary of Madison County, Alabama. The necessity for these cessions, and especially that of the former tract, had been urged upon the Government of the United States by the legislature and by the citizens of Tennessee, many of whom had been purchasers of land within its limits, from the State of North Carolina, a quarter of a century previous, and who had been restrained from possession and occupancy of the same by the United States authorities so long as the Indian title remained unextinguished. In the event that the national council of the Cherokees should decline to accede to the desired cessions, Agent Meigs was to urge that the Cherokee delegation appointed to meet the boundary commissioners at the Chickasaw Council House on the 1st of September following should be invested with full authority for the conclusion of such adjustment of boundaries as might be determined on at that place. This authority was conditionally granted by the council,[219] and when the delegation came to meet the United States commissioners at the Chickasaw Council House, in the month of September, an agreement was made as to boundaries as set forth in the second article of the treaty of September 14, 1816. By this agreement the Cherokees ceded all claim west of a line from Camp Coffee to the Coosa River and south of a line from the latter point to Flat Rock, on Bear Creek.[220] The treaty was ratified by the nation in general council, at Turkeytown, on the 4th of October following.[221] _Alabama alleges error in survey._--When the due-south line from Camp Coffee provided for in the treaty was surveyed, the surveyor, through an error in running it, deflected somewhat to the west. When the adjacent country came to be surveyed and opened up to settlement much complaint was made, and the legislature of Alabama[222] passed a joint resolution reciting the fact that through this erroneous survey much valuable land had been left within the Cherokee limits which had properly been ceded to the United States and instructing Alabama's delegation in Congress to take measures for having the line correctly run. The matter having been by Congress referred to the Secretary of War for investigation and report, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, at his request, reported[223] that when the public surveys were made in that section it was found that neither the line due south from Camp Coffee nor from the head of Caney Creek had been surveyed on a true meridian. Inasmuch, however, as they had been run and marked by commissioners appointed by the United States, the surveyors necessarily made the public surveys in conformity to them. By this deviation from the true meridian the United States and the State of Alabama had gained more land from the manner in which the Caney Creek or Chickasaw boundary line had been run than had been lost by the deviation in the Cherokee or Camp Coffee line, and the quantity in either case did not perhaps exceed six or eight thousand acres. [Footnote 215: May 25.] [Footnote 216: April 7.] [Footnote 217: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 148.] [Footnote 218: See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 219: Letter of Return J. Meigs to the Secretary of War, dated August 19, 1816. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, p. 113.] [Footnote 220: Report of Commissioners Jackson, Merriwether, and Franklin to Secretary of War, dated Chickasaw Council House, September 20, 1816. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, p. 104.] [Footnote 221: Report of Commissioners Jackson and Merriwether to Secretary of War, October 4, 1816.] [Footnote 222: January 7, 1828.] [Footnote 223: February 25, 1828.] TREATY CONCLUDED JULY 8, 1817; PROCLAIMED DECEMBER 26, 1817.[224] _Held at Cherokee Agency, in the Cherokee Nation, between Maj. Gen. Andrew Jackson, Joseph McMinn, governor of Tennessee, and General David Merriwether, commissioners plenipotentiary of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and warriors of the Cherokee Nation east of the Mississippi River, and those on the Arkansas River, by their deputies, John D. Chisholm and James Rogers, duly authorised by written power of attorney._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The whole Cherokee Nation cede to the United States all the lands lying north and east of the following boundaries, viz: Beginning at the High Shoals of the Appalachy River, and running thence along the boundary line between the Creek and Cherokee Nations westwardly to the Chatahouchy River; thence up the Chatahouchy River to the mouth of Souque Creek; thence continuing with the general course of the river until it reaches the Indian boundary line; and should it strike the Turrurar River, thence with its meanders down said river to its mouth, in part of the proportion of land in the Cherokee Nation east of the Mississippi to which those now on the Arkansas and those about to remove there are justly entitled. 2. The whole Cherokee Nation do also cede to the United States all the lands lying north and west of the following boundary lines, viz: Beginning at the Indian boundary line that runs from the north bank of the Tennessee River opposite to the mouth of Hywassee River, at a point on the top of Walden's Ridge where it divides the waters of the Tennessee River from those of the Sequatchie River; thence along said ridge southwardly to the bank of the Tennessee River at a point near to a place called the Negro Sugar Camp, opposite to the upper end of the first island above Running Water Town; thence westwardly a straight line to the mouth of Little Sequatchie River; thence up said river to its main fork; thence up its northermost fork to its source; and thence due west to the Indian boundary line. 3. A census to be taken of the whole Cherokee Nation during June, 1818. The enumeration of those east of the Mississippi River to be made by a commissioner appointed by the President of the United States and a commissioner appointed by the Cherokees residing on the Arkansas. That of those on the Arkansas by a United States commissioner and one appointed by the Cherokees east of the Mississippi. 4. The annuities for 1818 and thereafter to be divided upon the basis of said census between Cherokees east of the Mississippi and those on the Arkansas. The lands east of the Mississippi also to be divided, and the proportion of those moved and agreeing to remove to the Arkansas to be surrendered to the United States. 5. The United States agree to give to the removing Cherokees a tract of land on the Arkansas and White Rivers equal in area to the quantity ceded the United States by first and second articles hereof. Said tract to begin on north side of the Arkansas River, at mouth of Point Remove, or Budwell's Old Place; thence northwardly by a straight line to strike Chataunga Mountain, the first hill above Shield's Ferry, on White River, and running up and between said rivers for quantity. Said boundary from point of beginning to be surveyed, and all citizens of the United States except Mrs. P. Lovely to be removed therefrom. All previous treaties to remain in full force and to be binding on both parts of the Cherokee Nation. The United States reserves the right to establish factories, a military post, and roads within the boundaries last above defined. 6. The United States agree to give all poor warriors who remove a rifle, ammunition, blanket, and brass kettle or beaver trap each, as full compensation for improvements left by them; to those whose improvements add real value to the land, the full value thereof, as ascertained by appraisal, shall be paid. The United States to furnish flat-bottomed boats and provisions on the Tennessee River for transportation of those removing. 7. All valuable improvements made by Cherokees within the limits ceded to the United States by first and second articles hereof shall be paid for by the United States or others of equal value left by removing Cherokees given in lieu thereof. Improvements left by emigrant Cherokees not so exchanged shall be rented to the Indians, for the benefit of the poor and decrepit of the Eastern Cherokees. 8. Each head of a Cherokee family residing on lands herein or hereafter ceded to the United States who elects to become a citizen of the United States shall receive a reservation of 640 acres, to include his or her improvements, for life, with reversion in fee simple to children, subject to widow's dower. On removal of reservees their reservations shall revert to the United States. Lands reserved under this provision shall be deducted from the quantity ceded by first and second articles. 9. All parties to the treaty shall have free navigation of all waters herein mentioned. 10. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States all claim to reservations made to Doublehead and others by treaty of January 7, 1806. 11. Boundary lines of lands ceded to the United States by first and second articles, and by the United States to the Cherokees in fifth article hereof, to be run and marked by a United States commissioner, to be accompanied by commissioners appointed by the Cherokees. 12. Citizens of the United States are forbidden to enter upon lands herein ceded by the Cherokees until ratification and proclamation of this treaty. 13. Treaty to be binding upon the assent and ratification of the Senate and President of the United States. HISTORICAL DATA. POLICY OF REMOVING INDIAN TRIBES TO THE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. In the settlement and colonization by civilized people of a country theretofore a wilderness, and inhabited only by savage tribes, many important and controlling reasons exist why the occupation of such a country should be accomplished by regular and gradual advances and in a more or less connected and compact manner. It was expedient that a united front should be presented by the earlier settlers of this continent, in order that the hostile raids and demonstrations of the Indian warriors might be successfully resisted and repulsed. Therefore, the settlements were, as a rule, extended from the coast line toward the interior by regular steps, without the intermission of long distances of unoccupied territory. This seemed to be the policy anterior to the Revolution, and was announced in the proclamation of King George in 1763 wherein he prohibited settlements being made on Indian lands or the purchase of the same by unauthorized persons. The first ordinances of Congress under the Articles of Confederation for disposing of the public lands were predicated upon the same theory. But after the close of the war for independence, circumstances arising out of the treaty of 1783 with Great Britain and the acquisition of Louisiana from France imposed the necessity for a departure from the old system. Within the limits of the territory thus acquired sundry settlements had been made by the French people at points widely separated from one another and with many hundreds of miles of wilderness intervening between them and the English settlements on the Atlantic slope. The evils and inconveniences resulting from this irregular form of frontier were manifest. Settlements thus widely separated, or projecting in long, narrow columns far into the Indian country, manifestly increased in large ratio the causes of savage jealousy and hostility. At the same time the means of defense were rendered less certain and the expense and difficulty of adequately protecting such a frontier were largely enhanced. Such, however, was the condition and shape of our frontier settlements during the earlier years of the present century. Settlements on the Tennessee and Cumberland were cut off from communication with those of Georgia, Lower Alabama, and Mississippi by long stretches of territory inhabited or roamed over by the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. The French communities of Kaskaskia, Vincennes, and Detroit were similarly separated from the people of Virginia, Pennsylvania, and newly settled Ohio by the territory of the hostile Shawnees, Miamis, Wyandots, Pottawatomies, Ottawas, Kickapoos, _et al._ A cure for all this inconvenience and expense had been sought and given much consideration by the Government authorities. President Jefferson (as has been previously stated) had, as early as 1803,[225] suggested the propriety of an exchange of lands by those tribes east of the Mississippi for an equal or greater area of territory within the newly acquired Louisiana purchase, and in 1809 had authorized a delegation of Cherokees to proceed to that country with a view to selecting a suitable tract to which they might remove, and to which many of them did remove in the course of the years immediately succeeding.[226] The matter of a general exchange of lands, however, became the subject of Congressional consideration, and the Committee on Public Lands of the United States Senate reported[227] a resolution for an appropriation to enable the President to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes which should have for their object an exchange of territory owned by any tribe residing east of the Mississippi for other land west of that river. The committee expressed the opinion that the proposition contained in the foregoing resolution would be better calculated to remedy the inconvenience and remove the evils arising out of the existing condition of the frontier settlements than any other within the power of the Government. It was admitted, however, that this object could not be attained except by the voluntary consent of the several tribes interested, made manifest through duly negotiated treaties with them. The Senate was favorable to this proposition, but the House of Representatives interposed a negative upon the action taken by the former body.[228] _Removal of Cherokees encouraged._--The subject had long been under consideration by the Cherokees, and no opportunity had been lost on the part of the executive authorities of the United States to encourage a sentiment among them favorable to the removal scheme. Many individuals of the tribe had already emigrated, and on the 18th of October, 1816, General Andrew Jackson, in addressing the Secretary of War upon the subject of the recent Cherokee and Chickasaw treaties, suggested his belief that the Cherokees would shortly make a tender of their whole territory to the United States in exchange for lands on the Arkansas River. He further remarked that a council would soon be held by them at Willstown to select a proper delegation who should visit the country west of the Mississippi and examine and report upon its character and adaptability for their needs. In case this report should prove favorable, a Cherokee delegation would thereupon wait upon the President, with authority to agree upon satisfactory terms of exchange. To this the Secretary of War replied that whenever the Cherokee Nation should be disposed to enter into an arrangement for an exchange of the lands occupied by them for lands on the west side of the Mississippi River and should appoint delegates clothed with full authority to negotiate a treaty for such exchange they would be received by the President and treated with on the most liberal terms. This state of feeling among the Cherokees had been considerably increased by the fact that those of their people who had already settled upon the Arkansas and White Rivers had become involved in territorial disputes of a most serious character with the Osages and Quapaws. The latter tribes claimed ownership of the lands upon which the former were settled. Upon the Arkansas Cherokees laying their complaints before the United States authorities, they were informed that nothing could be done for their relief until the main body of the nation should take some definite action, in accordance with previous understanding, toward relinquishing a portion of their territory equal in area to the tract upon which the emigrant party had located.[229] FURTHER CESSION OF TERRITORY BY THE CHEROKEES. With a view to reaching a full understanding on this subject, the Secretary of War notified[230] General Andrew Jackson, Governor McMinn of Tennessee, and General David Merriwether that they had been appointed commissioners for the purpose of holding a treaty with the Cherokees on or about the 20th of June, 1817.[231] In pursuance of these instructions a conference was called and held at the Cherokee Agency, which resulted in the treaty of July 8, 1817.[232] By this treaty the Cherokees ceded two large tracts of country[233] in exchange for one of equal area on the Arkansas and White Rivers adjoining the territory of the Osages. The Cherokees also ceded two small reservations made by the treaty of January 7, 1806.[234] The large cession by the first article of the treaty of 1817, though partially in Georgia, was at the time supposed to cover all the territory claimed by the Cherokees within the limits of North Carolina,[235] and was secured in deference to the urgent importunities of the legislature and people of that State. It was subsequently ascertained that this supposition was incorrect. _Majority of Cherokees averse to removal._--During the conference, but before the negotiations had reached any definite result, a memorial was presented to the United States commissioners, signed by sixty-seven of the chiefs and headmen of the nation, setting forth that the delegation of their nation who in 1809 visited Washington and discussed with President Jefferson the proposition for an exchange of lands had acted without any delegated authority on the subject. The memorialists claimed to represent the prevailing feeling of the nation and were desirous of remaining upon and retaining the country of their nativity. They were distressed with the alternative proposals to remove to the Arkansas country or remain and become citizens of the United States. While they had not attained a sufficient degree of civilization to fit them for the duties of citizenship, they yet deprecated a return to the same savage state and surroundings which had characterized their mode of life when first brought in contact with the whites. They therefore requested that the subject should not be further pressed, but that they might be enabled to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their fathers.[236] The commissioners, however, proceeded with their negotiations, and concluded the treaty as previously set forth, which was finally signed by twenty-two of the chiefs and headmen whose names appeared attached to the memorial, as well as six others, on behalf of the eastern portion of the nation, and by fifteen chiefs representing those on the Arkansas.[237] The treaty was submitted to the Senate, for its advice and consent, at the ensuing session of Congress, and although it encountered the hostility of those Senators who were opposed to the general policy of an exchange of lands with the Indians, and of some who argued, because of the few chiefs who had signed it, that it did not represent the full and free expression of their national assent,[238] that body approved its provisions, and the President ratified and proclaimed it on the 26th of December, 1817. _A portion of the Cherokees emigrate west._--Immediately upon the signing of the treaty, the United States authorities, presuming upon its final ratification, took measures for carrying into effect the scheme of emigration. Within a month Agent Meigs reported that over 700 Cherokees had already enrolled themselves for removal the ensuing fall. The Secretary of War entered into a contract for 60 boats, to be delivered by 1st of November at points between the mouths of the Little Tennessee and Sequatchie Rivers, together with rifles, ammunition, blankets, and provisions;[239] and, under the control and directions of Governor McMinn, of Tennessee, the stream of emigration began to flow, increasing in volume until within the next year over 3,000 had emigrated to their new homes, which numbers had during the year 1819 increased to 6,000.[240] _Persecution of those favorable to emigration._--There can be no question that a very large portion, and probably a majority, of the Cherokee Nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 1817. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the constant and urgent importunities of the Federal authorities in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would finally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judge of the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they were engaged. This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing influences of the Government agents, to favor the conclusion of the treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of the nation were forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh, and to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of their descendants. _Dissatisfaction with the treaty of 1817._--The dissatisfaction with the treaty of 1817 took shape in the assemblage of a council at Amoha, in the Cherokee Nation, in September of the same year, at which six of the principal men were selected as a deputation to visit the President at Washington and present to him in person a detailed statement of the grievances and indignities to which they had been subjected in greater or less degree for many years and to ask relief and redress. They were to present, with special particularity, to the President's notice a statement of the improper methods and influences that had been used to secure the apparent consent of the nation to the treaty of 1817. They were authorized to enter into a new treaty with the United States, in lieu of the recent one, in which an alteration might be made in certain articles of it, and some additional article inserted relative to the mode of payment of their annuity as between the Eastern and Arkansas Cherokees.[241] The delegation was received and interviews were accorded them by the President and Secretary of War, but they secured nothing but general expressions of good will and promises of protection in their rights and property. [Footnote 224: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.] [Footnote 225: Confidential message of President Jefferson to Congress, January 18, 1803.] [Footnote 226: The letter of President Jefferson authorizing a delegation of Cherokees to visit the Arkansas and White River country was dated January 9, 1809, and will be found in the American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, p. 125, as well as among the records of the Indian Office.] [Footnote 227: January 9, 1817.] [Footnote 228: Letter of Secretary of War to General Jackson, May 14, 1817.] [Footnote 229: In a letter to Return J. Meigs, under date of September 18, 1816, the Secretary of War says that "the difficulties which have arisen between the Cherokees and the Osages, on the north of the Arkansas, and with the Quapaws, on the south, cannot be finally settled until the line of the cession shall be run and the rights of the Quapaws shall be ascertained. Commissioners appointed by the President are now sitting at Saint Louis for the adjustment of those differences; but should the line of the Osage treaty prove that they are settled upon the Osage lands, nothing can be done for the Cherokees. It is known to you and to that nation that the condition upon which the emigration was permitted by the President was that a cession of Cherokee lands should be made equal to the proportion which the emigrants should bear to the whole nation. This condition has never been complied with on the part of the nation, and of course all obligation on the part of the United States to secure the emigrants in their new possessions has ceased. When the subject was mentioned to the Cherokee deputation last winter, so far were they from acknowledging its force, that they declared the emigrants should be compelled to return."] [Footnote 230: May 14, 1817.] [Footnote 231: On the 17th of May, 1817, these commissioners were advised that the lands proposed to be given the Cherokees on the west of the Mississippi River, in exchange for those then occupied by them, were the lands on the Arkansas and immediately adjoining the Osage boundary line.] [Footnote 232: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.] [Footnote 233: These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as Nos. 23 and 24.] [Footnote 234: These tracts are designated on the accompanying map as Nos. 25 and 26.] [Footnote 235: August 1, 1817, the Secretary of War advised the governor of North Carolina that a treaty with the Cherokees had been concluded, by which the Indian claim was relinquished to a tract of country including the whole of the land claimed by them in North Carolina.] [Footnote 236: This memorial bore date of July 2, 1817.] [Footnote 237: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.] [Footnote 238: Letter of Secretary of War to Treaty Commissioners August 1, 1817.] [Footnote 239: Letters of Secretary of War to General Jackson and Colonel Meigs, August 9, 1817.] [Footnote 240: Letter of Governor McMinn to Secretary of War, November 29, 1818, and subsequent correspondence during 1819. Governor McMinn's letter of November 29, 1818, states that 718 families had enrolled for emigration since December 20, 1817, and 146 families had taken reservations, which made in all, including those who had already emigrated, about one-half of the Cherokee Nation as committed to the support of the policy involved in the treaty of 1817. February 17, 1819, a Cherokee delegation advised the Secretary of War that, while Governor McMinn's enrollment showed the number of Cherokees who had removed or enrolled to go prior to November 15, 1818, to be 5,291, by their calculation the number did not exceed 3,500, and that they estimated the number of Cherokees remaining east of the Mississippi at about 12,544.] [Footnote 241: The instructions of the Amoha council to the delegation of six bear date of Fortville, Cherokee Nation, September 19, 1817.] TREATY CONCLUDED FEBRUARY 27, 1819; PROCLAIMED MARCH 10, 1819.[242] _Held at Washington City, D. C., between John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, specially authorized therefor by the President of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Cherokee Nation of Indians._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. 1. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States all of their lands lying north and east of the following line, viz: Beginning on the Tennessee River at the point where the Cherokee boundary with Madison County, in the Alabama Territory, joins the same; thence along the main channel of said river to the mouth of the Highwassee; thence along its main channel to the first hill which closes in on said river, about two miles above Highwassee Old Town; thence along the ridge which divides the waters of the Highwassee and Little Tellico to the Tennessee River at Talassee; thence along the main channel to the junction of the Cowee and Nanteyalee; thence along the ridge in the fork of said river to the top of the Blue Ridge; thence along the Blue Ridge to the Unicoy Turnpike Road; thence by straight line to the nearest main source of the Chestatee; thence along its main channel to the Chattahouchee; and thence to the Creek boundary; it being understood that all the islands in the Chestatee, and the parts of the Tennessee and Highwassee (with the exception of Jolly's Island, in the Tennessee, near the mouth of the Highwassee) which constitute a portion of the present boundary, belong to the Cherokee Nation; and it is also understood that the reservations contained in the second article of the treaty of Tellico, signed the twenty-fifth October, eighteen hundred and five, and a tract equal to twelve miles square, to be located by commencing at the point formed by the intersection of the boundary line of Madison County already mentioned and the north bank of the Tennessee River, thence along the said line and up the said river twelve miles, are ceded to the United States, in trust for the Cherokee Nation, as a school fund, to be sold by the United States, and the proceeds vested as is hereafter provided in the fourth article of this treaty; and also that the rights vested in the Unicoy Turnpike Company by the Cherokee Nation * * * are not to be affected by this treaty. The foregoing cessions are understood and declared to be in full satisfaction of all claims of the United States upon the Cherokees on account of the cession to a part of their nation who have emigrated or who may emigrate to the Arkansas and as a final adjustment of the treaty of July 8, 1817. 2. The United States agree to pay, according to the treaty of July 8, 1817, for all valuable improvements on land within the country ceded by the Cherokees, and to allow a reservation of 640 acres to each head of a family (not enrolled for removal to Arkansas) who elects to become a citizen of the United States. 3. Each person named in a list accompanying the treaty shall have a reserve of 640 acres in fee simple, to include his improvements, upon giving notice within six months to the agent of his intention to reside permanently thereon. Various other reservations in fee simple are made to persons therein named. 4. The reservations and 12-mile tract reserved for a school fund in the first article are to be sold by the United States and the proceeds invested in good stocks, the interest of which shall be expended in educational benefits for the Cherokees east of the Mississippi. 5. The boundary lines of the land ceded by the first article shall be established by commissioners appointed by the United States and the Cherokees. Leases made under the treaty of 1817 of land within the Cherokee country shall be void. All white people intruding upon the lands reserved by the Cherokees shall be removed by the United States, under the act of March 30, 1802. 6. Annuities shall be distributed in the proportion of two-thirds to those east to one-third to those west of the Mississippi. Should the latter object within one year to this proportion, a census shall be taken of both portions of the nation to adjust the matter. 7. The United States shall prevent intrusion on the ceded lands prior to January 1, 1820. 8. The treaty shall be binding upon its ratification. HISTORICAL DATA. CHEROKEES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI--THEIR WANTS AND CONDITION. Early in 1818 a representative delegation from that portion of the Cherokees who had removed to the Arkansas visited Washington with the view of reaching a more satisfactory understanding concerning the location and extent of their newly acquired homes in that region. As early as January 14 of that year, they had addressed a memorial to the Secretary of War asking, among other things, that the United States should recognize them as a separate and distinct people, clothed with the power to frame and administer their own laws, after the manner of their brethren east of the Mississippi. Long and patient hearings were accorded to this delegation by the authorities of the Government, and, predicated upon their requests, instructions were issued[243] to Governor William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs at Saint Louis, among other things, to secure a cessation of hostilities then raging between the Arkansas Cherokees and the Osages; furthermore, to induce, if possible, the Shawnees and Delawares then residing in the neighborhood of Cape Girardeau to relinquish their land and join the Western Cherokees, or, in the event of a favorable termination of the Quapaw treaty then pending, that they might be located on lands acquired from them. During the year the Arkansas Cherokees had also learned that the Oneidas of New York were desirous of obtaining a home in the West, and had made overtures for their settlement among them.[244] The main object of the Cherokees in desiring to secure these originally eastern Indians for close neighbors is to be found in the increased strength they would be able to muster in sustaining their quarrel with their native western neighbors. It may be interesting in this connection to note the fact that in 1825 the Cherokees sent a delegation to Wapakoneta, Ohio, accompanied by certain Western Shawnees, whose mission was to induce the Shawnees at that point to join them in the West. Governor Lewis Cass, under instructions from the War Department, held a council at Wapakoneta, lasting nine days,[245] having in view the accomplishment of this end, but it was unsuccessful. Governor Clark was also advised by his instructions of the desire of the Cherokees to secure an indefinite outlet west, in order that they should not in the future, by the encroachments of the whites and the diminution of game, be deprived of uninterrupted access to the more remote haunts of the buffalo and other large game animals. He was instructed to do everything consistent with justice in the matter to favor the Cherokees by securing from the Osages the concession of such a privilege, it being the object of the President that every favorable inducement should be held out to the Cherokees east of the Mississippi to remove and join their western brethren. This extension of their territory to the west was promised them by the President in the near future, and in the summer of 1819[246] the Secretary of War instructed Reuben Lewis, United States Indian agent, to assure the Cherokees that the President, through the recent accession of territory from the Osages, was ready and willing to fulfill his promise. _Survey of east boundary of Cherokees in Arkansas._--Provision having been made in the treaty of 1817[247] for a definition of the east line of the tract assigned the Cherokees on the Arkansas, Mr. Reuben Lewis, the Indian agent in that section, was designated, in the fall of 1818,[248] to run and mark the line, and upon its completion to cause to be removed, without delay, all white settlers living west thereof, with the single exception mentioned in the treaty. These instructions to Mr. Lewis miscarried in the mails and did not reach him until the following summer. The line had in the mean time been run by General William Rector, under the authority of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, which survey Mr. Lewis was authorized to accept as the correct boundary provided the Cherokees were satisfied therewith.[249] The field notes of this survey were certified by General Rector April 14, 1819, and show the length of the line from Point Remove to White River to have been 71 miles 55 chains and the course N. 53° E.[250] _Treaty between Cherokees and Osages._--During this interval[251] Governor Clark had succeeded in securing the presence at Saint Louis of representative delegations of both the Osage and Western Cherokee tribes, between whom, after protracted negotiations, he succeeded in establishing the most peaceful and harmonious relations, which were evidenced by all the usual formalities of a treaty. DISPUTES AMONG CHEROKEES CONCERNING EMIGRATION. The unhappy differences of mind among the Cherokees east of the Mississippi on the subject of removal, which had been fast approaching a climax as a consequence of the treaty of 1817, had been rather stimulated than otherwise by the frequent departure of parties for their new western home, and the constant importunities of the United States and State officials (frequently bearing the semblance of threats) having in view the removal of the entire tribe. The many and open acts of violence practiced by the "home" as against the "emigration" party at length called forth[252] a vigorous letter of denunciation from the Secretary of War to Governor McMinn, the emigration superintendent. After detailing at much length the many advantages that would accrue to the Cherokee Nation by a removal beyond the contaminating influences always attendant upon the contact of a rude and barbarous people with a higher type of civilization, the unselfish and fatherly interest the Government of the United States had always manifested and still felt in the comfort and progress of the Cherokee people, and the great degree of liberality that had characterized its action in securing for the Cherokees in their new homes an indefinite outlet to the bountiful hunting grounds of the West, the Secretary concluded by an expression of the determination on the part of the United States to protect at all hazards from insult and injury to person or property every Cherokee who should express an opinion or take action favorable to the scheme of emigration. He also instructed Governor McMinn to lose no opportunity of impressing upon the minds of the Cherokees that the practical effect of a complete execution of the treaty of 1817 would be, as had been the intention of the Government when it was negotiated, to compel them either to remove to the Arkansas or to accept individual reservations and become citizens of the States within whose limits they respectively resided. PUBLIC SENTIMENT IN TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA CONCERNING CHEROKEE REMOVAL. Governor McMinn, being the executive of the State of Tennessee, could hardly be supposed to present the views of the Secretary of War to the Cherokees on the subject of their removal in milder terms or manner than they had been communicated to him. The public officer in that State who should have neglected such an opportunity of compelling the Cherokees to appreciate the benefits of a wholesale emigration to the West would have fared but ill at the polls in a contest for re-election. The people of both Tennessee and Georgia were unalterably determined that the Indians should be removed from their States, and no compromise or temporary expedient of delay would satisfy their demands. Millions of acres of valuable lands, rich in all the elements that combine to satisfy the necessities and the desires of the husbandman--mountain, valley, and plain--comprising every variety of soil, fertilized by innumerable running streams and clothed with heavy forests of the finest timber, were yet in the possession of the native tribes of this region. Other lands in great quantities, available for white settlement and occupation, both in Kentucky and the adjoining States, were, it is true, lying idle. In point of soil, water, and timber they were doubtless equal if not superior to the Indian possessions. But the idea was all-prevalent then as it is now in border communities, that, however attractive may be the surrounding districts of public lands open to the inclination of anybody who desires to settle thereon, the prohibited domain of a neighboring Indian reservation must of necessity surpass it, and no application of the principles of reason, philosophy, or justice will serve to lessen the desire for its possession. Governor McMinn convened[253] a council of the Cherokees, at which he presented to them in the strongest light the benefits that would accrue to their nation in the increasing happiness, prosperity, and population such as would attend their removal to the Arkansas, while, on the other hand, nothing but evil could follow their continued residence east of the Mississippi. Their lands would be constantly encroached upon by white settlers; border desperadoes would steal their stock, corrupt their women, and besot their warriors. However anxious the Government might be to protect them in the uninterrupted enjoyment of their present possessions, it would, from the circumstances of the case, be utterly unable to do so. He therefore proposed to them that they should, as a unit, agree to remove west of the Mississippi, and that the United States should pay them for their lands the sum of $100,000, in addition to all expenses of removal; which amount, upon their prompt and indignant refusal, he at once offered to double, but with as small measure of success. The treaty of 1817 had made provision for the taking of a census of the whole Cherokee people during the month of June of the following year. The census was to form the basis for an equitable distribution of the annuities and other benefits of which the Cherokee Nation was in receipt, between the portion who continued to abide in their eastern homes and those who had removed to the Arkansas country, in proportion to their respective numbers. Pending this enumeration no annuities had been paid them, which produced much annoyance and dissatisfaction among both parties. In consequence of the hostile and vindictive attitude manifested toward the emigrant party by the remainder of the nation and the many obstacles sought to be thrown in the path of removal, the authorities of the United States had hitherto refused to comply with the census provision of the treaty of 1817. Governor McMinn, after the rejection of both his purchase and his removal propositions, then proposed (in answer to the demand of the Cherokee council that he should cause the census to be taken in the manner provided) that if they would pass a formal vote of censure upon such of their officers as he should name as having violated the treaty by the use of intimidating measures against the Arkansas emigrants, he would cause the work of taking the census to be at once begun. The council also declined to do this, admitting that if such conduct had characterized any of their officers it was deserving of censure but denying that any proof of the charges had been submitted. They at last, however, as an evidence of their good disposition toward the United States, consented to the removal of one of the offensive officers named from his position as a member of the council, and the Secretary of War authorized[254] the taking of the census to be proceeded with. Governor McMinn, in summing up the results of this council,[255] assumes that about one-half of the nation had already committed themselves to the policy outlined in the treaty of 1817, by the fact that since December 28 of that year 718 families had enrolled themselves for removal (aggregating, with those already removed, 5,291 individuals), besides 146 families who had elected to take reservations in severalty. The lack of tangible results following this council was promptly reported to the Secretary of War by both Governor McMinn and Agent Meigs. The latter advised the authorities[256] that a fully authorized and representative delegation of the Cherokee Nation would shortly proceed to Washington, and that, in his judgment, the nation was rapidly becoming satisfied of their inability to long postpone what to every impartial observer must appear as inevitable--an exchange of their country for a location west of the Mississippi River. This delegation in due time[257] arrived at the capital, and a series of councils or interviews was at once entered upon between themselves and the Secretary of War, as representing the President. Many and just were the causes of complaint presented to the Secretary by the delegation. The recital of their wrongs, the deep affection manifested for their native hills and streams, and the superstitious dread with which they looked upon removal to a new country as being the decisive step in their dispersion and destruction as a people were calculated to excite the sympathy of an unprejudiced mind. It had long been evident, however, that the simple minded barbarian was unable to cope with the intelligent and persistent demands of civilization, and that, with or without his consent, the advancing host of white settlers would ere many years be in full enjoyment of his present possessions. TREATY CONCLUDED FOR FURTHER CESSION OF LAND. After several preliminary discussions concerning the best method of adjusting their difficulties, the Secretary of War submitted to them,[258] in writing, a statement of the basis upon which the United States would enter into a treaty with them, urging prompt action thereon, in order that the Senate might have time to exercise its constitutional functions upon the same prior to its approaching adjournment. The salient points of this proposition were that the Cherokees should make a cession of land in proportion to the estimated number of their nation who had already removed or enrolled themselves for removal to the Arkansas; that the United States preferred the cession to be made in Tennessee and Georgia, and that in the latter State it should be as near and convenient to the existing white settlements as was possible; that the reservation which the Cherokees had expressed a desire to make for the benefit of a proposed school fund should be located within the limits of Alabama Territory, inasmuch as the cession to be made in Georgia would, under the provisions of the act of Congress of 1802, belong to that State, and the lands covering the proposed cession in Tennessee would be subject to location by North Carolina military land warrants. Neither was such school reservation to constitute any portion of the land which the Cherokees were to cede in conformity to the principle of exchange embodied in the first paragraph. The United States would continue to extend its protection to both branches of the Cherokee people, but those remaining east of the Mississippi, having expressed a desire that the lands retained by them should be absolutely guaranteed from any danger of future cession, were informed that in order to secure such guarantee it was indispensable that the cessions they were about to make should be ample, and that the portion of territory reserved by them should not be larger than was essential to their wants and convenience. The Secretary reminded them that should a larger quantity be retained it would not be possible, by any stipulation in the treaty, to prevent future cessions; that so long as they retained more land than was necessary or convenient for themselves they would feel inclined to sell and the United States to purchase. He commented on the fact that they were rapidly becoming like the white people, and could not longer live by hunting, but must work for their subsistence. In their new condition of life far less land would be essential to their happiness. Their great object should be to hold their land by severalty titles and to gradually adopt the manners and laws of life which prevailed among their white neighbors. It was only thus that they could be prosperous and happy, and neglect to accept and profit by the situation would inevitably result in their removal or extinction. The question as to the area of territory that should be ceded as the equitable proportion of the Arkansas Cherokees formed the subject of much dispute. The Eastern Cherokees denied the accuracy of the emigration roll of Governor McMinn, and asserted that, instead of 5,291 emigrants, as stated by him, there had actually been not exceeding 3,500, while the non-emigrant portion of the nation they gave as numbering 12,514, or more than three-fourths of the entire community.[259] It being impossible to reconcile these radical differences of estimate and the Indians becoming wearied and discouraged with the persistent importunities of the United States officials, they consented to the cession of those tracts of country naively described in the treaty of February 27, 1819,[260] as "_at least as extensive_" as that to which the United States was entitled under the principles and provisions of the treaty of 1817. These cessions were made, as recited in the preamble to the treaty, as the commencement of those measures necessary to the civilization and preservation of their nation, and in order that the treaty of July 8, 1817, might, without further delay or the trouble or expense of taking the census therein provided for, be finally adjusted. It was also agreed that the distribution of annuities should be made in the proportion of two to one in favor of the Eastern Cherokees (it being assumed that about one-third of the nation had gone west), with the proviso that if the Arkansas Cherokees should offer formal objection to this ratio within one year after the ratification of the treaty, then a census, solely for the purpose of making a fair distribution of the annuity, should be taken at such time and in such manner as the President of the United States should designate. All leases of any portion of the territory reserved to the Cherokees were declared void, and the removal of all intruders upon their lands was promised, to which latter end an order was issued requiring such removal to take place on or before July 1, 1819. Thus was concluded the treaty of February 27, 1819, which was promptly and favorably acted upon by the Senate and ratified and proclaimed by the President on the 10th of March following. The gist of such provisions of importance as are not detailed in these historical notes will be found by reference to the abstract preceding them. Immediately upon the approval of the treaty by the Senate, the Secretary of War notified Governor McMinn[261] of the fact, directing him to give no further encouragement to emigration to the Arkansas, but to proceed at once to wind up the business under the treaty of 1817. _Survey of boundaries._--Preparations were at once made for surveying and marking the lines of the cessions. Hon. Wilson Lumpkin, who was engaged in running the line between East Florida and the State of Georgia, was directed[262] to suspend that work, and designated to survey the line of cession, commencing at the point where the Unicoi Turnpike crossed the Blue Ridge, and thence to the nearest main source of the Chestatee, and also to lay off the individual reservations that should be selected within the State of Georgia. The following day[263] Robert Houston was appointed to run the line of the cession within the State of Tennessee, commencing on the Highwassee River about 2 miles above Highwassee Old Town, as well as to survey the individual reservations within that State, and also the tracts reserved in North Carolina and Alabama Territory. Mr. Houston performed his services as a surveyor to the satisfaction of all parties;[264] but in running the line from the Unicoi Turnpike crossing of the Blue Ridge to the nearest main source of the Chestatee, a dispute arose between Mr. Lumpkin and the Cherokees as to which was the nearest main source of that river, the Frogtown or the Tessentee Fork. The surveyor ran the line to the source of the first named fork, while the Indians insisted that the latter was the proper stream, and demanded a re-examination of the survey. Agent Meigs having, however, reported[265] in favor of the correctness of the survey, it was allowed to stand.[266] STATUS OF CERTAIN CHEROKEES. Early in the year 1820[267] complaints began to arise as to the status of those Cherokees who had made their election to remove to the Arkansas country but had subsequently concluded to remain east. These, it was stated, numbered 817, and they found themselves placed in rather an anomalous situation. Their proportion of the Cherokee national domain had been ceded to the United States by the treaties of 1817 and 1819. Their share of annuities was being paid, under the treaty of 1819, to the Cherokees of the Arkansas. Their right to individual reservations under either treaty was denied, and they were not even allowed to vote, hold office, or participate in any of the affairs of the nation. In this condition they soon became an element of much irritation in the body politic of the tribe. The Cherokee authorities urged that they should be furnished with rations and transportation to their brethren in the West, whither they were now willing to remove, but the Secretary of War instructed Agent Meigs[268] that emigration to the Arkansas under the patronage of the Government had ceased, and that those Cherokees who had enrolled themselves for removal but had not yet gone, as well as all others thereafter determining to go, must do so at their own expense. [Footnote 242: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 195.] [Footnote 243: May 8, 1818.] [Footnote 244: Secretary of War to Reuben Lewis, United States Indian agent, May 16, 1818.] [Footnote 245: May 16 to 24, inclusive.] [Footnote 246: July 22.] [Footnote 247: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.] [Footnote 248: Letter of Secretary of War to Capt. William Bradford, September 9, 1818.] [Footnote 249: Secretary of War to Agent Lewis, July 22, 1819.] [Footnote 250: Field notes and diagram on file in Indian Office.] [Footnote 251: October 6, 1818.] [Footnote 252: July 29, 1818.] [Footnote 254: December 29, 1818.] [Footnote 253: November 13, 1818.] [Footnote 255: November 29, 1818.] [Footnote 256: December 19, 1818.] [Footnote 257: February, 1819.] [Footnote 258: February 11, 1819.] [Footnote 259: Cherokee delegation to Secretary of War, February 17, 1819.] [Footnote 260: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 195.] [Footnote 261: March 6, 1819.] [Footnote 262: March 11, 1819.] [Footnote 263: March 12, 1819.] [Footnote 264: Mr. Houston began his survey at the point where the first hill closes in on Hiwassee River, which he found to be 2-1/2 miles above Hiwassee Old Town. He also states in his report that he found no ridge dividing the waters of Hiwassee from those of Little River. This line from the Hiwassee River to the Tennessee River at Talassee was 46 miles and 300 poles in length. It was begun May 28 and completed June 12, 1819. The line from the junction of Cowee and Nauteyalee Rivers to the Blue Ridge was begun June 12 and completed June 18, 1819, and was 36 miles long. His report, with accompanying map, was communicated to the Secretary of War with letter dated July 30, 1819. A copy of the field notes may be found in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, pp. 192 and 193.] [Footnote 265: July 24, 1820.] [Footnote 266: Secretary of War to Agent Meigs, August 14, 1820.] [Footnote 267: February 9. See letter of Return J. Meigs to Secretary of War.] [Footnote 268: June 15, 1820.] TREATY CONCLUDED MAY 6, 1828.--PROCLAIMED MAY 28, 1828.[269] _Held at Washington City, D. C., between James Barbour, Secretary of War, specially authorized therefor by the President of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. The preamble recites the desire of the United States to secure to the Cherokees, both east and west of the Mississippi, a permanent home, "that shall never in all future time be embarrassed by having extended around it the lines or placed over it the jurisdiction of a Territory or State, nor be pressed upon by the extension in any way of any of the limits of any existing Territory or State." It also assumes that their actual surroundings, both east and west of such river, were unadapted to the accomplishment of such a purpose, and therefore the following articles of agreement were made: 1. The western boundary of Arkansas shall be * * * viz: A line shall be run commencing on Red River at the point where the Eastern Choctaw line strikes said river, and run due north with said line to the river Arkansas; thence in a direct line to the southwest corner of Missouri. 2. The United States agree to possess the Cherokees, and to guarantee it to them forever, * * * of seven million of acres of land, to be bounded as follows, viz: Commencing at that point on Arkansas River where the eastern Choctaw boundary lines strikes said river, and running thence with the western line of Arkansas, as defined in the foregoing article, to the southwest corner of Missouri, and thence with the western boundary line of Missouri till it crosses the waters of Neasho, generally called Grand River; thence due west to a point from which a due-south course will strike the present northwest corner of Arkansas Territory; thence continuing due south on and with the present western boundary line of the Territory to the main branch of Arkansas River; thence down said river to its junction, with the Canadian River, and thence up and between the said rivers Arkansas and Canadian to a point at which a line running north and south from river to river will give the aforesaid seven million of acres. In addition to the seven millions of acres thus provided for and bounded, the United States guarantee to the Cherokee Nation a perpetual outlet west, and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of the above described limits and as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend. 3. The United States agree to survey the lines of the above cession 4. The United States agree to appraise and pay the value of all Cherokee improvements abandoned by the latter in their removal; also to sell the property and improvements connected with the agency, for the erection of a grist and saw mill in their new home. 5. The United States agree to pay the Cherokees $50,000 as the difference in value between their old and their new lands; also an annuity for three years of $2,000 to repay cost and trouble of going after and recovering stray stock; also $8,760 in full for spoliations committed on them by the Osages or citizens of the United States; also $1,200 for losses sustained by Thomas Graves, a Cherokee chief; also $500 to George Guess, the discoverer of the Cherokee alphabet, as well as the right to occupy a saline; also an annuity of $2,000 for ten years to be expended in the education of Cherokee children; also $1,000 for the purchase of printing press and type; also, the benevolent society engaged in instructing Cherokee children to be allowed the amount expended by it in erection of buildings and improvements; also, the United States to release the indebtedness of the Cherokees to the United States factory to an amount not exceeding $3,500. 6. The United States agree to furnish the Cherokees, when they desire it, a system of plain laws and to survey their lands for individual allotment. 7. The Cherokees agree within fourteen months to leave the lands in Arkansas assigned them by treaties of January 8, 1817, and February 27, 1819. 8. Each head of a Cherokee family east of the Mississippi desiring to remove to the country described in the second article hereof to be furnished by the United States with a good rifle, a blanket, a kettle, five pounds of tobacco, and compensated for all improvements he may abandon; also a blanket to each member of his family. The United States to pay expenses of removal and to furnish subsistence for one year thereafter. Each head of family taking with him four persons to receive $50. 9. The United States to have a reservation 2 by 6 miles at Fort Gibson, with the right to construct a road leading to and from the same. 10. Capt. James Rogers to have $500 for property lost and services rendered to the United States. 11. Treaty to be binding when ratified. NOTE.--The Senate consented to the ratification of this treaty with the proviso that the "western outlet" should not extend north of 36°, nor to interfere with lands assigned or to be assigned to the Creeks; neither should anything in the treaty be construed to assign to the Cherokees any lands previously assigned to any other tribe. HISTORICAL DATA. RETURN J. MEIGS AND THE CHEROKEES. Return J. Meigs had for nearly twenty years[270] occupied the position of United States agent for the Cherokee Nation. As a soldier of the Revolutionary war he had marched with Arnold through the forests of Maine and Canada to the attack on Quebec in 1775.[271] He had also, by his faithful, intelligent, and honest administration of the duties of his office as Indian agent, secured the perfect confidence of his official superiors through all the mutations of administration. He had acquired a knowledge of and familiarity with the habits, character, and wants of the Cherokees such as was perhaps possessed by few, if indeed by any other man. Any suggestions, therefore, that he might make concerning the solution of the Cherokee problem were deserving of grave consideration. His views were submitted in detail upon the condition, prospects, and requirements of the Cherokee Nation in a communication to the Secretary of War.[272] To his mind the time had arrived when a radical change in the policy of managing their affairs had become essential. Ever since the treaty of 1791 the United States, in pursuance of a policy therein outlined for leading the Cherokees toward the attainment of a higher degree of civilization, in becoming herdsmen and cultivators instead of hunters, had been furnishing each year a supply of implements for husbandry and domestic use. In consequence a respectable proportion of that nation had become familiarized with the use of the plow, spade, and hoe. Many of their women had learned the art of spinning and weaving, and in individual instances considerable progress had been made in the accumulation of property. Agent Meigs now thought that the point had been reached where the Cherokee people should begin to fight their own battles of life, and that any further contributions to their support, either in the shape of provisions or tools, would have only a tendency to render them more dependent upon the Government and less competent to take care of themselves. Those who were already advanced in the arts of civilized life should be the tutors of the more ignorant. They possessed a territory of perhaps 10,000,000 acres of land, principally in the States of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, for the occupation of which they could enumerate little more than 10,000 souls or 2,000 families. If they were to become an agricultural and pastoral people, an assignment of 640 acres of land to each family would be all and more than they could occupy with advantage to themselves. Such an allotment would consume but 1,280,000 acres, leaving more than 8,000,000 acres of surplus land which might and ought to be sold for their benefit, and the proceeds (which he estimated at $300,000, to be paid in fifty annual installments) applied to their needs in the erection of houses, fences, and the clearing and breaking up of their land for cultivation. The authority and laws of the several States within whose limits they resided should become operative upon them, and they should be vested with the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens of those States. These views met with the concurrence of the administration, and would possibly have been carried into effect but for the intense hostility thereto of not only the unprogressive element among the Cherokees themselves but of the officials and people of the States most interested, who could not view with complacency the permanent occupation of a single acre of land within their limits by the aboriginal owners. TENNESSEE DENIES THE VALIDITY OF CHEROKEE RESERVATIONS. About this time trouble arose between the authorities of the State of Tennessee and the surveyor (Robert Houston) who had been intrusted with the duty of laying off such individual reservations as should be taken under the provisions of the treaties of 1817 and 1819. Mr. Houston reported to the Secretary of War that the legislature of Tennessee had refused to confirm all such reservations taken in virtue of the provisions of those treaties subsequent to the 1st of July, 1818, or, in other words, after the time provided for taking the Cherokee census had expired, and desired the opinion and instructions of the Department thereon. The question involved in this dispute was deemed of sufficient importance to secure an official opinion from the Attorney-General prior to directing any further action.[273] An opinion was rendered[274] by Attorney-General Wirt, the substance of which was that the right of taking these reservations having been in the first instance given by the treaty of 1817 until the census should be taken, and the time for taking the census having been, by the acquiescence of both parties to the treaty, kept open until the conclusion of the treaty of February 27, 1819, all the reservations taken prior to this latter date were legal, more especially as they had been ratified by the recognition of them contained in the treaty of 1819. Furthermore, the second article of that treaty, taken in connection with the seventh article, continued the period for taking reservations until the 1st of January, 1820. Mr. Houston was instructed[275] to proceed to lay off the reservations in consonance with this opinion, notwithstanding which the authorities of Tennessee took issue therewith and passed a law providing for the sale of the disputed reserves, whereupon the War Department instructed[276] Agent Meigs to cause one or two test cases to be prepared for trial in the courts. While on the subject of these reservations it is pertinent to remark that by act of March 3, 1823, Congress appropriated $50,000 to be expended in extinguishing the Indian title to such individual fee simple reservations as were made within the limits of Georgia by the Cherokee treaties of 1817 and 1819 and by the Creek treaties of 1814 and 1821. James Merriwether and Duncan G. Campbell were appointed as commissioners to carry the same into effect. Twenty-two thousand dollars were also appropriated May 9, 1828, to reimburse the State of North Carolina for the amount expended by her authorities in extinguishing Cherokee reservation titles in that State under the treaties of 1817 and 1819. UNITED STATES AGREE TO EXTINGUISH INDIAN TITLE IN GEORGIA. By an agreement between the United States and the State of Georgia bearing date April 24, 1802,[277] Georgia ceded to the United States all the lands lying south of Tennessee and west of Chattahoochee River and a line drawn from the mouth of Uchee Creek direct to Nickojack, on the Tennessee River. In consideration of this cession the United States agreed to pay Georgia $1,250,000, and to extinguish the Indian title whenever the same could be done on peaceable and reasonable terms; also to assume the burden of what were known as the Yazoo claims. _Georgia charges the United States with bad faith._--Ever since the date of this agreement the utmost impatience had been manifested by the Government and the people of the State of Georgia at the deliberate and careful course which had characterized the action of the General Government in securing relinquishment of their lands in that State from the Creeks and Cherokees. Charges of bad faith on the part of the United States, coupled with threats of taking the matter into their own hands, had been published in great profusion by the Georgians. These served only to enhance the difficulties of the situation and to excite a stubborn resistance in the minds of the Indians against any further cessions of territory. _Report of Congressional committee._--The subject was brought to the attention of Congress through the action of the governor and legislature of Georgia. A select committee was appointed by the House of Representatives, at the first session of the Seventeenth Congress, to take the matter into consideration and to report whether the said articles of agreement between that State and the United States had so far been executed according to the terms thereof, and what were the best means of completing the execution of the same. This committee submitted a report to the House,[278] wherein, after reciting the terms of the agreement, allusion is made to the Creek treaty of 1814, and the opinion expressed that the agreement might have been more satisfactorily complied with by demanding the cession at that treaty of the Creek lands within Georgia's limits, instead of accepting in large measure those within the Territory of Alabama. The Indians were by this action forced, in the opinion of the committee, within the limits of Georgia, instead of being withdrawn therefrom. Respecting the Cherokee treaty of July 8, 1817, the committee say that some time previous to its conclusion the Cherokees had represented to the President that their upper and lower towns wished to separate; that the Upper Cherokees desired to be confined to a smaller section of country and to engage in the pursuits of agriculture and civilized life; that the Lower Cherokees preferred continuing the hunter's life, and, owing to the scarcity of game in their own country, proposed to exchange it for land on the west of the Mississippi River; that to carry into effect these wishes of the Indians the treaty of 1817 was held, and the United States then had it in their power to have so far complied with their contract with Georgia as to have extinguished the title of the Cherokees to most of their lands within the limits of that State; that this could readily have been done, for the reason that the Upper Cherokees resided beyond the boundaries of Georgia, and had expressed a desire to retain lands on the Hiwassee River, in Tennessee, whilst the Lower Cherokees, who were desirous of emigrating west, mostly resided in the former State. But, in spite of this opportunity, the United States had purchased an inconsiderable tract of country in Georgia and a very considerable one in Tennessee, apparently in opposition to the wishes of the Indians, the interests of Georgia, and of good faith in themselves. By this treaty the United States had also granted a reservation of 640 acres to each head of an Indian family who should elect to remain on the eastern side of the Mississippi. This the committee viewed as an attempt on the part of the United States to grant lands in fee simple within the limits of Georgia in direct violation of the rights of that State. The provision permitting Cherokees to become citizens of the United States was also characterized as an unwarrantable disregard of the rights of Congress. It was further asserted that by the treaty of 1819 the United States had shown a disposition and determination to permanently fix the Cherokee Indians upon the soil of Georgia, and thereby render it impossible to comply with their contract with that State. Yet another feature of this treaty too objectionable to be overlooked was the agreement of the United States that 12 miles square of land ceded by the Indians should be disposed of and the proceeds invested for the establishment of a school fund for those Indians. In conclusion the committee suggested that in order to a proper execution of the agreement with Georgia it would be necessary for the United States to relinquish the policy they had apparently adopted with regard to civilizing the Indians and keeping them permanently on their lands, at least in respect to the Creeks and Cherokees, and that appropriations should be made from time to time sufficiently large to enable the Government to hold treaties with those Indians for the extinguishment of their title. _Commissioners appointed to negotiate a new treaty._--Stimulated by the sentiments so strongly expressed in this report of a committee of the House of Representatives, the executive authorities determined to make another effort to secure a further cession of territory from the Cherokees. Accordingly the President appointed[279] General John Floyd, Maj. Freeman Walker, and Hon. J. A. Cuthbert, all of Georgia, commissioners to negotiate a treaty with that nation, and advised them of his earnest desire that a cession should be secured from the Indians such as would prove satisfactory to that State. Messrs. Walker and Cuthbert declined their appointments, and Duncan G. Campbell and General David Merriwether were appointed[280] in their places. General Merriwether dying shortly after, was succeeded by Maj. James Merriwether, whom it had been the original intention to appoint, but for whose name that of General Merriwether had been inserted in the primary appointment through mistake. Before any active steps had been taken toward the performance of the duties assigned the commission, General Floyd resigned,[281] and the President determined to allow the remaining two members to constitute the full commission. Their appointment was submitted to and approved[282] by the Senate, and in the transmission of their new commissions by the Secretary of War perseverance and judicious management were enjoined upon them as essential to success in their negotiations. It would seem that all their perseverance was needed, for the commissioners were unable to secure even an interview with the Cherokee authorities until a date and place had been designated for the fourth time. _Death of Agent Meigs._--About this time[283] Agent Meigs, who since 1801 had represented the Government with the Cherokees, died, and ex-Governor McMinn, of Tennessee, was appointed[284] to succeed him. _Failure to conclude proposed treaty._--The treaty commissioners finally met the council of the Cherokee Nation at Newtown, their capital, on the 4th of October, 1823.[285] They were also accompanied by Johnson Wellborn and James Blair, who had been appointed by the governor of Georgia as commissioners to advance the interests and protect the rights of that State. The negotiations were all conducted in writing, and form an interesting chapter in the history of the methods used throughout a long series of years to secure from the Cherokees, by "voluntary, peaceful, and reasonable means," the relinquishment of their ancestral territory. The commissioners set forth their desire to procure the cession of a tract of country comprising all to which the Cherokees laid claim lying north and east of a line to begin at a marked corner at the head of Chestatee River, thence along the ridge to the mouth of Long Swamp Creek, thence down the Etowah River to the line to be run between Alabama and Georgia, thence with that line to the dividing line between the Creeks and Cherokees, and thence with the latter line to the Chattahoochee. In consideration of this proposed cession, the commissioners agreed that the United States should pay the sum of $200,000 and also indemnify the nation against the Georgia depredation claims, as well as the further sum of $10,000 to be paid immediately upon the signing of the treaty. To this proposition, in spite of the threatening language used by the commissioners, the Indians invariably and repeatedly returned the answer, "We beg leave to present this communication as a positive and unchangeable refusal to dispose of one foot more of land."[286] The commissioners, seeing the futility of further negotiations, adjourned _sine die_,[287] and a report of their proceedings was made by Commissioner Campbell thirty days later, Major Merriwether having in the mean time resigned. _Cherokees ask protection against Georgia's demands._--Shortly following these attempted negotiations, which had produced in the minds of the Indians a feeling of grave uneasiness and uncertainty, a delegation of Cherokees repaired to Washington for a conference with the President touching the situation. Upon receiving their credentials, the Secretary of War sounded the key-note of the Government's purpose by asking if they had come authorized by their nation to treat for a further relinquishment of territory. To this pointed inquiry the delegation returned a respectful and earnest memorial,[288] urging that their nation labored under a peculiar inconvenience from the repeated appropriations made by Congress for the purpose of holding treaties with them having in view the further purchase of lands. Such action had resulted in much injury to the improvement of the nation in the arts of civilized life by unsettling the minds and prospects of its citizens. Their nation had reached the decisive and unalterable conclusion to cede no more lands, the limits preserved to them by the treaty of 1819 being not more than adequate to their comfort and convenience. It was represented as a gratifying truth that the Cherokees were rapidly increasing in number, rendering it a duty incumbent upon the nation to preserve, unimpaired to posterity, the lands of their ancestors. They therefore implored the interposition of the President with Congress in behalf of their nation, so that provision might be made by law to authorize an adjustment between the United States and the State of Georgia, releasing the former from its compact with the latter so far as it respected the extinguishment of the Cherokee title to land within the chartered limits of that State. The response[289] of the Secretary of War to this memorial was a reiteration of the terms of the compact with Georgia and of the zealous desire of the President to carry out in full measure the obligations of that compact. The manifest benefits and many happy results that would inure to the Cherokee Nation from an exchange of their country for one beyond the limits of any State and far removed from the annoying encroachments of civilization were pictured in the most attractive colors, but all to no purpose, the Cherokees only maintaining with more marked emphasis their original determination to part with no more land. Seeing the futility of further negotiations, the Secretary of War addressed[290] a communication to the governor of Georgia advising him of the earnest efforts that had been made to secure further concessions from the Cherokees and of the discouraging results, and inviting an expression of opinion from him upon the subject. _Governor Troup's threatening demands._--Governor Troup lost no time in responding to this invitation by submitting[291] a declaration of views on behalf of the government and people of the State of Georgia, the vigorously aggressive tone of which in some measure perhaps compensated for its lack of logical force. After censuring the General Government for the tardiness and weakness that had characterized its action on this subject throughout a series of years and denying that the Indians were anything but mere tenants at will, he laid down the proposition that Georgia was determined at all hazards to become possessed of the Cherokee domain; that if the Indians persisted in their refusal to yield, the consequences would be that the United States must either assist the Georgians in occupying the country which is their own and which is unjustly withheld from them, or, in resisting the occupation, to make war upon and shed the blood of brothers and friends. He further declared that the proposition to permit the Cherokees to reserve a portion of their land within that State for their future home could not be legitimately entertained by the General Government except with the consent of Georgia; that such consent would never be given; and, further that the suggestion of the incorporation of the Indians into the body politic of that State as citizens was neither desirable nor practicable. The conclusion of this remarkable state paper is characterized by a broadly implied threat that Georgia's fealty to the Union would be proportioned to the vigor and alertness with which measures were adopted and carried into effect by the United States for the extinguishment of the Cherokee title. _Response of President Monroe._--These criticisms by the executive of Georgia, which were sanctioned and in large measure reiterated by the legislature and by the Congressional delegation of that State,[292] called forth[293] from President Monroe a message to Congress upon the subject in defense of the course that had been pursued by the executive authorities of the United States. Accompanying this message was a report[294] from John C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, wherein it is alleged that at the date of the compact of 1802 between the United States and Georgia the two Indian nations living within the limits of that State (the Creeks and the Cherokees) were respectively in possession of 19,578,890 and 7,152,110 acres of territory. At the date of such compact, treaties existed between the United States and those tribes defining the limits of their territories. In fulfillment of the stipulation with Georgia, seven treaties had been held with them, five of which were with the Creeks and two with the Cherokees. The lands thus acquired from the former in Georgia amounted to 14,449,480 acres and from the latter to 995,310 acres. In acquiring these cessions for the State of Georgia the United States had expended $958,945.90, to which should be added the value of the 995,310 acres given by the Cherokees in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi, the estimated value of which, at the minimum price of public lands, would amount to $1,244,137.50. The United States had also (in addition to $1,250,000 paid to Georgia as a part of the original consideration) paid to the Yazoo claimants, under the same compact, $4,282,151.12, making in the aggregate $7,735,243.52, which sum did not include any portion of the expense of the Creek war, whereby upwards of 7,000,000 acres were acquired for the State of Georgia.[295] The President expressed it as his opinion that the Indian title was not in the slightest degree affected by the compact with Georgia, and that there was no obligation resting on the United States to remove the Indians by force, in the face of the stipulation that it should be done _peaceably_ and on _reasonable_ conditions. The compact gave a claim to the State which ought to be executed in all its conditions with good faith. In doing this, however, it was the duty of the United States to regard its strict import, and to make no sacrifice of their interest not called for by the compact, nor to commit any breach of right or humanity toward the Indians repugnant to the judgment and revolting to the feelings of the whole American people. The Cherokee agent, Ex-Governor McMinn, was shortly afterward ordered,[296] "without delay and in the most effectual manner, forthwith to expel white intruders from Cherokee lands." _Alarm of the Cherokees and indignation of Georgia._--The views expressed by the governor and legislature of Georgia upon this subject were the cause of much alarm among the Cherokees, who, through their delegation, appealed[297] to the magnanimity of the American Congress for justice and for the protection of the rights, liberties, and lives of the Cherokee people. On the other hand, the doctrines enunciated in President Monroe's special message, quoted above, again aroused the indignation of the governor of Georgia, who, in a communication[298] to the President, commented with much severity upon the bad faith that for twenty years had characterized the conduct of the executive officers of the United States in their treatment of the matter in dispute. _Message of President John Quincy Adams._--Every day but added acrimonious intensity to the feelings of the officials and people of Georgia. Their determination to at once possess both the Creek and the Cherokee territory within her chartered limits would admit of no delay or compromise. Following the Creek treaty of 1826, her surveyors were promptly and forcibly introduced into the ceded country, in spite of an express provision of the treaty forbidding such action prior to the 1st of January, 1827. So critical was the state of affairs considered to be that President John Quincy Adams invited the attention of Congress to the subject in a special message.[299] Therein the President declared that it ought not to be disguised that the act of the legislature of Georgia, under the construction given to it by the governor of that State, and the surveys made or attempted by his authority beyond the boundary secured by the treaty of 1826 to the Creek Indians, were in direct violation of the supreme law of the land, set forth in a treaty which had received all the sanctions provided by the Constitution; that happily distributed as the sovereign powers of the people of this Union had been between their general and State governments, their history had already too often presented collisions between these divided authorities with regard to the extent of their respective powers. No other case had, however, happened in which the application of military force by the Government of the Union had been suggested for the enforcement of a law the violation of which had within any single State been prescribed by a legislative act of that State. In the present instance it was his duty to say that if the legislative and executive authorities of the State of Georgia should persevere in acts of encroachment upon the territories secured by a solemn treaty to the Indians and the laws of the Union remained unaltered, a superadded obligation, even higher than that of human authority, would compel the Executive of the United States to enforce the laws and fulfill the duties of the nation by all the force committed for that purpose to his charge. CHEROKEE PROGRESS IN CIVILIZATION. Notwithstanding the many difficulties that had beset their paths and the condition of uncertainty and suspense which had surrounded their affairs for years, the Cherokees seem to have continued steadily in their progress toward civilization. The Rev. David Brown, who in the fall of 1825 made an extended tour of observation through their nation, submitted, in December[300] of that year, for the information of the War Department, an extended and detailed report of his examination, from which it appeared that numberless herds of cattle grazed upon their extensive plains; horses were numerous; many and extensive flocks of sheep, goats, and swine covered the hills and valleys; the climate was delicious and healthy and the winters were mild; the soil of the valleys and plains was rich, and was utilized in the production of corn, tobacco, cotton, wheat, oats, indigo, and potatoes; considerable trade was carried on with the neighboring States, much cotton being exported in boats of their own to New Orleans; apple and peach orchards were quite common; much attention was paid to the cultivation of gardens; butter and cheese of their own manufacture were seen upon many of their tables; public roads were numerous in the nation and supplied at convenient distances with houses of entertainment kept by the natives; many and flourishing villages dotted the country; cotton and woolen cloths were manufactured by the women and home-made blankets were very common; almost every family grew sufficient cotton for its own consumption; industry and commercial enterprise were extending themselves throughout the nation; nearly all the merchants were native Cherokees; the population was rapidly increasing, a census just taken showing 13,563 native citizens, 147 white men and 73 white women who had intermarried with the Cherokees, and 1,277 slaves; schools were increasing every year, and indolence was strongly discountenanced; the nation had no debt, and the revenue was in a flourishing condition; a printing press was soon to be established, and a national library and museum were in contemplation. FAILURE OF NEGOTIATIONS FOR FURTHER CESSION OF LANDS. On the 2d of March, 1827,[301] Congress passed an act authorizing the President to open negotiations with the Cherokees for the extinguishment of their title to such lands as were claimed by them within the limits of the State of North Carolina, and also for such quantity of land as should be necessary in the building of a canal to connect the Hiwassee and Canasauga Rivers. Ten thousand dollars were appropriated to defray the expenses of such negotiations, and Generals John Cocke, G. L. Davidson, and Alexander Grey were[302] appointed commissioners to conduct the same. Their negotiations were barren of results, as were also those of Maj. F. W. Armstrong, who in the following year[303] was dispatched on a similar mission. THE CHEROKEE NATION ADOPTS A CONSTITUTION. At a general convention, of delegates, "duly authorized for that purpose," held at New Echota, in the Cherokee Nation, July 26, 1827, a constitution, was adopted for the nation, predicated upon their assumed sovereignty and independence as one of the distinct nations of the earth. Such an instrument could not fail of exciting to the highest pitch the feelings and animosity of the authorities and people of Georgia. _Georgia's opinion of the Indian title._--Governor Forsyth inclosed[304] a copy of the "presumptuous" document to the President, at the same time desiring to know what the United States proposed to do about the "erection of a separate government within the limits of a sovereign State." He also inclosed the report of a committee and the resolutions of the legislature of Georgia predicated thereon as exhibiting the sentiments of that body on the subject. This committee, in reporting to the legislature the results of their investigations, assert that anterior to the Revolutionary war the Cherokee lands in Georgia belonged to Great Britain, and that the right as to both domain and empire was complete and perfect in that nation. The possession by the Indians was permissive. They were under the protection of Great Britain. Their title was temporary, being mere tenants at will, and such tenancy might have been determined at any moment either by force or by negotiation, at the pleasure of that power. Upon the close of the Revolution, Georgia assumed all the rights and powers in relation to the lands and Indians in question previously belonging to Great Britain, and had not since divested herself of any right or power in relation to such lands, further than she had in respect of all the balance of her territory. She was now at full liberty and had the power and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws. Although possessing this right, she was averse to exercising it until all other means of redress had failed. She now made one other and last appeal to the General Government to open negotiations with the Cherokees on this subject. If no such negotiation should be opened, or if, being opened, it should result unsuccessfully, it was recommended to the next legislature of Georgia to take immediate possession of the disputed territory and to extend her jurisdiction and laws over the same. In a spirit of liberality, however, it was suggested that, in any treaty the United States might make with the Cherokees, Georgia would agree to allow reserves to be made to individual Indians not exceeding in the aggregate one-sixth part of the entire territory in dispute. Should the Indians still refuse to negotiate, they were solemnly warned of the unfortunate consequences likely to follow, as the lands _belonged_ to Georgia, and that she _must_ and _would_ have them. A resolution of the House of Representatives of the United States, in the month of March following, calling upon the President for information upon the subject, brought forth[305] copies of all the correspondence relative to the matter, and the distinct avowal that the records of the United States failed to show any act of executive recognition of the new form of Cherokee government, but that, on the contrary, their status toward the United States was regarded as not in the slightest degree changed. CHEROKEE AFFAIRS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Whilst all these events having a bearing upon the condition and prospective welfare of that portion of the Cherokee people who had remained in their old homes east of the Mississippi River were happening, those who had taken up their abode in the Arkansas country were likewise having their troubles. _Difficulties with the Osages._--Their disagreements with the Osages, which had, with slight intermission, existed for years, broke out afresh when in February, 1820, a party of Osages robbed and killed three Cherokees. The latter determined upon the prosecution of a general war against the aggressors, and were only persuaded to pause at the earnest solicitation[306] of Governor Miller, of Arkansas Territory, until he could visit the villages of the Osages and demand the surrender of the murderers. In company with four of the Cherokee chiefs, he proceeded to the principal Osage village, where they were kindly received by the Osages, who repudiated the action of the murderers and agreed conditionally to surrender them. They, however, produced the treaty concluded in 1818, under the superintendence of Governor Clark, between themselves and the Cherokees, Shawnees, and Delawares, wherein it was agreed that a permanent peace should thenceforth exist between them, and that the Cherokees were to meet them at Fort Smith the following spring and surrender all Osage prisoners, which the former had neglected to do and still retained a number of Osage captives. The Cherokee chiefs admitted that this was true, whereupon Governor Miller advised them that before the Osage murderers could be surrendered, the Cherokees must comply with their agreement by surrendering all prisoners in their hands. An arrangement was made to meet at Fort Smith in October following and effect the exchange,[307] which was done. Notwithstanding this adjustment, the feeling of hostility between the two tribes remained. Active warfare broke out again in the summer of 1821,[308] and was not suppressed by the most strenuous efforts of the United States authorities until the fall of the following year.[309] _Boundaries and area._--Governor Miller reported, in connection with this subject, that the Arkansas Cherokees were very restless and dissatisfied. They complained much in that, as they said, no part of the treaty of 1819 had been complied with by the United States and in that they had received no annuity money since their removal to the west of the Mississippi River. Furthermore, their boundaries had not been established, and they still awaited the fulfillment of the promise made them for an extension of their line to the west as far as the Osage line. To this latter scheme the Osages were much opposed, preferring rather to have the country occupied by whites. The adjustment of this boundary question would seem to have been very desirable, inasmuch as nearly one-half of the Cherokees had taken up their abode south of the Arkansas River,[310] which was clearly outside of their proper limits. It formed the subject of much correspondence and complaint throughout several years, and was the occasion of a number of visits of representative delegations from the Arkansas Cherokees to Washington. The eastern boundary had, as already stated, been run by General Rector in 1818-'19, but the difficulty in fixing the western line arose from the fact that the quantity of land to which the Cherokees were entitled was to be measured by the area already ceded by them to the United States by the treaties of 1817 and 1819. The ascertainment of this latter quantity with exactness could not be made in advance of the completion of the surveys thereof by the States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia. From such reports and estimates as the United States were able to secure from the several State authorities, it was estimated, early in 1823,[311] that the quantity to which the Cherokees were entitled was about 3,285,710 acres, and they were informed that measures would at once be taken to have the western boundary established. This was performed under direction of Governor Miller, in compliance with instructions given him for that purpose on the 4th of March, 1823. A year later[312] a delegation of the Indians visited Washington to complain that the boundary had been run without notice to them and in such a manner as to be highly prejudicial to their interests. It was also urged that the quantity of land included was largely less than the quantity ceded by the Cherokees east of the Mississippi. It would seem that in the survey of this western boundary Governor Miller, through a misconception of his instructions, had caused the line to be run due north, and south, instead of in a direction parallel with that of the east line, as was the evident intention of the treaty of 1817.[313] The effect of this action was to largely curtail the Cherokee frontage on Arkansas River, where the lands were rich and capable of remunerative cultivation, and to extend their frontier on the Upper White River, toward the rough and comparatively valueless region of the Ozark Mountains. It was also admitted by the Secretary of War that the quantity of land within these boundaries was probably less than that to which the Cherokees were entitled.[314] Inquiries were accordingly again made of the several State authorities as to the area of territory acquired by them through the treaties of 1817 and 1819, the replies to which, though partially estimated, aggregated 4,282,216 acres.[315] Directions were therefore given to Agent Duval[316] to propose to the Indians the running of a provisional line, subject to such future alterations as the official returns of the quantity ceded in the States should render necessary and proper. It seems, however, from a report of Agent Duval, that the Cherokees in council had expressed to him a preference to adopt for their western boundary what was known as the "upper" or Governor Miller line, and to run thence down and between the Arkansas and White Rivers for quantity, ignoring the line run under the treaty of 1817 by General Rector, the effect of which would be to give them an extension of territory to the east instead of toward the west. This proposition called forth directions from the Secretary of War to Governor Izard, in the spring of 1825, to open negotiations with the Cherokees upon the subject of an exchange of territory with them for an equal quantity of land lying to the west of Arkansas and Missouri, and for their removal thereto, but that the matter must not be pressed to the point of irritation. If, through the aversion of the Indians to entertain such a proposition, it should be dropped, then, if ±he same should be satisfactory to the citizens of Arkansas, the proposal contained in the report of Agent Duval would meet the views of the Government.[317] The Indians were brought to no definite agreement to either of these propositions. In the meantime their provisional western boundary was established and run, in January and February, 1825.[318] The line began at the upper end of Table Rock Bluff, on the Arkansas River, and ran north 1 mile and 70 chains, crossing Skin Bayou at a distance of 66 chains from the beginning; thence it ran north 53° east 132 miles and 31 chains, to White River, which it struck at a point opposite the mouth of Little North Fork. As a matter of fact, so strong was the prejudice of the Cherokees against any concession of territory that their council passed[319] what they denominated a "perpetual law" denouncing the death penalty against any of their nation who should propose the sale or exchange of their lands. _Lovely's purchase._--In the mean time the legislature of Arkansas, through Acting Governor Crittenden, had forwarded to the President in the summer of 1824, a memorial urging that the tract of country known as "Lovely's purchase" be thrown open to white settlement by a revocation of the prohibitory order of December 15, 1818. This the President declined to do until a final adjustment should be made of the west boundary of the Cherokees and the east boundary of the Choctaws. A history of "Lovely's purchase" is to be found in a letter dated January 30, 1818, from Major Long, of the Topographical Engineers, to General Thomas A. Smith. From this it seems that by a treaty then recently made (but without any authority) with the Osages, "by Mr. Lovely, late Indian agent,"[320] that tribe had ceded to the United States the country between the Arkansas and Red Rivers, and also a tract on the north of the Arkansas situated between the Verdigris River and the boundary established by the Osage treaty of 1808. It appears, however, that it was not the intention of the Osages to cede to the United States so large a tract on the north of the Arkansas, but, as afterwards alleged by their chiefs, they only desired to surrender the country lying south of a line commencing at the Falls of the Verdigris and running due east to the treaty line of 1808, and east of another line beginning at the same place and running due south as far as their possessions should extend, and thence east again to the 1808 boundary, excepting and reserving therefrom the point of land between the Verdigris and Six Bulls or Grand River. The Osages, never having been informed that the treaty was not duly authorized and had not been confirmed, still considered the country described therein as belonging to the United States, and had repeatedly solicited whites to settle on it, alleging that the main object of the cession on their part was to secure the convenient approach of civilized neighbors, who should instruct the men how to cultivate the ground and the women to spin and weave, that they might be able to live when the forests should afford no further supplies of game. They were therefore much irritated when they found civilized settlements prohibited, in order to protect the introduction and establishment adjoining or upon this territory of their inveterate enemies, the Cherokees. _Western outlet._--The indefinite outlet to the west which had been promised the Cherokees by the President in 1818 formed the subject of much complaint by them from time to time. In the spring of 1823[321] they were advised that until their western boundary was established it would be improper to make any decision upon the "outlet" question. Two years earlier[322] it had been declared to them that in removing settlers from "Lovely's Purchase," for the purpose of giving them their western outlet, it must always be understood that they thereby acquired no right to the soil, and that the Government reserved to itself the right of making such disposition as it might think proper of all salt springs therein. But this troublous question was definitively disposed of when the treaty of 1828 came to be negotiated. By the provisions of an act of Congress approved April 5, 1826,[323] the land districts of the Territory of Arkansas were extended so as to include all the country within the limits of that Territory as then existing (the limits having been extended 40 miles to the west by act of Congress of May 26, 1824),[324] with the proviso, however, that nothing in the act should be so construed as to authorize any survey or interference whatever upon any lands the right whereof resided in any Indian tribes. Notwithstanding this proviso, reports became current that surveys had been begun of "Lovely's Purchase," causing much irritation and ill feeling among the Cherokees and eliciting an order[325] from the Secretary of War forbidding any further surveys until it should be finally ascertained how much land the Cherokees were entitled to receive from the United States in pursuance of the treaties of 1817 and 1819. _Negotiation and conclusion of treaty of 1828._--Matters remained thus _in statu quo_ until the spring of 1828, when a delegation of the Western Cherokees arrived in Washington, clothed with authority to present to the attention of the President their numerous grievances and to adjust all matters in dispute for their people. The burden of their complaints had relation to the delays that had occurred in fixing their boundaries; to the failure to secure to them the promised "western outlet;" to the adjustment of the hostilities that continued to exist between themselves and the Osages; and to the irregularity in the receipt of their annuities, as well as to the encroachments of white settlers.[326] The delegation were not clothed with authority to negotiate for any cession or exchange of territory, the "perpetual law" against entertaining such a proposition being still in force among them. Notwithstanding this fact, a communication was addressed to them from the War Department[327] desiring to be advised if they had any objection to opening negotiations upon a basis of an exchange of land for territory west of the west boundary of Arkansas, provided that boundary should be removed a distance of 40 miles to the east, so as to run from Fort Smith to the southwest corner of the State of Missouri, and also that the Creeks should be removed from their location above the Falls of Verdigris River to territory within the forks of the Canadian and Arkansas Rivers. To this proposal the delegation returned a polite but determined refusal, and demanded that the actual number of acres to which they were entitled in Arkansas be ascertained and laid off with exact definiteness. The whole subject of an exchange of lands was thereupon submitted by the Secretary of War to the President for his direction, and it was announced[328] to the visiting delegation that the President had concluded to order a permanent western line to be run, within which should be embraced the full quantity of land to which they were entitled, and which was found to be, as nearly as possible, as follows:[329] Acres In lieu of quantity ceded in Georgia(actual survey) 824,384 In lieu of quantity ceded in Alabama(actual survey) 738,560 In lieu of quantity ceded in Tennessee (actual survey) 1,024,000 In lieu of quantity ceded in North Carolina (survey 70,000, estimate 630,000) 700,000 ________ 3,286,944 Less 12 miles square, school reservation in Alabama 92,160 ________ 3,194,784 As to their promised "western outlet," the President was unprepared to say anything definite, inasmuch as that matter was then in the hands of Congress. From this showing it was made evident to the delegation, and no opportunity was lost to impress the fact strongly upon them, that if they insisted upon refusing to arrange for an exchange of lands, instead of being entitled to a large additional tract beyond their provisional western boundary, they would, in fact, be entitled to several hundred thousand acres less than had already been placed in their possession. In addition to this it was more than doubtful, from the temper of the President and Congress, whether their long anticipated "western outlet" would ever crystallize into anything more tangible than a promise. With these facts staring them in the face, with the alluring offers held out to them of double the quantity of land possessed by them in Arkansas in exchange, with liberal promises of assistance in their proposed new homes, and with the persistent importunities of their agent and other United States officials, they yielded, and the treaty of May 6, 1828,[330] an abstract of which has been already given, was the result. It was promptly ratified and proclaimed on the 28th of the same month. So nervous were the members of the delegation, after the treaty had been concluded and signed, as to the reception that would greet them on their return home, that the Secretary of War felt the necessity of giving them a letter of explanation to their people. In this letter the Cherokees were advised of the integrity, good conduct, and earnest zeal for the welfare of their nation that had invariably characterized the actions of their delegation at Washington. The nation was assured that their representatives had done the best thing possible for them to do in the late treaty.[331] Notwithstanding this testimonial, the delegation met with an angry reception on their return home. Their lives and property were unsafe; the national council pronounced them guilty of fraud and deception, declared the treaty to be null and void, as having been made without any authority, and expressed an earnest desire to send a delegation to Washington clothed with power to arrange all differences.[332] In the mean time Agent Duval had been advised[333] of the ratification of the treaty, and Messrs. R. Ellis and A. Finney had been appointed, in conjunction with him, as commissioners to value all improvements and property abandoned by the Cherokees, and to sell the agency property as a means of raising funds for the erection of mills in their new country. _Survey of new boundaries._--The eastern line of this new Cherokee country, dividing it from Arkansas, was surveyed in 1829,[334] but it was not until April 13, 1831, that instructions were given to Isaac McCoy to survey the remaining boundaries. The fourth article of the treaty of 1828 contained a provision requiring the United States to sell the property and improvements connected with the agency for the erection of a grist and saw mill for the use of the Indians in their new home. In lieu of this grist and saw mill the United States furnished them with patent corn-mills to the amount of the appraised value of the improvements. A tract in townships 7 and 8 of range 21, including these agency improvements, was surveyed separately in 1829, and was commonly known as the "Cherokee Agency Reservation." In after years the Cherokees claimed that they had never been compensated for this so-called reserve and asserted that it still belonged to them. After a dispute continuing through many years, it was finally decided by the Secretary of the Interior, on the 28th of June, 1878, that the reserve did not belong to the Cherokees, but that, through the operation of the treaty with them, it became a part of the public domain. [Footnote 269: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 311.] without delay, and to remove all white settlers and other objectionable people living to the west of the east boundary of the Cherokee tract. [Footnote 270: Meigs was appointed, May 15, 1801, superintendent of Indian affairs for the Cherokee Nation and agent for the War Department in the State of Tennessee.] [Footnote 271: Letter of Meigs to General Wilkinson, dated Marietta, Ohio, February 10, 1801. This letter is in reply to one received from General Wilkinson, in which the latter, among other things, inquires if he can in any way serve the former. Meigs replies: "I will answer these kind inquiries truly. In the first place, I enjoy excellent health; in the next place, I am doing what I can at farming business, endeavoring to maintain a credible existence by industry. I have been for more than two years one of the Territorial legislators; this, though credible, is not profitable. My principal dependence for living is on the labor of my own hands. I am confident, sir, you _can serve_ me, as you are conversant with every department of the Government and may know what places can be had and whether I am capable of being usefully employed. I don't care what it is, whether civil or military or where situated, provided it be an object which you shall think proper for me. I don't know Mr. Jefferson; have always revered his character as a great and good man. I am personally acquainted with Colonel Burr. He ascended the river Kennebeck as a volunteer in the year 1775 and was with me in the Mess a great part of that march to Canada. I think I have his friendship, but he is not yet, perhaps, in a situation to assist me." Colonel Meigs was also a member of the court-martial convened for the trial of General Arthur St. Clair for the evacuation of Ticonderoga. He died at his post of duty in February, 1823, as shown by a letter to the Secretary of War from ex-Governor McMinn, dated the 22d of that month.] [Footnote 272: May 30, 1820.] [Footnote 273: Letter of Secretary of War to Attorney-General, July, 26, 1820.] [Footnote 274: August 12, 1820.] [Footnote 275: August 14, 1820.] [Footnote 276: March 7, 1821.] [Footnote 277: American State Papers, Public Lands, Vol. I, p. 125.] [Footnote 278: January 7, 1822.] [Footnote 279: June 15, 1822.] [Footnote 280: August 24, 1822.] [Footnote 281: November 19, 1822.] [Footnote 282: March 17, 1823.] [Footnote 283: February, 1823.] [Footnote 284: March 17, 1823.] [Footnote 285: Report of commissioners on file in Office Indian Affairs.] [Footnote 286: See correspondence between commissioners and Cherokee council. American State Papers, Indian Affairs, Vol. II, pp. 465-473.] [Footnote 287: October 28, 1823.] [Footnote 288: January 19, 1824. This memorial is signed by John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks, as the Cherokee delegation.] [Footnote 289: January 30, 1824.] [Footnote 290: February 17, 1824.] [Footnote 291: February 28, 1824.] [Footnote 292: Letter of Georgia delegation to Congress, March 10, 1824. Memorial of Georgia legislature to Congress, December 18, 1823.] [Footnote 293: March 30, 1824.] [Footnote 294: March 29, 1824.] [Footnote 295: This Creek war was in large measure, if not wholly, superinduced by the unlawful and unjust aggressions by citizens of that State upon the rights and territory of the Creeks. Foreign emissaries, however, it is true, encouraged and inflamed the just indignation of the Creeks against the Georgians to the point of armed resistance.] [Footnote 296: May 3, 1824.] [Footnote 297: April 16, 1824.] [Footnote 298: April 24, 1824.] [Footnote 299: February 5, 1827.] [Footnote 300: Letter of Rev. David Brown to Thomas L. McKenney, December 13, 1825.] [Footnote 301: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, p. 217.] [Footnote 302: March 13, 1827.] [Footnote 303: June 4, 1828.] [Footnote 304: January 26, 1828.] [Footnote 305: March 20, 1828.] [Footnote 306: April 20, 1820.] [Footnote 307: Letter of Governor Miller, of Arkansas, to Secretary of War, June 20, 1820.] [Footnote 308: Letter of Secretary of War to Maj. William Bradford, July 21, 1821.] [Footnote 309: Letter of Secretary of War to Governor Miller, of Arkansas, November 6, 1822.] [Footnote 310: October 8, 1821, Governor Miller was instructed by the Secretary of War to remove the Cherokees from lands south of the Arkansas, but its execution was deferred several years pending the establishment of the Cherokee boundaries.] [Footnote 311: Secretary of War to Arkansas Cherokee delegation in Washington, February 12, 1823.] [Footnote 312: March 3, 1824.] [Footnote 313: Indian Office to Cherokee delegation of Arkansas, March 13, 1824, and Secretary of War to Governor Crittenden, of Arkansas, April 28, 1824.] [Footnote 314: Secretary of War to Governor Crittenden, of Arkansas, April 28, 1824.] [Footnote 315: Indian Office to Agent E. W. Duval, Little Rock, Arkansas, July 8, 1824.] [Footnote 316: July 8, 1824.] [Footnote 317: Secretary of War to Governor Izard, of Arkansas, April 16, 1825.] [Footnote 318: See map on file in Indian Office.] [Footnote 319: May, 1825.] [Footnote 320: In a letter from Agent Meigs to the Secretary of War, dated June 2, 1817, Major Lovely is spoken of as having been agent residing with the Cherokees on the Arkansas. He had been an officer of the Virginia line throughout the Revolution and participated in the capture of Burgoyne. He had lived some time in the family of President Madison's father, and went to Tennessee at an early day, whence (after living many years among the Cherokees) he removed with the emigrant party to the Arkansas. In a letter to the Hon. John Cocke from the Secretary of War, December 15, 1826, it is, however, stated that Major Lovely was a factor or trader in the Arkansas country, who took an active part in the preliminary negotiations that led finally to the conclusion of the treaty with the Osages of September 25, 1818. It also appears from the same letter that the estimated area of Lovely's purchase was 7,392,000 acres, and that when the west boundary line of the Cherokees was run, in 1825, it was found that 200 square miles of Lovely's purchase were included within its limits.] [Footnote 321: Secretary of War to Arkansas Cherokee delegation in Washington, February 12, 1823.] [Footnote 322: Secretary of War to Arkansas Cherokee delegation in Washington, October 8, 1821.] [Footnote 323: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, p. 153.] [Footnote 324: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IV, p. 40.] [Footnote 325: April 3, 1827.] [Footnote 326: Letter of T. L. McKenney to Secretary of War, March 18, 1828.] [Footnote 327: March 27, 1828.] [Footnote 328: April 11, 1828.] [Footnote 329: The areas here given by the State authorities were largely below the quantity actually contained within the limits of the cessions within the States of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, as will be seen by a glance at the table of such areas on page 378.] [Footnote 330: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 311.] [Footnote 331: Letter of Secretary of War to Western Cherokee delegation. May 17, 1828.] [Footnote 332: Letter of Sub-Agent Brearly to Secretary of War, September 27, 1828.] [Footnote 333: May 28, 1828.] [Footnote 334: Letter of T. L. McKenney to Secretary of War, January 21, 1830.] TREATY CONCLUDED FEBRUARY 14, 1833.--PROCLAIMED APRIL 12, 1834.[335] _Held at Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas River, between Montfort Stokes, Henry L. Ellsworth, and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs and headmen of the Cherokee Nation of Indians west of the Mississippi._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. It having been ascertained that the territory assigned to the Cherokees by the treaty of May 6, 1828, conflicted with a portion of the territory selected by the Creek Nation in conformity with the provisions of the Creek treaty of January 24, 1826, and the representative men of those two nations having met each other in council and adjusted all disputes as to boundaries, the United States, in order to confirm this adjustment, concluded the following articles of treaty and agreement with the Cherokees: 1. The United States agree to possess the Cherokees, and to guarantee it to them forever, * * * of seven millions of acres of land, to be bounded as follows, viz: Beginning at a point on the old western Territorial line of Arkansas Territory, being twenty-five miles north from the point where the Territorial line crosses Arkansas River; thence running from said north point south on the said Territorial line to the place where said Territorial line crosses the Verdigris River; thence down said Verdigris River to the Arkansas River; thence down said Arkansas River to a point where a stone is placed opposite to the east or lower bank of Grand River at its junction with the Arkansas; thence running south forty-four degrees west one mile; thence in a straight line to a point four miles northerly from the mouth of the North Fork of the Canadian; thence along the said four miles line to the Canadian; thence down the Canadian to the Arkansas; thence down the Arkansas to that point on the Arkansas where the eastern Choctaw boundary strikes said river, and running thence with the western line of Arkansas Territory, as now defined, to the southwest corner of Missouri; thence along the western Missouri line to the land assigned to the Senecas; thence on the south line of the Senecas to Grand River; thence up said Grand River as far as the south line of the Osage Reservation, extended if necessary; thence up and between said south Osage line, extended west if necessary, and a line drawn due west from the point of beginning, to a certain distance west at which a line running north and south from said Osage line to said due-west line will make seven millions of acres within the whole described boundaries. In addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided for and bounded, the United States further guarantee to the Cherokee Nation a perpetual outlet west, and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend: _Provided, however_, That if the saline or salt plain on the great western prairie shall fall within said limits prescribed for said outlet, the right is reserved to the United States to permit other tribes of red men to get salt on said plain in common with the Cherokees. And letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land hereby guaranteed. 2. The Cherokees relinquish to the United States all claim to all land ceded or claimed to have been ceded to them by treaty of May 6, 1828, not embraced within the limits fixed in this present supplementary treaty. 3. The United States agree to cancel, at the request of the Cherokees, the sixth article of the treaty of May 6, 1828. 4. The United States agree to furnish the Cherokees, during the pleasure of the President, four blacksmith's shops, one wagon-maker's shop, one wheelwright's shop, and necessary tools, implements, and material for the same; also four blacksmiths, one wagon-maker, and one wheelwright; also eight patent railway corn-mills, in lieu of those agreed to be furnished by article 4 of the treaty of May 6, 1828. 5. These articles are supplementary to the treaty of May 6, 1828. 6. One mile square to be set apart for the accommodation of the Cherokee Agency, to be selected jointly by the Cherokee Nation and United States agent. 7. This treaty to be obligatory after ratification by the President and Senate. HISTORICAL DATA. CONFLICTING LAND CLAIMS OF CREEKS AND CHEROKEES WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. The treaty of January 24, 1826,[336] with the Creek Indians had provided for the removal of that tribe west of the Mississippi. In accordance with its provisions, a delegation consisting of five representative men of the tribe proceeded to the western country and selected the territory designed for their future occupancy. The year following this selection a party of Creeks removed to and settled thereon. The country thus selected and occupied lay along and between the Verdigris, Arkansas, and Canadian Rivers.[337] Subsequently, on the 6th day of May, 1828,[338] a treaty was concluded with the Cherokee Nation west of the Mississippi, by the terms of which they ceded all their lands within the present limits of Arkansas and accepted a tract of 7,000,000 acres within the present limits of Indian Territory, in addition to a perpetual outlet extending as far west as the western limits of the United States at that time, being the one hundredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich. This new assignment of territory to the Cherokees, it was soon found, included a considerable portion of the lands selected by and already in the possession of the Creeks. The discovery of this fact produced much excitement and ill feeling in the minds of the people of both tribes, and led to many acts of injustice and violence during the course of several years. _Territorial difficulties adjusted._--In the year 1832 a commission was constituted, consisting of Montfort Stokes, Henry L. Ellsworth, and John F. Schermerhorn, with instructions to visit the country west of the Mississippi and to report fully all information relating to the country assigned as a permanent home to the aborigines. Among the formidable difficulties presented for and earnestly urged upon their attention and consideration were these conflicting territorial claims of the Creeks and the Cherokees. Both parties claimed several million acres of the same land under treaty stipulations; both were equally persuaded of the justice of their respective claims, and at first were unyielding in their dispositions. After a protracted public council, however, in which a careful examination and exposition of the various treaties was made, the commissioners succeeded in inducing the Creeks to accept other lands to the southward of their upper settlements on Verdigris River,[339] and concluded treaties with both the Creeks and the Cherokees modifying their respective boundaries. This treaty of February 14, 1833, with the latter tribe occasioned a material change in the boundaries previously assigned them. Instead of following the western line of Arkansas and Missouri as far north as the point where the Grand or Neosho River crosses the boundary of the latter State, and running from thence due west to a point due north of the old western boundary line of Arkansas Territory, and thence south to the Arkansas River, the new line followed the present western boundary of Arkansas and Missouri as far north as the south line of the territory then recently assigned to the Senecas; thence west along the south line of the Senecas to Grand River, and following up Grand River to the south boundary of the Osage reservation, which was parallel with the present southern boundary of Kansas, and on the average about two miles to the north of it; thence west for quantity. PURCHASE OF OSAGE HALF-BREED RESERVES. Prior[340] to the conclusion of this treaty of 1833, a delegation of the Western Cherokees had visited Washington to insist upon a literal fulfillment of the treaty of 1828 and especially to demand that they be possessed of all lands and improvements within the outboundaries of their country as defined by the last named treaty. The lands and improvements alluded to were seven reservations of one section each on the Neosho River assigned to certain half-breed Osage Indians by the terms of the treaty of 1825[341] with that tribe. Although the treaty of 1833 failed to make provision for the extinguishment of these Osage half-breed titles, the desired object was attained by the terms of the fourth article of the treaty of December 29, 1835, wherein $15,000 were appropriated for the purchase.[342] PRESIDENT JACKSON REFUSES TO APPROVE THE TREATY OF 1834. On the 10th of February, 1834, George Vashon, agent for the Western Cherokees, negotiated a treaty with them[343] having in view an adjustment of certain differences between themselves and their eastern brethren, whereby the feelings of the latter should be more favorably affected toward an emigration to the western country. The treaty provided for a readjustment of the tribal annuities proportioned to the respective numbers of the Cherokees east and west, the basis of division to be ascertained by an accurate census. The country provided for the Cherokees by the treaty of 1833 was to be enlarged so that it should equal in quantity, acre for acre, the country ceded by the Cherokees east in 1817 and 1819, as well as the proportional quantity of those who should agree to emigrate to the West under the provisions of this treaty. It was also agreed that all Cherokees should possess equal rights in the new country, and that an asylum should be established for the maintenance of the orphan children of the tribe. The negotiations thus entered into were, however, barren of results, inasmuch as President Jackson refused to recommend the treaty to the Senate for the advice and consent of that body.[344] [Footnote 335: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 414.] [Footnote 336: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 286.] [Footnote 337: See Creek treaty of 1833, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 417.] [Footnote 338: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 311.] [Footnote 339: See preamble to Creek treaty of February 14, 1833, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 417.] [Footnote 340: In March, 1832.] [Footnote 341: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 240.] [Footnote 342: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 478.] [Footnote 343: See Indian Office files.] [Footnote 344: See Indian Office records.] TREATY CONCLUDED DECEMBER 29, 1835; PROCLAIMED MAY 23, 1836. _Held at New Echota, Georgia, between General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, commissioners on the part of the United States, and the chiefs, headmen, and people of the Cherokee tribe of Indians.[345]_ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. The preamble recites at considerable length the reasons for the negotiation of the treaty and the preliminary steps taken, following which the provisions of the treaty as concluded are given. 1. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States all the land claimed by said Nation east of the Mississippi River, and hereby releases all claims on the United States for spoliations of every kind for and in consideration of $5,000,000. In case the United States Senate should decide that this sum does not include spoliation claims, then $300,000 additional should be allowed for that purpose. 2. The description of the 7,000,000 acres of land guaranteed to the Cherokees west of the Mississippi by the treaties of 1828 and 1833 is repeated, and in addition thereto the further guaranty is made to the Cherokee Nation of a perpetual outlet west, and a free and unmolested use of all the country west of the western boundary of said 7,000,000 acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend, provided that if the salt plain shall fall within the limits of said outlet the right is reserved to the United States to permit other tribes of Indians to procure salt thereon. "And letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land hereby guaranteed." It being apprehended that the above would afford insufficient land for the Cherokees, the United States, in consideration of $500,000, agree to patent to them in fee simple the following additional tract, viz: Beginning at the southeast corner of the Osage Reservation, and running north along the east line of the Osage lands 50 miles to the northeast corner thereof, thence east to the west line of the State of Missouri, thence with said line south 50 miles, thence west to the place of beginning, estimated to contain 800,000 acres, it being understood that if any of the Quapaw lands should fall within these limits they should be excepted. 3. All the foregoing described lands to be included in one patent, under the provisions of the act of May 28, 1830; the United States to retain possession of the Fort Gibson military reservation until abandoned, when it shall revert to the Cherokees. The United States reserve the right to establish post and military roads and forts in any part of the Cherokee country. 4. The United States agree to extinguish for the Cherokees the Osage half-breed titles to reservations under the treaty of 1825 for the sum of $15,000. The United States agree to pay to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions the appraised value of their improvements at Union and Harmony missions. 5. The United States agree that the land herein guaranteed to the Cherokees shall never, without their consent, be included within the limits or jurisdiction of any State or Territory. The United States also agree to secure them the right to make and carry into effect such laws as they deem necessary, provided they shall not be inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and such acts of Congress as provide for the regulation of trade and intercourse with the Indian tribes; and provided also they shall not affect such citizens and army of the United States as may travel or reside in the Indian country by permission granted under the laws or regulations thereof. 6. Perpetual peace shall exist between the United States and the Cherokees. The United States shall protect the Cherokees from domestic strife, foreign enemies, and from war with other tribes, as well as from the unlawful intrusion of citizens of the United States. The Cherokees shall endeavor to maintain peace among themselves and with their neighbors. 7. The Cherokees shall be entitled to a delegate in the United States House of Representatives whenever Congress shall make provision for the same. 8. The United States agree to remove the Cherokees to their new home and to provide them with one year's subsistence thereafter. Those desiring to remove themselves shall be allowed a commutation of $20 per head therefor, and, if they prefer it, a commutation of $33-1/3 per head in lieu of the one year's promised subsistence. Cherokees residing outside the limits of the nation who shall remove within two years to the new Cherokee country shall be entitled to the same allowances as others. 9. The United States agree to make an appraisement of the value of all Cherokee improvements and ferries. The just debts of the Indians shall be paid out of any moneys due them for improvements and claims. The Indians shall be furnished with sufficient funds for their removal, and the balance of their dues shall be paid them at the Cherokee Agency west of the Mississippi. Missionary establishments shall be appraised and the value paid to the treasurers of the societies by whom they were established. 10. The President of the United States shall invest in good interest-paying stocks the following sums for the benefit of the Cherokee people, the interest thereon only to be expended: $200,000, in addition to their present annuities, for a general national fund; $50,000 for an orphans' fund; $150,000, in addition to existing school fund, for a permanent national school fund: the disbursement of the interest on the foregoing funds to be subject to examination and any misapplications thereof to be corrected by the President of the United States. On two years' notice the Cherokee council may withdraw their funds, by the consent of the President and the United States Senate, and invest them in such manner as they deem proper. The United States agree to appropriate $60,000 to pay the just debts and claims against the Cherokee Nation held by citizens of the same, and also claims of citizens of the United States for services rendered the nation. Three hundred thousand dollars is appropriated by the United States to liquidate Cherokee claims against the United States for spoliations of every kind. 11. The Cherokees agree to commute their existing permanent annuity of $10,000 for the sum of $214,000, the same to be invested by the President as a part of the general fund of the nation. Their present school fund shall also constitute a portion of the permanent national school fund. 12. Such Cherokees as are averse to removal west of the Mississippi and desire to become citizens of the States where they reside, if qualified to take care of themselves and their property, shall receive their proportion of all the personal benefits accruing under this treaty for claims, improvements, and per capita. Such heads of Cherokee families as desire to reside within the States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, subject to the laws thereof and qualified to become useful citizens, shall be entitled to a pre-emption right of 160 acres at the minimum Congress price, to include their improvements. John Ross and eleven others named are designated as a committee on the part of the Cherokees to recommend persons entitled to take pre-emption rights, to select the missionaries who shall be removed with the nation, and to transact all business that may arise with the United States in carrying the treaty into effect. One hundred thousand dollars shall be expended by the United States for the benefit of such of the poorer classes of Cherokees as shall remove west. 13. All Cherokees and their heirs to whom reservations had been made by any previous treaty, and who had not sold or disposed of the same, such reservations being subsequently sold by the United States should be entitled to receive the present value thereof from the United States as unimproved lands. All such reservations not sold were to be confirmed to the reservees or their heirs. All persons entitled to reservations under treaty of 1817, whose reservations, as selected, were included by the treaty of 1819 in the unceded lands of the Cherokee Nation, shall be entitled to a grant for the same. All reservees who were obliged by the laws of the States in which their reservations were situated to abandon the same or purchase them from the States, shall be deemed to have a just claim against the United States for the value thereof or for the amount paid therefor, with interest. The amount allowed for reservations under this article is to be paid independently, and not out of the consideration allowed to the Cherokees for spoliation claims and their cession of lands. 14. Cherokee warriors wounded in the service of the United States during the late war with Great Britain and the southern tribes of Indians shall be allowed such pensions as Congress shall provide. 15. The balance of the consideration herein stated, after deducting the amount actually expended for improvements, ferries, claims, spoliations, removal, subsistence, debts, and claims upon the Cherokee Nation, additional quantity of lands, goods for the poorer class of Cherokees, and the several sums to be invested for the general national funds, shall be divided equally among all the people belonging to the Cherokee Nation east, according to the census just completed. Certain Cherokees who had removed west since June, 1833, were to be paid for their improvements. 16. The Cherokees stipulate to remove west within two years from the ratification of this treaty, during which time the United States shall protect them in the possession and enjoyment of their property, and in case of failure to do so shall pay all losses and damages sustained by them in consequence thereof. The United States and the several States interested in the Cherokee lands shall immediately proceed to survey the lands ceded by this treaty, but the agency buildings and tract of land surveyed and laid off for the use of Col. R. J. Meigs, Indian agent, shall continue subject to the control of the United States or such agent as may be specially engaged in superintending the removal of the tribe. 17. All claims arising under or provided for in this treaty shall be examined and adjudicated by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, or by such commissioners as shall be appointed by the President of the United States for that purpose, and their decision shall be final, and the several claimants shall be paid on their certificate by the United States. All stipulations of former treaties not superseded or annulled by this treaty shall continue in force. 18. The annuities of the nation which may accrue during the next two years preceding their removal shall, on account of the failure of crops, be expended in provision and clothing for the benefit of the poorer classes of the nation as soon after the ratification of this treaty as an appropriation shall be made. So interference is, however, intended with that part of the annuities due the Cherokees west under the treaty of 1819. 19. This treaty is to be obligatory after ratification. 20. The United States guarantee the payment of all unpaid just claims upon the Indians, without expense to them, out of the proper funds of the United States for the settlement of which a cession or cessions of land has or have been heretofore made by the Indians in Georgia, provided the United States or State of Georgia has derived benefit therefrom without having made payment therefor. This article was inserted by unanimous request of the Cherokee committee after the signing of the treaty, it being understood that its rejection by the Senate of the United States should not impair any other article of the treaty. On the 31st of December, 1835, James Rogers and John Smith, as delegates from the Western Cherokees, signed an agreement which is attached to the treaty wherein they agreed to its provisions on behalf of the Western Cherokees, with the proviso that it should not affect any claims of the latter against the United States. [Footnote 345: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 478.] SUPPLEMENTARY ARTICLES TO FOREGOING TREATY, CONCLUDED MARCH 1, 1836; PROCLAIMED MAY 23, 1836.[346] _Agreed on between John F. Schermerhorn, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the committee duly authorized at a general council held at New Echota, Georgia, to act for and on behalf of the Cherokee people._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. These articles were concluded as supplementary to the treaty of December 29, 1835, and were ratified at the same time and as a part of that treaty. They were rendered necessary by the determination of President Jackson not to allow any pre-emptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together to the country west of the Mississippi. 1. All pre-emption rights and reservations provided for in articles 12 and 13 are declared void. 2. The Cherokees having supposed that the sum of $5,000,000, fixed as the value of Cherokee lands, did not include the amount required to remove them, nor the value of certain claims held by them against citizens of the United States, and the President being willing that the subject should be referred to the Senate of the United States for any further provision that body should deem just. 3. It is agreed, should it receive the concurrence of that body, to allow the Cherokees the sum of $600,000, to include the expenses of removal and all claims against the United States not otherwise specifically provided for, and to be in lieu of the aforesaid reservations and pre-emptions and of the $300,000 for spoliations provided in article 1 of the original treaty to which this is supplementary. This sum of $600,000 shall be applied and distributed agreeably to the provisions of said treaty, the surplus, if any, to belong to the education fund. 4. The provision of article 16 concerning the agency reservations is not intended to interfere with the occupant right of any Cherokees whose improvements may fall within the same. The $100,000 appropriated in article 12 for the poorer class of Cherokees, and intended as a set-off to the pre-emption rights, shall now be added to the general national fund of $400,000. 5. The expenses of negotiating the treaty and supplement and of such persons of the Cherokee delegation as may sign the same shall be defrayed by the United States. NOTE.--The following amendments were made by the United States Senate: In article 17 strike out the words "by General William Carroll and John F. Schermerhorn, or;" also, in the same article, after the word "States," insert "by and with the advice and consent of the Senate of the United States;" and strike out the 20th article, which appears as a supplemental article. HISTORICAL DATA. ZEALOUS MEASURES FOR REMOVAL OF EASTERN CHEROKEES. While the events connected with the negotiation and the execution of the treaty of 1828 with the Western Cherokees were occurring those Cherokees who yet remained in their old homes east of the Mississippi River were burdened with a continually increasing catalogue of distressing troubles. So soon as the treaty of 1828 was concluded it was made known to them that inducements were therein held out for a continuance of the emigration to the Arkansas country. Agent Montgomery was instructed[347] to use every means in his power to facilitate this scheme of removal, and especially among those Cherokees who resided within the chartered limits of Georgia. Secret agents were appointed and $2,000 were authorized by the Secretary of War to be expended in purchasing the influence of the chiefs in favor of the project.[348] A. R. S. Hunter and J. S. Bridges were appointed[349] commissioners to value the improvements of the Cherokees who should elect to remove. After nearly a year of zealous work in the cause, Agent Montgomery was only able to report the emigration of four hundred and thirty-one Indians and seventy-nine slaves, comparatively few of whom were from Georgia.[350] Nine months later three hundred and forty-six persons had emigrated from within the limits of that State.[351] The hostility manifested by the larger proportion of the Cherokees toward those who gave favorable consideration to the plan of removal was so great as to require the establishment of a garrison of United States troops within the nation for their protection.[350] _President Jackson's advice to the Cherokees._--Early in 1829,[352] a delegation from the nation proceeded to Washington to lay their grievances before President Jackson, but they found the Executive entertaining opinions about their rights very different from those which had been held by his predecessors. They were advised[353] that the answer to their claim of being an independent nation was to be found in the fact that during the Revolutionary war the Cherokees were the allies of Great Britain, a power claiming entire sovereignty of the thirteen colonies, which sovereignty, by virtue of the Declaration of Independence and the subsequent treaty of 1783, became vested respectively in the thirteen original States, including North Carolina, and Georgia. If they had since been permitted to abide on their lands, it was by permission, a circumstance giving no right to deny the sovereignty of those States. Under the treaty of 1785 the United States "give peace to all the Cherokees and receive them into favor and protection." Subsequently they had made war on the United States, and peace was not concluded until 1791. No guarantee, however, was given by the United States adverse to the sovereignty of Georgia, and none could be given. Their course in establishing an independent government within the limits of Georgia, adverse to her will, had been the cause of inducing her to depart from the forbearance she had so long practiced, and to provoke the passage of the recent[354] act of her legislature, extending her laws and jurisdiction over their country. The arms of the United States, the President remarked, would never be employed to stay any State of the Union from the exercise of the legitimate powers belonging to her in her sovereign capacity. No remedy for them, could be perceived except removal west of the Mississippi River, where alone peace and protection could be afforded them. To continue where they were could promise nothing but interruption and disquietude. Beyond the Mississippi the United States, possessing the sole sovereignty, could say to them that the land should be theirs while trees grow and water runs. The delegation were much cast down by these expressions of the President, but they abated nothing of their demand for protection in what they considered to be the just rights of their people. They returned to their country more embittered than before against the Georgians, and lost no opportunity, by appeals to the patriotism as well as to the baser passions of their countrymen, to excite them to a determination to protect their country at all hazards against Georgian encroachment and occupation.[355] GENERAL CARROLL'S REPORT ON THE CONDITION OF THE CHEROKEES. About this time[356] General William Carroll was designated by the President to make a tour through the Cherokee and Creek Nations, with both of which he was supposed to possess much influence. His mission was to urge upon them, and especially upon the former, the expediency of their removal west of the Mississippi under the inducements held out by the treaty of 1828. A month later[357] Col. E. F. Tatnall and on the 8th of July General John Coffee were appointed to co-operate with General Carroll in the accomplishment of his mission. The results of this tour were communicated[358] to the War Department by General Carroll in a report in which he remarked that nothing could be done with the Cherokees by secret methods; they were too intelligent and too well posted on the current news of the day to be long kept in ignorance of the methods and motives of those who came among them. He had met their leading men at Newtown and had submitted a proposal for their removal which was peremptorily rejected. The advancement the Cherokees had made in religion, morality, general information, and agriculture had astonished him beyond measure. They had regular preachers in their churches, the use of spirituous liquors was in great degree prohibited, their farms were worked much after the manner of white people, and were generally in good order. Many families possessed all the comforts and some of the luxuries of life. Cattle, sheep, hogs, and fowl of every kind were found in great abundance. The Cherokees had been induced by Eastern papers to believe the President was not sustained by the people in his views of their proposed removal. Eastern members of Congress had given their delegation to understand while in Washington the preceding spring that the memorial left by them protesting against the extension of the laws of Georgia and Alabama over Cherokee territory would be sustained by Congress, and that until that memorial had been definitely acted on by that body all propositions to them looking toward removal would be worse than useless. _Cherokees refuse to cede lands in North Carolina._--In the early summer of 1829[359] a commission had also been appointed, consisting of Humphrey Posey and a Mr. Saunders, having in view the purchase from the Cherokees of that portion of their country within the limits of North Carolina, but it, too, failed wholly of accomplishing its purpose. _Coercive measures of the United States and Georgia._--Sundry expedients were resorted to, both by the General Government and by the authorities of Georgia, to compel the acquiescence of the Indians in the demands for their emigration. The act of the Georgia legislature of December 20, 1828, already alluded to, was an act "to add the territory within this State and occupied by the Cherokee Indians to the counties of De Kalb _et al._, and to extend the laws of this State over the same." This was followed[360] by the passage of an act reasserting the territorial jurisdiction of Georgia and annulling all laws made by the Cherokee Indians. It further declared that in any controversy arising between white persons and Indians the latter should be disqualified as witnesses. Supplementary legislation of a similar character followed in quick succession, and the proclamation of the governor of the State was issued on the 3d of June, 1830, declaring the arrival of the date fixed by the aforesaid acts and the consequent subjection of the Cherokee territory to the State laws and jurisdiction.[361] The President of the United States about the same time gave directions[362] to suspend the enrollment and removal of Cherokees to the west in small parties, accompanied by the remark that if they (the Cherokees) thought it for their interest to remain, they must take the consequences, but that the Executive of the United States had no power to interfere with the exercise of the sovereignty of any State over and upon all within its limits. The President also directed[363] that the previous practice of paying their annuities to the treasurer of the Cherokee Nation should be discontinued, and that they be thereafter distributed among the individual members of the tribe. Orders were shortly after[364] given to the commandant of troops in the Cherokee country to prevent _all persons_, including members of the tribe, from opening up or working any mineral deposits within their limits. All these additional annoyances and restrictions placed upon the free exercise of their supposed rights, so far from securing compliance with the wishes of the Government, had a tendency to harden the Cherokee heart. FAILURE OF COLONEL LOWRY'S MISSION. In this situation of affairs Col. John Lowry was appointed[365] a special commissioner to visit the Cherokee Nation and again lay before them a formal proposition for their removal west. The substance of Mr. Lowry's proposal as communicated by him to their national council[366] was: (1) To give to the Cherokees a country west of the Mississippi, equal in value to the country they would leave; (2) each warrior and widow living within the limits of Alabama or Tennessee was to be permitted, if so desiring, to select a reservation of 200 acres, which, if subsequently abandoned, was to be sold for the reservee's benefit; (3) each Indian desiring to become a citizen of the United States was to have a reservation in fee-simple; (4) all emigrants were to be removed and fed one year at the expense of the United States, and to be compensated for all property, except horses, they should leave behind them, and, (5) the nation was to be provided with a liberal school fund. Again the result was an emphatic refusal[367] on the part of the Cherokees to enter into negotiations on the subject. Other special commissioners and emissaries, of whom several were appointed in the next few months, met with the same reception. DECISION OF THE SUPREME COURT IN CHEROKEE NATION VS. GEORGIA. Determined to test the constitutionality of the hostile legislation of Georgia, application was made at the January term, 1831, of the Supreme Court of the United States, by John Ross, as principal chief, in the name of the Cherokee Nation, for an injunction against the State of Georgia. The application was based on the theory that the Cherokee Nation was a sovereign and independent power in the sense of the language of the second section of the third article of the Constitution of the United States providing for judicial jurisdiction of cases arising between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens, or subjects. The majority of the court declared that the Cherokee Nation was not a foreign nation in the sense stated in the Constitution, and dismissed the suit for want of jurisdiction. From this decision, however, Justices Thompson and Story dissented.[368] FAILURE OF MR. CHESTER'S MISSION. No further formal attempt was made to secure a compliance with the wishes of the Government until the winter and spring of 1831-'32. A delegation of Cherokees had visited Washington in the interests of their people, and though nothing was accomplished through them, the language used by some members of the delegation had led the Government authorities to hope that a change of sentiment on the subject of removal was rapidly taking place in their minds. In pursuance of this impression the Secretary of War, in the spring of 1832,[369] intrusted Mr. E. W. Chester with a mission to the Cherokees, and with instructions to offer them as a basis for the negotiation of a treaty the following terms: 1. The United States to provide them with a country west of Arkansas sufficiently large for their accommodation. 2. This country to be conveyed to them by patent under the act of Congress of May 28, 1830, and to be forever outside the limits of any State or Territory. 3. The Cherokees to retain and possess all the powers of self-government consistent with a supervisory authority of Congress. 4. To have an agent resident in Washington to represent their interest, who should be paid by the United States. 5. With the consent of Congress they should be organized as a Territory and be represented by a delegate in that body. 6. All white persons should be excluded from their country. 7. The United States to remove them to their new country and to pay the expenses of such removal, which might be conducted in either of three ways, viz: (_a_) By a commutation in money, to be allowed either individuals or families. (_b_) By persons to be appointed and paid by the United States. (_c_) By arrangement among themselves, through which some competent person should remove them at a fixed rate. 8. The United States to provide them with subsistence for one year after removal. 9. An annuity to be secured to them proportioned to the value of the cession of territory they should make. 10. The United States to pay for all Indian improvements upon the ceded land. 11. Provision to be made for the support of schools, teachers, blacksmiths and their supplies, mills, school-houses, churches, council-houses, and houses for the principal chiefs. 12. A rifle to be presented to each adult male, and blankets, axes, plows, hoes, spinning-wheels, cards, and looms to each family. 13. Indian live stock to be valued and paid for by the United States. 14. Annuities under former treaties to be paid to them upon their arrival west of the Mississippi. 15. Provision to be made by the United States for Cherokee orphan children. 16. Protection to be guaranteed to the Cherokees against hostile Indians. 17. A few individual reservations to be permitted east of the Mississippi, but only on condition that the reservees shall become citizens of the State in which they reside, and that all reservations between them and the United States, founded upon their previous circumstances as Indians, must cease. _Cherokees contemplate removal to Columbia River._--In the discussion of these propositions the fact was developed that a project had been canvassed, and had received much favorable consideration among the Cherokees themselves (in view of the difficulties and harassing circumstances surrounding their situation), to abandon their eastern home and to remove to the country adjacent to the mouth of the Columbia River, on the Pacific coast. This proposition having reached the ears of the Secretary of War, he made haste, in a letter to Mr. Chester,[370] to discourage all idea of such a removal, predicated upon the theory that they would be surrounded by tribes of hostile savages, and would be too remote from the frontier and military posts of the United States to enable the latter to extend to them the arm of protection and support. Nothing was accomplished by the negotiations of Mr. Chester, and in the autumn[371] of the same year Governor Lumpkin, of Georgia, was requested to attend the Cherokee council in October and renew the proposition upon the same basis. A similar fate attended this attempt. DECISION OF SUPREME COURT IN WORCESTER VS. GEORGIA. Among other laws passed by the State of Georgia was one that went into effect on the 1st of February, 1831, which prohibited the Cherokees from holding councils, or assembling for any purpose; provided for a distribution of their lands among her citizens; required all whites residing in the Cherokee Nation within her chartered limits to take an oath of allegiance to the State, and made it an offense punishable by four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary to refuse to do so. Under this law two missionaries, Messrs. Worcester and Butler, were indicted in the superior court of Gwinnett County for residing without license in that part of the Cherokee country attached to Georgia by her laws and in violation of the act of her legislature approved December 22, 1830. In the trial of Mr. Worcester's case, which was subsequently made the test case in the Supreme Court of the United States, he pleaded that he was a citizen of Vermont and entered the Cherokee country as a missionary with the permission of the President of the United States and the approval of the Cherokee Nation; that Georgia ought not to maintain the prosecution inasmuch as several treaties had been entered into by the United States with the Cherokee Nation, by which the latter were acknowledged as a sovereign nation, and by which the territory occupied by them had been guaranteed to them by the United States. The superior court overruled this plea, and Mr. Worcester was tried, convicted, and sentenced to four years in the penitentiary. The case was carried up on a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, and that court asserted its jurisdiction. In rendering its decision the court remarks that the principle that discovery of parts of the continent of America gave title to the government by whose subjects or by whose authority it was made against all other European governments, which title might be consummated by possession, was acknowledged by all Europeans because it was the interest of all to acknowledge it, and because it gave to the nation making the discovery, as its inevitable consequence, the sole right of acquiring the soil and of making settlements on it. It was an exclusive principle which shut out the right of competition among those who had agreed to it, but not one which could annul the rights of those who had not agreed to it. It regulated the rights of the discoverers among themselves, but could not affect the rights of those already in possession as aboriginal occupants. It gave the exclusive right of purchase, but did not found it on a denial of the right of the possessor to sell. The United States succeeded to all the claims of Great Britain, both territorial and political. Soon after Great Britain had determined on planting colonies in America the King granted sundry charters to his subjects. They purport generally to convey the soil from the Atlantic to the South Sea. The soil was occupied by numerous warlike nations, milling and able to defend their possessions. The absurd idea that feeble settlements made on the sea-coast acquired legitimate power to govern the people or occupy the lands from sea to sea did not then enter the mind of any man. These charters simply conferred the right of purchasing such lands as the natives were willing to sell. The acknowledgment of dependence made in the various Cherokee treaties with Great Britain and the United States merely bound them as a dependent ally claiming the protection of a powerful friend and neighbor and receiving the advantages of that protection, without involving a surrender of their national character. Neither the Government nor the Cherokees ever understood it otherwise. Protection did not imply the destruction of the protected. Georgia herself had furnished conclusive evidence that her former opinions on the subject of the Indians concurred with those entertained by her sister States and by the Government of the United States. Various acts of her legislature had been cited in the argument of the case, including the contract of cession made in 1802, all tending to prove her acquiescence in the universal conviction that the Cherokee Nation possessed a full right to the lands they occupied, until that right should be extinguished by the United States with their consent; that their territory was separated from that of any State within whose chartered limits they might reside, by a boundary line established by treaties; that within their boundary they possessed rights with which no State could interfere, and that the whole power of regulating the intercourse with them was vested in the United States. The legislation of Georgia on this subject was therefore unconstitutional and void.[372] _Georgia refuses to submit to the decision of the Supreme Court._--Georgia refused to submit to the decision and alleged that the court possessed no right to pronounce it, she being by the Constitution of the United States a sovereign and independent State, and no new State could be formed within her limits without her consent. _President Jackson's dilemma._--The President was thus placed between two fires, Georgia demanding the force of his authority to protect her constitutional rights by refusing to enforce the decision of the court, and the Cherokees demanding the maintenance of their rights as guaranteed them under the treaty of 1791 and sustained by the decision of the Supreme Court. It was manifest the request of both could not be complied with. If he assented to the desire of the Cherokees a civil war was likely to ensue with the State of Georgia. If he did not enforce the decision and protect the Cherokees, the faith of the nation would be violated.[373] In this dilemma a treaty was looked upon as the only alternative, by which the Cherokees should relinquish to the United States all their interest in lands east of the Mississippi and remove to the west of that river, and more earnest, urgent, and persistent pressure than before was applied from this time forward to compel their acquiescence in such a scheme. DISPUTED BOUNDARIES BETWEEN CHEROKEES AND CREEKS. Mention has already been made in discussing the terms of the treaty of September 22, 1816, of the complications arising out of the question of disputed boundaries between the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. These disputes related chiefly to an adjustment of boundaries within the Territory of Alabama, rendered necessary for the definite ascertainment of the limits of the Creek cession of 1814. But as a result of the Cherokee cession of 1817 and the Creek cessions of 1818, 1821, 1826, and 1827, the true boundary between the territories of these two latter nations became not only a matter of dispute, but one that for years lent additional bitterness to the contest between the people of Georgia and the Indians, especially the Cherokees. Prior to the Revolution, the latter had claimed to own the territory within the limits of Georgia, as far south as the waters of Broad River, and extending from the headwaters of that river westward. Some of this territory was also claimed by the Creeks, and the British Government had therefore in purchasing it accepted a cession from those tribes jointly.[374] At the beginning of the Federal relations with the Cherokees, a definition of their boundaries had been made by treaty of November 28, 1785, extending on the south as far west as the headwaters of the Appalachee River. Beyond that point to the west no declaration as to the limits of the Cherokee territory was made, because, for the purposes of the Federal Government, none was at that time necessary. But when in course of time other cessions came to be made, both by the Cherokees and Creeks, it began to be essential to have an exact definition of the line of limits between them. Especially was this the case when, as by the terms of the Creek treaty of February 12, 1825,[375] they ceded all the territory to which they laid claim within the limits of Georgia, and although this treaty was afterwards declared void by the United States, because of alleged fraud, Georgia always maintained the propriety and validity of its negotiation. As early as June 10, 1802, a delegation of Cherokees interviewed Colonel Hawkins and General Pickens, and after demanding the removal of certain settlers claimed to be on their lands, asserted the boundary of their nation in the direction of the Creeks to be the path running from Colonel Easley's, at High Shoals of the Appalachee, to Etowah River. This they had agreed upon in council with the Creeks. A delegation of the Creeks, whom they brought with them from the council, were then interrogated on the subject by Messrs. Hawkins and Pickens, and they replied that the statement of the Cherokees was correct. In the spring of 1814 (May 15) Agent Meigs had written the Secretary of War that the Cherokees were sensible that the Creeks ought to cede to the United States sufficient land to fully compensate the latter for the expenses incurred in prosecuting the Creek war. However, they (the Cherokees) were incidentally interested in the arrangements, and hoped that the United States would not permit the Creeks to point out the specific boundaries of their cession until the division line between the two nations had been definitely determined. In the following year, in a discussion of the subject with Colonel Hawkins, the Creek agent, Colonel Meigs declares that the Cherokees repel the idea entertained by the Creeks that the Cherokee or Tennessee River was ever their southern boundary. On the contrary, the dividing line between the territories of the two nations should begin at Vann's Old Store, on the Ocmulgee River, thence pursuing such a course as would strike the Coosa River below the Ten Islands. This claim was predicated upon the assertion that the Cherokees had in the course of three successive wars with the Creeks driven them more than a degree of latitude below the point last named. Another Cherokee version was to the effect that at a joint council of the two nations, held prior to the Revolutionary War, the boundary question was a subject of discussion, when it was agreed to allow the oldest man in the Creek Nation to determine the point. This man was James McQueen, a soldier who had deserted from Oglethorpe's command soon after the settlement of Savannah. McQueen decided that the boundary should be a line drawn across the headwaters of Hatchet and Elk Creeks, the former being a branch of the Coosa and the latter a tributary of the Tallapoosa. This decision was predicated upon the fact that the Cherokees had driven the Creeks below this line, and it had been mutually agreed that it should constitute the boundary. In contradiction of this it was asserted by the Creeks that in the year 1818 it had been admitted at a public meeting of the Creeks by "Sour Mush," a Cherokee chief, that the Creeks owned all the land up to the head of Coosa River, including all of its waters; that the Tennessee was the Cherokee River, and the territories of the two nations joined on the dividing ridge between those rivers. In former times, on the Chattahoochee, the Cherokees had claimed the country as low down as a branch of that river called Choky (Soquee) River. Subsequently they were told by the Coweta king, that they might live as low down as the Currahee Mountain, but that their young men had now extended their claim to Hog Mountain, without however any shadow of right or authority.[376] With a view to an amicable adjustment of their respective rights a council was held between the chiefs and headmen of the two nations at the residence of General William McIntosh, in the Creek country, at which a treaty was concluded between themselves on the 11th of December, 1820. In the first article of this treaty the boundary line between the two nations was fixed as running from the Buzzard's Roost, on the Chattahoochee, in a direct line to the Coosa River, at a point opposite the mouth of Wills Town Creek, and thence down the Coosa River to a point opposite Fort Strother. This boundary was reaffirmed by them in a subsequent treaty concluded October 30, 1822.[377] The Cherokee treaty of 1817 had assumed to cede a tract of country "Beginning at the high shoals of the Appalachy River and running thence along the boundary line between the Creek and Cherokee Nations westwardly to the Chatahouchy River," etc. The Creek treaty of 1818[378] in turn ceded a tract the northern boundary of which extended from Suwanee Old Town, on the Chattahoochee, to the head of Appalachee River, and which overlapped a considerable portion of the Cherokee cession of 1817. The Creek treaty of 1821[379] ceded a tract running as far north as the Shallow Ford of the Chattahoochee, which also included a portion of the territory within the limits of the Cherokee domain, as claimed by the latter. By the treaty of 1825[380] with the Creeks they ceded all their remaining territory in Georgia. Complaint being made that this treaty had been entered into by only a small non-representative faction of that nation, an investigation was entered upon by the United States authorities, and as the result it was determined to declare the treaty void and to negotiate a new treaty with them, which was done on the 24th of January, 1826.[381] By this last treaty as amended the Creeks ceded all their land east of the Chattahoochee River, as well as a tract north and west of that river. In the cession of this latter tract it was assumed that a point on Chattahoochee River known as the Buzzard's Roost was the northern limit of the Creek supremacy. The authorities of Georgia strongly insisted that not only had the treaty of 1825 been legitimately concluded, whereby they were entitled to come into possession of all the Creek domain within her limits, but also that the true line of the Creek limits toward the north had been much higher up than would seem to have been the understanding of the parties to the treaty of 1826. In the following year the Creeks ceded all remaining territory they might have within the limits of Georgia.[382] This left the only question to be decided between the State of Georgia and the Cherokees the one of just boundaries between the latter and the country recently acquired from the Creeks. The War Department had been of the impression that the proper boundary between the two nations was a line to be run directly from the High Shoals of the Appalachee to the Ten Islands, or Turkeytown, on the Coosa River.[383] On this hypothesis Agent Mitchell, of the Creeks, had been instructed, if he could do so, "without exciting their sensibilities," to establish it as the northern line of the Creek Nation. Georgia, on the contrary, claimed that the proper boundary extended from Suwanee Old Town, on the Chattahoochee, to Sixes Old Town, on the Etowah River; from thence to the junction of the Etowah and Oostanaula Rivers, and following the Creek path from that point to Tennessee River. In pursuance of this claim Governor Forsyth instructed[384] Mr. Samuel A. Wales as the surveyor for that State to proceed to establish the line of limits in accordance therewith. Mr. Wales, upon commencing operations, was met with a protest from Colonel Montgomery, the Cherokee agent,[385] notwithstanding which he continued his operations in conformity with his original instructions. This action of the surveyor having produced a feeling of great excitement and hostility within the Cherokee Nation, rendering the danger of collision and bloodshed imminent, the United States authorities took the matter in hand, and, by direction of the President, General John Coffee was appointed and instructed[386] to proceed to the Cherokee Nation, and from the most reliable information and testimony attainable to report what, in his judgment, should in justice and fairness to all parties concerned be declared to be the true line of limits between Georgia, as the successor of the Creeks, and the Cherokee Nation. General Coffee proceeded to the performance of the duty thus assigned him. A large mass of testimony and tradition on the subject was evoked, in summing up which General Coffee reported[387] to the Secretary of War that the line of demarkation between the two nations should begin at the lower Shallow Ford of the Chattahoochee, which was about 15 miles below the Suwanee Old Town. From thence the line should run westwardly in a direction to strike the ridge dividing the waters running into Little River (a branch of the Hightower or Etowah) from those running into Sweet Water Creek (a branch of the Chattahoochee emptying about 2 miles below Buzzard's Roost). From this point such ridge should be followed westwardly, leaving all the waters falling into Hightower and Coosa Rivers to the right and all the waters that run southwardly into Chattahoochee and Tallapoosa Rivers to the left, until such ridge should intersect the line (which had been previously as per agreement of 1821 between the Creeks and Cherokees themselves) run and marked from Buzzard Roost to Wills Creek, and thence with this line to the Coosa River opposite the mouth of Wills Creek. Two weeks later[388] General Coffee, in a communication to the Secretary of War, alludes to the dissatisfaction of Georgia with the line as determined by him, and her claim to an additional tract of territory by remarking that "I have thought it right to give this statement for your own and the eye of the President only, that you may the better appreciate the character of the active agents and partisans of the Georgia claim, for really I cannot see any reasonable or plausible evidence on which she rests her claim." The President, after a careful examination of the testimony and much solicitude upon the subject, decided to approve General Coffee's recommendation. The Cherokee agent was therefore directed[389] to notify all white settlers living north of Coffee's line to remove at once. The governor of Georgia was also notified of the President's decision, and, though strongly and persistently protesting against it, the President firmly refused to revoke his action.[390] The Cherokees were equally dissatisfied with the decision, because the line was not fixed as far south as Buzzard's Roost, in accordance with the agreement of 1821 between themselves and the Creeks.[391] CHEROKEES PLEAD WITH CONGRESS AND THE PRESIDENT FOR JUSTICE. A delegation of the Cherokees, with John Ross at their head, was quartered in Washington during the greater part of the winter of 1832-'33, bringing to bear in behalf of their nation every possible influence upon both Congress and the Executive. A voluminous correspondence was conducted between them and the War Department upon the subject of their proposed removal. In a communication on the 28th of January, 1833, they ask leave to say that, notwithstanding the various perplexities which the Cherokee people had experienced under the course of policy pursued toward them, they were yet unshaken in their objections to a removal west of the Mississippi River. On the question of their rights and the justice of their cause, their minds were equally unchangeable. They were, however, fully sensible that justice and weakness could not control the array of oppressive power, and that in the calamitous effects of such power, already witnessed, they could not fail to foresee with equal clearness that a removal to the west would be followed in a few years by consequences no less fatal. They therefore suggested for the consideration of the President, whether it would not be practicable for the Government to satisfy the claims of Georgia by granting to those of her citizens who had in the lotteries of that State drawn lots of land within Cherokee limits other lands of the United States lying within the Territories and States of the Union, or in some other way. _The President urges their assent to removal._--The Secretary of War, in replying for the President (February 2,1833), was unable to see that any practicable plan could be adopted by which the reversionary rights held under the State of Georgia could be purchased upon such terms as would justify the Government in entering into a stipulation to that effect. Nor would it at all remove the difficulties and embarrassments of their condition. They would still be subject to the laws of Georgia, surrounded by white settlements and exposed to all those evils which had always attended the Indian race when placed in immediate contact with the white population. It was only by removing from these surroundings that they could expect to avoid the fate which had already swept away so many Indian tribes. _Reply of John Ross._--Ross retorted, in a communication couched in diplomatic language, that it was with great diffidence and deep regret he felt constrained to say, that in this scheme of Indian removal he could see more of expediency and policy to get rid of the Cherokees than to perpetuate their race upon any permanent, fundamental principle. If the doctrine that Indian tribes could not exist contiguous to a white population should prevail, and they should be compelled to remove west of the States and Territories of this republic, what was to prevent a similar removal of them from there for the same reason? Without securing any promises of relief, and without reaching any definite understanding with the executive authorities of the Government, the delegation left for their homes in March, 1833. They agreed, however, to lay before their national council in the ensuing May a proposition made to them by the President, offering to pay them $2,500,000 in goods for their lands, with the proviso that they should remove themselves at their own expense.[392] This proposition, it is hardly necessary to remark, was not favorably considered by the council, though the Secretary of War designated[393] Mr. Benjamin F. Curry to attend the meeting and urge its acceptance. _Alleged attempted bribery of John Ross._--In this connection a story having been given currency that the Government had offered Chief Ross a bribe, provided he would secure the conclusion of a treaty of cession and removal, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs denied it as being "utterly without foundation, and one of those vile expedients that unprincipled men sometimes practice to accomplish an evil purpose," and as being "too incredible to do much injury."[394] While this story was perhaps without solid foundation in fact, its improbability would possibly have been more evident but for the fact that only five years earlier the Secretary of War had appointed secret agents and authorized them to expend $2,000 in bribing the chiefs for this very purpose, and had made his action in this respect a matter of public record. CHEROKEES PROPOSE AN ADJUSTMENT. In January, 1834, a few weeks after the assembling of Congress, the Cherokee delegation again arrived in Washington.[395] Sundry interviews and considerable correspondence with the War Department seemed barren of results or even hope. The delegation submitted[396] a proposition for adjustment in another form. Remarking upon their feeble numbers, and surrounded as they were by a nation so powerful as the United States, they could not but clearly see, they said, that their existence and permanent welfare as a people must depend upon that relation which should eventually lead to an amalgamation with the people of the United States. As the prospects of securing this object collectively, in their present location in the character of a territorial or State government, seemed to be seriously opposed and threatened by the States interested in their own aggrandizement, and as the Cherokees had refused, and would never voluntarily consent, to remove west of the Mississippi, the question was propounded whether the Government would enter into an arrangement on the basis of the Cherokees becoming prospectively citizens of the United States, provided the former would cede to the United States a portion of their territory for the use of Georgia; and whether the United States would agree to have the laws and treaties executed and enforced for the effectual protection of the Cherokees on the remainder of their territory for a definite period, with the understanding that upon the expiration of that period the Cherokees were to be subjected to the laws of the States within whose limits they might be, and to take an individual standing as citizens thereof, the same as other free citizens of the United States, with liberty to dispose of their surplus lands in such manner as might be agreed upon. _Cherokee proposals declined._--The reply[397] to this proposition was that the President did not see the slightest hope of a termination to the embarrassments under which the Cherokees labored except in their removal to the country west of the Mississippi. _Proposal of Andrew Ross._--In the mean time[398] Andrew Ross, who was a member of the Cherokee delegation, suggested to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs that if he were authorized so to do he would proceed to the Cherokee country and bring a few chiefs or respectable individuals of the nation to Washington, with whom a treaty could be effected for the cession of the whole or part of the Cherokee territory. His plan was approved, with the understanding that if a treaty should be concluded the expenses of the delegation would be paid by the United States. Ross succeeded in assembling some fifteen or twenty Cherokees at the Cherokee agency, all of whom were favorable to the scheme of emigration. Under the self-styled appellation of a committee, they proceeded to appoint a chief and assistant chief in the persons of William Hicks and John McIntosh, and selected eight of their own number as the remainder of the delegation to visit Washington.[399] _Protest of John Ross and thirteen thousand Cherokees._--Upon their arrival Hon. J. H. Eaton was designated[400] to conduct the negotiations with them. During the pendency of the negotiations Mr. Baton advised John Ross of the purpose in view and solicited his co-operation in the scheme. Mr. Ross refused[401] this proposal with much warmth, and took occasion to add in behalf of the Cherokee Nation that "in the face of Heaven and earth, before God and man, I most solemnly protest against any treaty whatever being entered into with those of whom you say one is in progress so as to affect the rights and interests of the Cherokee Nation east of the Mississippi River." Chief Ross also presented a protest, alleged to have been signed by more than thirteen thousand Cherokees, against the negotiation of such a treaty. _Preliminary treaty concluded with Andrew Ross et al._--Disregarding the protest of Chief Ross and distrusting the verity of that purporting to have been so numerously signed in the nation, the negotiations proceeded, and a treaty or agreement was concluded on the 19th day of June, 1834. The treaty provided for the opening of emigrant enrolling books, with a memorandum heading declaring the assent of the subscriber to a treaty yet to be concluded with the United States based upon the terms previously offered by the President, covering a cession and removal, and with the proviso that if no such subsequent treaty should be concluded within the next few months then the subscribers would cede to the United States all their right and interest in the Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi. In consideration of this they were to be removed and subsisted for one year at the expense of the United States, to receive the ascertained value of their improvements, and to be entitled to all such stipulations as should thereafter be made in favor of those who should not then remove. The treaty, however, failed of ratification, though the enrolling books were opened[402] and a few of the Cherokees entered their names for emigration. CHEROKEES MEMORIALIZE CONGRESS. While the negotiations leading up to the conclusion of this treaty were in progress John Ross and his delegation, finding no disposition on the part of the executive authority to enter into a discussion of Cherokee affairs predicated upon any other basis than an abandonment by them of their homes and country east of the Mississippi, presented[403] a memorial to Congress complaining of the injuries done them and praying for redress. Without affecting to pass judgment on the merits of the controversy, the writer thinks this memorial well deserving of reproduction here as evidencing the devoted and pathetic attachment with which the Cherokees clung to the land of their fathers, and, remembering the wrongs and humiliations of the past, refused to be convinced that justice, prosperity, and happiness awaited them beyond the Mississippi. The memorial of the Cherokee Nation respectfully showeth, that they approach your honorable bodies as the representatives of the people of the United States, intrusted by them under the Constitution with the exercise of their sovereign power, to ask for protection of the rights of your memorialists and redress of their grievances. They respectfully represent that their rights, being stipulated by numerous solemn treaties, which guaranteed to them protection, and guarded as they supposed by laws enacted by Congress, they had hoped that the approach of danger would be prevented by the interposition of the power of the Executive charged with the execution of treaties and laws; and that when their rights should come in question they would be finally and authoritatively decided by the judiciary, whose decrees it would be the duty of the Executive to see carried into effect. For many years these their just hopes were not disappointed. The public faith of the United States, solemnly pledged to them, was duly kept in form and substance. Happy under the parental guardianship of the United States, they applied themselves assiduously and successfully to learn the lessons of civilization and peace, which, in the prosecution of a humane and Christian policy, the United States caused to be taught them. Of the advances they have made under the influence of this benevolent system, they might a few years ago have been tempted to speak with pride and satisfaction and with grateful hearts to those who have been their instructors. They could have pointed with pleasure to the houses they had built, the improvements they had made, the fields they were cultivating; they could have exhibited their domestic establishments, and shown how from wandering in the forests many of them had become the heads of families, with fixed habitations, each the center of a domestic circle like that which forms the happiness of civilized man. They could have shown, too, how the arts of industry, human knowledge, and letters had been introduced amongst them, and how the highest of all the knowledge had come to bless them, teaching them to know and to worship the Christian's God, bowing down to Him at the same seasons and in the same spirit with millions of His creatures who inhabit Christendom, and with them embracing the hopes and promises of the Gospel. But now each of these blessings has been made to them an instrument of the keenest torture. Cupidity has fastened its eye upon their lands and their homes, and is seeking by force and by every variety of oppression and wrong to expel them from their lands and their homes and to tear them from all that has become endeared to them. Of what they have already suffered it is impossible for them to give the details, as they would make a history. Of what they are menaced with by unlawful power, every citizen of the United States who reads the public journals is aware. In this their distress they have appealed to the judiciary of the United States, where their rights have been solemnly established. They have appealed to the Executive of the United States to protect these rights according to the obligations of treaties and the injunctions of the laws. But this appeal to the Executive has been made in vain. In the hope that by yielding something of their clear rights they might succeed in obtaining security for the remainder, they have lately opened a correspondence with the Executive, offering to make a considerable cession from what had been reserved to them by solemn treaties, only upon condition that they might be protected in the part not ceded. But their earnest supplication has been unheeded, and the only answer they can get, informs them, in substance, that they must be left to their fate, or renounce the whole. What that fate is to be unhappily is too plain. The State of Georgia has assumed jurisdiction over them, has invaded their territory, has claimed the right to dispose of their lands, and has actually proceeded to dispose of them, reserving only a small portion to individuals, and even these portions are threatened and will no doubt, soon be taken from them. Thus the nation is stripped of its territory and individuals of their property without the least color of right, and in open violation of the guarantee of treaties. At the same time the Cherokees, deprived of the protection of their own government and laws, are left without the protection of any other laws, outlawed as it were and exposed to indignities, imprisonment, persecution, and even to death, though they have committed no offense whatever, save and except that of seeking to enjoy what belongs to them, and refusing to yield it up to those who have no pretense of title to it. Of the acts of the legislature of Georgia your memorialists will endeavor to furnish copies to your honorable bodies, and of the doings of individuals they will furnish evidence if required. And your memorialists further respectfully represent that the Executive of the United States has not only refused to protect your memorialists against the wrongs they have suffered and are still suffering at the hands of unjust cupidity, but has done much more. It is but too plain that, for several years past, the power of the Executive has been exerted on the side of their oppressors and is co-operating with them in the work of destruction. Of two particulars in the conduct of the Executive your memorialists would make mention, not merely as matters of evidence but as specific subjects of complaint in addition to the more general ones already stated. The first of these is the mode adopted to oppress and injure your memorialists under color of enrollments for emigration. Unfit persons are introduced as agents, acts are practiced by them that are unjust, unworthy, and demoralizing, and have no object but to force your memorialists to yield and abandon their rights by making their lives intolerably wretched. They forbear to go into particulars, which nevertheless they are prepared, at a proper time, to exhibit. The other is calculated also to weaken and distress your memorialists, and is essentially unjust. Heretofore, until within the last four years, the money appropriated by Congress for annuities has been paid to the nation, by whom it was distributed and used for the benefit of the nation. And this method of payment was not only sanctioned by the usage of the Government of the United States, but was acceptable to the Cherokees. Yet, without any cause known to your memorialists, and contrary to their just expectations, the payment has been withheld for the period just mentioned, on the ground, then for the first time assumed, that the annuities were to be paid, not as hitherto, to the nation, but to the individual Cherokees, each his own small fraction, dividing the whole according to the numbers of the nation. The fact is, that for the last four years the annuities have not been paid at all. The distribution in this new way was impracticable, if the Cherokees had been willing thus to receive it, but they were not willing; they have refused and the annuities have remained unpaid. Your memorialists forbear to advert to the motives of such conduct, leaving them to be considered and appreciated by Congress. All they will say is, that it has coincided with other measures adopted to reduce them to poverty and despair and to extort from their wretchedness a concession of their guaranteed rights. Having failed in their efforts to obtain relief elsewhere, your memorialists now appeal to Congress, and respectfully pray that your honorable bodies will look into their whole case, and that such measures may be adopted as will give them redress and security. TREATY NEGOTIATIONS RESUMED. _Rival delegations headed by Ross and Ridge._--But little else was done and practically nothing was accomplished until the following winter. Early in February, 1835, two rival delegations, each claiming to represent the Cherokee Nation, arrived in Washington. One was headed by John Ross, who had long been the principal chief and who was the most intelligent and influential man in the nation. The rival delegation was led by John Ridge, who had been a subchief and a man of some considerable influence among his people.[404] The Ross delegation had been consistently and bitterly opposed to any negotiations having in view the surrender of their territory and a removal west of the Mississippi. Ridge and his delegation, though formerly of the same mind with Ross, had begun to perceive the futility of further opposition to the demands of the State and national authorities. Feeling the certainty that the approaching crisis in Cherokee affairs could have but one result, and perceiving an opportunity to enhance his own importance and to secure the discomfiture of his hitherto more powerful rival, Ridge caused it to be intimated to the United States authorities that he and his delegation were prepared to treat with them upon the basis previously laid down by President Jackson of a cession of their territory and a removal west. Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn was therefore appointed,[405] and instructions were prepared authorizing him to meet Ridge and his party and to ascertain on what terms an amicable and satisfactory arrangement could be made. After the instructions had been delivered to Mr. Schermerhorn, but before he had commenced the negotiation, Ross and his party requested to be allowed to make a proposal to be submitted to the President for his approval. He was assured that his proposal would be considered, and in the mean time Mr. Schermerhorn was requested to suspend his operations. So much time, however, elapsed before anything more was heard from Ross and his party that the negotiations with the Ridge party were proceeded with. They terminated in a general understanding respecting the basis of an arrangement, leaving, however, many of the details to be filled up. The total amount of the various stipulations provided for, as a full consideration for the cession of their lands, was $3,250,000, besides the sum of $150,000 for depredation claims. In addition, a tract of 800,000 acres of land west of the Mississippi was to be added to the territory already promised them, amounting in the aggregate, including the western outlet, to about 13,800,000 acres.[406] _Proposition of John Ross._--On the 25th of February, Ross and his delegation, finding that the negotiations with Ridge were proceeding, submitted a proposition for removal based upon an allowance of $20,000,000 for the cession of the territory and the payment of a class of claims of uncertain number and value. This was considered so unreasonable as to render the seriousness of his proposition doubtful at the time, but it was finally modified by an assertion of his willingness to accept such sum as the Senate of the United States should declare to be just and proper.[407] Thereupon a statement of all the facts was placed in the hands of Senator King, of Georgia, who submitted the same to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs on the 2d of March. It was not contemplated that any arrangement made with these Cherokee delegations at this time should be definitive, but that the Cherokee people should be assembled for the purpose of considering the subject, and their assent asked to such propositions as they might deem satisfactory. _Resolution of United States Senate on John Ross's proposition._--The Senate gave the matter prompt consideration, and on the 6th of March the Secretary of War advised Mr. Ross that by a resolution they had stated their opinion that "a sum not exceeding $5,000,000 should be paid to the Cherokee Indians for all their lands and possessions east of the Mississippi River," and he was invited to enter into negotiations upon that basis, but declined to do so. _Preliminary treaty concluded with the Ridge party._--The treaty between Schermerhorn and the Ridge party was thereupon completed with some modifications and duly signed on the 14th of March, but with the express stipulation that it should receive the approval of the Cherokee people in full council assembled before being considered of any binding force. The consideration was changed to read $4,500,000 and 800,000 acres of additional land, but in the main its provisions differed but little in the important objects sought to be secured from those contained in the treaty as finally concluded, December 29, 1835. _Schermerhorn and Carroll appointed to complete the treaty._--In the mean time,[408] two days after the conclusion of the preliminary Ridge treaty, President Jackson issued an address to the Cherokees, inviting them to a calm consideration of their condition and prospects, and urging upon them the benefits certain to inure to their nation by the ratification of the treaty just concluded and their removal to the western country. This address was intrusted to Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn and General William Carroll, whom the President had appointed on the 2d of April as commissioners to complete in the Cherokee country the negotiation of the treaty. General Carroll being unable on account of ill-health to proceed from Nashville to the Cherokee Nation, Mr. Schermerhorn was compelled to assume the responsibilities of the negotiation alone. The entire summer and fall were spent in endeavors to reconcile differences of opinion, to adjust feuds among the different factions of the tribe, and to secure some definitive and consolidated action. Meeting with no substantial encouragement, he suggested, in a communication to the Secretary of War,[409] two alternative propositions, by either of which a treaty might be secured. These propositions were: (1) That the appraising agents of the Government should ascertain from influential Cherokees their own opinion of the value of their improvements, and promise them the amount, if this estimate should be in any degree reasonable, and if they would take a decided stand in favor of the treaty and conclude the same. (2) To conclude the treaty with a portion of the nation only, should one with the whole be found impracticable, and compel the acquiescence of the remainder in its provisions. He was at once[410] advised of the opposition of the President to any such action. If a treaty could not be concluded upon fair and open terms, he must abandon the effort and leave the nation to the consequences of its own stubbornness. He must make no particular promise to any individual, high or low, to gain his co-operation. The interest of the whole must not be sacrificed to the cupidity of a few, and if a treaty was concluded at all it must be one that would stand the test of the most rigid scrutiny. _The Ridge treaty rejected._--The Cherokee people in full council at Red Clay, in the following October, rejected the Ridge treaty. Mr. John Ridge and Elias Boudinot, who had been the main stay and support of Mr. Schermerhorn in the preceding negotiations, at this council, through fear or duplicity and unexpectedly to him, abandoned their support of his measures and coincided with the preponderance of Cherokee sentiment on the subject. In his report of this failure to bring the negotiations to a successful termination Commissioner Schermerhorn says: "I have pressed Ross so hard by the course I have adopted that although he got the general council to pass a resolution declaring that they would not treat on the basis of the $5,000,000, yet he has been forced to bring the nation to agree to a treaty, here or at Washington. They have used every effort to get by me and get to Washington again this winter. They dare not yet do it. You will perceive Ridge and his friends have taken apparently a strange course. I believe he began to be discouraged in contending with the power of Ross; and perhaps also considerations of personal safety have had their influence, but the Lord is able to overrule all things for good."[411] _Council at New Echota._--During the session of this council notice was given to the Cherokees to meet the United States commissioners on the third Monday in December following, at New Echota, for the purpose of negotiating and agreeing upon the terms of a treaty. The notice was also printed in Cherokee and circulated throughout the nation, informing the Indians that those who did not attend would be counted as assenting to any treaty that might be made.[412] In the mean time the Ross delegation, authorized by the Red Clay council to conclude a treaty either there or at Washington, finding that Schermerhorn had no authority to treat on any other basis than the one rejected by the nation, proceeded, according to their people's instructions, to Washington. Previous to their departure, John Ross was arrested. This took place immediately upon the breaking up of the council. He was detained some time under the surveillance of a strong guard, without any charge against him, and ultimately released without any apology or explanation. At this arrest all his papers were seized, including as well all his private correspondence and the proceedings of the Cherokee council.[413] In accordance with the call for a council at New Echota the Indians assembled at the appointed time and place, to the number of only three to five hundred, as reported[414] by Mr. Schermerhorn himself, who could hardly be accused of any tendency to underestimate the gathering. That gentleman opened the council December 22, 1835, in the absence of Governor Carroll, whose health was still such as to prevent his attendance. The objects of the council were fully explained, the small attendance being attributed to the influence of John Ross. It was also suggested by those unfriendly to the proposed treaty as a good reason for the absence of so large a proportion of the nation, that the right to convene a national council was vested in the principal chief, and they were unaware that that officer's authority had been delegated to Mr. Schermerhorn.[413] Those present resolved on the 23d to enter into negotiations and appointed a committee of twenty to arrange the details with the Commissioner and to report the result to the whole council. The following five days were occupied by the commissioner and the committee in discussing and agreeing upon the details of the treaty, one point of difference being as to whether the $5,000,000 consideration for their lands as mentioned in the resolution of the Senate was meant to include the damages to individual property sustained at the hands of white trespassers. The Indians insisted that $300,000 additional should be allowed for that purpose, but it was finally agreed that the treaty should not be presented to the Senate without the consent of their delegation until they were satisfied the Senate had not included these claims in the sum named in the resolution of that body. It was also insisted by the Cherokee committee that reservations should be made to such of their people as desired to remain in their homes and become citizens of the United States. As a compromise of this demand, it was agreed by the United States commissioner to allow pre-emptions of 160 acres each, not exceeding 400 in number, in the States of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, to such heads of Cherokee families only as were qualified to become useful members of society. None were to be entitled to this privilege unless their applications were recommended by a committee of their own people (a majority of which committee should be composed of those members of the tribe who were themselves enrolled for removal) and approved by the United States commissioners. The latter also proposed to make the reservations dependent upon the approval of the legislatures of the States within which they might be respectively located, but to this proposition a strenuous objection was offered by the Indians. The articles as agreed upon were reported by the Cherokee committee to their people, and were approved, transcribed, and signed on the 29th. The council adjourned on the 30th, after designating a committee to proceed to Washington and urge the ratification of the treaty, clothed with power to assent to any alterations made necessary by the action of the President or Senate.[415] _Commissioner Schermerhorn reports conclusion of a treaty._--Immediately following the adjournment of the council, Commissioner Schermerhorn wrote the Secretary of War, saying: "I have the extreme pleasure to announce to you that yesterday I concluded a treaty. * * * Ross after this treaty is prostrate. The power of the nation is taken from him, as well as the money, and the treaty will give general satisfaction."[416] _Supplemental treaty concluded._--Several provisions of the treaty met with the disapproval of the President, in order to meet which supplementary articles of agreement were concluded under date of March 1, 1836,[417] wherein it was stipulated that all pre-emption rights provided for should be declared void; also that, in lieu of the same and to cover expenses of removal and payment of claims against citizens of the United States, the sum of $600,000 should be allowed them in addition to the five millions allowed for cession of territory. And, furthermore, that the $100,000 stipulated to be expended for the poorer class of Cherokees who should remove west should be placed to the credit of the general national fund.[418] _Opposition of the Ross party._--Whilst these events were happening, and strenuous efforts were being made to encourage among Senators a sentiment favorable to the ratification of the treaty, John Ross was manifesting his usual zeal and activity in the opposite direction. Early in the spring of 1836 he made his appearance in Washington, accompanied by a delegation, and presented two protests against the ratification of the treaty, one purporting to have been signed by Cherokees residing within the limits of North Carolina to the number of 3,250, and the other representing the alleged sentiments of 12,714 persons residing within the main body of the nation. Mr. Ross also demanded the payment of the long withheld annuities to himself as the duly authorized representative of the nation, which was declined unless special direction to that effect should be given by an authentic vote of the tribe from year to year. He was further assured that the President had ceased to recognize any existing government among the Eastern Cherokees.[419] _Treaty ratified by United States Senate._--In spite of the opposition of Mr. Ross and his party, the treaty was assented to by the Senate by one more than the necessary two-thirds majority,[420] and was ratified and proclaimed by the President on the 23d of May, 1836.[421] By its terms two years were allowed within which the nation must remove west of the Mississippi. _Measures for execution of the treaty._--Preparatory steps were promptly taken for carrying the treaty into execution. On the 7th of June Gov. Wilson Lumpkin, of Georgia, and Gov. William Carroll, of Tennessee, were designated as commissioners under the 17th article, and vested with general supervisory authority over the execution of the treaty. The selection and general supervision (under the foregoing commissioners) of the agents to appraise the value of Cherokee improvements was placed in charge of Benjamin F. Curry, to whom detailed instructions were given[422] for his guidance. General John E. Wool was placed in command of the United States troops within the Cherokee Nation, but with instructions[423] that military force should only be applied in the event of hostilities being commenced by the Cherokees. _The Ross party refuse to acquiesce._--John Ross and his delegation, having returned home, at once proceeded to enter upon a vigorous campaign of opposition to the execution of the treaty. He used every means to incite the animosity of his people against Ridge and his friends, who had been instrumental in bringing it about and who were favorable to removal. Councils were held and resolutions were adopted denouncing in the severest terms the motives and action of the United States authorities and declaring the treaty in all its provisions absolutely null and void.[424] A copy of these resolutions having been transmitted to the Secretary of War by General Wool, the former was directed[425] by the President to express his astonishment that an officer of the Army should have received or transmitted a paper so disrespectful to the Executive, to the Senate, and through them to the people of the United States. To prevent any misapprehension on the subject of the treaty the Secretary was instructed to repeat in the most explicit terms the settled determination of the President that it should be executed without modification and with all the dispatch consistent with propriety and justice. Furthermore, that after delivering a copy of this letter to Mr. Ross no further communication should be held with him either orally or in writing in regard to the treaty. To give a clearer idea of the actual state of feeling that pervaded the Cherokee Nation on the subject of removal, as well as the character of the methods that distinguished the negotiators on the part of the United States, a few quotations from the letters and reports of those in a position to observe the passing events may not be inappropriate. REPORT OF MAJOR DAVIS. Maj. William M. Davis had been appointed an agent by the Secretary of War for the enrollment of Cherokees desirous of removal to the West and for the appraisement of the value of their improvements. He had gone among the Cherokees for this specific purpose. He held his appointment by the grace and permission of the President. It was natural that his desire should be strongly in the line of securing the Executive approval of his labors. Strong, however, as was that desire he was unable to bring himself to the support of the methods that were being pursued in the negotiation of the proposed treaty. On the 5th of March following the conclusion of the treaty of 1835, he wrote the Secretary of War thus: I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country, reluctantly compels me to make a statement of facts in relation to a meeting of a small number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Schermerhorn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them for the whole Cherokee Nation. * * * I should not interpose in the matter at all but I discover that you do not receive impartial information on the subject; that you have to depend upon the _ex parte_, partial, and interested reports of a person who will not give you the truth. I will not be silent when I see that you are about to be imposed on by a gross and base betrayal of the high trust reposed in Rev. J. F. Schermerhorn by you. His conduct and course of policy was a series of blunders from first to last. * * * It has been wholly of a partisan character. Sir, that paper * * * called a treaty is no treaty at all, because not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokees and made without their participation or assent. I solemnly declare to you that upon its reference to the Cherokee people it would be instantly rejected by nine-tenths of them and I believe by nineteen-twentieths of them. There were not present at the conclusion of the treaty more than one hundred Cherokee voters, and not more than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness. * * * Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and the Government upon this point. The delegation taken to Washington by Mr. Schermerhorn had no more authority to make a treaty than any other dozen Cherokees accidentally picked up for that purpose. I now warn you and the President that if this paper of Schermerhorn's called a treaty is sent to the Senate and ratified you will bring trouble upon the Government and eventually destroy this (the Cherokee) nation. The Cherokees are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty cannot be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force.[426] ELIAS BOUDINOT'S VIEWS. About this time there also appeared, in justification of the treaty and of his own action in signing it, a pamphlet address issued by Elias Boudinot of the Cherokee Nation. Mr. Boudinot was one of the ablest and most cultured of his people, and had long been the editor and publisher of a newspaper in the nation, printed both in English and Cherokee. The substance of his argument in vindication of the treaty may have been creditable from the standpoint of policy and a regard for the future welfare of his people, but in the abstract it is a dangerous doctrine. He said: We cannot conceive of the acts of a minority to be so reprehensible and unjust as are represented by Mr. Ross. If one hundred persons are ignorant of their true situation and are so completely blinded as not to see the destruction that awaits them, we can see strong reasons to justify the action of a minority of fifty persons to do what the majority would do if they understood their condition, to save a nation from political thralldom and moral degradation.[427] SPEECH OF GENERAL R. G. DUNLAP. It having been extensively rumored, during the few months immediately succeeding the conclusion of the treaty, that John Ross and other evil disposed persons were seeking to incite the Cherokees to outbreak and bloodshed, the militia of the surrounding States were called into service for the protection of life and property from the supposed existing dangers. Brig. Gen. R. G. Dunlap commanded the East Tennessee volunteers. In a speech to his brigade at their disbandment in September, 1836, he used the following language: I forthwith visited all the posts within the first three States and gave the Cherokees (the whites needed none) all the protection in my power. * * * My course has excited the hatred of a few of the lawless rabble in Georgia, who have long played the part of unfeeling petty tyrants, and that to the disgrace of the proud character of gallant soldiers and good citizens. I had determined that I would never dishonor the Tennessee arms in a servile service by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. * * * I soon discovered that the Indians had not the most distant thought of war with the United States, notwithstanding the common rights of humanity and justice had been denied them.[428] REPORT OF GENERAL JOHN E. WOOL. Again, February 18, 1837, General John E. Wool, of the United States Army, who had been ordered to the command of the troops that were being concentrated in the Cherokee country "to look down opposition" to the enforcement of the treaty, wrote Adjutant-General Jones, at Washington, thus: "I called them (the Cherokees) together and made a short speech. It is, however, vain to talk to a people almost universally opposed to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who were present and voted at the council held but a day or two since, however poor or destitute, would receive either rations or clothing from the United States lest they might compromise themselves in regard to the treaty. These same people, as well as those in the mountains of North Carolina, during the summer past, preferred living upon the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from the United States, and thousands, as I have been informed, had no other food for weeks." Four months later,[429] General Wool again, in the course of a letter to the Secretary of War concerning the death of Major Curry, who had been a prominent factor in promoting the conclusion of the treaty of 1835, said that-- Had Curry lived he would assuredly have been killed by the Indians. It is a truth that you have not a single agent, high or low, that has the slightest moral control over the Indians. It would be wise if persons appointed to civil stations in the nation could be taken from among those who have had nothing to do with making the late treaty. REPORT OF JOHN MASON, JR. In further testimony concerning the situation of affairs in the Cherokee Nation at this period, may be cited the report of John Mason, Jr., who was in the summer of 1837[430] sent as the confidential agent of the War Department to make observations and report. In the autumn[431] of that year he reported that-- The chiefs and better informed part of the nation are convinced that they cannot retain the country. But the opposition to the treaty is unanimous and irreconcilable. They say it cannot bind them because they did not make it; that it was made by a few unauthorized individuals; that the nation is not a party to it. * * * They retain the forms of their government in their proceedings among themselves, though they have had no election since 1830; the chiefs and headmen then in power having been authorized to act until their government shall again be regularly constituted. Under this arrangement John Ross retains the post of principal chief. * * * The influence of this chief is unbounded and unquestioned. The whole nation of eighteen thousand persons is with him, the few, about three hundred, who made the treaty having left the country. It is evident, therefore, that Ross and his party are in fact the Cherokee Nation. * * * Many who were opposed to the treaty have emigrated to secure the rations, or because of fear of an outbreak. * * * The officers say that, with all his power, Ross cannot, if he would, change the course he has heretofore pursued and to which he is held by the fixed determination of his people. He dislikes being seen in conversation with white men, and particularly with agents of the Government. Were he, as matters now stand, to advise the Indians to acknowledge the treaty, he would at once forfeit their confidence and probably his life. Yet though unwavering in his opposition to the treaty, Ross's influence has constantly been exerted to preserve the peace of the country, and Colonel Lindsay says that he (Ross) alone stands at this time between the whites and bloodshed. The opposition to the treaty on the part of the Indians is unanimous and sincere, and it is not a mere political game played by Ross for the maintenance of his ascendancy in the tribe. HENRY CLAY'S SYMPATHY WITH THE CHEROKEES. It is interesting in this connection, as indicating the strong and widespread public feeling manifested in the Cherokee question, to note that it became in some sense a test question among leaders of the two great political parties. The Democrats strenuously upheld the conduct of President Jackson on the subject, and the Whigs assailed him with extreme bitterness. The great Whig leader, Henry Clay, in replying[432] to a letter received by him from John Gunter, a Cherokee, took occasion to express his sympathy with the Cherokee people for the wrongs and sufferings experienced by them. He regretted them not only because of their injustice, but because they inflicted a deep wound on the character of the American Republic. He supposed that the principles which had uniformly governed our relations with the Indian nations had been too long and too firmly established to be disturbed. They had been proclaimed in the negotiation with Great Britain by the commissioners who concluded the treaty of peace, of whom he was one, and any violation of them by the United States he felt with sensibility. By those principles the Cherokee Nation had a right to establish its own form of government, to alter and amend it at pleasure, to live under its own laws, to be exempt from the United States laws or the laws of any individual State, and to claim the protection of the United States. He considered that the Chief Magistrate and his subordinates had acted in direct hostility to those principles and had thereby encouraged Georgia to usurp powers of legislation over the Cherokee Nation which she did not of right possess. POLICY OF THE PRESIDENT CRITICISED--SPEECH OF COL. DAVID CROCKETT. Among many men of note who denounced in most vigorous terms the policy of the Administration toward the Cherokees were Daniel Webster and Edward Everett, of Massachusetts; Theodore Frelinghuysen, of New Jersey; Peleg Sprague, of Maine; Henry R. Storrs, of New York; Henry A. Wise, of Virginia; and David Crockett, of Tennessee. The latter, in a speech in the House of Representatives, denounced the treatment to which the Indians had been subjected at the hands of the Government as unjust, dishonest, cruel, and short-sighted in the extreme. He alluded to the fact that he represented a district which bordered on the domain of the southern tribes, and that his constituents were perhaps as immediately interested in the removal of the Indians as those of any other member of the House. His voice would perhaps not be seconded by that of a single fellow member living within 500 miles of his home. He had been threatened that if he did not support the policy of forcible removal his public career would be summarily cut off. But while he was perhaps as desirous of pleasing his constituents and of coinciding with the wishes of his colleagues as any man in Congress, he could not permit himself to do so at the expense of his honor and conscience in the support of such a measure. He believed the American people could be relied on to approve their Representatives for daring, in the face of all opposition, to perform their conscientious duty, but if not, the approval of his own conscience was dearer to him than all else. Governor Lumpkin, immediately upon his appointment as commissioner, had repaired to the Cherokee country, but Governor Carroll, owing to some pending negotiations with the Choctaws and subsequently to ill health, was unable to assume the duties assigned him. He was succeeded[433] by John Kennedy. To this commission a third member was added in the summer of 1837[434] in the person of Colonel Guild, who was found to be ineligible, however, by reason of being a member of the Tennessee legislature. His place was supplied by the appointment[435] of James W. Gwin, of North Carolina. On the 22d of December James Liddell was also appointed, _vice_ Governor Lumpkin resigned.[436] Superintendent Currey having died, General Nathan Smith was appointed[437] to succeed him as superintendent of emigration. _Census of Cherokee Nation._--It appears from a statement about this time,[438] made by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, that from a census of the Cherokees, taken in the year 1835, the number residing in the States of Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee was 16,542, exclusive of slaves and of whites intermarried with Cherokees.[439] In May, 1837,[440] General Wool was relieved from command at his own request, and his successor, Col. William Lindsay, was instructed to arrest John Ross and turn him over to the civil authorities in case he did anything further calculated to excite a spirit of hostility among the Cherokees on the subject of removal. This threat, however, seemed to have little effect, for we find Mr. Ross presiding over a general council, convened at his instigation, on the 31st of July, to attend which the Government hastily dispatched Mr. John Mason, Jr., with instructions to traverse and correct any misstatements of the position of the United States authorities that might be set forth by Ross and his followers. An extract from Mr. Mason's report has already been given. _Cherokee memorial in Congress._--Again, in the spring of 1838 Ross laid before Congress a protest and memorial for the redress of grievances, which, in the Senate, was laid upon the table[441] by a vote of 36 to 10, and a memorial from citizens of New York involving an inquiry into the validity of the treaty of 1835 shared a similar fate in the House of Representatives two days later by a vote of 102 to 75. _Speech of Henry A. Wise._--The discussion of these memorials in Congress took a wide range and excited the warmest interest, not only in that body, but throughout the country. The speeches were characterized by a depth and bitterness of feeling such as had never been exceeded even on the slavery question. Hon. Henry A. Wise, of Virginia, who was then a member of the House of Representatives from that State, was especially earnest in his denunciation of the treaty of 1835 and of the administration that had concluded it. He looked upon it as null and void. In order to make treaties binding the assent of both parties must be obtained, and he would assert without fear of contradiction that there was not one man in that House or out of it who had read the proceedings in the case who would say that there had ever been any assent given to that treaty by the Cherokee Nation. If this were the proper time he could go further and show that Georgia had done her part, too, in this oppression. He could show this by proving the policy of that State in relation to the Indians and the institutions of the General Government. That was the only State in the Union that had ever actually nullified, and she now tells you that if the United States should undertake to naturalize any portion of the Indian tribes within her limits as citizens of the United States she would do so again. He had not disparaged the surrounding people of Georgia, far from it--"but" (said he) "there are proofs around us in this city of the high advancement in civilization which characterizes the Cherokees." He would tell the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Halsey) that a statesman of his own State, who occupied a high and honorable post in this Government, would not gain greatly by a comparison, either in civilization or morals, with a Cherokee chief whom he could name. He would fearlessly institute such a comparison between John Ross and John Forsyth.[442] _Speech of Daniel Webster._--Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, also took occasion[443] to remark in the Senate that "there is a strong and growing feeling in the country that great wrong has been done to the Cherokees by the treaty of New Echota." _President Van Buren proffers a compromise._--Public feeling became so deeply stirred on the subject that, in the interests of a compromise, President Van Buren, in May, 1838, formulated a proposition to allow the Cherokees two years further time in which to remove, subject to the approval of Congress and the executives of the States interested. _Georgia hostile to the compromise._--To the communication addressed to Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, on the subject, he responded: * * * I can give it no sanction whatever. The proposal could not be carried into effect but in violation of the rights of this State. * * * It is necessary that I should know whether the President intends by the instructions to General Scott to require that the Indians shall be maintained in their occupancy by an armed force in opposition to the rights of the owners of the soil. If such be the intention, a direct collision between the authorities of the State and the General Government must ensue. My duty will require that I shall prevent any interference whatever by the troops with the rights of the State and its citizens. I shall not fail to perform it. This called forth a hurried explanation from the Secretary of War that the instructions to General Scott were not intended to bear the construction placed upon them by the executive of Georgia, but, on the contrary, it was the desire and the determination of the President to secure the removal of the Cherokees at the earliest day practicable, and he made no doubt it could be effected the present season.[444] GENERAL SCOTT ORDERED TO COMMAND TROOPS IN THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY. The executive machinery under the treaty had in the mean time been placed in operation, and at the beginning of the year 1838, 2,103 Cherokees had been removed, of whom 1,282 had been permitted to remove themselves.[445] Intelligence having reached the President, however, causing apprehension that the mass of the nation did not intend to remove as required by the treaty General Winfield Scott was ordered[446] to assume command of the troops already in the nation, and to collect an increased force, comprising a regiment of artillery, a regiment of infantry, and six companies of dragoons. He was further authorized, if deemed necessary, to call upon the governors of Tennessee, North Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama for militia and volunteers, not exceeding four thousand in number, and to put the Indians in motion for the West at the earliest moment possible, following the expiration of the two years specified in the treaty. _Proclamation of General Scott._--On reaching the scene of operations General Scott issued[447] a proclamation to the Cherokees in which he announced that-- The President of the United States has sent me with a powerful army to cause you, in obedience to the treaty of 1835, to join that part of your people who are already established in prosperity on the other side of the Mississippi. Unhappily the two years * * * allowed for that purpose you have suffered to pass away * * * without making any preparation to follow, and now * * * the emigration must be commenced in haste. * * * The full moon of May is already on the wane, and before another shall have passed away every Cherokee, man, woman, and child * * * must be in motion to join their brethren in the far West. * * * This is no sudden determination on the part of the President. * * * I have come to carry out that determination. My troops already occupy many positions, * * * and thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter to render resistance and escape alike hopeless. * * * Will you then by resistance compel us to resort to arms? * * * Or will you by flight seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests and thus oblige us to hunt you down? Remember that in pursuit it may be impossible to avoid conflicts. The blood of the white man or the blood of the red man may be spilt, and if spilt, however accidentally, it may be impossible for the discreet and humane among you, or among us, to prevent a general war and carnage. JOHN ROSS PROPOSES A NEW TREATY. John Ross, finding no sign of wavering in the determination of the President to promptly execute the treaty, then submitted[448] a project for the negotiation of a new treaty as a substitute for that of 1835, and differing but little from it in its proposed provisions, except in the idea of securing a somewhat larger consideration, as well as some minor advantages. He was assured in reply that while the United States were willing to extend every liberality of construction to the terms of the treaty of 1835 and to secure the Cherokee title to the western country by patent, they could not entertain the idea of a new treaty. As soon as it became absolutely apparent, not only that the Cherokees must go but that no unnecessary delay would be tolerated beyond the limit fixed by the treaty, a more submissive spirit began to be manifested among them. During the summer of 1838 several parties of emigrants were dispatched under the direction of officers of the Army. The number thus removed aggregated about 6,000.[449] CHEROKEES PERMITTED TO REMOVE THEMSELVES. Later in the season John Ross and others, by virtue of a resolution of the national council, submitted a proposition to General Scott that the remainder of the business of emigration should be confided to the nation, and should take place in the following September and October, after the close of the sickly season, the estimated cost of such removal to be fixed at $65.88 per head. To this proposal assent was given,[450] and the last party of Cherokee emigrants began their march for the West on the 4th of December, 1838.[451] Scattered through the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee, however, were many who had fled to avoid removal, and who, nearly a year later, were represented to number 1,046,[452] and Mr. James Murray was, in the spring of 1840, appointed[453] a commissioner to ascertain and enroll for removal those entitled to the benefits of the treaty of 1835. DISSENSIONS AMONG CHEROKEES IN THEIR NEW HOME. The removal of the Cherokees having at last been accomplished, the next important object of the Government was to insure their internal tranquillity, with a view to the increase and encouragement of those habits of industry, thrift, and respect for lawfully constituted authority which had made so much progress among them in their eastern home. But this was an undertaking of much difficulty. The instrumentalities used by the Government in securing the conclusion and approval of not only the treaty of 1835 but also those of 1817 and 1819 had caused much division and bitterness in their ranks, which had on many occasions in the past cropped out in acts of injustice and even violence. Upon the coming together of the body of the nation in their new country west of the Mississippi, they found themselves torn and distracted by party dissensions and bitterness almost beyond hope of reconciliation. The parties were respectively denominated: 1. The "Old Settler" party, composed of those Cherokees who had prior to the treaty of 1835 voluntarily removed west of the Mississippi, and who were living under a regularly established form of government of their own. 2. The "Treaty" or "Ridge" party, being that portion of the nation led by John Ridge, and who encouraged and approved the negotiation of the treaty of 1835. 3. The "Government" or "Ross" party, comprising numerically a large majority of the nation, who followed in the lead of John Ross, for many years the principal chief of the nation, and who had been consistently and bitterly hostile to the treaty of 1835 and to any surrender of their territorial rights east of the Mississippi. Upon the arrival of the emigrants in their new homes, the Ross party insisted upon the adoption of a new system of government and a code of laws for the whole nation. To this the Old Settler party objected, and were supported by the Ridge party, claiming that the government and laws already adopted and in force among the Old Settlers should continue to be binding until the general election should take place in the following October, when the newly elected legislature could enact such changes as wisdom and good policy should dictate.[454] A general council of the whole nation was, however, called to meet at the new council-house at Takuttokah, having in view a unification of interests and the pacification of all animosities. The council lasted from the 10th to the 22d of June, but resulted in no agreement. Some six thousand Cherokees were present. A second council was called by John Ross for a similar purpose, to meet at the Illinois camp-ground on the 1st of July, 1839.[455] _Murder of Boudinot and the Ridges._--Immediately following the adjournment of the Takuttokah council three of the leaders of the Treaty party, John Ridge, Major Ridge his father, and Elias Boudinot were murdered[456] in the most brutal and atrocious manner. The excitement throughout the nation became intense. Boudinot was murdered within 300 yards of his house, and only 2 miles distant from the residence of John Ross. The friends of the murdered men were persuaded that the crimes had been committed at the instigation of Ross, as it was well known that the murderers were among his followers. Ross's friends, however, at once rallied to his protection and a volunteer guard of six hundred patrolled the country in the vicinity of his residence.[457] A number of the chiefs and prominent men of the Old Settler and Ridge parties fled to Port Gibson for safety. From there on the 28th of June, John Brown, John Looney, John Rogers, and John Smith, signing themselves as the executive council of the Western Cherokees, addressed a proposition to John Ross to send a delegation of the chiefs and principal men of his party with authority to meet an equal number of their own at Fort Gibson, with a view to reach an amicable agreement between the different factions. Ross responded[458] by inviting them to meet at the council convened upon his call on the 1st of July, which was declined. A memorial was thereupon[459] addressed to the authorities of the United States by Brown, Looney, and Rogers as chiefs of the Western Cherokees, demanding protection in the territory and government guaranteed to them by treaty. Against this appeal the Ross convention or council in session at Illinois camp-ground filed a protest.[460] Between the dates of the appeal and the protest a part of the Old Settlers, acting in concert with Ross and his adherents, passed resolutions[461] declaratory of their disapproval of the conduct of Brown and Rogers, and proclaimed their deposition from office as chiefs. Looney escaped deposition by transferring his fealty to the Ross party. _Unification of Eastern and Western Cherokees._--It is proper to remark in this connection that on the 12th of July the Ross council adopted resolutions uniting the Eastern and the Western Cherokees "into one body politic under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation." This paper, without mentioning or referring to the treaty of 1835, speaks of the late emigration as constrained by the force of circumstances. The council also passed[462] a decree, wherein after reciting the murders of the Ridges and Boudinot, and that they in conjunction with others had by their conduct rendered themselves liable to the penalties of outlawry, extended to the survivors a full amnesty for past offenses upon sundry very stringent and humiliating conditions. They also passed[463] a decree condoning the crime of the murderers, securing them from any prosecution or punishment by reason thereof, and declaring them fully restored to the confidence and favor of the community. _Treaty of 1835 declared void._--At a council held at Aquohee Camp a decree was passed on the 1st of August, declaring the treaty of 1835 void, and reasserting the Cherokee title to their old country east of the Mississippi. Later in the same month a decree was passed,[464] citing the appearance before them, under penalty of outlawry, of the signers of the treaty of 1835, to answer for their conduct. This act called forth[465] a vigorous protest from General Arbuckle, commanding Fort Gibson, and was supplemented by instructions[466] to him from the Secretary of War to cause the arrest and trial of Ross as accessory to the murder of the Ridges in case he should deem it wise to do so. _Constitution adopted by the Cherokee Nation._--A convention summoned by Ross and composed of his followers, together with such members of the Treaty and Old Settler parties as could be induced to participate, convened and remained in session at Tahlequah from the 6th to the 10th of September, 1839. This body adopted a constitution for the Cherokee Nation, which was subsequently accepted and adopted by the Old Settlers or Western Cherokees in council at Fort Gibson on the 26th of the following June, and an act of union was entered into between the two parties on that date. _Division of Cherokee territory proposed._--A proposition had been previously[467] submitted by the representatives of the Treaty and Old Settler parties, urging as the only method of securing peace the division of the Cherokee domain and annuities. They recommended that General Arbuckle and Captain Armstrong be designated to assign to them and to the Ross party each their proportionate share according to their numbers, but the adoption of this act of union avoided any necessity for the further consideration of the proposal. As a means also of relieving the Cherokees from further internal strife, General Arbuckle had,[468] pursuant to the direction of the Secretary of War, notified them that, in consequence of his public acts, John Ross would not be allowed to hold office in the nation, and that a similar penalty was denounced against William S. Coody for offensive opinions expressed in the presence of the Secretary of War.[469] Little practical effect was however produced upon the standing or influence of these men with their people. Skeptical of the sincerity of the promises of peace and good feeling held out by the act of unification, John Brown, a noted leader and chief of the Old Settler Cherokees, in conjunction with many of his followers, among whom were a number of wandering Delawares, asked and obtained permission from the Mexican Government to settle within the jurisdiction of that power, and they were only persuaded to remain by the earnest assurances of the Secretary of War that the United States could and would fully protect their interests.[470] CHEROKEES CHARGE THE UNITED STATES WITH BAD FAITH. No sooner had the removal of the Cherokees been effectually accomplished than the latter began to manifest much dissatisfaction at what they characterized a lack of good faith on the part of the Government in carrying out the stipulations of the treaty of 1835. The default charged had reference to the matter of payment of their claims for spoliations, improvements, annuities, etc. Each winter at least one delegation from the nation maintained a residence in Washington and urged upon the Executive and Congress with untiring persistency an adjudication of all disputed matters arising under the treaty. At length the term of President Van Buren expired and was succeeded by a Whig administration. Then as now, the official acts of an outgoing political party were considered to be the legitimate subject of criticism and investigation by its political enemies. President Harrison lived but a month after assuming the duties of his office, but Vice-President Tyler as his successor considered that the treatment to which the Cherokees had been subjected during Jackson's and Van Buren's administrations would afford a field for investigation fraught with a rich harvest of results in political capital for the Whig party. _President Tyler promises a new treaty._--Accordingly, therefore, in the fall of 1841, just previous to the departure of the Cherokee delegation from Washington to their homes, the President agreed to take proper measures for the settlement of all their difficulties, expressing a determination to open the whole subject of their complaints and to bring their affairs to a satisfactory conclusion through the medium of a new treaty. In conformity with this determination the Commissioner of Indian Affairs[471] instructed the agent for the Cherokees to procure all the information possible to be obtained upon every subject connected with Cherokee affairs having a tendency to throw any light upon the wrongs and injustice they might have sustained to the end that full amends could so far as possible be made therefor. Before much information was collected under the terms of these instructions a change seems to have taken place in the views of the President, and the order for investigation was revoked. The draft of the new treaty was, however, in the mean time prepared under direction of the Secretary of War. It contained provisions regulating the licensing of traders in the Cherokee country, the jurisdiction over crimes committed by citizens of the United States resident in that country, the allotment of their lands in severalty by the Cherokee authorities, and the establishment of post-offices and post-routes within their limits. It further contemplated the appointment of two commissioners, whenever Congress should make provision therefor, whose duty it should be to examine into and make a report to that body upon the character, validity, and equity of all claims of whatsoever kind presented by Cherokees against the United States, and also to afford the Cherokees pecuniary aid in the purchase of a printing press and type as well as in the erection of a national council-house. This treaty, however, was never consummated. _President Jackson's method for compelling Cherokee removal._--In connection with this subject of an investigation into the affairs of the Cherokees, a confidential letter is to be found on file in the office of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, from Hon. P. M. Butler, of South Carolina, who had a few months previous to its date[472] been appointed United States agent for the Cherokees, interesting as throwing light on the negotiation and conclusion of the treaty of 1835. Mr. Butler says it is alleged, and claimed to be susceptible of proof, that Mr. Merriweather, of Georgia, in an interview with President Jackson, a considerable time before the treaty was negotiated, said to the President, "We want the Cherokee lands in Georgia, but the Cherokees will not consent to cede them," to which the President emphatically replied, "You must get clear of them [the Cherokees] by legislation. Take judicial jurisdiction over their country; build fires around them, and do indirectly what you cannot effect directly." PER CAPITA PAYMENTS UNDER THE TREATY. In the same letter Mr. Butler, in alluding to the existing difficulties in the Cherokee Nation, observes that prior to the preceding October the Ross party had been largely in the ascendency in the nation, but that at their last preceding election the question hinged upon whether the "per capita" money due them under the treaty of 1835 should be immediately paid over to the people. The result was in favor of the Ridge party, who assumed the affirmative of the question, the opposition of Ross and his party being predicated on the theory that an acceptance of this money would be an acknowledgment of the validity of the treaty of 1835. This, it was feared, would have an unfavorable effect on their efforts to secure the conclusion of a new treaty on more satisfactory terms. On the settlement of this per capita tax, Mr. Butler remarks, will depend the peace and safety of the Cherokee Nation, adding that should the rumors afloat prove true, to the effect that the per capita money was nearly exhausted, neither the national funds in the hands of the treasurer nor the life of Mr. Ross would be safe for an hour from the infuriated members of the tribe. POLITICAL MURDERS IN CHEROKEE NATION. In the spring of 1842 an event occurred which again threw the whole nation into a state of the wildest excitement. The friends of the murdered Ridges and Boudinot had never forgiven the act, nor had time served to soften the measure of their resentment against the perpetrators and their supposed abettors. Stand Watie had long been a leader among the Ridge party and had been marked for assassination at the time of the murders just alluded to. He was a brother of John Ridge, one of the murdered men, and he now, in virtue of his mission as an avenger, killed James Foreman, a member of the Ross party and one of the culprits in the murder of the Ridges. Although Stand Watie excused his conduct on the score of having come to a knowledge of certain threats against his life made by Foreman, no event could at that time have been more demoralizing and destructive of the earnestly desired era of peace and good feeling among the Cherokee people. From that time forward all hope of a sincere unification of the several tribal factions was at an end. ADJUDICATION COMMISSIONERS APPOINTED. In the autumn of 1842[473] the President appointed John H. Eaton and James Iredell as commissioners to adjudicate and settle claims under the treaty of 1835. Mr. Iredell declined, and Edward B. Hubley was appointed[474] to fill his place. This tribunal was created to continue the uncompleted work of the board appointed in 1836 under the provisions of the same article, the labors of which had terminated in March, 1839, having been in session more than two years. [Footnote 346: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 488.] [Footnote 347: May 27, 1828.] [Footnote 348: Letter of War Department to Hugh Montgomery, Cherokee agent, May 27, 1828, and to General William Carroll, May 30, 1829.] [Footnote 349: December 18, 1828.] [Footnote 350: Letter of T. L. McKenney to Secretary of War, November, 17, 1829.] [Footnote 351: Letter of T. L. McKenney to Hugh Montgomery, Cherokee agent, August 6, 1830.] [Footnote 352: Letter of Cherokee delegation (East) to Secretary of War, January 21, 1829.] [Footnote 353: Letter of Secretary of War to Cherokee delegation, April 18, 1829.] [Footnote 354: December 20, 1828.] [Footnote 355: Agent Montgomery to the Secretary of War, July 11, 1829.] [Footnote 356: Secretary of War to General William Carroll, May 27, 1829.] [Footnote 357: June 25, 1829.] [Footnote 358: November 19, 1829.] [Footnote 359: June 23, 1829.] [Footnote 360: December 19, 1829.] [Footnote 361: Among other legislation on this subject enacted by Georgia may be enumerated the following, viz: 1. A penalty of forfeiture of all right to his land and improvements was denounced against any Cherokee who should employ any white man, or the slave of any white man, as a tenant-cropper, or assistant in agriculture, or as a miller or millwright. 2. Any Indian who should enroll for emigration and afterwards refuse to emigrate should forfeit all right to any future occupancy within the State. 3. No Indian should be allowed the use of more than 160 acres of land, including his dwelling house. 4. Grants were to be issued for all lots drawn in the late land and gold lottery, though they might lie within the improvements of an Indian who had by any previous Cherokee treaty received a reservation either in Georgia or elsewhere. 5. No contract between a white man and an Indian, either verbal or written, should be binding unless established by the testimony of two white witnesses. 6. Any Indian forcibly obstructing the occupancy by the drawer of any lot drawn in the land and gold lottery should be subject to imprisonment in the discretion of the court.] [Footnote 362: Letter of War Department to Hugh Montgomery, Cherokee agent, June 9, 1830.] [Footnote 363: Letter of Acting Secretary of War to H. Montgomery, Cherokee Agent, June 18, 1830.] [Footnote 364: Letter of Acting Secretary of War to H. Montgomery, Cherokee Agent, June 26, 1830.] [Footnote 365: September 1, 1830.] [Footnote 366: October 20, 1830.] [Footnote 367: Action of Cherokee national council, October 22, 1830.] [Footnote 368: Cherokee Nation _vs._ State of Georgia, Peters's United States Supreme Court Reports, Vol. V, p. 1.] [Footnote 369: April 17, 1832.] [Footnote 370: July 18, 1832.] [Footnote 371: September 4, 1832.] [Footnote 372: Worcester _vs._ State of Georgia, Peters's United States Supreme Court Reports, Vol. VI, p. 515.] [Footnote 373: According to the statement of Hon. Geo. N. Briggs, a member of Congress from Massachusetts, President Jackson remarked, after the case of Worcester _vs._ State of Georgia was decided, "Well, John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it."] [Footnote 374: Treaty June 1, 1773, between the British superintendent of Indian affairs and the Creeks and Cherokees.] [Footnote 375: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 237.] [Footnote 376: Letter of D. B. Mitchell, Creek agent, to Secretary of War.] [Footnote 377: See Indian Office files for these two treaties.] [Footnote 378: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 171.] [Footnote 379: Ib., p. 215.] [Footnote 380: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 237.] [Footnote 381: Ib., p. 289.] [Footnote 382: Ib., p. 307; Creek treaty of November 15, 1827.] [Footnote 383: Letter of Secretary of War to D. B. Mitchell, Creek agent.] [Footnote 384: Letter of Governor Forsyth, of Georgia, to Samuel A. Wales, May 5, 1829.] [Footnote 385: Letter of Montgomery to Wales, May 13, 1829.] [Footnote 386: October 10, 1829.] [Footnote 387: December 30, 1829.] [Footnote 388: January 15, 1830.] [Footnote 389: March 14, 1830.] [Footnote 390: Secretary of War to Governor Gilmer, of Georgia, June 1, 1830.] [Footnote 391: The following paper, which is on file in the Office of Indian Affairs, is interesting in connection with the subject matter of this boundary: Extract from treaties and other documents relative to the Cherokee lines in contact with the Creeks and Chickasaws west of Coosa River: "_June 10, 1786._--In the treaty of this date with the Chickasaws the lands allotted them eastwardly 'shall be the lands allotted to the Choctaws and Cherokees to live and hunt on.' In the conference which took place between the commissioners of the United States and the Chickasaws and Cherokees, it was apparent that their claims conflicted with each other on the ridge dividing the waters of Cumberland from those of Duck River and around to the Chickasaw Oldtown Creek on Tennessee, thence southwardly, leaving the mountains above the Muscle Shoals on the south side of the river, and to a large stone or flat rock, where the Choctaw line joined with the Chickasaws. The journal of occurrences at the time were lodged with the papers of the old Congress, and probably were transferred to the office of Secretary of State. On the 7th of January, 1806, in a convention between the United States and Cherokees, on the part of the former by Mr. Dearborn, the United States engaged to use their best endeavors to fix a boundary between the Cherokees and Chickasaws, 'beginning at the mouth of Caney Creek, near the lower part of the Muscle Shoals, and to run up the said creek to its head, and in a direct line from thence to the flat stone or rock, the old corner boundary,' the line between the Creeks and Cherokees east of Coosau River. "In 1802, at the treaty of Fort Wilkinson, it was agreed between the parties that the line was 'from the High Shoals on Apalatche, the old path, leaving Stone Mountain to the Creeks, to the shallow ford on the Chatahoochee.' "This agreement was in presence of the commissioners of the United States and witnessed by General Pickens and Colonel Hawkins. On the 10th October, 1809, a letter was sent from the Cherokees to the Creeks and received in February in the public square at Tookaubatche, stating the line agreed upon at Fort Wilkinson, and that 'all the waters of Etowah down to the ten islands below Turkeytown these lands were given up to the Cherokees at a talk at Chestoe in presence of the Little Prince, and Tustunnuggee Thlucco Chulioah, of Turkeystown, was the interpreter.' "In August, 1814, at the treaty of Fort Jackson, the Creeks and Cherokees were invited to settle their claims, and Colonel Meigs was engaged for three or four days in aiding them to do so. The result was they could not agree, but would at some convenient period agree. This was signed by General Jackson, Colonel Hawkins, and Colonel Meigs. "At the convention with the Creeks, in September, 1815, the Cherokees manifested a sincere desire to settle their boundaries with the Creeks, but the latter first declined and then refused. Tustunnuggee Thlucco, being asked where their boundary was west of Coosau, said there never was any boundary fixed and known as such between the parties, and after making Tennessee the boundary from tradition, and that the Cherokees obtained leave of them to cross it, the policy of the Creeks receiving all destroyed red people in their confederacy, the Cherokees were permitted to come over and settle as low down on the west of Coosau as Hauluthee Hatchee, from thence on the west side of Coosau on all its waters to its source. He has never heard, and he has examined all his people who can have any knowledge on the subject, that the Cherokees had any pretensions lower down Coosau on that side. He does not believe, and he has never heard, there was any boundary agreed upon between them. Being asked by Colonel Hawkins his opinion where the boundary should be, he says it should go up Hauluthee Hatchee, passing a level of good land between two mountains, to the head of Itchau Hatchee, and down the same to Tennessee, about 8 or 9 miles above Nickajack. In the year 1798 the Cherokees had a settlement at the Muscle Shoals, Doublehead and Katagiskee were the chiefs, and the Creeks had a small settlement above the Creek path on Tennessee. The Cherokee settlement extended southwardly from the shoal probably a mile and a half. The principal temporary agent for Indian affairs south of the Ohio was early instructed in 1777 to ascertain the boundary line of the four nations, and instructions were given accordingly by him to Mr. Dinsmore and Mr. Mitchell to aid in doing it. Several attempts were made, but all proved abortive, owing to the policy of the Creeks, which was to unite the four nations in one confederacy and the national affairs of all to be in a convention to be held annually among the Creeks, where the speaker for the Creeks should preside. "At every attempt made among the Creeks when these conventions met, the answer was, 'We have no dividing lines, nor never had, between us. We have lines only between us and the white people, our neighbors.' At times, when the subject was discussed in the convention of the Creeks, they claimed Tombigby, called by them Choctaw River (Choctau Hatchee), the boundary line between them and the Choctaws. Tustunneggee Hopoie, brother of the old Efau Hajo (mad dog), who died at ninety-six years of age, and retained strength of memory and intelligence to this great age, reported publicly to the agent, 'When he was a boy his father's hunting camp was at Puttauchau Hatchee (Black Warrior).' His father had long been at the head of the Creeks, and always told him 'Choctaw River was their boundary with the Choctaws.' He never saw a Choctaw hunting camp on this side the Black Warrior. "A true copy from the original. "PHIL. HAWKINS, JR., "_Ast. A. I. A._"] [Footnote 392: Letter of Secretary of War to Governor Lumpkin, of Georgia, March 12, 1833.] [Footnote 393: March 21, 1833.] [Footnote 394: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Agent Montgomery, April 22, 1833.] [Footnote 395: Secretary of War to Governor Lumpkin, of Georgia, January 28, 1834.] [Footnote 396: March 28, 1834.] [Footnote 397: May 1, 1834.] [Footnote 398: March 3, 1834.] [Footnote 399: Letter of John Ross and others to Secretary of War, inclosing protest, May 24, 1834.] [Footnote 400: Letter of Hon. J. H. Eaton to John Ross, May 26, 1834.] [Footnote 401: May 29, 1834.] [Footnote 402: Secretary of War to governor of Georgia, July 8, 1834.] [Footnote 403: May 17, 1834.] [Footnote 404: The Ross delegation was composed of John Ross, R. Taylor, Daniel McCoy, Samuel Gunter, and William Rogers. The Ridge delegation consisted of John Ridge, William A. Davis, Elias Boudinot, A. Smith, S. W. Bell, and J. West.] [Footnote 405: February 11, 1835.] [Footnote 406: Memorandum delivered by Secretary of War to Senator King, of Georgia, February 28, 1835.] [Footnote 407: Memorandum delivered by Secretary of War to Senator King, of Georgia, February 28, 1835.] [Footnote 408: March 16, 1835.] [Footnote 409: September 10, 1835.] [Footnote 410: September 26, 1835.] [Footnote 411: Senate Document 120, Twenty-fifth Congress, second session, p. 124.] [Footnote 412: See proceedings of council.] [Footnote 413: National Intelligencer, May 22, 1838.] [Footnote 414: Schermerhorn to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, December 31, 1835.] [Footnote 415: See report of proceedings of council.] [Footnote 416: National Intelligencer, May 22, 1838.] [Footnote 417: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 488.] [Footnote 418: In addition to these sums, an appropriation of $1,047,067 was made by the act of June 13, 1838, in full of all objects specified in the third supplemental article and for the one year's subsistence provided for in the treaty.] [Footnote 419: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to John Ross, March 9, 1836.] [Footnote 420: Hon. P. M. Butler, in a confidential letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, March 4, 1842, says: "The treaty, as the Department is aware, was sustained by the Senate of the United States by a majority of one vote."] [Footnote 421: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 478 _et seq._] [Footnote 422: July 25, 1836.] [Footnote 423: July 30, 1836.] [Footnote 424: The Secretary of War, October 12, 1836, directed General Wool to inform Mr. Ross that the President regarded the proceedings of himself and associates in council as in direct contravention of the plighted faith of their people, and a repetition of them would be considered as indicative of a design to prevent the execution of the treaty even at the hazard of actual hostilities, and they would be promptly repressed.] [Footnote 425: October 17, 1836.] [Footnote 426: Senate confidential document, April 12, 1836, p. 200.] [Footnote 427: National Intelligencer, May 22, 1838.] [Footnote 428: National Intelligencer, May 22, 1838.] [Footnote 429: June 3, 1837.] [Footnote 430: July 15, 1837.] [Footnote 431: September 25, 1837.] [Footnote 432: September 30, 1836.] [Footnote 433: October 25, 1836.] [Footnote 434: Secretary of War to Andrew Jackson, August 21, 1837.] [Footnote 435: October 16, 1837.] [Footnote 436: The amounts adjudicated and paid by this commission, as shown by the records of the Indian Office (see Commissioner of Indian Affairs' letter of March 7, 1844), were as follows: 1. For improvements $1,683,192 77-1/2 2. Spoliations 416,306 82-1/2 3. National debts due to Cherokees 19,058 14 4. National debts due to citizens of the United States 51,642 87 5. Reservations 159,324 87 _________________ Total 2,329,524 86 (The figures as given here are correctly copied from the commissioner's letter, but there is an obvious error either in the footing or in the items.)] [Footnote 437: January 3, 1837.] [Footnote 438: December 1, 1836.] [Footnote 439: This census showed a distribution of the Cherokee population, according to State boundaries, as follows: +-----------------+----------+-------+--------------------+ | | | |Whites intermarried | | States. |Cherokees.|Slaves.| with | | | | | Cherokees. | +-----------------+----------+-------+--------------------+ |In Georgia | 8,946| 776| 68| |In North Carolina| 3,644| 37| 22| |In Tennessee | 2,528| 480| 79| |In Alabama | 1,424| 299| 32| | +----------+-------+--------------------+ | Total | 16,542| 1,592| 201| +-----------------+----------+-------+--------------------+ ] [Footnote 440: Secretary of War to Col. William Lindsay, May 8, 1837.] [Footnote 441: March 26, 1838.] [Footnote 442: Speech in reply to Mr. Halsey, of Georgia, January 2, 1838.] [Footnote 443: May 22, 1838.] [Footnote 444: National Intelligencer, June 8, 1838.] [Footnote 445: Secretary of War to James K. Polk, Speaker of the House of Representatives, January 8, 1838.] [Footnote 446: General Macomb to General Scott, April 6, 1838.] [Footnote 447: May 10, 1838.] [Footnote 448: May 18, 1838.] [Footnote 449: Annual report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 25, 1838.] [Footnote 450: Proposal was accepted July 25; emigration to begin September 1 and end before October 20, 1838.] [Footnote 451: The number, according to the rolls of John Ross, who removed under his direction, was 13,149. According to the rolls of Captain Stevenson, the agent who received them on their arrival West, there were only 11,504, and, according to Captain Page, the disbursing officer, there were 11,721. Mr. Ross received on his settlement with Captain Page subsequent to the removal, $486,939.50-1/4, which made a total payment to Ross by the Government on account of Cherokee removals of $1,263,338.38. (Letter of Commissioner Indian Affairs, June 15, 1842). See, also, Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Commissioner of Land Office, January 9, 1839.] [Footnote 452: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of War, September 12, 1839.] [Footnote 453: April 21, 1840.] [Footnote 454: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1839.] [Footnote 455: Letter of John Ross to General Arbuckle, June 24, 1839.] [Footnote 456: June 22, 1839.] [Footnote 457: Agent Stokes to Secretary of War, June 24, 1839.] [Footnote 458: July 5, 1839.] [Footnote 459: August 9, 1839.] [Footnote 460: August 27, 1839.] [Footnote 461: August 23, 1839.] [Footnote 462: July 7, 1839.] [Footnote 463: July 10, 1839.] [Footnote 464: August 21, 1839.] [Footnote 465: September 4, 1839, _et seq._] [Footnote 466: November 9, 1839.] [Footnote 467: January 22, 1840.] [Footnote 468: April 21, 1840.] [Footnote 469: Coody, in an interview with the Secretary of War, persisted in considering the murders of Boudinot and the Ridges as justifiable. General Arbuckle's letter of notification bore date April 21, 1840.] [Footnote 470: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Maj. William Armstrong, August 26, 1840.] [Footnote 471: September 22, 1841.] [Footnote 472: March 4, 1842.] [Footnote 473: September 9, 1842.] [Footnote 474: November 8, 1842.] TREATY CONCLUDED AUGUST 6, 1846; PROCLAIMED AUGUST 17, 1846.[475] _Held at Washington, D. C., between Edmund Burke, William Armstrong, and Albion K. Parris, commissioners on behalf of the United States, and delegates representing each of the three factions of the Cherokee Nation, known, respectively, as the "Government party," the "Treaty party," and the "Old Settler party."_ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. The preamble recites the difficulties that have long existed between the different factions of the nation, and because of the desire to heal those differences and to adjust certain claims against the United States growing out of the treaty of 1835 this treaty is concluded, and provides: 1. The lands now occupied by the Cherokee Nation shall be secured to the whole Cherokee people for their common use and benefit. The United States will issue a patent therefor to include the 800,000-acre tract and the western outlet. If the Cherokees become extinct or abandon the land it shall revert to the United States. 2. All difficulties and differences heretofore existing between the several parties of the Cherokee Nation are declared to be settled and adjusted. A general amnesty for all offenses is declared and fugitives may return without fear of prosecution. Laws shall be passed for the equal protection of all. All armed police or military organizations shall be disbanded and the laws executed by civil process. Trial by jury is guaranteed. 3. The United States agree to reimburse to the Cherokee Nation all sums unjustly deducted for claims, reservations, expenses, etc., from the consideration of $5,000,000 agreed to be paid under the treaty of 1835 to the Cherokees for their lands, and to distribute the same as provided in the ninth article of that treaty. 4. The board of commissioners recently appointed by the President have declared that under the provisions of the treaty of 1828 the "Old Settlers," or Western Cherokees, had no exclusive title to the lands ceded by that treaty as against the Eastern Cherokees, and that by the equitable operation of that treaty the former acquired a common interest in the Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi. This interest of the "Old Settlers" was unprovided for by the treaty of 1835. It is therefore agreed that a sum equal to one-third of the residuum of per capita fund left after a proper adjustment of the account for distribution under the treaty of 1835 shall be paid to said "Old Settlers," and that in so doing, in estimating the cost of removal and subsistence, it shall be based upon the rate fixed therefor in the eighth article of the treaty of 1835. In consideration of the foregoing the "Old Settlers" release to the United States all interest in the Cherokee lands east of the Mississippi and all claim to exclusive ownership in the Cherokee lands west of the Mississippi. 5. The per capita allowance to the "Western Cherokees," or "Old Settlers," upon the principle above stated, shall be held in trust by the United States and paid out to each individual or head of family or his representative entitled thereto in person. The President of the United States shall appoint five persons as a committee from the "Old Settlers" to determine who are entitled to the per capita allowance. 6. The United States agree to pay the "Treaty party" the sum of $115,000 for losses and expenses incurred in connection with the treaty of 1835, of which $5,000 shall be paid to the legal representatives or heirs of Major Ridge, $5,000 to those of John Ridge, and $5,000 to those of Elias Boudinot. The remainder shall be distributed among those who shall be certified by a committee of the "Treaty party" as entitled, provided that the present delegation of the party may deduct $25,000, to be by them applied to the payment of claims and expenses. And if the said sum of $100,000 should be insufficient to pay all claims for losses and damages, then the claimants to be paid pro rata in full satisfaction of said claims. 7. All individuals of the "Western Cherokees" who have been dispossessed of salines, the same being their private property, shall be compensated therefor by the Cherokee Nation, upon an award to be made by the United States agent and a Cherokee commissioner, or the salines shall be returned to the respective owners. 8. The United States agree to pay the Cherokee Nation $2,000 for a printing press, etc., destroyed; $5,000 to be equally divided among all whose arms were taken from them previous to their removal West by order of an officer of the United States, and $20,000 in lieu of all claims of the Cherokee Nation, as a nation, prior to the treaty of 1835, except lands reserved for school funds. 9. The United States agree to make a fair and just settlement of all moneys due to the Cherokees and subject to the per capita division under the treaty of December 29, 1835. This settlement to embrace all sums properly expended or charged to the Cherokees under the provisions of said treaty, and which sums shall be deducted from the sum of $6,647,067. The balance found due to be distributed per capita among those entitled to receive the same under the treaty of 1835 and supplement of 1836, being those residing east of the Mississippi River at that date. 10. Nothing herein shall abridge or take away any rights or claims which the Cherokees _now_ residing in States east of the Mississippi River had or may have under the treaty of 1835 and supplement of 1836. 11. It is agreed that the Senate of the United States shall determine whether the amount expended for one year's subsistence of the Cherokees, after their removal under the treaty of 1835 and supplement of 1836, is properly chargeable to the United States or to the Cherokee funds, and, if to the latter, whether such subsistence shall be charged at a sum greater than $33-1/3 per head; also, whether the Cherokees shall be allowed interest upon the sums found to be due them; and, if so, from what date and at what rate. 12. (The twelfth article was struck out by the Senate.) 13. This treaty to be obligatory after ratification by the Senate and President of the United States. HISTORICAL DATA. CHEROKEES DESIRE A NEW TREATY. In the spring of 1844 a delegation headed by John Ross arrived in Washington. In a communication[476] to the Secretary of War they inclosed a copy of a letter addressed to them by President Tyler on the 20th of September, 1841, previously alluded to, promising them a new treaty to settle all disputes arising under the treaty of 1835. They advised the Secretary of their readiness to enter upon the negotiation of the promised treaty, and submitted[477] a statement of the salient points of difference to be adjudicated, involving (1) a fair and just indemnity to be paid to the Cherokee Nation for the country east of the Mississippi from which they were forced to remove; (2) indemnity for all improvements, ferries, turnpike roads, bridges, etc., belonging to the Cherokees; (3) indemnity for spoliations committed upon all other Cherokee property by troops and citizens of the United States prior and subsequent to the treaty of 1835; (4) that a title in absolute fee-simple to the country west of the Mississippi be conveyed to the Cherokee Nation by the United States; (5) that the political relations between the Cherokee Nation and the United States be specifically defined; (6) that stocks now invested by the President for the Cherokee Nation be guaranteed to yield a specified annual income, and (7) that provision be made for those Cherokees residing east of the Mississippi who should evince a desire to emigrate to the Cherokee country west of that river. FEUDS BETWEEN THE ROSS, TREATY, AND OLD SETTLER PARTIES. At this period delegations representing the anti-Ross parties were also in Washington, and their animosities, coupled with the frequent and unsavory reports of the events happening in the Cherokee country, determined the President to conclude no new treaty until the true cause was ascertained and the responsibility fixed for all this turbulence and crime.[478] The Old Settler and the Treaty parties alleged that grievous oppressions were practiced upon them by the Ross party, insomuch that they were unable to enjoy their liberty, property, or lives in safety, or to live in peace in the same community. The Old Settler delegation alleged that the act of union, by virtue of which their government was superseded and they were subjected to the constitution and laws of the Ross party, was never authorized or sanctioned by the legal representatives of their people. _Per contra_, the Ross delegation alleged that the Old Settler and the Treaty parties enjoyed the same degree of security and the same fullness of rights that any other portion of the nation enjoyed, and that the alleged dissatisfaction was confined to a few restless and ambitious spirits whose motto was "rule or ruin." _Commissioners appointed to inquire into Cherokee feuds._--In consequence of his determination, as above stated, the President appointed General R. Jones, Col. R. B. Mason, and P. M. Butler commissioners, with instructions[479] to proceed to the Cherokee country and ascertain if any considerable portion of the Cherokee people were arrayed in hostile feeling toward those who ruled the nation; whether a corresponding disposition and feeling prevailed among the majority who administered the government toward the minority; the lengths of oppression, resistance, and violence to which the excitement of each against the other had severally led the opposing parties, and whether the discontent was of such extent and intensity among the great mass of the Old Settler and Treaty parties as to forbid their living peaceably together under the same government with the Ross party. This commission convened at Fort Gibson on the 16th of November,[480] but their labors resulted in nothing of practical benefit to the sorely distressed Cherokees. DEATH OF SEQUOYAH OR GEORGE GUESS. Sequoyah or George Guess, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, removed to the country west of the Mississippi long anterior to the treaty of 1835,[481] and was for several years one of the national council of the Western Cherokees. In the year 1843 he left his home for Mexico in quest of several scattered bands of Cherokees who had wandered off to that distant region, and whom it was his intention to collect together with a view to inducing them to return and become again united with their friends and kindred. He did not meet with the success anticipated. Being quite aged, and becoming worn out and destitute, he was unable without assistance to make the return trip to his home. Agent Butler, learning of his condition, reported the fact to the Indian Department[482] and asked that sufficient funds be placed at his disposal for the purpose of sending messengers to bring the old man back. Two hundred dollars were authorized[483] to be expended for the purpose, and Oo-no-leh, a Cherokee, was sent on the errand of mercy, but upon reaching Red River he encountered a party of Cherokees from Mexico who advised him that Guess had died in the preceding July, and that his remains were interred at San Fernando.[484] OLD SETTLER AND TREATY PARTIES PROPOSE TO REMOVE TO MEXICO. In the fall of 1845 the bulk of the Old Settler and Treaty parties, having become satisfied that it would be impossible for them to maintain a peaceful and happy residence in the country of their adoption while the influence of John Ross continued potent in their national government, resolved to seek for themselves a new home on the borders of Mexico. A council was therefore held at which a delegation (consisting of forty-three members of the Treaty and eleven of the Old Settler party) was chosen to explore the country to the south and west for a future abode. They rendezvoused[485] at the forks of the Canadian and Arkansas Rivers, and, after electing a captain, proceeded via Fort Washita, crossing the Red River at Coffee's trading house, and following the ridge dividing the waters of Trinity and Brazos to the latter river, which they crossed at Basky Creek. Here they found a small settlement of sixty-three Cherokees, who had moved in the preceding June from a place called by them Mount Clover, in Mexico. Among their number was found Tessee Guess, the son of George Guess. Leaving Brazos[486] the explorers traveled westward to the Colorado, reaching it at the mouth of Stone Fort Creek,[487] beyond which they proceeded in a southwesterly direction to the San Sabba Creek, at a point about 40 or 50 miles above its mouth. They returned on a line some 60 miles south of their outgoing trip,[488] and with their friends held a council at Dragoon Barracks in the Cherokee Nation.[489] At this meeting it was decided to ask the United States to provide them a home in the Texas country upon their relinquishment of all interest in the Cherokee Nation, or in case of a refusal of this request that the territory of the nation be divided into two parts, and a moiety thereof be assigned to them with the privilege of adopting their own form of government and living under it. The governor of Arkansas[490] and General Arbuckle[491] both concurred in the conclusions reached by this council, and urged upon the authorities at Washington the necessary legislation to carry the same into effect. MORE POLITICAL MURDERS. Shortly after the delegation selected by the foregoing council had proceeded to Washington in the interest of the adoption of the scheme proposed, another epidemic of murder and outrage broke out in the nation. On the 23d of March, Agent McKissick reported to the Indian Department the murder of Stand, a prominent member of the Ross party, by Wheeler Faught, at the instigation of the "Starr boys," who were somewhat noted leaders of the Treaty party. This murder was committed in revenge for the killing of James Starr and others during the outbreak of the preceding November. It was followed[492] by the murder of Cornsilk, another of Ross's adherents, by these same "Starr boys," and six days later the spirit of retaliation led to the killing of Turner, a member of the Treaty party. On the 25th of the same month[493] Ellis, Dick, and Billy Starr were wounded by a band of Ross's Cherokee police, who chased them across the line of Arkansas in the attempt to arrest them for trial before the Cherokee tribunals for the murder of Too-noo-wee two days before. General Arbuckle took them under his protection, and refused to deliver them up for trial to the Cherokee authorities until the latter should take proper steps to punish the murderers of James Starr. Subsequently Baldridge and Sides, of the Ross party, were murdered by Jim and Tom Starr, in revenge for which the light horse police company of the Ross government murdered Billy Ryder, of the Treaty party.[494] In this manner the excitement was maintained and the outrages multiplied until, on the 28th of August, Agent McKissick reported that since the 1st of November preceding there had been an aggregate of thirty-three murders committed in the Cherokee Nation, nearly all of which were of a political character. The feeling of alarm became so widespread that General Arbuckle was constrained to increase the military force on the frontier by two companies. NEGOTIATION OF TREATY OF 1846. While these unhappy events were in progress Major Armstrong, superintendent of Indian affairs, who was in Washington, submitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, at the suggestion of the several Cherokee delegations, a proposition for the appointment of a commissioner clothed with full powers to adjust all difficulties between the various factions of their people. The Commissioner replied that as the matter was before Congress and would likely receive the speedy attention of that body, no action would be justified by the executive authorities without first being assured that the proposition was founded in good faith and would result in some certain and satisfactory arrangement. He must also have assurance that there existed a firm determination on the part of the Department and of Congress to bring these troubles to a close before the adjournment of the latter body. The Commissioner, however, drew up a memorandum agreement for the signature of the several delegations of Cherokees representing the different factions of the tribe. It provided for the appointment of three commissioners, whose duty it should be to examine into all matters in controversy and adjust the same, and that all parties should abide absolutely by their decision, agreeing to execute and sign such treaty or other instrument of agreement as should be considered necessary to insure the execution of the award of the commissioners.[495] This agreement was duly signed by the members of the several delegations present in Washington, and in pursuance of its provisions President Polk appointed[496] Edmund Burke, William Armstrong, and Albion K. Parris commissioners with the powers and for the purposes above indicated. These commissioners at once entered into communication and negotiation with the three delegations representing the different factions of the Cherokee Nation, which were then in Washington, and the result was the conclusion of the treaty of August 6, 1846,[497] in thirteen articles, making detailed provision for the adjustment of all questions of dispute between the Cherokees themselves and also for the settlement of all claims by the Cherokees against the United States.[498] This treaty, with some slight amendments, was ratified and proclaimed by the President on the 17th of the same month; an abstract of its provisions has already been presented. It was not until this treaty that the Ross party ever consented in any manner to recognize or be bound by the treaty of 1835.[499] _Objects of the treaty._--The main principle involved in the negotiation of the treaty of 1846 had been the disposition on the part of the United States to reimburse to the Cherokee fund sundry sums which, although not justly chargeable upon it, had been improperly paid out of that fund.[500] In the treaty of 1835 the United States had agreed to pay to the Cherokees $5,000,000 for their lands and $600,000 for spoliations, claims, expenses of removal, etc.[501] By the act of June 12, 1838,[502] Congress appropriated the further sum of $1,047,067 for expenses of removal. As all these sums were for objects expressed in the treaty of 1835, the commissioners who negotiated the treaty of 1846 regarded them as one aggregate sum given by the United States for the lands of the Cherokees, subject to the charges, expenditures, and investments provided for in the treaty. This aggregate sum was appropriated and placed in the Treasury of the United States, to be disposed of according to the stipulations of the treaty. The United States thereby became the trustee of this fund for the benefit of the Cherokee people, and were bound to manage it in accordance with the well known principles of law and equity which regulate the relation of trustee and _cestui que trust_. _Adjudication of the treaty of 1835._--In order, therefore, to carry out the principle thus established by the treaty of 1846, Congress, by joint resolution, of August 7, 1848,[503] required the proper accounting officers of the Treasury to make a just and fair statement of account with the Cherokee Nation upon that basis. The joint report of the Second Comptroller and Second Auditor was submitted to Congress[504] after a full and thorough examination of all the accounts and vouchers of the several officers and agents of the United States who had disbursed funds appropriated to carry into effect the treaty of 1835, and also of all claims that had been admitted at the Treasury. The result of this examination showed that there had been paid-- For improvements $1,540,572 27 For ferries 159,572 12 For spoliations 264,894 09 For removal and subsistence and commutation therefor, including $2,765.84 expended for goods for the poorer Cherokees under the fifteenth article of treaty of 1835, and including also necessary incidental expenses of enrolling agents, conductors, commissioners, medical attendance, and supplies, etc. 2,952,196 26 For debts and claims upon the Cherokee Nation 101,348 31 For the additional quantity of land ceded to the nation 500,000 00 For amount invested as the general fund of the nation 500,880 00 ____________ The aggregate of which sums is 6,019,463 05 which, being deducted from the sum of 6,647,067 00 ____________ agreeably to the directions of the ninth article of the treaty of 1846, left a balance due the Cherokee Nation of 627,603 95 They also reported that there was a further sum of $96,999.31, charged to the general treaty fund, which had been paid to the various agents of the Government connected with the removal of the Indians and which the Cherokees contended was an improper charge upon their fund. The facts as to this item were submitted by the Auditor and Comptroller without recommendation for the decision of the question by Congress, and Congress, admitting the justice of the Cherokee claim, included this sum in the subsequent appropriation of February 27, 1851.[505] It was also resolved[506] by the United States Senate (as umpire under the treaty of 1846) that the Cherokee Nation was entitled to the sum of $189,422.76 for subsistence, being the difference between the amount allowed by act of June 12, 1838, and the amount actually paid and expended by the United States, and which excess was improperly charged to the treaty fund in the report of the accounting officers of the Treasury just recited. It was further resolved that interest at 5 per cent. should be allowed upon the sums found due the Eastern and Western Cherokees respectively from June 12, 1838. The amount of this award was made available to the Cherokees by Congressional appropriation of September 30, 1850.[507] _Settlement of claims of "Old Settler" party._--By the fourth and fifth articles of the treaty of 1846,[508] provision is made and a basis fixed for the settlement with that part of the Cherokee Nation known as "Old Settlers" or "Western Cherokees," or, in other words, those who had emigrated under the treaties of 1817,[509] 1819,[510] and 1828,[511] and who were, at the date of the treaty of 1835,[512] an organized and separate nation of Indians, whom the United States had recognized as such by the treaties of 1828 and 1833[513] made with them. In making the treaty of 1835 with the Cherokees east, which provided for their final and complete transfer to the country west, then occupied by the "Western Cherokees," and guaranteed in perpetuity by two treaties, upon considerations alone connected with them, the rights of the latter seem to have been forgotten. The consequences of the influx of the Eastern Cherokees were such that upon their arrival the "Old Settlers" were thrown into a hopeless minority; their government was subverted, and a new one, imported with the emigrants coerced under the treaty of 1835, substituted in its place. To allay the discontent thus caused in the minds of the "Old Settlers," and to provide compensation to them for the undivided interest which the United States regarded them as owning in the country east of the Mississippi, under the equitable operation of the treaty of 1828, was one of the avowed objects of the treaty of 1846. To ascertain their interest it was assumed that they constituted one-third of the entire nation, and should therefore be entitled to an amount equal to one-third of the treaty fund of 1835, after all just charges were deducted. This residuum of the treaty fund, contemplated by the fourth article of the treaty of 1846, amounted, as first calculated, to $1,571,346.55, which would make the proportionate share of the "Old Settlers" amount to the sum of $523,782.18. The act of September 30, 1850,[514] made provision for the payment to the "Old Settlers," in full of all demands under the provisions and according to the principles established in the fourth article of the treaty of 1846, of the sum of $532,896.96 with interest at 5 per cent. per annum. This was coupled with the proviso that the Indians who should receive the money should first respectively sign a receipt or release acknowledging the same to be in full of all demands under the terms of such article. A year later,[515] when the "Old Settlers" were assembled for the purpose of receiving this per capita money, although their necessities were such as to compel compliance with the conditions of payment, they entered a written protest against the sum paid being considered in full of all their demands, and appealed to the United States for justice, indicating at the same time in detail wherein they were entitled to receive large additional sums. For many years this additional claim of the "Old Settlers" practically lay dormant. But toward the close[516] of the year 1875 they held a convention or council at Tahlequah, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, and resolved to prosecute their claim to a "speedy, just, and final settlement." To that end three of their people were appointed commissioners with full power to prosecute the claim, employ counsel, and to do all other necessary and proper things in the premises. The council set apart and appropriated 35 per centum of whatever should be collected to defray all the necessary expenses attendant upon such prosecution and collection. Several subsequent councils have been held about the subject,[517] and the matter continued to be pressed upon the attention of Congress until, by the terms of an act approved August 7, 1882,[518] that body directed the Secretary of the Interior to investigate this and other matters relating to the Cherokees and to report thereon to Congress. Pursuant to the purpose of this enactment, Mr. C. C. Clements was appointed a special agent of the Interior Department with instructions to make the required investigation. He submitted three reports on the subject, the latter two being supplemental to and corrective of the first. From this last report[519] it appears that he finds the sum of $421,653.68 to be due to the "Old Settler" Cherokees, together with interest at 5 per cent. per annum from September 22, 1851. In brief his findings are-- 1. That they received credit, under the settlement made under the treaty of 1846, for one-third of the fund, and were chargeable with one-third of the items properly taxable thereto. 2. Independent of article four of the treaty of 1846, the "Old Settlers" were not chargeable with removal out of the $5,000,000 fund. 3. Independent of that article, they should not be charged out of the $5,000,000 fund with the removal of the Eastern Cherokees, for three reasons: (_a_) The "Old Settlers" removed themselves at their own expense; (_b_) the Eastern Cherokees were not required to reimburse the "Old Settlers" under the treaty of 1835; and (_c_) the Government was required to remove the Eastern Cherokees. 4. They were not properly chargeable with the removal of the Ross party of 13,148, because (_a_) the United States were to remove them, and (_b_) an appropriation of $1,047,067 was made for that purpose, for which the "Old Settlers" received no credit in the settlement under the treaty of 1846. 5. Having received credit for their proportion of the $600,000, under article three of the treaty of 1836, they were chargeable with their proportion of that fund used for removal, etc., _i.e._, 2,495 Indians at $53.33 per head, amounting to $133,058.35. 6. The Eastern Cherokees were properly chargeable with the removal of the Ross party, and therefore they received credit for the $1,047,067 appropriated by the act of June 12, 1838. 7. In the settlement, the $5,600,000 fund was charged with the removal and subsistence of 18,026 Indians at $53.33-1/3 per head, amounting to $961,386.66.[520] This report, with accompanying letters of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and the Secretary of the Interior, was transmitted to Congress by the President, with a special message, on the 17th of December, 1883. _Other questions under the treaty of 1835._--There were two other questions about which the parties could not agree, and upon which, by the eleventh article of the treaty of 1846, the Senate of the United States was designated as the umpire. The first of these was whether the amount expended for the one year's subsistence of the Eastern Cherokees, after their arrival in the West, should be borne by the United States or by the Cherokee funds, and, if by the latter, then whether subsistence should be charged at a greater rate than $33-1/3 per head. The Senate committee to whom the subject was referred for report to that body found much difficulty, as shown by their report, in reaching a just conclusion. They observed that the faulty manner in which the treaty of 1835 was drawn, its ambiguity of terms, and the variety of constructions placed upon it, had led to a great embarrassment in arriving at the real intention of the parties, but that upon the whole the opinion seemed to be justified that the charge should be borne by the United States. By a strict construction of the treaty of 1835, the expense of a year's subsistence of the Indians was no doubt a proper charge upon the treaty fund and was so understood by the Government at the time. In the original scheme of the treaty furnished the commissioners empowered to treat with the Indians this item was enumerated among the expenditures, etc., to be provided for in its several articles, and which made up the aggregate sum of $5,000,000 to be paid for the Cherokee country. The Secretary of War, in a letter addressed to John Ross and others in 1836, had said that the United States, having allowed the full consideration for their country, nothing further would be conceded for expenses of removal and subsistence. The whole history of the negotiation of the treaty shows that the $5,000,000 was the maximum sum which the United States were willing to pay, and that this was not so much a consideration for the lands and possessions of the Indians as an indemnity to cover the necessary sacrifices and losses in the surrender of one country and their removal to another. On the other hand, among the circumstances establishing the propriety of a contrary construction may be mentioned the language of the eighth article of the treaty, that "the United States also agree and stipulate to remove the Cherokees to their new homes and to subsist them one year after their arrival there." This language imports pecuniary responsibility rather than a simple disbursement of a trust fund. In the "talk" also which was sent[521] by President Jackson to the Indians to explain the advantages of the proposed treaty, he mentioned that the stipulations offered "provide for the removal at the expense of the United States of your whole people, and for their subsistence a year after their arrival in their new country." It was also the common practice of the United States in removing the Indian tribes from one locality to another to defray the expense of such removal, and this was done in the cases of their neighbors, the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. It is a matter of but little surprise, therefore, that a conflicting interpretation of this treaty through a series of years should have produced grave embarrassments. Independent, however, of the literal provisions of the treaty of 1835, there existed other grounds upon which to base a judgment favorable to the claims of the Cherokees. The treaty with the supplementary article was finally ratified on the 23d of May, 1836, and by its provisions the Cherokees were required to remove within two years. It had been concluded (in the face of a protest from a large majority) with a small minority of the nation. Within the two years those who had favored the treaty had mostly emigrated to the West under its provisions.[522] The large majority of the nation, adopting the counsels of John Ross, had obstinately withstood all the efforts of the Government to induce them to adopt the treaty or emigrate. They had repudiated its obligation and denounced it as a fraud upon the nation. In the mean time the United States had appointed its agents under the treaty and collected a large military force to compel its execution. The State of Georgia had adopted a system of hostile legislation intended to drive them from the country. She had surveyed their territory and disposed of their homes and firesides by lottery. She had dispossessed them of a portion of their lands, subjected them to her laws, and at the same time disqualified them from the enjoyment of any political or civil rights. In this posture of affairs, the Cherokees who had never abandoned the vain hope of remaining in the country of their birth or of obtaining better terms from the United States made new proposals to the United States through John Ross and others for the sale of their country and emigration to the West. Still pursuing the idea that they were aliens to the treaty of 1835 and unfettered by its provisions, they proposed to release all claim to their country and emigrate for a named sum of money in connection with other conditions, among which was the stipulation that they should be allowed to take charge of their own emigration and that the United States should pay the expenses thereof. To avoid the necessity of enforcing the treaty at the point of the bayonet and to obtain relief from counter obligations to Georgia by the compact of 1802 and to the Cherokees by the treaties of 1817 and 1819, the proposal was readily acceded to by the United States authorities. On the 18th of May, 1838, the Secretary of War addressed a reply to the proposals of the Cherokee delegation, in which he said: If it be desired by the Cherokee Nation that their own agents should have charge of their emigration, their wishes will be complied with and instructions be given to the commanding general in the Cherokee country to enter into arrangements with them to that effect. With regard to the expense of this operation, which you ask may be defrayed by the United States, in the opinion of the undersigned the request ought to be granted, and an application for such further sum as may be required for this purpose shall be made to Congress. A recommendation was made to Congress in compliance with this promise. Based upon an estimate of the probable cost thereof, Congress by act of June 12, 1838,[523] appropriated the sum of $1,047,067 in full for all objects specified in the third article of the treaty and the further object of aiding in the subsistence of the Indians for one year after their removal, with the proviso that no part thereof should be deducted from the $5,000,000 purchase money of their lands. Here was a clear legislative affirmation of the terms offered by the Indians and acceded to by the Secretary of War. It was a new contract with the Ross party, outside of the treaty, or rather a new consideration offered to abide by its terms, by which the Secretary of War agreed that the expenses of removal and subsistence, as provided for by the treaty of 1835, should be borne by the United States, and Congress affirmed this act by providing that no part of the sum appropriated should be charged to the treaty fund. The appropriation thus made proved wholly inadequate for the purposes of removal and subsistence, the expense of which aggregated $2,952,196.26,[524] of which the sum of $972,844.78 was expended for subsistence. Of this last amount, however, $172,316.47 was furnished to the Indians when in great destitution upon their own urgent application, after the expiration of the "one year," upon the understanding that it was to be deducted from the moneys due them under the treaty. This left the net sum of $800,528.31 paid for subsistence and charged to the aggregate fund. Of this sum the United States provided by the act of June 12, 1838, for $611,105.55, leaving unprovided for, the sum of $189,422.76. This, added to the balance of $724,603.37 found due in pursuance of the report of the accounting officers of the Treasury,[525] amounted in the aggregate to $914,626.13. The item of $189,422.76 was appropriated, as previously stated, by the act of September 30, 1850, and that of $724,603.37 by the act of February 27, 1851. Interest was allowed on each sum at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum from the date of the act of June 12, 1838, with the understanding that it should be in full satisfaction and a final settlement of all claims and demands whatsoever of the Cherokee Nation against the United States under any treaty theretofore made with them. Instructions were issued[526] in the fall of 1851 to John Drennan, superintendent of Indian affairs, to proceed without delay to make the payment. For this purpose a remittance was made to him at New Orleans of the sums of $1,032,182.33 and $276,179.84. The first of these sums, he was advised by his instructions, was intended for the per capita payment, principal and interest, to the Eastern Cherokees, or Ross party, in pursuance of the act of February 27, 1851. The latter was for a similar payment to the same parties in compliance with the terms of the act of September 30, 1850, previously mentioned. These sums were to be distributed, according to the census roll, among 14,098 Cherokees within his superintendency, and were exclusive of the pro rata share to which those Cherokees east of the Mississippi living within the States of North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Alabama were entitled. For the payment of the latter a clerk was detailed from duty in the Office of Indian Affairs to act in the capacity of a special disbursing agent. The payments made by Superintendent Drennan, coupled with the conditions prescribed by the act of Congress, were very unsatisfactory to the Government or Ross party of Cherokees. Therefore their national council addressed[527] to the United States a solemn and formal protest against the injustice they had suffered through the treaties of 1835 and 1846, and the statement of account rendered by the United States under the provisions of those treaties.[528] After thus placing themselves on record, the Cherokees accepted the money and complied with the conditions prescribed in the act of Congress. AFFAIRS OF THE NORTH CAROLINA CHEROKEES. As has been already remarked, at the time of the general removal of the Cherokee Nation in 1838 many individuals fled to the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina and refused to emigrate. They always maintained their right to an equal participation in the personal benefits provided in the treaty of 1835, which, though not denied, was held by the executive authorities of the United States to be conditional upon their removal west. At length by an act of Congress approved July 29, 1848,[531] provision was made for causing a census to be taken of all those Cherokees who remained in the State of North Carolina after the ratification of the treaty of 1835 and who had not since removed west. An appropriation was made equal to $53.33-1/3 for each of such individuals or his or her representative, with interest at 6 per cent per annum from the 23d of May, 1836. Furthermore, whenever any of such individuals should manifest a desire to remove and join the tribe west of the Mississippi, the Secretary of War was authorized to expend their pro rata share of the foregoing fund, or so much thereof as should be necessary, toward defraying the expense of such removal and subsistence for one year thereafter, the balance, if any, to be paid to the individual entitled. The amount of this appropriation, it was stipulated, should be refunded to the United States Treasury from the general fund of the Cherokee Nation under the treaty of 1835. The census mentioned was taken by J. C. Mullay in 1849, and the number found to be entitled to the benefits of the appropriation was 1,517,[532] which by additions was increased to 2,133. Under the appropriation acts of September 30, 1850, and February 27, 1851, these Cherokees remaining east of the Mississippi were entitled to their pro rata share of the amounts thus appropriated. Alfred Chapman was accordingly detailed[529] from the Interior Department to make the per capita payment, and was furnished with the amounts of $41,367.31 and $156,167.19 under those respective acts. He was directed to base his payments upon the census roll furnished him, which showed 2,133 Indians to be entitled. By section 3 of an act approved March 3, 1855,[530] provision was made for the distribution per capita among the North Carolina Cherokees on the Mullay roll[533] of the fund established by the act of July 29, 1848, provided that each Indian so receiving such payment in full should assent thereto. As a further condition to the execution of this act it was stipulated that satisfactory assurance should be given by the State of North Carolina, before such payment, that the Cherokees in question should be permitted to remain permanently in that State. The desired legislative assurance was not given by North Carolina until February 19, 1866, and the money was not, therefore, distributed, but carried to the surplus fund in the Treasury. Afterwards, by act of March 3, 1875,[534] it was made applicable to the purchase and payment of lands, expenses in quieting titles, etc. In order to determine who were the legal heirs and representatives of those enrolled in 1849, but since deceased, the Secretary of the Interior was directed by an act of Congress, approved July 27, 1868,[535] to cause another census to be taken, to serve as a guide in future payments. It was further provided by the same act that the Secretary of the Interior should cause the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to take the same supervisory charge of this as of any other tribe of Indians. This second census was taken by S. H. Sweatland in 1869, and he was instructed to make payment of interest then due to the Indians, guided by his roll, but on the same principle on which previous payments had been effected, that is, to those individuals only whose names appeared on the Mullay census roll, or their legal heirs or representatives, as ascertained by census taken by himself. As remarked by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, the difficulty of tracing Indian genealogy through its various complications, in order to determine who are legal representatives of deceased Indians, without any rules by which hereditary descent among them may be clearly established, was fully demonstrated in the payment made by Mr. Sweatland, which was the occasion of many complaints and even of litigation. The landed interests of these North Carolina Cherokees had also since the treaty of 1835 become much complicated, and through their confidence in others, coupled with their own ignorance of proper business methods, they were likely to lose the title to their homes. At this juncture Congress, by an act approved July 15, 1870,[536] authorized suit in equity to be brought in the name of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in the district or circuit courts of the United States for the recovery of their interest in certain lands in North Carolina. This suit was instituted in the circuit court of the United States for the western district of North Carolina in May, 1873, against William. H. Thomas and William Johnston. Thomas, as the agent and trustee of the Indians, it was alleged had received (between 1836 and 1861) from them and for their benefit large sums of money, which had or ought to have been invested by him, in pursuance of various contracts with the Indians, in certain boundaries of land as well as in a number of detached tracts. The legal title to all these lands was taken by Thomas, and was still held in his own name, he having in the mean time become _non compos mentis_. It was alleged against the other defendant, Johnston, that in the year 1869 he had procured sales to be made of all these lands to satisfy judgments obtained by him against Thomas, and that he had bought in the lands at these sales and taken sheriff's deeds therefor, although having himself a knowledge of the existing equities of the Indians. In fact, that after the purchase of the lands he had entered into a contract with the Indians to release to them all the rights he had acquired by such purchase for the sum of $30,000, payable within eighteen months. Under this contract, and at the time of its execution, the Indians paid him $6,500. A suit in law was also instituted, at the same time with the foregoing, against James W. Terrell, their former agent (from 1853 to 1861), and his sureties, the above named Thomas and Johnston, to recover a balance of Cherokee funds which he had received for their use from the United States and which it was alleged he had not properly accounted for. At the May term, 1874, of the circuit court the matters in dispute were by agreement submitted to a board of arbitrators. The arbitrators made their report and award, which were confirmed by the court at the November term, 1874. The award finds that Thomas purchased for the Indians as a tribe and with their funds a large tract of land on Soco Creek and Oconalufty River and their tributaries, known as the Qualla boundary, and estimated by the arbitrators to contain 50,000 acres. It declares that such tract belongs to and shall be held by the Eastern Band of Cherokees as a tribe. The award also determines the titles of a large number of individual Indians to tracts of land outside of the Qualla boundary. It further finds that the Indians owe Thomas a balance toward the purchase-money of the Qualla boundary of $18,250, from which should be deducted the sum of $6,500 paid by the Indians to Johnston, with interest thereon to the date of the award, amounting in the aggregate to $8,486. The award also finds that Terrell and his bondsmen are responsible to the Cherokees for an unaccounted-for balance of $2,697.89, which should also be deducted from the amount due Thomas, leaving a net balance due from the Indians on the purchase money of the Qualla boundary of $7,066. Upon the payment of this sum the award declares they should be entitled to a conveyance from Johnston of the legal title to all the lands embraced within that boundary.[537] To enable the Indians to clear off this lien upon their lands, Congress, upon the recommendation of the Indian Department, provided by the terms of an act approved March 3, 1875,[538] that the funds set apart by the act of July 29, 1848, should be applied under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior for the use and benefit of the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Specifically these funds were to be used in perfecting the titles to the lands awarded to them and to pay the costs, expenses, and liabilities attending their recent litigations, also to purchase and extinguish the titles of any white persons to lands within the general boundaries allotted to them by the court and for the education, improvement, and civilization of their people. This was done and the Indians have now possession of their rightful domain.[539] PROPOSED REMOVAL OF THE CATAWBA INDIANS TO THE CHEROKEE COUNTRY. It is perhaps pertinent to remark before proceeding further that by the terms of an act of Congress approved July 29, 1848 (United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 264), an appropriation of $5,000 was made to defray the expenses of removing the Catawba Indians from Carolina to the country west of the Mississippi River, provided their assent should be obtained, and also conditioned upon success in securing a home for them among some other congenial tribe in that region without cost to the Government. These Catawbas were but a miserable remnant of what a century and a half earlier had been one of the most powerful and warlike of the Southern tribes. They once occupied and controlled a large region of country in the two Carolinas, though principally in the Southern province. Their generally accepted western limit was the Catawba River and its tributaries, the region between this river and Broad River being usually denominated a neutral hunting ground for both the Catawbas and the Cherokees. An enmity of long standing had existed between the Catawbas and the Six Nations, and war parties of both nations for many years were wont to make long and devastating forays into each other's territory. The casualties of war and the ravages of infectious diseases had long prior to the beginning of the present century rendered the Catawbas insignificant in numbers and importance. Their territorial possessions had been curtailed to a tract of some fifteen miles square on the Catawba River, on the northern border of South Carolina, and the whites of the surrounding region were generally desirous of seeing them removed from the State. In pursuance therefore of the provisions of the act of 1848 an effort was made by the authorities of the United States to find a home for them west of the Mississippi River. Correspondence was opened with the Cherokee authorities on the subject during the summer of that year, but the Cherokees being unwilling to devote any portion of their domain to the use and occupation of any other tribe without being fully compensated therefor, the subject was dropped. FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE CHEROKEES. Unusual expenditures are always incident to the removal and establishment of a people in an entirely new country. Domestic dissensions and violence of a widespread character have a tendency to destroy the security of life and property usually felt in a well governed community, and insecurity in this manner becomes the parent of idleness and the destroyer of ambition. Thus from a combination of adverse circumstances the Cherokees since their removal had been subjected to many losses of both an individual and a national character. Their debts had come to be very oppressive, and they were anxiously devising methods of relief. _Proposed cession of the "neutral land."_--At length in the fall of 1852 they began to discuss the propriety of retroceding to the United States the tract of 800,000 acres of additional land purchased by them from the Government under the provisions of the treaty of 1835. This tract was commonly known as the "neutral land," and occupied the southeast corner of what is now the State of Kansas. It was segregated from the main portion of their territory, and had never been occupied by any considerable number of their people. After a full discussion of the subject in their national council it was decided to ask the United States to purchase it, and a delegation was appointed to enter into negotiations on the subject. They submitted their proposition in two communications,[540] but after due consideration it was decided by the Secretary of the Interior[541] to be inexpedient for the Government to entertain the idea of purchase at that time. Thereupon, under instructions from their national council, they withdrew the proposition. As soon as the Cherokees resident in North Carolina and the neighboring States learned of this proposed disposition of the "neutral land" they filed a protest[542] against any sale of it that did not make full provision for securing to them a proportional share of the proceeds. MURDER OF THE ADAIRS AND OTHERS. In September of this year occurred another of those sudden acts of violence which had too frequently marked the history of the Cherokee people during the preceding fifteen years. Superintendent Drew first reported[543] to the Indian Office that a mob of one hundred armed men had murdered two unoffending citizens, Andrew and Washington Adair; that not less than two hundred men were in armed resistance to the authorities of the nation, who were unable or disinclined to suppress the insurrection, and that from sixty to one hundred of the best-known friends of the Adairs had been threatened with a fate similar to theirs. The presence and protection of an additional force of United States troops was therefore asked to preserve order in the Cherokee country and to allay the fears of the settlers along the border of Arkansas. An additional United States force was accordingly dispatched, but the Cherokee authorities found little difficulty in controlling and allaying the excitement and disorder without their aid. In truth, the first report had been in large measure sensational, the facts as reported by Agent Butler some two months later[544] being that the murder was occasioned by a purely personal difficulty and had no connection with any of the bitter political animosities that had cursed the nation for so many years. It seems that several years previous to the murder a Cherokee by the name of Proctor and one of the Adairs had a difficulty. Adair's friends took Proctor a prisoner through false pretenses and murdered him while in their hands. Proctor's friends in consequence were much enraged and made violent threats of retaliation. In fact during the period immediately following Proctor's death several other persons had been killed in consequence of the existing feud. The murder of the Adairs was the culmination of their enemies' revenge. The murderers were arrested, tried, and acquitted by the Cherokee courts.[545] FINANCIAL DISTRESSES--NEW TREATY PROPOSED. The year 1854 was in an unusual degree a period of quiet and comparative freedom from internal dissensions among the Cherokees. Their government was, however, still in an embarrassed financial condition. Their national debt was constantly increasing, and they possessed no revenue aside from the small income derived from the interest on their invested funds in the hands of the United States. For a while, following the payment of their per capita money, they were in the enjoyment of plenty, but with the natural improvidence of a somewhat primitive people, their substance was wasted and no lasting benefits were derived therefrom. To add to their embarrassments, a severe drought throughout the summer resulted in an almost total failure of their crops. Distress and starvation seemed to be staring them in the face. Their schools, in which they had taken much commendable pride, were languishing for want of the funds necessary to their support, and the general outlook was anything but cheerful.[546] In this dilemma a delegation was sent to Washington with authority and instructions to negotiate, if possible, another treaty with the United States, based upon the following conditions:[547] 1. The Cherokees to retrocede to the United States the 800,000 acre tract of "neutral land" at the price of $1.25 per acre, as a measure of relief from their public debt burdens and to replenish their exhausted school fund. 2. To cede to the United States the unsold portion of the 12-mile-square school fund tract in Alabama, set apart by the treaty of 1819, also at $1.25 per acre, together with the other small reserves in Tennessee set apart for the same purpose and by the same treaty, for which latter tracts they should receive $20,000. 3. The United States to compensate the Cherokees living on the 800,000 acre tract for the value of their improvements. 4. The United States to rectify the injustice done to many individual Cherokees in regard to their claims under the treaty of 1835. 5. The United States to compensate the Cherokees for damages sustained through the action of citizens of the former in driving and pasturing stock in the Cherokee country, and to provide effectual measures for the prevention of such losses in the future. 6. The United States to cause a careful investigation to be made as to the status of the Cherokee invested fund and to render an account of the accrued and unpaid interest thereon. 7. The Cherokees to be reimbursed for money expended out of their funds for subsistence after the expiration of the period of "one year" provided by the treaty of 1835, but before their people had opportunity to become settled in their new homes. 8. A just compensation to be made to the Cherokees for the heavy losses sustained in their sudden and forced removal from their Eastern home. 9. An absolute and speedy removal of the garrison at Fort Gibson. 10. That the treaty should contain a clear and specific definition of the rights and status of the Cherokee Nation in its political attitude toward and relations with the United States. The proposed treaty formed the subject of much careful consideration, and negotiations were conducted throughout a large portion of the winter, without, however, reaching satisfactory results. The failure of the delegation to secure definite action on these matters caused a great degree of dissatisfaction among all classes of their people.[548] They were anxious to sell their surplus detached land, and by that means free themselves from financial embarrassment. They were fully conscious that, so long as their financial affairs continued in such a crippled condition, there was little ground for a hopeful advancement in their morals or civilization. A traditional prejudice against the policy of parting with any of their public domain was deep seated and well nigh universal among the Cherokees, but so grinding and irksome had the burdens of their pecuniary responsibilities become and so anxious were they to discharge in good faith their duty to their creditors that this feeling of aversion was subordinated to what was believed to be a national necessity. SLAVERY IN THE CHEROKEE NATION. The reports of the Cherokee agent during the year 1855 devote considerable space to the discussion of the slavery question in its relations to and among that nation, from which it appears that considerable local excitement, as well as a general feeling of irritation and insecurity among the holders of slave property, had been superinduced by the antislavery teachings of the Northern missionaries and emissaries of the various free soil organizations throughout the North. Three years later the agent reported that the amicable relations which existed between the Cherokees and the General Government certainly merited the latter's fostering care and protection, for already they were evincing much interest in all questions that concerned its welfare; that the majority of them were strongly national or democratic in political sympathy, though it was with regret he was obliged to report the existence of a few black republicans, who were the particular foundlings of the abolition missionaries. This same agent the following year (1859), after commending their enterprise and thrift, remarks: "I am clearly of the opinion that the rapid advancement of the Cherokees is owing in part to the fact of their being slaveholders, which has operated as an incentive to all industrial pursuits, and I believe if every family of the wild roving tribes of Indians were to own a negro man and woman, who would teach them to cultivate the soil and to properly prepare and cook their food, and could have a schoolmaster appointed for every district, it would tend more to civilize them than any plan that could be adopted." The latter part of this proposition perhaps no one would be willing to dispute, but in the light of twenty-five years of eventful history made since its promulgation, the author himself, if still living, would scarcely be so "clearly of opinion" concerning the soundness of his first assumption. REMOVAL OF WHITE SETTLERS ON CHEROKEE LAND. The year 1856 was characterized by no event in the official history of the Cherokees of special importance, except, perhaps, the expulsion of white settlers who had intruded upon the "neutral lands," in which the aid of the military forces of the United States was invoked. FORT GIBSON ABANDONED BY THE UNITED STATES. The long and urgent demands of the Cherokees for the withdrawal of the garrison of United States troops at Fort Gibson was at length complied with in the year 1857,[549] and under the terms of the third article of the treaty of 1835 the fort and the military reserve surrounding it reverted to and became a part of the Cherokee national domain. In his annual message of that year to the Cherokee council John Ross, their principal chief, recommended the passage of a law which should authorize the site of the post to be laid off into town lots and sold to citizens for the benefit of the nation, reserving such lots and buildings as seemed desirable for future disposition, and providing for the suitable preservation of the burying-grounds in which, among others, reposed the remains of several officers of the United States Army. This recommendation was favorably acted upon by the council, and town lots sold exclusively to the citizens of the nation brought the sum of $20,000.[550] REMOVAL OF TRESPASSERS ON "NEUTRAL LAND." White settlers having for several years preceding, in defiance of the notification and authority of the General Government, continued their encroachments and settlement on the "Cherokee neutral land," and the Cherokee authorities having made repeated complaints of these unauthorized intrusions, measures were taken to remove the cause of complaint. Notice was therefore given to these settlers in the winter of 1859, requiring them to abandon the lands, by the 1st of April following. No attention was paid to the notice, but the settlers went on and planted their crops as usual. The newly appointed Cherokee agent, having failed to reach his agency until late in the spring, proceeded to the neutral land in August, and again notified the trespassers to remove within thirty-five days. To this they paid no more heed than to the first notification. Some two months later,[551] therefore, the agent, accompanied by a detachment of United States dragoons, under command of Captain Stanley, marched into the midst of the settlers and again commanded their immediate removal. Upon their refusal to comply he adopted the plan of firing their cabins, which soon brought them to terms. They proposed that if he would desist in his forcible measures and withdraw the troops, they would quietly remove on or before the 25th of November, unless in the mean time they should receive the permission of the Government to remain during the winter. This the agent agreed to, and subsequently the permission was granted them to so remain. In connection with this subject it appears from the records of the Department that owing to an error in protracting the northern boundary of the "neutral land," the line was made to run 8 or 9 miles south of the true boundary, leaving outside of the reserve as it was marked on the map, a strip known as the "dry woods," which should have been included in it; it was generally believed that the "dry woods" was a part of the New York Indian reservation, on which settlements were permitted, and as the settlers on that particular portion had gone there in good faith the agent did not molest them.[552] The Secretary of the Interior himself expressed the opinion that the "dry woods" settlers were law abiding citizens and had settled there under a misapprehension of the facts, and that as they had expended large sums in opening and improving their farms it would be a great hardship if they should be compelled to remove. He therefore suspended the execution of the law as to them until the approaching session of Congress, in order that they might have an opportunity of applying to that body for relief. The Cherokees it was well known were anxious to dispose of the land, and the Secretary declared his intention of recommending the passage of a law with their consent, providing for the survey and sale of the "neutral lands," after the manner of disposing of the public lands, the proceeds to be applied to the benefit of the Cherokees. The outbreak of the great rebellion so soon thereafter, however, precluded the consummation of this proposed legislation. JOHN ROSS OPPOSES SURVEY AND ALLOTMENT OF CHEROKEE DOMAIN. During the winter of 1859-'60, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, believing that a survey and subdivision of the Cherokee national domain, and its allotment in severalty among the members of the tribe, would produce an effect favorable to their progress in the cultivation of the soil, submitted the suggestion for the consideration of their lawfully constituted authorities. John Ross, as principal chief of the nation, in replying to this suggestion,[553] declined on behalf of the nation to give it favorable consideration, (1) because it conflicted with the general policy of the Government through which the Cherokees were removed from their homes east of the Mississippi River; (2) because it was inconsistent with existing treaties between the United States and the Cherokee Nation; (3) because it could not be done without a change in the constitution of the nation; and, finally, that it would not be beneficial to the Cherokee people. POLITICAL EXCITEMENT IN 1860. The year 1860 was characterized by great excitement and local disturbances. Many affrays occurred and numerous murders were perpetrated. The excitement and bitterness of feeling involved in the issues at stake between the great political parties of the country in the pending Presidential election extended to and pervaded the entire population of the civilized tribes of Indian Territory. They were many of them slaveholders, especially the half-breeds and mixed bloods. They therefore vehemently resented the introduction and dissemination of any doctrines at variance with the dogma of the divine origin of slavery or that should set up any denial of the moral and legal right of the owner to the continued possession of his slave property. The missionaries and many of the school teachers among the Cherokees were persons of strong anti-slavery convictions, and the former especially were zealous in their dissemination of doctrines fatal alike to the peace and endurance of a slave community. In September John B. Jones, a Baptist missionary, who had devoted much of his life to Christian work among the Indians, was notified by the agent to leave the country within three weeks, because of the publication of an article from his pen in a Northern paper, wherein he stated that he was engaged in promulgating anti-slavery sentiments among his flock.[554] Others were in like manner compelled to leave, and the excitement continued to increase daily until the outbreak of hostilities precipitated by the attack on Fort Sumter. Before the actual outbreak of hostilities, in the winter of 1860, adherents of the Southern cause, among the most effectual and influential of whom were the official agents of the United States accredited to the Indian tribes, were active in propagating the doctrines of secession among the Cherokees, as well as among other tribes of the Indian Territory. Secret societies were organized, especially among the Cherokees, and Stand Watie, the recognized leader of the old Ridge or Treaty party, was the leader of an organization of Southern predilections known as the Knights of the Golden Circle. A counter organization was formed from among the loyally inclined portion of the nation, most, if not all, of whom were members of the Government or Ross party. The membership of this latter society was composed principally of full blood Cherokees, and they termed themselves the "Ki-tu-wha," a name by which the Cherokees were said to have been known in their ancient confederations with other Indian tribes.[555] The distinguishing badge of membership in this association was a pin worn in a certain position on the coat, vest, or hunting shirt, from whence members were given the designation in common parlance of "Pin" Indians. According to the statement of General Albert Pike, however (and I think he gives the correct version), this "Pin" society was organized and in full operation long before the beginning of the secession difficulties, and was really established for the purpose of depriving the half-breeds of all political power.[556] Be this as it may, however, the society was made to represent in the incipient stages of the great American conflict the element of opposition to an association with the Southern Confederacy and on one occasion it prevented the distinctively Southern element under the leadership of Stand Watie from raising a Confederate flag at Tahlequah.[557] It was also alleged to have been established by the Rev. Evan Jones, a missionary of more than forty years' standing among the Cherokees, as an instrument for the dissemination of anti-slavery doctrines.[558] CHEROKEES AND THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY. In May, 1861, General Albert Pike, of Arkansas, was requested by Hon. Robert Toombs, secretary of state of the Confederate States, to visit the Indian Territory as a commissioner, and to assure the Indians of the friendship of those States. He proceeded to Fort Smith,[559] where, in company with General Benjamin McCulloch, he was waited on by a delegation of Cherokees representing the element of that people who were enthusiastically loyal to the Confederacy and who were desirous of ascertaining whether in case they would organize and take up arms for the South the latter would engage to protect them from the hostility of John Ross and the association of "Pin" Indians who were controlled by him.[560] Assurances were given of the desired protection, and messengers were sent to a number of the prominent leaders of the anti-Ross party to meet General Pike at the Creek Agency, two days after he should have held an interview with Ross, then contemplated, at Park Hill. General Pike, as he alleges, had no idea of concluding any terms with Ross, and his intention was to treat with the leaders of the Southern party at the Creek Agency. At the meeting held with Ross at Park Hill, the latter refused to enter into any arrangement with the Confederate Government, and obstinately insisted on maintaining an attitude of strict neutrality. After vainly endeavoring to shake the old man's purpose, General McCulloch at length agreed to respect his neutrality so long as the Federal forces should refrain from entering the Cherokee country.[561] General McCulloch having been ordered by the Confederate authorities to take command of the district of country embracing the Indian Territory, with headquarters at Fort Smith, addressed[562] a communication to John Ross again assuring him of his intention to respect the neutrality of the Cherokee people, except that all those members of the tribe who should so desire must be permitted to enlist in the Confederate army, without interference or molestation, for purposes of defense in case of an invasion from the North. To this Ross replied,[563] reasserting the determination of the Cherokees to maintain a strict neutrality between the contending parties. He refused his consent to any organization or enlistment of Cherokee troops into the Confederate service, for the reason, first, it would be a palpable violation of the Cherokee position of neutrality, and, second, it would place in their midst organized companies not authorized by the Cherokee laws, but in violation of treaty, and which would soon become effective instruments in stirring up domestic strife and creating internal difficulties among the Cherokee people. General McCulloch in his letter had assumed that his proposition for permitting enlistments of Cherokees of Confederate sympathies was in accordance with the views expressed to him by Ross in an interview occurring some eight or ten days previous, wherein the latter had observed that in case of an invasion from the North he himself would lead the Cherokees to repel it. Ross, in his reply above alluded to, takes occasion to assure McCulloch that the latter had misapprehended his language. It was only in case of a foreign invasion that he had offered to lead his men in repelling it. He had not signified any purpose as to an invasion by either the Northern or Southern forces, because he had not apprehended and could not give his consent to any. Some time in August[564] a convention was assembled at Tahlequah upon the call of John Ross, to take into consideration the question of the difficulties and dangers surrounding the Cherokee Nation and to determine the most advisable method of procedure. At this convention a number of speeches were made, all of which were bitterly hostile in tone to the United States and favorable to an open alliance with the Southern Confederacy. Ross, among others, gave free expression to his views, and according to the published version of his remarks gave it as his opinion that an understanding with the Confederacy was the best thing for the Cherokees and all other Indians to secure and that without delay; that, as for himself, he was and always had been a Southern man, a State rights man; born in the South, and a slaveholder; that the South was fighting for its rights against the oppressions of the North, and that the true position of the Indians was with the Southern people. After this speech the convention, which was attended by four thousand male Cherokees, adopted without a dissenting voice a resolution to abandon their relations with the United States and to form an alliance with the Confederacy. _Treaties between Confederate States and various Southern tribes._--General Pike did not see Ross again until September.[565] In the meantime, the latter had secured the attendance of a large number of representatives of both Northern and Southern tribes, at a convocation held at Antelope Hills, where a unanimous agreement was reached to maintain a strict neutrality in the existing hostilities between their white neighbors. The alleged purpose of this assembly, as stated by General Pike, was to take advantage of the war between the States, and form a great independent Indian confederation, but he defeated its purpose by concluding a treaty with the Creeks on behalf of the Confederate States, while their delegates were actually engaged in council at the Antelope Hills. Following his negotiations with the Creeks, he concluded treaties in quick succession with the Choctaws and Chickasaws, the Seminoles, the Wichitas, and affiliated tribes, including the absentee Shawnees and Delawares, and the Comanches.[566] On returning from his treaty with the Comanches, he was met before reaching Fort Arbuckle by a messenger bearing a letter from Ross and his council, accompanied by a copy of the resolutions of the council and a pressing personal invitation to repair to the Cherokee country and enter into a treaty with that tribe. He consented and named a day when he would meet Ross, at the same time writing the latter to notify the Osages, Quapaws, Senecas, and the confederated Senecas and Shawnees, to meet him at the same time. At the time fixed he proceeded to Park Hill (Ross's residence), where he concluded treaties with these various tribes[567] during the first week in October, reserving the negotiations with the Cherokees to the last, the treaty with whom was concluded on the 7th of the month at Tahlequah. This instrument was very lengthy, being comprised in fifty-five articles.[568] The preamble set forth that-- The Congress of the Confederate States of America having, by an "Act for the protection of certain Indian tribes," approved the 21st day of May, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-one, offered to assume and accept the protectorate of the several nations and tribes of Indians occupying the country west of Arkansas and Missouri, and to recognize them as their wards, subject to all the rights, privileges, immunities, titles and guarantees with each of said nations and tribes under treaties made with them by the United States of America; and the Cherokee Nation of Indians having assented thereto upon certain terms and conditions: Now, therefore, the said Confederate States of America, by Albert Pike, their commissioner, constituted by the President, under authority of the act of Congress, in that behalf, with plenary powers for these purposes, and the Cherokee Nation by the principal chief, executive council, and commissioners aforesaid, has agreed to the following articles, etc. With some slight amendments to the instrument as originally concluded it was duly ratified by the Confederate States. CHEROKEE TROOPS FOR THE CONFEDERATE ARMY. Long before[569] the conclusion of this treaty, authority was given by General McCulloch to raise a battalion of Cherokees for the service of the Confederate States. Under this authority a regiment was raised in December, 1861, and commanded by Stand Watie, the leader of the anti-Ross party. A regiment had also been previously raised, ostensibly as home guards, the officers of which had been appointed by Chief Ross and the command assigned to Colonel Drew.[570] After the conclusion of the treaty this regiment was also placed at the service of the Confederate States, and in December[571] following, in an address to them, Ross remarked that he had raised the regiment "to act in concert with the troops of the Southern Confederacy." These two regiments actively participated and co-operated in the military operations of the Confederates until after the battle of Pea Ridge, in which they were engaged.[572] In the summer of 1862,[573] following this battle, Colonel Weir, of the United States Army, commanding a force partly composed of loyal Indians on the northern border of the Cherokee country, sent a proposition to John Ross urging that the Cherokees should repudiate their treaty with the Confederacy and return to their former relations with the United States, offering at the same time a safe conduct to Ross and such of his leading counselors as he should designate through the Union lines to Washington, where they could negotiate a new treaty with the authorities of the United States. This proposition was declined peremptorily by Ross, who declared that the Cherokees disdained an alliance with a people who had authorized and practiced the most monstrous barbarities in violation of the laws of war; that the Cherokees were bound to the Confederate States by the faith of treaty obligations and by a community of sentiment and interest; that they were born upon the soil of the South and would stand or fall with the States of the South.[574] A CHEROKEE CONFEDERATE REGIMENT DESERTS TO THE UNITED STATES. Colonel Drew's regiment of Cherokees had now been in the Confederate service about ten months. During that period they had remained unpaid, were scantily clothed, and were generally uncared for, unthanked, and their services unrecognized.[575] When, therefore, Colonel Weir invaded the Cherokee country in July, 1862, and the power and prestige of the Confederacy seemed, for the time being, to have become less potent in that region, their troops having been withdrawn to other localities, these discontented and unfed Cherokee soldiers found themselves in a condition ripe for revolt. Almost _en masse_, they abandoned the Confederate service and enlisted in that of the United States. _Conduct of John Ross._--Ross, finding that he had been abandoned by Drew's regiment, concluded to make a virtue of necessity and become a loyal man too, with the shrewd assertion that such had always been the true impulse of his heart; he had been overborne, however, by the authority and power of the Confederate Government and felt constrained to save his people and their material interests from total destruction by dissembling before the officials of that Government, seeking only the first opportunity, which he had now embraced, to return with his people to the fealty they so delighted to bear to the Federal Government.[576] He was escorted out of the Cherokee country by Colonel Weir's regiment and did not soon return. The burden of proof seems to be almost, if not quite, conclusive against his pretensions to loyalty up to this period, and now that the opportunity he had so long desired of placing himself and his people within the protection of the United States had arrived, instead of manifesting any of that activity which had characterized his conduct in behalf of the Confederate States, he retired to Philadelphia, and did not return to his people for three years.[577] _O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo and his loyal followers._--General Pike, in his letter to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs pending the negotiation of the treaty of 1866, seeks to convey the impression that there were no actively loyal Indians among the Southern tribes during the incipient stages of the rebellion, and perhaps this is in large measure correct as to most of those tribes. Their situation was such as would have worked confusion in the ideas of a less primitive and simple minded people. For years before the outbreak of the rebellion their superintendents, agents, and agency employés had been, almost without exception, Southern men or men of Southern sympathies. They were a slaveholding people, and the idea was constantly pressed upon them that the pending difficulties between the North and the South were solely the result of a determination on the part of the latter to protect her slave property from the aggressions and rapacity of the former. When at last hostilities commenced, they saw the magnitude of the preparation and the strength of the Confederate forces in their vicinity. The weakness of the Federal forces was equally striking. Within the scope of their limited horizon there was naught that seemed to shed a ray of hope upon the rapidly darkening sky of Federal supremacy. Those who were naturally inclined to sympathize with, and who retained a feeling of friendship and reverence for, the old Government were awed into silence. A sense of fear and helplessness for the time being compelled them to accept and apparently acquiesce in a state of affairs for which many of them had no heart. After the Cherokee convention, at Tahlequah, in August, 1861, at which it was decided with such unanimity to renounce their treaty relations with the United States and to enter into diplomatic alliance with the Confederacy, O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo, an old and prominent Creek chief, whom Ross had notified by letter of the action taken, and upon whom he urged the wisdom of securing similar action by the Creeks,[578] refused to lend himself to any such measure. He called a council of the Creeks, however, representing to them the action of the Cherokees, alleging that their chiefs had been bought, and reminded the Creeks of the duties and obligations by which they were bound to the Government of the United States. The majority of the Creeks, notwithstanding, were for active co-operation with the Confederacy, and an internecine war was at once inaugurated. The loyal portion of the Seminoles, Wichitas, Kickapoos, and Delawares joined O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo and his loyal Creeks, who after two or three engagements with the disloyal Indians, backed by a force of Texas troops, was compelled to retreat to the north, which he did in December, 1861.[579] The weather was extremely inclement; the loyal Indians were burdened with all their household goods, their women and children, and at the same time exposed to the assaults of their enemies. Their baggage was captured, leaving many of them without shoes or comfortable clothing. Hundreds perished on the route, and at last, after a journey of 300 miles, they reached Humboldt, Kansas, racked with disease, almost frozen, and with starvation staring them in the face. Immediately upon learning of the condition of these sufferers, Indian Superintendent Coffin promptly inaugurated measures for their relief. Having inconsiderable funds at his command for the purpose, application was made to General Hunter, commanding the Department of Kansas, who promptly responded with all the supplies at his disposal. The Indians in their retreat had become scattered over an area of territory 200 miles in extent, between the Verdigris and Fall River, Walnut Creek and the Arkansas. As they became aware of the efforts of the Government for their relief, they began to pour into the camp of rendezvous on the Verdigris, but were later removed to Le Roy, Kansas. Authority was given to enlist the able bodied males in the service of the United States, and two regiments were at once organized and placed under command of Colonel Weir for an expedition against the Indian Territory, mention of which has been previously made. A census taken of these refugees by Superintendent Coffin, in August, 1862, showed that there were in camp, exclusive of the 2,000 who had enlisted in the service of the United States, 3,619 Creeks, 919 Seminoles, 165 Chickasaws, 223 Cherokees, 400 Kickapoos, 89 Delawares, 19 Ionies, and 53 Keechies, in all 5,487, consisting of 864 men, 2,040 women, and 2,583 children. In addition to these at least 15 per cent. had died since their arrival from hardships encountered in the course of their retreat. They were subsequently removed to the Sac and Fox reservation in Kansas. Until after Colonel Weir's expedition to the Indian Territory not exceeding three hundred Cherokees had taken refuge within the Union lines; but in the autumn of 1862, after Weir's retreat, a body of refugees, mostly women and children, claiming the protection of the United States, made their way to a point on the Cherokee neutral lands some 12 miles south of Fort Scott, Kansas. Like all the other refugees, they were in a most destitute and suffering condition. In need of food, clothing, and supplies of all kinds, these sufferers, to the number of two thousand, appealed for relief, and were for a time supplied by the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, but afterwards, on being taken under charge of the military authorities, were transferred to Neosho, Missouri. _Relations with the Southern Confederacy renounced._--During the month of February, 1863 (as reported[580] by John Ross from Philadelphia), a special meeting of the Cherokee national council was convened at Cowskin Prairie, and the following legislation was enacted: 1. Abrogating the treaty with the Confederate States, and calling a general convention of the people to approve the act. 2. The appointment of a delegation with suitable powers and instructions to represent the Cherokee Nation before the United States Government, consisting of John Ross, principal chief, Lieutenant-Colonel Downing, Capt. James McDaniel, and Rev. Evan Jones. 3. Authorizing a general Indian council to be held at such time and place as the principal chief may designate. 4. Deposing all officers of the nation disloyal to the Government. 5. Approving the purchase of supplies made by the treasurer and directing their distribution. 6. Providing for the abolition of slavery in the Cherokee Nation. RAVAGES OF WAR IN THE CHEROKEE NATION. In the latter part of the winter of 1862 and early spring of 1863 the military authorities conceived the propriety of returning the refugee Cherokees to their homes in time to enable them to plant their spring crops. Two military expeditions were organized, one to move from Springfield, Mo., under the command of General Blunt, and the other from Scott's Mills, in charge of Colonel Phillips.[581] The Indians were furnished with the necessary agricultural implements, seeds, etc., and were promised complete protection from the incursions of their enemies. The refugees, in charge of Indian Agent Harlan, set out for their homes a week after the army had marched, reaching Tahlequah in safety, and immediately scattering themselves throughout the country engaged busily in planting their crops. Their labors had only fairly commenced when they were alarmed by the reported approach of Stand Watie and his regiment of Confederate Cherokees. The Indians immediately suspended their labors, and, together with the troops under Colonel Phillips, were compelled to take refuge in Fort Gibson. Their numbers were, as reported by the superintendent, now increased to upwards of six thousand, by the addition of many who, up to this time, had remained at their homes. The troops of Stand Watie, alleged to number some seven hundred, scoured the country at their pleasure, and not only everything of value that had previously escaped confiscation in the nation, but everything that had been brought back with them by the refugees to aid in their proposed labors, was either carried off or destroyed. The failure of these expeditions in accomplishing the objects for which they were organized rendered it necessary that the refugees should be fed and maintained at Fort Gibson, some 200 miles distant from the base of supplies. This situation of affairs remained practically unchanged until the close of the war, except that the number of destitute Indians requiring subsistence from the Government increased to sixteen or seventeen thousand. The United States forces continued to occupy Forts Smith and Gibson, and the Indians were thus enabled to cultivate, to a limited extent, the lands within the immediate protection of those posts, but their country was infested and overrun by guerrillas, who preyed upon and destroyed everything of a destructible character. There was no portion of country within the limits of the United States, perhaps, that was better suited to the demands of stock-raising, and the Cherokees had, prior to the war, entered largely into this pursuit. Many of them were wealthy and numbered their herds by hundreds and even thousands of head. Almost the entire nation was surrounded by all the comforts and many of the luxuries of a civilized people. When they were overwhelmed by the disasters of war, and saw the labors and accumulations of more than twenty years' residence in that pleasant and fruitful country swept away in a few weeks, the sullen bitterness of despair settled down upon them. Their losses in stock alone aggregated, according to the best estimates, more than 300,000 head. Is it any wonder that the springs of hope should dry up within their breasts? [Footnote 475: United States Statute at Large, Vol. IX, p. 871.] [Footnote 476: May 6, 1844.] [Footnote 477: May 30, 1844.] [Footnote 478: Letter of Secretary of War to Commissioners Jones and Butler, October 18, 1844.] [Footnote 479: October 18, 1844.] [Footnote 480: Letter of General Jones to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, November 17, 1844.] [Footnote 481: He was one of the chiefs of the Arkansas delegation who signed the treaty of May 6, 1828. (See United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 314.)] [Footnote 482: Letters of September 12 and November 23, 1844, from Agent Butler to Commissioner of Indian Affairs.] [Footnote 483: Letter of Commissioner Indian Affairs to Agent Butler, January 17, 1845.] [Footnote 484: Letter of Oo-no-leh to Agent Butler, May 15, 1845. Guess left a widow, a son, and two daughters. Hon. T. L. McKenny, in a letter to the Secretary of War, December 13, 1825, says: "His name is Guess, and he is a native and unlettered Cherokee. Like Cadmus, he has given to the people the alphabet of their language. It is composed of eighty-six characters, by which in a few days the older Indians who had despaired of deriving an education by means of the schools * * * may read and correspond." Agent Butler, in his annual report for 1845, says: "The Cherokees who cannot speak English acquire their own alphabet in twenty-four hours."] [Footnote 485: September 1, 1845.] [Footnote 486: October 22, 1845.] [Footnote 487: November 12, 1845. They explored up the valley of Stone Fort Creek a distance of 30 miles.] [Footnote 488: Report of the exploring party to their council.] [Footnote 489: January 19, 1846.] [Footnote 490: Letter to the President, February 10, 1846.] [Footnote 491: Letter to the Secretary of War, February 12, 1846.] [Footnote 492: April 2, 1846.] [Footnote 493: Letter of Agent McKissick to Commissioner Indian Affairs, May 12, 1846, and General Arbuckle to Adjutant-General, April 28, 1846.] [Footnote 494: Report of Agent McKissick July 4, 1846.] [Footnote 495: Commissioner Indian Affairs to Maj. William Armstrong, June 24, 1846.] [Footnote 496: July 6, 1846.] [Footnote 497: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 871.] [Footnote 498: The subject of the North Carolina Cherokee interests was also referred to this commission July 13, 1846.] [Footnote 499: Report of Commissioner Indian Affairs to Secretary Interior, January 20, 1855.] [Footnote 500: Second Comptroller of the Treasury to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 6, 1849.] [Footnote 501: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 478.] [Footnote 502: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. V, p. 241.] [Footnote 503: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 339.] [Footnote 504: December 3, 1849.] [Footnote 505: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 572.] [Footnote 506: September 5, 1850.] [Footnote 507: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 556.] [Footnote 508: Ibid., p. 871.] [Footnote 509: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 156.] [Footnote 510: Ibid., p. 195.] [Footnote 511: Ibid., p. 311.] [Footnote 512: Ibid., p. 478.] [Footnote 513: Ibid., p. 414.] [Footnote 514: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 556.] [Footnote 515: September 22, 1851.] [Footnote 516: November 22, 1875.] [Footnote 517: April 28, 1877, November 20, 1880, November 17, 1881, and October 13, 1882.] [Footnote 518: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXII, p. 328.] [Footnote 519: January 31, 1883.] [Footnote 520: See Senate Executive Document No. 14, Forty-Eighth Congress, 1st session.] [Footnote 521: March 16, 1835.] [Footnote 522: Letter of John Mason, Jr. to Secretary of War, September 25, 1837.] [Footnote 523: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. V, p. 241.] [Footnote 524: See report of Second Auditor and Second Comptroller to Congress, December 3, 1849.] [Footnote 525: See report of Second Auditor and Second Comptroller to Congress, December 3, 1849.] [Footnote 526: November 17, 1851.] [Footnote 527: November 29, 1851.] [Footnote 528: After reciting in detail the "forced" circumstances through which those treaties were brought about, they declared-- 1. That no adequate allowance had been made for the sums taken from the treaty fund of 1835 for removal; that though an appropriation had been made, the estimates upon which it was based were too small, and the balance was taken out of the Indian fund. 2. That if allowable in any sense, the Government had no right to take from the Cherokee fund an expense for removal greater than the limit fixed by the eighth article of the treaty of 1835. 3. That the alternative of receiving for subsistence $33.33, as provided for in the treaty of 1835, was refused to be complied with and their people forced to receive rations in kind at double the cost. 4. That the cost of the rations issued by the commandant at Fort Gibson to "indigent Cherokees" was improperly charged to the treaty fund, without legal authority. 5. That the United States was bound to reimburse the amount paid to some two or three hundred Cherokees who emigrated prior to 1835, but who were refused a participation in the "Old Settler" fund. 6. That the Cherokees who remained in the States of Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee were not entitled to any share in the per capita fund, inasmuch as they complied with neither of two conditions of their remaining East; and also because the census of those Cherokees was believed to be enormously exaggerated. 7. That the sum of $103,000 had been charged upon the treaty fund for expenses of Cherokees in Georgia during three months they were all assembled and had reported themselves to General Scott as ready to take up their emigration march. 8. That interest should be paid on the balance found due them from April 15, 1851, until paid, Congress having no power to abrogate the stipulations of a treaty. 9. That $20,000 of the funds of the emigrant Cherokees were taken to pay the counsel and agents of the Old Settler party without authority.] [Footnote 529: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 264.] [Footnote 530: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of Interior, February 10, 1874.] [Footnote 531: November 20, 1851.] [Footnote 532: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. X, p. 700.] [Footnote 533: The fourth section of this same act made provision that the eighth section of the act of July 31, 1854 (United States Statutes at Large, Vol. X, pp. 315), authorizing the payment of per capita allowance to Cherokees east of the Mississippi, be so amended as to authorize the payment of all such Cherokees as, being properly entitled, were omitted from the roll of D. W. Siler from any cause whatever.] [Footnote 534: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVIII, p. 447.] [Footnote 535: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XV, p. 228.] [Footnote 536: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 362.] [Footnote 537: This balance, amounting in the aggregate (with interest) to $7,242.76, was paid April 3, 1875.] [Footnote 538: United States Statutes at Large Vol. XVIII, p. 447.] [Footnote 539: A short time prior (September 11, 1874) to the filing of the award of the arbitrators in the case of the Indians _vs._ Thomas, an agreement was made between the parties in interest to refer certain matters of dispute between Thomas and Johnston to the consideration and determination of the same arbitrators. As the result of this reference an award was made which showed that there was due from Thomas to Johnston upon three several judgments the sum of $33,887.11. Upon this sum, however, credits to the amount of $15,552.11 (including the $6,500 with interest paid to Johnston by the Cherokees under contract of September, 1869) were allowed, leaving the net amount due to Johnston $18,335, which sum he was entitled to collect with interest until paid, together with the costs taxed in the three judgments aforesaid. The arbitrators further found that Johnson held sheriff's deeds for considerable tracts of land which had been sold as the property of Thomas and which were not included among the lands held by him in trust for the Indians. These tracts Johnston had bought in by reason of clouds upon the title and "forbiddals" of the sales at a merely nominal figure. It was therefore declared that these sheriffs' deeds should be held by Johnston only as security for the payment of the balance due him on the judgments in question and for the costs taxed on each. It was further directed that Terrell and Johnston should make sale of so much of the lands embraced in the sheriff's deeds alluded to (excluding those awarded to the Cherokee Indians either as a tribe or as individuals) as would produce a sum sufficient to satisfy the above balance of $18,335 with interest and costs. Following this award of the arbitrators Mr. Johnston submitted a proposition for the transfer and assignment of these judgments to the Eastern Band of Cherokees. Based upon this offer, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reported to the Secretary of the Interior June 2, 1875, that the interests of the Indians required the acceptance of Johnston's proposition. This recommendation was confirmed by William Stickney, of the President's board of Indian commissioners, in a report to that body. Mr. J. W. Terrell, on behalf of the Eastern Cherokees, as well as their agent, W. C. McCarthy, joined in urging the acceptance of the proposal. Supported by these opinions and recommendations, the Secretary of the Interior, on the 3d of June, 1875, authorized the purchase of the Johnston judgments, and two days later a requisition was issued for the money, and instructions were given to Agent McCarthy to make the purchase. Under these instructions as subsequently modified (June 9, 1875), Agent McCarthy reported (July 27, 1875) the purchase of the judgments, amounting in the aggregate, including interest and costs, to $19,245.53, and an assignment of them was taken in the name of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in trust for the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians of North Carolina. From investigations and reports afterward made by Inspectors Watkins and Vandever, it appears that there was much uncertainty and confusion as to the actual status of these lands. The latter gentleman reported (April 10, 1876) that the second award made by the arbitrators was a private affair between Thomas and Johnston and was entirely separate and distinct from the first award in the case of the Indians. He also reported that, despite the purchase of the Johnston judgments by the Indian Department in trust for the Indians, the two commissioners named in the second award proceeded to sell the lands upon which these judgments were a lien, and at the November, 1875, term of the court made a report of their proceedings, which was affirmed by the court. Taking into consideration all these complications, it was recommended by Inspector Vandever that an agent or commission be appointed, if the same could be done by consent of all parties, who should assume the duty of appraising the lands affected by the Johnston judgments, and that such quantity of the lands be selected for the Cherokees as would at such appraisal equal in value the amount of the judgments, interest, and costs, after which the remainder of the lands, if any, should be released to Mr. Thomas. The representatives of Thomas and Johnston also submitted a proposition for adjustment to the Indians, who by resolution of their council (March, 1876) agreed to accept it. In the light of this action and of the recommendation of Inspector Vandever, Congress passed an act (August 14, 1876) authorizing the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to receive in payment of the amount due to the Indians on the Johnston judgments owned by them a sufficient quantity of the Thomas lands to satisfy, at the appraised value, the amount of such judgments, and to deed the lands thus accepted to the Eastern Band of Cherokees in fee simple. The commissioner of appraisal appointed and acting under this act of Congress, and under the supervision of Inspector Watkins, selected 15,211.2 acres, the appraised value of which was $20,561.35, being the exact amount, including interest and costs, due upon the judgments up to October 7, 1876, the date of appraisal. Thereupon a deed (known as the Watkins deed) was executed by the parties representing the Johnston and Thomas interests, conveying the lands so selected to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs in the manner directed by the act of Congress, which deed it was agreed should be supplemented by a new one so soon as a more definite description could be given of the lands after survey. The surveys were made by M. S. Temple, who also surveyed the Qualla boundary tract, a deed for which latter tract (known as the Brooks deed) was executed direct to the Eastern Band of North Carolina Cherokee Indians, and the supplemental deed spoken of above was also executed. Sundry difficulties and complications have continued from time to time to arise in connection with the affairs of these Indians, and as the most effective measure of protection to their interests the Commissioner of Indian Affairs has suggested (April 26, 1882) to Congress the advisability of placing the persons and property of these people under the jurisdiction of the United States district court for the western district of North Carolina.] [Footnote 540: February 17 and March 17, 1853.] [Footnote 541: March 26, 1853.] [Footnote 542: This protest bore date of November 9, 1853, and was filed by Edwin Follin, as their attorney or representative.] [Footnote 543: September 21, 1853.] [Footnote 544: November 22, 1853.] [Footnote 545: Letter of Agent Butler, dated November 30, 1853.] [Footnote 546: Annual report of Agent Butler for 1854.] [Footnote 547: The delegation submitted these propositions in a communication to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, dated December 28, 1854.] [Footnote 548: Annual report of Agent Butler for 1855.] [Footnote 549: Annual report of Agent Butler for 1857.] [Footnote 550: Annual report of Agent Butler for 1858.] [Footnote 551: October 10, 1860.] [Footnote 552: See reports of Agent Cowart in November, 1860, in Indian Office report of 1860, pp. 224, 225.] [Footnote 553: January 1, 1860.] [Footnote 554: Letter of Agent R. J. Cowart to Commissioner Indian Affairs, September 8, 1860.] [Footnote 555: Letter of S. W. Butler, published in Philadelphia North American, January 24, 1863.] [Footnote 556: Letter of General Albert Pike to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 17, 1866, published in pamphlet report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the President, bearing date June 15, 1866.] [Footnote 557: Letter of S. W. Butler, in Philadelphia North American, January 24, 1863, and letter of General Albert Pike to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 17, 1866.] [Footnote 558: Letter of Albert Pike, February 17, 1866. The delegates representing the "Southern Cherokees," in their statement to the United States commissioners at the Fort Smith conference, September 16, 1865, say: "Years before the war one portion of the Cherokees was arrayed in deadly hostility against the other; a secret organized society called the 'Pins,' led by John Ross and Rev. Jones, had sworn destruction to the half-bloods and white men of the nation outside this organization," etc.] [Footnote 559: Early in June, 1861.] [Footnote 560: Letter of General Albert Pike to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 17, 1866.] [Footnote 561: Ibid.] [Footnote 562: June 12, 1861.] [Footnote 563: June 17, 1861.] [Footnote 564: According to the message of John Ross, as principal chief to the Cherokee national council, October 9, 1861, this convention was held on the 21st of August, 1861.] [Footnote 565: Pike's letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 17, 1866.] [Footnote 566: Pike's letter to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 17, 1866. These treaties were concluded on the following dates respectively: Creek, July 10; Choctaw and Chickasaw, July 12; Seminole, August 1; Shawnees, Delawares, Wichitas, and affiliated tribes resident in leased territory, and Comanches, August 12, 1861.] [Footnote 567: The treaty with the Osages was concluded October 2, that with the Senecas and Shawnees on the same day, and also that with the Quapaws. (See Report Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1865, p. 318.)] [Footnote 568: The text of this treaty was reprinted for the use of the United States treaty commissioners in 1866.] [Footnote 569: August, 1861. See letter of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the President, June 15, 1866.] [Footnote 570: General Albert Pike in his letter of February 17, 1866, speaks of being escorted from Fort Gibson to Park Hill on his way to conclude the treaty of October 7, 1861, by eight or nine companies of Colonel Drew's regiment, which had been previously raised as a home guard by order of the national council.] [Footnote 571: This address (printed as document No. 7, accompanying the letter of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the President, June 15, 1866) bears date of December 19, 1862. This is an evident typographical error for 1861, because the address was in the nature of a censure upon the regiment for its defection on the eve of a battle with the forces of O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo, the loyal Creek leader. This battle occurred at Bushy or Bird Creek, December 9, 1861, and before the expiration of another year Ross had left the Cherokee country under the escort of Colonel Weir.] [Footnote 572: Greeley's American Conflict, Vol. II, p. 32; also, Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 15, 1866, and numerous other official documents.] [Footnote 573: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the President, June 15, 1866, p. 10.] [Footnote 574: Letter of General Albert Pike, February 17, 1866; also letter of T. J. Mackey, June 4, 1866.] [Footnote 575: Letter of General Albert Pike, February 17, 1866.] [Footnote 576: Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the President, June 15, 1866.] [Footnote 577: Ibid.] [Footnote 578: Letter of John Ross to O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo, September 19, 1861.] [Footnote 579: Report of Agent Cutler and Superintendent Coffin for 1862. See pages 135 and 138 of the Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1862.] [Footnote 580: April 2, 1863.] [Footnote 581: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1863, p. 24.] TREATY CONCLUDED JULY 19, 1866; PROCLAIMED AUGUST 11, 1866. _Held at Washington, D. C., between Dennis N. Cooley, Commissioner of Indian Affairs, and Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian Affairs for the southern superintendency, on behalf of the United States, and the Cherokee Nation of Indians, represented by its delegates, James McDaniel, Smith Christie, White Catcher, S. H. Benge, J. B. Jones, and Daniel H. Ross, John Ross, principal chief, being too unwell to join in these negotiations._[582] MATERIAL PROVISIONS. Whereas existing treaties between the United States and the Cherokee Nation are deemed to be insufficient, the contracting parties agree as follows, viz: 1. The pretended treaty of October 7, 1861, with the so-called Confederate States, repudiated by the Cherokee National Council February 18, 1863, is declared to be void. 2. Amnesty is declared for all offenses committed by one Cherokee against the person or property of another or against a citizen of the United States prior to July 4, 1866. No right of action arising out of acts committed for or against the rebellion shall be maintained in either the United States or the Cherokee courts, and the Cherokee Nation agree to deliver to the United States all public property in their control which belonged to the United States or the so-called Confederate States. 3. The confiscation laws of the Cherokee Nation shall be repealed, and all sales of farms and improvements are declared void. The former owners shall have the right to repossess themselves of the property so sold. The purchaser under the confiscation laws shall receive from the treasurer of the nation the money paid and the value of the permanent improvements made by him. The value of these improvements shall be fixed by a commission, composed of one person appointed by the United States and one appointed by the Cherokee Nation, who in case of disagreement may appoint a third. The value of these improvements so fixed shall be returned to the Cherokee treasurer by returning Cherokees within three years. 4. All Cherokees and freed persons who were formerly slaves to any Cherokee, and all free negroes, not having been such slaves, who resided in the Cherokee Nation prior to June 1, 1861, who may within two years elect not to reside northeast of the Arkansas River and southeast of Grand River, shall have the right to settle in and occupy the Canadian district southwest of the Arkansas River; and also the country northwest of Grand River, and bounded southeast by Grand River and west by the Creek country, to the northeast corner thereof; from thence west on north line of Creek country to 96° west longitude; thence north with said 96° so far that a line due east to Grand River will include a quantity of land equal to 160 acres for each person who may so elect to reside therein, provided that the part of said district north of Arkansas River shall not be set apart until the Canadian district shall be found insufficient to allow 160 acres to each person desiring to settle under the terms of this article. 5. The inhabitants electing to reside in the district described in the preceding article shall have the right to elect all their local officers and judges, also their proportionate share of delegates in any general council that may be established under the twelfth article of this treaty; to control all their local affairs in a manner not inconsistent with the constitution of the Cherokee Nation or the laws of the United States, provided the Cherokees residing in said district shall enjoy all the rights and privileges of other Cherokees who may elect to settle in said district as herein before provided, and shall hold the same rights and privileges and be subject to the same liabilities as those who elect to settle in said district under the provisions of this treaty; provided, also, that if any rules be adopted which, in the opinion of the President, bear oppressively on any citizen of the nation he may suspend the same. And all rules or regulations discriminating against the citizens of other districts are prohibited and shall be void. 6. The inhabitants of the aforesaid district shall be entitled to representation in the national council in proportion to their numbers. All laws shall be uniform throughout the nation. The President of the United States is empowered to correct any evil arising from the unjust or unequal operation of any Cherokee law and to secure an equitable expenditure of the national funds. 7. A United States court shall be created in the Indian Territory; until created, the United States district court nearest the Cherokee Nation shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all causes, civil and criminal, between the inhabitants of the aforesaid district and other citizens of the Cherokee Nation. All process issued in said district against a Cherokee outside of said district shall be void unless indorsed by the judge of the district in which the process is to be served. A like rule shall govern the service of process issued by Cherokee officers against persons residing in the aforesaid district. Persons so arrested shall be held in custody until delivered to the United States marshal or until they shall consent to be tried by the Cherokee court. All provisions of this treaty creating distinctions between citizens of any district and the remainder of the Cherokee Nation shall be abrogated by the President whenever a majority of the voters of such district shall so declare at an election duly ordered by him. No future law or regulation enacted in the Cherokee Nation shall take effect until ninety days after promulgation in the newspapers or by written posted notices in both the English and Cherokee languages. 8. No license to trade in the Cherokee Nation shall be granted by the United States unless approved by the Cherokee national council, except in the districts mentioned in article 4. 9. The Cherokee Nation covenant and agree that slavery shall never hereafter exist in the nation. All freedmen, as well as all free colored persons resident in the nation at the outbreak of the rebellion and now resident therein or who shall return within six months and their descendants, shall have all the rights of native Cherokees. Owners of emancipated slaves shall never receive any compensation therefor. 10. All Cherokees shall have the right to sell their farm produce, live stock, merchandise, or manufactures, and to ship and drive the same to market without restraint, subject to any tax now or hereafter levied by the United States on the quantity sold outside of the Indian Territory. 11. The Cherokee Nation grant a right of way 200 feet in width through their country to any company authorized by Congress to construct a railroad from north to south and from east to west through the Cherokee Nation. The officers, employés, and laborers of such company shall be protected in the discharge of their duties while building or operating said road through the nation and at all times shall be subject to the Indian intercourse laws. 12. The Cherokees agree to the organization of a general council, to be composed of delegates elected to represent all the tribes in the Indian Territory, and to be organized as follows: I. A census shall be taken of each tribe in the Indian Territory. II. The first general council shall consist of one member for each tribe, and an additional member for each one thousand population or fraction thereof over five hundred. Any tribe failing to elect such members of council shall be represented by its chief or chiefs and headmen in the above proportion. The council shall meet at such time and place as the Superintendent of Indian Affairs shall approve. No session shall exceed thirty days in any one year. The sessions shall be annual; special sessions may be called by the Secretary of the Interior in his discretion. III. The council shall have power to legislate upon matters pertaining to intercourse and relations of the tribes and freedmen resident in Indian Territory; the arrest and extradition of criminals and offenders escaping from one tribe or community to another; the administration of justice between members of different tribes and persons other than Indians and members of said tribes or nations; and the common defense and safety. All laws enacted by the council shall take effect as therein provided, unless suspended by the President of the United States. No law shall be enacted inconsistent with the Constitution or laws of the United States or with existing treaty stipulations. The council shall not legislate upon matters other than above indicated, unless jurisdiction shall be enlarged by consent of the national council of each nation or tribe, with the assent of the President of the United States. IV. Said council shall be presided over by such person as may be designated by the Secretary of the Interior. V. The council shall elect a secretary, who shall receive from the United States an annual salary of $500. He shall transmit a certified copy of the council proceedings to the Secretary of the Interior and to each tribe or nation in the council. VI. Members of the council shall be paid by the United States $4 a day during actual attendance on its meetings and $4 for every 20 miles of necessary travel in going to and returning therefrom. 13. The United States may establish a court or courts in the Indian Territory, with such organization and jurisdiction as may be established by law, provided that the judicial tribunals of the Cherokee Nation shall retain exclusive jurisdiction in all civil and criminal cases arising within their country in which members of the nation shall be the only parties, or where the cause of action shall arise in the Cherokee Nation, except as otherwise provided in this treaty. 14. Every society or denomination erecting or desiring to erect buildings for missionary or educational purposes shall be entitled to select and occupy for those purposes 160 acres of vacant land in one body. 15. The United States may settle any civilized Indians, friendly with the Cherokees, within the latter's country on unoccupied lands east of 96°, on terms agreed upon between such Indians and the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President of the United States. If any tribe so settling shall abandon its tribal organization and pay into the Cherokee national fund a sum bearing the same proportion to such fund as said tribe shall in numbers bear to the population of the Cherokee Nation such tribe shall be incorporated into and ever after remain a part of that nation on equal terms with native citizens thereof. If any tribe so settling shall decide to preserve its tribal organization, laws, customs, and usages not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, it shall have set apart in compact form for use and occupancy a tract equal to 160 acres for each member of the tribe. Such tribe shall pay for this land a price agreed upon with the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, and in case of disagreement the price to be fixed by the President. Such tribe shall also pay into the national fund a sum to be agreed upon by the respective parties, not greater in proportion to the whole existing national fund and the probable proceeds of the lands herein ceded or authorized to be ceded or sold than their numbers bear to the whole number of Cherokees, and thereafter they shall enjoy all the rights of native Cherokees. No Indians without tribal organization, or who having one shall have determined to abandon the same, shall be permitted to settle in the Cherokee country east of 96° without the permission of the proper Cherokee authorities. And no Indians determining to preserve their tribal organization shall so settle without such consent, unless the President, after a full hearing of the Cherokee objections thereto, shall deem them insufficient and authorize such settlement. 16. The United States may settle friendly Indians on any Cherokee lands west of 96°; such lands to be selected in compact form and to equal in quantity 160 acres for each member of the tribe so settled. Such tribe shall pay therefor a price to be agreed upon with the Cherokees, or, in the event of failure to agree, the price to be fixed by the President. The tract purchased shall be conveyed in fee simple to the tribe so purchasing, to be held in common or allotted in severalty as the United States may decide. The right of possession and jurisdiction over the Cherokee country west of 96° to abide with the Cherokees until thus sold and occupied. 17. The Cherokee Nation cedes to the United States, in trust to be surveyed, appraised, and sold for the benefit of that nation, the tract of 800,000 acres sold to them by the United States by article 2, treaty of 1835, and the strip of land ceded to the nation by article 4, treaty of 1835, lying within the State of Kansas, and consents that said lands may be included in the limits and jurisdiction of said State. The appraisement shall not average less than $1.25 per acre, exclusive of improvements. The Secretary of the Interior shall, after due advertisement for sealed bids, sell such lands to the highest bidders for cash in tracts of not exceeding 160 acres each at not less than the appraised value. Settlers having improvements to the value of $50 or more on any of the lands not mineral and occupied for agricultural purposes at the date of the signing of this treaty, shall, after due proof under rules to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior, be allowed to purchase at the appraised value the smallest quantity of land to include their improvements, not exceeding 160 acres each. The expenses of survey and appraisement shall be paid out of the proceeds of the sale of the lands, and nothing herein shall prevent the Secretary of the Interior from selling to any responsible party for cash all of the unoccupied portion of these lands in a body, for not less than $800,000. 18. Any lands owned by the Cherokees in Arkansas or in States east of the Mississippi River may be sold by their national council, upon the approval of the Secretary of the Interior. 19. All Cherokees residing on the ceded lands desiring to remove to the Cherokee country proper shall be paid by the purchasers the appraised value of their improvements. Such Cherokees desiring to remain on the lands so occupied by them shall be entitled to a patent in fee simple for 320 acres each, to include their improvements, and shall thereupon cease to be members of the nation. 20. Whenever the Cherokee national council shall so request, the Secretary of the Interior shall cause the country reserved for the Cherokees to be surveyed and allotted among them at the expense of the United States. 21. The United States shall at its own expense cause to be run and marked the boundary line between the Cherokee Nation and the States of Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas as far west as the Arkansas River, by two commissioners, one of whom shall be designated by the Cherokee national council. 22. The Cherokee national council shall have the privilege of appointing an agent to examine the accounts of the nation with the United States, who shall have free access to all the accounts and books in the Executive Departments relating to the business of the Cherokees. 23. All funds due the nation or accruing from the sale of their lands shall be invested in United States registered stocks and the interest paid semi-annually on the order of the Cherokee Nation, and applied to the following purposes: 35 per cent. for the support of the common schools of the nation and educational purposes; 15 per cent. for the orphan fund, and 50 per cent. for general purposes, including salaries of district officers. The Secretary of the Interior, with the approval of the President, may pay out of the funds due the nation, on the order of the national council, an amount necessary to meet outstanding obligations of the Cherokee Nation, not exceeding $150,000. 24. Three thousand dollars shall be paid out of the Cherokee funds to the Rev. Evan Jones, now in poverty and crippled, as a reward for forty years' faithful missionary labors in the nation. 25. All bounty and pay of deceased Cherokee soldiers remaining unclaimed at the expiration of two years shall be paid as the national council may direct, to be applied to the foundation and support of an orphan asylum. 26. The United States guarantee to the Cherokees the quiet and peaceable possession of their country and protection against domestic feuds and insurrection as well as hostilities of other tribes. They shall also be protected from intrusion by all unauthorized citizens of the United States attempting to settle on their lands or reside in their territory. Damages resulting from hostilities among the Indian tribes shall be charged to the tribe beginning the same. 27. The United States shall have the right to establish one or more military posts in the Cherokee Nation. No sutler or other person, except the medical department proper, shall have the right to introduce spirituous, vinous, or malt liquors into the country, and then only for strictly medical purposes. All unauthorized persons are prohibited from coming into or remaining in the Cherokee Nation, and it is the duty of the United States agent to have such persons removed as required by the Indian intercourse laws of the United States. 28. The United States agree to pay for provisions and clothing furnished the army of Appotholehala in the winter of 1861 and 1862 a sum not exceeding $10,000. 29. The United States agree to pay out of the proceeds of sale of Cherokee lands $10,000, or so much thereof as may be necessary, to defray the expenses of the Cherokee delegates and representatives invited to Washington by the United States to conclude this treaty, and also to pay the reasonable costs and expenses of the delegates of the Southern Cherokees. 30. The United States agree to pay not exceeding $20,000 to cover losses sustained by missionaries or missionary societies, in being driven from the Cherokee country by United States agents and on account of property taken and destroyed by United States troops. 31. All provisions of former treaties not inconsistent with this treaty shall continue in force; and nothing herein shall be construed as an acknowledgment by the United States or as a relinquishment by the Cherokee Nation of any claims or demands under the guarantees of former treaties, except as herein expressly provided. [Footnote 582: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, p. 799.] TREATY CONCLUDED APRIL 27, 1868; PROCLAIMED JUNE 10, 1868.[583] _Held at Washington, D. C., between Nathaniel G. Taylor, commissioner on the part of the United States, and the duly authorized delegates of the Cherokee Nation._ MATERIAL PROVISIONS. This treaty is concluded as a supplemental article to the treaty of July 19, 1866. After reciting that a contract was entered into August 30, 1866, for the sale of the Cherokee neutral land, between James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, and the American Emigrant Company; that such contract had been annulled as illegal by O. H. Browning, as Secretary of the Interior, who in turn entered into a contract of sale October 9, 1867, with James F. Joy, for the same lands, it is agreed by this treaty, in order to prevent litigation and to harmonize conflicting interests, as follows, viz: An assignment of the contract of August 30, 1866, with the American Emigrant Company shall be made to James F. Joy. Said contract as hereinafter modified is reaffirmed and declared valid. The contract with James F. Joy of October 9, 1867, shall be relinquished and canceled by said Joy or his attorney. The said first contract, as hereinafter modified, and the assignment thereof, together with the relinquishment of the second contract, are hereby ratified and confirmed whenever such assignment and relinquishment shall be entered of record in the Department of the Interior, and when said Joy shall have accepted such assignment and entered into contract to perform all the obligations of the American Emigrant Company under said first contract as hereinafter modified. The modifications of said contract are declared to be: 1. Within ten days from the ratification of this treaty, $75,000 shall be paid to the Secretary of the Interior, as trustee for the Cherokee Nation. 2. The other deferred payments shall be paid when they fall due, with interest only from the ratification hereof. It is distinctly understood that said Joy shall take only the residue of said lands after securing to "actual settlers" the lands to which they are entitled under the amended seventeenth article of the treaty of July 19, 1866. The proceeds of the sales of such lands so occupied by settlers shall inure to the benefit of the Cherokee Nation. HISTORICAL DATA. UNITED STATES DESIRE TO REMOVE INDIANS FROM KANSAS TO INDIAN TERRITORY. It had for several years been the hope of the Government that so soon as the war was ended arrangements could be perfected whereby concessions of territory could be obtained from the principal Southern tribes. To territory thus acquired it was proposed, after obtaining their consent, to remove the several tribes possessing reservations in Kansas, or at least such of them as were not prepared or willing to dissolve their tribal relations and become citizens of the United States. The fertile and agreeable prairies of that State were being rapidly absorbed by an ever increasing stream of immigration, which gave promise as soon as the war should close and the armies be disbanded of an indefinite increase. The numerous Indian reservations dotting the face of the State in all directions afforded most desirable farming and grazing lands that would soon be needed for this rapidly multiplying white population. COUNCIL OF SOUTHERN TRIBES AT CAMP NAPOLEON. It was, therefore, with much gratification that the Secretary of the Interior learned during the month of June, 1865,[584] of the holding of a council at Camp Napoleon, Chattatomha, on the 24th of May preceding, which was attended by representatives of all the southern and southwestern tribes, as well as by the Osages. At this council delegates representing each tribe had been appointed to visit Washington, authorized to enter into treaty negotiations. Before these delegations were ready to start, however, it had been determined by the President to appoint special commissioners, who should proceed to the Indian country and meet them at Fort Smith. GENERAL COUNCIL AT FORT SMITH. This commission as constituted consisted of D. N. Cooley, Commissioner of Indian Affairs; Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian affairs; Thomas Wistar, a leading Quaker; General W. S. Harney, of the United States Army; and Col. E. S. Parker, of General Grant's staff.[585] Proceeding to Fort Smith, the council was convened on the 8th day of September, and was attended by delegates representing the Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Seminoles, Osages, Senecas, Shawnees, Quapaws, Wyandots, Wichitas, and Comanches. In opening the council the Indians were informed that the commissioners had been sent to ascertain their disposition and feeling toward the United States; that most of them had violated their treaty obligations to the Government and, by entering into diplomatic relations with the so-called Confederate States, had forfeited all right to the protection of the United States and subjected their property to the penalty of confiscation. They were assured, however, that the Government had no disposition to deal harshly with them. On the contrary, it was desirous of undertaking such measures as would conduce to their happiness, and was especially determined to grant handsome recognition to those of them whose loyalty had been so firmly and consistently manifested in the face of the most cruelly adverse conditions. The council continued in session for thirteen days. On the second day the Indians were informed that the commissioners were empowered to enter into treaties with the several tribes upon the basis of the following propositions: 1. That opposing factions of each tribe must enter into a treaty for permanent peace and amity among themselves: also between each other as tribes, and with the United States. 2. The tribes settled in the "Indian country" should bind themselves at the call of the United States authorities to assist in compelling the wild tribes of the plains to keep the peace. 3. Slavery should be abolished and measures should be taken to incorporate the slaves into the several tribes, with their rights guaranteed. 4. A general stipulation as to the final abolition of slavery. 5. A part of the Indian country should be set apart to be purchased for the use of such Indians from Kansas or elsewhere as the Government should desire to colonize therein. 6. That the policy of the Government to unite all the Indian tribes of this region into one consolidated government should be accepted. 7. That no white persons, except Government employés or officers or employés of internal improvement companies authorized by Government, should be permitted to reside in the country unless incorporated with the several nations. _Reasons for Cherokee disloyalty._--The subsequent sessions of the council were largely taken up in the discussion of these propositions by the representatives of the various tribes. It is only with the conduct of the Cherokees, however, that the present history is concerned. The address of the representatives of the "loyal" portion of this tribe is especially noteworthy in this, that they charged the cause of their alliance with the rebel authorities upon the United States, by reason of the latter having violated its treaty obligations in failing to give them protection, whereby they were _compelled_ to enter into treaty relations with the Confederacy. This statement the president of the commission took occasion to traverse, and to assure them of the existence of abundant evidence that their alliance with the Confederacy was voluntary and unnecessary. Before the close of the council it was ascertained that no final and definite treaties could be made with the tribes represented, for the reason that until the differences between the loyal and disloyal portions could be healed no truly representative delegations of both factions could be assembled in council. Preliminary articles of peace and amity with the different factions of each tribe were prepared and signed as a basis for future negotiations. _Factional hostility among the Cherokees._--The only tribe with whom the commissioners were unsuccessful in re-establishing friendly relations between these factions was the Cherokees.[586] The ancient feuds between the Ross and Ridge parties were still remembered. Many of the latter who had remained under Stand Watie in the service of the Confederacy until the close of the war were yet debarred from returning to their old homes, and were living in great destitution on the banks of the Red River.[587] When the Ross party had returned to their allegiance, in 1863, their national council had passed an act of confiscation[587] against the Watie faction, which had been enforced with the utmost rigor, so that some five or six thousand members of the tribe had been rendered houseless, homeless, and vagabonds upon the face of the earth. All prospect of securing a reconciliation between these parties was for the time being abandoned by the commissioners, and the proposition was seriously considered of securing a home for Watie and his followers among the Choctaws or Chickasaws.[588] _John Ross not recognized as principal chief._--On the day[589] on which the draft of the proposed preliminary treaty was presented to the council by the commissioners John Ross arrived in the camp of the Cherokees. It had already been determined by the commissioners among themselves that his record had been such as to preclude his recognition by them as principal chief of that nation, and it was believed that his influence was being used to prevent the loyal Cherokees from coming to any amicable arrangement with their Southern brethren. The chairman therefore read to the council[590] a paper signed by the several commissioners, reciting the machinations and deceptions of John Ross. It was alleged that he did not represent the will and wishes of the loyal Cherokees, and was not the choice of any considerable portion of the nation for the office claimed by him, an office which by the Cherokee law the commissioners believed he did not in fact hold. They therefore refused, as commissioners representing the interests of the United States, to recognize Ross in any manner as the chief of the Cherokee Nation. _Loyal Cherokees will sign treaty conditionally._--At the same sitting of the council, Colonel Reese, of the loyal Cherokee delegation, declared that they were willing to sign the proposed treaty, but in so doing would not acknowledge that they had forfeited their rights and privileges to annuities and lands as set forth in the preamble, but that their signatures must be made under the following statement, viz: "We, the loyal delegation, acknowledge the execution of the treaty of October 7, 1861, but we solemnly declare that the execution was procured by the coercion of the rebel army." _Southern Cherokees will sign treaty conditionally._--On the following day[591] the credentials of the Southern Cherokees were presented by E. C. Boudinot, accompanied by the statement that they cordially acceded to the 1st, 2d, 4th, 5th, and 7th propositions of the commissioners without qualification; that they accepted the abolition of slavery as an accomplished fact, and were willing to give such fact legal significance by appropriate acts of council. They insisted, however, that it would neither be for the benefit of the emancipated negro nor for that of the Indian to incorporate the former into the tribe on an equal footing with its original members. They were also opposed to the policy of consolidating all the tribes in the Indian Territory under one government, because of the many incongruous and irreconcilable elements which no power could bring into a semblance of assimilation.[592] _Southern Cherokees want a division of territory._--They had already proffered and were willing again to proffer the olive-branch of peace and reconciliation to their brethren of the so called loyal portion of the nation, but respectfully urged that after all the blood that had been shed and the intense bitterness that seemed to fill the bosoms of their brethren they ought not to be expected to live in an undivided country. They wished peace, and they believed they could have it in no other way than by an equitable division of the Cherokee country in such manner as should seem most appropriate to the United States. _Statement by John Ross._--The delegation of loyal Cherokees at the next session of the council[593] presented their exceptions to the action of the commissioners in declining to recognize John Ross and that gentleman was permitted to make a statement in his own behalf. The constantly accumulating evidence against him was such, however, as to more fully confirm the commissioners in the propriety of their previous action. On the 21st of September the council adjourned, to meet again at the call of the Secretary of the Interior. CONFERENCE AT WASHINGTON, D. C. Early in 1866, in accordance with the understanding had at the adjournment of the Fort Smith council, delegations representing both factions of the Cherokees proceeded to Washington for the purpose of concluding some definite articles of agreement with the United States. They were represented by eminent counsel in the persons of General Thomas Ewing for the loyal and Hon. D. W. Voorhees for the Southern element. Many joint interviews and discussions were held in the presence of Commissioners Cooley, Parker, and Sells, but without any hopeful results. The bitterness exhibited in these discussions upon both sides gave but little promise that enmities of more than twenty years' standing could be subordinated to the demands of a peaceful and harmonious government. The Southern element, which numbered about sixty-five hundred, constituted but a minority of the whole nation. These, with the exception of perhaps two hundred, were still living in banishment among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, and felt it would be unsafe to return to their old homes with the Ross party in full possession of the machinery of government and ready to apply with severest rigor the enginery of their confiscation law. Their representatives were therefore instructed to demand, as the only hope for their future peace and happiness, a division of the Cherokee lands and funds in proportion to their numbers between the two contending parties.[594] On the other hand, the representatives of the Ross or loyal party insisted that there was no good reason existing why the Southern element should be unable to dwell harmoniously with them in the same country and under the same laws, which they asserted always had been and always would be impartially and justly administered, so far as they were concerned. A just feeling of national pride would always forbid their consent to any scheme against the integrity and unity of the whole Cherokee Nation. But, while they were thus on principle compelled to antagonize the demand of the Southern faction, yet if that element felt the impossibility of living comfortably in the midst of their loyal brethren the latter were willing that the portion of their national domain known as the Canadian district should be devoted to their sole occupation and settlement for a period of two years or until the President of the United States should deem it inadvisable to longer continue such exclusiveness.[595] To this again the Southern Cherokees refused assent, because of the insufficient area of the Canadian district, and because they were unwilling to trust themselves under the jurisdiction of their enemies' laws and courts. _Factious conduct of both parties._--Each faction was desirous of making a treaty with the Government, and each was fearful lest the United States should recognize the other as the proper party with which to conclude that treaty. The United States officials were convinced that the Ross party represented the rightfully constituted authorities of the nation, and their delegates were thus the only really authorized persons with whom a treaty could with strict propriety be made. But they were also convinced that it would be highly improper to conclude any treaty which should leave the Southern Cherokees in any degree subject to the malice and revengeful disposition of their enemies. It was the desire of the United States to secure from the Cherokees a cession of sufficient land upon which to colonize the Indian tribes then resident in Kansas. The Southern party therefore agreed to cede for that purpose all of the Cherokee domain west of 96° west longitude, and to sell the "neutral land" for the sum of $500,000, provided the Government would treat with them. The loyal party, however, refused to cede any territory for purposes of colonization east of 97° west longitude, and demanded $1,000,000 for the "neutral land," at the same time assuming that the United States had no right or authority to entertain any proposition from any other source whatever involving the disposition of the domain or funds of the Cherokee Nation.[596] Interviews, consultations, and discussions followed each other in rapid succession, covering a period of several months, with no apparent approach toward a final agreement. _Treaty concluded with Southern Cherokees._--At length the United States commissioners despairing of success with the loyal element, concluded a treaty with the Southern party.[597] Among other things, this treaty provided that a quantity of land equal to 160 acres for every man, woman, and child, including the freedmen belonging to the Southern party, and also for each North Carolina Cherokee who should, within one year, remove and join them, should be set apart in that portion of their territory known as the Canadian district, for their sole use and occupancy. In case this district should afford an insufficient area of land, there should be added a further tract extending northward and lying between Grand River and the Creek boundary, and still further northward and westward between that river and the line of 95° 30' west longitude, or a line as far west if necessary as 96° west longitude, until the necessary complement of land, based upon a census of their people, should be secured. It was further agreed that the Southern Cherokees should have exclusive jurisdiction and control in the Canadian district, southwest of the Arkansas River, and of all that tract of country lying northeast of the Arkansas River and bounded on the east by Grand River, north by the line of 36° 30' north latitude, and west by 96° of west longitude and the Creek reservation. In consideration of these things, the Southern Cherokees ceded absolutely to the United States all other Cherokee lands owned by them, at such price as should be agreed upon by the respective parties, whenever the Northern or loyal Cherokees should agree with the United States to sell the same. The sale of the "neutral land" was provided for at a sum per acre to be fixed by the President, which should amount in the aggregate to not less than $500,000. In all future negotiations with the United States, as in the past, but one Cherokee Nation should be recognized, but each of the two parties or divisions should be represented by delegates in proportion to their respective numbers. All moneys due the nation should be divided between the parties in the same proportion, and whenever the state of feeling throughout the nation should become such as by their own desire to render a complete and harmonious reunion of the two factions practicable, the United States would consent to the accomplishment of such a measure. This treaty was duly signed, witnessed, and transmitted through the Secretary of the Interior to the President for submission to the Senate of the United States. The President retained it for more than a month, when, upon the conclusion of a treaty under date of July 19, 1866,[598] with the loyal Cherokees, he returned the former to the commissioners at the time he transmitted the latter instrument to the Senate for the advice and consent of that body to its ratification. _Treaty concluded with loyal Cherokees._--The treaty of July 19, though not filling the full measure of desire on the part of the United States, and though not thoroughly satisfactory in its terms to either of the discordant Cherokee elements, was the best compromise that could be effected under the circumstances, and was ratified and proclaimed August 11, 1866. It is unnecessary to recite its provisions here, as a full abstract of them has been given in the preceding pages. Nine days prior to its conclusion the Secretary of the Interior addressed a communication to Commissioner Cooley, who was president of the board of treaty commissioners, reminding him of their action the preceding fall at Fort Smith in suspending John Ross from his functions as principal chief, suggesting that the reasons rendering that action necessary at the time no longer existed, and giving his consent, in case the commissioners should feel so inclined, to the immediate recognition of Ross in that capacity. _Death of John Ross._--The old man was at this time unable, by reason of illness, to participate in the deliberations concerning the new treaty,[599] and within a few days thereafter he died. He was in many respects a remarkable man. Though of Scotch-Indian parentage he was the champion of the full-blood as against the mixed-blood members of the nation, and for nearly half a century had been a prominent figure in all the important affairs of the Cherokee Nation. Notwithstanding his many opportunities for immense gains he seems to have died a poor man and his family were left without the necessaries of life. His sixty slaves, and everything he possessed in the way of houses, stock, and other like property, were swept away during the war.[600] CESSION AND SALE OF CHEROKEE STRIP AND NEUTRAL LANDS. The seventeenth article of the treaty of July 19, 1866, ceded to the United States, in trust to be disposed of for the benefit of the Cherokees, both the tract known as the "neutral land," previously alluded to, and that known as the "Cherokee strip." The latter was a narrow strip, extending from the Neosho River west to the western limit of the Cherokee lands. The Cherokee domain, as described in the treaty of 1835, extended northward to the south line of the Osage lands. When the State of Kansas was admitted to the Union its south boundary was made coincident with the thirty-seventh degree of north latitude, which was found to run a short distance to the southward of the southern Osage boundary, thus leaving the narrow "strip" of Cherokee lands within the boundaries of that State. The proviso of the seventeenth article just mentioned required that the lands therein ceded should be surveyed, after the manner of surveying the public lands of the United States, and should be appraised by two commissioners, one of whom should be appointed by the United States and the other by the Cherokee Nation, such appraisement not to average less than $1.25 per acre. After such appraisement, the lands were to be sold under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior on sealed bids, in tracts of not exceeding 160 acres each, for cash, with the proviso that nothing should forbid the sale, if deemed for the best interests of the Indians, of the entire tract of "neutral land" (except the portion occupied by actual settlers) in one body to any responsible party for cash for a sum not less than $800,000. An exception was made as to the lands which were occupied by bona fide white settlers at the date of the signing of the treaty, who were allowed the privilege of purchasing at the appraised value, exclusive of their improvements, in quantities of not exceeding 160 acres each, to include such improvements. The language of this seventeenth article being somewhat obscure and subject to different interpretations as to the actual intent concerning the method of disposing of the "Cherokee strip," no action was taken toward its survey and sale until the year 1872, when by an act of Congress[601] provision was made for the appraisal of that portion of it lying east of Arkansas River at not less than $2 per acre, and the portion west of that river at not less than $1.50 per acre. Further provision was also made, by the same act, for its disposal on certain conditions to actual settlers, and any portion not being rendered amenable to these conditions was to be sold on sealed bids at not less than the minimum price fixed by the act. A considerable quantity of the most fertile portion of the tract was thus disposed of to actual settlers, though, as an encouragement to the sale, Congress was induced to pass an act[602] extending the limit of payment required of settlers to January 1, 1875. The price fixed by the act of 1872 being so high as to render the remainder of the land unattractive to settlers, a subsequent act of Congress[603] directed that all unsold portions of the said tract should be offered through the General Land Office to settlers at $1.25 per acre, for the period of one year, and that all land remaining unsold at the expiration of that period should be sold for cash at not less than $1 per acre. This act was conditional upon the approval of the Cherokee national council, which assent was promptly given, and the lands were disposed of under its provisions. Shortly after the ratification of the treaty of 1866 steps were taken toward a disposition of the "neutral lands." Under date of August 30 of that year Hon. James Harlan, Secretary of the Interior, entered into a contract with a corporation known as the American Emigrant Company, whereby that company became the purchaser, subject to the limitations and restrictions set forth in the seventeenth article of the treaty, of the whole tract of neutral land at the price of $1 per acre, payable in installments, running through a period of several years. This contract was subsequently declared invalid[604] by Hon. O. H. Browning, the successor of Secretary Harlan, on the score that the proviso "for cash," contained in the treaty of 1866, in the common business acceptation of the term, meant a payment of the purchase price in full by the purchaser at the time of the sale, and was intended to forbid any sale on deferred payments. In the following spring[605] an agreement was entered into between the Cherokee authorities and the Atlantic and Pacific Railway Company, which involved a modification of the seventeenth article of the treaty of 1866, and engaged to sell the "neutral lands" to that company on credit. This agreement was submitted by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs to the Secretary of the Interior for transmission through the President to the Senate for ratification as an amended article to the treaty of July 19, 1866, but did not meet with favorable action. Subsequently[606] the Secretary of the Interior entered into an agreement with James F. Joy, of Detroit, Mich., whereby the latter became the purchaser of all that portion of the "neutral land" not subject to the rights of actual settlers, at the price of $1 per acre in cash. Difficulties having arisen by reason of the conflicting claims of the different would-be purchasers, it was finally deemed judicious to obviate them by concluding a supplemental article to the treaty of 1866. This was accordingly done, at Washington, on the 27th of April, 1868, and the same was ratified and proclaimed on the 10th of June following.[607] This supplemental treaty provided for the assignment by the American Emigrant Company to James F. Joy of its contract of August 30, 1866. It was further stipulated that that contract, in a modified form, should be reaffirmed and declared valid, and that the contract entered into with James F. Joy on the 9th of October, 1867, should be relinquished and canceled. Furthermore, it was agreed that the first contract, as modified, and the assignment to Joy, together with the relinquishment of the second contract, should be considered ratified and confirmed whenever such assignment and relinquishment should be entered of record in the Department of the Interior and when James F. Joy should have accepted such assignment and entered into a contract with the Secretary of the Interior to assume and perform all the obligations of the American Emigrant Company under the first mentioned contract as modified. The assignment of their contract with Secretary Harlan by the American Emigrant Company to James F. Joy was made on the 6th of June, 1868. The contract of October 9, 1867, between Secretary Browning and James F. Joy was relinquished by the latter June 8, 1868, and on the same day a new contract was entered into with Joy accepting the assignment of the American Emigrant Company and undertaking to assume and perform all the obligations of the original contractor thereunder, subject to the modifications prescribed in the supplemental treaty of April 27, 1868.[608] The requirement of the treaty of 1866 as to the appraisal of the neutral lands was carried into effect by the appointment of John T. Cox, on behalf of the United States, and of William A. Phillips, on behalf of the Cherokees, as commissioners of appraisal. From their report as corrected it is ascertained that the quantity awarded to settlers was 154,395.12[609] acres; quantity purchased by Joy under his contract, 640,199.69 acres. A portion of the lands awarded to settlers, but upon which default was made in payment, and amounting to 3,231.21[610] acres, was advertised and sold on sealed bids to the highest bidders.[611] A small portion[612] of the tract was also absorbed by the claims of Cherokees who were settled thereon. The entire area of the neutral lands, as shown by the plats of survey, was 799,614.72 acres. APPRAISAL OF CONFISCATED PROPERTY--CENSUS. In pursuance of the third article of the treaty of 1866, and in accordance with the terms of an act of Congress approved July 27, 1868,[613] H. R. Kretschmar, on behalf of the United States, and ---- Stephens, on behalf of the Cherokee Nation, were appointed, in the summer of 1868,[614] commissioners to appraise the cost of property and improvements on farms confiscated and sold by the Cherokee Nation from acts growing out of the Southern rebellion. J. J. Humphreys had been appointed May 21 of the preceding year to perform the same duties, but had not fulfilled the object of his instructions. The commission reported[615] the value of the improvements of the character referred to as $4,657. Mr. H. Tompkins was designated in the summer of 1867[616] to take the census of Cherokees in the Indian Territory contemplated by the twelfth article of the treaty of 1866. From his returns it appears that the nation then numbered 13,566 souls. NEW TREATY CONCLUDED BUT NEVER RATIFIED. During the two years following the conclusion of the treaty of 1866 peace and quietude prevailed among the Cherokees. They were blessed with abundant crops and the bitter animosities of the past years became greatly softened, insomuch that the Secretary of the Interior, in the spring of 1868,[617] under the authority of the President, directed that negotiations be opened with them for a new treaty in compliance with their request.[618] Articles of agreement were accordingly entered into on the 9th of July, 1868,[619] between N. G. Taylor, commissioner on behalf of the United States, and the principal chiefs and delegates representing the Cherokee Nation. The reasons rendering this treaty both desirable and necessary are thus set forth in the preamble, viz: Whereas the feuds and dissensions which for many years divided the Cherokees and retarded their progress and civilization have ceased to exist, and there remains no longer any cause for maintaining the political divisions and distinctions contemplated by the treaty of 19th July, 1866; and whereas the whole Cherokee people are now united in peace and friendship, and are earnestly desirous of preserving and perpetuating the harmony and unity prevailing among them; and whereas many of the provisions of said treaty of July 19, 1866, are so obscure and ambiguous as to render their true intent and meaning on important points difficult to define and impossible to execute and may become a fruitful source of conflict not only amongst the Cherokees themselves but between the authorities of the United States and the Cherokee Nation and citizens; and whereas important interests remain unsettled between the Government of the United States and the Cherokee Nation and its citizens, which in justice to all concerned ought to be speedily adjusted: Therefore, with a view to the preservation of that harmony which now so happily subsists among the Cherokees, and to the adjustment of all unsettled business growing out of treaty stipulations between the Cherokee Nation and the Government of the United States, it is mutually agreed by the parties to this treaty as follows, etc. Among the more important objects sought to be accomplished, and for which provision was made in the treaty, were: 1. The abolition of all party distinctions among the Cherokees and the abrogation of all laws or treaty provisions tending to preserve such distinctions. 2. The boundaries of the Cherokee country are defined in detail and as extending as far west as the northeast corner of New Mexico. 3. The United States reaffirm all obligations to the Cherokees arising out of treaty stipulations or legislative acts of the Government. 4. The United States having by article 2 of the treaty with the Comanches and Kiowas of October 18, 1865, set apart for their use and occupation and that of other friendly tribes that portion of the Cherokee domain lying west of 98° W. longitude and south of 37° N. latitude; and having further, by article 16 of Cherokee treaty of July 19, 1866, set apart in effect for the like purpose of settling friendly Indians thereon all the remaining Cherokee domain west of 96° W. longitude, agree to pay to the Cherokees therefor, including the tract known as the "Cherokee strip," in the State of Kansas, and estimated to contain in the aggregate the quantity of 13,768,000 acres, the sum of $3,500,000. This agreement was accompanied with the proviso that the Cherokees should further relinquish to the United States all right and interest in and to that portion of the Cherokee "outlet" embraced within the Pan Handle of Texas, containing about 3,000,000 acres, as well as that portion within New Mexico and Colorado, excepting and reserving, however, all salines west of 99° to the Cherokees. 5. The United States agree to refund to the Cherokees the sum of $500,000 paid by the latter for the tract of "neutral land," under the treaty of 1835, together with 5 per cent. interest from the date of that treaty, and to apply for the use and benefit of the former all moneys accruing from the sale of that tract. 6. The United States agree to ascertain the number of acres of land reserved and owned by the Cherokee Nation in the State of Arkansas, and in States east of the Mississippi River, and to pay to the Cherokees the appraised value thereof. 7. The United States agree to pay all arrears of Cherokee annuities accruing during the war and remaining unpaid. 8. Citizens of the United States having become citizens of the Cherokee Nation, shall not be held to answer before any court of the United States any further than if they were native-born Cherokees. All Cherokees shall be held to answer for any offense committed among themselves within the Cherokee Nation only to the courts of that nation, and for any offense committed without the limits of the nation shall be answerable only in the courts of the United States. 9. The post and reservation of Fort Gibson having been reoccupied by the United States, it is agreed that all Cherokees who purchased lots at the former sale of the military reserve by the Cherokee authorities, after its abandonment by the United States, shall be reimbursed for all losses occasioned by such military reoccupation. 10. The United States shall continue to appoint a superintendent of Indian affairs for the Indian Territory and an agent for the Cherokees. 11. A commission of three persons (two citizens of the United States and one Cherokee) shall be appointed to pass upon and adjudicate all claims of the Cherokee Nation, or its citizens, against the United States, or any of the several States. 12. The powers of the agent provided for by the twenty-second article of the treaty of 1866 to examine the accounts of the Cherokee Nation with the United States are enlarged to include the accounts of individual Cherokees with the United States. 13. All claims against the United States for Cherokee losses through the action of the military authorities of the United States, or from the neglect of the latter to afford the protection to the Cherokees guaranteed by treaty stipulation, are to be examined and reported on by the commission appointed under the eleventh article of this treaty. 14. Full faith and credit shall be given by the United States to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of the Cherokee Nation when properly authenticated. 15. Cherokees east of the Mississippi River, who remove within three years to the Cherokee Nation, shall be entitled to all the privileges of citizens thereof. After that date they can only be admitted to citizenship by act of the Cherokee national council. 16. Every Cherokee shall have the free right to sell, ship, or drive to market any of his produce, wares, or live stock without taxation by the United States, or any State, and no license to trade in the Cherokee Nation shall be granted unless approved by the Cherokee council. 17. Fifty thousand dollars shall be allowed for the expenses of the Cherokee delegation in negotiating this treaty, one half to be paid out of their national fund. 18. Executors and administrators of the owners of confiscated property shall have the right, under the third article of the treaty of 1866, to take possession of such property. 19. Twenty-four thousand dollars shall be paid by the Cherokee Nation to the heir of Bluford West, as the value of a saline and improvements of which he was dispossessed. 20. Abrogation is declared of so much of article 7, treaty of 1866, as vests in United States courts jurisdiction of causes arising between citizens of the Cherokee Nation, and transfers such jurisdiction to the Cherokee courts. 21. Provision of the treaty of 1866 relative to freedmen is reaffirmed; the United States guarantee the Cherokees in the possession of their lands and protection from domestic strife, hostile invasions, and aggressions by other Indian tribes or lawless whites. BOUNDARIES OF THE CHEROKEE DOMAIN. During the proceedings incident to the negotiation of this treaty the question arose as to what constituted the proper western limit of the Cherokee country. The Cherokees themselves claimed that their territory extended at least as far west as 103° west longitude, being the northeast corner of New Mexico. Their claim was based in part upon the second article of the treaty of 1828,[620] the first article of the treaty of 1833,[621] the second article of the treaty of 1835,[622] and the first article of the treaty of 1846.[623] The treaty of 1828 guaranteed to the Cherokees seven millions of acres of land, and then declared in the following words: "In addition to the seven millions of acres thus provided for, and bounded, the United States further guarantee to the Cherokee Nation a perpetual outlet west, and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of the above described limits, and as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend." This guarantee was reaffirmed in similar language by the treaties of 1833 and 1835, and the guaranty contained in the treaty of 1835 was reaffirmed by the treaty of 1846. The question, therefore, to be determined was what constituted the extreme western limit of the sovereignty of the United States in that vicinity. The colony or province of Louisiana had originally belonged to France. In 1762 it was transferred to Spain, but was by Spain retroceded to France by the treaty of 1800. In 1803 the Emperor Napoleon, fearing a war with England and the consequent occupation of the territory by that power, ceded it to the United States, but the boundaries of the cession were very indefinite and, according to Chief Justice Marshall, were couched in terms of "studied ambiguity." It seems to have been consistently claimed by the United States up to the treaty of 1819 with Spain that the western boundary of the Louisiana purchase extended to the Rio Grande River. The better opinion seemed also to be that it followed up the Rio Grande from the mouth to the mouth of the Pecos, and thence north. By that treaty, however, all dispute concerning boundaries was adjusted and the undefined boundary between Louisiana and Mexico was settled as following up the course of the Sabine River to the Red River; thence by the course of that river to the one hundredth meridian, thence north to the Arkansas River and following the course of that river to the forty-second parallel, and thence west to the Pacific Ocean. By many the position was taken that this treaty was a _nudum pactum_, and Henry Clay, when it was under consideration in the Senate, introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives declaring that Texas, being a part of the territory of the United States, could not be ceded by the treaty making power to a foreign country, and that the act was not only unauthorized by the Constitution but was void for another reason, viz, that this cession to Spain was in direct conflict with clear and positive stipulations made by us in the treaty with France as to the disposition of the whole territory. Under this theory of the invalidity of the treaty of 1819 the Cherokees claimed the extension of their boundary west of the one hundredth meridian. But, assuming the insufficiency of this claim, they still fortified their title upon another proposition. Mexico succeeded, by the consummation of her independence, to all the territorial rights of Spain in this region. Texas in turn achieved her independence of Mexico in 1836. In March, 1845, Texas became one of the United States, and thus, according to the Cherokee assumption, "the United States again came into possession of that portion of the outlet west of 100°, if indeed it had ever been a part of the territory claimed by Mexico and which by Texan independence she was forced to relinquish. The United States, more than a year after she had come into possession of the country now claimed by the Cherokees, reaffirmed the grant to them, that is to say, by the treaty of August 17, 1846." The "portion of the outlet west of 100°" here alluded to is the strip of country lying between Kansas and Texas from north to south and between the 100° and New Mexico from east to west. By act of Congress of September 9, 1850,[624] the east boundary of New Mexico was fixed at 103° west longitude and the north boundary of Texas at 36° 30' north latitude, and by act of May 30, 1854,[625] the south boundary of Kansas was established at 37° north latitude, thus leaving this strip of country outside the limits of any organized State or Territory, and so it still remains. This claim of the Cherokees was admitted by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at the time of the conclusion of the treaty of July 9, 1868, to be a valid one, and was inserted in the boundaries defined by that treaty. The treaty, however, failed of ratification, and it was afterwards determined by the executive authorities of the United States that at the date of the treaty of 1835 with the Cherokees the sovereignty of the United States extended only to the one hundredth meridian, and that the reaffirmation of the treaty guarantee of 1835 by subsequent treaties was not intended to enlarge the area of their territory, but simply as an assurance that the United States were fully conscious of their obligation to maintain the integrity of such guarantee. Consequently the Cherokee outlet was limited in its western protraction to that meridian. DELAWARES, MUNSEES, AND SHAWNEES JOIN THE CHEROKEES. By the fifteenth article of the treaty of 1866 provision was made that, upon certain conditions, the United States should have the right to settle civilized Indians upon any unoccupied Cherokee territory east of 96° west longitude. The material conditions limiting this right were that terms of settlement should be agreed upon between the Cherokees and the Indians so desiring to settle, subject to the approval of the President of the United States; also that, in case the immigrants desired to abandon their tribal relations and become citizens of the Cherokee Nation, they should first pay into the Cherokee national fund a sum of money which should sustain the same proportion to that fund that the number of immigrant Indians should sustain to the whole Cherokee population. If, on the other hand, the immigrants should decide to preserve their tribal relations, laws, customs, and usages not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation, a tract of land was to be set apart for them by metes and bounds which should contain, if they so desired, a quantity equal to 160 acres for each soul. For this land they were to pay into the Cherokee national fund a sum to be agreed upon between themselves and the Cherokees, subject to the approval of the President, and also a sum bearing a ratio to the Cherokee national fund not greater than their numbers bore to the Cherokees. It was also stipulated that, if the Cherokees should refuse their assent to the location of any civilized tribe (in a tribal capacity) east of 96°, the President of the United States might, after a full hearing of the case, overrule their objections and permit the settlement to be made. The Delawares were the first tribe to avail themselves of the benefits of the foregoing treaty provisions. Terms of agreement were entered into between them and the Cherokees, which were ratified by the President on the 11th of April, 1867. Under the conditions of this instrument the Delawares selected a tract of land equal to 160 acres for each member of their tribe who should remove to the Cherokee country. For this tract they agreed to and did pay one dollar per acre. They also paid their required proportional sum into the Cherokee national fund. The number of Delawares who elected to remove under this agreement was 985. The sums they were required to pay were: for land, $157,600; and as their proportion of the national fund, $121,834.65, the latter amount having been calculated on the basis of an existing Cherokee national fund of $1,678,000 and a population of 13,566.[626] For a time after their removal the Delawares were much dissatisfied with what they characterized as the unequal operation of the Cherokee laws, and because much of the tract of land to which they were assigned was of an inferior character. At one time some two hundred of them left the Cherokee country, but after an absence of two years returned, since which a feeling of better contentment has prevailed. Following the Delawares, the Munsee or Christian Indians, a small fragmentary band who under the treaty of July 16, 1859, had become confederated with the Chippewas of Saginaw, Swan Creek, and Black River, residing in Kansas, perfected arrangements for their removal and assimilation with the Cherokees. An agreement was entered into[627] at Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, having this end in view, and which was duly filed with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.[628] The condition of this agreement was that, after the complete dissolution of their relations with the Chippewas, the Munsees should pay into the Cherokee national fund all moneys that should be found due them in pursuance of such separation. In the spring of 1868 an effort was made by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, under the authority of this same article of the treaty of 1866, to secure a tract of 900,000 acres for the location of the Navajoes. This tract, it was desired, should be so far east of 96° that sufficient room should be left between the Navajoes and that meridian to admit of the accommodation of a settlement of Cherokees thereon. This proposition, however, the Cherokees refused to entertain, asserting that the Navajoes were not civilized Indians within the meaning of the treaty of 1866.[629] The next Indians to avail themselves of the privileges of Cherokee citizenship were the Shawnees. By the treaty of 1825[630] a reserve had been granted them covering an area in the richest portion of what is now the State of Kansas 50 by 120 miles in extent. By a subsequent treaty in 1854,[631] they ceded, in deference to the demands of encroaching civilization, all of this immense tract except 200,000 acres. Among those who so elected, the greater portion of this diminished reserve was divided into individual allotments of 200 acres each. Patents were issued to the head of each family for the quantity thus allotted to the members of his or her family, with the power of alienation, subject to such restrictions as the Secretary of the Interior might prescribe. In course of time alienation was made by these allottees of the greater portion of their land; the money thus received was squandered with the thriftless prodigality that characterizes barbarous or semi-civilized tribes the world over, and their impoverished condition was rendered still more uncomfortable by the seeming determination of the rapidly increasing white settlers to take possession of their few remaining lands. In this unfortunate condition of affairs they turned their eyes for relief toward the country of the Cherokees. Negotiations were entered into which resulted in the conclusion of an agreement, under date of June 7, 1869, and which received the approval of President Grant two days later. By the terms of this compact, the Shawnees then residing in Kansas, as well as their absentee brethren in the Indian Territory and elsewhere, who should enroll themselves and permanently remove within two years to the Cherokee country, upon unoccupied lands east of 96°, should be incorporated into, and ever after remain a part of the Cherokee Nation, with the same standing in every respect as native Cherokees. In consideration of these benefits the Shawnees agreed to transfer to the Cherokee national fund a permanent annuity of $5,000 held by them under previous treaties, in addition to the sum of $50,000 to be derived from the sale of the absentee Shawnee lands provided for by the resolution of Congress approved April 7, 1869.[632] Under the provisions of this agreement, seven hundred and seventy Shawnees removed to and settled in the Cherokee country, as shown by the census roll filed[633] with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. FRIENDLY TRIBES TO BE LOCATED ON CHEROKEE LANDS WEST OF 96°. In addition to the provision contained in the treaty of 1866 concerning the location of _civilized_ Indians east of 96°, the sixteenth article of that treaty made further provision enabling the United States to locate _friendly_ tribes on Cherokee lands west of that meridian. The conditions of this concession were that any tracts selected for such location should be in compact form and in quantity not exceeding 160 acres for each member of the tribe so located, and that the boundaries of the tracts should be surveyed and marked and should be conveyed in fee simple to the tribes respectively located thereon. It was further stipulated that the price to be paid for the lands so set apart should be such as might be agreed upon between the Cherokees and the immigrant tribes, subject to the approval of the President of the United States, who, in case of a disagreement between the parties in interest, was authorized to fix the value. _Osages._--The treaty of September 29, 1865,[634] with the Osages, having in view the possibility of some early arrangement whereby the Kansas tribes might be removed to Indian Territory, made provision that in case such a removal of the Osages should take place their remaining lands in Kansas should be disposed of and 50 per cent. of the proceeds might be applied to the purchase of their new home. Nothing was done in the line of carrying out this idea until the spring of 1868, when, in reply[635] to a communication from the Commissioner of Indian Affairs on the subject, the Cherokee delegation asserted the willingness of their nation to dispose of a tract for the future home of the Osages not exceeding 600,000 acres in extent and lying west of 96°, provided a reasonable price could be agreed upon for the same. A few weeks later[636] a treaty was concluded between the United States and the Osages, which made provision for setting apart a tract for their occupation in the district of country in question, but the treaty failed of ratification. The necessity for their removal from Kansas, however, increased in correspondence with the demands of advancing settlements, and Congress, by an act approved July 15, 1870,[637] provided that, whenever the Osages should give their assent, a tract should be set apart for their permanent occupancy in the Indian Territory equal in extent to 160 acres for each member of the tribe who should remove there. For this tract they were to pay a price not exceeding that paid by the United States, the cost to be defrayed out of the proceeds arising from the sale of their Kansas lands. The assent of the Osages to the provisions of this act was promptly secured through the medium of a commission consisting of J. V. Farwell, J. D. Lang, and Vincent Colyer, of the President's Board of Indian Commissioners. A tract was selected in the Cherokee country immediately west of 96°, as was supposed, and the Osages were removed to it. Their condition was for a time, however, most unsatisfactory. Many trespassers were found to be upon the lands selected for them. To crown this trouble, a new survey located the line of the 96th meridian a considerable distance to the west of what had previously been presumed its proper location. This survey deprived the Osages of the greater part of the tillable land upon which they had settled and included the most valuable of their improvements. To a proposition allowing the Osages to retain the lands thus found to be east of 96°, the Cherokees returned an emphatic refusal, on the ground that the former were not "civilized Indians."[638] Another subject of annoyance was the inability of the Osages and Cherokees to agree upon a price for the lands selected by the former. The matter was therefore laid before the President, who, by executive order,[639] fixed the price to be paid at 50 cents per acre. To this action the Cherokees strenuously objected, urging that not only was the price too low, but that a uniform valuation ought to be fixed for all the Cherokee lands west of 96°.[640] To remedy the evils arising from these complications, legislation was asked of Congress approving a new selection for the Osages, and, by act approved June 5, 1872,[641] such selection was affirmed (the previous consent of the Cherokees having been obtained),[642] to include the tract of country "bounded on the east by the 96th meridian, on the south and west by the north line of the Creek country and the main channel of the Arkansas River, and on the north by the south line of the State of Kansas." _Kansas or Kaws._--This act contained a proviso that the Osages should permit the settlement within the limits of this tract of the Kansas or Kaw tribe of Indians, and a reservation was accordingly set off for them in the northwest corner, bounded on the west by the Arkansas River. The area of the country thus assigned to the Kaws was 100,137 acres, and of that portion intended for the occupation of the Osages 1,470,059 acres.[643] The question of the future location of these Indians having been definitely settled, it only remained for an agreement to be reached concerning the price to be paid to the Cherokees for the tract so purchased. The value fixed by the President on the tract originally selected was considered as having no application to the lands set apart by the act of 1872. As in the first instance no agreement was reached between the Osages and Cherokees, and the President was again called on to establish the price. This he did, after much discussion of the subject, on the 14th of February, 1873. The price fixed was 70 cents per acre, and applied to the "Kaw reserve" as well as to that of the Osages. _Pawnees._--In further pursuance of the privilege accorded by the treaty of 1866, the Pawnee tribe has also been located on Cherokee lands west of 96°. The Pawnees are natives of Nebraska, and possessed as the remnant of their original domain a reservation on the Platte River, in that State. Their principal reliance as a food supply had been the buffalo, though to a very limited extent they cultivated corn and vegetables. For two years prior to 1874, however, their efforts in the chase were almost wholly unrewarded, and during the summer of that year their small crops were entirely destroyed by the ravages of the grasshoppers. The winter and spring of 1874-'75 found them, to the number of about three thousand, in a starving condition. In this dilemma they held a council and voted to remove to Indian Territory, asking permission at the same time to send the male portion of the tribe in advance to select a home and to break the necessary ground for planting crops. They also voted a request that the United States should proceed to sell their reserve in Nebraska, and thus secure funds for their proper establishment in the Indian Territory. Permission was granted them in accordance with their request, and legislation was asked of Congress to enable the desired arrangement to be carried into effect. Congress failed to take any action in relation to the subject during the session ending March 3, 1875. It therefore became necessary to feed the Pawnees during the ensuing season.[644] The following year, by an act approved April 10,[645] Congress provided for the sale of the Pawnee lands in Nebraska, as a means of securing funds for their relief and establishment in their new home, the boundaries of which are therein described. It consists of a tract of country in the forks of the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers comprising an area of 283,020 acres. Of this tract, 230,014 acres were originally a portion of the Cherokee domain west of 96° and were paid for at the rate of 70 cents per acre. The remainder was ceded to the United States by the Creek treaty of 1866. _Appraisal of the lands west of 96°._--By the 5th section of the Indian appropriation act of May 29, 1872,[646] the President of the United States was authorized to cause an appraisement to be made of that portion of the Cherokee lands lying west of 96° west longitude and west of the Osage lands, or, in other words, all of the Cherokee lands lying west of the Arkansas River and south of Kansas mentioned in the 16th article of the Cherokee treaty of July 19, 1866. No appropriation, however, was made to defray the expense of such an appraisal, and in consequence no steps were taken toward a compliance with the terms of the act. This legislation was had in deference to the long continued complaints of the Cherokees that the United States had, without their consent, appropriated to the use of other tribes a large portion of these lands, for which they (the Cherokees) had received no compensation. The history of these alleged unlawful appropriations of the Cherokee domain may be thus briefly summarized: 1. By treaty of October 18, 1865,[647] with the Kiowas and Comanches, the United States set apart for their use and occupancy an immense tract of country, which in part included all of the Cherokee country west of the Cimarron River. No practical effect, however, was given to the treaty, because the United States had not at this time acquired any legal right to settle other tribes on the lands of the Cherokees and because of the fact that two years later[648] a new reservation was by treaty provided for the Kiowas and Comanches, no portion of which was within the Cherokee limits. 2. By the treaty of October 28, 1867,[649] with the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes the United States undertook to set apart as a reservation for their benefit all the country between the State of Kansas and the Arkansas and Cimarron Rivers. The bulk of this tract was within Cherokee limits west of 96°. As a matter of fact, however, the Cheyennes and Arapahoes could not be prevailed upon to take possession of this tract, and were finally, by Executive order,[650] located on territory to the southwest and entirely outside the Cherokee limits. Pursuant to the act of May 29, 1872,[651] the Commissioner of Indian Affairs negotiated an agreement with the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes in the following autumn[652] by which they ceded to the United States all interest in the country set apart by the treaty of 1867, and accepted in lieu thereof a reserve which included within its limits a portion of the Cherokee domain lying between the Cimarron River and the North Fork of the Canadian. This agreement with the Southern Cheyennes and Arapahoes not having been ratified by Congress, an agreement was concluded late in the following year[653] by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs with both the Cheyennes and the Arapahoes, whereby they jointly ceded the tract assigned them by the treaty of 1867, as well as all other lands to which they had any claim in Indian Territory, in consideration of which the United States agreed to set apart other lands in that Territory for their future home. Like its predecessor, this agreement also failed of ratification by Congress, and the Indians affected by it still occupy the tract set apart by Executive order of 1869. In the light of these facts it appears that although the United States made several attempts, without the knowledge or concurrence of the Cherokees, to appropriate portions of the latter's domain to the use of other tribes, yet as a matter of fact these tribes never availed or attempted to avail themselves of the benefits thus sought to be secured to them, and the Cherokees were not deprived at any time of an opportunity to sell any portion of their surplus domain for the location of other friendly tribes. By a clause contained in the sundry civil appropriation act of July 31, 1876,[654] provision was made for defraying the expenses of the commission of appraisal contemplated by the act of 1872, and the Secretary of the Interior appointed[655] such a commission, consisting of Thomas V. Kennard, Enoch H. Topping, and Thomas E. Smith. Before the completion of the duties assigned them, Mr. Kennard resigned and William N. Wilkerson was appointed[656] to succeed him. The commission convened at Lawrence, Kansas, and proceeded thence to the Cherokee country, where they began the work of examination and appraisal. Their final report was submitted to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs under date of December 12, 1877. From this report it appears that the commissioners in fixing their valuations adopted as the standard of their appraisal one-half the actual value of the lands, on the theory that being for Indian occupancy and settlement only they were worth only about half as much as they would have been if open to entry and settlement by the white people. The entire tract, including the Pawnee reserve, contains 6,574,576.05 acres, and was appraised at an average valuation of 41-1/4 cents per acre. The average valuation placed upon the Pawnee reserve separately was 59 cents per acre, leaving the average of the remaining 6,344,562.01 acres 40.47 cents per acre. To this standard of appraisal the Cherokees strenuously objected as being most unfair and unjust to them, claiming that the same measure of value used by the United States in rating its lands of a similar character in the adjoining State of Kansas, and from which they were separated only by an imaginary line, should prevail in determining the price to be paid for the Cherokee lands. The Secretary of the Interior, after a careful examination of the whole subject, was of the opinion[657] that the restriction placed upon the use of these lands (being limited to Indian occupancy only) did not warrant a reduction of 50 per cent. in an appraisal of their value. The price paid by the Osages for their reserve was 70 cents per acre. The Pawnee tract was of about the same general character as that of the Osages, and there seemed to be no good reason why the same price should not be allowed to the Cherokees therefor. This Pawnee tract was appraised by the commissioners at 59 cents per acre. As the appraisal of the whole unoccupied country west of 96° was made by the same appraisers and upon the same basis, if an increase was determined upon in the case of the Pawnee tract from 59 to 70 cents per acre, it was only just that a proportionate increase above the appraised value of the remainder of the lands should also be allowed. This would give an increase for the latter from 40.47 cents to 47.49 per acre. The adoption of this standard was therefore recommended to the President and was by him approved and ratified.[658] In addition to the Osages, Kansas, and Pawnees there have been removed to the Cherokee lands west of 96° the Poncas, a portion of the Nez Percés, and the Otoes and Missourias. _Poncas._--An appropriation of $25,000 was made by act of Congress approved August 15, 1876,[659] for the removal of the Poncas, whenever their assent should be obtained. After much trouble and a threatened resort to military force, their assent to remove to the Indian Territory was secured in the beginning of 1877.[660] They came overland from Nebraska in two different parties and encountered great hardships, but finally reached the Territory, where they were temporarily located on the northeast portion of the Quapaw reserve, a few miles from Baxter Springs, Kansas.[661] They were not satisfied with the location, which was in many respects unsuitable, especially in view of its proximity to the white settlements. They were, therefore, permitted to make another selection, which they did in the Cherokee country, on the west bank of the Arkansas, including both banks of the Salt Fork at its junction with the parent stream. To this new home they removed in 1878,[662] but it was not until 1881[663] that Congress made an appropriation out of which to pay the Cherokees for the land so occupied. This tract embraces 101,894.31 acres, for which the price of 47.49 cents per acre, fixed by the President, was paid. _Nez Percés._--The Nez Percés, previously alluded to, are the remnant of Chief Joseph's band, who surrendered to General Miles in 1877. They were at first removed from the place of their surrender to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where they arrived in November of that year as prisoners of war, to the number of 431. Congress having made provision[664] for their settlement in the Indian Territory, a reservation was selected for them on both sides of the Salt Fork of the Arkansas. To this tract, which adjoined the Poncas on the west, they removed in the summer of 1879,[665] having in the mean time lost a large number by death, the mortality being occasioned in great measure by their unsanitary location while at Fort Leavenworth. The reserve selected for them contains 90,735 acres and was paid for at the same price as that of the Poncas. _Otoes and Missourias._--By act of March 3, 1881,[663] provision was also made for the removal of the Otoes and Missourias to the Indian Territory and for the sale of their lands in Nebraska. A reservation was accordingly selected for them, west of the Arkansas River and south of the Ponca Reserve, to which they were removed in the autumn of the same year[666]. It contains 129,113.20 acres and was paid for at the same rate as that of the Poncas and Nez Percés.[667] EAST AND NORTH BOUNDARIES OF CHEROKEE COUNTRY. For many years there had been much doubt and dispute concerning the correctness of the boundary line between the Cherokee Nation and the adjacent States. Especially had this been the cause of much controversy with the citizens of Arkansas. In the interest of a final adjustment of the matter, it was stipulated in the twenty-first article of the Cherokee treaty of July 19, 1866, that the United States should, at its own expense, cause such boundary to be resurveyed between the Cherokee Nation and the States of Arkansas, Missouri, and of Kansas as far west as the Arkansas River, and the same should be marked by permanent and conspicuous monuments by two commissioners, one of whom should be designated by the Cherokee national council. Nothing definite was done in pursuance of this provision until the year 1871, when W. D. Gallagher was[668] appointed a commissioner on behalf of the United States to co-operate with the commissioner on the part of the Cherokees. Mr. Gallagher declined and R. G. Corwin was substituted in his stead[669], but he having also refused to serve, the place was finally filled by the appointment[670] of James M. Ashley. The Cherokee national council on their part selected John Lynch Adair. The commission advertised for proposals for the surveying, and, as a result, entered into contract with D. P. Mitchell, who completed the survey to the satisfaction of the commissioners.[671] The new line from Fort Smith, Ark., to the southwest corner of Missouri ran north 7° 50' west, 77 miles 39.08 chains; thence to the southeast corner of the Seneca lands it ran north 0° 02' west, 8 miles 53.68 chains. The north boundary between the nation and the State of Kansas, extending from the Neosho to the Arkansas River, was protracted due west on the 37° of north latitude and was found to be 105 miles 60 chains and 75 links in length. The report of the commissioners was approved by the Secretary of the Interior, and although some distress for the time being was occasioned to individual settlers, whose improvements were by the resurvey of the line thrown within the limits of the Indian Territory, the boundary has been so plainly marked that "he who runs may read." RAILROADS THROUGH INDIAN TERRITORY. The series of treaties concluded in 1866 with the five principal tribes in Indian Territory all contained limited concessions of right of way for railroads through their country to the State of Texas. The eleventh article of the Cherokee treaty contained a grant of right of way 200 feet in width to a contemplated railroad through their domain from north to south and also from east to west. In pursuance of these treaty concessions, as essentially a part of the same scheme, Congress, by appropriate legislation,[672] granted public lands and privileges to the Kansas and Neosho, the southern branch of the Union Pacific, and the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Companies, respectively, for the construction of their roads. The Leavenworth, Lawrence and Fort Gibson Railroad was also conceded like privileges. The stipulated point of entering the Indian Territory was in each case the west bank of Neosho River, where it crosses the Kansas line. As there seemed to be some question whether more than one line of road would be permitted to traverse the Territory in each direction a race was inaugurated between all the north and south lines, each in the effort to outstrip the other in reaching the prescribed point for entering the Indian country. The Union Pacific Southern Branch (subsequently known as the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas) Railway Company, in the fervency of their desire to reach the line first, omitted the construction of a portion of their route, and began operations within the limits of the Cherokee country without having received the previous permission of either the United States or the Cherokee authorities so to do. To this conduct the Cherokees made vigorous objection, and appealed to the Secretary of the Interior. That officer notified[673] the railroad officials that the Cherokees did not recognize their right to so intrude upon the Territory, and that no work of the kind referred to could be permitted therein until the Executive should be satisfied, by evidence submitted in proper manner, that such entry and occupation were in accordance with law. Thereupon the officers and attorneys of the several companies interested appeared and submitted arguments before the Secretary of the Interior on behalf of their respective interests. The point submitted for the consideration of the Secretary and for the determination of the President was, what rights had been given to railroad companies to construct railroads through the Indian Territory and what railroads, if any, were entitled to such privileges and right of way. On the part of the Indians it was claimed that the whole scheme of treaties and of legislation looked to the construction of but a single trunk road through the Territory from north to south, and, as far as the Cherokee Nation was concerned, for the like construction of but a single road through its territory from east to west. This interpretation of the treaties and the laws was admitted to be the correct one by all the companies but the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas. This company insisted that the meaning of the legislation and of the treaties was to give the right of way to as many roads as might in any manner be authorized by Congress to enter the Territory. The Secretary of the Interior in his opinion[674] expressed an emphatic concurrence in the interpretation insisted upon by the Cherokee delegation. He was further of the opinion that neither of the roads had so far earned a right to enter the Indian country by the construction of a continuous line of road to the legal point of entrance, but that as it might soon be necessary to decide which company should first completely fulfill the conditions of the law, an executive order ought to be issued declaring that no railroad company should be permitted to enter the Territory for the purpose of grading or constructing a railroad until a report should be received from a commission composed of the superintendents of Indian affairs for the central and southern superintendencies designating which company had first reached the line. These views and findings of the Secretary of the Interior were approved by the President and directed to be carried into effect.[675] This commission reported[676] that the Union Pacific Railway, southern branch--otherwise the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway--reached the northern boundary of the Indian Territory, in the valley of the Neosho River on the west side, and about one mile therefrom, at noon on the 6th day of June, 1870, and that at that time there was no other railroad nearer than 16 miles of that point. Predicated upon this report, supplemented by the certificate of the governor of Kansas that it was a first class completed railway up to that point, permission was given the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railway Company by the President, under certain stipulations and restrictions as to the methods and character of construction, to proceed with the work of building a trunk road through the Indian Territory to a point at or near Preston, in the State of Texas, and the road was rapidly constructed under this authority. The Atlantic and Pacific road, having no competitor, experienced no difficulty in securing the right of construction of its east and west line through the Cherokee country. REMOVAL OF INTRUDERS--CHEROKEE CITIZENSHIP. On various pretexts, both white and colored men had from time to time established themselves among the Cherokees and taken up their residence as permanent citizens of the nation. The increase of their numbers at length became so formidable and their influence upon the national polity and legislation of the Cherokees so great as to excite the apprehension and jealousy of the latter. The policy of their removal therefore became a subject of serious consideration with the national council. This involved a question as to what were the essential prerequisites of Cherokee citizenship, and who of the objectionable class were entitled, on any score, to the privileges of such citizenship, as well as who were mere naked intruders. Upon these points the national council assumed to exercise absolute control, and proceeded to enact laws for the removal of all persons, both white and colored, whom the council should declare not entitled to remain in the Cherokee country.[677] The action of the council in this respect was communicated to the Indian Department in the fall of 1874, through the United States agent for that tribe, coupled with a demand for the removal by the military force of the United States of all who had thus been declared to be intruders. The Department not being fully satisfied of the justice of this demand, detailed an inspector to proceed to the Indian country and make a thorough investigation of the subject. His report[678] revealed the fact that there were large numbers of people in that country who had been declared intruders by the national authorities, but who had presented to him strong _ex parte_ evidence of their right to Cherokee citizenship, either by blood, by adoption, or under the terms of the 9th article of the treaty of 1866 defining the status of colored people. Affidavits in large numbers corroborative of the inspector's report continued to be filed in the Indian Department during the succeeding summer, from which it appeared that many persons belonging to each of the classes alluded to had applied to the courts or to the council of the nation for an affirmative ruling upon their claim to citizenship, but that in many instances such applications had been entirely ignored. In other cases, where the courts had actually affirmed the right of applicants, the council had arbitrarily and without notice placed their names upon the list of intruders and called upon the United States for their removal. In this situation of affairs the Indian Department advised[679] the principal chief of the Cherokees that the Department would neither remove these alleged intruders nor permit their removal until the Cherokee council had devised a system of rules by which authority should be vested in the Cherokee courts to hear and determine all cases involving the citizenship of any person. These rules should be subject to the approval of the Secretary of the Interior, to whom an appeal should also lie from any adverse decision of those courts. As there were a number of these intruders, however, who made no claim to the right of Cherokee citizenship, it was directed by the Interior Department, in the spring of 1877, that all who should not present _prima facie_ evidence of such right should be summarily removed from the Territory. The main cause of difficulty, however, continuing unadjusted, the principal chief of the Cherokees asked the submission of the subject, from the Cherokee standpoint, to the Attorney-General of the United States for his opinion. This was done in the spring of 1879,[680] by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs through the Secretary of the Interior, wherein the former, alleging that the question submitted by the Cherokee authorities did not fully meet the subject in dispute, and being desirous that a complete statement of the case should be presented to the Attorney-General, suggested three additional inquiries for the consideration of that officer. These inquiries were, first, Have the Cherokee national authorities such original right of sovereignty over their country and their people as to vest in them the exclusive jurisdiction of all questions of citizenship in that nation without reference to the paramount authority of the United States? Second, If not, do they derive any such power or right by the provisions of any of the treaties between the United States and the Cherokees? Third, Can they exclude from citizenship any of the Cherokees who did not remove under the provisions of the treaty of 1835 upon their removal to the Cherokee country as now defined by law? The reply[681] of the Attorney-General was to the effect that it seemed quite plain in executing such treaties as those with the Cherokees, the United States were not bound to regard simply the Cherokee law and its construction by the council of that nation, but that any Department required to remove alleged intruders must determine for itself, under the general law of the land, the existence and extent of the exigency upon which such requisition was founded. One class of these so-called intruders, as previously suggested, was composed of colored people who resided in the Cherokee country prior to the war, either as slaves or freemen, and their descendants. The fourth article of the treaty of July 19, 1866, contained a provision setting apart a tract within the Cherokee country known as the Canadian district, for the settlement and occupancy of "all the Cherokees and freed persons who were formerly slaves of any Cherokee, and all free negroes not having been such slaves who resided in the Cherokee Nation prior to June 1, 1861, who may within two years elect not to reside northeast of the Arkansas River and southeast of Grand River." The fifth article of the same treaty guaranteed to such persons as should determine to reside in the district thus set apart the right to select their own local officers, judges, etc., and to manage and control their local affairs in such manner as seemed most satisfactory to them not inconsistent with the constitution and laws of the Cherokee Nation or of the United States. Again it was provided by the ninth article of the treaty that all freedmen who had been liberated by voluntary act of their former owners or by law, as well as all free colored persons who were in the country at the commencement of the rebellion and were still residents therein or who should return within six months and their descendants, should have all the rights of native Cherokees. Congressional legislation was sought in 1879, having in view the enforcement of this ninth article, but it failed of consummation.[682] The Cherokee council, in the mean time had passed[683] an act urging upon the United States the adoption of some measures calculated to reach a satisfactory adjustment of the status of the colored people within their jurisdiction, and requested the attendance of some properly authorized representative of the Government at their ensuing council for consultation as to the most satisfactory method of settling the vexed question. United States Indian Agent Tufts was accordingly instructed[684] to attend the council, which he did. It resulted in the passage[685] of an act by that body authorizing the principal chief to appoint a commission of three Cherokees to confer with the United States agent and draft articles of agreement, which should, after receiving the approval of the council and of Congress, be considered as permanently fixing the status of the colored people. The agent, however, soon discovered that no action looking to the full recognition of the rights to which they were entitled was likely to receive favorable consideration. It seems from his report[686] that it was still very unpopular in the Cherokee Nation to advocate any measure conceding to the colored people the same rights enjoyed by the Cherokees themselves, and that until a radical revolution of public sentiment should take place among them it was useless to expect any favorable action from the national council. Agent Tufts concluded his report with a recommendation that a commission be appointed By the Interior Department and instructed to hold sessions in the Cherokee country, hear evidence, and determine the status of each disputed claimant to citizenship, subject to the final revision and approval of the Department. Inspector Ward and Special Agent Beede were, therefore, instructed[687] to consult with Agent Tufts, and, after familiarizing themselves with the question in all its details, to visit the executive officers of the Cherokee Nation and see if some satisfactory solution of the troublesome problem could be brought about. This conference, like all previous efforts, failed of accomplishing the desired end. Thus the question still stands, and all those persons who have been able to make out a _prima facie_ showing of Cherokee citizenship, under the ruling of the Department, are allowed to remain in the Territory unmolested. GENERAL REMARKS. With the exception of these questions and complications arising out of the construction of the various articles of the treaty of July 19, 1866, nothing of an important character has occurred in connection with the official relations between the Cherokee Nation and the Federal Government since the date of that treaty. Their history has been an eventful one. For two hundred years a contest involving their very existence as a people has been maintained against the unscrupulous rapacity of Anglo-Saxon civilization. By degrees they were driven from their ancestral domain to an unknown and inhospitable region. The country of their fathers was peculiarly dear to them. It embraced the head springs of many of the most important streams of the country. From the summit of their own Blue Ridge they could watch the tiny rivulets on either side of them dashing and bounding over their rocky beds in their eagerness to join and swell the ever increasing volume of waters rolling toward the Atlantic Ocean or the Gulf of Mexico: the Tennessee and the Cumberland, the Kanawha and the Kentucky, the Peedee and the Santee, the Savannah and the Altamaha, the Chattahoochee and the Alabama, all found their beginnings within the Cherokee domain. The bracing and invigorating atmosphere of their mountains was wafted to the valleys and low lands of their more distant borders, tempering the heat and destroying the malaria. Much of their country was a succession of grand mountains, clothed with dense forests; of beautiful but narrow valleys, and extensive well watered plains. Every nook and corner of this vast territory was endeared to them by some incident of hunter, warrior, or domestic life. Over these hills and through the recesses of the dark forests the Cherokee hunter had from time immemorial pursued the deer, elk, and buffalo. Through and over them he had passed on his long and vengeful journeys against the hated Iroquois and Shawnee. The blood of his ancestors, as well as of his enemies, could be trailed from the Hiwassee to the Ohio. The trophies of his skill and valor adorned the sides of his wigwam and furnished the theme for his boastful oratory and song around the council fire and at the dance. His wants were few and purely of a physical nature. His life was devoted to the work of securing a sufficiency of food and the punishment of his enemies. His reputation among his fellow men was proportioned to the skill with which he could draw the bow, his cleverness and agility in their simple athletic sports, or the keen and tireless manner that characterized his pursuit of an enemy's trail. His life was simple, his wants were easily supplied; and, in consequence, the largest measure of his existence was spent in indolence and frivolous amusements. Such proportion of the family food as the chase did not supply was found in the cultivation of Indian corn. The pride of a warrior scorned the performance of menial labor, and to the squaw was this drudgery, as well as that of the household, assigned. His general character has been much misunderstood and misrepresented. He was in fact possessed of great ingenuity, keen wit, and rare cunning. In the consideration of matters of public importance, his conduct was characterized by a grave dignity that was frequently almost ludicrous. The studied stolidity of his countenance gave the spectator no clew to the inward bent of his feelings or determination. The anxious prisoner, from a watchful study of his face and actions, could read nothing of his probable fate. He was physically brave, and would without hesitancy attack the most dangerous beasts of the forests or his still more ferocious human enemies. In the hands of those enemies he would endure, with the most unflinching nerve, the cruelest tortures their ingenuity could devise, and at the same time chant his death song in the recital of his numerous personal acts of triumph over them. His methods of warfare were, however, very different from those which meet the approval of civilized nations. He could not understand that there was anything of merit in meeting his antagonist in the open field, where the chances of victory were nearly equal. It was a useless risk of his life, even though his numbers exceeded those of his enemy, to allow them to become advised of his approach. His movements were stealthy, and his blows fell at an unexpected moment from the hidden ambush or in the dead hours of the night. His nature was cruel, and in the excitement of battle that cruelty was clothed in the most terrible forms. He was in the highest degree vindictive, and his memory never lost sight of a personal injury. He was inclined to be credulous until once deceived, after which nothing could remove his jealous distrust. His confidence once fully secured, however, the unselfishness of his friendship as a rule would put to shame that of his more civilized Anglo-Saxon brother. His scrupulous honor in the payment of a just debt was of a character not always emulated among commercial nations. His noble qualities have not been granted the general recognition they deserve, and his ignoble traits have oftentimes been glossed over with the varnish of an unhealthy sentimentality.[688] For many years following his first contact with the whites the daily life of the Cherokee underwent but little change. The remoteness of his villages from the coast settlements and the intervening territory of other tribes limited in large degree any frequency of association with his white neighbors. In spite of this restricted intercourse, however, the superior comforts and luxuries of civilization were early apparent to him. His new-found desires met with a ready supply through the enterprising cupidity of the fur traders. At the same time and through the same means he was brought to a knowledge of the uses and comforts of calico and blankets, and the devastating though seductive influence of spirituous liquors. Yet nothing occurred to mar the peace hitherto existing with his white neighbors until their continued spread and seemingly insatiate demand for more territory aroused a feeling of jealous fear in his bosom. This awakening to the perils of his situation was, unfortunately for him, too late. The strength of the invaders already surpassed his own, and henceforth it was but a struggle against fate. Prior to the close of the Revolutionary war but little, if anything, had been done toward encouraging the Cherokee to adopt the customs and pursuits of civilized life. His native forests and streams had afforded him a sufficiency of flesh, fish, and skins to supply all his reasonable wants. Immediately upon the establishment of American Independence the policy to be pursued by the Government in its relations with the Indian tribes became the subject of grave consideration. The necessity began to be apparent of teaching the proximate tribes to cultivate the soil as a substitute for the livelihood hitherto gained through the now rapidly diminishing supplies of game. In the report of the commissioners appointed to negotiate the treaty of 1785, being the first treaty concluded between the Cherokees and the United States, they remark that some compensation should be made to the Indians for certain of their lands unlawfully taken possession of by the whites, and that the sum so raised should be appropriated to the purpose of teaching them useful branches of mechanics. Furthermore, that some of their women had lately learned to spin, and many others were "very desirous that some method should be fallen on to teach them to raise flax, cotton, and wool, as well as to spin and weave it." Six years later, in the conclusion of the second treaty with them, it was agreed, in order "that the Cherokee Nation may be led to a greater degree of civilization, and to become herdsmen and cultivators instead of remaining in a state of hunters, the United States will from time to time furnish gratuitously the said nation with useful implements of husbandry." From this time forward the progress of the Cherokees in civilization and enlightenment was rapid and continuous.[689] They had made such advancement that, nearly thirty years later,[690] Return J. Meigs, their long time agent and friend, represented to the Secretary of War that such Government assistance was no longer necessary or desirable; that the Cherokees were perfectly competent to take care of themselves, and that further contributions to their support only had a tendency to encourage idleness and dependence upon the Government. Their country was especially adapted to stock raising and their flocks and herds increased in proportion to the zeal and industry of their owners. The proceeds of their surplus cotton placed within reach most of the comforts and many of the luxuries of life. The unselfish devotion of the missionary societies had furnished them with religious and school instruction, of which they had in large numbers eagerly availed themselves.[691] From the crude tribal government of the eighteenth century they had gradually progressed until in the month of July, 1827, a convention of duly elected delegates from the eight several districts into which their country was divided[692] assembled at New Echota, and announced that "We, the representatives of the people of the Cherokee Nation, in convention assembled, in order to establish justice, insure tranquillity, promote our common welfare, and secure to ourselves and our posterity the blessings of liberty, acknowledging with humility and gratitude the goodness of the sovereign Ruler of the Universe in offering us an opportunity so favorable to the design and imploring His aid and direction in its accomplishment, do ordain and establish this constitution for the government of the Cherokee Nation." By the constitution thus adopted the power of the nation was divided into legislative, executive, and judicial departments. The legislative power was vested in a committee and a council, each to have a negative on the other, and together to be called the "General Council of the Cherokee Nation." This committee consisted of two and the council of three members from each district, and were to be elected biennially by the suffrages of all free male citizens (excepting negroes and descendants of white and Indian men by negro women who may have been set free) who had attained the age of eighteen years. Their sessions were annual, beginning on the second Monday in October. Persons of negro or mulatto blood were declared ineligible to official honors or emoluments. The executive power of the nation was confided to a principal chief, elected by the general council for a term of four years, and none but native born citizens were eligible to the office. The chief was required to visit each district of the nation at least once in two years, to keep himself familiarized with the condition and necessities of the country. His approval was also required to all laws, and, as in the case of our own Government, the exercise of the veto power could be overcome only by a two-thirds majority in both houses of the national legislature. An executive council of three members besides the assistant principal chief was also to be elected by the joint vote of the two houses for the period of one year. The judicial functions were vested in a supreme court of three judges and such circuit and inferior courts as the general council should from time to time prescribe, such judges to be elected by joint vote of the general council. Ministers of the gospel who by their profession were dedicated to the service of God and the care of souls, and who ought not therefore to be diverted from the great duty of their function, were, while engaged in such work, declared ineligible to the office of principal chief or to a seat in either house of the general council. Any person denying the existence of a God or a future state of rewards and punishments was declared ineligible to hold any office in the civil department of the nation, and it was also set forth that (religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government, the preservation of liberty, and the happiness of mankind) schools and the means of education should forever be encouraged in the nation. Under this constitution elections were regularly held and the functions of government administered until the year 1830, when the hostile legislation of Georgia practically paralyzed and suspended its further operation. Although forbidden to hold any more elections, the Cherokees maintained a semblance of their republican form of government by tacitly permitting their last elected officers to hold over and recognizing the authority and validity of their official actions. This embarrassing condition of affairs continued until their removal west of the Mississippi River, when, on the 6th of September, 1839, they, in conjunction with the "Old Settlers," adopted a new constitution, which in substance was a duplicate of its predecessor. This removal turned the Cherokees back in the calendar of progress and civilization at least a quarter of a century. The hardships and exposures of the journey, coupled with the fevers and malaria of a radically different climate, cost the lives of perhaps 10 per cent of their total population. The animosities and turbulence born of the treaty of 1835 not only occasioned the loss of many lives, but rendered property insecure, and in consequence diminished the zeal and industry of the entire community in its accumulation. A brief period of comparative quiet, however, was again characterized by an advance toward a higher civilization. Five years after their removal we find from the report of their agent that they are again on the increase in population; that their houses, farms, and fixtures have greatly improved in the comforts of life; that in general they are living in double cabins and evincing an increasing disposition to provide for the future; that they have in operation eleven common schools, superintended by a native Cherokee, in which are taught reading, writing, arithmetic, bookkeeping, grammar, geography, and history, which are entirely supported at the expense of their own national funds, and which are attended by upwards of five hundred scholars; that the churches are largely attended and liberally supported, the Methodists having 1,400 communicants, the Baptists 750, and other denominations a smaller number; that a national temperance society boasts of 1,752 members; that they maintain a printing press, from which publications are issued in both the English and Cherokee tongues; that some of them manifest a decided taste for general literature and a few have full and well selected libraries; that thousands of them can speak and write the English language with fluency and comparative accuracy; that hundreds can draw up contracts, deeds, and other instruments for the transfer of property, and that in the ordinary transactions of life, especially in making bargains, they are shrewd and intelligent, frequently evincing a remarkable degree of craft and combination; that their treatment of their women had undergone a radical change; that the countenance and encouragement given to her cultivation disclosed a more exalted estimate of female character, and that instead of being regarded as a slave and a beast of burden she was now recognized as a friend and companion. Thus, with the exception of occasional drawbacks--the result of civil feuds--the progress of the nation in education, industry, and civilization continued until the outbreak of the rebellion. At this period, from the best attainable information, the Cherokees numbered twenty-one thousand souls. The events of the war brought to them more of desolation and ruin than perhaps to any other community. Raided and sacked alternately, not only by the Confederate and Union forces, but by the vindictive ferocity and hate of their own factional divisions, their country became a blackened and desolate waste. Driven from comfortable homes, exposed to want, misery, and the elements, they perished like sheep in a snow storm. Their houses, fences, and other improvements were burned, their orchards destroyed, their flocks and herds slaughtered or driven off, their schools broken up, and their school-houses given to the flames, their churches and public buildings subjected to a similar fate, and that entire portion of their country which had been occupied by their settlements was distinguishable from the virgin prairie only by the scorched and blackened chimneys and the plowed but now neglected fields. The war over and the work of reconstruction commenced, found them numbering fourteen thousand impoverished, heart broken, and revengeful people. But they must work or starve, and in almost sullen despair they set about rebuilding their waste places. The situation was one calculated to discourage men enjoying a higher degree of civilization than they had yet reached, but they bent to the task with a determination and perseverance that could not fail to be the parent of success. To-day their country is more prosperous than ever. They number twenty-two thousand, a greater population than they have had at any previous period, except perhaps just prior to the date of the treaty of 1835, when those east added to those west of the Mississippi are stated to have aggregated nearly twenty-five thousand people.[693] To-day they have twenty-three hundred scholars attending seventy-five schools, established and supported by themselves at an annual expense to the nation of nearly $100,000. To-day thirteen thousand of their people can read and eighteen thousand can speak the English language. To-day five thousand brick, frame, and log houses are occupied by them; and they have sixty-four churches with a membership of several thousand. They cultivate a hundred thousand acres of land and have an additional one hundred and fifty thousand fenced. They raise annually 100,000 bushels of wheat, 800,000 of corn, 100,000 of oats and barley, 27,500 of vegetables, 1,000,000 pounds of cotton, 500,000 pounds of butter, 12,000 tons of hay, and saw a million feet of lumber. They own 20,000 horses, 15,000 mules, 200,000 cattle, 100,000 swine, and 12,000 sheep. They have a constitutional form of government predicated upon that of the United States. As a rule, their laws are wise and beneficent and are enforced with strictness and justice. Political and social prejudice has deprived the former slaves in some instances of the full measure of rights guaranteed to them by the treaty of 1866 and the amended constitution of the nation, but time is rapidly softening these asperities and will solve all difficulties of the situation. The present Cherokee population is of a composite character. Remnants of other nations or tribes have from time to time been absorbed and admitted to full participation in the benefits of Cherokee citizenship. The various classes may be thus enumerated: 1. The full blood Cherokees. 2. The mixed blood Cherokees. 3. The Delawares. 4. The Shawnees. 5. White men and women intermarried with the foregoing. 6. A few Creeks who broke away from their own tribe and have been citizens of the Cherokee Nation for many years. 7. A few Creeks who are not citizens, but have taken up their abode in the Cherokee country, without any rights. 8. A remnant of the Natchez tribe, who are citizens. 9. The freedmen adopted under the treaty of 1866. 10. Freedmen not adopted, but not removed as intruders, owing to an order from the Indian Department forbidding such removal pending a decision upon their claims to citizenship. If the Government of the United States shall in this last resort of the Cherokees prove faithful to its obligations and maintain their country inviolate from the intrusions of white trespassers, the future of the nation will surely prove the capability of the American Indian under favorable conditions to realize in a high degree the possibilities of Anglo-Saxon civilization. _Table showing approximately the area in square miles and acres ceded to the United States by the various treaties with the Cherokee Nation:_ +----------------------+------------------+----------------+----------+ | |State where ceded | Area | Area in | | Date of treaty. |lands are located.| in square | acres. | | | | miles. | | +----------------------+------------------+----------------+----------+ |1721 |South Carolina | 2,623 | 1,678,720| |November 24, 1755 | do | 8,635 | 5,526,400| |October 14, 1768 |Virginia | 850 | 544,000| |October 18, 1770 {| do | 4,500 | 2,880,000| | {|West Virginia | 4,300 | 2,752,000| | {|Tennessee | 150 | 96,000| | {|Kentucky | 250 | 160,000| |1772 {| do | 10,135 | 6,486,400| | {|West Virginia | 437 | 279,680| | {|Virginia | 345 | 220,800| |June 1, 1773 |Georgia | 1,050 | 672,000| |March 17, 1775 {|Kentucky | 22,600 |14,464,000| | {|Virginia | 1,800 | 1,152,000| | {|Tennessee | 2,650 | 1,696,000| |May 20, 1777 |South Carolina | 2,051 | 1,312,640| |July 20, 1777 {|North Carolina | 4,414 | 2,824,960| | {|Tennessee | 1,760 | 1,126,400| |May 31, 1783 |Georgia | 1,650 | 1,056,000| |November 28, 1785 {|North Carolina | 550 | 352,000| | {|Tennessee | 4,914 | 3,144,960| | {|Kentucky | 917 | 586,880| |July 2, 1791 {|Tennessee | 3,435 | 2,198,400| | {|North Carolina | 722 | 462,080| |October 2, 1798 {|Tennessee | 952 | 609,280| | {|North Carolina | 587 | 375,680| |October 24, 1804 |Georgia | 135 | 86,400| |October 25, 1805 {|Kentucky | 1,086 | 695,040| | {|Tennessee | 7,032 | 4,500,480| |October 27, 1805 | do | 1-1/4 | 800| |January 7, 1806 {| do | 5,269 | 3,372,160| | {|Alabama | 1,602 | 1,025,280| |March 22, 1816 |South Carolina | 148 | 94,720| |September 14, 1816 {|Alabama | 3,129 | 2,194,560| | {|Mississippi | 4 | 2,560| |July 8, 1817 {|Georgia | 583 | 373,120| | {|Tennessee | 435 | 278,400| |February 27, 1819 {|Georgia | 837 | 535,680| | {|Alabama | 1,154 | 738,560| | {|Tennessee | 2,408 | 1,541,120| | {|North Carolina | 1,542 | 986,880| |May 6, 1828 |Arkansas | 4,720 | 3,020,800| |December 29, 1835 {|Tennessee | 1,484 | 949,760| | {|Georgia | 7,202 | 4,609,280| | {|Alabama | 2,518 | 1,611,520| | {|North Carolina | 1,112 | 711,680| |July 19, 1866[694] |Kansas |[695]1,928 | 1,233,920| | | +----------------+----------+ | Total | | 126,906-1/4 |81,220,374| +----------------------+------------------+----------------+----------+ [Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VIII. MAP OF THE FORMER TERRITORIAL LIMITS OF THE CHEROKEE "NATION OF" INDIANS EXHIBITING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE VARIOUS CESSIONS OF LAND MADE BY THEM TO THE COLONIES AND TO THE UNITED STATES BY TREATY STIPULATIONS, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE WHITES TO THE DATE OF THEIR REMOVAL WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER.] [Illustration: BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX. MAP SHOWING THE TERRITORY ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED TO THE CHEROKEE "NATION OF" INDIANS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI.] [Footnote 583: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 727.] [Footnote 584: Letter of General J. J. Reynolds to Secretary of the Interior, June 28, 1865; printed in report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1865, p. 295.] [Footnote 585: Report of D. N. Cooley, president of the commission, dated October 30, 1865.] [Footnote 586: Report of D. N. Cooley, president of the commission, dated October 30, 1865.] [Footnote 587: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1865, p. 36.] [Footnote 588: Report of Elijah Sells, superintendent of Indian Affairs, October 16, 1865.] [Footnote 589: September 13, 1865.] [Footnote 590: September 15, 1865.] [Footnote 591: September 16, 1865.] [Footnote 592: This objection to consolidation was afterwards withdrawn, and, based upon fuller information of the proposed plan, was most fully concurred in.] [Footnote 593: September 18, 1865.] [Footnote 594: Statement of Southern delegation at an interview held with Commissioners Cooley and Sells, March 30, 1866. They also proposed that a census be taken and each man be allowed to decide whether or not he would live under the jurisdiction of the Ross party.] [Footnote 595: Statement of loyal delegation at interview held with Commissioners Cooley and Sells, March 30, 1866.] [Footnote 596: Sundry interviews between Commissioners Cooley and Sells and the loyal and Southern delegations, from March to June, 1866.] [Footnote 597: June 13, 1865.] [Footnote 598: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, p. 799.] [Footnote 599: See preamble to treaty of July 19, 1833.] [Footnote 600: John Ross, or Kooeskoowe, was of mixed Scotch and Indian blood on both father's and mother's side. His maternal grandfather was John Stuart, who for many years prior to the Revolutionary war was British superintendent of Indian affairs for the southern tribes and who married a Cherokee woman. He was born about 1790 in that portion of the Cherokee Nation within the present limits of Georgia, and died in Washington, D. C., August 1, 1866. As early as 1813 Ross made a trip to the Cherokee country west of the Mississippi, ascending the Arkansas River to the present limits of Indian Territory, and wrote a detailed account of the situation and prospects of his brethren, the character of the country, etc. In 1820 (and perhaps earlier) he had become president of the Cherokee national committee, and continued so until the adoption of a constitution by the Cherokee Nation, July 26, 1827. Of this constitutional convention Mr. Ross was the president, and under its operation he was elected principal chief, a position which he continued to hold until his death.] [Footnote 601: May 11, 1872. United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVII, p. 98.] [Footnote 602: April 29, 1874. United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVIII, p. 41.] [Footnote 603: February 28, 1877. United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIX, p. 265.] [Footnote 604: See treaty of April 27, 1868. United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 727.] [Footnote 605: See report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of Interior, March 1, 1867, transmitting the agreement.] [Footnote 606: October 9, 1867.] [Footnote 607: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 727.] [Footnote 608: See Indian Office records.] [Footnote 609: See report of Commissioner Indian Affairs for 1870, p. 376.] [Footnote 610: See report of Commissioner Indian Affairs for 1871, p. 671.] [Footnote 611: August 11, 1871.] [Footnote 612: 5,019.91 acres.] [Footnote 613: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XV, p. 222.] [Footnote 614: August 27, 1868.] [Footnote 615: December 23, 1868.] [Footnote 616: July 6, 1867.] [Footnote 617: March 3, 1868.] [Footnote 618: February 26, 1868.] [Footnote 619: See document "Fortieth Congress, second session--confidential--Executive 3P."] [Footnote 620: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 311.] [Footnote 621: Ibid., p. 414.] [Footnote 622: Ibid., p. 478.] [Footnote 623: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 871.] [Footnote 624: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. IX, p. 446.] [Footnote 625: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. X, p. 283.] [Footnote 626: Indian Office records.] [Footnote 627: December 6, 1867.] [Footnote 628: July 31, 1868.] [Footnote 629: Letter of Cherokee delegation to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, April 23, 1868.] [Footnote 630: Treaty of November 7, 1825, in United States Statutes at Large, Vol. VII, p. 284.] [Footnote 631: Treaty of May 10, 1854, in United States Statutes at Large, Vol. X, p. 1053.] [Footnote 632: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 53.] [Footnote 633: August 14, 1871.] [Footnote 634: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, p. 687.] [Footnote 635: April 10, 1868.] [Footnote 636: May 27, 1868.] [Footnote 637: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVI, p. 362.] [Footnote 638: Letter of Cherokee delegation to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, February 15, 1871.] [Footnote 639: May 27, 1871.] [Footnote 640: Letter of Cherokee delegation to Commissioner of Indian Affairs, June 10, 1871.] [Footnote 641: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVII, p. 228.] [Footnote 642: April 8, 1872.] [Footnote 643: See surveyors' plats on file in Indian Office.] [Footnote 644: See report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs to Secretary of the Interior, March 6, 1875.] [Footnote 645: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIX, p. 28.] [Footnote 646: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVII, p. 190.] [Footnote 647: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIV, p. 717.] [Footnote 648: Treaty of October 21, 1867, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XV, p. 581.] [Footnote 649: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XV, p. 593.] [Footnote 650: August 10, 1869.] [Footnote 651: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XVII, p. 190.] [Footnote 652: October 24, 1872.] [Footnote 653: November 18, 1873.] [Footnote 654: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIX, p. 120.] [Footnote 655: January 30, 1877.] [Footnote 656: September 8, 1877.] [Footnote 657: Letter of the Secretary of the Interior to the President, June 21, 1879.] [Footnote 658: June 23, 1879.] [Footnote 659: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XIX, p. 187.] [Footnote 660: January 27, 1877.] [Footnote 661: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1877, pp. 21-23.] [Footnote 662: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1878, p. xxxvi.] [Footnote 663: United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XXI, p. 380.] [Footnote 664: Act of May 27, 1878, United States Statutes at Large, Vol. XX, p. 63.] [Footnote 665: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1879, p. xl.] [Footnote 666: Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1881, p. lxiii. The removal was accomplished between October 5 and October 23.] [Footnote 667: Deeds were executed June 14, 1883, by the Cherokee Nation to the United States in trust for each of the tribes located upon Cherokee country west of 96°, such deeds being in each case for the quantity of land comprised within the tracts respectively selected by or for them for their future use and occupation. See Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, for 1883, p. lii.] [Footnote 668: February 27, 1871.] [Footnote 669: April 14, 1871.] [Footnote 670: May 4, 1871.] [Footnote 671: The survey was approved by the commissioners December 11, 1871.] [Footnote 672: Acts of July 25, 26, and 27, 1866.] [Footnote 673: May 13, 1870.] [Footnote 674: May 21, 1870.] [Footnote 675: May 23, 1870.] [Footnote 676: June 13, 1870.] [Footnote 677: The persons affected by this action were comprised within four classes, viz: 1. White persons who had married into the tribe. 2. Persons with an admixture of Indian blood, through either father or mother. 3. Adopted persons. 4. Persons of African descent who claimed rights under the treaty of 1866.] [Footnote 678: February 15, 1876.] [Footnote 679: October ----, 1876.] [Footnote 680: April 4, 1879.] [Footnote 681: December 12, 1879.] [Footnote 682: A bill to this effect was introduced into the Senate by Senator Ingalls, of Kansas, June 3, 1879, and reported from the Committee on Indian Affairs, with amendments, June 4, 1880, by Senator Williams, of Kentucky.] [Footnote 683: December 6, 1879.] [Footnote 684: October 16, 1880.] [Footnote 685: November 23, 1880.] [Footnote 686: January 26, 1882.] [Footnote 687: May 9, 1883.] [Footnote 688: William Bartram, who traveled through their country in 1776, says (Travels in North America, p. 483): "The Cherokees in their dispositions and manners are grave and steady, dignified and circumspect in their deportment; rather slow and reserved in conversation, yet frank, cheerful, and humane; tenacious of the liberties and natural rights of man; secret, deliberate, and determined in their councils; honest, just, and liberal, and always ready to sacrifice every pleasure and gratification, even their blood and life itself, to defend their territory and maintain their rights."] [Footnote 689: Hon. J. C. Calhoun, Secretary of War, under date of March 29, 1824, in a communication addressed to the President to be laid before the United States Senate, alludes to the provision contained in the treaty of 1791 and says: "In conformity to the provisions of this article the various utensils of husbandry have been abundantly and constantly distributed to the Cherokee Nation, which has resulted in creating a taste for farming and the comforts of civilized life."] [Footnote 690: May 30, 1820.] [Footnote 691: Letter of Hon. J. C. Calhoun Secretary of War, March 29, 1824. In this letter Mr. Calhoun says: "Certain benevolent societies in the year 1816 applied for permission to make establishments among the Cherokees and other southern tribes, for the purpose of educating and instructing them in the arts of civilized life. Their application was favorably received. The experiment proved so favorable, that Congress, by act of March 3, 1819, appropriated $10,000 annually as a civilization fund, which has been applied in such a manner as very considerably to increase the extent and usefulness of the efforts of benevolent individuals and to advance the work of Indian civilization."] [Footnote 692: The eight districts into which the nation was at this time divided were, Chickamauga, Chatooga, Coosawatee, Amohee, Hickory Log, Etowah, Taquoe, and Aquohee.] [Footnote 693: The census of the nation east of the Mississippi, taken in 1835, exhibited the following facts: +-----------------+----------+-------+------------+---------+ | | | | Whites | | | |Cherokees.|Slaves.|intermarried| Total. | | | | | with | | | | | | Cherokees. | | +-----------------+----------+-------+------------+---------+ |In Georgia | 8,946| 776| 68| 9,790| |In North Carolina| 3,644| 37| 22| 3,703| |In Tennessee | 2,528| 480| 79| 3,087| |In Alabama | 1,424| 299| 32| 1,755| +-----------------+----------+-------+------------+---------+ | Aggregate | 16,542| 1,592| 201| 18,335| +-----------------+----------+-------+------------+---------+ ] [Footnote 694: In addition there was ceded by this treaty for the location of other Indian tribes all the Cherokee domain in Indian Territory lying west of 96°, containing by actual survey 8,144,772.35 acres or 12,726 square miles.] [Footnote 695: And a fractional square mile comprising 374 acres.] INDEX. A. Adair, Andrew, murder of 319 Adair, James, on Cherokee boundaries 141 Adair, John Lynch, commissioner for Cherokee boundary 365 Adair, Washington, murder of 319 Adams, Captain, and acknowledged 130 Adams, John Quincy, on relations of Georgia and Cherokee 239 Alabama, alleges error in surrey of Cherokee boundary 211 Allegan or Allegwi identical with Cherokee 137 American Emigrant Company negotiates for neutral lands 349 Armstrong, F. W., commissioner to extinguish Cherokee title 241 Armstrong, R. H., aid acknowledged 130 Armstrong, William, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 298, 305 plan of, for adjusting Cherokee differences 304 Ashley, James M., commissioner for Cherokee boundary 365 B. Barbour, James, authorized to treat with Cherokee 229 Barnett, William, Cherokee boundary commissioner 207, 208 Bartram, William, remarks on the Cherokee 135, 372 list of Cherokee towns 143 Batt, Capt. Henry, exploring party under 138 Berkeley, William, exploring expedition by 138 Blair, James, Georgia commissioner in treating with Cherokee 236 Blount, William, protest against Hopewell treaty 155 treats with Cherokee 158 instructed to treat with Cherokee 162 Boudinot, E. C., address on condition of Cherokee 285 murder of 293 compensation to heirs of 299 on Cherokee treaty of April 27, 1868 344 Bridges, J. S., commissioner to appraise Cherokee property 258 Brodie, Paul, aid acknowledged 130 Brown, David, report on Cherokee, with census by 240 Brown, Jacob, purchase from Cherokee 147 Browning, O. H., annuls sale of Cherokee neutral land by Secretary Harlan 349 Burke, Edmund, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 298, 303 Butler, P. M., Cherokee agent 297 commissioner to examine Cherokee feuds 301 Butler, Thomas, commissioner for Cherokee treaty 174 C. Calhoun, John C., treats with Cherokee 219 on Cherokee civilization 373, 374 Campbell, David, surveyor of Cherokee boundary line 165 Campbell, Duncan G., commissioner to extinguish Indian title in Georgia 233 Campbell, William, surveyed line between Virginia and Cherokee lands 156 Carroll, William, commissioner for making and executing Cherokee treaty 253, 283 report on the Cherokee 259 Cass, Lewis, holds Cherokee council at Wapakoneta, Ohio 221 Catawba Indians, treaty of 1756 145 proposed removal of, to Cherokee country 317 Census, Cherokee, in 1825 240 in 1835 289, 377 in 1867 351 in North Carolina in 1849 313 in North Carolina in 1869 314 Census, refugee Indians, in 1862 331, 332 Chelaque identical with Cherokee 89, 135 Cherokee and Creek boundary disputes 266 Cherokee boundary of 1785, dissatisfaction with 160 Cherokee census, in 1825 240 in 1835 289, 377 in 1867 351 Cherokee cessions to the United States, area of 378 Cherokee citizenship 367 Cherokee Confederate regiment, desertion of 329 Cherokee constitution 374, 375 Cherokee country, boundaries of 205, 354, 365 Cherokee hostilities 170, 173 Cherokee lands, purchase of 210 removal of white settlers from 322, 323 cession and sale of 348 appraisal of, west of 96° 361 Cherokee migration 136 Cherokee Nation, political murders in 297, 303 Cherokee Nation of Indians, by C. C. Royce 121-378 Cherokee population 142, 377, 378 Cherokee western outlet 246, 248 Cherokee, the cessions of land by 130, 131 treaties with 133-378 known by North Carolina and Virginia settlers 138, 139 treaty relations of, with the United States 152 war with 170 proposed removal of 202 removals of 214-218, 222, 228, 254, 258, 260, 292, 341 situation of, west of the Mississippi 221, 292, 293 progress in civilization of 240 adoption of constitution by 241, 295 material prosperity among 260 protest against claims of Georgia 272 proposition of, to become citizens 274 memorials of, in Congress 275, 277, 289 unification of Eastern and Western 294 charge United States with bad faith 296 financial difficulties of 318, 320 new treaty proposed in 1854 by 320 political excitement in 1860 among 324 the Southern Confederacy and 320, 332, 333, 342 treaty of 1868 concluded with Southern 346 treaty of 1866 with loyal 347 jurisdiction of 369 Cherokee and Osage, difficulties between 242 Chester, E. W., instructed as to treaty with Cherokee 263 Chicamauga band, emigration of 150, 151 Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Cherokee, boundary between 205 Chisholm, John D., deputized by Cherokee to treat 212 Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creek, boundary between 205 Clark, William, instructed to end Cherokee hostilities 221, 222 Clay, Henry, sympathy with Cherokee 287 resolution by, regarding title to Texas 355 Clements, C. C., special agent on Cherokee claims 308 Cocke, John, commissioner to extinguish Cherokee title 241 Coffee, John, objection to survey by 207, 208 appointed to assist in Cherokee removal 260 appointed to report on line between Cherokee and Georgia 270 Columbia River, Cherokee contemplate removal to 264 Confederacy, relation of Cherokee to Southern 376 Cooley, Dennis N., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 334, 341 Corwin, K. G., commissioner for Cherokee boundary 365 Cox, John T., commissioner to appraise neutral lands 351 Creek and Cherokee boundary disputes 266 Crockett, David, denounces policy toward Cherokee 288 Cumming, Alexander, treaty with Cherokee 44, 145 Curry, Benjamin F., to appraise Cherokee improvements 283 Cutifachiqui, visit of De Soto to 135 D. Davidson, G. L., commissioner to extinguish Cherokee title 241 Davie, William R., commissioner for Cherokee treaty 184 Davis, William M., report on state of feeling among Cherokee in Georgia 284 Dearborn, Henry, treats with Cherokee 193, 195 Delaware Indians, cession of land in Indiana 137 join Cherokee 356-358 De Soto, visit of, to Cherokee 134 visit of, to Cutifachiqui 135 Dobbs, Arthur, grant by 145 Doublehead, Cherokee chief, secret agreement with 191, 192, 193 grant for 192, 193 Doublehead tract, controversy respecting 192 Drennan, John, authorized to pay Cherokee claims 312 Drew, Colonel of Cherokee Confederate regiment 329 Dunlap, R. G., speech on Cherokee affairs 285 E. Earle, Elias, negotiates for iron ore tract of Cherokee Nation 199, 200 Eaton, John H., appointed to negotiate treaty with Cherokee 275 commissioner to settle Cherokee claims 298 Ellicott, Andrew, survey of Cherokee boundary by 163-165 Ellsworth, Henry L., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 249 commissioner to report on country assigned to the Indians of the West 251 Everett, Edward, denounces policy toward Cherokee 288 Ewing, Thomas, counsel for Cherokee 345 F. Franklin, treaties with the State of 151, 152 G. Gallagher, W. D., commissioner for Cherokee boundary 365 Georgia, protests of, against Hopewell treaty 155 United States agree to extinguish Indian title in 233 action by, regarding Cherokee 234, 236 view of, as to Indian title 241 Supreme Court decision in Cherokee Nation vs. Georgia 262 Supreme Court decision in Worcester vs. Georgia 264 refusal of, to submit to decision of Supreme Court respecting Cherokee 266 hostility of, to Van Buren's compromise in Cherokee affairs 290 Georgia and United States, measures of, to remove Indians 260 Glasscock, Thomas, and John King protest against treaty of 1785 155 "Government" or "Ross" party of Cherokee 293, 298, 299 Graham, George, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 197, 198, 205 Grave Creek, West Virginia, mounds 51, 136 Grey, Alexander, commissioner to extinguish Cherokee title 241 Guess, George, inventor of Cherokee alphabet 230 death of 302 Gwin, James W., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 288 H. Hardin, Joseph, survey of Cherokee boundary by 156 Harlan, James, contracts for sale of Cherokee neutral land 340, 349 Harney, W. S., commissioner to treat with Indians 341 Hawkins, Benjamin, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 133, 184 journal of 165-169 Haywood, John, on origin and habitat of Cherokee 136 Henderson, Richard, purchase of land from Cherokee by 148 Hood, Robert N., aid acknowledged 130 Hopewell, proceedings at treaty of 152, 153, 155, 158 Houston, Robert, surveyor of Cherokee line in Tennessee 227, 232 Hubley, Edward B., commissioner to settle Cherokee claims 298 Hunter, A. R.S., commissioner to appraise Cherokee property 258 I. Indians, removal of, west of the Mississippi River 214 Intercourse act of 1796 173 J. Jack, Patrick, grant to 145 Jackson, Andrew, protests against Cherokee boundary of 1816 206 commissioner for Cherokee treaty 209, 212, 215, 216 refuses to approve Cherokee treaty of 1834 252 advice to Cherokee 258 on decision in Worcester vs. Georgia 266 urges Cherokee to remove 273 method of, for compelling Cherokee removal 297 Jefferson, Thomas, on, removal of Cherokee 202, 203 Jones, Evan, alleged founder of Pin Society 325 appropriation for 339 Jones, John B., warned to leave Cherokee 324 Jones, R., commissioner to examine Cherokee feuds 301 Johnson, Robert, Indian census in South Carolina in 1715 by 142 Johnston, William, financial relations to Cherokee Indians 315 Joy, James F., contract for Cherokee neutral lands by 340, 350 K. Kansa or Kaw, removal to Indian Territory 360 Kennard, Thomas V., commissioner to appraise Indian lands 363 Kennedy, John, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 288 Keowee Old Town on map by Bowen 141, 142 Kilpatrick, John Clark, surveyor of Cherokee boundary line 165, 168 King, John, and Thomas Glasscock protest against treaty of 1785 155 Knox, Henry, on violation of treaty of Hopewell 160, 161 treaty with Cherokee executed by 171 Kretschmar, H. R., commissioner to appraise confiscated property of Cherokee 351 L. Lea, John M., aid acknowledged 130 Liddell, James, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 288 Lovely's purchase 245 Lowry, John, commissioner to urge Cherokee to remove 262 Lumpkin, Wilson, surveyor of Cherokee line 227 commissioner to execute Cherokee treaty 283 M. McCulloch, Benjamin, Confederate commander in Cherokee country 326 M'Intosh, Lachlane, agent of Tennessee with Cherokee 179 commissioner to treat with Cherokee 133 McMinn, Joseph, commissioner for Cherokee treaty 212, 216 on Cherokee migration 218, 223-225 appointed Cherokee agent 236 Martin, Joseph, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 133 Mason, John, Jr., report on Cherokee affairs 286 Mason, R. B., commissioner to examine Cherokee feuds 301 Maxwell, C. A., aid acknowledged 130 Meigs, Return J., commissioner of survey of Cherokee boundary 181-183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 192, 194, 196, 200, 201, 204, 210, 211, 218-231, 232, 374 relations of, to the Cherokee 231, 232 death of 236 Merriwether, David, commissioner for Cherokee treaty 209, 212, 216, 235 Merriwether, James, commissioner to extinguish Indian title in Georgia 233, 235 Missourias removed to Indian Territory 364 Mitchell, D P., surveys Cherokee boundary 365 Monroe, James, on relations of Cherokee and Georgia 238, 239 Moore, Alfred, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 176 MoUzon's map, 1771, Cherokee towns on 143 Mullay, J. C., census of Cherokee in North Carolina in 1849 by 313 Munsee join Cherokee 356-358 Munson, Spencer, aid acknowledged 130 N. New Echota, Cherokee council at 280 adoption of Cherokee constitution at 374 Neutral land, proposed cession of, by Cherokee 319, 320 Nez Percé removed to Indian Territory 364 North Carolina, protests against Hopewell treaty 155 Cherokee refuse to cede lands in 260 O. Old Settler Cherokee party 293, 375 payments to 299 propose to remove to Mexico 302 claims of, settled 307 O-poth-le-yo-ho-lo loyal to the United States 330, 331 Osage half breed reserves, purchase of 252 Osage and Cherokee, treaty between 222 difficulties between 242 Osage removed to Indian Territory 359 Otoe removed to Indian Territory 364 P. Parker, E. S., commissioner to treat with Indians 341 Parris, Albion K., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 298, 305 Pawnee removed to Indian Territory 360 Phillips, Wm. A., Cherokee commissioner to appraise neutral lands 351 Pickens, Andrew, commissioner to treat with Cherokee as to boundary 133, 165, 180 Pike, Albert, as to Pin Society 325 Cherokee commissioner for Confederate States 326, 327, 328, 329 Pin Society of Cherokee 325 Ponca removed to Indian Territory 364 Price, Hiram, aid acknowledged 130 R. Rector, William, surveyed Cherokee line in Arkansas 222 Ridge, John, with Cherokee delegation at Washington 278, 279 murder of 293 compensation to heirs of 299 "Ridge" party of Cherokee 293 Ridge treaty rejected by Cherokee 280 Robertson, James, commissioner of Cherokee treaty 194 Rogers, James, deputized by Cherokee to treat 212 Ross, Andrew, proposition for Cherokee treaty 274, 275 and others, preliminary treaty concluded with 275 Ross, John, applies for injunction against Georgia 262, 272 alleged attempt to bribe 273 protests against the removal of Cherokee 273, 275 opposition to Andrew Ross's proposition 275 heads Cherokee delegation to Washington in 1835 278, 279 arrest of 281 opposition to treaty 282 refusal of, to acquiesce in treaty 283 proposes new Cherokee treaty 291 heads delegation to Washington in 1844 300 advises sale of Fort Gibson in town lots 322 opposes survey and allotment of Cherokee domain 324 relations of, to Southern Confederacy 326-332 not recognized as principal chief of Cherokee 343, 344 death of 347 "Ross" or "Government" party of Cherokee 293 Robertson, Charles, deed to, on the Watauga 147 Robertson, General, agent of Tennessee with Cherokee 179 Rutherford, Griffith, march against Cherokee 157 S. Saline or salt plains, treaty provisions regarding 250, 300 Schermerhorn, John F., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 249, 253, 257, 282 commissioner to report on country assigned to Indians of the West 251 appointed to treat with Ridge Cherokee delegation 278, 279 Schoolcraft, H. R., on identity of the Allegan with the Cherokee 137 Scott, Winfield, ordered to command troops in Cherokee country 291 Sells, Elijah, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 334, 341 Sequoyah, or George Guess, death of 302 Shawnee, expelled by Cherokee and Chickasaw 144 join Cherokee 356-358 Smith, Daniel, commissioner for treaty with Cherokee 183, 187, 190 Smith, Thomas E., commissioner to appraise Indian lands 363 South Carolina, endeavors of, to extinguish Cherokee title 204, 205 Southern Confederacy and the Cherokee 326-333, 342 Sprague, Peleg, denounces policy toward Cherokee 288 Steele, John, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 176 Stevens, E. L., aid acknowledged 130 Stokes, Montfort, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 249 commissioner to report on country assigned to Indians of the West 251 Storrs, Henry R., denounces policy toward Cherokee 288 Strum, G. P., aid acknowledged 130 Stuart, James, agent of Tennessee to treat with Cherokee 179 Supreme Court decision, in Cherokee Nation <i>vs.</i> Georgia 262 in Worcester <i>vs.</i> Georgia 264 Sweatland, S. H., census of Cherokee in North Carolina in 1869 by 314 T. Talootiske, Cherokee, grant of 193 Tatnall, E. F., appointed to assist in Cherokee removal 260 Taylor, Nathaniel G., commissioner to treat with Cherokee 340, 352 Tennessee, commissioners from, to treaty council of Cherokee 179 endeavor of, to treat with Cherokee 201 on validity of Cherokee reservations 232 Tennessee Company, purchase of Cherokee land by 162 Thomas, William H., agent for Cherokee 315 Thompson, R. F., aid acknowledged 130 Tompkins, H., census of Cherokee in 1867 by 351 Topping, Enoch H., commissioner to appraise Indian lands 363 Treaties and purchases of 1777 149 Treaties between the State of Franklin and the Cherokee 151, 152 Treaties of March 22, 1816 197, 198 Treaty and purchase of 1721 144 Treaty and purchase of 1755 145 Treaty and purchase of 1768 146 Treaty and purchase of 1770 146 Treaty and purchase of 1772 146 Treaty and purchase of 1773 148 Treaty and purchase of 1783 151 Treaty between Confederate States and Cherokee 328 Treaty Cherokee propose to remove to Mexico 302 Treaty of Hopewell, proceedings at 152 Treaty of 1756 145 Treaty of 1760 145 Treaty of 1761 146 Treaty of 1775 148 Treaty of November 28, 1785 133, 158 Treaty of July 2, 1791 158 Treaty of February 17, 1792 169 Treaty of June 26, 1794 171 Treaty of October 2, 1798 174 Treaty of October 24, 1804 183 Treaty of October 25, 1805 189 Treaty of October 27, 1805 190 Treaty of January 7, 1806 193 Treaty of September 11, 1807 194 Treaty of September 14, 1816 209 Treaty of July 8, 1817 212 Treaty of February 27, 1819 219 Treaty of May 6, 1828 229 Treaty of February 14, 1833 249 Treaty of December 29, 1835 253 Treaty of 1835, adjudication of 305 Treaty of 1835 declared void by Cherokee 294 Treaty of March 1, 1836, supplementary 257 Treaty of August 6, 1846 298 Treaty of July 19, 1866 334 Treaty of April 27, 1868 340 "Treaty" or "Ridge" party of Cherokee 293 payments to 299 feuds of 301, 302 Troup, Governor, on relations of Cherokee to Georgia 237 Tyler, John M., promises settlement of difficulties with Cherokee 296 V. Van Buren, Martin, offers a compromise in Cherokee affairs 290 Vashon, George, negotiates a treaty with Cherokee 252 Voorhees, D. W., counsel for Cherokee 345 W. Waddell, Hugh, negotiates treaty of 1756 with Cherokee and Catawba 145 Wafford's settlement 186, 187 Wales, Samuel A., instructed by Governor Forsyth to establish Cherokee boundary line 269 Walton, George, commissioner to treat with Cherokee 174, 176 Washington, George, in relation to Cherokee 161, 173 Watie, Stand, a Confederate leader in the civil war 298, 325, 328, 333 confiscation act against adherents of 343 Webster, Daniel, denounces policy toward Cherokee 288, 290 Wellborn, Johnson, Georgia commissioner in treating with Cherokee 236 Whitner, Joseph, surveyor of Cherokee boundary line 165, 168 Wilkerson, William N., commissioner to appraise Indian lands 363 Wilkinson, James, commissioner for Cherokee treaty 184 Winchester, James, survey of Cherokee boundary line by 154 commissioner for Cherokee boundary 165 Wise, Henry A., denounces policy toward Cherokee 288, 289 Wistar, Thomas, commissioner to treat with Indians 341 Wool, John E., in command of troops in Cherokee Nation 283 report on Cherokee affairs 286 relieved 289 Worcester <i>vs.</i> Georgia, Supreme Court decision in 264 Y. Yellow Creek settlement 183 BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VIII [Illustration: MAP OF THE FORMER TERRITORIAL LIMITS OF THE CHEROKEE "NATION OF" INDIANS EXHIBITING THE BOUNDARIES OF THE VARIOUS CESSIONS OF LAND MADE BY THEM TO THE COLONIES AND TO THE UNITED STATES BY TREATY STIPULATIONS, FROM THE BEGINNING OF THEIR RELATIONS WITH THE WHITES TO THE DATE OF THEIR REMOVAL WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER. BY C. C. ROYCE. 1894.] BUREAU OF ETHNOLOGY FIFTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX [Illustration: MAP SHOWING THE TERRITORY ORIGINALLY ASSIGNED TO THE CHEROKEE "NATION OF" INDIANS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. ALSO THE BOUNDARIES OF THE TERRITORY NOW OCCUPIED OR OWNED BY THEM. BY C. C. ROYCE. 1894.] [Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation are as in the original.] 
45634	----	MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE BY JAMES MOONEY EXTRACT FROM THE NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 1902 CONTENTS Page I--Introduction 11 II--Historical sketch of the Cherokee 14 The traditionary period 14 The period of Spanish exploration--1540-? 23 The Colonial and Revolutionary period--1654-1784 29 Relations with the United States 61 From the first treaty to the Removal--1785-1838 61 The Removal--1838-1839 130 The Arkansas band--1817-1838 135 The Texas band--1817-1900 143 The Cherokee Nation of the West--1840-1900 146 The East Cherokee--1838-1900 157 III--Notes to the historical sketch 182 IV--Stories and story-tellers 229 V--The myths 239 Cosmogonic myths 239 1. How the world was made 239 2. The first fire 240 3. Kana'ti and Selu: Origin of corn and game 242 4. Origin of disease and medicine 250 5. The Daughter of the Sun: Origin of death 252 6. How they brought back the Tobacco 254 7. The journey to the sunrise 255 8. The Moon and the Thunders 256 9. What the Stars are like 257 10. Origin of the Pleiades and the Pine 258 11. The milky way 259 12. Origin of strawberries 259 13. The Great Yellow-jacket: Origin of fish and frogs 260 14. The Deluge 261 Quadruped myths 261 15. The four-footed tribes 261 16. The Rabbit goes duck hunting 266 17. How the Rabbit stole the Otter's coat 267 18. Why the Possum's tail is bare 269 19. How the Wildcat caught the turkeys 269 20. How the Terrapin beat the Rabbit 270 21. The Rabbit and the tar wolf 271 22. The Rabbit and the Possum after a wife 273 23. The Rabbit dines the Bear 273 24. The Rabbit escapes from the wolves 274 25. Flint visits the Rabbit 274 26. How the Deer got his horns 275 27. Why the Deer's teeth are blunt 276 28. What became of the Rabbit 277 29. Why the Mink smells 277 30. Why the Mole lives under ground 277 31. The Terrapin's escape from the wolves 278 32. Origin of the Groundhog dance: The Groundhog's head 279 33. The migration of the animals 280 34. The Wolf's revenge: The Wolf and the Dog 280 Bird myths 280 35. The bird tribes 280 36. The ball game of the birds and animals 286 37. How the Turkey got his beard 287 38. Why the Turkey gobbles 288 39. How the Kingfisher got his bill 288 40. How the Partridge got his whistle 289 41. How the Redbird got his color 289 42. The Pheasant beating corn: The Pheasant dance 290 43. The race between the Crane and the Humming-bird 290 44. The Owl gets married 291 45. The Huhu gets married 292 46. Why the Buzzard's head is bare 293 47. The Eagle's revenge 293 48. The Hunter and the Buzzard 294 Snake, fish, and insect myths 294 49. The snake tribe 294 50. The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'ti 297 51. Âgan-Uni'tsi's search for the Uktena 298 52. The Red Man and the Uktena 300 53. The Hunter and the Uksu'hi 301 54. The Ustû'tli 302 55. The Uw`tsûñ'ta 303 56. The Snake Boy 304 57. The Snake Man 304 58. The Rattlesnake's vengeance 305 59. The smaller reptiles, fishes, and insects 306 60. Why the Bullfrog's head is striped 310 61. The Bullfrog lover 310 62. The Katydid's warning 311 Wonder stories 311 63. Ûñtsaiyi', the Gambler 311 64. The nest of the Tla'nuwa 315 65. The Hunter and the Tla'nuwa 316 66. U`tlûñ'ta, the Spear-finger 316 67. Nûñ'yunu'wi, the stone man 319 68. The Hunter in the Dakwa' 320 69. Atagâ'hi, the enchanted lake 321 70. The Bride from the south 322 71. The Ice Man 322 72. The Hunter and Selu 323 73. The underground panthers 324 74. The Tsundige'wi 325 75. Origin of the Bear: The Bear songs 325 76. The Bear Man 327 77. The Great Leech of Tlanusi'yi 329 78. The Nûñne'hi and other spirit folk 330 79. The removed townhouses 335 80. The spirit defenders of Nikwasi' 336 81. Tsul`kalû' the slant-eyed giant 337 82. Kana'sta, the lost settlement 341 83. Tsuwe'nahi, a legend of Pilot knob 343 84. The man who married the Thunder's sister 345 85. The haunted whirlpool 347 86. Yahula 347 87. The water cannibals 349 Historical traditions 350 88. First contact with whites 350 89. The Iroquois war 351 90. Hiadeoni, the Seneca 356 91. The two Mohawks 357 92. Escape of the Seneca boys 359 93. The unseen helpers 359 94. Hatciñondoñ's escape from the Cherokee 362 95. Hemp-carrier 364 96. The Seneca peacemakers 365 97. Origin of the Yontoñwisas dance 365 98. Ga'na's adventures among the Cherokee. 367 99. The Shawano wars 370 100. The raid on Tikwali'tsi 374 101. The last Shawano invasion 374 102. The false warriors of Chilhowee 375 103. Cowee town 377 104. The eastern tribes 378 105. The southern and western tribes 382 106. The giants from the west 391 107. The lost Cherokee 391 108. The massacre of the Ani'-Kuta'ni 392 109. The war medicine 393 110. Incidents of personal heroism 394 111. The mounds and the constant fire: The old sacred things 395 Miscellaneous myths and legends 397 112. The ignorant housekeeper 397 113. The man in the stump 397 114. Two lazy hunters 397 115. The two old men 399 116. The star feathers 399 117. The Mother Bear's song 400 118. Baby song, to please the children. 401 119. When babies are born: The Wren and the Cricket 401 120. The Raven Mocker 401 121. Herbert's spring 403 122. Local legends of North Carolina. 404 123. Local legends of South Carolina 411 124. Local legends of Tennessee 412 125. Local legends of Georgia 415 126. Plant lore 420 VI--Notes and parallels 428 VII--Glossary 506 ILLUSTRATIONS Page Plate I. In the Cherokee mountains 11 II. Map: The Cherokee and their neighbors. 14 III. Map: The old Cherokee country 23 IV. Sequoya (Sikwâyi) 108 V. The Cherokee alphabet 112 VI. Tahchee (Tatsi) or Dutch 140 VII. Spring-frog or Tooantuh (Du'stu') 142 VIII. John Ross (Gu'wisguwi') 150 IX. Colonel W. H. Thomas (Wil-Usdi') 160 X. Chief N. J. Smith (Tsaladihi') 178 XI. Swimmer (A`yûñ'ini) 228 XII. John Ax (Itagû'nûhi) 238 XIII. Tagwadihi' 256 XIV. Ayâsta 272 XV. Sawanu'gi, a Cherokee ball player 284 XVI. Nikwasi' mound at Franklin, North Carolina 337 XVII. Annie Ax (Sadayi) 358 XVIII. Walini', a Cherokee woman 378 XIX. On Oconaluftee river 405 XX. Petroglyphs at Track-rock gap, Georgia 418 Figure 1. Feather wand of Eagle dance 282 2. Ancient Iroquois wampum belts 354 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE By James Mooney I--INTRODUCTION The myths given in this paper are part of a large body of material collected among the Cherokee, chiefly in successive field seasons from 1887 to 1890, inclusive, and comprising more or less extensive notes, together with original Cherokee manuscripts, relating to the history, archeology, geographic nomenclature, personal names, botany, medicine, arts, home life, religion, songs, ceremonies, and language of the tribe. It is intended that this material shall appear from time to time in a series of papers which, when finally brought together, shall constitute a monograph upon the Cherokee Indians. This paper may be considered the first of the series, all that has hitherto appeared being a short paper upon the sacred formulas of the tribe, published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau in 1891 and containing a synopsis of the Cherokee medico-religious theory, with twenty-eight specimens selected from a body of about six hundred ritual formulas written down in the Cherokee language and alphabet by former doctors of the tribe and constituting altogether the largest body of aboriginal American literature in existence. Although the Cherokee are probably the largest and most important tribe in the United States, having their own national government and numbering at any time in their history from 20,000 to 25,000 persons, almost nothing has yet been written of their history or general ethnology, as compared with the literature of such northern tribes as the Delawares, the Iroquois, or the Ojibwa. The difference is due to historical reasons which need not be discussed here. It might seem at first thought that the Cherokee, with their civilized code of laws, their national press, their schools and seminaries, are so far advanced along the white man's road as to offer but little inducement for ethnologic study. This is largely true of those in the Indian Territory, with whom the enforced deportation, two generations ago, from accustomed scenes and surroundings did more at a single stroke to obliterate Indian ideas than could have been accomplished by fifty years of slow development. There remained behind, however, in the heart of the Carolina mountains, a considerable body, outnumbering today such well-known western tribes as the Omaha, Pawnee, Comanche, and Kiowa, and it is among these, the old conservative Kitu'hwa element, that the ancient things have been preserved. Mountaineers guard well the past, and in the secluded forests of Nantahala and Oconaluftee, far away from the main-traveled road of modern progress, the Cherokee priest still treasures the legends and repeats the mystic rituals handed down from his ancestors. There is change indeed in dress and outward seeming, but the heart of the Indian is still his own. For this and other reasons much the greater portion of the material herein contained has been procured among the East Cherokee living upon the Qualla reservation in western North Carolina and in various detached settlements between the reservation and the Tennessee line. This has been supplemented with information obtained in the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, chiefly from old men and women who had emigrated from what is now Tennessee and Georgia, and who consequently had a better local knowledge of these sections, as well as of the history of the western Nation, than is possessed by their kindred in Carolina. The historical matter and the parallels are, of course, collated chiefly from printed sources, but the myths proper, with but few exceptions, are from original investigation. The historical sketch must be understood as distinctly a sketch, not a detailed narrative, for which there is not space in the present paper. The Cherokee have made deep impress upon the history of the southern states, and no more has been attempted here than to give the leading facts in connected sequence. As the history of the Nation after the removal to the West and the reorganization in Indian Territory presents but few points of ethnologic interest, it has been but briefly treated. On the other hand the affairs of the eastern band have been discussed at some length, for the reason that so little concerning this remnant is to be found in print. One of the chief purposes of ethnologic study is to trace the development of human thought under varying conditions of race and environment, the result showing always that primitive man is essentially the same in every part of the world. With this object in view a considerable space has been devoted to parallels drawn almost entirely from Indian tribes of the United States and British America. For the southern countries there is but little trustworthy material, and to extend the inquiry to the eastern continent and the islands of the sea would be to invite an endless task. The author desires to return thanks for many favors from the Library of Congress, the Geological Survey, and the Smithsonian Institution, and for much courteous assistance and friendly suggestion from the officers and staff of the Bureau of American Ethnology; and to acknowledge his indebtedness to the late Chief N. J. Smith and family for services as interpreter and for kind hospitality during successive field seasons; to Agent H. W. Spray and wife for unvarying kindness manifested in many helpful ways; to Mr William Harden, librarian, and the Georgia State Historical Society, for facilities in consulting documents at Savannah, Georgia; to the late Col. W. H. Thomas; Lieut. Col. W. W. Stringfield, of Waynesville; Capt. James W. Terrell, of Webster; Mrs A. C. Avery and Dr P. L. Murphy, of Morganton; Mr W. A. Fair, of Lincolnton; the late Maj. James Bryson, of Dillsboro; Mr H. G. Trotter, of Franklin; Mr Sibbald Smith, of Cherokee; Maj. R. C. Jackson, of Smithwood, Tennessee; Mr D. R. Dunn, of Conasauga, Tennessee; the late Col. Z. A. Zile, of Atlanta; Mr L. M. Greer, of Ellijay, Georgia; Mr Thomas Robinson, of Portland, Maine; Mr Allen Ross, Mr W. T. Canup, editor of the Indian Arrow, and the officers of the Cherokee Nation, Tahlequah, Indian Territory; Dr D. T. Day, United States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C., and Prof. G. M. Bowers, of the United States Fish Commission, for valuable oral information, letters, clippings, and photographs; to Maj. J. Adger Smyth, of Charleston, S. C., for documentary material; to Mr Stansbury Hagar and the late Robert Grant Haliburton, of Brooklyn, N. Y., for the use of valuable manuscript notes upon Cherokee stellar legends; to Miss A. M. Brooks for the use of valuable Spanish document copies and translations entrusted to the Bureau of American Ethnology; to Mr James Blythe, interpreter during a great part of the time spent by the author in the field; and to various Cherokee and other informants mentioned in the body of the work, from whom the material was obtained. II--HISTORICAL SKETCH OF THE CHEROKEE The Traditionary Period The Cherokee were the mountaineers of the South, holding the entire Allegheny region from the interlocking head-streams of the Kanawha and the Tennessee southward almost to the site of Atlanta, and from the Blue ridge on the east to the Cumberland range on the west, a territory comprising an area of about 40,000 square miles, now included in the states of Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Their principal towns were upon the headwaters of the Savannah, Hiwassee, and Tuckasegee, and along the whole length of the Little Tennessee to its junction with the main stream. Itsâti, or Echota, on the south bank of the Little Tennessee, a few miles above the mouth of Tellico river, in Tennessee, was commonly considered the capital of the Nation. As the advancing whites pressed upon them from the east and northeast the more exposed towns were destroyed or abandoned and new settlements were formed lower down the Tennessee and on the upper branches of the Chattahoochee and the Coosa. As is always the case with tribal geography, there were no fixed boundaries, and on every side the Cherokee frontiers were contested by rival claimants. In Virginia, there is reason to believe, the tribe was held in check in early days by the Powhatan and the Monacan. On the east and southeast the Tuscarora and Catawba were their inveterate enemies, with hardly even a momentary truce within the historic period; and evidence goes to show that the Sara or Cheraw were fully as hostile. On the south there was hereditary war with the Creeks, who claimed nearly the whole of upper Georgia as theirs by original possession, but who were being gradually pressed down toward the Gulf until, through the mediation of the United States, a treaty was finally made fixing the boundary between the two tribes along a line running about due west from the mouth of Broad river on the Savannah. Toward the west, the Chickasaw on the lower Tennessee and the Shawano on the Cumberland repeatedly turned back the tide of Cherokee invasion from the rich central valleys, while the powerful Iroquois in the far north set up an almost unchallenged claim of paramount lordship from the Ottawa river of Canada southward at least to the Kentucky river. On the other hand, by their defeat of the Creeks and expulsion of the Shawano, the Cherokee made good the claim which they asserted to all the lands from upper Georgia to the Ohio river, including the rich hunting grounds of Kentucky. Holding as they did the great mountain barrier between the English settlements on the coast and the French or Spanish garrisons along the Mississippi and the Ohio, their geographic position, no less than their superior number, would have given them the balance of power in the South but for a looseness of tribal organization in striking contrast to the compactness of the Iroquois league, by which for more than a century the French power was held in check in the north. The English, indeed, found it convenient to recognize certain chiefs as supreme in the tribe, but the only real attempt to weld the whole Cherokee Nation into a political unit was that made by the French agent, Priber, about 1736, which failed from its premature discovery by the English. We frequently find their kingdom divided against itself, their very number preventing unity of action, while still giving them an importance above that of neighboring tribes. The proper name by which the Cherokee call themselves (1) [1] is Yûñ'wiya', or Ani'-Yûñ'wiya' in the third person, signifying "real people," or "principal people," a word closely related to Oñwe-hoñwe, the name by which the cognate Iroquois know themselves. The word properly denotes "Indians," as distinguished from people of other races, but in usage it is restricted to mean members of the Cherokee tribe, those of other tribes being designated as Creek, Catawba, etc., as the case may be. On ceremonial occasions they frequently speak of themselves as Ani'-Kitu'hwagi, or "people of Kitu'hwa," an ancient settlement on Tuckasegee river and apparently the original nucleus of the tribe. Among the western Cherokee this name has been adopted by a secret society recruited from the full-blood element and pledged to resist the advances of the white man's civilization. Under the various forms of Cuttawa, Gattochwa, Kittuwa, etc., as spelled by different authors, it was also used by several northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee. Cherokee, the name by which they are commonly known, has no meaning in their own language, and seems to be of foreign origin. As used among themselves the form is Tsa'lagi' or Tsa'ragi'. It first appears as Chalaque in the Portuguese narrative of De Soto's expedition, published originally in 1557, while we find Cheraqui in a French document of 1699, and Cherokee as an English form as early, at least, as 1708. The name has thus an authentic history of 360 years. There is evidence that it is derived from the Choctaw word choluk or chiluk, signifying a pit or cave, and comes to us through the so-called Mobilian trade language, a corrupted Choctaw jargon formerly used as the medium of communication among all the tribes of the Gulf states, as far north as the mouth of the Ohio (2). Within this area many of the tribes were commonly known under Choctaw names, even though of widely differing linguistic stocks, and if such a name existed for the Cherokee it must undoubtedly have been communicated to the first Spanish explorers by De Soto's interpreters. This theory is borne out by their Iroquois (Mohawk) name, Oyata'ge`ronoñ', as given by Hewitt, signifying "inhabitants of the cave country," the Allegheny region being peculiarly a cave country, in which "rock shelters," containing numerous traces of Indian occupancy, are of frequent occurrence. Their Catawba name also, Mañterañ, as given by Gatschet, signifying "coming out of the ground," seems to contain the same reference. Adair's attempt to connect the name Cherokee with their word for fire, atsila, is an error founded upon imperfect knowledge of the language. Among other synonyms for the tribe are Rickahockan, or Rechahecrian, the ancient Powhatan name, and Tallige', or Tallige'wi, the ancient name used in the Walam Olum chronicle of the Lenape'. Concerning both the application and the etymology of this last name there has been much dispute, but there seems no reasonable doubt as to the identity of the people. Linguistically the Cherokee belong to the Iroquoian stock, the relationship having been suspected by Barton over a century ago, and by Gallatin and Hale at a later period, and definitely established by Hewitt in 1887. [2] While there can now be no question of the connection, the marked lexical and grammatical differences indicate that the separation must have occurred at a very early period. As is usually the case with a large tribe occupying an extensive territory, the language is spoken in several dialects, the principal of which may, for want of other names, be conveniently designated as the Eastern, Middle, and Western. Adair's classification into "Ayrate" (e'ladi), or low, and "Ottare" (â'tali), or mountainous, must be rejected as imperfect. The Eastern dialect, formerly often called the Lower Cherokee dialect, was originally spoken in all the towns upon the waters of the Keowee and Tugaloo, head-streams of Savannah river, in South Carolina and the adjacent portion of Georgia. Its chief peculiarity is a rolling r, which takes the place of the l of the other dialects. In this dialect the tribal name is Tsa'ragi', which the English settlers of Carolina corrupted to Cherokee, while the Spaniards, advancing from the south, became better familiar with the other form, which they wrote as Chalaque. Owing to their exposed frontier position, adjoining the white settlements of Carolina, the Cherokee of this division were the first to feel the shock of war in the campaigns of 1760 and 1776, with the result that before the close of the Revolution they had been completely extirpated from their original territory and scattered as refugees among the more western towns of the tribe. The consequence was that they lost their distinctive dialect, which is now practically extinct. In 1888 it was spoken by but one man on the reservation in North Carolina. The Middle dialect, which might properly be designated the Kituhwa dialect, was originally spoken in the towns on the Tuckasegee and the headwaters of the Little Tennessee, in the very heart of the Cherokee country, and is still spoken by the great majority of those now living on the Qualla reservation. In some of its phonetic forms it agrees with the Eastern dialect, but resembles the Western in having the l sound. The Western dialect was spoken in most of the towns of east Tennessee and upper Georgia and upon Hiwassee and Cheowa rivers in North Carolina. It is the softest and most musical of all the dialects of this musical language, having a frequent liquid l and eliding many of the harsher consonants found in the other forms. It is also the literary dialect, and is spoken by most of those now constituting the Cherokee Nation in the West. Scattered among the other Cherokee are individuals whose pronunciation and occasional peculiar terms for familiar objects give indication of a fourth and perhaps a fifth dialect, which can not now be localized. It is possible that these differences may come from foreign admixture, as of Natchez, Taskigi, or Shawano blood. There is some reason for believing that the people living on Nantahala river differed dialectically from their neighbors on either side (3). The Iroquoian stock, to which the Cherokee belong, had its chief home in the north, its tribes occupying a compact territory which comprised portions of Ontario, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and extended down the Susquehanna and Chesapeake bay almost to the latitude of Washington. Another body, including the Tuscarora, Nottoway, and perhaps also the Meherrin, occupied territory in northeastern North Carolina and the adjacent portion of Virginia. The Cherokee themselves constituted the third and southernmost body. It is evident that tribes of common stock must at one time have occupied contiguous territories, and such we find to be the case in this instance. The Tuscarora and Meherrin, and presumably also the Nottoway, are known to have come from the north, while traditional and historical evidence concur in assigning to the Cherokee as their early home the region about the headwaters of the Ohio, immediately to the southward of their kinsmen, but bitter enemies, the Iroquois. The theory which brings the Cherokee from northern Iowa and the Iroquois from Manitoba is unworthy of serious consideration. (4) The most ancient tradition concerning the Cherokee appears to be the Delaware tradition of the expulsion of the Talligewi from the north, as first noted by the missionary Heckewelder in 1819, and published more fully by Brinton in the Walam Olum in 1885. According to the first account, the Delawares, advancing from the west, found their further progress opposed by a powerful people called Alligewi or Talligewi, occupying the country upon a river which Heckewelder thinks identical with the Mississippi, but which the sequel shows was more probably the upper Ohio. They were said to have regularly built earthen fortifications, in which they defended themselves so well that at last the Delawares were obliged to seek the assistance of the "Mengwe," or Iroquois, with the result that after a warfare extending over many years the Alligewi finally received a crushing defeat, the survivors fleeing down the river and abandoning the country to the invaders, who thereupon parceled it out amongst themselves, the "Mengwe" choosing the portion about the Great lakes while the Delawares took possession of that to the south and east. The missionary adds that the Allegheny (and Ohio) river was still called by the Delawares the Alligewi Sipu, or river of the Alligewi. This would seem to indicate it as the true river of the tradition. He speaks also of remarkable earthworks seen by him in 1789 in the neighborhood of Lake Erie, which were said by the Indians to have been built by the extirpated tribe as defensive fortifications in the course of this war. Near two of these, in the vicinity of Sandusky, he was shown mounds under which it was said some hundreds of the slain Talligewi were buried. [3] As is usual in such traditions, the Alligewi were said to have been of giant stature, far exceeding their conquerors in size. In the Walam Olum, which is, it is asserted, a metrical translation of an ancient hieroglyphic bark record discovered in 1820, the main tradition is given in practically the same way, with an appendix which follows the fortunes of the defeated tribe up to the beginning of the historic period, thus completing the chain of evidence. (5) In the Walam Olum also we find the Delawares advancing from the west or northwest until they come to "Fish river"--the same which Heckewelder makes the Mississippi (6). On the other side, we are told, "The Talligewi possessed the East." The Delaware chief "desired the eastern land," and some of his people go on, but are killed, by the Talligewi. The Delawares decide upon war and call in the help of their northern friends, the "Talamatan," i. e., the Wyandot and other allied Iroquoian tribes. A war ensues which continues through the terms of four successive chiefs, when victory declares for the invaders, and "all the Talega go south." The country is then divided, the Talamatan taking the northern portion, while the Delawares "stay south of the lakes." The chronicle proceeds to tell how, after eleven more chiefs have ruled, the Nanticoke and Shawano separate from the parent tribe and remove to the south. Six other chiefs follow in succession until we come to the seventh, who "went to the Talega mountains." By this time the Delawares have reached the ocean. Other chiefs succeed, after whom "the Easterners and the Wolves"--probably the Mahican or Wappinger and the Munsee--move off to the northeast. At last, after six more chiefs, "the whites came on the eastern sea," by which is probably meant the landing of the Dutch on Manhattan in 1609 (7). We may consider this a tally date, approximating the beginning of the seventeenth century. Two more chiefs rule, and of the second we are told that "He fought at the south; he fought in the land of the Talega and Koweta," and again the fourth chief after the coming of the whites "went to the Talega." We have thus a traditional record of a war of conquest carried on against the Talligewi by four successive chiefs, and a succession of about twenty-five chiefs between the final expulsion of that tribe and the appearance of the whites, in which interval the Nanticoke, Shawano, Mahican, and Munsee branched off from the parent tribe of the Delawares. Without venturing to entangle ourselves in the devious maze of Indian chronology, it is sufficient to note that all this implies a very long period of time--so long, in fact, that during it several new tribes, each of which in time developed a distinct dialect, branch off from the main Lenape' stem. It is distinctly stated that all the Talega went south after their final defeat; and from later references we find that they took refuge in the mountain country in the neighborhood of the Koweta (the Creeks), and that Delaware war parties were still making raids upon both these tribes long after the first appearance of the whites. Although at first glance it might be thought that the name Tallige-wi is but a corruption of Tsalagi, a closer study leads to the opinion that it is a true Delaware word, in all probability connected with waloh or walok, signifying a cave or hole (Zeisberger), whence we find in the Walam Olum the word oligonunk rendered as "at the place of caves." It would thus be an exact Delaware rendering of the same name, "people of the cave country," by which, as we have seen, the Cherokee were commonly known among the tribes. Whatever may be the origin of the name itself, there can be no reasonable doubt as to its application. "Name, location, and legends combine to identify the Cherokees or Tsalaki with the Tallike; and this is as much evidence as we can expect to produce in such researches." [4] The Wyandot confirm the Delaware story and fix the identification of the expelled tribe. According to their tradition, as narrated in 1802, the ancient fortifications in the Ohio valley had been erected in the course of a long war between themselves and the Cherokee, which resulted finally in the defeat of the latter. [5] The traditions of the Cherokee, so far as they have been preserved, supplement and corroborate those of the northern tribes, thus bringing the story down to their final settlement upon the headwaters of the Tennessee in the rich valleys of the southern Alleghenies. Owing to the Cherokee predilection for new gods, contrasting strongly with the conservatism of the Iroquois, their ritual forms and national epics had fallen into decay even before the Revolution, as we learn from Adair. Some vestiges of their migration legend still existed in Haywood's time, but it is now completely forgotten both in the East and in the West. According to Haywood, who wrote in 1823 on information obtained directly from leading members of the tribe long before the Removal, the Cherokee formerly had a long migration legend, which was already lost, but which, within the memory of the mother of one informant--say about 1750--was still recited by chosen orators on the occasion of the annual green-corn dance. This migration legend appears to have resembled that of the Delawares and the Creeks in beginning with genesis and the period of animal monsters, and thence following the shifting fortune of the chosen band to the historic period. The tradition recited that they had originated in a land toward the rising sun, where they had been placed by the command of "the four councils sent from above." In this pristine home were great snakes and water monsters, for which reason it was supposed to have been near the sea-coast, although the assumption is not a necessary corollary, as these are a feature of the mythology of all the eastern tribes. After this genesis period there began a slow migration, during which "towns of people in many nights' encampment removed," but no details are given. From Heckewelder it appears that the expression, "a night's encampment," which occurs also in the Delaware migration legend, is an Indian figure of speech for a halt of one year at a place. [6] In another place Haywood says, although apparently confusing the chronologic order of events: "One tradition which they have amongst them says they came from the west and exterminated the former inhabitants; and then says they came from the upper parts of the Ohio, where they erected the mounds on Grave creek, and that they removed thither from the country where Monticello (near Charlottesville, Virginia) is situated." [7] The first reference is to the celebrated mounds on the Ohio near Moundsville, below Wheeling, West Virginia; the other is doubtless to a noted burial mound described by Jefferson in 1781 as then existing near his home, on the low grounds of Rivanna river opposite the site of an ancient Indian town. He himself had opened it and found it to contain perhaps a thousand disjointed skeletons of both adults and children, the bones piled in successive layers, those near the top being least decayed. They showed no signs of violence, but were evidently the accumulation of long years from the neighboring Indian town. The distinguished writer adds: "But on whatever occasion they may have been made, they are of considerable notoriety among the Indians: for a party passing, about thirty years ago [i. e., about 1750], through the part of the country where this barrow is, went through the woods directly to it without any instructions or enquiry, and having staid about it some time, with expressions which were construed to be those of sorrow, they returned to the high road, which they had left about half a dozen miles to pay this visit, and pursued their journey." [8] Although the tribe is not named, the Indians were probably Cherokee, as no other southern Indians were then accustomed to range in that section. As serving to corroborate this opinion we have the statement of a prominent Cherokee chief, given to Schoolcraft in 1846, that according to their tradition his people had formerly lived at the Peaks of Otter, in Virginia, a noted landmark of the Blue ridge, near the point where Staunton river breaks through the mountains. [9] From a careful sifting of the evidence Haywood concludes that the authors of the most ancient remains in Tennessee had spread over that region from the south and southwest at a very early period, but that the later occupants, the Cherokee, had entered it from the north and northeast in comparatively recent times, overrunning and exterminating the aborigines. He declares that the historical fact seems to be established that the Cherokee entered the country from Virginia, making temporary settlements upon New river and the upper Holston, until, under the continued hostile pressure from the north, they were again forced to remove farther to the south, fixing themselves upon the Little Tennessee, in what afterward became known as the middle towns. By a leading mixed blood of the tribe he was informed that they had made their first settlements within their modern home territory upon Nolichucky river, and that, having lived there for a long period, they could give no definite account of an earlier location. Echota, their capital and peace town, "claimed to be the eldest brother in the nation," and the claim was generally acknowledged. [10] In confirmation of the statement as to an early occupancy of the upper Holston region, it may be noted that "Watauga Old Fields," now Elizabethtown, were so called from the fact that when the first white settlement within the present state of Tennessee was begun there, so early as 1769, the bottom lands were found to contain graves and other numerous ancient remains of a former Indian town which tradition ascribed to the Cherokee, whose nearest settlements were then many miles to the southward. While the Cherokee claimed to have built the mounds on the upper Ohio, they yet, according to Haywood, expressly disclaimed the authorship of the very numerous mounds and petroglyphs in their later home territory, asserting that these ancient works had exhibited the same appearance when they themselves had first occupied the region. [11] This accords with Bartram's statement that the Cherokee, although sometimes utilizing the mounds as sites for their own town houses, were as ignorant as the whites of their origin or purpose, having only a general tradition that their forefathers had found them in much the same condition on first coming into the country. [12] Although, as has been noted, Haywood expresses the opinion that the invading Cherokee had overrun and exterminated the earlier inhabitants, he says in another place, on halfbreed authority, that the newcomers found no Indians upon the waters of the Tennessee, with the exception of some Creeks living upon that river, near the mouth of the Hiwassee, the main body of that tribe being established upon and claiming all the streams to the southward. [13] There is considerable evidence that the Creeks preceded the Cherokee, and within the last century they still claimed the Tennessee, or at least the Tennessee watershed, for their northern boundary. There is a dim but persistent tradition of a strange white race preceding the Cherokee, some of the stories even going so far as to locate their former settlements and to identify them as the authors of the ancient works found in the country. The earliest reference appears to be that of Barton in 1797, on the statement of a gentleman whom he quotes as a valuable authority upon the southern tribes. "The Cheerake tell us, that when they first arrived in the country which they inhabit, they found it possessed by certain 'moon-eyed people,' who could not see in the day-time. These wretches they expelled." He seems to consider them an albino race. [14] Haywood, twenty-six years later, says that the invading Cherokee found "white people" near the head of the Little Tennessee, with forts extending thence down the Tennessee as far as Chickamauga creek. He gives the location of three of these forts. The Cherokee made war against them and drove them to the mouth of Big Chickamauga creek, where they entered into a treaty and agreed to remove if permitted to depart in peace. Permission being granted, they abandoned the country. Elsewhere he speaks of this extirpated white race as having extended into Kentucky and probably also into western Tennessee, according to the concurrent traditions of different tribes. He describes their houses, on what authority is not stated, as having been small circular structures of upright logs, covered with earth which had been dug out from the inside. [15] Harry Smith, a halfbreed born about 1815, father of the late chief of the East Cherokee, informed the author that when a boy he had been told by an old woman a tradition of a race of very small people, perfectly white, who once came and lived for some time on the site of the ancient mound on the northern side of Hiwassee, at the mouth of Peachtree creek, a few miles above the present Murphy, North Carolina. They afterward removed to the West. Colonel Thomas, the white chief of the East Cherokee, born about the beginning of the century, had also heard a tradition of another race of people, who lived on Hiwassee, opposite the present Murphy, and warned the Cherokee that they must not attempt to cross over to the south side of the river or the great leech in the water would swallow them. [16] They finally went west, "long before the whites came." The two stories are plainly the same, although told independently and many miles apart. The Period of Spanish Exploration--1540-? The definite history of the Cherokee begins with the year 1540, at which date we find them already established, where they were always afterward known, in the mountains of Carolina and Georgia. The earliest Spanish adventurers failed to penetrate so far into the interior, and the first entry into their country was made by De Soto, advancing up the Savannah on his fruitless quest for gold, in May of that year. While at Cofitachiqui, an important Indian town on the lower Savannah governed by a "queen," the Spaniards had found hatchets and other objects of copper, some of which was of finer color and appeared to be mixed with gold, although they had no means of testing it. [17] On inquiry they were told that the metal had come from an interior mountain province called Chisca, but the country was represented as thinly peopled and the way as impassable for horses. Some time before, while advancing through eastern Georgia, they had heard also of a rich and plentiful province called Coça, toward the northwest, and by the people of Cofitachiqui they were now told that Chiaha, the nearest town of Coça province, was twelve days inland. As both men and animals were already nearly exhausted from hunger and hard travel, and the Indians either could not or would not furnish sufficient provision for their needs, De Soto determined not to attempt the passage of the mountains then, but to push on at once to Coça, there to rest and recuperate before undertaking further exploration. In the meantime he hoped also to obtain more definite information concerning the mines. As the chief purpose of the expedition was the discovery of the mines, many of the officers regarded this change of plan as a mistake, and favored staying where they were until the new crop should be ripened, then to go directly into the mountains, but as the general was "a stern man and of few words," none ventured to oppose his resolution. [18] The province of Coça was the territory of the Creek Indians, called Ani'-Kusa by the Cherokee, from Kusa, or Coosa, their ancient capital, while Chiaha was identical with Chehaw, one of the principal Creek towns on Chattahoochee river. Cofitachiqui may have been the capital of the Uchee Indians. The outrageous conduct of the Spaniards had so angered the Indian queen that she now refused to furnish guides and carriers, whereupon De Soto made her a prisoner, with the design of compelling her to act as guide herself, and at the same time to use her as a hostage to command the obedience of her subjects. Instead, however, of conducting the Spaniards by the direct trail toward the west, she led them far out of their course until she finally managed to make her escape, leaving them to find their way out of the mountains as best they could. Departing from Cofitachiqui, they turned first toward the north, passing through several towns subject to the queen, to whom, although a prisoner, the Indians everywhere showed great respect and obedience, furnishing whatever assistance the Spaniards compelled her to demand for their own purposes. In a few days they came to "a province called Chalaque," the territory of the Cherokee Indians, probably upon the waters of Keowee river, the eastern head-stream of the Savannah. It is described as the poorest country for corn that they had yet seen, the inhabitants subsisting on wild roots and herbs and on game which they killed with bows and arrows. They were naked, lean, and unwarlike. The country abounded in wild turkeys ("gallinas"), which the people gave very freely to the strangers, one town presenting them with seven hundred. A chief also gave De Soto two deerskins as a great present. [19] Garcilaso, writing on the authority of an old soldier nearly fifty years afterward, says that the. "Chalaques" deserted their towns on the approach of the white men and fled to the mountains, leaving behind only old men and women and some who were nearly blind. [20] Although it was too early for the new crop, the poverty of the people may have been more apparent than real, due to their unwillingness to give any part of their stored-up provision to the unwelcome strangers. As the Spaniards were greatly in need of corn for themselves and their horses, they made no stay, but hurried on. In a few days they arrived at Guaquili, which is mentioned only by Ranjel, who does not specify whether it was a town or a province--i. e., a tribal territory. It was probably a small town. Here they were welcomed in a friendly manner, the Indians giving them a little corn and many wild turkeys, together with some dogs of a peculiar small species, which were bred for eating purposes and did not bark. [21] They were also supplied with men to help carry the baggage. The name Guaquili has a Cherokee sound and may be connected with wa'guli', "whippoorwill," uwâ'gi`li, "foam," or gi`li, "dog." Traveling still toward the north, they arrived a day or two later in the province of Xuala, in which we recognize the territory of the Suwali, Sara, or Cheraw Indians, in the piedmont region about the head of Broad river in North Carolina. Garcilaso, who did not see it, represents it as a rich country, while the Elvas narrative and Biedma agree that it was a rough, broken country, thinly inhabited and poor in provision. According to Garcilaso, it was under the rule of the queen of Cofitachiqui, although a distinct province in itself. [22] The principal town was beside a small rapid stream, close under a mountain. The chief received them in friendly fashion, giving them corn, dogs of the small breed already mentioned, carrying baskets, and burden bearers. The country roundabout showed greater indications of gold mines than any they had yet seen.1> Here De Soto turned to the west, crossing a very high mountain range, which appears to have been the Blue ridge, and descending on the other side to a stream flowing in the opposite direction, which was probably one of the upper tributaries of the French Broad. [23] Although it was late in May, they found it very cold in the mountains. [24] After several days of such travel they arrived, about the end of the month, at the town of Guasili, or Guaxule. The chief and principal men came out some distance to welcome them, dressed in fine robes of skins, with feather head-dresses, after the fashion of the country. Before reaching this point the queen had managed to make her escape, together with three slaves of the Spaniards, and the last that was heard of her was that she was on her way back to her own country with one of the runaways as her husband. What grieved De Soto most in the matter was that she took with her a small box of pearls, which he had intended to take from her before releasing her, but had left with her for the present in order "not to discontent her altogether." [25] Guaxule is described as a very large town surrounded by a number of small mountain streams which united to form the large river down which the Spaniards proceeded after leaving the place. [26] Here, as elsewhere, the Indians received the white men with kindness and hospitality--so much so that the name of Guaxule became to the army a synonym for good fortune. [27] Among other things they gave the Spaniards 300 dogs for food, although, according to the Elvas narrative, the Indians themselves did not eat them. [28] The principal officers of the expedition were lodged in the "chief's house," by which we are to understand the townhouse, which was upon a high hill with a roadway to the top. [29] From a close study of the narrative it appears that this "hill" was no other than the great Nacoochee mound, in White county, Georgia, a few miles northwest of the present Clarkesville. [30] It was within the Cherokee territory, and the town was probably a settlement of that tribe. From here De Soto sent runners ahead to notify the chief of Chiaha of his approach, in order that sufficient corn might be ready on his arrival. Leaving Guaxule, they proceeded down the river, which we identify with the Chattahoochee, and in two days arrived at Canasoga, or Canasagua, a frontier town of the Cherokee. As they neared the town they were met by the Indians, bearing baskets of "mulberries," [31] more probably the delicious service-berry of the southern mountains, which ripens in early summer, while the mulberry matures later. From here they continued down the river, which grew constantly larger, through an uninhabited country which formed the disputed territory between the Cherokee and the Creeks. About five days after leaving Canasagua they were met by messengers, who escorted them to Chiaha, the first town of the province of Coça. De Soto had crossed the state of Georgia, leaving the Cherokee country behind him, and was now among the Lower Creeks, in the neighborhood of the present Columbus, Georgia. [32] With his subsequent wanderings after crossing the Chattahoochee into Alabama and beyond we need not concern ourselves (8). While resting at Chiaha De Soto met with a chief who confirmed what the Spaniards had heard before concerning mines in the province of Chisca, saying that there was there "a melting of copper" and of another metal of about the same color, but softer, and therefore not so much used. [33] The province was northward from Chiaha, somewhere in upper Georgia or the adjacent part of Alabama or Tennessee, through all of which mountain region native copper is found. The other mineral, which the Spaniards understood to be gold, may have been iron pyrites, although there is some evidence that the Indians occasionally found and shaped gold nuggets.6 Accordingly two soldiers were sent on foot with Indian guides to find Chisca and learn the truth of the stories. They rejoined the army some time after the march had been resumed, and reported, according to the Elvas chronicler, that their guides had taken them through a country so poor in corn, so rough, and over so high mountains that it would be impossible for the army to follow, wherefore, as the way grew long and lingering, they had turned back after reaching a little poor town where they saw nothing that was of any profit. They brought back with them a dressed buffalo skin which the Indians there had given them, the first ever obtained by white men, and described in the quaint old chronicle as "an ox hide as thin as a calf's skin, and the hair like a soft wool between the coarse and fine wool of sheep." [34] Garcilaso's glowing narrative gives a somewhat different impression. According to this author the scouts returned full of enthusiasm for the fertility of the country, and reported that the mines were of a fine species of copper, and had indications also of gold and silver, while their progress from one town to another had been a continual series of feastings and Indian hospitalities. [35] However that may have been, De Soto made no further effort to reach the Cherokee mines, but continued his course westward through the Creek country, having spent altogether a month in the mountain region. There is no record of any second attempt to penetrate the Cherokee country for twenty-six years (9). In 1561 the Spaniards took formal possession of the bay of Santa Elena, now Saint Helena, near Port Royal, on the coast of South Carolina. The next year the French made an unsuccessful attempt at settlement at the same place, and in 1566 Menendez made the Spanish occupancy sure by establishing there a fort which he called San Felipe. [36] In November of that year Captain Juan Pardo was sent with a party from the fort to explore the interior. Accompanied by the chief of "Juada" (which from Vandera's narrative we find should be "Joara," i. e., the Sara Indians already mentioned in the De Soto chronicle), he proceeded as far as the territory of that tribe, where he built a fort, but on account of the snow in the mountains did not think it advisable to go farther, and returned, leaving a sergeant with thirty soldiers to garrison the post. Soon after his return he received a letter from the sergeant stating that the chief of Chisca--the rich mining country of which De Soto had heard--was very hostile to the Spaniards, and that in a recent battle the latter had killed a thousand of his Indians and burned fifty houses with almost no damage to themselves. Either the sergeant or his chronicler must have been an unconscionable liar, as it was asserted that all this was done with only fifteen men. Immediately afterward, according to the same story, the sergeant marched with twenty men about a day's distance in the mountains against another hostile chief, whom he found in a strongly palisaded town, which, after a hard fight, he and his men stormed and burned, killing fifteen hundred Indians without losing a single man themselves. Under instructions from his superior officer, the sergeant with his small party then proceeded to explore what lay beyond, and, taking a road which they were told led to the territory of a great chief, after four days of hard marching they came to his town, called Chiaha (Chicha, by mistake in the manuscript translation), the same where De Soto had rested. It is described at this time as palisaded and strongly fortified, with a deep river on each side, and defended by over three thousand fighting men, there being no women or children among them. It is possible that in view of their former experience with the Spaniards, the Indians had sent their families away from the town, while at the same time they may have summoned warriors from the neighboring Creek towns in order to be prepared for any emergency. However, as before, they received the white men with the greatest kindness, and the Spaniards continued for twelve days through the territories of the same tribe until they arrived at the principal town (Kusa?), where, by the invitation of the chief, they built a small fort and awaited the coming of Pardo, who was expected to follow with a larger force from Santa Elena, as he did in the summer of 1567, being met on his arrival with every show of hospitality from the Creek chiefs. This second fort was said to be one hundred and forty leagues distant from that in the Sara country, which latter was called one hundred and twenty leagues from Santa Elena. [37] In the summer of 1567, according to previous agreement, Captain Pardo left the fort at Santa Elena with a small detachment of troops, and after a week's travel, sleeping each night at a different Indian town, arrived at "Canos, which the Indians call Canosi, and by another name, Cofetaçque" (the Cofitachiqui of the De Soto chronicle), which is described as situated in a favorable location for a large city, fifty leagues from Santa Elena, to which the easiest road was by a river (the Savannah) which flowed by the town, or by another which they had passed ten leagues farther back. Proceeding, they passed Jagaya, Gueza, and Arauchi, and arrived at Otariyatiqui, or Otari, in which we have perhaps the Cherokee â'tari or â'tali, "mountain". It may have been a frontier Cherokee settlement, and, according to the old chronicler, its chief and language ruled much good country. From here a trail went northward to Guatari, Sauxpa, and Usi, i. e., the Wateree, Waxhaw (or Sissipahaw?), and Ushery or Catawba. Leaving Otariyatiqui, they went on to Quinahaqui, and then, turning to the left, to Issa, where they found mines of crystal (mica?). They came next to Aguaquiri (the Guaquili of the De Soto chronicle), and then to Joara, "near to the mountain, where Juan Pardo arrived with his sergeant on his first trip." This, as has been noted, was the Xuala of the De Soto chronicle, the territory of the Sara Indians, in the foothills of the Blue ridge, southeast from the present Asheville, North Carolina. Vandera makes it one hundred leagues from Santa Elena, while Martinez, already quoted, makes the distance one hundred and twenty leagues. The difference is not important, as both statements were only estimates. From there they followed "along the mountains" to Tocax (Toxaway?), Cauchi (Nacoochee?), and Tanasqui--apparently Cherokee towns, although the forms can not be identified--and after resting three days at the last-named place went on "to Solameco, otherwise called Chiaha," where the sergeant met them. The combined forces afterward went on, through Cossa (Kusa), Tasquiqui (Taskigi), and other Creek towns, as far as Tascaluza, in the Alabama country, and returned thence to Santa Elena, having apparently met with a friendly reception everywhere along the route. From Cofitachiqui to Tascaluza they went over about the same road traversed by De Soto in 1540. [38] We come now to a great gap of nearly a century. Shea has a notice of a Spanish mission founded among the Cherokee in 1643 and still flourishing when visited by an English traveler ten years later, [39] but as his information is derived entirely from the fraudulent work of Davies, and as no such mission is mentioned by Barcia in any of these years, we may regard the story as spurious (10). The first mission work in the tribe appears to have been that of Priber, almost a hundred years later. Long before the end of the sixteenth century, however, the existence of mines of gold and other metals in the Cherokee country was a matter of common knowledge among the Spaniards at St. Augustine and Santa Elena, and more than one expedition had been fitted out to explore the interior. [40] Numerous traces of ancient mining operations, with remains of old shafts and fortifications, evidently of European origin, show that these discoveries were followed up, although the policy of Spain concealed the fact from the outside world. How much permanent impression this early Spanish intercourse made on the Cherokee it is impossible to estimate, but it must have been considerable (11). The Colonial and Revolutionary Period--1654-1784 It was not until 1654 that the English first came into contact with the Cherokee, called in the records of the period Rechahecrians, a corruption of Rickahockan, apparently the name by which they were known to the Powhatan tribes. In that year the Virginia colony, which had only recently concluded a long and exterminating war with the Powhatan, was thrown into alarm by the news that a great body of six or seven hundred Rechahecrian Indians--by which is probably meant that number of warriors--from the mountains had invaded the lower country and established themselves at the falls of James river, where now is the city of Richmond. The assembly at once passed resolutions "that these new come Indians be in no sort suffered to seat themselves there, or any place near us, it having cost so much blood to expel and extirpate those perfidious and treacherous Indians which were there formerly." It was therefore ordered that a force of at least 100 white men be at once sent against them, to be joined by the warriors of all the neighboring subject tribes, according to treaty obligation. The Pamunkey chief, with a hundred of his men, responded to the summons, and the combined force marched against the invaders. The result was a bloody battle, with disastrous outcome to the Virginians, the Pamunkey chief with most of his men being killed, while the whites were forced to make such terms of peace with the Rechahecrians that the assembly cashiered the commander of the expedition and compelled him to pay the whole cost of the treaty from his own estate. [41] Owing to the imperfection of the Virginia records we have no means of knowing the causes of the sudden invasion or how long the invaders retained their position at the falls. In all probability it was only the last of a long series of otherwise unrecorded irruptions by the mountaineers on the more peaceful dwellers in the lowlands. From a remark in Lederer it is probable that the Cherokee were assisted also by some of the piedmont tribes hostile to the Powhatan. The Peaks of Otter, near which the Cherokee claim to have once lived, as has been already noted, are only about one hundred miles in a straight line from Richmond, while the burial mound and town site near Charlottesville, mentioned by Jefferson, are but half that distance. In 1655 a Virginia expedition sent out from the falls of James river (Richmond) crossed over the mountains to the large streams flowing into the Mississippi. No details are given and the route is uncertain, but whether or not they met Indians, they must have passed through Cherokee territory. [42] In 1670 the German traveler, John Lederer, went from the falls of James river to the Catawba country in South Carolina, following for most of the distance the path used by the Virginia traders, who already had regular dealings with the southern tribes, including probably the Cherokee. He speaks in several places of the Rickahockan, which seems to be a more correct form than Rechahecrian, and his narrative and the accompanying map put them in the mountains of North Carolina, back of the Catawba and the Sara and southward from the head of Roanoke river. They were apparently on hostile terms with the tribes to the eastward, and while the traveler was stopping at an Indian village on Dan river, about the present Clarksville, Virginia, a delegation of Rickahockan, which had come on tribal business, was barbarously murdered at a dance prepared on the night of their arrival by their treacherous hosts. On reaching the Catawba country he heard of white men to the southward, and incidentally mentions that the neighboring mountains were called the Suala mountains by the Spaniards. [43] In the next year, 1671, a party from Virginia under Thomas Batts explored the northern branch of Roanoke river and crossed over the Blue ridge to the headwaters of New river, where they found traces of occupancy, but no Indians. By this time all the tribes of this section, east of the mountains, were in possession of firearms. [44] The first permanent English settlement in South Carolina was established in 1670. In 1690 James Moore, secretary of the colony, made an exploring expedition into the mountains and reached a point at which, according to his Indian guides, he was within twenty miles of where the Spaniards were engaged in mining and smelting with bellows and furnaces, but on account of some misunderstanding he returned without visiting the place, although he procured specimens of ores, which he sent to England for assay. [45] It may have been in the neighborhood of the present Lincolnton, North Carolina, where a dam of cut stone and other remains of former civilized occupancy have recently been discovered (11). In this year, also, Cornelius Dougherty, an Irishman from Virginia, established himself as the first trader among the Cherokee, with whom he spent the rest of his life. [46] Some of his descendants still occupy honored positions in the tribe. Among the manuscript archives of South Carolina there was said to be, some fifty years ago, a treaty or agreement made with the government of that colony by the Cherokee in 1684, and signed with the hieroglyphics of eight chiefs of the lower towns, viz, Corani, the Raven (Kâ'lanû); Sinnawa, the Hawk (Tla'nuwa); Nellawgitehi, Gorhaleke, and Owasta, all of Toxawa; and Canacaught, the great Conjuror, Gohoma, and Caunasaita, of Keowa. If still in existence, this is probably the oldest Cherokee treaty on record. [47] What seems to be the next mention of the Cherokee in the South Carolina records occurs in 1691, when we find an inquiry ordered in regard to a report that some of the colonists "have, without any proclamation of war, fallen upon and murdered" several of that tribe. [48] In 1693 some Cherokee chiefs went to Charleston with presents for the governor and offers of friendship, to ask the protection of South Carolina against their enemies, the Esaw (Catawba), Savanna (Shawano), and Congaree, all of that colony, who had made war upon them and sold a number of their tribesmen into slavery. They were told that their kinsmen could not now be recovered, but that the English desired friendship with their tribe, and that the Government would see that there would be no future ground for such complaint. [49] The promise was apparently not kept, for in 1705 we find a bitter accusation brought against Governor Moore, of South Carolina, that he had granted commissions to a number of persons "to set upon, assault, kill, destroy, and take captive as many Indians as they possible [sic] could," the prisoners being sold into slavery for his and their private profit. By this course, it was asserted, he had "already almost utterly ruined the trade for skins and furs, whereby we held our chief correspondence with England, and turned it into a trade of Indians or slave making, whereby the Indians to the south and west of us are already involved in blood and confusion." The arraignment concludes with a warning that such conditions would in all probability draw down upon the colony an Indian war with all its dreadful consequences. [50] In view of what happened a few years later this reads like a prophecy. About the year 1700 the first guns were introduced among the Cherokee, the event being fixed traditionally as having occurred in the girlhood of an old woman of the tribe who died about 1775. [51] In 1708 we find them described as a numerous people, living in the mountains northwest from the Charleston settlements and having sixty towns, but of small importance in the Indian trade, being "but ordinary hunters and less warriors." [52] In the war with the Tuscarora in 1711-1713, which resulted in the expulsion of that tribe from North Carolina, more than a thousand southern Indians reenforced the South Carolina volunteers, among them being over two hundred Cherokee, hereditary enemies of the Tuscarora. Although these Indian allies did their work well in the actual encounters, their assistance was of doubtful advantage, as they helped themselves freely to whatever they wanted along the way, so that the settlers had reason to fear them almost as much as the hostile Tuscarora. After torturing a large number of their prisoners in the usual savage fashion, they returned with the remainder, whom they afterward sold as slaves to South Carolina. [53] Having wiped out old scores with the Tuscarora, the late allies of the English proceeded to discuss their own grievances, which, as we have seen, were sufficiently galling. The result was a combination against the whites, embracing all the tribes from Cape Fear to the Chattahoochee, including the Cherokee, who thus for the first time raised their hand against the English. The war opened with a terrible massacre by the Yamassee in April, 1715, followed by assaults along the whole frontier, until for a time it was seriously feared that the colony of South Carolina would be wiped out of existence. In a contest between savagery and civilization, however, the final result is inevitable. The settlers at last rallied their whole force under Governor Craven and administered such a crushing blow to the Yamassee that the remnant abandoned their country and took refuge with the Spaniards in Florida or among the Lower Creeks. The English then made short work with the smaller tribes along the coast, while those in the interior were soon glad to sue for peace. [54] A number of Cherokee chiefs having come down to Charleston in company with a trader to express their desire for peace, a force of several hundred white troops and a number of negroes under Colonel Maurice Moore went up the Savannah in the winter of 1715-16 and made headquarters among the Lower Cherokee, where they were met by the chiefs of the Lower and some of the western towns, who reaffirmed their desire for a lasting peace with the English, but refused to fight against the Yamassee, although willing to proceed against some other tribes. They laid the blame for most of the trouble upon the traders, who "had been very abuseful to them of late." A detachment under Colonel George Chicken, sent to the Upper Cherokee, penetrated to "Quoneashee" (Tlanusi'yi, on Hiwassee, about the present Murphy) where they found the chiefs more defiant, resolved to continue the war against the Creeks, with whom the English were then trying to make peace, and demanding large supplies of guns and ammunition, saying that if they made a peace with the other tribes they would have no means of getting slaves with which to buy ammunition for themselves. At this time they claimed 2,370 warriors, of whom half were believed to have guns. As the strength of the whole Nation was much greater, this estimate may have been for the Upper and Middle Cherokee only. After "abundance of persuading" by the officers, they finally "told us they would trust us once again," and an arrangement was made to furnish them two hundred guns with a supply of ammunition, together with fifty white soldiers, to assist them against the tribes with which the English were still at war. In March, 1716, this force was increased by one hundred men. The detachment under Colonel Chicken returned by way of the towns on the upper part of the Little Tennessee, thus penetrating the heart of the Cherokee country. [55] Steps were now taken to secure peace by inaugurating a satisfactory trade system, for which purpose a large quantity of suitable goods was purchased at the public expense of South Carolina, and a correspondingly large party was equipped for the initial trip. [56] In 1721, in order still more to systematize Indian affairs, Governor Nicholson of South Carolina invited the chiefs of the Cherokee to a conference, at which thirty-seven towns were represented. A treaty was made by which trading methods were regulated, a boundary line between their territory and the English settlements was agreed upon, and an agent was appointed to superintend their affairs. At the governor's suggestion, one chief, called Wrosetasatow(?) [57] was formally commissioned as supreme head of the Nation, with authority to punish all offenses, including murder, and to represent all Cherokee claims to the colonial government. Thus were the Cherokee reduced from their former condition of a free people, ranging where their pleasure led, to that of dependent vassals with bounds fixed by a colonial governor. The negotiations were accompanied by a cession of land, the first in the history of the tribe. In little more than a century thereafter they had signed away their whole original territory. [58] The document of 1716 already quoted puts the strength of the Cherokee at that time at 2,370 warriors, but in this estimate the Lower Cherokee seem not to have been included. In 1715, according to a trade census compiled by Governor Johnson of South Carolina, the tribe had thirty towns, with 4,000 warriors and a total population of 11,210. [59] Another census in 1721 gives them fifty-three towns with 3,510 warriors and a total of 10,379, [60] while the report of the board of trade for the same year gives them 3,800 warriors, [61] equivalent, by the same proportion, to nearly 12,000 total. Adair, a good authority on such matters, estimates, about the year 1735, when the country was better known, that they had "sixty-four towns and villages, populous and full of children," with more than 6,000 fighting men, [62] equivalent on the same basis of computation to between 16,000 and 17,000 souls. From what we know of them in later times, it is probable that this last estimate is very nearly correct. By this time the colonial government had become alarmed at the advance of the French, who had made their first permanent establishment in the Gulf states at Biloxi bay, Mississippi, in 1699, and in 1714 had built Fort Toulouse, known to the English as "the fort at the Alabamas," on Coosa river, a few miles above the present Montgomery, Alabama. From this central vantage point they had rapidly extended their influence among all the neighboring tribes until in 1721 it was estimated that 3,400 warriors who had formerly traded with Carolina had been "entirely debauched to the French interest," while 2,000 more were wavering, and only the Cherokee could still be considered friendly to the English. [63] From this time until the final withdrawal of the French in 1763 the explanation of our Indian wars is to be found in the struggle between the two nations for territorial and commercial supremacy, the Indian being simply the cat's-paw of one or the other. For reasons of their own, the Chickasaw, whose territory lay within the recognized limits of Louisiana, soon became the uncompromising enemies of the French, and as their position enabled them in a measure to control the approach from the Mississippi, the Carolina government saw to it that they were kept well supplied with guns and ammunition. British traders were in all their towns, and on one occasion a French force, advancing against a Chickasaw palisaded village, found it garrisoned by Englishmen flying the British flag. [64] The Cherokee, although nominally allies of the English, were strongly disposed to favor the French, and it required every effort of the Carolina government to hold them to their allegiance. In 1730, to further fix the Cherokee in the English interest, Sir Alexander Cuming was dispatched on a secret mission to that tribe, which was again smarting under grievances and almost ready to join with the Creeks in an alliance with the French. Proceeding to the ancient town of Nequassee (Nikwasi', at the present Franklin, North Carolina), he so impressed the chiefs by his bold bearing that they conceded without question all his demands, submitting themselves and their people for the second time to the English dominion and designating Moytoy, [65] of Tellico, to act as their "emperor" and to represent the Nation in all transactions with the whites. Seven chiefs were selected to visit England, where, in the palace at Whitehall, they solemnly renewed the treaty, acknowledging the sovereignty of England and binding themselves to have no trade or alliance with any other nation, not to allow any other white people to settle among them, and to deliver up any fugitive slaves who might seek refuge with them. To confirm their words they delivered a "crown", five eagle-tails, and four scalps, which they had brought with them. In return they received the usual glittering promises of love and perpetual friendship, together with a substantial quantity of guns, ammunition, and red paint. The treaty being concluded in September, they took ship for Carolina, where they arrived, as we are told by the governor, "in good health and mightily well satisfied with His Majesty's bounty to them." [66] In the next year some action was taken to use the Cherokee and Catawba to subdue the refractory remnant of the Tuscarora in North Carolina, but when it was found that this was liable to bring down the wrath of the Iroquois upon the Carolina settlements, more peaceable methods were used instead. [67] In 1738 or 1739 the smallpox, brought to Carolina by slave ships, broke out among the Cherokee with such terrible effect that, according to Adair, nearly half the tribe was swept away within a year. The awful mortality was due largely to the fact that as it was a new and strange disease to the Indians they had no proper remedies against it, and therefore resorted to the universal Indian panacea for "strong" sickness of almost any kind, viz, cold plunge baths in the running stream, the worst treatment that could possibly be devised. As the pestilence spread unchecked from town to town, despair fell upon the nation. The priests, believing the visitation a penalty for violation of the ancient ordinances, threw away their sacred paraphernalia as things which had lost their protecting power. Hundreds of the warriors committed suicide on beholding their frightful disfigurement. "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." [68] Another authority estimates their loss at a thousand warriors, partly from smallpox and partly from rum brought in by the traders. [69] About the year 1740 a trading path for horsemen was marked out by the Cherokee from the new settlement of Augusta, in Georgia, to their towns on the headwaters of Savannah river and thence on to the west. This road, which went up the south side of the river, soon became much frequented.4 Previous to this time most, of the trading goods had been transported on the backs of Indians. In the same year a party of Cherokee under the war chief Kâ'lanû. "The Raven," took part in Oglethorpe's expedition against the Spaniards of Saint Augustine. [70] In 1736 Christian Priber, said to be a Jesuit acting in the French interest, had come among the Cherokee, and, by the facility with which he learned the language and adapted himself to the native dress and mode of life, had quickly acquired a leading influence among them. He drew up for their adoption a scheme of government modeled after the European plan, with the capital at Great Tellico, in Tennessee, the principal medicine man as emperor, and himself as the emperor's secretary. Under this title he corresponded with the South Carolina government until it began to be feared that he would ultimately win over the whole tribe to the French side. A commissioner was sent to arrest him, but the Cherokee refused to give him up, and the deputy was obliged to return under safe-conduct of an escort furnished by Priber. Five years after the inauguration of his work, however, he was seized by some English traders while on his way to Fort Toulouse, and brought as a prisoner to Frederica, in Georgia, where he soon afterward died while under confinement. Although his enemies had represented him as a monster, inciting the Indians to the grossest immoralities, he proved to be a gentleman of polished address, extensive learning, and rare courage, as was shown later on the occasion of an explosion in the barracks magazine. Besides Greek, Latin, French, German, Spanish, and fluent English, he spoke also the Cherokee, and among his papers which were seized was found a manuscript dictionary of the language, which he had prepared for publication--the first, and even yet, perhaps, the most important study of the language ever made. Says Adair: "As he was learned and possessed of a very sagacious penetrating judgment, and had every qualification that was requisite for his bold and difficult enterprise, it was 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." He claimed to be a Jesuit, acting under orders of his superior, to introduce habits of steady industry, civilized arts, and a regular form of government among the southern tribes, with a view to the ultimate founding of an independent Indian state. From all that can be gathered of him, even though it comes from his enemies, there can be little doubt that he was a worthy member of that illustrious order whose name has been a synonym for scholarship, devotion, and courage from the days of Jogues and Marquette down to De Smet and Mengarini. [71] Up to this time no civilizing or mission work had been undertaken by either of the Carolina governments among any of the tribes within their borders. As one writer of the period quaintly puts it, "The gospel spirit is not yet so gloriously arisen as to seek them more than theirs," while another in stronger terms affirms, "To the shame of the Christian name, no pains have ever been taken to convert them to Christianity; on the contrary, their morals are perverted and corrupted by the sad example they daily have of its depraved professors residing in their towns." [72] Readers of Lawson and other narratives of the period will feel the force of the rebuke. Throughout the eighteenth century the Cherokee were engaged in chronic warfare with their Indian neighbors. As these quarrels concerned the whites but little, however momentous they may have been to the principals, we have but few details. The war with the Tuscarora continued until the outbreak of the latter tribe against Carolina in 1711 gave opportunity to the Cherokee to cooperate in striking the blow which drove the Tuscarora from their ancient homes to seek refuge in the north. The Cherokee then turned their attention to the Shawano on the Cumberland, and with the aid of the Chickasaw finally expelled them from that region about the year 1715. Inroads upon the Catawba were probably kept up until the latter had become so far reduced by war and disease as to be mere dependent pensioners upon the whites. The former friendship with the Chickasaw was at last broken through the overbearing conduct of the Cherokee, and a war followed of which we find incidental notice in 1757, [73] and which terminated in a decisive victory for the Chickasaw about 1768. The bitter war with the Iroquois of the far north continued, in spite of all the efforts of the colonial governments, until a formal treaty of peace was brought about by the efforts of Sir William Johnson (12) in the same year. The hereditary war with the Creeks for possession of upper Georgia continued, with brief intervals of peace, or even alliance, until the United States finally interfered as mediator between the rival claimants. In 1718 we find notice of a large Cherokee war party moving against the Creek town of Coweta, on the lower Chattahoochee, but dispersing on learning of the presence there of some French and Spanish officers, as well as some English traders, all bent on arranging an alliance with the Creeks. The Creeks themselves had declared their willingness to be at peace with the English, while still determined to keep the bloody hatchet uplifted against the Cherokee. [74] The most important incident of the struggle between the two tribes was probably the battle of Tali'wa about the year 1755. [75] By this time the weaker coast tribes had become practically extinct, and the more powerful tribes of the interior were beginning to take the alarm, as they saw the restless borderers pushing every year farther into the Indian country. As early as 1748 Dr Thomas Walker, with a company of hunters and woodsmen from Virginia, crossed the mountains to the southwest, discovering and naming the celebrated Cumberland gap and passing on to the headwaters of Cumberland river. Two years later he made a second exploration and penetrated to Kentucky river, but on account of the Indian troubles no permanent settlement was then attempted. [76] This invasion of their territory awakened a natural resentment of the native owners, and we find proof also in the Virginia records that the irresponsible borderers seldom let pass an opportunity to kill and plunder any stray Indian found in their neighborhood. In 1755 the Cherokee were officially reported to number 2,590 warriors, as against probably twice that number previous to the great smallpox epidemic sixteen years before. Their neighbors and ancient enemies, the Catawba, had dwindled to 240 men. [77] Although war was not formally declared by England until 1756, hostilities in the seven year's struggle between France and England, commonly known in America as the "French and Indian war," began in April, 1754, when the French seized a small post which the English had begun at the present site of Pittsburg, and which was afterward finished by the French under the name of Fort Du Quesne. Strenuous efforts were made by the English to secure the Cherokee to their interest against the French and their Indian allies, and treaties were negotiated by which they promised assistance. [78] As these treaties, however, carried the usual cessions of territory, and stipulated for the building of several forts in the heart of the Cherokee country, it is to be feared that the Indians were not duly impressed by the disinterested character of the proceeding. Their preference for the French was but thinly veiled, and only immediate policy prevented them from throwing their whole force into the scale on that side. The reasons for this preference are given by Timberlake, the young Virginian officer who visited the tribe on an embassy of conciliation a few years later: I found the nation much attached to the French, who have the prudence, by familiar politeness--which costs but little and often does a great deal--and conforming themselves to their ways and temper, to conciliate the inclinations of almost all the Indians they are acquainted with, while the pride of our officers often disgusts them. Nay, they did not scruple to own to me that it was the trade alone that induced them to make peace with us, and not any preference to the French, whom they loved a great deal better.... The English are now so nigh, and encroached daily so far upon them, that they not only felt the bad effects of it in their hunting grounds, which were spoiled, but had all the reason in the world to apprehend being swallowed up by so potent neighbors or driven from the country inhabited by their fathers, in which they were born and brought up, in fine, their native soil, for which all men have a particular tenderness and affection. He adds that only dire necessity had induced them to make peace with the English in 1761. [79] In accordance with the treaty stipulations Fort Prince George was built in 1756 adjoining the important Cherokee town of Keowee, on the headwaters of the Savannah, and Fort Loudon near the junction of Tellico river with the Little Tennessee, in the center of the Cherokee towns beyond the mountains. [80] By special arrangement with the influential chief, Ata-kullakulla (Ata'-gûl'`kalû'), [81] Fort Dobbs was also built in the same year about 20 miles west of the present Salisbury, North Carolina. [82] The Cherokee had agreed to furnish four hundred warriors to cooperate against the French in the north, but before Fort Loudon had been completed it was very evident that they had repented of their promise, as their great council at Echota ordered the work stopped and the garrison on the way to turn back, plainly telling the officer in charge that they did not want so many white people among them. Ata-kullakulla, hitherto supposed to be one of the stanchest friends of the English, was now one of the most determined in the opposition. It was in evidence also that they were in constant communication with the French. By much tact and argument their objections were at last overcome for a time, and they very unwillingly set about raising the promised force of warriors. Major Andrew Lewis, who superintended the building of the fort, became convinced that the Cherokee were really friendly to the French, and that all their professions of friendship and assistance were "only to put a gloss on their knavery." The fort was finally completed, and, on his suggestion, was garrisoned with a strong force of two hundred men under Captain Demeré. [83] There was strong ground for believing that some depredations committed about this time on the heads of Catawba and Broad rivers, in North Carolina, were the joint work of Cherokee and northern Indians. [84] Notwithstanding all this, a considerable body of Cherokee joined the British forces on the Virginia frontier. [85] Fort Du Quesne was taken by the American provincials under Washington, November 25, 1758. Quebec was taken September 13, 1759, and by the final treaty of peace in 1763 the war ended with the transfer of Canada and the Ohio valley to the crown of England. Louisiana had already been ceded by France to Spain. Although France was thus eliminated from the Indian problem, the Indians themselves were not ready to accept the settlement. In the north the confederated tribes under Pontiac continued to war on their own account until 1765. In the South the very Cherokee who had acted as allies of the British against Fort Du Quesne, and had voluntarily offered to guard the frontier south of the Potomac, returned to rouse their tribe to resistance. The immediate exciting cause of the trouble was an unfortunate expedition undertaken against the hostile Shawano in February, 1756, by Major Andrew Lewis (the same who had built Fort Loudon) with some two hundred Virginia troops assisted by about one hundred Cherokee. After six weeks of fruitless tramping through the woods, with the ground covered with snow and the streams so swollen by rains that they lost their provisions and ammunition in crossing, they were obliged to return to the settlements in a starving condition, having killed their horses on the way. The Indian contingent had from the first been disgusted at the contempt and neglect experienced from those whom they had come to assist. The Tuscarora and others had already gone home, and the Cherokee now started to return on foot to their own country. Finding some horses running loose on the range, they appropriated them, on the theory that as they had lost their own animals, to say nothing of having risked their lives, in the service of the colonists, it was only a fair exchange. The frontiersmen took another view of the question however, attacked the returning Cherokee, and killed a number of them, variously stated at from twelve to forty, including several of their prominent men. According to Adair they also scalped and mutilated the bodies in the savage fashion to which they had become accustomed in the border wars, and brought the scalps into the settlements, where they were represented as those of French Indians and sold at the regular price then established by law. The young warriors at once prepared to take revenge, but were restrained by the chiefs until satisfaction could be demanded in the ordinary way, according to the treaties arranged with the colonial governments. Application was made in turn to Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina, but without success. While the women were still wailing night and morning for their slain kindred, and the Creeks were taunting the warriors for their cowardice in thus quietly submitting to the injury, some lawless officers of Fort Prince George committed an unpardonable outrage at the neighboring Indian town while most of the men were away hunting. [86] The warriors could no longer be restrained. Soon there was news of attacks upon the back settlements of Carolina, while on the other side of the mountains two soldiers of the Fort Loudon garrison were killed. War seemed at hand. At this juncture, in November, 1758, a party of influential chiefs, having first ordered back a war party just about to set out from the western towns against the Carolina settlements, came down to Charleston and succeeded in arranging the difficulty upon a friendly basis. The assembly had officially declared peace with the Cherokee, when, in May of 1759, Governor Lyttleton unexpectedly came forward with a demand for the surrender for execution of every Indian who had killed a white man in the recent skirmishes, among these being the chiefs of Citico and Tellico. At the same time the commander at Fort Loudon, forgetful of the fact that he had but a small garrison in the midst of several thousands of restless savages, made a demand for twenty-four other chiefs whom he suspected of unfriendly action. To compel their surrender orders were given to stop all trading supplies intended for the upper Cherokee. This roused the whole Nation, and a delegation representing every town came down to Charleston, protesting the desire of the Indians for peace and friendship, but declaring their inability to surrender their own chiefs. The governor replied by declaring war in November, 1759, at once calling out troops and sending messengers to secure the aid of all the surrounding tribes against the Cherokee. In the meantime a second delegation of thirty-two of the most prominent men, led by the young war chief Oconostota, (Âgan-stâta), [87] arrived to make a further effort for peace, but the governor, refusing to listen to them, seized the whole party and confined them as prisoners at Fort Prince George, in a room large enough for only six soldiers, while at the same time he set fourteen hundred troops in motion to invade the Cherokee country. On further representation by Ata-kullakulla (Ata'-gûl'`kalû'), the civil chief of the Nation and well known as a friend of the English, the governor released Oconostota and two others after compelling some half dozen of the delegation to sign a paper by which they pretended to agree for their tribe to kill or seize any Frenchmen entering their country, and consented to the imprisonment of the party until all the warriors demanded had been surrendered for execution or otherwise. At this stage of affairs the smallpox broke out in the Cherokee towns, rendering a further stay in their neighborhood unsafe, and thinking the whole matter now settled on his own basis, Lyttleton returned to Charleston. The event soon proved how little he knew of Indian temper. Oconostota at once laid siege to Fort Prince George, completely cutting off communication at a time when, as it was now winter, no help could well be expected from below. In February, 1760, after having kept the fort thus closely invested for some weeks, he sent word one day by an Indian woman that he wished to speak to the commander, Lieutenant Coytmore. As the lieutenant stepped out from the stockade to see what was wanted, Oconostota, standing on the opposite side of the river, swung a bridle above his head as a signal to his warriors concealed in the bushes, and the officer was at once shot down. The soldiers immediately broke into the room where the hostages were confined, every one being a chief of prominence in the tribe and butchered them to the last man. It was now war to the end. Led by Oconostota, the Cherokee descended upon the frontier settlements of Carolina, while the warriors across the mountains laid close siege to Fort Loudon. In June, 1760, a strong force of over 1,600 men, under Colonel Montgomery, started to reduce the Cherokee towns and relieve the beleaguered garrison. Crossing the Indian frontier, Montgomery quickly drove the enemy from about Fort Prince George and then, rapidly advancing, surprised Little Keowee, killing every man of the defenders, and destroyed in succession every one of the Lower Cherokee towns, burning them to the ground, cutting down the cornfields and orchards, killing and taking more than a hundred of their men, and driving the whole population into the mountains before him. His own loss was very slight. He then sent messengers to the Middle and Upper towns, summoning them to surrender on penalty of the like fate, but, receiving no reply, he led his men across the divide to the waters of the Little Tennessee and continued down that stream without opposition until he came in the vicinity of Echoee (Itse'yi), a few miles above the sacred town of Nikwasi', the present Franklin, North Carolina. Here the Cherokee had collected their full force to resist his progress, and the result was a desperate engagement on June 27, 1760, by which Montgomery was compelled to retire to Fort Prince George, after losing nearly one hundred men in killed and wounded. The Indian loss is unknown. His retreat sealed the fate of Fort Loudon. The garrison, though hard pressed and reduced to the necessity of eating horses and dogs, had been enabled to hold out through the kindness of the Indian women, many of whom, having found sweethearts among the soldiers, brought them supplies of food daily. When threatened by the chiefs the women boldly replied that the soldiers were their husbands and it was their duty to help them, and that if any harm came to themselves for their devotion their English relatives would avenge them. [88] The end was only delayed, however, and on August 8, 1760, the garrison of about two hundred men, under Captain Demeré, surrendered to Oconostota on promise that they should be allowed to retire unmolested with their arms and sufficient ammunition for the march, on condition of delivering up all the remaining warlike stores. The troops marched out and proceeded far enough to camp for the night, while the Indians swarmed into the fort to see what plunder they might find. "By accident a discovery was made of ten bags of powder and a large quantity of ball that had been secretly buried in the fort, to prevent their falling into the enemy's hands" (Hewat). It is said also that cannon, small arms, and ammunition had been thrown into the river with the same intention (Haywood). Enraged at this breach of the capitulation the Cherokee attacked the soldiers next morning at daylight, killing Demeré and twenty-nine others at the first fire. The rest were taken and held as prisoners until ransomed some time after. The second officer, Captain Stuart (13), for whom the Indians had a high regard, was claimed by Ata-kullakulla, who soon after took him into the woods, ostensibly on a hunting excursion, and conducted him for nine days through the wilderness until he delivered him safely into the hands of friends in Virginia. The chief's kindness was well rewarded, and it was largely through his influence that peace was finally brought about. It was now too late, and the settlements were too much exhausted, for another expedition, so the fall and winter were employed by the English in preparations for an active campaign the next year in force to crush out all resistance. In June 1761, Colonel Grant with an army of 2,600 men, including a number of Chickasaw and almost every remaining warrior of the Catawba, [89] set out from Fort Prince George. Refusing a request from Ata-kullakulla for a friendly accommodation, he crossed Rabun gap and advanced rapidly down the Little Tennessee along the same trail taken by the expedition of the previous year. On June 10, when within two miles of Montgomery's battlefield, he encountered the Cherokee, whom he defeated, although with considerable loss to himself, after a stubborn engagement lasting several hours. Having repulsed the Indians, he proceeded on his way, sending out detachments to the outlying settlements, until in the course of a month he had destroyed every one of the Middle towns, 15 in all, with all their granaries and cornfields, driven the inhabitants into the mountains, and "pushed the frontier seventy miles farther to the west." The Cherokee were now reduced to the greatest extremity. With some of their best towns in ashes, their fields and orchards wasted for two successive years, their ammunition nearly exhausted, many of their bravest warriors dead, their people fugitives in the mountains, hiding in caves and living like beasts upon roots or killing their horses for food, with the terrible scourge of smallpox adding to the miseries of starvation, and withal torn by factional differences which had existed from the very beginning of the war--it was impossible for even brave men to resist longer. In September Ata-kullakulla who had all along done everything in his power to stay the disaffection, came down to Charleston, a treaty of peace was made, and the war was ended. From an estimated population of at least 5,000 warriors some years before, the Cherokee had now been reduced to about 2,300 men. [90] In the meantime a force of Virginians under Colonel Stephen had advanced as far as the Great island of the Holston--now Kingsport, Tennessee--where they were met by a large delegation of Cherokee, who sued for peace, which was concluded with them by Colonel Stephen on November 19, 1761, independently of what was being done in South Carolina. On the urgent request of the chief that an officer might visit their people for a short time to cement the new friendship, Lieutenant Henry Timberlake, a young Virginian who had already distinguished himself in active service, volunteered to return with them to their towns, where he spent several months. He afterward conducted a delegation of chiefs to England, where, as they had come without authority from the Government, they met such an unpleasant reception that they returned disgusted. [91] On the conclusion of peace between England and France in 1763, by which the whole western territory was ceded to England, a great council was held at Augusta, which was attended by the chiefs and principal men of all the southern Indians, at which Captain John Stuart, superintendent for the southern tribes, together with the colonial governors of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, explained fully to the Indians the new condition of affairs, and a treaty of mutual peace and friendship was concluded on November 10 of that year. [92] Under several leaders, as Walker, Wallen, Smith, and Boon, the tide of emigration now surged across the mountains in spite of every effort to restrain it, [93] and the period between the end of the Cherokee war and the opening of the Revolution is principally notable for a number of treaty cessions by the Indians, each in fruitless endeavor to fix a permanent barrier between themselves and the advancing wave of white settlement. Chief among these was the famous Henderson purchase in 1775, which included the whole tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers, embracing the greater part of the present state of Kentucky. By these treaties the Cherokee were shorn of practically all their ancient territorial claims north of the present Tennessee line and east of the Blue ridge and the Savannah, including much of their best hunting range; their home settlements were, however, left still in their possession. [94] As one consequence of the late Cherokee war, a royal proclamation had been issued in 1763, with a view of checking future encroachments by the whites, which prohibited any private land purchases from the Indians, or any granting of warrants for lands west of the sources of the streams flowing into the Atlantic. [95] In 1768, on the appeal of the Indians themselves, the British superintendent for the southern tribes, Captain John Stuart, had negotiated a treaty at Hard Labor in South Carolina by which Kanawha and New rivers, along their whole course downward from the North Carolina line, were fixed as the boundary between the Cherokee and the whites in that direction. In two years, however, so many borderers had crossed into the Indian country, where they were evidently determined to remain, that it was found necessary to substitute another treaty, by which the line was made to run due south from the mouth of the Kanawha to the Holston, thus cutting off from the Cherokee almost the whole of their hunting grounds in Virginia and West Virginia. Two years later, in 1772, the Virginians demanded a further cession, by which everything east of Kentucky river was surrendered; and finally, on March 17, 1775, the great Henderson purchase was consummated, including the whole tract between the Kentucky and Cumberland rivers. By this last cession the Cherokee were at last cut off from Ohio river and all their rich Kentucky hunting grounds. [96] While these transactions were called treaties, they were really forced upon the native proprietors, who resisted each in turn and finally signed only under protest and on most solemn assurances that no further demands would be made. Even before the purchases were made, intruders in large numbers had settled upon each of the tracts in question, and they refused to withdraw across the boundaries now established, but remained on one pretext or another to await a new adjustment. This was particularly the case on Watauga and upper Holston rivers in northeastern Tennessee, where the settlers, finding themselves still within the Indian boundary and being resolved to remain, effected a temporary lease from the Cherokee in 1772. As was expected and intended, the lease became a permanent occupancy, the nucleus settlement of the future State of Tennessee. [97] Just before the outbreak of the Revolution, the botanist, William Bartram, made an extended tour of the Cherokee country, and has left us a pleasant account of the hospitable character and friendly disposition of the Indians at that time. He gives a list of forty-three towns then inhabited by the tribe. [98] The opening of the great Revolutionary struggle in 1776 found the Indian tribes almost to a man ranged on the British side against the Americans. There was good reason for this. Since the fall of the French power the British government had stood to them as the sole representative of authority, and the guardian and protector of their rights against constant encroachments by the American borderers. Licensed British traders were resident in every tribe and many had intermarried and raised families among them, while the border man looked upon the Indian only as a cumberer of the earth. The British superintendents, Sir William Johnson in the north and Captain John Stuart in the south, they knew as generous friends, while hardly a warrior of them all was without some old cause of resentment against their backwoods neighbors. They felt that the only barrier between themselves and national extinction was in the strength of the British government, and when the final severence came they threw their whole power into the British scale. They were encouraged in this resolution by presents of clothing and other goods, with promises of plunder from the settlements and hopes of recovering a portion of their lost territories. The British government having determined, as early as June, 1775, to call in the Indians against the Americans, supplies of hatchets, guns, and ammunition were issued to the warriors of all the tribes from the lakes to the gulf, and bounties were offered for American scalps brought in to the commanding officer at Detroit or Oswego. [99] Even the Six Nations, who had agreed in solemn treaty to remain neutral, were won over by these persuasions. In August, 1775, an Indian "talk" was intercepted in which the Cherokee assured Cameron, the resident agent, that their warriors, enlisted in the service of the king, were ready at a signal to fall upon the back settlements of Carolina and Georgia. [100] Circular letters were sent out to all those persons in the back country supposed to be of royalist sympathies, directing them to repair to Cameron's headquarters in the Cherokee country to join the Indians in the invasion of the settlements. [101] In June, 1776, a British fleet under command of Sir Peter Parker, with a large naval and military force, attacked Charleston, South Carolina, both by land and sea, and simultaneously a body of Cherokee, led by Tories in Indian disguise, came down from the mountains and ravaged the exposed frontier of South Carolina, killing and burning as they went. After a gallant defense by the garrison at Charleston the British were repulsed, whereupon their Indian and Tory allies withdrew. [102] About the same time the warning came from Nancy Ward (14), a noted friendly Indian woman of great authority in the Cherokee Nation, that seven hundred Cherokee warriors were advancing in two divisions against the Watauga and Holston settlements, with the design of destroying everything as far up as New river. The Holston men from both sides of the Virginia line hastily collected under Captain Thompson and marched against the Indians, whom they met and defeated with signal loss after a hard-fought battle near the Long island in the Holston (Kingsport, Tennessee), on August 20. The next day the second division of the Cherokee attacked the fort at Watauga, garrisoned by only forty men under Captain James Robertson (15), but was repulsed without loss to the defenders, the Indians withdrawing on news of the result at the Long island. A Mrs. Bean and a boy named Moore were captured on this occasion and carried to one of the Cherokee towns in the neighborhood of Tellico, where the boy was burned, but the woman, after she had been condemned to death and everything was in readiness for the tragedy, was rescued by the interposition of Nancy Ward. Two other Cherokee detachments moved against the upper settlements at the same time. One of these, finding all the inhabitants securely shut up in forts, returned without doing much damage. The other ravaged the country on Clinch river almost to its head, and killed a man and wounded others at Black's station, now Abingdon, Virginia. [103] At the same time that one part of the Cherokee were raiding the Tennessee settlements others came down upon the frontiers of Carolina and Georgia. On the upper Catawba they killed many people, but the whites took refuge in the stockade stations, where they defended themselves until General Rutherford (16) came to their relief. In Georgia an attempt had been made by a small party of Americans to seize Cameron, who lived in one of the Cherokee towns with his Indian wife, but, as was to have been expected, the Indians interfered, killing several of the party and capturing others, who were afterward tortured to death. The Cherokee of the Upper and Middle towns, with some Creeks and Tories of the vicinity, led by Cameron himself, at once began ravaging the South Carolina border, burning houses, driving off cattle, and killing men, women, and children without distinction, until the whole country was in a wild panic, the people abandoning their farms to seek safety in the garrisoned forts. On one occasion an attack by two hundred of the enemy, half of them being Tories, stripped and painted like Indians, was repulsed by the timely arrival of a body of Americans, who succeeded in capturing thirteen of the Tories. The invasion extended into Georgia, where also property was destroyed and the inhabitants were driven from their homes. [104] Realizing their common danger, the border states determined to strike such a concerted blow at the Cherokee as should render them passive while the struggle with England continued. In accord with this plan of cooperation the frontier forces were quickly mobilized and in the summer of 1776 four expeditions were equipped from Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, to enter the Cherokee territory simultaneously from as many different directions. In August of that year the army of North Carolina, 2,400 strong, under General Griffith Rutherford, crossed the Blue ridge at Swannanoa gap, and following the main trail almost along the present line of the railroad, struck the first Indian town, Stikâ'yi, or Stecoee, on the Tuckasegee, near the present Whittier. The inhabitants having fled, the soldiers burned the town, together with an unfinished townhouse ready for the roof, cut down the standing corn, killed one or two straggling Indians, and then proceeded on their mission of destruction. Every town upon Oconaluftee, Tuckasegee, and the upper part of Little Tennessee, and on Hiwassee to below the junction of Valley river--thirty-six towns in all--was destroyed in turn, the corn cut down or trampled under the hoofs of the stock driven into the fields for that purpose, and the stock itself killed or carried off. Before such an overwhelming force, supplemented as it was by three others simultaneously advancing from other directions, the Cherokee made but poor resistance, and fled with their women and children into the fastnesses of the Great Smoky mountains, leaving their desolated fields and smoking towns behind them. As was usual in Indian wars, the actual number killed or taken was small, but the destruction of property was beyond calculation. At Sugartown (Kûlsetsi'yi, east of the present Franklin) one detachment, sent to destroy it, was surprised, and escaped only through the aid of another force sent to its rescue. Rutherford himself, while proceeding to the destruction of the Hiwassee towns, encountered the Indians drawn up to oppose his progress in the Waya gap of the Nantahala mountains, and one of the hardest fights of the campaign resulted, the soldiers losing over forty killed and wounded, although the Cherokee were finally repulsed (17). One of the Indians killed on this occasion was afterward discovered to be a woman, painted and armed like a warrior. [105] On September 26 the South Carolina army, 1,860 strong, under Colonel Andrew Williamson, and including a number of Catawba Indians, effected a junction with Rutherford's forces on Hiwassee river, near the present Murphy, North Carolina. It had been expected that Williamson would join the northern army at Cowee, on the Little Tennessee, when they would proceed together against the western towns, but he had been delayed, and the work of destruction in that direction was already completed, so that after a short rest each army returned home along the route by which it had come. The South Carolina men had centered by different detachments in the lower Cherokee towns about the head of Savannah river, burning one town after another, cutting down the peach trees and ripened corn, and having an occasional brush with the Cherokee, who hung constantly upon their flanks. At the town of Seneca, near which they encountered Cameron with his Indians and Tories, they had destroyed six thousand bushels of corn, besides other food stores, after burning all the houses, the Indians having retreated after a stout resistance. The most serious encounter had taken place at Tomassee, where several whites and sixteen Cherokee were killed, the latter being all scalped afterward. Having completed the ruin of the Lower towns, Williamson had crossed over Rabun gap and descended into the valley of the Little Tennessee to cooperate with Rutherford in the destruction of the Middle and Valley towns. As the army advanced every house in every settlement met was burned--ninety houses in one settlement alone--and detachments were sent into the fields to destroy the corn, of which the smallest town was estimated to have two hundred acres, besides potatoes, beans, and orchards of peach trees. The stores of dressed deerskins and other valuables were carried off. Everything was swept clean, and the Indians who were not killed or taken were driven, homeless refugees, into the dark recesses of Nantahala or painfully made their way across to the Overhill towns in Tennessee, which were already menaced by another invasion from the north. [106] In July, while Williamson was engaged on the the upper Savannah, a force of two hundred Georgians, under Colonel Samuel Jack, had marched in the same direction and succeeded in burning two towns on the heads of Chattahoochee and Tugaloo rivers, destroying the corn and driving off the cattle, without the loss of a man, the Cherokee having apparently fallen back to concentrate for resistance in the mountains. [107] The Virginia army, about two thousand strong, under Colonel William Christian (18), rendezvoused in August at the Long island of the Holston, the regular gathering place on the Tennessee side of the mountains. Among them were several hundred men from North Carolina, with all who could be spared from the garrisons on the Tennessee side. Paying but little attention to small bodies of Indians, who tried to divert attention or to delay progress by flank attacks, they advanced steadily, but cautiously, along the great Indian warpath (19) toward the crossing of the French Broad, where a strong force of Cherokee was reported to be in waiting to dispute their passage. Just before reaching the river the Indians sent a Tory trader with a flag of truce to discuss terms. Knowing that his own strength was overwhelming, Christian allowed the envoy to go through the whole camp and then sent him back with the message that there could be no terms until the Cherokee towns had been destroyed. Arriving at the ford, he kindled fires and made all preparations as if intending to camp there for several days. As soon as night fell, however, he secretly drew off half his force and crossed the river lower down, to come upon the Indians in their rear. This was a work of great difficulty; as the water was so deep that it came up almost to the shoulders of the men, while the current was so rapid that they were obliged to support each other four abreast to prevent being swept off their feet. However, they kept their guns and powder dry. On reaching the other side they were surprised to find no enemy. Disheartened at the strength of the invasion, the Indians had fled without even a show of resistance. It is probable that nearly all their men and resources had been drawn off to oppose the Carolina forces on their eastern border, and the few who remained felt themselves unequal to the contest. Advancing without opposition, Christian reached the towns on Little Tennessee early in November, and, finding them deserted, proceeded to destroy them, one after another, with their outlying fields. The few lingering warriors discovered were all killed. In the meantime messages had been sent out to the farther towns, in response to which several of their head men came into Christian's camp to treat for peace. On their agreement to surrender all the prisoners and captured stock in their hands and to cede to the whites all the disputed territory occupied by the Tennessee settlements, as soon as representatives of the whole tribe could be assembled in the spring, Christian consented to suspend hostilities and retire without doing further injury. An exception was made against Tuskegee and another town, which had been concerned in the burning of the boy taken from Watauga, already noted, and these two were reduced to ashes. The sacred "peace town," Echota (20), had not been molested. Most of the troops were disbanded on their return to the Long island, but a part remained and built Fort Patrick Henry, where they went into winter quarters. [108] From incidental notices in narratives written by some of the participants, we obtain interesting side-lights on the merciless character of this old border warfare. In addition to the ordinary destruction of war--the burning of towns, the wasting of fruitful fields, and the killing of the defenders--we find that every Indian warrior killed was scalped, when opportunity permitted; women, as well as men, were shot down and afterward "helped to their end"; and prisoners taken were put up at auction as slaves when not killed on the spot. Near Tomassee a small party of Indians was surrounded and entirely cut off. "Sixteen were found dead in the valley when the battle ended. These our men scalped." In a personal encounter "a stout Indian engaged a sturdy young white man, who was a good bruiser and expert at gouging. After breaking their guns on each other they laid hold of one another, when the cracker had his thumbs instantly in the fellow's eyes, who roared and cried 'canaly'--enough, in English. 'Damn you,' says the white man, 'you can never have enough while you are alive.' He then threw him down, set his foot upon his head, and scalped him alive; then took up one of the broken guns and knocked out his brains. It would have been fun if he had let the latter action alone and sent him home without his nightcap, to tell his countrymen how he had been treated." Later on some of the same detachment (Williamson's) seeing a woman ahead, fired on her and brought her down with two serious wounds, but yet able to speak. After getting what information she could give them, through a half-breed interpreter, "the informer being unable to travel, some of our men favored her so far that they killed her there, to put her out of pain." A few days later "a party of Colonel Thomas's regiment, being on a hunt of plunder, or some such thing, found an Indian squaw and took her prisoner, she being lame, was unable to go with her friends. She was so sullen that she would, as an old saying is, neither lead nor drive, and by their account she died in their hands; but I suppose they helped her to her end." At this place--on the Hiwassee--they found a large town, having "upwards of ninety houses, and large quantities of corn," and "we encamped among the corn, where we had a great plenty of corn, peas, beans, potatoes, and hogs," and on the next day "we were ordered to assemble in companies to spread through the town to destroy, cut down, and burn all the vegetables belonging to our heathen enemies, which was no small undertaking, they being so plentifully supplied." Continuing to another town, "we engaged in our former labor, that is, cutting and destroying all things that might be of advantage to our enemies. Finding here curious buildings, great apple trees, and white-man-like improvements, these we destroyed." [109] While crossing over the mountains Rutherford's men approached a house belonging to a trader, when one of his negro slaves ran out and "was shot by the Reverend James Hall, the chaplain, as he ran, mistaking him for an Indian." [110] Soon after they captured two women and a boy. It was proposed to auction them off at once to the highest bidder, and when one of the officers protested that the matter should be left to the disposition of Congress, "the greater part swore bloodily that if they were not sold for slaves upon the spot they would kill and scalp them immediately." The prisoners were accordingly sold for about twelve hundred dollars. [111] At the Wolf Hills settlement, now Abingdon, Virginia, a party sent out from the fort returned with the scalps of eleven warriors. Having recovered the books which their minister had left behind in his cabin, they held a service of prayer for their success, after which the fresh scalps were hung upon a pole above the gate of the fort. The barbarous custom of scalping to which the border men had become habituated in the earlier wars was practiced upon every occasion when opportunity presented, at least upon the bodies of warriors, and the South Carolina legislature offered a bounty of seventy-five pounds for every warrior's scalp, a higher reward, however, being offered for prisoners. [112] In spite of all the bitterness which the war aroused there seems to be no record of any scalping of Tories or other whites by the Americans (21). The effect upon the Cherokee of this irruption of more than six thousand armed enemies into their territory was well nigh paralyzing. More than fifty of their towns had been burned, their orchards cut down, their fields wasted, their cattle and horses killed or driven off, their stores of buckskin and other personal property plundered. Hundreds of their people had been killed or had died of starvation and exposure, others were prisoners in the hands of the Americans, and some had been sold into slavery. Those who had escaped were fugitives in the mountains, living upon acorns, chestnuts, and wild game, or were refugees with the British. [113] From the Virginia line to the Chattahoochee the chain of destruction was complete. For the present at least any further resistance was hopeless, and they were compelled to sue for peace. By a treaty concluded at DeWitts Corners in South Carolina on May 20, 1777, the first ever made with the new states, the Lower Cherokee surrendered to the conqueror all of their remaining territory in South Carolina, excepting a narrow strip along the western boundary. Just two months later, on July 20, by treaty at the Long island, as had been arranged by Christian in the preceding fall, the Middle and Upper Cherokee ceded everything east of the Blue ridge, together with all the disputed territory on the Watauga, Nolichucky, upper Holston, and New rivers. By this second treaty also Captain James Robertson was appointed agent for the Cherokee, to reside at Echota, to watch their movements, recover any captured property, and prevent their correspondence with persons unfriendly to the American cause. As the Federal government was not yet in perfect operation these treaties were negotiated by commissioners from the four states adjoining the Cherokee country, the territory thus acquired being parceled out to South Carolina, North Carolina, and Tennessee. [114] While the Cherokee Nation had thus been compelled to a treaty of peace, a very considerable portion of the tribe was irreconcilably hostile to the Americans and refused to be a party to the late cessions, especially on the Tennessee side. Although Ata-kullakulla sent word that he was ready with five hundred young warriors to fight for the Americans against the English or Indian enemy whenever called upon, Dragging-canoe (Tsiyu-gûnsi'ni), who had led the opposition against the Watauga settlements, declared that he would hold fast to Cameron's talk and continue to make war upon those who had taken his hunting grounds. Under his leadership some hundreds of the most warlike and implacable warriors of the tribe, with their families, drew out from the Upper and Middle towns and moved far down upon Tennessee river, where they established new settlements on Chickamauga creek, in the neighborhood of the present Chattanooga. The locality appears to have been already a rendezvous for a sort of Indian banditti, who sometimes plundered boats disabled in the rapids at this point while descending the river. Under the name "Chickamaugas" they soon became noted for their uncompromising and never-ceasing hostility. In 1782, in consequence of the destruction of their towns by Sevier and Campbell, they abandoned this location and moved farther down the river, where they built, what were afterwards known as the "five lower towns," viz, Running Water, Nickajack, Long Island, Crow town, and Lookout Mountain town. These were all on the extreme western Cherokee frontier, near where Tennessee river crosses the state line, the first three being within the present limits of Tennessee, while Lookout Mountain town and Crow town were respectively in the adjacent corners of Georgia and Alabama. Their population was recruited from Creeks, Shawano, and white Tories, until they were estimated at a thousand warriors. Here they remained, a constant thorn in the side of Tennessee, until their towns were destroyed in 1794. [115] The expatriated Lower Cherokee also removed to the farthest western border of their tribal territory, where they might hope to be secure from encroachment for a time at least, and built new towns for themselves on the upper waters of the Coosa. Twenty years afterward Hawkins found the population of Willstown, in extreme western Georgia, entirely made up of refugees from the Savannah, and the children so familiar from their parents with stories of Williamson's invasion that they ran screaming from the face of a white man (22). [116] In April, 1777, the legislature of North Carolina, of which Tennessee was still a part, authorized bounties of land in the new territory to all able-bodied men who should volunteer against the remaining hostile Cherokee. Under this act companies of rangers were kept along the exposed border to cut off raiding parties of Indians and to protect the steady advance of the pioneers, with the result that the Tennessee settlements enjoyed a brief respite and were even able to send some assistance to their brethren in Kentucky, who were sorely pressed by the Shawano and other northern tribes. [117] The war between England and the colonies still continued, however, and the British government was unremitting in its effort to secure the active assistance of the Indians. With the Creeks raiding the Georgia and South Carolina frontier, and with a British agent, Colonel Brown, and a number of Tory refugees regularly domiciled at Chickamauga, [118] it was impossible for the Cherokee long to remain quiet. In the spring of 1779 the warning came from Robertson, stationed at Echota, that three hundred warriors from Chickamauga had started against the back-settlements of North Carolina. Without a day's delay the states of North Carolina (including Tennessee) and Virginia united to send a strong force of volunteers against them under command of Colonels Shelby and Montgomery. Descending the Holston in April in a fleet of canoes built for the occasion, they took the Chickamauga towns so completely by surprise that the few warriors remaining fled to the mountains without attempting to give battle. Several were killed, Chickamauga and the outlying villages were burned, twenty thousand bushels of corn were destroyed and large numbers of horses and cattle captured, together with a great quantity of goods sent by the British Governor Hamilton at Detroit for distribution to the Indians. The success of this expedition frustrated the execution of a project by Hamilton for uniting all the northern and southern Indians, to be assisted by British regulars, in a concerted attack along the whole American frontier. On learning, through runners, of the blow that had befallen them, the Chickamauga warriors gave up all idea of invading the settlements, and returned to their wasted villages. [119] They, as well as the Creeks, however, kept in constant communication with the British commander in Savannah. In this year also a delegation of Cherokee visited the Ohio towns to offer condolences on the death of the noted Delaware chief, White-eyes. [120] In the early spring of 1780 a large company of emigrants under Colonel John Donelson descended the Holston and the Tennessee to the Ohio, whence they ascended the Cumberland, effected a junction with another party under Captain James Robertson, which had just arrived by a toilsome overland route, and made the first settlement on the present site of Nashville. In passing the Chickamauga towns they had run the gauntlet of the hostile Cherokee, who pursued them for a considerable distance beyond the whirlpool known as the Suck, where the river breaks through the mountain. The family of a man named Stuart being infected with the smallpox, his boat dropped behind, and all on board, twenty-eight in number, were killed or taken by the Indians, their cries being distinctly heard by their friends ahead who were unable to help them. Another boat having run upon the rocks, the three women in it, one of whom had become a mother the night before, threw the cargo into the river, and then, jumping into the water, succeeded in pushing the boat into the current while the husband of one of them kept the Indians at bay with his rifle. The infant was killed in the confusion. Three cowards attempted to escape, without thought of their companions. One was drowned in the river; the other two were captured and carried to Chickamauga, where one was burned and the other was ransomed by a trader. The rest went on their way to found the capital of a new commonwealth. [121] As if in retributive justice, the smallpox broke out in the Chickamauga band in consequence of the capture of Stuart's family, causing the death of a great number. [122] The British having reconquered Georgia and South Carolina and destroyed all resistance in the south, early in 1780 Cornwallis, with his subordinates, Ferguson and the merciless Tarleton, prepared to invade North Carolina and sweep the country northward to Virginia. The Creeks under McGillivray (23), and a number of the Cherokee under various local chiefs, together with the Tories, at once joined his standard. While the Tennessee backwoodsmen were gathered at a barbecue to contest for a shooting prize, a paroled prisoner brought a demand from Ferguson for their submission; with the threat, if they refused, that he would cross the mountains, hang their leaders, kill every man found in arms and burn every settlement. Up to this time the mountain men had confined their effort to holding in check the Indian enemy, but now, with the fate of the Revolution at stake, they felt that the time for wider action had come. They resolved not to await the attack, but to anticipate it. Without order or authority from Congress, without tents, commissary, or supplies, the Indian fighters of Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee quickly assembled at the Sycamore shoals of the Watauga to the number of about one thousand men under Campbell of Virginia, Sevier (24) and Shelby of Tennessee, and McDowell of North Carolina. Crossing the mountains, they met Ferguson at Kings mountain in South Carolina on October 7, 1780, and gained the decisive victory that turned the tide of the Revolution in the South. [123] It is in place here to quote a description of these men in buckskin, white by blood and tradition, but half Indian in habit and instinct, who, in half a century of continuous conflict, drove back Creeks, Cherokee, and Shawano, and with one hand on the plow and the other on the rifle redeemed a wilderness and carried civilization and free government to the banks of the Mississippi. "They were led by leaders they trusted, they were wonted to Indian warfare, they were skilled as horsemen and marksmen, they knew how to face every kind of danger, hardship, and privation. Their fringed and tasseled hunting shirts were girded by bead-worked belts, and the trappings of their horses were stained red and yellow. On their heads they wore caps of coon skin or mink skin, with the tails hanging down, or else felt hats, in each of which was thrust a buck tail or a sprig of evergreen. Every man carried a small-bore rifle, a tomahawk, and a scalping knife. A very few of the officers had swords, and there was not a bayonet nor a tent in the army." [124] To strike the blow at Kings mountain the border men had been forced to leave their own homes unprotected. Even before they could cross the mountains on their return the news came that the Cherokee were again out in force for the destruction of the upper settlements, and their numerous small bands were killing, burning, and plundering in the usual Indian fashion. Without loss of time the Holston settlements of Virginia and Tennessee at once raised seven hundred mounted riflemen to march against the enemy, the command being assigned to Colonel Arthur Campbell of Virginia and Colonel John Sevier of Tennessee. Sevier started first with nearly three hundred men, going south along the great Indian war trail and driving small parties of the Cherokee before him, until he crossed the French Broad and came upon seventy of them on Boyds creek, not far from the present Sevierville, on December 16, 1780. Ordering his men to spread out into a half circle, he sent ahead some scouts, who, by an attack and feigned retreat, managed to draw the Indians into the trap thus prepared, with the result that they left thirteen dead and all their plunder, while not one of the whites was even wounded. [125] A few days later Sevier was joined by Campbell with the remainder of the force. Advancing to the Little Tennessee with but slight resistance, they crossed three miles below Echota while the Indians were watching for them at the ford above. Then dividing into two bodies, they proceeded to destroy the towns along the river. The chiefs sent peace talks through Nancy Ward, the Cherokee woman who had so befriended the whites in 1776, but to these overtures Campbell returned an evasive answer until he could first destroy the towns on lower Hiwassee, whose warriors had been particularly hostile. Continuing southward, the troops destroyed these towns, Hiwassee and Chestuee, with all their stores of provisions, finishing the work on the last day of the year. The Indians had fled before them, keeping spies out to watch their movements. One of these, while giving signals from a ridge by beating a drum, was shot by the whites. The soldiers lost only one man, who was buried in an Indian cabin which was then burned down to conceal the trace of the interment. The return march was begun on New Year's day. Ten principal towns, including Echota, the capital, had been destroyed, besides several smaller villages, containing in the aggregate over one thousand houses, and not less than fifty thousand bushels of corn and large stores of other provision. Everything not needed on the return march was committed to the flames or otherwise wasted. Of all the towns west of the mountains only Talassee, and one or two about Chickamauga or on the headwaters of the Coosa, escaped. The whites had lost only one man killed and two wounded. Before the return a proclamation was sent to the Cherokee chiefs, warning them to make peace on penalty of a worse visitation. [126] Some Cherokee who met them at Echota, on the return march, to talk of peace, brought in and surrendered several white prisoners. [127] One reason for the slight resistance made by the Indians was probably the fact that at the very time of the invasion many of their warriors were away, raiding on the Upper Holston and in the neighborhood of Cumberland gap. [128] Although the Upper or Overhill Cherokee were thus humbled, those of the middle towns, on the head waters of Little Tennessee, still continued to send out parties against the back settlements. Sevier determined to make a sudden stroke upon them, and early in March of the same year, 1781, with 150 picked horsemen, he started to cross the Great Smoky mountains over trails never before attempted by white men, and so rough in places that it was hardly possible to lead horses. Falling unexpectedly upon Tuckasegee, near the present Webster, North Carolina, he took the town completely by surprise, killing several warriors and capturing a number of women and children. Two other principal towns and three smaller settlements were taken in the same way, with a quantity of provision and about 200 horses, the Indians being entirely off their guard and unprepared to make any effective resistance. Having spread destruction through the middle towns, with the loss to himself of only one man killed and another wounded, he was off again as suddenly as he had come, moving so rapidly that he was well on his homeward way before the Cherokee could gather for pursuit. [129] At the same time a smaller Tennessee expedition went out to disperse the Indians who had been making headquarters in the mountains about Cumberland gap and harassing travelers along the road to Kentucky. [130] Numerous indications of Indians were found, but none were met, although the country was scoured for a considerable distance. [131] In summer the Cherokee made another incursion, this time upon the new settlements on the French Broad, near the present Newport, Tennessee. With a hundred horsemen Sevier fell suddenly upon their camp on Indian creek, killed a dozen warriors, and scattered the rest. [132] By these successive blows the Cherokee were so worn out and dispirited that they were forced to sue for peace, and in midsummer of 1781 a treaty of peace--doubtful though it might be--was negotiated at the Long island of the Holston. [133] The respite came just in time to allow the Tennesseeans to send a detachment against Cornwallis. Although there was truce in Tennessee, there was none in the South. In November of this year the Cherokee made a sudden inroad upon the Georgia settlements, destroying everything in their way. In retaliation a force under General Pickens marched into their country, destroying their towns as far as Valley river. Finding further progress blocked by heavy snows and learning through a prisoner that the Indians, who had retired before him, were collecting to oppose him in the mountains, he withdrew, as he says, "through absolute necessity," having accomplished very little of the result expected. Shortly afterward the Cherokee, together with some Creeks, again invaded Georgia, but were met on Oconee river and driven back by a detachment of American troops. [134] The Overhill Cherokee, on lower Little Tennessee, seem to have been trying in good faith to hold to the peace established at the Long island. Early in 1781 the government land office had been closed to further entries, not to be opened again until peace had been declared with England, but the borderers paid little attention to the law in such matters, and the rage for speculation in Tennessee lands grew stronger daily. [135] In the fall of 1782 the chief, Old Tassel of Echota, on behalf of all the friendly chiefs and towns, sent a pathetic talk to the governors of Virginia and North Carolina, complaining that in spite of all their efforts to remain quiet the settlers were constantly encroaching upon them, and had built houses within a day's walk of the Cherokee towns. They asked that all those whites who had settled beyond the boundary last established should be removed. [136] As was to have been expected, this was never done. The Chickamauga band, however, and those farther to the south, were still bent on war, being actively encouraged in that disposition by the British agents and refugee loyalists living among them. They continued to raid both north and south, and in September, 1782, Sevier, with 200 mounted men, again made a descent upon their towns, destroying several of their settlements about Chickamauga creek, and penetrating as far as the important town of Ustana'li, on the headwaters of Coosa river, near the present Calhoun, Georgia. This also he destroyed. Every warrior found was killed, together with a white man found in one of the towns, whose papers showed that he had been active in inciting the Indians to war. On the return the expedition halted at Echota, where new assurances were received from the friendly element. [137] In the meantime a Georgia expedition of over 400 men, under General Pickens, had been ravaging the Cherokee towns in the same quarter, with such effect that the Cherokee were forced to purchase peace by a further surrender of territory on the head of Broad river in Georgia. [138] This cession was concluded at a treaty of peace held with the Georgia commissioners at Augusta in the next year, and was confirmed later by the Creeks, who claimed an interest in the same lands, but was never accepted by either as the voluntary act of their tribe as a whole. [139] By the preliminary treaty of Paris, November 30, 1782, the long Revolutionary struggle for independence was brought to a close, and the Cherokee, as well as the other tribes, seeing the hopelessness of continuing the contest alone, began to sue for peace. By seven years of constant warfare they had been reduced to the lowest depth of misery, almost indeed to the verge of extinction. Over and over again their towns had been laid in ashes and their fields wasted. Their best warriors had been killed and their women and children had sickened and starved in the mountains. Their great war chief, Oconostota, who had led them to victory in 1780, was now a broken old man, and in this year, at Echota, formally resigned his office in favor of his son, The Terrapin. To complete their brimming cup of misery the smallpox again broke out among them in 1783. [140] Deprived of the assistance of their former white allies they were left to their own cruel fate, the last feeble resistance of the mountain warriors to the advancing tide of settlement came to an end with the burning of Cowee town, [141] and the way was left open to an arrangement. In the same year the North Carolina legislature appointed an agent for the Cherokee and made regulations for the government of traders among them. [142] Relations with the United States FROM THE FIRST TREATY TO THE REMOVAL--1785-1838 Passing over several unsatisfactory and generally abortive negotiations conducted by the various state governments in 1783-84, including the treaty of Augusta already noted, [143] we come to the turning point in the history of the Cherokee, their first treaty with the new government of the United States for peace and boundary delimitation, concluded at Hopewell (25) in South Carolina on November 28, 1785. Nearly one thousand Cherokee attended, the commissioners for the United States being Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (26), of North Carolina; General Andrew Pickens, of South Carolina; Cherokee Agent Joseph Martin, of Tennessee, and Colonel Lachlan McIntosh, of Georgia. The instrument was signed by thirty-seven chiefs and principal men, representing nearly as many different towns. The negotiations occupied ten days, being complicated by a protest on the part of North Carolina and Georgia against the action of the government commissioners in confirming to the Indians some lands which had already been appropriated as bounty lands for state troops without the consent of the Cherokee. On the other hand the Cherokee complained that 3,000 white settlers were at that moment in occupancy of unceded land between the Holston and the French Broad. In spite of their protest these intruders were allowed to remain, although the territory was not acquired by treaty until some years later. As finally arranged the treaty left the Middle and Upper towns, and those in the vicinity of Coosa river, undisturbed, while the whole country east of the Blue ridge, with the Watauga and Cumberland settlements, was given over to the whites. The general boundary followed the dividing ridge between Cumberland river and the more southern waters of the Tennessee eastward to the junction of the two forks of Holston, near the present Kingsport, Tennessee, thence southward to the Blue ridge and southwestward to a point not far from the present Atlanta, Georgia, thence westward to the Coosa river and northwestward to a creek running into Tennessee river at the western line of Alabama, thence northward with the Tennessee river to the beginning. The lands south and west of these lines were recognized as belonging to the Creeks and Chickasaw. Hostilities were to cease and the Cherokee were taken under the protection of the United States. The proceedings ended with the distribution of a few presents. [144] While the Hopewell treaty defined the relations of the Cherokee to the general government and furnished a safe basis for future negotiation, it yet failed to bring complete peace and security. Thousands of intruders were still settled on Indian lands, and minor aggressions and reprisals were continually occurring. The Creeks and the northern tribes were still hostile and remained so for some years later, and their warriors, cooperating with those of the implacable Chickamauga towns, continued to annoy the exposed settlements, particularly on the Cumberland. The British had withdrawn from the South, but the Spaniards and French, who claimed the lower Mississippi and the Gulf region and had their trading posts in west Tennessee, took every opportunity to encourage the spirit of hostility to the Americans. [145] But the spirit of the Cherokee nation was broken and the Holston settlements were now too surely established to be destroyed. The Cumberland settlements founded by Robertson and Donelson in the winter of 1779-80 had had but short respite. Early in spring the Indians--Cherokee, Creeks, Chickasaw, and northern Indians--had begun a series of attacks with the design of driving these intruders from their lands, and thenceforth for years no man's life was safe outside the stockade. The long list of settlers shot down at work or while hunting in the woods, of stock stolen and property destroyed, while of sorrowful interest to those most nearly concerned, is too tedious for recital here, and only leading events need be chronicled. Detailed notice may be found in the works of local historians. On the night of January 15, 1781, a band of Indians stealthily approached Freeland's station and had even succeeded in unfastening the strongly barred gate when Robertson, being awake inside, heard the noise and sprang up just in time to rouse the garrison and beat off the assailants, who continued to fire through the loopholes after they had been driven out of the fort. Only two Americans were killed, although the escape was a narrow one. [146] About three months later, on April 2, a large body of Cherokee approached the fort at Nashville (then called Nashborough, or simply "the Bluff"), and by sending a decoy ahead succeeded in drawing a large part of the garrison into an ambush. It seemed that they would be cut off, as the Indians were between them and the fort, when those inside loosed the dogs, which rushed so furiously upon the Indians that the latter found, work enough to defend themselves, and were finally forced to retire, carrying with them, however, five American scalps. [147] The attacks continued throughout this and the next year to such an extent that it seemed at one time as if the Cumberland settlements must be abandoned, but in June, 1783, commissioners from Virginia and North Carolina arranged a treaty near Nashville (Nashborough) with chiefs of the Chickasaw, Cherokee, and Creeks. This treaty, although it did not completely stop the Indian inroads, at least greatly diminished them. Thereafter the Chickasaw remained friendly, and only the Cherokee and Creeks continued to make trouble. [148] The valley towns on Hiwassee, as well as those of Chickamauga, seem to have continued hostile. In 1786 a large body of their warriors, led by the mixed-blood chief, John Watts, raided the new settlements in the vicinity of the present Knoxville, Tennessee. In retaliation Sevier again marched his volunteers across the mountain to the valley towns and destroyed three of them, killing a number of warriors; but he retired on learning that the Indians were gathering to give him battle. [149] In the spring of this year Agent Martin, stationed at Echota, had made a tour of inspection of the Cherokee towns and reported that they were generally friendly and anxious for peace, with the exception of the Chickamauga band, under Dragging-canoe, who, acting with the hostile Creeks and encouraged by the French and Spaniards, were making preparations to destroy the Cumberland settlements. Notwithstanding the friendly professions of the others, a party sent out to obtain satisfaction for the murder of four Cherokee by the Tennesseeans had come back with fifteen white scalps, and sent word to Sevier that they wanted peace, but if the whites wanted war they would get it. [150] With lawless men on both sides it is evident that peace was in jeopardy. In August, in consequence of further killing and reprisals, commissioners of the new "state of Franklin," as Tennessee was now called, concluded a negotiation, locally known as the "treaty of Coyatee," with the chiefs of the Overhill towns. In spite of references to peace, love, and brotherly friendship, it is very doubtful if the era of good will was in any wise hastened by the so-called treaty, as the Tennesseeans, who had just burned another Indian town in reprisal for the killing of a white man, announced, without mincing words, that they had been given by North Carolina--against which state, by the way, they were then in organized rebellion--the whole country north of the Tennessee river as far west as the Cumberland mountain, and that they intended to take it "by the sword, which is the best right to all countries." As the whole of this country was within the limits of the territory solemnly guaranteed to the Cherokee by the Hopewell treaty only the year before, the chiefs simply replied that Congress had said nothing to them on the subject, and so the matter rested. [151] The theory of state's rights was too complicated for the Indian understanding. While this conflict between state and federal authority continued, with the Cherokee lands as the prize, there could be no peace. In March, 1787, a letter from Echota, apparently written by Agent Martin, speaks of a recent expedition against the Cherokee towns, and the confusion and alarm among them in consequence of the daily encroachments of the "Franklinites" or Tennesseeans, who had proceeded to make good their promise by opening a land office for the sale of all the lands southward to Tennessee river, including even a part of the beloved town of Echota. At the same time messengers were coming to the Cherokee from traders in the foreign interest, telling them that England, France, and Spain had combined against the Americans and urging them with promises of guns and ammunition to join in the war. [152] As a result each further advance of the Tennessee settlements, in defiance as it was of any recognized treaty, was stubbornly contested by the Indian owners of the land. The record of these encounters, extending over a period of several years, is too tedious for recital. "Could a diagram be drawn, accurately designating every spot signalized by an Indian massacre, surprise, or depredation, or courageous attack, defense, pursuit, or victory by the whites, or station or fort or battlefield, or personal encounter, the whole of that section of country would be studded over with delineations of such incidents. Every spring, every ford, every path, every farm, every trail, every house nearly, in its first settlement, was once the scene of danger, exposure, attack, exploit, achievement, death." [153] The end was the winning of Tennessee. In the meantime the inroads of the Creeks and their Chickamauga allies upon the Georgia frontier and the Cumberland settlements around Nashville became so threatening that measures were taken for a joint campaign by the combined forces of Georgia and Tennessee ("Franklin"). The enterprise came to naught through the interference of the federal authorities. [154] All through the year 1788 we hear of attacks and reprisals along the Tennessee border, although the agent for the Cherokee declared in his official report that, with the exception of the Chickamauga band, the Indians wished to be at peace if the whites would let them. In March two expeditions under Sevier and Kennedy set out against the towns in the direction of the French Broad. In May several persons of a family named Kirk were murdered a few miles south of Knoxville. In retaliation Sevier raised a large party and marching against a town on Hiwassee river--one of those which had been destroyed some years before and rebuilt--and burned it, killing a number of the inhabitants in the river while they were trying to escape. He then turned, and proceeding to the towns on Little Tennessee burned several of them also, killing a number of Indians. Here a small party of Indians, including Abraham and Tassel, two well-known friendly chiefs, was brutally massacred by one of the Kirks, no one interfering, after they had voluntarily come in on request of one of the officers. This occurred during the temporary absence of Sevier. Another expedition under Captain Fayne was drawn into an ambuscade at Citico town and lost several in killed and wounded. The Indians pursued the survivors almost to Knoxville, attacking a small station near the present Maryville by the way. They were driven off by Sevier and others, who in turn invaded the Indian settlements, crossing the mountains and penetrating as far as the valley towns on Hiwassee, hastily retiring as they found the Indians gathering in their front. [155] In the same summer another expedition was organized against the Chickamauga towns. The chief command was given to General Martin, who left White's fort, now Knoxville, with four hundred and fifty men and made a rapid march to the neighborhood of the present Chattanooga, where the main force encamped on the site of an old Indian settlement. A detachment sent ahead to surprise a town a few miles farther down the river was fired upon and driven back, and a general engagement took place in the narrow pass between the bluff and the river, with such disastrous results that three captains were killed and the men so badly demoralized that they refused to advance. Martin was compelled to turn back, after burying the dead officers in a large townhouse, which was then burned down to conceal the grave. [156] In October a large party of Cherokee and Creeks attacked Gillespie's station, south of the present Knoxville. The small garrison was overpowered after a short resistance, and twenty-eight persons, including several women and children, were killed. The Indians left behind a letter signed by four chiefs, including John Watts, expressing regret for what they called the accidental killing of the women and children, reminding the whites of their own treachery in killing Abraham and the Tassel, and defiantly concluding, "When you move off the land, then we will make peace." Other exposed stations were attacked, until at last Sevier again mustered a force, cleared the enemy from the frontier, and pursued the Indians as far as their towns on the head waters of Coosa river, in such vigorous fashion that they were compelled to ask for terms of peace and agree to a surrender of prisoners, which was accomplished at Coosawatee town, in upper Georgia, in the following April. [157] Among the captives thus restored to their friends were Joseph Brown, a boy of sixteen, with his two younger sisters, who, with several others, had been taken at Nickajack town while descending the Tennessee in a flatboat nearly a year before. His father and the other men of the party, about ten in all, had been killed at the time, while the mother and several other children were carried to various Indian towns, some of them going to the Creeks, who had aided the Cherokee in the capture. Young Brown, whose short and simple narrative is of vivid interest, was at first condemned to death, but was rescued by a white man living in the town and was afterward adopted into the family of the chief, in spite of the warning of an old Indian woman that if allowed to live he would one day guide an army to destroy them. The warning was strangely prophetic, for it was Brown himself who guided the expedition that finally rooted out the Chickamauga towns a few years later. When rescued at Coosawatee he was in Indian costume, with shirt, breechcloth, scalp lock, and holes bored in his ears. His little sister, five years old, had become so attached to the Indian woman who had adopted her, that she refused to go to her own mother and had to be pulled along by force. [158] The mother and another of the daughters, who had been taken by the Creeks, were afterwards ransomed by McGillivray, head chief of the Creek Nation, who restored them to their friends, generously refusing any compensation for his kindness. An arrangement had been made with the Chickasaw, in 1783, by which they surrendered to the Cumberland settlement their own claim to the lands from the Cumberland river south to the dividing ridge of Duck river. [159] It was not, however, until the treaty of Hopewell, two years later, that the Cherokee surrendered their claim to the same region, and even then the Chickamauga warriors, with their allies, the hostile Creeks and Shawano, refused to acknowledge the cession and continued their attacks, with the avowed purpose of destroying the new settlements. Until the final running of the boundary line, in 1797, Spain claimed all the territory west of the mountains and south of Cumberland river, and her agents were accused of stirring up the Indians against the Americans, even to the extent of offering rewards for American scalps. [160] One of these raiding parties, which had killed the brother of Captain Robertson, was tracked to Coldwater, a small mixed town of Cherokee and Creeks, on the south side of Tennessee river, about the present Tuscumbia, Alabama. Robertson determined to destroy it, and taking a force of volunteers, with a couple of Chickasaw guides, crossed the Tennessee without being discovered and surprised and burnt the town. The Indians, who numbered less than fifty men, attempted to escape to the river, but were surrounded and over twenty of them killed, with a loss of but one man to the Tennesseeans. In the town were found also several French traders. Three of these, who refused to surrender, were killed, together with a white woman who was accidentally shot in one of the boats. The others were afterward released, their large stock of trading goods having been taken and sold for the benefit of the troops. The affair took place about the end of June, 1787. Through this action, and an effort made by Robertson about the same time to come to an understanding with the Chickamauga band, there was a temporary cessation of hostile inroads upon the Cumberland, but long before the end of the year the attacks were renewed to such an extent that it was found necessary to keep out a force of rangers with orders to scour the country and kill every Indian found east of the Chickasaw boundary. [161] The Creeks seeming now to be nearly as much concerned in these raids as the Cherokee, a remonstrance was addressed to McGillivray, their principal chief, who replied that, although the Creeks, like the other southern tribes, had adhered to the British interest during the Revolution, they had accepted proposals of friendship, but while negotiations were pending six of their people had been killed in the affair at Coldwater, which had led to a renewal of hostile feeling. He promised, however, to use his best efforts to bring about peace, and seems to have kept his word, although the raids continued through this and the next year, with the usual sequel of pursuit and reprisal. In one of these skirmishes a company under Captain Murray followed some Indian raiders from near Nashville to their camp on Tennessee river and succeeded in killing the whole party of eleven warriors. [162] A treaty of peace was signed with the Creeks in 1790, but, owing to the intrigues of the Spaniards, it had little practical effect, [163] and not until Wayne's decisive victory over the confederated northern tribes in 1794 and the final destruction of the Nickajack towns in the same year did real peace came to the frontier. By deed of cession of February 25, 1790, Tennessee ceased to be a part of North Carolina and was organized under federal laws as "The Territory of the United States south of the Ohio river," preliminary to taking full rank as a state six years later. William Blount (27) was appointed first territorial governor and also superintendent for the southern Indians, with a deputy resident with each of the four principal tribes. [164] Pensacola, Mobile, St. Louis, and other southern posts were still held by the Spaniards, who claimed the whole country south of the Cumberland, while the British garrisons had not yet been withdrawn from the north. The resentment of the Indians at the occupancy of their reserved and guaranteed lands by the whites was sedulously encouraged from both quarters, and raids along the Tennessee frontier were of common occurrence. At this time, according to the official report of President Washington, over five hundred families of intruders were settled upon lands belonging rightly to the Cherokee, in addition to those between the French Broad and the Holston. [165] More than a year before the Secretary of War had stated that "the disgraceful violation of the treaty of Hopewell with the Cherokee requires the serious consideration of Congress. If so direct and manifest contempt of the authority of the United States be suffered with impunity, it will be in vain to attempt to extend the arm of government to the frontiers. The Indian tribes can have no faith in such imbecile promises, and the lawless whites will ridicule a government which shall on paper only make Indian treaties and regulate Indian boundaries." [166] To prevent any increase of the dissatisfaction, the general government issued a proclamation forbidding any further encroachment upon the Indian lands on Tennessee river; notwithstanding which, early in 1791, a party of men descended the river in boats, and, landing on an island at the Muscle shoals, near the present Tuscumbia, Alabama, erected a blockhouse and other defensive works. Immediately afterward the Cherokee chief, Glass, with about sixty warriors, appeared and quietly informed them that if they did not at once withdraw he would kill them. After some parley the intruders retired to their boats, when the Indians set fire to the buildings and reduced them to ashes. [167] To forestall more serious difficulty it was necessary to negotiate a new treaty with a view to purchasing the disputed territory. Accordingly, through the efforts of Governor Blount, a convention was held with the principal men of the Cherokee at White's fort, now Knoxville, Tennessee, in the summer of 1791. With much difficulty the Cherokee were finally brought to consent to a cession of a triangular section in Tennessee and North Carolina extending from Clinch river almost to the Blue ridge, and including nearly the whole of the French Broad and the lower Holston, with the sites of the present Knoxville, Greenville, and Asheville. The whole of this area, with a considerable territory adjacent, was already fully occupied by the whites. Permission was also given for a road from the eastern settlements to those on the Cumberland, with the free navigation of Tennessee river. Prisoners on both sides were to be restored and perpetual peace was guaranteed. In consideration of the lands surrendered the Cherokee were to receive an annuity of one thousand dollars with some extra goods and some assistance on the road to civilization. A treaty was signed by forty-one principal men of the tribe and was concluded July 2, 1791. It is officially described as being held "on the bank of the Holston, near the mouth of the French Broad," and is commonly spoken of as the "treaty of Holston." The Cherokee, however, were dissatisfied with the arrangement, and before the end of the year a delegation of six principal chiefs appeared at Philadelphia, then the seat of government, without any previous announcement of their coming, declaring that when they had been summoned by Governor Blount to a conference they were not aware that it was to persuade them to sell lands; that they had resisted the proposition for days, and only yielded when compelled by the persistent and threatening demands of the governor; that the consideration was entirely too small; and that they had no faith that the whites would respect the new boundary, as they were in fact already settling beyond it. Finally, as the treaty had been signed, they asked that these intruders be removed. As their presentation of the case seemed a just one and it was desirable that they should carry home with them a favorable impression of the government's attitude toward them, a supplementary article was added, increasing the annuity to eight thousand five hundred dollars. On account of renewed Indian hostilities in Ohio valley and the desire of the government to keep the good will of the Cherokee long enough to obtain their help against the northern tribes, the new line was not surveyed until 1797. [168] As illustrating Indian custom it may be noted that one of the principal signers of the original treaty was among the protesting delegates, but having in the meantime changed his name, it appears on the supplementary paragraph as "Iskagua, or Clear Sky, formerly Nenetooyah, or Bloody Fellow." [169] As he had been one of the principal raiders on the Tennessee frontier, the new name may have been symbolic of his change of heart at the prospect of a return of peace. The treaty seems to have had little effect in preventing Indian hostilities, probably because the intruders still remained upon the Indian lands, and raiding still continued. The Creeks were known to be responsible for some of the mischief, and the hostile Chickamaugas were supposed to be the chief authors of the rest. [170] Even while the Cherokee delegates were negotiating the treaty in Philadelphia a boat which had accidentally run aground on the Muscle shoals was attacked by a party of Indians under the pretense of offering assistance, one man being killed and another severely wounded with a hatchet. [171] While these negotiations had been pending at Philadelphia a young man named Leonard D. Shaw, a student at Princeton college, had expressed to the Secretary of War an earnest desire for a commission which would enable him to accompany the returning Cherokee delegates to their southern home, there to study Indian life and characteristics. As the purpose seemed a useful one, and he appeared well qualified for such a work, he was accordingly commissioned as deputy agent to reside among the Cherokee to observe and report upon their movements, to aid in the annuity distributions, and to render other assistance to Governor Blount, superintendent for the southern tribes, to study their language and home life, and to collect materials for an Indian history. An extract from the official instructions under which this first United States ethnologist began his work will be of interest. After defining his executive duties in connection with the annuity distributions, the keeping of accounts and the compiling of official reports, Secretary Knox continues-- A due performance of your duty will probably require the exercise of all your patience and fortitude and all your knowledge of the human character. The school will be a severe but interesting one. If you should succeed in acquiring the affections and a knowledge of the characters of the southern Indians, you may be at once useful to the United States and advance your own interest. You will endeavor to learn their languages; this is essential to your communications. You will collect materials for a history of all the southern tribes and all things thereunto belonging. You will endeavor to ascertain their respective limits, make a vocabulary of their respective languages, teach them agriculture and such useful arts as you may know or can acquire. You will correspond regularly with Governor Blount, who is superintendent for Indian affairs, and inform him of all occurrences. You will also cultivate a correspondence with Brigadier-General McGillivray [the Creek chief], and you will also keep a journal of your proceedings and transmit them to the War Office.... You are to exhibit to Governor Blount the Cherokee book and all the writings therein, the messages to the several tribes of Indians, and these instructions. Your route will be hence to Reading; thence Harris's ferry [Harrisburg, Pennsylvania] to Carlisle; to ---- ferry on the Potomac; to Winchester; to Staunton; to ----, and to Holston. I should hope that you would travel upwards of twenty miles each day, and that you would reach Holston in about thirty days. [172] The journey, which seemed then so long, was to be made by wagons from Philadelphia to the head of navigation on Holston river, thence by boats to the Cherokee towns. Shaw seems to have taken up his residence at Ustanali, which had superseded Echota as the Cherokee capital. We hear of him as present at a council there in June of the same year, with no evidence of unfriendliness at his presence. [173] The friendly feeling was of short continuance, however, for a few months later we find him writing from Ustanali to Governor Blount that on account of the aggressive hostility of the Creeks, whose avowed intention was to kill every white man they met, he was not safe 50 yards from the house. Soon afterwards the Chickamauga towns again declared war, on which account, together with renewed threats by the Creeks, he was advised by the Cherokee to leave Ustanali, which he did early in September, 1792, proceeding to the home of General Pickens, near Seneca, South Carolina, escorted by a guard of friendly Cherokee. In the following winter he was dismissed from the service on serious charges, and his mission appears to have been a failure. [174] To prevent an alliance of the Cherokee, Creeks, and other southern Indians with the confederated hostile northern tribes, the government had endeavored to persuade the former to furnish a contingent of warriors to act with the army against the northern Indians, and special instruction had been given to Shaw to use his efforts for this result. Nothing, however, came of the attempt. St Clair's defeat turned the scale against the United States, and in September, 1792, the Chickamauga towns formally declared war. [175] In November of this year the governor of Georgia officially reported that a party of lawless Georgians had gone into the Cherokee Nation, and had there burned a town and barbarously killed three Indians, while about the same time two other Cherokee had been killed within the settlements. Fearing retaliation, he ordered out a patrol of troops to guard the frontier in that direction, and sent a conciliatory letter to the chiefs, expressing his regret for what had happened. No answer was returned to the message, but a few days later an entire family was found murdered--four women, three children, and a young man--all scalped and mangled and with arrows sticking in the bodies, while, according to old Indian war custom, two war clubs were left upon the ground to show by whom the deed was done. So swift was savage vengeance. [176] Early in 1792 a messenger who had been sent on business for Governor Blount to the Chickamauga towns returned with the report that a party had just come in with prisoners and some fresh scalps, over which the chiefs and warriors of two towns were then dancing; that the Shawano were urging the Cherokee to join them against the Americans; that a strong body of Creeks was on its way against the Cumberland settlements, and that the Creek chief, McGillivray, was trying to form a general confederacy of all the Indian tribes against the whites. To understand this properly it must be remembered that at this time all the tribes northwest of the Ohio and as far as the heads of the Mississippi were banded together in a grand alliance, headed by the warlike Shawano, for the purpose of holding the Ohio river as the Indian boundary against the advancing tide of white settlement. They had just cut to pieces one of the finest armies ever sent into the West, under the veteran General St Clair (28), and it seemed for the moment as if the American advance would be driven back behind the Alleghenies. In the emergency the Secretary of War directed Governor Blount to hold a conference with the chiefs of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Cherokee at Nashville in June to enlist their warriors, if possible, in active service against the northern tribes. The conference was held as proposed, in August, but nothing seems to have come of it, although the chiefs seemed to be sincere in their assurances of friendship. Very few of the Choctaw or Cherokee were in attendance. At the annuity distribution of the Cherokee, shortly before, the chiefs had also been profuse in declarations of their desire for peace. [177] Notwithstanding all this the attacks along the Tennessee frontier continued to such an extent that the blockhouses were again put in order and garrisoned. Soon afterwards the governor reported to the Secretary of War that the five lower Cherokee towns on the Tennessee (the Chickamauga), headed by John Watts, had finally declared war against the United States, and that from three to six hundred warriors, including a hundred Creeks, had started against the settlements. The militia was at once called out, both in eastern Tennessee and on the Cumberland. On the Cumberland side it was directed that no pursuit should be continued beyond the Cherokee boundary, the ridge between the waters of Cumberland and Duck rivers. The order issued by Colonel White, of Knox county, to each of his captains shows how great was the alarm: Knoxville, September 11, 1792. Sir: You are hereby commanded to repair with your company to Knoxville, equipped, to protect the frontiers; there is imminent danger. Bring with you two days' provisions, if possible; but you are not to delay an hour on that head. I am, sir, yours, James White. [178] About midnight on the 30th of September, 1792, the Indian force, consisting of several hundred Chickamaugas and other Cherokee, Creeks, and Shawano, attacked Buchanan's station, a few miles south of Nashville. Although numbers of families had collected inside the stockade for safety, there were less than twenty able-bodied men among them. The approach of the enemy alarmed the cattle, by which the garrison had warning just in time to close the gate when the Indians were already within a few yards of the entrance. The assault was furious and determined, the Indians rushing up to the stockade, attempting to set fire to it, and aiming their guns through the port holes. One Indian succeeded in climbing upon the roof with a lighted torch, but was shot and fell to the ground, holding his torch against the logs as he drew his last breath. It was learned afterward that he was a half blood, the stepson of the old white trader who had once rescued the boy Joseph Brown at Nickajack. He was a desperate warrior and when only twenty-two years of age had already taken six white scalps. The attack was repulsed at every point, and the assailants finally drew off, with considerable loss, carrying their dead and wounded with them, and leaving a number of hatchets, pipes, and other spoils upon the ground. Among the wounded was the chief John Watts. Not one of those in the fort was injured. It has been well said that the defense of Buchanan's station by such a handful of men against an attacking force estimated all the way at from three to seven hundred Indians is a feat of bravery which has scarcely been surpassed in the annals of border warfare. The effect upon the Indians must have been thoroughly disheartening. [179] In the same month arrangements were made for protecting the frontier along the French Broad by means of a series of garrisoned blockhouses, with scouts to patrol regularly from one to another, North Carolina cooperating on her side of the line. The hostile inroads still continued in this section, the Creeks acting with the hostile Cherokee. One raiding party of Creeks having been traced toward Chilhowee town on Little Tennessee, the whites were about to burn that and a neighboring Cherokee town when Sevier interposed and prevented. [180] There is no reason to suppose that the people of these towns were directly concerned in the depredations along the frontier at this period, the mischief being done by those farther to the south, in conjunction with the Creeks. Toward the close of this year, 1792, Captain Samuel Handley, while leading a small party of men to reenforce the Cumberland settlement, was attacked by a mixed force of Cherokee, Creeks, and Shawano, near the Crab Orchard, west of the present Kingston, Tennessee. Becoming separated from his men he encountered a warrior who had lifted his hatchet to strike when Handley seized the weapon, crying out "Canaly" (for higina'lii), "friend," to which the Cherokee responded with the same word, at once lowering his arm. Handley was carried to Willstown, in Alabama, where he was adopted into the Wolf clan (29) and remained until the next spring. After having made use of his services in writing a peace letter to Governor Blount the Cherokee finally sent him home in safety to his friends under a protecting escort of eight warriors, without any demand for ransom. He afterward resided near Tellico blockhouse, near Loudon, where, after the wars were over, his Indian friends frequently came to visit and stop with him. [181] The year 1793 began with a series of attacks all along the Tennessee frontier. As before, most of the depredation was by Chickamaugas and Creeks, with some stray Shawano from the north. The Cherokee from the towns on Little Tennessee remained peaceable, but their temper was sorely tried by a regrettable circumstance which occurred in June. While a number of friendly chiefs were assembled for a conference at Echota, on the express request of the President, a party of men under command of a Captain John Beard suddenly attacked them, killing about fifteen Indians, including several chiefs and two women, one of them being the wife of Hanging-maw (Ushwâ'li-gûta), principal chief of the Nation, who was himself wounded. The murderers then fled, leaving others to suffer the consequences. Two hundred warriors at once took up arms to revenge their loss, and only the most earnest appeal from the deputy governor could restrain them from swift retaliation. While the chief, whose wife was thus murdered and himself wounded, forebore to revenge himself, in order not to bring war upon his people, the Secretary of War was obliged to report, "to my great pain, I find to punish Beard by law just now is out of the question." Beard was in fact arrested, but the trial was a farce and he was acquitted. [182] Believing that the Cherokee Nation, with the exception of the Chickamaugas, was honestly trying to preserve peace, the territorial government, while making provision for the safety of the exposed settlements, had strictly prohibited any invasion of the Indian country. The frontier people were of a different opinion, and in spite of the prohibition a company of nearly two hundred mounted men under Colonels Doherty and McFarland crossed over the mountains in the summer of this year and destroyed six of the middle towns, returning with fifteen scalps and as many prisoners. [183] Late in September a strong force estimated at one thousand warriors--seven hundred Creeks and three hundred Cherokee--under John Watts and Doublehead, crossed the Tennessee and advanced in the direction of Knoxville, where the public stores were then deposited. In their eagerness to reach Knoxville they passed quietly by one or two smaller settlements until within a short distance of the town, when, at daybreak of the 25th, they heard the garrison fire the sunrise gun and imagined that they were discovered. Differences had already broken out among the leaders, and without venturing to advance farther they contented themselves with an attack upon a small blockhouse a few miles to the west, known as Cavitts station, in which at the time were only three men with thirteen women and children. After defending themselves bravely for some time these surrendered on promise that they should be held for exchange, but as soon as they came out Doublehead's warriors fell upon them and put them all to death with the exception of a boy, who was saved by John Watts. This bloody deed was entirely the work of Doublehead, the other chiefs having done their best to prevent it. [184] A force of seven hundred men under General Sevier was at once put upon their track, with orders this time to push the pursuit into the heart of the Indian nation. Crossing Little Tennessee and Hiwassee they penetrated to Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun, Georgia. Finding it deserted, although well filled with provision, they rested there a few days, the Indians in the meantime attempting a night attack without success. After burning the town, Sevier continued down the river to Etowah town, near the present site of Rome. Here the Indians--Cherokee and Creeks--had dug intrenchments and prepared to make a stand, but, being outflanked, were defeated with loss and compelled to retreat. This town, with several others in the neighborhood belonging to both Cherokee and Creeks, was destroyed, with all the provision of the Indians, including three hundred cattle, after which the army took up the homeward march. The Americans had lost but three men. This was the last military service of Sevier. [185] During the absence of Sevier's force in the south the Indians made a sudden inroad on the French Broad, near the present Dandridge, killing and scalping a woman and a boy. While their friends were accompanying the remains to a neighboring burial ground for interment, two men who had incautiously gone ahead were fired upon. One of them escaped, but the other one was found killed and scalped when the rest of the company came up, and was buried with the first victims. Sevier's success brought temporary respite to the Cumberland settlements. During the early part of the year the Indian attacks by small raiding parties had been so frequent and annoying that a force of men had been kept out on patrol service under officers who adopted with some success the policy of hunting the Indians in their camping places in the thickets, rather than waiting for them to come into the settlements. [186] In February, 1794, the Territorial assembly of Tennessee met at Knoxville and, among other business transacted, addressed a strong memorial to Congress calling for more efficient protection for the frontier and demanding a declaration of war against the Creeks and Cherokee. The memorial states that since the treaty of Holston (July, 1791), these two tribes had killed in a most barbarous and inhuman manner more than two hundred citizens of Tennessee, of both sexes, had carried others into captivity, destroyed their stock, burned their houses, and laid waste their plantations, had robbed the citizens of their slaves and stolen at least two thousand horses. Special attention was directed to the two great invasions in September, 1792, and September, 1793, and the memorialists declare that there was scarcely a man of the assembly but could tell of "a dear wife or child, an aged parent or near relation, besides friends, massacred by the hands of these bloodthirsty nations in their house or fields." [187] In the meantime the raids continued and every scattered cabin was a target for attack. In April a party of twenty warriors surrounded the house of a man named Casteel on the French Broad about nine miles above Knoxville and massacred father, mother, and four children in most brutal fashion. One child only was left alive, a girl of ten years, who was found scalped and bleeding from six tomahawk gashes, yet survived. The others were buried in one grave. The massacre roused such a storm of excitement that it required all the effort of the governor and the local officials to prevent an invasion in force of the Indian country. It was learned that Doublehead, of the Chickamauga towns, was trying to get the support of the valley towns, which, however, continued to maintain an attitude of peace. The friendly Cherokee also declared that the Spaniards were constantly instigating the lower towns to hostilities, although John Watts, one of their principal chiefs, advocated peace. [188] In June a boat under command of William Scott, laden with pots, hardware, and other property, and containing six white men, three women, four children, and twenty negroes, left Knoxville to descend Tennessee river to Natchez. As it passed the Chickamauga towns it was fired upon from Running Water and Long island without damage. The whites returned the fire, wounding two Indians. A large party of Cherokee, headed by White-man-killer (Une'ga-dihi'), then started in pursuit of the boat, which they overtook at Muscle shoals, where they killed all the white people in it, made prisoners of the negroes, and plundered the goods. Three Indians were killed and one was wounded in the action. [189] It is said that the Indian actors in this massacre fled across the Mississippi into Spanish territory and became the nucleus of the Cherokee Nation of the West, as will be noted elsewhere. On June 26, 1794, another treaty, intended to be supplementary to that of Holston in 1791, was negotiated at Philadelphia, being signed by the Secretary of War and by thirteen principal men of the Cherokee. An arrangement was made for the proper marking of the boundary then established, and the annuity was increased to five thousand dollars, with a proviso that fifty dollars were to be deducted for every horse stolen by the Cherokee and not restored within three months. [190] In July a man named John Ish was shot down while plowing in his field eighteen miles below Knoxville. By order of Hanging-maw, the friendly chief of Echota, a party of Cherokee took the trail and captured the murderer, who proved to be a Creek, whom they brought in to the agent at Tellico blockhouse, where he was formally tried and hanged. When asked the usual question he said that his people were at war with the whites, that he had left home to kill or be killed, that he had killed the white man and would have escaped but for the Cherokee, and that there were enough of his nation to avenge his death. A few days later a party of one hundred Creek warriors crossed Tennessee river against the settlements. The alarm was given by Hanging-maw, and fifty-three Cherokee with a few federal troops started in pursuit. On the 10th of August they came up with the Creeks, killing one and wounding another, one Cherokee being slightly wounded. The Creeks retreated and the victors returned to the Cherokee towns, where their return was announced by the death song and the firing of guns. "The night was spent in dancing the scalp dance, according to the custom of warriors after a victory over their enemies, in which the white and red people heartily joined. The Upper Cherokee had now stepped too far to go back, and their professions of friendship were now no longer to be questioned." In the same month there was an engagement between a detachment of about forty soldiers and a large body of Creeks near Crab Orchard, in which several of each were killed. [191] It is evident that much of the damage on both sides of the Cumberland range was due to the Creeks. In the meantime Governor Blount was trying to negotiate peace with the whole Cherokee Nation, but with little success. The Cherokee claimed to be anxious for permanent peace, but said that it was impossible to restore the property taken by them, as it had been taken in war, and they had themselves been equal losers from the whites. They said also that they could not prevent the hostile Creeks from passing through their territory. About the end of July it was learned that a strong body of Creeks had started north against the settlements. The militia was at once ordered out along the Tennessee frontier, and the friendly Cherokees offered their services, while measures were taken to protect their women and children from the enemy. The Creeks advanced as far as Willstown, when the news came of the complete defeat of the confederated northern tribes by General Wayne (30), and fearing the same fate for themselves, they turned back and scattered to their towns. [192] The Tennesseeans, especially those on the Cumberland, had long ago come to the conclusion that peace could be brought about only through the destruction of the Chickamauga towns. Anticipating some action of this kind, which the general government did not think necessary or advisable, orders against any such attempt had been issued by the Secretary of War to Governor Blount. The frontier people went about their preparations, however, and it is evident from the result that the local military authorities were in connivance with the undertaking. General Robertson was the chief organizer of the volunteers about Nashville, who were reenforced by a company of Kentuckians under Colonel Whitley. Major Ore had been sent by Governor Blount with a detachment of troops to protect the Cumberland settlements, and on arriving at Nashville entered as heartily into the project as if no counter orders had ever been issued, and was given chief command of the expedition, which for this reason is commonly known as "Ore's expedition." On September 7, 1794, the army of five hundred and fifty mounted men left Nashville, and five days later crossed the Tennessee near the mouth of the Sequatchee river, their guide being the same Joseph Brown of whom the old Indian woman had said that he would one day bring the soldiers to destroy them. Having left their horses on the other side of the river, they moved up along the south bank just after daybreak of the 13th and surprised the town of Nickajack, killing several warriors and taking a number of prisoners. Some who attempted to escape in canoes were shot in the water. The warriors in Running Water town, four miles above, heard the firing and came at once to the assistance of their friends, but were driven back after attempting to hold their ground, and the second town shared the fate of the first. More than fifty Indians had been killed, a number were prisoners, both towns and all their contents had been destroyed, with a loss to the assailants of only three men wounded. The Breath, the chief of Running Water, was among those killed. Two fresh scalps with a large quantity of plunder from the settlements were found in the towns, together with a supply of ammunition said to have been furnished by the Spaniards. [193] Soon after the return of the expedition Robertson sent a message to John Watts, the principal leader of the hostile Cherokee, threatening a second visitation if the Indians did not very soon surrender their prisoners and give assurances of peace. [194] The destruction of their towns on Tennessee and Coosa and the utter defeat of the northern confederates had now broken the courage of the Cherokee, and on their own request Governor Blount held a conference with them at Tellico blockhouse, November 7 and 8, 1794, at which Hanging-maw, head chief of the Nation, and Colonel John Watt, principal chief of the hostile towns, with about four hundred of their warriors, attended. The result was satisfactory; all differences were arranged on a friendly basis and the long Cherokee war came to an end. [195] Owing to the continued devastation of their towns during the Revolutionary struggle, a number of Cherokee, principally of the Chickamauga band, had removed across the Ohio about 1782 and settled on Paint creek, a branch of the Scioto river, in the vicinity of their friends and allies, the Shawano. In 1787 they were reported to number about seventy warriors. They took an active part in the hostilities along the Ohio frontier and were present in the great battle at the Maumee rapids, by which the power of the confederated northern tribes was effectually broken. As they had failed to attend the treaty conference held at Greenville in August, 1795, General Wayne sent them a special message, through their chief Long-hair, that if they refused to come in and make terms as the others had done they would be considered outside the protection of the government. Upon this a part of them came in and promised that as soon as they could gather their crops the whole band would leave Ohio forever and return to their people in the south. [196] The Creeks were still hostile and continued their inroads upon the western settlements. Early in January, 1795, Governor Blount held another conference with the Cherokee and endeavored to persuade them to organize a company of their young men to patrol the frontier against the Creeks, but to this proposal the chiefs refused to consent. [197] In the next year it was discovered that a movement was on foot to take possession of certain Indian lands south of the Cumberland on pretense of authority formerly granted by North Carolina for the relief of Revolutionary soldiers. As such action would almost surely have resulted in another Indian war, Congress interposed, on the representation of President Washington, with an act for the regulation of intercourse between citizens of the United States and the various Indian tribes. Its main purpose was to prevent intrusion upon lands to which the Indian title had not been extinguished by treaty with the general government, and under its provisions a number of squatters were ejected from the Indian country and removed across the boundary. The pressure of border sentiment, however, was constantly for extending the area of white settlement and the result was an immediate agitation to procure another treaty cession. [198] In consequence of urgent representations from the people of Tennessee, Congress took steps in 1797 for procuring a new treaty with the Cherokee by which the ejected settlers might be reinstated and the boundaries of the new state so extended as to bring about closer communication between the eastern settlements and those on the Cumberland. The Revolutionary warfare had forced the Cherokee west and south, and their capital and central gathering place was now Ustanali town, near the present Calhoun, Georgia, while Echota, their ancient capital and beloved peace town, was almost on the edge of the white settlements. The commissioners wished to have the proceedings conducted at Echota, while the Cherokee favored Ustanali. After some debate a choice was made of a convenient place near Tellico blockhouse, where the conference opened in July, but was brought to an abrupt close by the peremptory refusal of the Cherokee to sell any lands or to permit the return of the ejected settlers. The rest of the summer was spent in negotiation along the lines already proposed, and on October 2, 1798, a treaty, commonly known as the "first treaty of Tellico," was concluded at the same place, and was signed by thirty-nine chiefs on behalf of the Cherokee. By this treaty the Indians ceded a tract between Clinch river and the Cumberland ridge, another along the northern bank of Little Tennessee extending up to Chilhowee mountain, and a third in North Carolina on the heads of French Broad and Pigeon rivers and including the sites of the present Waynesville and Hendersonville. These cessions included most or all of the lands from which settlers had been ejected. Permission was also given for laying out the "Cumberland road," to connect the east Tennessee settlements with those about Nashville. In consideration of the lands and rights surrendered, the United States agreed to deliver to the Cherokee five thousand dollars in goods, and to increase their existing annuity by one thousand dollars, and as usual, to "continue the guarantee of the remainder of their country forever." [199] Wayne's victory over the northern tribes at the battle of the Maumee rapids completely broke their power and compelled them to accept the terms of peace dictated at the treaty of Greenville in the summer of 1795. The immediate result was the surrender of the Ohio river boundary by the Indians and the withdrawal of the British garrisons from the interior posts, which up to this time they had continued to hold in spite of the treaty made at the close of the Revolution. By the treaty made at Madrid in October, 1795, Spain gave up all claim on the east side of the Mississippi north of the thirty-first parallel, but on various pretexts the formal transfer of posts was delayed and a Spanish garrison continued to occupy San Fernando de Barrancas, at the present Memphis, Tennessee, until the fall of 1797, while that at Natchez, in Mississippi, was not surrendered until March, 1798. The Creeks, seeing the trend of affairs, had made peace at Colerain, Georgia, in June, 1796. With the hostile European influence thus eliminated, at least for the time, the warlike tribes on the north and on the south crushed and dispirited and the Chickamauga towns wiped out of existence, the Cherokee realized that they must accept the situation and, after nearly twenty years of continuous warfare, laid aside the tomahawk to cultivate the arts of peace and civilization. The close of the century found them still a compact people (the westward movement having hardly yet begun) numbering probably about 20,000 souls. After repeated cessions of large tracts of land, to some of which they had but doubtful claim, they remained in recognized possession of nearly 43,000 square miles of territory, a country about equal in extent to Ohio, Virginia, or Tennessee. Of this territory about one-half was within the limits of Tennessee, the remainder being almost equally divided between Georgia and Alabama, with a small area in the extreme southwestern corner of North Carolina. [200] The old Lower towns on Savannah river had been broken up for twenty years, and the whites had so far encroached upon the Upper towns that the capital and council fire of the nation had been removed from the ancient peace town of Echota to Ustanali, in Georgia. The towns on Coosa river and in Alabama were almost all of recent establishment, peopled by refugees from the east and north. The Middle towns, in North Carolina, were still surrounded by Indian country. Firearms had been introduced into the tribe about one hundred years before, and the Cherokee had learned well their use. Such civilized goods as hatchets, knives, clothes, and trinkets had become so common before the first Cherokee war that the Indians had declared that they could no longer live without the traders. Horses and other domestic animals had been introduced early in the century, and at the opening of the war of 1760, according to Adair, the Cherokee had "a prodigious number of excellent horses," and although hunger had compelled them to eat a great many of these during that period, they still had, in 1775, from two to a dozen each, and bid fair soon to have plenty of the best sort, as, according to the same authority, they were skilful jockeys and nice in their choice. Some of them had grown fond of cattle, and they had also an abundance of hogs and poultry, the Indian pork being esteemed better than that raised in the white settlements on account of the chestnut diet. [201] In Sevier's expedition against the towns on Coosa river, in 1793, the army killed three hundred beeves at Etowah and left their carcasses rotting on the ground. While crossing the Cherokee country in 1796 Hawkins met an Indian woman on horseback driving ten very fat cattle to the settlements for sale. Peach trees and potatoes, as well as the native corn and beans, were abundant in their fields, and some had bees and honey and did a considerable trade in beeswax. They seem to have quickly recovered from the repeated ravages of war, and there was a general air of prosperity throughout the nation. The native arts of pottery and basket-making were still the principal employment of the women, and the warriors hunted with such success that a party of traders brought down thirty wagon loads of skins on one trip. [202] In dress and house-building the Indian style was practically unchanged. In pursuance of a civilizing policy, the government had agreed, by the treaty of 1791, to furnish the Cherokee gratuitously with farming tools and similar assistance. This policy was continued and broadened to such an extent that in 1801 Hawkins reports that "in the Cherokee agency, the wheel, the loom, and the plough is [sic] in pretty general use, farming, manufactures, and stock raising the topic of conversation among the men and women." At a conference held this year we find the chiefs of the mountain towns complaining that the people of the more western and southwestern settlements had received more than their share of spinning wheels and cards, and were consequently more advanced in making their own clothing as well as in farming, to which the others retorted that these things had been offered to all alike at the same time, but while the lowland people had been quick to accept, the mountaineers had hung back. "Those who complain came in late. We have got the start of them, which we are determined to keep." The progressives, under John Watts, Doublehead, and Will, threatened to secede from the rest and leave those east of Chilhowee mountain to shift for themselves. [203] We see here the germ of dissatisfaction which led ultimately to the emigration of the western band. Along with other things of civilization, negro slavery had been introduced and several of the leading men were now slaveholders (31). Much of the advance in civilization had been due to the intermarriage among them of white men, chiefly traders of the ante-Revolutionary period, with a few Americans from the back settlements. The families that have made Cherokee history were nearly all of this mixed descent. The Doughertys, Galpins, and Adairs were from Ireland; the Rosses, Vanns, and McIntoshes, like the McGillivrays and Graysons among the Creeks, were of Scottish origin; the Waffords and others were Americans from Carolina or Georgia, and the father of Sequoya was a (Pennsylvania?) German. Most of this white blood was of good stock, very different from the "squaw man" element of the western tribes. Those of the mixed blood who could afford it usually sent their children away to be educated, while some built schoolhouses upon their own grounds and brought in private teachers from the outside. With the beginning of the present century we find influential mixed bloods in almost every town, and the civilized idea dominated even the national councils. The Middle towns, shut in from the outside world by high mountains, remained a stronghold of Cherokee conservatism. With the exception of Priber, there seems to be no authentic record of any missionary worker among the Cherokee before 1800. There is, indeed, an incidental notice of a Presbyterian minister of North Carolina being on his way to the tribe in 1758, but nothing seems to have come of it, and we find him soon after in South Carolina and separated from his original jurisdiction. [204] The first permanent mission was established by the Moravians, those peaceful German immigrants whose teachings were so well exemplified in the lives of Zeisberger and Heckewelder. As early as 1734, while temporarily settled in Georgia, they had striven to bring some knowledge of the Christian religion to the Indians immediately about Savannah, including perhaps some stray Cherokee. Later on they established missions among the Delawares in Ohio, where their first Cherokee convert was received in 1773, being one who had been captured by the Delawares when a boy and had grown up and married in the tribe. In 1752 they had formed a settlement on the upper Yadkin, near the present Salem, North Carolina, where they made friendly acquaintance with the Cherokee. [205] In 1799, hearing that the Cherokee desired teachers--or perhaps by direct invitation of the chiefs--two missionaries visited the tribe to investigate the matter. Another visit was made in the next summer, and a council was held at Tellico agency, where, after a debate in which the Indians showed considerable difference of opinion, it was decided to open a mission. Permission having been obtained from the government, the work was begun in April, 1801, by Rev. Abraham Steiner and Rev. Gottlieb Byhan at the residence of David Vann, a prominent mixed-blood chief, who lodged them in his own house and gave them every assistance in building the mission, which they afterward called Spring place, where now is the village of the same name in Murray county, northwestern Georgia. They were also materially aided by the agent, Colonel Return J. Meigs (32). It was soon seen that the Cherokee wanted civilizers for their children, and not new theologies, and when they found that a school could not at once be opened the great council at Ustanali sent orders to the missionaries to organize a school within six months or leave the nation. Through Vann's help the matter was arranged and a school was opened, several sons of prominent chiefs being among the pupils. Another Moravian mission was established by Reverend J. Gambold at Oothcaloga, in the same county, in 1821. Both were in flourishing condition when broken up, with other Cherokee missions, by the State of Georgia in 1834. The work was afterward renewed beyond the Mississippi. [206] In 1804 the Reverend Gideon Blackburn, a Presbyterian minister of Tennessee, opened a school among the Cherokee, which continued for several years until abandoned for lack of funds. [207] Notwithstanding the promise to the Cherokee in the treaty of 1798 that the Government would "continue the guarantee of the remainder of their country forever," measures were begun almost immediately to procure another large cession of land and road privileges. In spite of the strenuous objection of the Cherokee, who sent a delegation of prominent chiefs to Washington to protest against any further sales, such pressure was brought to bear, chiefly through the efforts of the agent, Colonel Meigs, that the object of the Government was accomplished, and in 1804 and 1805 three treaties were negotiated at Tellico agency, by which the Cherokee were shorn of more than eight thousand square miles of their remaining territory. By the first of these treaties--October 24, 1804--a purchase was made of a small tract in northeastern Georgia, known as the "Wafford settlement," upon which a party led by Colonel Wafford had located some years before, under the impression that it was outside the boundary established by the Hopewell treaty. In compensation the Cherokee were to receive an immediate payment of five thousand dollars in goods or cash with an additional annuity of one thousand dollars. By the other treaties--October 25 and 27, 1805--a large tract was obtained in central Tennessee and Kentucky, extending between the Cumberland range and the western line of the Hopewell treaty, and from Cumberland river southwest to Duck river. One section was also secured at Southwest point (now Kingston, Tennessee) with the design of establishing there the state capital, which, however, was located at Nashville instead seven years later. Permission was also obtained for two mail roads through the Cherokee country into Georgia and Alabama. In consideration of the cessions by the two treaties the United States agreed to pay fifteen thousand six hundred dollars in working implements, goods, or cash, with an additional annuity of three thousand dollars. To secure the consent of some of the leading chiefs, the treaty commissioners resorted to the disgraceful precedent of secret articles, by which several valuable small tracts were reserved for Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, the agreement being recorded as a part of the treaty, but not embodied in the copy sent to the Senate for confirmation. [208] In consequence of continued abuse of his official position for selfish ends Doublehead was soon afterward killed in accordance with a decree of the chiefs of the Nation, Major Ridge being selected as executioner. [209] By the treaty of October 25, 1805, the settlements in eastern Tennessee were brought into connection with those about Nashville on the Cumberland, and the state at last assumed compact form. The whole southern portion of the state, as defined in the charter, was still Indian country, and there was a strong and constant pressure for its opening, the prevailing sentiment being in favor of making Tennessee river the boundary between the two races. New immigrants were constantly crowding in from the east, and, as Royce says, "the desire to settle on Indian land was as potent and insatiable with the average border settler then as it is now." Almost within two months of the last treaties another one was concluded at Washington on January 7, 1806, by which the Cherokee ceded their claim to a large tract between Duck river and the Tennessee, embracing nearly seven thousand square miles in Tennessee and Alabama, together with the Long island (Great island) in Holston river, which up to this time they had claimed as theirs. They were promised in compensation ten thousand dollars in five cash installments, a grist mill and cotton gin, and a life annuity of one hundred dollars for Black-fox, the aged head chief of the nation. The signers of the instrument, including Doublehead and Tollunteeskee, were accompanied to Washington by the same commissioners who had procured the previous treaty. In consequence of some misunderstanding, the boundaries of the ceded tract were still further extended in a supplementary treaty concluded at the Chickasaw Old Fields on the Tennessee, on September 11, 1807. As the country between Duck river and the Tennessee was claimed also by the Chickasaw, their title was extinguished by separate treaties. [210] The ostensible compensation for this last Cherokee cession, as shown by the treaty, was two thousand dollars, but it was secretly agreed by Agent Meigs that what he calls a "silent consideration" of one thousand dollars and some rifles should be given to the chiefs who signed it. [211] In 1807 Colonel Elias Earle, with the consent of the Government, obtained a concession from the Cherokee for the establishment of iron works at the mouth of Chickamauga creek, on the south side of Tennessee river, to be supplied from ores mined in the Cherokee country. It was hoped that this would be a considerable step toward the civilization of the Indians, besides enabling the Government to obtain its supplies of manufactured iron at a cheaper rate, but after prolonged effort the project was finally abandoned on account of the refusal of the state of Tennessee to sanction the grant. [212] In the same year, by arrangement with the general government, the legislature of Tennessee attempted to negotiate with the Cherokee for that part of their unceded lands lying within the state limits, but without success, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to part with any more territory, and their special dislike for the people of Tennessee. [213] In 1810 the Cherokee national council registered a further advance in civilization by formally abolishing the custom of clan revenge, hitherto universal among the tribes. The enactment bears the signatures of Black-fox (Ina'li), principal chief, and seven others, and reads as follows: In Council, Oostinaleh, April 18, 1810. 1. Be it known this day, That the various clans or tribes which compose the Cherokee nation have unanimously passed an act of oblivion for all lives for which they may have been indebted one to the other, and have mutually agreed that after this evening the aforesaid act shall become binding upon every clan or tribe thereof. 2. The aforesaid clans or tribes have also agreed that if, in future, any life should be lost without malice intended, the innocent aggressor shall not be accounted guilty; and, should it so happen that a brother, forgetting his natural affections, should raise his hands in anger and kill his brother, he shall be accounted guilty of murder and suffer accordingly. 3. If a man have a horse stolen, and overtake the thief, and should his anger be so great as to cause him to shed his blood, let it remain on his own conscience, but no satisfaction shall be required for his life, from his relative or clan he may have belonged to. By order of the seven clans. [214] Under an agreement with the Cherokee in 1813 a company composed of representatives of Tennessee, Georgia, and the Cherokee nation was organized to lay out a free public road from Tennessee river to the head of navigation on the Tugaloo branch of Savannah river, with provision for convenient stopping places along the line. The road was completed within the next three years, and became the great highway from the coast to the Tennessee settlements. Beginning on the Tugaloo or Savannah a short distance below the entrance of Toccoa creek, it crossed the upper Chattahoochee, passing through Clarkesville, Nacoochee valley, the Unicoi gap, and Hiwassee in Georgia; then entering North Carolina it descended the Hiwassee, passing through Hayesville and Murphy and over the Great Smoky range into Tennessee, until it reached the terminus at the Cherokee capital, Echota, on Little Tennessee. It was officially styled the Unicoi turnpike, [215] but was commonly known in North Carolina as the Wachesa trail, from Watsi'sa or Wachesa, a prominent Indian who lived near the crossing-place on Beaverdam creek, below Murphy, this portion of the road being laid out along the old Indian trail which already bore that name. [216] Passing over for the present some negotiations having for their purpose the removal of the Cherokee to the West, we arrive at the period of the Creek war. Ever since the treaty of Greenville it had been the dream of Tecumtha, the great Shawano chief (33), to weld again the confederacy of the northern tribes as a barrier against the further aggressions of the white man. His own burning eloquence was ably seconded by the subtler persuasion of his brother, who assumed the role of a prophet with a new revelation, the burden of which was that the Indians must return to their old Indian life if they would preserve their national existence. The new doctrine spread among all the northern tribes and at last reached those of the south, where Tecumtha himself had gone to enlist the warriors in the great Indian confederacy. The prophets of the Upper Creeks eagerly accepted the doctrine and in a short time their warriors were dancing the "dance of the Indians of the lakes." In anticipation of an expected war with the United States the British agents in Canada had been encouraging the hostile feeling toward the Americans by talks and presents of goods and ammunition, while the Spaniards also covertly fanned the flame of discontent. [217] At the height of the ferment war was declared between this country and England on June 28, 1812. Tecumtha, at the head of fifteen hundred warriors, at once entered the British service with a commission as general, while the Creeks began murdering and burning along the southern frontier, after having vainly attempted to secure the cooperation of the Cherokee. From the Creeks the new revelation was brought to the Cherokee, whose priests at once began to dream dreams and to preach a return to the old life as the only hope of the Indian race. A great medicine dance was appointed at Ustanali, the national capital, where, after the dance was over, the doctrine was publicly announced and explained by a Cherokee prophet introduced by a delegation from Coosawatee. He began by saying that some of the mountain towns had abused him and refused to receive his message, but nevertheless he must continue to bear testimony of his mission whatever might happen. The Cherokee had broken the road which had been given to their fathers at the beginning of the world. They had taken the white man's clothes and trinkets, they had beds and tables and mills; some even had books and cats. All this was bad, and because of it their gods were angry and the game was leaving their country. If they would live and be happy as before they must put off the white man's dress, throw away his mills and looms, kill their cats, put on paint and buckskin, and be Indians again; otherwise swift destruction would come upon them. His speech appealed strongly to the people, who cried out in great excitement that his talk was good. Of all those present only Major Ridge, a principal chief, had the courage to stand up and oppose it, warning his hearers that such talk would inevitably lead to war with the United States, which would end in their own destruction. The maddened followers of the prophet sprang upon Ridge and would have killed him but for the interposition of friends. As it was, he was thrown down and narrowly escaped with his life, while one of his defenders was stabbed by his side. The prophet had threatened after a certain time to invoke a terrible storm, which should destroy all but the true believers, who were exhorted to gather for safety on one of the high peaks of the Great Smoky mountains. In full faith they abandoned their bees, their orchards, their slaves, and everything that had come to them from the white man, and took up their toilsome march for the high mountains. There they waited until the appointed day had come and passed, showing their hopes and fears to be groundless, when they sadly returned to their homes and the great Indian revival among the Cherokee came to an end. [218] Among the Creeks, where other hostile influences were at work, the excitement culminated in the Creek war. Several murders and outrages had already been committed, but it was not until the terrible massacre at Fort Mims (34), on August 30, 1813, that the whole American nation was aroused. Through the influence of Ridge and other prominent chiefs the Cherokee had refused to join the hostile Creeks, and on the contrary had promised to assist the whites and the friendly towns. [219] More than a year before the council had sent a friendly letter to the Creeks warning them against taking the British side in the approaching war, while several prominent chiefs had proposed to enlist a Cherokee force for the service of the United States. [220] Finding that no help, was to be expected from the Cherokee, the Creeks took occasion to kill a Cherokee woman near the town of Etowah, in Georgia. With the help of a conjurer the murderers were trailed and overtaken and killed on the evening of the second day in a thicket where they had concealed themselves. After this there could be no alliance between the two tribes. [221] At the time of the Fort Mims massacre McIntosh (35), the chief of the friendly Lower Creeks, was visiting the Cherokee, among whom he had relatives. By order of the Cherokee council he was escorted home by a delegation under the leadership of Ridge. On his return Ridge brought with him a request from the Lower Creeks that the Cherokee would join with them and the Americans in putting down the war. Ridge himself strongly urged the proposition, declaring that if the prophets were allowed to have their way the work of civilization would be destroyed. The council, however, decided not to interfere in the affairs of other tribes, whereupon Ridge called for volunteers, with the result that so many of the warriors responded that the council reversed its decision and declared war against the Creeks. [222] For a proper understanding of the situation it is necessary to state that the hostile feeling was confined almost entirely to the Upper Creek towns on the Tallapoosa, where the prophets of the new religion had their residence. The half-breed chief, Weatherford (36), was the leader of the war party. The Lower Creek towns on the Chattahoochee, under McIntosh, another half-breed chief, were friendly, and acted with the Cherokee and the Americans against their own brethren. It is not our purpose to give a history of the Creek war, but only to note the part which the Cherokee had in it. The friendly Lower Creeks, under McIntosh, with a few refugees from the Upper towns, operated chiefly with the army under General Floyd which invaded the southern part of the Creek country from Georgia. Some friendly Choctaw and Chickasaw also lent their assistance in this direction. The Cherokee, with some friendly Creeks of the Upper towns, acted with the armies under Generals White and Jackson, which entered the Creek country from the Tennessee side. While some hundreds of their warriors were thus fighting in the field, the Cherokee at home were busily collecting provisions for the American troops. As Jackson approached from the north, about the end of October, 1813, he was met by runners asking him to come to the aid of Pathkiller, a Cherokee chief, who was in danger of being cut off by the hostiles, at his village of Turkeytown, on the upper Coosa, near the present Center, Alabama. A fresh detachment on its way from east Tennessee, under General White, was ordered by Jackson to relieve the town, and successfully performed this work. White's force consisted of one thousand men, including four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and John Lowrey. [223] As the army advanced down the Coosa the Creeks retired to Tallaseehatchee, on the creek of the same name, near the present Jacksonville, Calhoun county, Alabama. One thousand men under General Coffee, together with a company of Cherokee under Captain Richard Brown and some few Creeks, were sent against them. The Indian auxiliaries wore headdresses of white feathers and deertails. The attack was made at daybreak of November 3, 1813, and the town was taken after a desperate resistance, from which not one of the defenders escaped alive, the Creeks having been completely surrounded on all sides. Says Coffee in his official report: They made all the resistance that an overpowered soldier could do--they fought as long as one existed, but their destruction was very soon completed. Our men rushed up to the doors of the houses and in a few minutes killed the last warrior of them. The enemy fought with savage fury and met death with all its horrors, without shrinking or complaining--not one asked to be spared, but fought as long as they could stand or sit. Of such fighting stuff did the Creeks prove themselves, against overwhelming numbers, throughout the war. The bodies of nearly two hundred dead warriors were counted on the field, and the general reiterates that "not one of the warriors escaped." A number of women and children were taken prisoners. Nearly every man of the Creeks had a bow with a bundle of arrows, which he used after the first fire with his gun. The American loss was only five killed and forty-one wounded, which may not include the Indian contingent. [224] White's advance guard, consisting chiefly of the four hundred other Cherokee under Morgan and Lowrey, reached Tallaseehatchee the same evening, only to find it already destroyed. They picked up twenty wounded Creeks, whom they brought with them to Turkeytown. [225] The next great battle was at Talladega, on the site of the present town of the same name, in Talladega county, Alabama, on November 9, 1813. Jackson commanded in person with two thousand infantry and cavalry. Although the Cherokee are not specifically mentioned they were a part of the army and must have taken part in the engagement. The town itself was occupied by friendly Creeks, who were besieged by the hostiles, estimated at over one thousand warriors on the outside. Here again the battle was simply a slaughter, the odds being two to one, the Creeks being also without cover, although they fought so desperately that at one time the militia was driven back. They left two hundred and ninety-nine dead bodies on the field, which, according to their own statement afterwards, was only a part of their total loss. The Americans lost fifteen killed and eighty-five wounded. [226] A day or two later the people of Hillabee town, about the site of the present village of that name in Clay county, Alabama, sent messengers to Jackson's camp to ask for peace, which that commander immediately granted. In the meantime, even while the peace messengers were on their way home with the good news, an army of one thousand men from east Tennessee under General White, who claimed to be independent of Jackson's authority, together with four hundred Cherokee under Colonel Gideon Morgan and John Lowrey, surrounded the town on November 18, 1813, taking it by surprise, the inhabitants having trusted so confidently to the success of their peace embassy that they had made no preparation for defense. Sixty warriors were killed and over two hundred and fifty prisoners taken, with no loss to the Americans, as there was practically no resistance. In White's official report of the affair he states that he had sent ahead a part of his force, together with the Cherokee under Morgan, to surround the town, and adds that "Colonel Morgan and the Cherokees under his command gave undeniable evidence that they merit the employ of their government." [227] Not knowing that the attack had been made without Jackson's sanction or knowledge, the Creeks naturally concluded that peace overtures were of no avail, and thenceforth until the close of the war there was no talk of surrender. On November 29, 1813, the Georgia army under General Floyd, consisting of nine hundred and fifty American troops and four hundred friendly Indians, chiefly Lower Creeks under McIntosh, took and destroyed Autossee town on the Tallapoosa, west of the present Tuskegee, killing about two hundred warriors and burning four hundred well-built houses. On December 23 the Creeks were again defeated by General Claiborne, assisted by some friendly Choctaws, at Ecanachaca or the Holy Ground on Alabama river, near the present Benton in Lowndes county. This town and another a few miles away were also destroyed, with a great quantity of provisions and other property. [228] It is doubtful if any Cherokee were concerned in either action. Before the close of the year Jackson's force in northern Alabama had been so far reduced by mutinies and expiration of service terms that he had but one hundred soldiers left and was obliged to employ the Cherokee to garrison Fort Armstrong, on the upper Coosa, and to protect his provision depot. [229] With the opening of the new year, 1814, having received reinforcements from Tennessee, together with about two hundred friendly Creeks and sixty-five more Cherokee, he left his camp on the Coosa and advanced against the towns on the Tallapoosa. Learning, on arriving near the river, that he was within a few miles of the main body of the enemy, he halted for a reconnoissance and camped in order of battle on Emukfaw creek, on the northern bank of the Tallapoosa, only a short distance from the famous Horseshoe bend. Here, on the morning of June 24, 1814, he was suddenly attacked by the enemy with such fury that, although the troops charged with the bayonet, the Creeks returned again to the fight and were at last broken only by the help of the friendly Indians, who came upon them from the rear. As it was, Jackson was so badly crippled that he retreated to Fort Strother on the Coosa, carrying his wounded, among them General Coffee, on horse-hide litters. The Creeks pursued and attacked him again as he was crossing Enotochopco creek on January 24, but after a severe fight were driven back with discharges of grapeshot from a six-pounder at close range. The army then continued its retreat to Fort Strother. The American loss in these two battles was about one hundred killed and wounded. The loss of the Creeks was much greater, but they had compelled a superior force, armed with bayonet and artillery, to retreat, and without the aid of the friendly Indians it is doubtful if Jackson could have saved his army from demoralization. The Creeks themselves claimed a victory and boasted afterward that they had "whipped Jackson and run him to the Coosa river." Pickett states, on what seems good authority, that the Creeks engaged did not number more than five hundred warriors. Jackson had probably at least one thousand two hundred men, including Indians. [230] While these events were transpiring in the north, General Floyd again advanced from Georgia with a force of about one thousand three hundred Americans and four hundred friendly Indians, but was surprised on Caleebee creek, near the present Tuskegee, Alabama, on the morning of January 27, 1814, and compelled to retreat, leaving the enemy in possession of the field. [231] We come now to the final event of the Creek war, the terrible battle of the Horseshoe bend. Having received large reenforcements from Tennessee, Jackson left a garrison at Fort Strother, and, about the middle of March, descended the Coosa river to the mouth of Cedar creek, southeast from the present Columbiana, where he built Fort Williams. Leaving his stores here with a garrison to protect them, he began his march for the Horseshoe bend of the Tallapoosa, where the hostiles were reported to have collected in great force. At this place, known to the Creeks as Tohopki or Tohopeka, the Tallapoosa made a bend so as to inclose some eighty or a hundred acres in a narrow peninsula opening to the north. On the lower side was an island in the river, and about a mile below was Emukfaw creek, entering from the north, where Jackson had been driven back two months before. Both locations were in the present Tallapoosa county, Alabama, within two miles of the present post village of Tohopeka. Across the neck of the peninsula the Creeks had built a strong breastwork of logs, behind which were their houses, and behind these were a number of canoes moored to the bank for use if retreat became necessary. The fort was defended by a thousand warriors, with whom were also about three hundred women and children. Jackson's force numbered about two thousand men, including, according to his own statement, five hundred Cherokee. He had also two small cannon. The account of the battle, or rather massacre, which occurred on the morning of March 27, 1814, is best condensed from the official reports of the principal commanders. Having arrived in the neighborhood of the fort, Jackson disposed his men for the attack by detailing General Coffee with the mounted men and nearly the whole of the Indian force to cross the river at a ford about three miles below and surround the bend in such manner that none could escape in that direction. He himself, with the rest of his force, advanced to the front of the breastwork and planted his cannon upon a slight rise within eighty yards of the fortification. He then directed a heavy cannonade upon the center of the breastwork, while the rifles and muskets kept up a galling fire upon the defenders whenever they showed themselves behind the logs. The breastwork was very strongly and compactly built, from five to eight feet high, with a double row of portholes, and so planned that no enemy could approach without being exposed to a crossfire from those on the inside. After about two hours of cannonading and rifle fire to no great purpose, "Captain Russell's company of spies and a party of the Cherokee force, headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Morgan, crossed over to the peninsula in canoes and set fire to a few of their buildings there situated. They then advanced with great gallantry toward the breastwork and commenced firing upon the enemy, who lay behind it. Finding that this force, notwithstanding the determination they displayed, was wholly insufficient to dislodge the enemy, and that General Coffee had secured the opposite banks of the river, I now determined on taking possession of their works by storm." [232] Coffee's official report to his commanding officer states that he had taken seven hundred mounted troops and about six hundred Indians, of whom five hundred were Cherokee and the rest friendly Creeks, and had come in behind, having directed the Indians to take position secretly along the bank of the river to prevent the enemy crossing, as already noted. This was done, but with fighting going on so near at hand the Indians could not remain quiet. Continuing, Coffee says: The firing of your cannon and small arms in a short time became general and heavy, which animated our Indians, and seeing about one hundred of the warriors and all the squaws and children of the enemy running about among the huts of the village, which was open to our view, they could no longer remain silent spectators. While some kept up a fire across the river to prevent the enemy's approach to the bank, others plunged into the water and swam the river for canoes that lay at the other shore in considerable numbers and brought them over, in which crafts a number of them embarked and landed on the bend with the enemy. Colonel Gideon Morgan, who commanded the Cherokees, Captain Kerr, and Captain William Russell, with a part of his company of spies, were among the first that crossed the river. They advanced into the village and very soon drove the enemy from the huts up the river bank to the fortified works from which they were fighting you. They pursued and continued to annoy during your whole action. This movement of my Indian forces left the river bank unguarded and made it necessary that I should send a part of my line to take possession of the river bank. [233] According to the official report of Colonel Morgan, who commanded the Cherokee and who was himself severely wounded, the Cherokee took the places assigned them along the bank in such regular order that no part was left unoccupied, and the few fugitives who attempted to escape from the fort by water "fell an easy prey to their vengeance." Finally, seeing that the cannonade had no more effect upon the breastwork than to bore holes in the logs, some of the Cherokee plunged into the river, and swimming over to the town brought back a number of canoes. A part crossed in these, under cover of the guns of their companions, and sheltered themselves under the bank while the canoes were sent back for reenforcements. In this way they all crossed over and then advanced up the bank, where at once they were warmly assailed from every side except the rear, which they kept open only by hard fighting. [234] The Creeks had been fighting the Americans in their front at such close quarters that their bullets flattened upon the bayonets thrust through the portholes. This attack from the rear by five hundred Cherokee diverted their attention and gave opportunity to the Tennesseeans, Sam Houston among them, cheering them on, to swarm over the breastwork. With death from the bullet, the bayonet and the hatchet all around them, and the smoke of their blazing homes in their eyes, not a warrior begged for his life. When more than half their number lay dead upon the ground, the rest turned and plunged into the river, only to find the banks on the opposite side lined with enemies and escape cut off in every direction. Says General Coffee: Attempts to cross the river at all points of the bend were made by the enemy, but not one ever escaped. Very few ever reached the bank and that few was killed the instant they landed. From the report of my officers, as well as from my own observation, I feel warranted in saying that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred of the enemy was buried under water and was not numbered with the dead that were found. Some swam for the island below the bend, but here too a detachment had been posted and "not one ever landed. They were sunk by Lieutenant Bean's command ere they reached the bank." [235] Quoting again from Jackson-- The enemy, although many of them fought to the last with that kind of bravery which desperation inspires, were at last entirely routed and cut to pieces. The battle may be said to have continued with severity for about five hours, but the firing and slaughter continued until it was suspended by the darkness of night. The next morning it was resumed and sixteen of the enemy slain who had concealed themselves under the banks. [236] It was supposed that the Creeks had about a thousand warriors, besides their women and children. The men sent out to count the dead found five hundred and fifty-seven warriors lying dead within the inclosure, and Coffee estimates that from two hundred and fifty to three hundred were shot in the water. How many more there may have been can not be known, but Jackson himself states that not more than twenty could have escaped. There is no mention of any wounded. About three hundred prisoners were taken, of whom only three were men. The defenders of the Horseshoe had been exterminated. [237] On the other side the loss was 26 Americans killed and 107 wounded, 18 Cherokee killed and 36 wounded, 5 friendly Creeks killed and 11 wounded. It will be noted that the loss of the Cherokee was out of all proportion to their numbers, their fighting having been hand to hand work without protecting cover. In view of the fact that Jackson had only a few weeks before been compelled to retreat before this same enemy, and that two hours of artillery and rifle fire had produced no result until the Cherokee turned the rear of the enemy by their daring passage of the river, there is considerable truth in the boast of the Cherokee that they saved the day for Jackson at Horseshoe bend. In the number of men actually engaged and the immense proportion killed, this ranks as the greatest Indian battle in the history of the United States, with the possible exception of the battle of Mauvila, fought by the same Indians in De Soto's time. The result was decisive. Two weeks later Weatherford came in and surrendered, and the Creek war was at an end. As is usual where Indians have acted as auxiliaries of white troops, it is difficult to get an accurate statement of the number of Cherokee engaged in this war or to apportion the credit among the various leaders. Coffee's official report states that five hundred Cherokee were engaged in the last great battle, and from incidental hints it seems probable that others were employed elsewhere, on garrison duty or otherwise, at the same time. McKenney and Hall state that Ridge recruited eight hundred warriors for Jackson, [238] and this may be near the truth, as the tribe had then at least six times as many fighting men. On account of the general looseness of Indian organization we commonly find the credit claimed for whichever chief may be best known to the chronicler. Thus, McKenney and Hall make Major Ridge the hero of the war, especially of the Horseshoe fight, although he is not mentioned in the official reports. Jackson speaks particularly of the Cherokee in that battle as being "headed by their gallant chieftain, Colonel Richard Brown, and conducted by the brave Colonel Morgan." Coffee says that Colonel Gideon Morgan "commanded the Cherokees," and it is Morgan who makes the official report of their part in the battle. In a Washington newspaper notice of the treaty delegation of 1816 the six signers are mentioned as Colonel [John] Lowrey, Major [John] Walker, Major Ridge, Captain [Richard] Taylor, Adjutant [John] Ross, and Kunnesee (Tsi'yu-gûnsi'ni, Cheucunsene) and are described as men of cultivation, nearly all of whom had served as officers of the Cherokee forces with Jackson and distinguished themselves as well by their bravery as by their attachment to the United States. [239] Among the East Cherokee in Carolina the only name still remembered is that of their old chief, Junaluska (Tsunu'lahuñ'ski), who said afterward: "If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe." The Cherokee returned to their homes to find them despoiled and ravaged in their absence by disorderly white troops. Two years afterward, by treaty at Washington, the Government agreed to reimburse them for the damage. Interested parties denied that they had suffered any damage or rendered any services, to which their agent indignantly replied: "It may be answered that thousands witnessed both; that in nearly all the battles with the Creeks the Cherokees rendered the most efficient service, and at the expense of the lives of many fine men, whose wives and children and brothers and sisters are mourning their fall." [240] In the spring of 1816 a delegation of seven principal men, accompanied by Agent Meigs, visited Washington, and the result was the negotiation of two treaties at that place on the same date, March 22, 1816. By the first of these the Cherokee ceded for five thousand dollars their last remaining territory in South Carolina, a small strip in the extreme northwestern corner, adjoining Chattooga river. By the second treaty a boundary was established between the lands claimed by the Cherokee and Creeks in northern Alabama. This action was made necessary in order to determine the boundaries of the great tract which the Creeks had been compelled to surrender in punishment for their late uprising. The line was run from a point on Little Bear creek in northwestern Alabama direct to the Ten islands of the Coosa at old Fort Strother, southeast of the present Asheville. General Jackson protested strongly against this line, on the ground that all the territory south of Tennessee river and west of the Coosa belonged to the Creeks and was a part of their cession. The Chickasaw also protested against considering this tract as Cherokee territory. The treaty also granted free and unrestricted road privileges throughout the Cherokee country, this concession being the result of years of persistent effort on the part of the Government; and an appropriation of twenty-five thousand five hundred dollars was made for damages sustained by the Cherokee from the depredations of the troops passing through their country during the Creek war. [241] At the last treaty the Cherokee had resisted every effort to induce them to cede more land on either side of the Tennessee, the Government being especially desirous to extinguish their claim north of that river within the limits of the state of Tennessee. Failing in this, pressure was at once begun to bring about a cession in Alabama, with the result that on September 14 of the same year a treaty was concluded at the Chickasaw council-house, and afterward ratified in general council at Turkeytown on the Coosa, by which the Cherokee ceded all their claims in that state south of Tennessee river and west of an irregular line running from Chickasaw island in that stream, below the entrance of Flint river, to the junction of Wills creek with the Coosa, at the present Gadsden. For this cession, embracing an area of nearly three thousand five hundred square miles, they were to receive sixty thousand dollars in ten annual payments, together with five thousand dollars for the improvements abandoned. [242] We turn aside now for a time from the direct narrative to note the development of events which culminated in the forced expatriation of the Cherokee from their ancestral homes and their removal to the far western wilderness. With a few notable exceptions the relations between the French and Spanish colonists and the native tribes, after the first occupation of the country, had been friendly and agreeable. Under the rule of France or Spain there was never any Indian boundary. Pioneer and Indian built their cabins and tilled their fields side by side, ranged the woods together, knelt before the same altar and frequently intermarried on terms of equality, so far as race was concerned. The result is seen to-day in the mixed-blood communities of Canada, and in Mexico, where a nation has been built upon an Indian foundation. Within the area of English colonization it was otherwise. From the first settlement to the recent inauguration of the allotment system it never occurred to the man of Teutonic blood that he could have for a neighbor anyone not of his own stock and color. While the English colonists recognized the native proprietorship so far as to make treaties with the Indians, it was chiefly for the purpose of fixing limits beyond which the Indian should never come after he had once parted with his title for a consideration of goods and trinkets. In an early Virginia treaty it was even stipulated that friendly Indians crossing the line should suffer death. The Indian was regarded as an incumbrance to be cleared off, like the trees and the wolves, before white men could live in the country. Intermarriages were practically unknown, and the children of such union were usually compelled by race antipathy to cast their lot with the savage. Under such circumstances the tribes viewed the advance of the English and their successors, the Americans, with keen distrust, and as early as the close of the French and Indian war we find some of them removing from the neighborhood of the English settlements to a safer shelter in the more remote territories still held by Spain. Soon after the French withdrew from Fort Toulouse, in 1763, a part of the Alabama, an incorporated tribe of the Creek confederacy, left their villages on the Coosa, and crossing the Mississippi, where they halted for a time on its western bank, settled on the Sabine river under Spanish protection. [243] They were followed some years later by a part of the Koasati, of the same confederacy, [244] the two tribes subsequently drifting into Texas, where they now reside. The Hichitee and others of the Lower Creeks moved down into Spanish Florida, where the Yamassee exiles from South Carolina had long before preceded them, the two combining to form the modern Seminole tribe. When the Revolution brought about a new line of division, the native tribes, almost without exception, joined sides with England as against the Americans, with the result that about one-half the Iroquois fled to Canada, where they still reside upon lands granted by the British government. A short time before Wayne's victory a part of the Shawano and Delawares, worn out by nearly twenty years of battle with the Americans, crossed the Mississippi and settled, by permission of the Spanish government, upon lands in the vicinity of Cape Girardeau, in what is now southeastern Missouri, for which they obtained a regular deed from that government in 1793. [245] Driven out by the Americans some twenty years later, they removed to Kansas and thence to Indian territory, where they are now incorporated with their old friends, the Cherokee. When the first Cherokee crossed the Mississippi it is impossible to say, but there was probably never a time in the history of the tribe when their warriors and hunters were not accustomed to make excursions beyond the great river. According to an old tradition, the earliest emigration took place soon after the first treaty with Carolina, when a portion of the tribe, under the leadership of Yûñwi-usga'se`ti, "Dangerous-man," foreseeing the inevitable end of yielding to the demands of the colonists, refused to have any relations with the white man, and took up their long march for the unknown West. Communication was kept up with the home body until after crossing the Mississippi, when they were lost sight of and forgotten. Long years afterward a rumor came from the west that they were still living near the base of the Rocky mountains. [246] In 1782 the Cherokee, who had fought faithfully on the British side throughout the long Revolutionary struggle, applied to the Spanish governor at New Orleans for permission to settle on the west side of the Mississippi, within Spanish territory. Permission was granted, and it is probable that some of them removed to the Arkansas country, although there seems to be no definite record of the matter. [247] We learn incidentally, however, that about this period the hostile Cherokee, like the Shawano and other northern tribes, were in the habit of making friendly visits to the Spanish settlements in that quarter. According to Reverend Cephas Washburn, the pioneer missionary of the western Cherokee, the first permanent Cherokee settlement beyond the Mississippi was the direct result of the massacre, in 1794, of the Scott party at Muscle shoals, on Tennessee river, by the hostile warriors of the Chickamauga towns, in the summer. As told by the missionary, the story differs considerably from that given by Haywood and other Tennessee historians, narrated in another place. [248] According to Washburn, the whites were the aggressors, having first made the Indians drunk and then swindled them out of the annuity money with which they were just returning from the agency at Tellico. When the Indians became sober enough to demand the return of their money the whites attacked and killed two of them, whereupon the others boarded the boat and killed every white man. They spared the women and children, however, with their negro slaves and all their personal belongings, and permitted them to continue on their way, the chief and his party personally escorting them down Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers as far as the mouth of the St. Francis, whence the emigrants descended in safety to New Orleans, while their captors, under their chief, The Bowl, went up St. Francis river--then a part of Spanish territory--to await the outcome of the event. As soon as the news came to the Cherokee Nation the chiefs formally repudiated the action of the Bowl party and volunteered to assist in arresting those concerned. Bowl and his men were finally exonerated, but had conceived such bitterness at the conduct of their former friends, and, moreover, had found the soil so rich and the game so abundant where they were, that they refused to return to their tribe and decided to remain permanently in the West. Others joined them from time to time, attracted by the hunting prospect, until they were in sufficient number to obtain recognition from the Government. [249] While the missionary may be pardoned for making the best showing possible for his friends, his statement contains several evident errors, and it is probable that Haywood's account is more correct in the main. As the Cherokee annuity at that time amounted to but fifteen hundred dollars for the whole tribe, or somewhat less than ten cents per head, they could hardly have had enough money from that source to pay such extravagant prices as sixteen dollars apiece for pocket-mirrors, which it is alleged the boatmen obtained. Moreover, as the Chickamauga warriors had refused to sign any treaties and were notoriously hostile, they were not as yet entitled to receive payments. Haywood's statement that the emigrant party was first attacked while passing the Chickamauga towns and then pursued to the Muscle shoals and there massacred is probably near the truth, although it is quite possible that the whites may have provoked the attack in some such way as is indicated by the missionary. As Washburn got his account from one of the women of the party, living long afterward in New Orleans, it is certain that some at least were spared by the Indians, and it is probable that, as he states, only the men were killed. The Bowl emigration may not have been the first, or even the most important removal to the western country, as the period was one of Indian unrest. Small bands were constantly crossing the Mississippi into Spanish territory to avoid the advancing Americans, only to find themselves again under American jurisdiction when the whole western country was ceded to the United States in 1803. The persistent land-hunger of the settler could not be restrained or satisfied, and early in the same year President Jefferson suggested to Congress the desirability of removing all the tribes to the west of the Mississippi. In the next year, 1804, an appropriation was made for taking preliminary steps toward such a result. [250] There were probably but few Cherokee on the Arkansas at this time, as they are not mentioned in Sibley's list of tribes south of that river in 1805. In the summer of 1808, a Cherokee delegation being about to visit Washington, their agent, Colonel Meigs, was instructed by the Secretary of War to use every effort to obtain their consent to an exchange of their lands for a tract beyond the Mississippi. By this time the government's civilizing policy, as carried out in the annual distribution of farming tools, spinning wheels, and looms, had wrought a considerable difference of habit and sentiment between the northern and southern Cherokee. Those on Little Tennessee and Hiwassee were generally farmers and stock raisers, producing also a limited quantity of cotton, which the women wove into cloth. Those farther down in Georgia and Alabama, the old hostile element, still preferred the hunting life and rejected all effort at innovation, although the game had now become so scarce that it was evident a change must soon come. Jealousies had arisen in consequence, and the delegates representing the progressive element now proposed to the government that a line be run through the nation to separate the two parties, allowing those on the north to divide their lands in severalty and become citizens of the United States, while those on the south might continue to be hunters as long as the game should last. Taking advantage of this condition of affairs, the government authorities instructed the agent to submit to the conservatives a proposition for a cession of their share of the tribal territory in return for a tract west of the Mississippi of sufficient area to enable them to continue the hunting life. The plan was approved by President Jefferson, and a sum was appropriated to pay the expenses of a delegation to visit and inspect the lands on Arkansas and White rivers, with a view to removal. The visit was made in the summer of 1809, and the delegates brought back such favorable report that a large number of Cherokee signified their intention to remove at once. As no funds were then available for their removal, the matter was held in abeyance for several years, during which period families and individuals removed to the western country at their own expense until, before the year 1817, they numbered in all two or three thousand souls. [251] They became known as the Arkansas, or Western, Cherokee. The emigrants soon became involved in difficulties with the native tribes, the Osage claiming all the lands north of Arkansas river, while the Quapaw claimed those on the south. Upon complaining to the government the emigrant Cherokee were told that they had originally been permitted to remove only on condition of a cession of a portion of their eastern territory, and that nothing could be done to protect them in their new western home until such cession had been carried out. The body of the Cherokee Nation, however, was strongly opposed to any such sale and proposed that the emigrants should be compelled to return. After protracted negotiation a treaty was concluded at the Cherokee agency (now Calhoun, Tennessee) on July 8, 1817, by which the Cherokee Nation ceded two considerable tracts--the first in Georgia, lying east of the Chattahoochee, and the other in Tennessee, between Waldens ridge and the Little Sequatchee--as an equivalent for a tract to be assigned to those who had already removed, or intended to remove, to Arkansas. Two smaller tracts on the north bank of the Tennessee, in the neighborhood of the Muscle shoals, were also ceded. In return for these cessions the emigrant Cherokee were to receive a tract within the present limits of the state of Arkansas, bounded on the north and south by White river and Arkansas river, respectively, on the east by a line running between those streams approximately from the present Batesville to Lewisburg, and on the west by a line to be determined later. As afterward established, this western line ran from the junction of the Little North Fork with White river to just beyond the point where the present western Arkansas boundary strikes Arkansas river. Provision was made for taking the census of the whole Cherokee nation east and west in order to apportion annuities and other payments properly in the future, and the two bands were still to be considered as forming one people. The United States agreed to pay for any substantial improvements abandoned by those removing from the ceded lands, and each emigrant warrior who left no such valuable property behind was to be given as full compensation for his abandoned field and cabin a rifle and ammunition, a blanket, and a kettle or a beaver trap. The government further agreed to furnish boats and provisions for the journey. Provision was also made that individuals residing upon the ceded lands might retain allotments and become citizens, if they so elected, the amount of the allotment to be deducted from the total cession. The commissioners for the treaty were General Andrew Jackson, General David Meriwether, and Governor Joseph McMinn of Tennessee. On behalf of the Cherokee it was signed by thirty-one principal men of the eastern Nation and fifteen of the western band, who signed by proxy. [252] The majority of the Cherokee were bitterly opposed to any cession or removal project, and before the treaty had been concluded a memorial signed by sixty-seven chiefs and headmen of the nation was presented to the commissioners, which stated that the delegates who had first broached the subject in Washington some years before had acted without any authority from the nation. They declared that the great body of the Cherokee desired to remain in the land of their birth, where they were rapidly advancing in civilization, instead of being compelled to revert to their original savage conditions and surroundings. They therefore prayed that the matter might not be pressed further, but that they might be allowed to remain in peaceable possession of the land of their fathers. No attention was paid to the memorial, and the treaty was carried through and ratified. Without waiting for the ratification, the authorities at once took steps for the removal of those who desired to go to the West. Boats were provided at points between Little Tennessee and Sequatchee rivers, and the emigrants were collected under the direction of Governor McMinn. Within the next year a large number had emigrated, and before the end of 1819 the number of emigrants was said to have increased to six thousand. The chiefs of the nation, however, claimed that the estimate was greatly in excess of the truth. [253] "There can be no question that a very large portion, and probably a majority, of the Cherokee nation residing east of the Mississippi had been and still continued bitterly opposed to the terms of the treaty of 1817. They viewed with jealous and aching hearts all attempts to drive them from the homes of their ancestors, for they could not but consider the constant and urgent importunities of the federal authorities in the light of an imperative demand for the cession of more territory. They felt that they were, as a nation, being slowly but surely compressed within the contracting coils of the giant anaconda of civilization; yet they held to the vain hope that a spirit of justice and mercy would be born of their helpless condition which would finally prevail in their favor. Their traditions furnished them no guide by which to judge of the results certain to follow such a conflict as that in which they were engaged. This difference of sentiment in the nation upon a subject so vital to their welfare was productive of much bitterness and violent animosities. Those who had favored the emigration scheme and had been induced, either through personal preference or by the subsidizing influences of the government agents, to favor the conclusion of the treaty, became the object of scorn and hatred to the remainder of the nation. They were made the subjects of a persecution so relentless, while they remained in the eastern country, that it was never forgotten, and when, in the natural course of events, the remainder of the nation was forced to remove to the Arkansas country and join the earlier emigrants, the old hatreds and dissensions broke out afresh, and to this day they find lodgment in some degree in the breasts of their descendants." [254] Two months after the signing of the treaty of July 8, 1817, and three months before its ratification, a council of the nation sent a delegation to Washington to recount in detail the improper methods and influences which had been used to consummate it, and to ask that it be set aside and another agreement substituted. The mission was without result. [255] In 1817 the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions established its first station among the Cherokee at Brainerd, in Tennessee, on the west side of Chickamauga creek, two miles from the Georgia line. The mission took its name from a distinguished pioneer worker among the northern tribes (37). The government aided in the erection of the buildings, which included a schoolhouse, gristmill, and workshops, in which, besides the ordinary branches, the boys were taught simple mechanic arts while the girls learned the use of the needle and the spinningwheel. There was also a large work farm. The mission prospered and others were established at Willstown, Hightower, and elsewhere by the same board, in which two hundred pupils were receiving instruction in 1820. [256] Among the earliest and most noted workers at the Brainerd mission were Reverend D. S. Buttrick and Reverend S. A. Worcester (38), the latter especially having done much for the mental elevation of the Cherokee, and more than once having suffered imprisonment for his zeal in defending their cause. The missions flourished until broken up by the state of Georgia at the beginning of the Removal troubles, and they were afterwards renewed in the western country. Mission ridge preserves the memory of the Brainerd establishment. Early in 1818 a delegation of emigrant Cherokee visited Washington for the purpose of securing a more satisfactory determination of the boundaries of their new lands on the Arkansas. Measures were soon afterward taken for that purpose. They also asked recognition in the future as a separate and distinct tribe, but nothing was done in the matter. In order to remove, if possible, the hostile feeling between the emigrants and the native Osage, who regarded the former as intruders, Governor William Clark, superintendent of Indian affairs for Missouri, arranged a conference of the chiefs of the two tribes at St. Louis in October of that year, at which, after protracted effort, he succeeded in establishing friendly relations between them. Efforts were made about the same time, both by the emigrant Cherokee and by the government, to persuade the Shawano and Delawares then residing in Missouri, and the Oneida in New York, to join the western Cherokee, but nothing came of the negotiations. [257] In 1825 a delegation of western Cherokee visited the Shawano in Ohio for the same purpose, but without success. Their object in thus inviting friendly Indians to join them was to strengthen themselves against the Osage and other native tribes. In the meantime the government, through Governor McMinn, was bringing strong pressure to bear upon the eastern Cherokee to compel their removal to the West. At a council convened by him in November, 1818, the governor represented to the chiefs that it was now no longer possible to protect them from the encroachments of the surrounding white population; that, however the government might wish to help them, their lands would be taken, their stock stolen, their women corrupted, and their men made drunkards unless they removed to the western paradise. He ended by proposing to pay them one hundred thousand dollars for their whole territory, with the expense of removal, if they would go at once. Upon their prompt and indignant refusal he offered to double the amount, but with as little success. Every point of the negotiation having failed, another course was adopted, and a delegation was selected to visit Washington under the conduct of Agent Meigs. Here the effort was renewed until, wearied and discouraged at the persistent importunity, the chiefs consented to a large cession, which was represented as necessary in order to compensate in area for the tract assigned to the emigrant Cherokee in Arkansas in accordance with the previous treaty. This estimate was based on the figures given by Governor McMinn, who reported 5,291 Cherokee enrolled as emigrants, while the eastern Cherokee claimed that not more than 3,500 had removed and that those remaining numbered 12,544, or more than three-fourths of the whole nation. The governor, however, chose to consider one-half of the nation as in favor of removal and one-third as having already removed. [258] The treaty, concluded at Washington on February 27, 1819, recites that the greater part of the Cherokee nation, having expressed an earnest desire to remain in the East, and being anxious to begin the necessary measures for the civilization and preservation of their nation, and to settle the differences arising out of the treaty of 1817, have offered to cede to the United States a tract of country "at least as extensive" as that to which the Government is entitled under the late treaty. The cession embraces (1) a tract in Alabama and Tennessee, between Tennessee and Flint rivers; (2) a tract in Tennessee, between Tennessee river and Waldens ridge; (3) a large irregular tract in Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia, embracing in Tennessee nearly all the remaining Cherokee lands north of Hiwassee river, and in North Carolina and Georgia nearly everything remaining to them east of the Nantahala mountains and the upper western branch of the Chattahoochee; (4) six small pieces reserved by previous treaties. The entire cession aggregated nearly six thousand square miles, or more than one-fourth of all then held by the nation. Individual reservations of one mile square each within the ceded area were allowed to a number of families which decided to remain among the whites and become citizens rather than abandon their homes. Payment was to be made for all substantial improvements abandoned, one-third of all tribal annuities were hereafter to be paid to the western band, and the treaty was declared to be a final adjustment of all claims and differences arising from the treaty of 1817. [259] Civilization had now progressed so far among the Cherokee that in the fall of 1820 they adopted a regular republican form of government modeled after that of the United States. Under this arrangement the nation was divided into eight districts, each of which was entitled to send four representatives to the Cherokee national legislature, which met at Newtown, or New Echota, the capital, at the junction of Conasauga and Coosawatee rivers, a few miles above the present Calhoun, Georgia. The legislature consisted of an upper and a lower house, designated, respectively (in the Cherokee language), the national committee and national council, the members being elected for limited terms by the voters of each district. The principal officer was styled president of the national council; the distinguished John Ross was the first to hold this office. There was also a clerk of the committee and two principal members to express the will of the council or lower house. For each district there were appointed a council house for meetings twice a year, a judge, and a marshal. Companies of "light horse" were organized to assist in the execution of the laws, with a "ranger" for each district to look after stray stock. Each head of a family and each single man under the age of sixty was subject to a poll tax. Laws were passed for the collection of taxes and debts, for repairs on roads, for licenses to white persons engaged in farming or other business in the nation, for the support of schools, for the regulation of the liquor traffic and the conduct of negro slaves, to punish horse stealing and theft, to compel all marriages between white men and Indian women to be according to regular legal or church form, and to discourage polygamy. By special decree the right of blood revenge or capital punishment was taken from the seven clans and vested in the constituted authorities of the nation. It was made treason, punishable with death, for any individual to negotiate the sale of lands to the whites without the consent of the national council (39). White men were not allowed to vote or to hold office in the nation. [260] The system compared favorably with that of the Federal government or of any state government then existing. At this time there were five principal missions, besides one or two small branch establishments in the nation, viz: Spring Place, the oldest, founded by the Moravians at Spring place, Georgia, in 1801; Oothcaloga, Georgia, founded by the same denomination in 1821 on the creek of that name, near the present Calhoun; Brainerd, Tennessee, founded by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in 1817; "Valley-towns," North Carolina, founded by the Baptists in 1820, on the site of the old Natchez town on the north side of Hiwassee river, just above Peachtree creek; Coosawatee, Georgia ("Tensawattee," by error in the State Papers), founded also by the Baptists in 1821, near the mouth of the river of that name. All were in flourishing condition, the Brainerd establishment especially, with nearly one hundred pupils, being obliged to turn away applicants for lack of accommodation. The superintendent reported that the children were apt to learn, willing to labor, and readily submissive to discipline, adding that the Cherokee were fast advancing toward civilized life and generally manifested an ardent desire for instruction. The Valley-towns mission, established at the instance of Currahee Dick, a prominent local mixed-blood chief, was in charge of the Reverend Evan Jones, known as the translator of the New Testament into the Cherokee language, his assistant being James D. Wafford, a mixed-blood pupil, who compiled a spelling book in the same language. Reverend S. A. Worcester, a prolific translator and the compiler of the Cherokee almanac and other works, was stationed at Brainerd, removing thence to New Echota and afterward to the Cherokee Nation in the West. [261] Since 1817 the American Board had also supported at Cornwall, Connecticut, an Indian school at which a number of young Cherokee were being educated, among them being Elias Boudinot, afterward the editor of the Cherokee Phoenix. About this time occurred an event which at once placed the Cherokee in the front rank among native tribes and was destined to have profound influence on their whole future history, viz., the invention of the alphabet. The inventor, aptly called the Cadmus of his race, was a mixed-blood known among his own people as Sikwâ'yi (Sequoya) and among the whites as George Gist, or less correctly Guest or Guess. As is usually the case in Indian biography much uncertainty exists in regard to his parentage and early life. Authorities generally agree that his father was a white man, who drifted into the Cherokee Nation some years before the Revolution and formed a temporary alliance with a Cherokee girl of mixed blood, who thus became the mother of the future teacher. A writer in the Cherokee Phoenix, in 1828, says that only his paternal grandfather was a white man. [262] McKenney and Hall say that his father was a white man named Gist. [263] Phillips asserts that his father was George Gist, an unlicensed German trader from Georgia, who came into the Cherokee Nation in 1768. [264] By a Kentucky family it is claimed that Sequoya's father was Nathaniel Gist, son of the scout who accompanied Washington on his memorable excursion to the Ohio. As the story goes, Nathaniel Gist was captured by the Cherokee at Braddock's defeat (1755) and remained a prisoner with them for six years, during which time he became the father of Sequoya. On his return to civilization he married a white woman in Virginia, by whom he had other children, and afterward removed to Kentucky, where Sequoya, then a Baptist preacher, frequently visited him and was always recognized by the family as his son. [265] Aside from the fact that the Cherokee acted as allies of the English during the war in which Braddock's defeat occurred, and that Sequoya, so far from being a preacher, was not even a Christian, the story contains other elements of improbability and appears to be one of those genealogical myths built upon a chance similarity of name. On the other hand, it is certain that Sequoya was born before the date that Phillips allows. On his mother's side he was of good family in the tribe, his uncle being a chief in Echota. [266] According to personal information of James Wafford, who knew him well, being his second cousin, Sequoya was probably born about the year 1760, and lived as a boy with his mother at Tuskegee town in Tennessee, just outside of old Fort Loudon. It is quite possible that his white father may have been a soldier of the garrison, one of those lovers for whom the Cherokee women risked their lives during the siege. [267] What became of the father is not known, but the mother lived alone with her son. The only incident of his boyhood that has come down to us is his presence at Echota during the visit of the Iroquois peace delegation, about the year 1770. [268] His early years were spent amid the stormy alarms of the Revolution, and as he grew to manhood he developed a considerable mechanical ingenuity, especially in silver working. Like most of his tribe he was also a hunter and fur trader. Having nearly reached middle age before the first mission was established in the Nation, he never attended school and in all his life never learned to speak, read, or write the English language. Neither did he ever abandon his native religion, although from frequent visits to the Moravian mission he became imbued with a friendly feeling toward the new civilization. Of an essentially contemplative disposition, he was led by a chance conversation in 1809 to reflect upon the ability of the white men to communicate thought by means of writing, with the result that he set about devising a similar system for his own people. By a hunting accident, which rendered him a cripple for life, he was fortunately afforded more leisure for study. The presence of his name, George Guess, appended to a treaty of 1816, indicates that he was already of some prominence in the Nation, even before the perfection of his great invention. After years of patient and unremitting labor in the face of ridicule, discouragement, and repeated failure, he finally evolved the Cherokee syllabary and in 1821 submitted it to a public test by the leading men of the Nation. By this time, in consequence of repeated cessions, the Cherokee had been dispossessed of the country about Echota, and Sequoya was now living at Willstown, on an upper branch of Coosa river, in Alabama. The syllabary was soon recognized as an invaluable invention for the elevation of the tribe, and within a few months thousands of hitherto illiterate Cherokee were able to read and write their own language, teaching each other in the cabins and along the roadside. The next year Sequoya visited the West, to introduce the new science among those who had emigrated to the Arkansas. In the next year, 1823, he again visited the Arkansas and took up his permanent abode with the western band, never afterward returning to his eastern kinsmen. In the autumn of the same year the Cherokee national council made public acknowledgment of his merit by sending to him, through John Ross, then president of the national committee, a silver medal with a commemorative inscription in both languages. [269] In 1828 he visited Washington as one of the delegates from the Arkansas band, attracting much attention, and the treaty made on that occasion contains a provision for the payment to him of five hundred dollars, "for the great benefits he has conferred upon the Cherokee people, in the beneficial results which they are now experiencing from the use of the alphabet discovered by him." [270] His subsequent history belongs to the West and will be treated in another place (40). [271] The invention of the alphabet had an immediate and wonderful effect on Cherokee development. On account of the remarkable adaptation of the syllabary to the language, it was only necessary to learn the characters to be able to read at once. No schoolhouses were built and no teachers hired, but the whole Nation became an academy for the study of the system, until, "in the course of a few months, without school or expense of time or money, the Cherokee were able to read and write in their own language. [272] An active correspondence began to be carried on between the eastern and western divisions, and plans were made for a national press, with a national library and museum to be established at the capital, New Echota. [273] The missionaries, who had at first opposed the new alphabet on the ground of its Indian origin, now saw the advisability of using it to further their own work. In the fall of 1824 Atsi or John Arch, a young native convert, made a manuscript translation of a portion of St. John's gospel, in the syllabary, this being the first Bible translation ever given to the Cherokee. It was copied hundreds of times and was widely disseminated through the Nation. [274] In September, 1825, David Brown, a prominent half-breed preacher, who had already made some attempt at translation in the Roman alphabet, completed a translation of the New Testament in the new syllabary, the work being handed about in manuscript, as there were as yet no types cast in the Sequoya characters. [275] In the same month he forwarded to Thomas McKenney, chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs at Washington, a manuscript table of the characters, with explanation, this being probably its first introduction to official notice. [276] In 1827 the Cherokee council having formally resolved to establish a national paper in the Cherokee language and characters, types for that purpose were cast in Boston, under the supervision of the noted missionary, Worcester, of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, who, in December of that year contributed to the Missionary Herald five verses of Genesis in the new syllabary, this seeming to be its first appearance in print. Early in the next year the press and types arrived at New Echota, and the first number of the new paper, Tsa'lagi Tsu'lehisanuñ'hi, the Cherokee Phoenix, printed in both languages, appeared on February 21, 1828. The first printers were two white men, Isaac N. Harris and John F. Wheeler, with John Candy, a half-blood apprentice. Elias Boudinot (Galagi'na, "The Buck"), an educated Cherokee, was the editor, and Reverend S. A. Worcester was the guiding spirit who brought order out of chaos and set the work in motion. The office was a log house. The hand press and types, after having been shipped by water from Boston, were transported two hundred miles by wagon from Augusta to their destination. The printing paper had been overlooked and had to be brought by the same tedious process from Knoxville. Cases and other equipments had to be devised and fashioned by the printers, neither of whom understood a word of Cherokee, but simply set up the characters, as handed to them in manuscript by Worcester and the editor. Such was the beginning of journalism in the Cherokee nation. After a precarious existence of about six years the Phoenix was suspended, owing to the hostile action of the Georgia authorities, who went so far as to throw Worcester and Wheeler into prison. Its successor, after the removal of the Cherokee to the West, was the Cherokee Advocate, of which the first number appeared at Tahlequah in 1844, with William P. Ross as editor. It is still continued under the auspices of the Nation, printed in both languages and distributed free at the expense of the Nation to those unable to read English--an example without parallel in any other government. In addition to numerous Bible translations, hymn books, and other religious works, there have been printed in the Cherokee language and syllabary the Cherokee Phoenix (journal), Cherokee Advocate (journal), Cherokee Messenger (periodical), Cherokee Almanac (annual), Cherokee spelling books, arithmetics, and other schoolbooks for those unable to read English, several editions of the laws of the Nation, and a large body of tracts and minor publications. Space forbids even a mention of the names of the devoted workers in this connection. Besides this printed literature the syllabary is in constant and daily use among the non-English-speaking element, both in Indian Territory and in North Carolina, for letter writing, council records, personal memoranda, etc. What is perhaps strangest of all in this literary evolution is the fact that the same invention has been seized by the priests and conjurers of the conservative party for the purpose of preserving to their successors the ancient rituals and secret knowledge of the tribe, whole volumes of such occult literature in manuscript having been obtained among them by the author. [277] In 1819 the whole Cherokee population had been estimated at 15,000, one-third of them being west of the Mississippi. In 1825 a census of the eastern Nation showed: native Cherokee, 13,563; white men married into the Nation, 147; white women married into the Nation, 73; negro slaves, 1,277. There were large herds of cattle, horses, hogs, and sheep, with large crops of every staple, including cotton, tobacco, and wheat, and some cotton was exported by boats as far as New Orleans. Apple and peach orchards were numerous, butter and cheese were in use to some extent, and both cotton and woolen cloths, especially blankets, were manufactured. Nearly all the merchants were native Cherokee. Mechanical industries flourished, the Nation was out of debt, and the population was increasing. [278] Estimating one-third beyond the Mississippi, the total number of Cherokee, exclusive of adopted white citizens and negro slaves, must then have been about 20,000. Simultaneously with the decrees establishing a national press, the Cherokee Nation, in general convention of delegates held for the purpose at New Echota on July 26, 1827, adopted a national constitution, based on the assumption of distinct and independent nationality. John Ross, so celebrated in connection with the history of his tribe, was president of the convention which framed the instrument. Charles R. Hicks, a Moravian convert of mixed blood, and at that time the most influential man in the Nation, was elected principal chief, with John Ross as assistant chief. [279] With a constitution and national press, a well-developed system of industries and home education, and a government administered by educated Christian men, the Cherokee were now justly entitled to be considered a civilized people. The idea of a civilized Indian government was not a new one. The first treaty ever negotiated by the United States with an Indian tribe, in 1778, held out to the Delawares the hope that by a confederation of friendly tribes they might be able "to form a state, whereof the Delaware nation shall be the head and have a representation in Congress." [280] Priber, the Jesuit, had already familiarized the Cherokee with the forms of civilized government before the middle of the eighteenth century. As the gap between the conservative and progressive elements widened after the Revolution the idea grew, until in 1808 representatives of both parties visited Washington to propose an arrangement by which those who clung to the old life might be allowed to remove to the western hunting grounds, while the rest should remain to take up civilization and "begin the establishment of fixed laws and a regular government." The project received the warm encouragement of President Jefferson, and it was with this understanding that the western emigration was first officially recognized a few years later. Immediately upon the return of the delegates from Washington the Cherokee drew up their first brief written code of laws, modeled agreeably to the friendly suggestions of Jefferson. [281] By this time the rapid strides of civilization and Christianity had alarmed the conservative element, who saw in the new order of things only the evidences of apostasy and swift national decay. In 1828 White-path (Nûñ'nâ-tsune'ga), an influential full-blood and councilor, living at Turniptown (U`lûñ'yi), near the present Ellijay, in Gilmer county, Georgia, headed a rebellion against the new code of laws, with all that it implied. He soon had a large band of followers, known to the whites as "Red-sticks," a title sometimes assumed by the more warlike element among the Creeks and other southern tribes. From the townhouse of Ellijay he preached the rejection of the new constitution, the discarding of Christianity and the white man's ways, and a return to the old tribal law and custom--the same doctrine that had more than once constituted the burden of Indian revelation in the past. It was now too late, however, to reverse the wheel of progress, and under the rule of such men as Hicks and Ross the conservative opposition gradually melted away. White-path was deposed from his seat in council, but subsequently made submission and was reinstated. He was afterward one of the detachment commanders in the Removal, but died while on the march. [282] In this year, also, John Ross became principal chief of the Nation, a position which he held until his death in 1866, thirty-eight years later. [283] In this long period, comprising the momentous episodes of the Removal and the War of the Rebellion, it may be truly said that his history is the history of the Nation. And now, just when it seemed that civilization and enlightenment were about to accomplish their perfect work, the Cherokee began to hear the first low muttering of the coming storm that was soon to overturn their whole governmental structure and sweep them forever from the land of their birth. By an agreement between the United States and the state of Georgia in 1802, the latter, for valuable consideration, had ceded to the general government her claims west of the present state boundary, the United States at the same time agreeing to extinguish, at its own expense, but for the benefit of the state, the Indian claims within the state limits, "as early as the same can be peaceably obtained on reasonable terms." [284] In accordance with this agreement several treaties had already been made with the Creeks and Cherokee, by which large tracts had been secured for Georgia at the expense of the general government. Notwithstanding this fact, and the terms of the proviso, Georgia accused the government of bad faith in not taking summary measures to compel the Indians at once to surrender all their remaining lands within the chartered state limits, coupling the complaint with a threat to take the matter into her own hands. In 1820 Agent Meigs had expressed the opinion that the Cherokee were now so far advanced that further government aid was unnecessary, and that their lands should be allotted and the surplus sold for their benefit, they themselves to be invested with full rights of citizenship in the several states within which they resided. This suggestion had been approved by President Monroe, but had met the most determined opposition from the states concerned. Tennessee absolutely refused to recognize individual reservations made by previous treaties, while North Carolina and Georgia bought in all such reservations with money appropriated by Congress. [285] No Indian was to be allowed to live within those states on any pretext whatsoever. In the meantime, owing to persistent pressure from Georgia, repeated unsuccessful efforts had been made to procure from the Cherokee a cession of their lands within the chartered limits of the state. Every effort met with a firm refusal, the Indians declaring that having already made cession after cession from a territory once extensive, their remaining lands were no more than were needed for themselves and their children, more especially as experience had shown that each concession would be followed by a further demand. They conclude: "It is the fixed and unalterable determination of this nation never again to cede one foot more of land." Soon afterward they addressed to the President a memorial of similar tenor, to which Calhoun, as Secretary of War, returned answer that as Georgia objected to their presence either as a tribe or as individual owners or citizens, they must prepare their minds for removal beyond the Mississippi. [286] In reply, the Cherokee, by their delegates--John Ross, George Lowrey, Major Ridge, and Elijah Hicks--sent a strong letter calling attention to the fact that by the very wording of the 1802 agreement the compact was a conditional one which could not be carried out without their own voluntary consent, and suggesting that Georgia might be satisfied from the adjoining government lands in Florida. Continuing, they remind the Secretary that the Cherokee are not foreigners, but original inhabitants of America, inhabiting and standing now upon the soil of their own territory, with limits defined by treaties with the United States, and that, confiding in the good faith of the government to respect its treaty stipulations, they do not hesitate to say that their true interest, prosperity, and happiness demand their permanency where they are and the retention of their lands. [287] A copy of this letter was sent by the Secretary to Governor Troup of Georgia, who returned a reply in which he blamed the missionaries for the refusal of the Indians, declared that the state would not permit them to become citizens, and that the Secretary must either assist the state in taking possession of the Cherokee lands, or, in resisting that occupancy, make war upon and shed the blood of brothers and friends. The Georgia delegation in Congress addressed a similar letter to President Monroe, in which the government was censured for having instructed the Indians in the arts of civilized life and having thereby imbued them with a desire to acquire property. [288] For answer the President submitted a report by Secretary Calhoun showing that since the agreement had been made with Georgia in 1802 the government had, at its own expense, extinguished the Indian claim to 24,600 square miles within the limits of that state, or more than three-fifths of the whole Indian claim, and had paid on that and other accounts connected with the agreement nearly seven and a half million dollars, of which by far the greater part had gone to Georgia or her citizens. In regard to the other criticism the report states that the civilizing policy was as old as the government itself, and that in performing the high duties of humanity to the Indians, it had never been conceived that the stipulation of the convention was contravened. In handing in the report the President again called attention to the conditional nature of the agreement and declared it as his opinion that the title of the Indians was not in the slightest degree affected by it and that there was no obligation on the United States to remove them by force. [289] Further efforts, even to the employment of secret methods, were made in 1827 and 1828 to induce a cession or emigration, but without avail. On July 26, 1827, as already noted, the Cherokee adopted a constitution as a distinct and sovereign Nation. Upon this the Georgia legislature passed resolutions affirming that that state "had the power and the right to possess herself, by any means she might choose, of the lands in dispute, and to extend over them her authority and laws," and recommending that this be done by the next legislature, if the lands were not already acquired by successful negotiation of the general government in the meantime. The government was warned that the lands belonged to Georgia, and she must and would have them. It was suggested, however, that the United States might be permitted to make a certain number of reservations to individual Indians. [290] Passing over for the present some important negotiations with the western Cherokee, we come to the events leading to the final act in the drama. Up to this time the pressure had been for land only, but now a stronger motive was added. About the year 1815 a little Cherokee boy playing along Chestatee river, in upper Georgia, had brought in to his mother a shining yellow pebble hardly larger than the end of his thumb. On being washed it proved to be a nugget of gold, and on her next trip to the settlements the woman carried it with her and sold it to a white man. The news spread, and although she probably concealed the knowledge of the exact spot of its origin, it was soon known that the golden dreams of De Soto had been realized in the Cherokee country of Georgia. Within four years the whole territory east of the Chestatee had passed from the possession of the Cherokee. They still held the western bank, but the prospector was abroad in the mountains and it could not be for long. [291] About 1828 gold was found on Ward's creek, a western branch of Chestatee, near the present Dahlonega, [292] and the doom of the nation was sealed (41). In November, 1828, Andrew Jackson was elected to succeed John Quincy Adams as President. He was a frontiersman and Indian hater, and the change boded no good to the Cherokee. His position was well understood, and there is good ground for believing that the action at once taken by Georgia was at his own suggestion. [293] On December 20, 1828, a month after his election, Georgia passed an act annexing that part of the Cherokee country within her chartered limits and extending over it her jurisdiction; all laws and customs established among the Cherokee were declared null and void, and no person of Indian blood or descent residing within the Indian country was henceforth to be allowed as a witness or party in any suit where a white man should be defendant. The act was to take effect June 1, 1830 (42). The whole territory was soon after mapped out into counties and surveyed by state surveyors into "land lots" of 160 acres each, and "gold lots" of 40 acres, which were put up and distributed among the white citizens of Georgia by public lottery, each white citizen receiving a ticket. Every Cherokee head of a family was, indeed, allowed a reservation of 160 acres, but no deed was given, and his continuance depended solely on the pleasure of the legislature. Provision was made for the settlement of contested lottery claims among the white citizens, but by the most stringent enactments, in addition to the sweeping law which forbade anyone of Indian blood to bring suit or to testify against a white man, it was made impossible for the Indian owner to defend his right in any court or to resist the seizure of his homestead, or even his own dwelling house, and anyone so resisting was made subject to imprisonment at the discretion of a Georgia court. Other laws directed to the same end quickly followed, one of which made invalid any contract between a white man and an Indian unless established by the testimony of two white witnesses--thus practically canceling all debts due from white men to Indians--while another obliged all white men residing in the Cherokee country to take a special oath of allegiance to the state of Georgia, on penalty of four years' imprisonment in the penitentiary, this act being intended to drive out all the missionaries, teachers, and other educators who refused to countenance the spoliation. About the same time the Cherokee were forbidden to hold councils, or to assemble for any public purpose, [294] or to dig for gold upon their own lands. The purpose of this legislation was to render life in their own country intolerable to the Cherokee by depriving them of all legal protection and friendly counsel, and the effect was precisely as intended. In an eloquent address upon the subject before the House of Representatives the distinguished Edward Everett clearly pointed out the encouragement which it gave to lawless men: "They have but to cross the Cherokee line; they have but to choose the time and the place where the eye of no white man can rest upon them, and they may burn the dwelling, waste the farm, plunder the property, assault the person, murder the children of the Cherokee subject of Georgia, and though hundreds of the tribe may be looking on, there is not one of them that can be permitted to bear witness against the spoiler." [295] Senator Sprague, of Maine, said of the law that it devoted the property of the Cherokee to the cupidity of their neighbors, leaving them exposed to every outrage which lawless persons could inflict, so that even robbery and murder might be committed with impunity at noonday, if not in the presence of whites who would testify against it. [296] The prediction was fulfilled to the letter. Bands of armed men invaded the Cherokee country, forcibly seizing horses and cattle, taking possession of houses from which they had ejected the occupants, and assaulting the owners who dared to make resistance. [297] In one instance, near the present Dahlonega, two white men, who had been hospitably received and entertained at supper by an educated Cherokee citizen of nearly pure white blood, later in the evening, during the temporary absence of the parents, drove out the children and their nurse and deliberately set fire to the house, which was burned to the ground with all its contents. They were pursued and brought to trial, but the case was dismissed by the judge on the ground that no Indian could testify against a white man. [298] Cherokee miners upon their own ground were arrested, fined, and imprisoned, and their tools and machinery destroyed, while thousands of white intruders were allowed to dig in the same places unmolested. [299] A Cherokee on trial in his own nation for killing another Indian was seized by the state authorities, tried and condemned to death, although, not understanding English, he was unable to speak in his own defense. A United States court forbade the execution, but the judge who had conducted the trial defied the writ, went to the place of execution, and stood beside the sheriff while the Indian was being hanged. [300] Immediately on the passage of the first act the Cherokee appealed to President Jackson, but were told that no protection would be afforded them. Other efforts were then made--in 1829--to persuade them to removal, or to procure another cession--this time of all their lands in North Carolina--but the Cherokee remained firm. The Georgia law was declared in force on June 3, 1830, whereupon the President directed that the annuity payment due the Cherokee Nation under previous treaties should no longer be paid to their national treasurer, as hitherto, but distributed per capita by the agent. As a national fund it had been used for the maintenance of their schools and national press. As a per capita payment it amounted to forty-two cents to each individual. Several years afterward it still remained unpaid. Federal troops were also sent into the Cherokee country with orders to prevent all mining by either whites or Indians unless authorized by the state of Georgia. All these measures served only to render the Cherokee more bitter in their determination. In September, 1830, another proposition was made for the removal of the tribe, but the national council emphatically refused to consider the subject. [301] In January, 1831, the Cherokee Nation, by John Ross as principal chief, brought a test suit of injunction against Georgia, in the United States Supreme Court. The majority of the court dismissed the suit on the ground that the Cherokee were not a foreign nation within the meaning of the Constitution, two justices dissenting from this opinion. [302] Shortly afterward, under the law which forbade any white man to reside in the Cherokee Nation without taking an oath of allegiance to Georgia, a number of arrests were made, including Wheeler, the printer of the Cherokee Phoenix, and the missionaries, Worcester, Butler, Thompson, and Proctor, who, being there by permission of the agent and feeling that plain American citizenship should hold good in any part of the United States, refused to take the oath. Some of those arrested took the oath and were released, but Worcester and Butler, still refusing, were dressed in prison garb and put at hard labor among felons. Worcester had plead in his defense that he was a citizen of Vermont, and had entered the Cherokee country by permission of the President of the United States and approval of the Cherokee Nation; and that as the United States by several treaties had acknowledged the Cherokee to be a nation with a guaranteed and definite territory, the state had no right to interfere with him. He was sentenced to four years in the penitentiary. On March 3, 1832, the matter was appealed as a test case to the Supreme Court of the United States, which rendered a decision in favor of Worcester and the Cherokee Nation and ordered his release. Georgia, however, through her governor, had defied the summons with a threat of opposition, even to the annihilation of the Union, and now ignored the decision, refusing to release the missionary, who remained in prison until set free by the will of the governor nearly a year later. A remark attributed to President Jackson, on hearing of the result in the Supreme Court, may throw some light on the whole proceeding: "John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it." [303] On the 19th of July, 1832, a public fast was observed throughout the Cherokee Nation. In the proclamation recommending it, Chief Ross observes that "Whereas the crisis in the affairs of the Nation exhibits the day of tribulation and sorrow, and the time appears to be fast hastening when the destiny of this people must be sealed; whether it has been directed by the wonted depravity and wickedness of man, or by the unsearchable and mysterious will of an allwise Being, it equally becomes us, as a rational and Christian community, humbly to bow in humiliation," etc. [304] Further attempts were made to induce the Cherokee to remove to the West, but met the same firm refusal as before. It was learned that in view of the harrassing conditions to which they were subjected the Cherokee were now seriously considering the project of emigrating to the Pacific Coast, at the mouth of the Columbia, a territory then claimed by England and held by the posts of the British Hudson Bay Company. The Secretary of War at once took steps to discourage the movement. [305] A suggestion from the Cherokee that the government satisfy those who had taken possession of Cherokee lands under the lottery drawing by giving them instead an equivalent from the unoccupied government lands was rejected by the President. In the spring of 1834 the Cherokee submitted a memorial which, after asserting that they would never voluntarily consent to abandon their homes, proposed to satisfy Georgia by ceding to her a portion of their territory, they to be protected in possession of the remainder until the end of a definite period to be fixed by the United States, at the expiration of which, after disposing of their surplus lands, they should become citizens of the various states within which they resided. They were told that their difficulties could be remedied only by their removal to the west of the Mississippi. In the meantime a removal treaty was being negotiated with a self-styled committee of some fifteen or twenty Cherokee called together at the agency. It was carried through in spite of the protest of John Ross and the Cherokee Nation, as embodied in a paper said to contain the signatures of 13,000 Cherokee, but failed of ratification. [306] Despairing of any help from the President, the Cherokee delegation, headed by John Ross, addressed another earnest memorial to Congress on May 17, 1834. Royce quotes the document at length, with the remark, "Without affecting to pass judgment on the merits of the controversy, the writer thinks this memorial well deserving of reproduction here as evidencing the devoted and pathetic attachment with which the Cherokee clung to the land of their fathers, and, remembering the wrongs and humiliations of the past, refused to be convinced that justice, prosperity, and happiness awaited them beyond the Mississippi." [307] In August of this year another council was held at Red Clay, south-eastward from Chattanooga and just within the Georgia line, where the question of removal was again debated in what is officially described as a tumultuous and excited meeting. One of the principal advocates of the emigration scheme, a prominent mixed-blood named John Walker, jr., was assassinated from ambush while returning from the council to his home a few miles north of the present Cleveland, Tennessee. On account of his superior education and influential connections, his wife being a niece of former agent Return J. Meigs, the affair created intense excitement at the time. The assassination has been considered the first of the long series of political murders growing out of the removal agitation, but, according to the testimony of old Cherokee acquainted with the facts, the killing was due to a more personal motive. [308] The Cherokee were now nearly worn out by constant battle against a fate from which they could see no escape. In February, 1835, two rival delegations arrived in Washington. One, the national party, headed by John Ross, came prepared still to fight to the end for home and national existence. The other, headed by Major John Ridge, a prominent subchief, despairing of further successful resistance, was prepared to negotiate for removal. Reverend J. F. Schermerhorn was appointed commissioner to arrange with the Ridge party a treaty to be confirmed later by the Cherokee people in general council. On this basis a treaty was negotiated with the Ridge party by which the Cherokee were to cede their whole eastern territory and remove to the West in consideration of the sum of $3,250,000 with some additional acreage in the West and a small sum for depredations committed upon them by the whites. Finding that these negotiations were proceeding, the Ross party filed a counter proposition for $20,000,000, which was rejected by the Senate as excessive. The Schermerhorn compact with the Ridge party, with the consideration changed to $4,500,000, was thereupon completed and signed on March 14, 1835, but with the express stipulation that it should receive the approval of the Cherokee nation in full council assembled before being considered of any binding force. This much accomplished, Mr. Schermerhorn departed for the Cherokee country, armed with an address from President Jackson in which the great benefits of removal were set forth to the Cherokee. Having exhausted the summer and fall in fruitless effort to secure favorable action, the reverend gentleman notified the President, proposing either to obtain the signatures of the leading Cherokee by promising them payment for their improvements at their own valuation, if in any degree reasonable, or to conclude a treaty with a part of the Nation and compel its acceptance by the rest. He was promptly informed by the Secretary of War, Lewis Cass, on behalf of the President, that the treaty, if concluded at all, must be procured upon fair and open terms, with no particular promise to any individual, high or low, to gain his aid or influence, and without sacrificing the interest of the whole to the cupidity of a few. He was also informed that, as it would probably be contrary to his wish, his letter would not be put on file. [309] In October, 1835, the Ridge treaty was rejected by the Cherokee Nation in full council at Red Clay, even its main supporters, Ridge himself and Elias Boudinot, going over to the majority, most unexpectedly to Schermerhorn, who reports the result, piously adding, "but the Lord is able to overrule all things for good." During the session of this council notice was served on the Cherokee to meet commissioners at New Echota in December following for the purpose of negotiating a treaty. The notice was also printed in the Cherokee language and circulated throughout the Nation, with a statement that those who failed to attend would be counted as assenting to any treaty that might be made. [310] The council had authorized the regular delegation, headed by John Ross, to conclude a treaty either there or at Washington, but, finding that Schermerhorn had no authority to treat on any other basis than the one rejected by the Nation, the delegates proceeded to Washington. [311] Before their departure John Ross, who had removed to Tennessee to escape persecution in his own state, was arrested at his home by the Georgia guard, all his private papers and the proceedings of the council being taken at the same time, and conveyed across the line into Georgia, where he was held for some time without charge against him, and at last released without apology or explanation. The poet, John Howard Payne, who was then stopping with Ross, engaged in the work of collecting historical and ethnologic material relating to the Cherokee, was seized at the same time, with all his letters and scientific manuscripts. The national paper, the Cherokee Phoenix, had been suppressed and its office plant seized by the same guard a few days before. [312] Thus in their greatest need the Cherokee were deprived of the help and counsel of their teachers, their national press, and their chief. Although for two months threats and inducements had been held out to secure a full attendance at the December conference at New Echota, there were present when the proceedings opened, according to the report of Schermerhorn himself, only from three hundred to five hundred men, women, and children, out of a population of over 17,000. Notwithstanding the paucity of attendance and the absence of the principal officers of the Nation, a committee was appointed to arrange the details of a treaty, which was finally drawn up and signed on December 29, 1835. [313] Briefly stated, by this treaty of New Echota, Georgia, the Cherokee Nation ceded to the United States its whole remaining territory east of the Mississippi for the sum of five million dollars and a common joint interest in the territory already occupied by the western Cherokee, in what is now Indian Territory, with an additional smaller tract adjoining on the northeast, in what is now Kansas. Improvements were to be paid for, and the Indians were to be removed at the expense of the United States and subsisted at the expense of the Government for one year after their arrival in the new country. The removal was to take place within two years from the ratification of the treaty. On the strong representations of the Cherokee signers, who would probably not have signed otherwise even then, it was agreed that a limited number of Cherokee who should desire to remain behind in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, and become citizens, having first been adjudged "qualified or calculated to become useful citizens," might so remain, together with a few holding individual reservations under former treaties. This provision was allowed by the commissioners, but was afterward struck out on the announcement by President Jackson of his determination "not to allow any preemptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together." Provision was made also for the payment of debts due by the Indians out of any moneys coming to them under the treaty; for the reestablishment of the missions in the West; for pensions to Cherokee wounded in the service of the government in the war of 1812 and the Creek war; for permission to establish in the new country such military posts and roads for the use of the United States as should be deemed necessary; for satisfying Osage claims in the western territory and for bringing about a friendly understanding between the two tribes; and for the commutation of all annuities and other sums due from the United States into a permanent national fund, the interest to be placed at the disposal of the officers of the Cherokee Nation and by them disbursed, according to the will of their own people, for the care of schools and orphans, and for general national purposes. The western territory assigned the Cherokee under this treaty was in two adjoining tracts, viz, (1) a tract of seven million acres, together with a "perpetual outlet west," already assigned to the western Cherokee under treaty of 1833, as will hereafter be noted, [314] being identical with the present area occupied by the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, together with the former "Cherokee strip," with the exception of a two-mile strip along the northern boundary, now included within the limits of Kansas; (2) a smaller additional tract of eight hundred thousand acres, running fifty miles north and south and twenty-five miles east and west, in what is now the southeastern corner of Kansas. For this second tract the Cherokee themselves were to pay the United States five hundred thousand dollars. The treaty of 1833, assigning the first described tract to the western Cherokee, states that the United States agrees to "guaranty it to them forever, and that guarantee is hereby pledged." By the same treaty, "in addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided for and bounded, the United States further guaranty to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend ... and letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the land hereby guaranteed." All this was reiterated by the present treaty, and made to include also the smaller (second) tract, in these words: Art. 3. The United States also agree that the lands above ceded by the treaty of February 14, 1833, including the outlet, and those ceded by this treaty, shall all be included in one patent, executed to the Cherokee nation of Indians by the President of the United States, according to the provisions of the act of May 28, 1830.... Art. 5. The United States hereby covenant and agree that the lands ceded to the Cherokee nation in the foregoing article shall in no future time, without their consent, be included within the territorial limits or jurisdiction of any state or territory. But they shall secure to the Cherokee nation the right of their national councils to make and carry into effect all such laws as they may deem necessary for the government and protection of the persons and property within their own country belonging to their people or such persons as have connected themselves with them: Provided always, that they shall not be inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States and such acts of Congress as have been or may be passed regulating trade and intercourse with the Indians; and also that they shall not be considered as extending to such citizens and army of the United States as may travel or reside in the Indian country by permission, according to the laws and regulations established by the government of the same.... Art. 6. Perpetual peace and friendship shall exist between the citizens of the United States and the Cherokee Indians. The United States agree to protect the Cherokee nation from domestic strife and foreign enemies and against intestine wars between the several tribes. The Cherokees shall endeavor to preserve and maintain the peace of the country, and not make war upon their neighbors; they shall also be protected against interruption and intrusion from citizens of the United States who may attempt to settle in the country without their consent; and all such persons shall be removed from the same by order of the President of the United States. But this is not intended to prevent the residence among them of useful farmers, mechanics, and teachers for the instruction of the Indians according to treaty stipulations. Article 7. The Cherokee nation having already made great progress in civilization, and deeming it important that every proper and laudable inducement should be offered to their people to improve their condition, as well as to guard and secure in the most effectual manner the rights guaranteed to them in this treaty, and with a view to illustrate the liberal and enlarged policy of the government of the United States toward the Indians in their removal beyond the territorial limits of the states, it is stipulated that they shall be entitled to a Delegate in the House of Representatives of the United States whenever Congress shall make provision for the same. The instrument was signed by (Governor) William Carroll of Tennessee and (Reverend) J. F. Schermerhorn as commissioners--the former, however, having been unable to attend by reason of illness--and by twenty Cherokee, among whom the most prominent were Major Ridge and Elias Boudinot, former editor of the Phoenix. Neither John Ross nor any one of the officers of the Cherokee Nation was present or represented. After some changes by the Senate, it was ratified May 23, 1836. [315] Upon the treaty of New Echota and the treaty previously made with the western Cherokee at Fort Gibson in 1833, the united Cherokee Nation based its claim to the present territory held by the tribe in Indian Territory and to the Cherokee outlet, and to national self-government, with protection from outside intrusion. An official census taken in 1835 showed the whole number of Cherokee in Georgia, North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee to be 16,542, exclusive of 1,592 negro slaves and 201 whites intermarried with Cherokee. The Cherokee were distributed as follows: Georgia, 8,946; North Carolina, 3,644; Tennessee, 2,528; Alabama, 1,424. [316] Despite the efforts of Ross and the national delegates, who presented protests with signatures representing nearly 16,000 Cherokee, the treaty had been ratified by a majority of one vote over the necessary number, and preliminary steps were at once taken to carry it into execution. Councils were held in opposition all over the Cherokee Nation, and resolutions denouncing the methods used and declaring the treaty absolutely null and void were drawn up and submitted to General Wool, in command of the troops in the Cherokee country, by whom they were forwarded to Washington. The President in reply expressed his surprise that an officer of the army should have received or transmitted a paper so disrespectful to the Executive, the Senate, and the American people; declared his settled determination that the treaty should be carried out without modification and with all consistent dispatch, and directed that after a copy of the letter had been delivered to Ross, no further communication, by mouth or writing, should be held with him concerning the treaty. It was further directed that no council should be permitted to assemble to discuss the treaty. Ross had already been informed that the President had ceased to recognize any existing government among the eastern Cherokee, and that any further effort by him to prevent the consummation of the treaty would be suppressed. [317] Notwithstanding this suppression of opinion, the feeling of the Nation was soon made plain through other sources. Before the ratification of the treaty Major W. M. Davis had been appointed to enroll the Cherokee for removal and to appraise the value of their improvements. He soon learned the true condition of affairs, and, although holding his office by the good will of President Jackson, he addressed to the Secretary of War a strong letter upon the subject, from which the following extract is made: I conceive that my duty to the President, to yourself, and to my country reluctantly compels me to make a statement of facts in relation to a meeting of a small number of Cherokees at New Echota last December, who were met by Mr. Schermerhorn and articles of a general treaty entered into between them for the whole Cherokee nation.... Sir, that paper, ... called a treaty, is no treaty at all, because not sanctioned by the great body of the Cherokee and made without their participation or assent. I solemnly declare to you that upon its reference to the Cherokee people it would be instantly rejected by nine-tenths of them, and I believe by nineteen-twentieths of them. There were not present at the conclusion of the treaty more than one hundred Cherokee voters, and not more than three hundred, including women and children, although the weather was everything that could be desired. The Indians had long been notified of the meeting, and blankets were promised to all who would come and vote for the treaty. The most cunning and artful means were resorted to to conceal the paucity of numbers present at the treaty. No enumeration of them was made by Schermerhorn. The business of making the treaty was transacted with a committee appointed by the Indians present, so as not to expose their numbers. The power of attorney under which the committee acted was signed only by the president and secretary of the meeting, so as not to disclose their weakness.... Mr. Schermerhorn's apparent design was to conceal the real number present and to impose on the public and the government upon this point. The delegation taken to Washington by Mr. Schermerhorn had no more authority to make a treaty than any other dozen Cherokee accidentally picked up for the purpose. I now warn you and the President that if this paper of Schermerhorn's called a treaty is sent to the Senate and ratified you will bring trouble upon the government and eventually destroy this [the Cherokee] Nation. The Cherokee are a peaceable, harmless people, but you may drive them to desperation, and this treaty can not be carried into effect except by the strong arm of force. [318] General Wool, who had been placed in command of the troops concentrated in the Cherokee country to prevent opposition to the enforcement of the treaty, reported on February 18, 1837, that he had called them together and made them an address, but "it is, however, vain to talk to a people almost universally opposed to the treaty and who maintain that they never made such a treaty. So determined are they in their opposition that not one of all those who were present and voted at the council held but a day or two since, however poor or destitute, would receive either rations or clothing from the United States lest they might compromise themselves in regard to the treaty. These same people, as well as those in the mountains of North Carolina, during the summer past, preferred living upon the roots and sap of trees rather than receive provisions from the United States, and thousands, as I have been informed, had no other food for weeks. Many have said they will die before they will leave the country." [319] Other letters from General Wool while engaged in the work of disarming and overawing the Cherokee show how very disagreeable that duty was to him and how strongly his sympathies were with the Indians, who were practically unanimous in repudiating the treaty. In one letter he says: The whole scene since I have been in this country has been nothing but a heart-rending one, and such a one as I would be glad to get rid of as soon as circumstances will permit. Because I am firm and decided, do not believe I would be unjust. If I could, and I could not do them a greater kindness, I would remove every Indian to-morrow beyond the reach of the white men, who, like vultures, are watching, ready to pounce upon their prey and strip them of everything they have or expect from the government of the United States. Yes, sir, nineteen-twentieths, if not ninety-nine out of every hundred, will go penniless to the West. [320] How it was to be brought about is explained in part by a letter addressed to the President by Major Ridge himself, the principal signer of the treaty: We now come to address you on the subject of our griefs and afflictions from the acts of the white people. They have got our lands and now they are preparing to fleece us of the money accruing from the treaty. We found our plantations taken either in whole or in part by the Georgians--suits instituted against us for back rents for our own farms. These suits are commenced in the inferior courts, with the evident design that, when we are ready to remove, to arrest our people, and on these vile claims to induce us to compromise for our own release, to travel with our families. Thus our funds will be filched from our people, and we shall be compelled to leave our country as beggars and in want. Even the Georgia laws, which deny us our oaths, are thrown aside, and notwithstanding the cries of our people, and protestation of our innocence and peace, the lowest classes of the white people are flogging the Cherokees with cowhides, hickories, and clubs. We are not safe in our houses--our people are assailed by day and night by the rabble. Even justices of the peace and constables are concerned in this business. This barbarous treatment is not confined to men, but the women are stripped also and whipped without law or mercy.... Send regular troops to protect us from these lawless assaults, and to protect our people as they depart for the West. If it is not done, we shall carry off nothing but the scars of the lash on our backs, and our oppressors will get all the money. We talk plainly, as chiefs having property and life in danger, and we appeal to you for protection.... [321] General Dunlap, in command of the Tennessee troops called out to prevent the alleged contemplated Cherokee uprising, having learned for himself the true situation, delivered an indignant address to his men in which he declared that he would never dishonor the Tennessee arms by aiding to carry into execution at the point of the bayonet a treaty made by a lean minority against the will and authority of the Cherokee people. He stated further that he had given the Cherokee all the protection in his power, the whites needing none. [322] A confidential agent sent to report upon the situation wrote in September, 1837, that opposition to the treaty was unanimous and irreconcilable, the Cherokee declaring that it could not bind them because they did not make it, that it was the work of a few unauthorized individuals and that the Nation was not a party to it. They had retained the forms of their government, although no election had been held since 1830, having continued the officers then in charge until their government could again be reestablished regularly. Under this arrangement John Ross was principal chief, with influence unbounded and unquestioned. "The whole Nation of eighteen thousand persons is with him, the few--about three hundred--who made the treaty having left the country, with the exception of a small number of prominent individuals--as Ridge, Boudinot, and others--who remained to assist in carrying it into execution. It is evident, therefore, that Ross and his party are in fact the Cherokee Nation.... I believe that the mass of the Nation, particularly the mountain Indians, will stand or fall with Ross...." [323] So intense was public feeling on the subject of this treaty that it became to some extent a party question, the Democrats supporting President Jackson while the Whigs bitterly opposed him. Among notable leaders of the opposition were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, Edward Everett, Wise of Virginia, and David Crockett. The speeches in Congress upon the subject "were characterized by a depth and bitterness of feeling such as had never been exceeded even on the slavery question." [324] It was considered not simply an Indian question, but an issue between state rights on the one hand and federal jurisdiction and the Constitution on the other. In spite of threats of arrest and punishment, Ross still continued active effort in behalf of his people. Again, in the spring of 1838, two months before the time fixed for the removal, he presented to Congress another protest and memorial, which, like the others, was tabled by the Senate. Van Buren had now succeeded Jackson and was disposed to allow the Cherokee a longer time to prepare for emigration, but was met by the declaration from Governor Gilmer of Georgia that any delay would be a violation of the rights of that state and in opposition to the rights of the owners of the soil, and that if trouble came from any protection afforded by the government troops to the Cherokee a direct collision must ensue between the authorities of the state and general government. [325] Up to the last moment the Cherokee still believed that the treaty would not be consummated, and with all the pressure brought to bear upon them only about 2,000 of the 17,000 in the eastern Nation had removed at the expiration of the time fixed for their departure, May 26, 1838. As it was evident that the removal could only be accomplished by force, General Winfield Scott was now appointed to that duty with instructions to start the Indians for the West at the earliest possible moment. For that purpose he was ordered to take command of the troops already in the Cherokee country, together with additional reenforcements of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, with authority to call upon the governors of the adjoining states for as many as 4,000 militia and volunteers. The whole force employed numbered about 7,000 men--regulars, militia, and volunteers. [326] The Indians had already been disarmed by General Wool. On arriving in the Cherokee country Scott established headquarters at the capital, New Echota, whence, on May 10, he issued a proclamation to the Cherokee, warning them that the emigration must be commenced in haste and that before another moon had passed every Cherokee man, woman, and child must be in motion to join his brethren in the far West, according to the determination of the President, which he, the general, had come to enforce. The proclamation concludes: "My troops already occupy many positions ... and thousands and thousands are approaching from every quarter to render resistance and escape alike hopeless.... Will you, then, by resistance compel us to resort to arms ... or will you by flight seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests and thus oblige us to hunt you down?"--reminding them that pursuit might result in conflict and bloodshed, ending in a general war. [327] Even after this Ross endeavored, on behalf of his people, to secure some slight modification of the terms of the treaty, but without avail. [328] THE REMOVAL--1838-39 The history of this Cherokee removal of 1838, as gleaned by the author from the lips of actors in the tragedy, may well exceed in weight of grief and pathos any other passage in American history. Even the much-sung exile of the Acadians falls far behind it in its sum of death and misery. Under Scott's orders the troops were disposed at various points throughout the Cherokee country, where stockade forts were erected for gathering in and holding the Indians preparatory to removal (43). From these, squads of troops were sent to search out with rifle and bayonet every small cabin hidden away in the coves or by the sides of mountain streams, to seize and bring in as prisoners all the occupants, however or wherever they might be found. Families at dinner were startled by the sudden gleam of bayonets in the doorway and rose up to be driven with blows and oaths along the weary miles of trail that led to the stockade. Men were seized in their fields or going along the road, women were taken from their wheels and children from their play. In many cases, on turning for one last look as they crossed the ridge, they saw their homes in flames, fired by the lawless rabble that followed on the heels of the soldiers to loot and pillage. So keen were these outlaws on the scent that in some instances they were driving off the cattle and other stock of the Indians almost before the soldiers had fairly started their owners in the other direction. Systematic hunts were made by the same men for Indian graves, to rob them of the silver pendants and other valuables deposited with the dead. A Georgia volunteer, afterward a colonel in the Confederate service, said: "I fought through the civil war and have seen men shot to pieces and slaughtered by thousands, but the Cherokee removal was the cruelest work I ever knew." To prevent escape the soldiers had been ordered to approach and surround each house, so far as possible, so as to come upon the occupants without warning. One old patriarch, when thus surprised, calmly called his children and grandchildren around him, and, kneeling down, bid them pray with him in their own language, while the astonished soldiers looked on in silence. Then rising he led the way into exile. A woman, on finding the house surrounded, went to the door and called up the chickens to be fed for the last time, after which, taking her infant on her back and her two other children by the hand, she followed her husband with the soldiers. All were not thus submissive. One old man named Tsali, "Charley," was seized with his wife, his brother, his three sons and their families. Exasperated at the brutality accorded his wife, who, being unable to travel fast, was prodded with bayonets to hasten her steps, he urged the other men to join with him in a dash for liberty. As he spoke in Cherokee the soldiers, although they heard, understood nothing until each warrior suddenly sprang upon the one nearest and endeavored to wrench his gun from him. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that one soldier was killed and the rest fled, while the Indians escaped to the mountains. Hundreds of others, some of them from the various stockades, managed also to escape to the mountains from time to time, where those who did not die of starvation subsisted on roots and wild berries until the hunt was over. Finding it impracticable to secure these fugitives, General Scott finally tendered them a proposition, through (Colonel) W. H. Thomas, their most trusted friend, that if they would surrender Charley and his party for punishment, the rest would be allowed to remain until their case could be adjusted by the government. On hearing of the proposition, Charley voluntarily came in with his sons, offering himself as a sacrifice for his people. By command of General Scott, Charley, his brother, and the two elder sons were shot near the mouth of Tuckasegee, a detachment of Cherokee prisoners being compelled to do the shooting in order to impress upon the Indians the fact of their utter helplessness. From those fugitives thus permitted to remain originated the present eastern band of Cherokee. [329] When nearly seventeen thousand Cherokee had thus been gathered into the various stockades the work of removal began. Early in June several parties, aggregating about five thousand persons, were brought down by the troops to the old agency, on Hiwassee, at the present Calhoun, Tennessee, and to Ross's landing (now Chattanooga), and Gunter's landing (now Guntersville, Alabama), lower down on the Tennessee, where they were put upon steamers and transported down the Tennessee and Ohio to the farther side of the Mississippi, when the journey was continued by land to Indian Territory. This removal, in the hottest part of the year, was attended with so great sickness and mortality that, by resolution of the Cherokee national council, Ross and the other chiefs submitted to General Scott a proposition that the Cherokee be allowed to remove themselves in the fall, after the sickly season had ended. This was granted on condition that all should have started by the 20th of October, excepting the sick and aged who might not be able to move so rapidly. Accordingly, officers were appointed by the Cherokee council to take charge of the emigration; the Indians being organized into detachments averaging one thousand each, with two leaders in charge of each detachment, and a sufficient number of wagons and horses for the purpose. In this way the remainder, enrolled at about 13,000 (including negro slaves), started on the long march overland late in the fall (44). Those who thus emigrated under the management of their own officers assembled at Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south of Hiwassee river, near the present Charleston, Tennessee, where a final council was held, in which it was decided to continue their old constitution and laws in their new home. Then, in October, 1838, the long procession of exiles was set in motion. A very few went by the river route; the rest, nearly all of the 13,000, went overland. Crossing to the north side of the Hiwassee at a ferry above Gunstocker creek, they proceeded down along the river, the sick, the old people, and the smaller children, with the blankets, cooking pots, and other belongings in wagons, the rest on foot or on horses. The number of wagons was 645. It was like the march of an army, regiment after regiment, the wagons in the center, the officers along the line and the horsemen on the flanks and at the rear. Tennessee river was crossed at Tuckers (?) ferry, a short distance above Jollys island, at the mouth of Hiwassee. Thence the route lay south of Pikeville, through McMinnville and on to Nashville, where the Cumberland was crossed. Then they went on to Hopkinsville, Kentucky, where the noted chief White-path, in charge of a detachment, sickened and died. His people buried him by the roadside, with a box over the grave and poles with streamers around it, that the others coming on behind might note the spot and remember him. Somewhere also along that march of death--for the exiles died by tens and twenties every day of the journey--the devoted wife of John Ross sank down, leaving him to go on with the bitter pain of bereavement added to heartbreak at the ruin of his nation. The Ohio was crossed at a ferry near the mouth of the Cumberland, and the army passed on through southern Illinois until the great Mississippi was reached opposite Cape Girardeau, Missouri. It was now the middle of winter, with the river running full of ice, so that several detachments were obliged to wait some time on the eastern bank for the channel to become clear. In talking with old men and women at Tahlequah the author found that the lapse of over half a century had not sufficed to wipe out the memory of the miseries of that halt beside the frozen river, with hundreds of sick and dying penned up in wagons or stretched upon the ground, with only a blanket overhead to keep out the January blast. The crossing was made at last in two divisions, at Cape Girardeau and at Green's ferry, a short distance below, whence the march was on through Missouri to Indian Territory, the later detachments making a northerly circuit by Springfield, because those who had gone before had killed off all the game along the direct route. At last their destination was reached. They had started in October, 1838, and it was now March, 1839, the journey having occupied nearly six months of the hardest part of the year. [330] It is difficult to arrive at any accurate statement of the number of Cherokee who died as the result of the Removal. According to the official figures those who removed under the direction of Ross lost over 1,600 on the journey. [331] The proportionate mortality among those previously removed under military supervision was probably greater, as it was their suffering that led to the proposition of the Cherokee national officers to take charge of the emigration. Hundreds died in the stockades and the waiting camps, chiefly by reason of the rations furnished, which were of flour and other provisions to which they were unaccustomed and which they did not know how to prepare properly. Hundreds of others died soon after their arrival in Indian territory, from sickness and exposure on the journey. Altogether it is asserted, probably with reason, that over 4,000 Cherokee died as the direct result of the removal. On their arrival in Indian Territory the emigrants at once set about building houses and planting crops, the government having agreed under the treaty to furnish them with rations for one year after arrival. They were welcomed by their kindred, the "Arkansas Cherokee"--hereafter to be known for distinction as the "Old Settlers"--who held the country under previous treaties in 1828 and 1833. These, however, being already regularly organized under a government and chiefs of their own, were by no means disposed to be swallowed by the governmental authority of the newcomers. Jealousies developed in which the minority or treaty party of the emigrants, headed by Ridge, took sides with the Old Settlers against the Ross or national party, which outnumbered both the others nearly three to one. While these differences were at their height the Nation was thrown into a fever of excitement by the news that Major Ridge, his son John Ridge, and Elias Boudinot--all leaders of the treaty party--had been killed by adherents of the national party, immediately after the close of a general council, which had adjourned after nearly two weeks of debate without having been able to bring about harmonious action. Major Ridge was waylaid and shot close to the Arkansas line, his son was taken from bed and cut to pieces with hatchets, while Boudinot was treacherously killed at his home at Park Hill, Indian territory, all three being killed upon the same day, June 22, 1839. The agent's report to the Secretary of War, two days later, says of the affair: The murder of Boudinot was treacherous and cruel. He was assisting some workmen in building a new house. Three men called upon him and asked for medicine. He went off with them in the direction of Wooster's, the missionary, who keeps medicine, about three hundred yards from Boudinot's. When they got about half way two of the men seized Boudinot and the other stabbed him, after which the three cut him to pieces with their knives and tomahawks. This murder taking place within two miles of the residence of John Ross, his friends were apprehensive it might be charged to his connivance; and at this moment I am writing there are six hundred armed Cherokee around the dwelling of Ross, assembled for his protection. The murderers of the two Ridges and Boudinot are certainly of the late Cherokee emigrants, and, of course, adherents of Ross, but I can not yet believe that Ross has encouraged the outrage. He is a man of too much good sense to embroil his nation at this critical time; and besides, his character, since I have known him, which is now twenty-five years, has been pacific.... Boudinot's wife is a white woman, a native of New Jersey, as I understand. He has six children. The wife of John Ridge, jr., is a white woman, but from whence, or what family left, I am not informed. Boudinot was in moderate circumstances. The Ridges, both father and son, were rich.... [332] While all the evidence shows that Ross was in no way a party to the affair, there can be no question that the men were killed in accordance with the law of the Nation--three times formulated, and still in existence--which made it treason, punishable with death, to cede away lands except by act of the general council of the Nation. It was for violating a similar law among the Creeks that the chief, McIntosh, lost his life in 1825, and a party led by Major Ridge himself had killed Doublehead years before on suspicion of accepting a bribe for his part in a treaty. On hearing of the death of the Ridges and Boudinot several other signers of the repudiated treaty, among whom were John Bell, Archilla Smith, and James Starr, fled for safety to the protection of the garrison at Fort Gibson. Boudinot's brother, Stand Watie, vowed vengeance against Ross, who was urged to flee, but refused, declaring his entire innocence. His friends rallied to his support, stationing a guard around his house until the first excitement had subsided. About three weeks afterward the national council passed decrees declaring that the men killed and their principal confederates had rendered themselves outlaws by their own conduct, extending amnesty on certain stringent conditions to their confederates, and declaring the slayers guiltless of murder and fully restored to the confidence and favor of the community. This was followed in August by another council decree declaring the New Echota treaty void and reasserting the title of the Cherokee to their old country, and three weeks later another decree summoned the signers of the treaty to appear and answer for their conduct under penalty of outlawry. At this point the United States interfered by threatening to arrest Ross as accessory to the killing of the Ridges. [333] In the meantime the national party and the Old Settlers had been coming together, and a few of the latter who had sided with the Ridge faction and endeavored to perpetuate a division in the Nation were denounced in a council of the Old Settlers, which declared that "in identifying themselves with those individuals known as the Ridge party, who by their conduct had rendered themselves odious to the Cherokee people, they have acted in opposition to the known sentiments and feelings of that portion of this Nation known as Old Settlers, frequently and variously and publicly expressed." The offending chiefs were at the same time deposed from all authority. Among the names of over two hundred signers attached that of "George Guess" (Sequoya) comes second as vice-president. [334] On July 12, 1839, a general convention of the eastern and western Cherokee, held at the Illinois camp ground, Indian territory, passed an act of union, by which the two were declared "one body politic, under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation." On behalf of the eastern Cherokee the instrument bears the signature of John Ross, principal chief, George Lowrey, president of the council, and Going-snake (I'nadû-na'i), speaker of the council, with thirteen others. For the western Cherokee it was signed by John Looney, acting principal chief, George Guess (Sequoya), president of the council, and fifteen others. On September 6, 1839, a convention composed chiefly of eastern Cherokee assembled at Tahlequah, Indian territory--then first officially adopted as the national capital--adopted a new constitution, which was accepted by a convention of the Old Settlers at Fort Gibson, Indian Territory, on June 26, 1840, an act which completed the reunion of the Nation. [335] THE ARKANSAS BAND--1817-1838 Having followed the fortunes of the main body of the Nation to their final destination in the West, we now turn to review briefly the history of the earlier emigrants, the Arkansas or Old Settler Cherokee. The events leading to the first westward migration and the subsequent negotiations which resulted in the assignment of a territory in Arkansas to the western Cherokee, by the treaty of 1817, have been already noted. The great majority of those thus voluntarily removing belonged to the conservative hunter element, who desired to reestablish in the western wilderness the old Indian life from which, through the influence of schools and intelligent leadership, the body of the Cherokee was rapidly drifting away. As the lands upon which the emigrants had settled belonged to the Osage, whose claim had not yet been extinguished by the United States, the latter objected to their presence, and the Cherokee were compelled to fight to maintain their own position, so that for the first twenty years or more the history of the western band is a mere petty chronicle of Osage raids and Cherokee retaliations, emphasized from time to time by a massacre on a larger scale. By the treaty of 1817 the western Cherokee acquired title to a definite territory and official standing under Government protection and supervision, the lands assigned them having been acquired by treaty from the Osage. The great body of the Cherokee in the East were strongly opposed to any recognition of the western band, seeing in such action only the beginning of an effort looking toward the ultimate removal of the whole tribe. The Government lent support to the scheme, however, and a steady emigration set in until, in 1819, the emigrants were said to number several thousands. Unsuccessful endeavors were made to increase the number by inducing the Shawano and Delawares of Missouri and the Oneida of New York to join them. [336] In 1818 Tollunteeskee (Ata'lûñti'ski), principal chief of the Arkansas Cherokee, while on a visit to old friends in the East, had become acquainted with one of the officers of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and had asked for the establishment of a mission among his people in the West. In response to the invitation the Reverend Cephas Washburn and his assistant, Reverend Alfred Finney, with their families, set out the next year from the old Nation, and after a long and exhausting journey reached the Arkansas country, where, in the spring of 1820, they established Dwight mission, adjoining the agency at the mouth of Illinois creek, on the northern bank of the Arkansas, in what is now Pope county, Arkansas. The name was bestowed in remembrance of Timothy Dwight, a Yale president and pioneer organizer of the American Board. Tollunteeskee having died in the meantime was succeeded as principal chief by his brother, John Jolly, [337] the friend and adopted father of Samuel Houston. Jolly had removed from his old home at the mouth of Hiwassee, in Tennessee, in 1818. [338] In the spring of 1819 Thomas Nuttall, the naturalist, ascended the Arkansas, and he gives an interesting account of the western Cherokee as he found them at the time. In going up the stream, "both banks of the river, as we proceeded, were lined with the houses and farms of the Cherokee, and though their dress was a mixture of indigenous and European taste, yet in their houses, which are decently furnished, and in their farms, which were well fenced and stocked with cattle, we perceive a happy approach toward civilization. Their numerous families, also, well fed and clothed, argue a propitious progress in their population. Their superior industry either as hunters or farmers proves the value of property among them, and they are no longer strangers to avarice and the distinctions created by wealth. Some of them are possessed of property to the amount of many thousands of dollars, have houses handsomely and conveniently furnished, and their tables spread with our dainties and luxuries." He mentions an engagement some time before between them and the Osage, in which the Cherokee had killed nearly one hundred of the Osage, besides taking a number of prisoners. He estimates them at about fifteen hundred, being about half the number estimated by the eastern Nation as having emigrated to the West, and only one-fourth of the official estimate. A few Delawares were living with them. [339] The Osage troubles continued in spite of a treaty of peace between the two tribes made at a council held under the direction of Governor Clark at St. Louis, in October, 1818. [340] Warriors from the eastern Cherokee were accustomed to make the long journey to the Arkansas to assist their western brethren, and returned with scalps and captives. [341] In the summer of 1820 a second effort for peace was made by Governor Miller of Arkansas territory. In reply to his talk the Osage complained that the Cherokee had failed to deliver their Osage captives as stipulated in the previous agreement at St. Louis. This, it appears, was due in part to the fact that some of these captives had been carried to the eastern Cherokee, and a messenger was accordingly dispatched to secure and bring them back. Another peace conference was held soon afterward at Fort Smith, but to very little purpose, as hostilities were soon resumed and continued until the United States actively interposed in the fall of 1822. [342] In this year also Sequoya visited the western Cherokee to introduce to them the knowledge of his great invention, which was at once taken up through the influence of Takatoka (Degatâ'ga), a prominent chief who had hitherto opposed every effort of the missionaries to introduce their own schools and religion. In consequence perhaps of this encouragement Sequoya removed permanently to the West in the following year and became henceforth a member of the western Nation. [343] Like other Indians, the western Cherokee held a firm belief in witchcraft, which led to frequent tragedies of punishment or retaliation. In 1824 a step forward was marked by the enactment of a law making it murder to kill any one for witchcraft, and an offense punishable with whipping to accuse another of witchcraft. [344] This law may have been the result of the silent working of missionary influence, supported by such enlightened men as Sequoya. The treaty which assigned the Arkansas lands to the western Cherokee had stipulated that a census should be made of the eastern and western divisions of the Nation, separately, and an apportionment of the national annuity forthwith made on that basis. The western line of the Arkansas tract had also been left open, until according to another stipulation of the same treaty, the whole amount of land ceded through it to the United States by the Cherokee Nation in the East could be ascertained in order that an equal quantity might be included within the boundaries of the western tract. [345] These promises had not yet been fulfilled, partly because of the efforts of the Government to bring about a larger emigration or a further cession, partly on account of delay in the state surveys, and partly also because the Osage objected to the running of a line which should make the Cherokee their next door neighbors. [346] With their boundaries unadjusted and their annuities withheld, distress and dissatisfaction overcame the western Cherokee, many of whom, feeling themselves absolved from territorial restrictions, spread over the country on the southern side of Arkansas river, [347] while others, under the lead of a chief named The Bowl (Diwa'`li), crossed Red river into Texas--then a portion of Mexico--in a vain attempt to escape American jurisdiction. [348] A provisional western boundary having been run, which proved unsatisfactory both to the western Cherokee and to the people of Arkansas, an effort was made to settle the difficulty by arranging an exchange of the Arkansas tract for a new country west of the Arkansas line. So strongly opposed, however, were the western Cherokee to this project that their council, in 1825, passed a law, as the eastern Cherokee and the Creeks had already done, fixing the death penalty for anyone of the tribe who should undertake to cede or exchange land belonging to the Nation. [349] After a long series of negotiations such pressure was brought to bear upon a delegation which visited Washington in 1828 that consent was at last obtained to an exchange of the Arkansas tract for another piece of seven million acres lying farther west, together with "a perpetual outlet west" of the tract thus assigned, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States might extend. [350] The boundaries given for this seven-million-acre tract and the adjoining western outlet were modified by treaty at Fort Gibson five years later so as to be practically equivalent to the present territory of the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, with the Cherokee strip recently ceded. The preamble of the Washington treaty of May 6, 1828, recites that "Whereas, it being the anxious desire of the Government of the United States to secure to the Cherokee nation of Indians, as well those now living within the limits of the territory of Arkansas as those of their friends and brothers who reside in states east of the Mississippi, and who may wish to join their brothers of the West, a permanent home, and which shall, under the most solemn guarantee of the United States, be and remain theirs forever--a home that shall never, in all future time, be embarrassed by having extended around it the lines or placed over it the jurisdiction of a territory or state, nor be pressed upon by the extension in any way of any of the limits of any existing territory or state; and whereas the present location of the Cherokees in Arkansas being unfavorable to their present repose, and tending, as the past demonstrates, to their future degradation and misery, and the Cherokees being anxious to avoid such consequences," etc.--therefore, they cede everything confirmed to them in 1817. Article 2 defines the boundaries of the new tract and the western outlet to be given in exchange, lying immediately west of the present Arkansas line, while the next article provides for the removal of all whites and others residing within the said boundaries, "so that no obstacles arising out of the presence of a white population, or any population of any other sort, shall exist to annoy the Cherokees, and also to keep all such from the west of said line in future." Other articles provide for payment for improvements left behind; for a cash sum of $50,000 to pay for trouble and expense of removal and to compensate for the inferior quality of the lands in the new tract; for $6,000 to pay for recovering stock which may stray away "in quest of the pastures from which they may be driven;" $8,760 for spoliations committed by Osage and whites; $500 to George Guess (Sequoya)--who was himself one of the signers--in consideration of the beneficial results to his tribe from the alphabet invented by him; $20,000 in ten annual payments for education; $1,000 for a printing press and type to aid in the enlightenment of the people "in their own and our language"; a personal indemnity for false imprisonment; and for the removal and reestablishment of the Dwight mission. In article 6 "it is moreover agreed by the United States, whenever the Cherokee may desire it, to give them a set of plain laws, suited to their condition; also, when they wish to lay off their lands and own them individually, a surveyor shall be sent to make the surveys at the cost of the United States." This article was annulled in 1833 by request of the Cherokee. Article 9 provides for the Fort Gibson military reservation within the new tract, while article 7 binds the Cherokee to surrender and remove from all their lands in Arkansas within fourteen months. Article 8 shows that all this was intended to be only preliminary to the removal of the whole Cherokee Nation from the east of the Mississippi, a consummation toward which the Jackson administration and the state of Georgia immediately began to bend every effort. It is as follows: Article 8. The Cherokee nation, west of the Mississippi, having by this agreement freed themselves from the harassing and ruinous effects consequent upon a location amidst a white population, and secured to themselves and their posterity, under the solemn sanction of the guarantee of the United States as contained in this agreement, a large extent of unembarrassed country; and that their brothers yet remaining in the states may be induced to join them and enjoy the repose and blessings of such a state in the future, it is further agreed on the part of the United States that to each head of a Cherokee family now residing within the chartered limits of Georgia, or of either of the states east of the Mississippi, who may desire to remove west, shall be given, on enrolling himself for emigration, a good rifle, a blanket, a kettle, and five pounds of tobacco; (and to each member of his family one blanket), also a just compensation for the property he may abandon, to be assessed by persons to be appointed by the President of the United States. The cost of the emigration of all such shall also be borne by the United States, and good and suitable ways opened and procured for their comfort, accommodation, and support by the way, and provisions for twelve months after their arrival at the agency; and to each person, or head of a family, if he take along with him four persons, shall be paid immediately on his arriving at the agency and reporting himself and his family or followers as emigrants or permanent settlers, in addition to the above, provided he and they shall have emigrated from within the chartered limits of the State of Georgia, the sum of fifty dollars, and this sum in proportion to any greater or less number that may accompany him from within the aforesaid chartered limits of the State of Georgia. A Senate amendment, defining the limits of the western outlet, was afterward found to be impracticable in its restrictions and was canceled by the treaty made at Fort Gibson in 1833. [351] The Washington treaty was signed by several delegates, including Sequoya, four of them signing in Cherokee characters. As the laws of the western Cherokee made it a capital offense to negotiate any sale or exchange of land excepting by authority of council, and the delegates had acted without such authority, they were so doubtful as to what might happen on their return that the Secretary of War sent with them a letter of explanation assuring the Cherokee that their representatives had acted with integrity and earnest zeal for their people and had done the best that could be done with regard to the treaty. Notwithstanding this, they found the whole tribe so strongly opposed to the treaty that their own lives and property were unsafe. The national council pronounced them guilty of fraud and deception and declared the treaty null and void, as having been made without authority, and asked permission to send on a delegation authorized to arrange all differences. [352] In the meantime, however, the treaty had been ratified within three weeks of its conclusion, and thus, hardly ten years after they had cleared their fields on the Arkansas, the western Cherokee were forced to abandon their cabins and plantations and move once more into the wilderness. A considerable number, refusing to submit to the treaty or to trust longer to guarantees and promises, crossed Red river into Texas and joined the Cherokee colony already located there by The Bowl, under Mexican jurisdiction. Among those thus removing was the noted chief Tahchee (Tatsi) or "Dutch," who had been one of the earliest emigrants to the Arkansas country. After several years in Texas, during which he led war parties against the wilder tribes, he recrossed Red river and soon made himself so conspicuous in raids upon the Osage that a reward of five hundred dollars was offered by General Arbuckle for his capture. To show his defiance of the proclamation, he deliberately journeyed to Fort Gibson, attacked a party of Osage at a trading post near by, and scalped one of them within hearing of the drums of the fort. With rifle in one hand and the bleeding scalp in the other, he leaped a precipice and made his escape, although a bullet grazed his cheek. On promise of amnesty and the withdrawal of the reward, he afterward returned and settled, with his followers, on the Canadian, southwest of Fort Gibson, establishing a reputation among army officers as a valuable scout and guide. [353] By treaties made in 1826 and 1827 the Creeks had ceded all their remaining lands in Georgia and agreed to remove to Indian Territory. Some of these emigrants had settled along the northern bank of the Arkansas and on Verdigris river, on lands later found to be within the limits of the territory assigned to the western Cherokee by the treaty of 1828. This led to jealousies and collisions between the two tribes, and in order to settle the difficulty the United States convened a joint council of Creeks and Cherokee at Fort Gibson, with the result that separate treaties were concluded with each on February 14, 1833, defining their respective bounds to the satisfaction of all concerned. By this arrangement the upper Verdigris was confirmed to the Cherokee, and the Creeks who had settled along that portion of the stream agreed to remove to Creek territory immediately adjoining on the south. [354] By the treaty made on this occasion with the Cherokee the boundaries of the tract of seven million acres granted by the treaty of 1828 are defined so as to correspond with the present boundaries of the Cherokee country in Indian territory, together with a strip two miles wide along the northern border, which was afterward annexed to the state of Kansas by the treaty of 1866. A tract in the northeastern corner, between Neosho or Grand river and the Missouri line, was set apart for the use of the Seneca and several other remnants of tribes removed from their original territories. The western outlet established by the treaty of 1828 was reestablished as a western extension from the seven-million-acre tract thus bounded, being what was afterward known as the Cherokee strip or outlet plus the two-mile strip extending westward along the south line of Kansas. After describing the boundaries of the main residence tract, the first article continues: In addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided for and bounded the United States further guarantee to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west and a free and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty of the United States and their right of soil extend--provided, however, that if the saline or salt plain on the great western prairie shall fall within said limits prescribed for said outlet the right is reserved to the United States to permit other tribes of red men to get salt on said plain in common with the Cherokees--and letters patent shall be issued by the United States as soon as practicable for the lands hereby guaranteed. The third article cancels, at the particular request of the Cherokee, that article of the treaty of 1828 by which the government was to give to the Cherokee a set of laws and a surveyor to survey lands for individuals, when so desired by the Cherokee. [355] Their differences with the Creeks having been thus adjusted, the Arkansas Cherokee proceeded to occupy the territory guaranteed to them, where they were joined a few years later by their expatriated kinsmen from the east. By tacit agreement some of the Creeks who had settled within the Cherokee bounds were permitted to remain. Among these were several families of Uchee--an incorporated tribe of the Creek confederacy--who had fixed their residence at the spot where the town of Tahlequah was afterward established. They remained here until swept off by smallpox some sixty years ago. [356] THE TEXAS BAND--1817-1900 As already stated, a band of western Cherokee under Chief Bowl, dissatisfied with the delay in fulfilling the terms of the treaty of 1817, had left Arkansas and crossed Red river into Texas, then under Mexican jurisdiction, where they were joined a few years later by Tahchee and others of the western band who were opposed to the treaty of 1828. Here they united with other refugee Indians from the United States, forming together a loose confederacy known afterward as "the Cherokee and their associated bands," consisting of Cherokee, Shawano, Delaware, Kickapoo, Quapaw, Choctaw, Biloxi, "Iawanie" (Heyowani, Yowani), "Unataqua" (Nada'ko or Anadarko, another Caddo subtribe), "Tahookatookie" (?), Alabama (a Creek subtribe), and "Cooshatta" (Koasa'ti, another Creek subtribe). The Cherokee being the largest and most important band, their chief, Bowl--known to the whites as Colonel Bowles--was regarded as the chief and principal man of them all. The refugees settled chiefly along Angelina, Neches, and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas, where Bowl endeavored to obtain a grant of land for their use from the Mexican government. According to the Texan historians they were tacitly permitted to occupy the country and hopes were held out that a grant would be issued, but the papers had not been perfected when the Texas revolution began. [357] According to the Cherokee statement the grant was actually issued and the Spanish document inclosed in a tin box was on the person of Bowl when he was killed. [358] On complaint of some of the American colonists in Texas President Jackson issued a proclamation forbidding any Indians to cross the Sabine river from the United States. [359] In 1826-27 a dissatisfied American colony in eastern Texas, under the leadership of Hayden Edwards, organized what was known as the "Fredonia rebellion" against the Mexican government. To secure the alliance of the Cherokee and their confederates the Americans entered into a treaty by which the Indians were guaranteed the lands occupied by them, but without specification as to boundaries. The Fredonia movement soon collapsed and nothing tangible seems to have come of the negotiations. [360] In the fall of 1835 the Texan revolution began, resulting in the secession of Texas from Mexico and her establishment as an independent republic until annexed later to the United States. General Samuel Houston, a leading member of the revolutionary body, was an old friend of the Cherokee, and set forth so strongly the claims of them and their confederates that an act was passed by the convention pledging to these tribes all the lands which they had held under the Mexican government. In accordance with this act General Houston and John Forbes were appointed to hold a treaty with the Cherokee and their associated bands. They met the chiefs, including Bowl and Big-mush (Gatûñ'wa`li, "Hard-mush"), of the Cherokee, at Bowl's village on February 23, 1836, and concluded a formal treaty by which the Cherokee and their allies received a fee simple title to all the land lying "west of the San Antonio road and beginning on the west at a point where the said road crosses the river Angelina, and running up said river until it reaches the mouth of the first large creek below the great Shawnee village, emptying into the said river from the northeast, thence running with said creek to its main source and from thence a due north line to the Sabine and with said river west. Then starting where the San Antonio road crosses the Angelina and with said road to where it crosses the Neches and thence running up the east side of said river in a northwest direction." The historian remarks that the description is somewhat vague, but is a literal transcription from the treaty. [361] The territory thus assigned was about equivalent to the present Cherokee county, Texas. The treaty provoked such general dissatisfaction among the Texans that it was not presented to the convention for ratification. General Houston became President of Texas in November, 1836, but notwithstanding all his efforts in behalf of the Cherokee, the treaty was rejected by the Texas senate in secret session on December 16, 1837. [362] Texas having in the meantime achieved victorious independence was now in position to repudiate her engagements with the Indians, which she did, not only with the Cherokee, but with the Comanche and other wild tribes, which had been induced to remain neutral during the struggle on assurance of being secured in possession of their lands. In the meantime President Houston was unremitting in his effort to secure the ratification of the Cherokee treaty, but without success. On the other hand the Cherokee were accused of various depredations, and it was asserted that they had entered into an agreement with Mexico by which they were to be secured in the territory in question on condition of assisting to drive out the Americans. [363] The charge came rather late in the day, and it was evident that President Houston put no faith in it, as he still continued his efforts in behalf of the Cherokee, even so far as to order the boundary line to be run, according to the terms of the treaty (45). [364] In December, 1838, Houston was succeeded as President by Mirabeau B. Lamar, who at once announced his intention to expel every Indian tribe from Texas, declaring in his inaugural message that "the sword should mark the boundaries of the republic." At this time the Indians in eastern Texas, including the Cherokee and their twelve confederated bands and some others, were estimated at 1,800 warriors, or perhaps 8,000 persons. [365] A small force of troops sent to take possession of the salt springs in the Indian country at the head of the Neches was notified by Bowl that such action would be resisted. The Indians were then informed that they must prepare to leave the country in the fall, but that they would be paid for the improvements abandoned. In the meantime the neighboring Mexicans made an effort to free themselves from Texan rule and sent overtures to the Indians to make common cause with them. This being discovered, the crisis was precipitated, and a commission consisting of General Albert Sidney Johnston (secretary of war of the republic), Vice-President Burnet, and some other officials, backed up by several regiments of troops, was sent to the Cherokee village on Angelina river to demand of the Indians that they remove at once across the border. The Indians refused and were attacked and defeated on July 15, 1839, by the Texan troops under command of General Douglas. They were pursued and a second engagement took place the next morning, resulting in the death of Bowl himself and his assistant chief Gatûñ'wa`li, "Hard-mush," and the dispersion of the Indian forces, with a loss in the two engagements of about 55 killed and 80 wounded, the Texan loss being comparatively trifling. The first fight took place at a hill close to the main Cherokee village on the Angelina, where the Indians made a stand and defended their position well for some time. The second occurred at a ravine near Neches river, where they were intercepted in their retreat. Says Thrall, "After this fight the Indians abandoned Texas, leaving their fine lands in possession of the whites." [366] By these two defeats the forces of the Cherokee and their confederates were completely broken up. A part of the Cherokee recrossed Red river and rejoined their kinsmen in Indian territory, bringing with them the blood-stained canister containing the patent for their Texas land, which Bowl had carried about with him since the treaty with Houston and which he had upon his person when shot. It is still kept in the Nation. [367] Others, with the Kickapoo, Delawares, and Caddo, scattered in small bands along the western Texas frontier, where they were occasionally heard from afterward. On Christmas day of the same year a fight occurred on Cherokee creek, San Saba county, in which several Indians were killed and a number of women and children captured, including the wife and family of the dead chief Bowl. [368] Those of the Cherokee who did not return to Indian territory gradually drifted down into Mexico, where some hundreds of them are now permanently and prosperously domiciled far south in the neighborhood of Guadalajara and Lake Chapala, communication being still kept up through occasional visits from their kinsmen in the territory. [369] THE CHEROKEE NATION IN THE WEST--1840-1900 With the final removal of the Cherokee from their native country and their reunion and reorganization under new conditions in Indian Territory in 1840 their aboriginal period properly comes to a close and the rest may be dismissed in a few paragraphs as of concern rather to the local historian than to the ethnologist. Having traced for three full centuries their gradual evolution from a savage tribe to a civilized Christian nation, with a national constitution and national press printed in their own national alphabet, we can afford to leave the rest to others, the principal materials being readily accessible in the Cherokee national archives at Tahlequah, in the files of the Cherokee Advocate and other newspapers published in the Nation, and in the annual reports and other documents of the Indian office. For many years the hunter and warrior had been giving place to the farmer and mechanic, and the forced expatriation made the change complete and final. Torn from their native streams and mountains, their council fires extinguished and their townhouses burned behind them, and transported bodily to a far distant country where everything was new and strange, they were obliged perforce to forego the old life and adjust themselves to changed surroundings. The ballplay was neglected and the green-corn dance proscribed, while the heroic tradition of former days became a fading memory or a tale to amuse a child. Instead of ceremonials and peace councils we hear now of railroad deals and contracts with cattle syndicates, and instead of the old warrior chiefs who had made the Cherokee name a terror--Oconostota, Hanging-maw, Doublehead, and Pathkiller--we find the destinies of the nation guided henceforth by shrewd mixed-blood politicians, bearing white men's names and speaking the white man's language, and frequently with hardly enough Indian blood to show itself in the features. The change was not instantaneous, nor is it even yet complete, for although the tendency is constantly away from the old things, and although frequent intermarriages are rapidly bleaching out the brown of the Indian skin, there are still several thousand full-blood Cherokee--enough to constitute a large tribe if set off by themselves--who speak only their native language and in secret bow down to the nature-gods of their fathers. Here, as in other lands, the conservative element has taken refuge in the mountain districts, while the mixed-bloods and the adopted whites are chiefly on the richer low grounds and in the railroad towns. On the reorganization of the united Nation the council ground at Tahlequah was designated as the seat of government, and the present town was soon afterward laid out upon the spot, taking its name from the old Cherokee town of Talikwa', or Tellico, in Tennessee. The missions were reestablished, the Advocate was revived, and the work of civilization was again taken up, though under great difficulties, as continued removals and persecutions, with the awful suffering and mortality of the last great emigration, had impoverished and more than decimated the Nation and worn out the courage even of the bravest. The bitterness engendered by the New Echota treaty led to a series of murders and assassinations and other acts of outlawry, amounting almost to civil war between the Ross and Ridge factions, until the Government was at last obliged to interfere. The Old Settlers also had their grievances and complaints against the newcomers, so that the history of the Cherokee Nation for the next twenty years is largely a chronicle of factional quarrels, through which civilization and every good work actually retrograded behind the condition of a generation earlier. Sequoya, who had occupied a prominent position in the affairs of the Old Settlers and assisted much in the reorganization of the Nation, had become seized with a desire to make linguistic investigations among the remote tribes, very probably with a view of devising a universal Indian alphabet. His mind dwelt also on the old tradition of a lost band of Cherokee living somewhere toward the western mountains. In 1841 and 1842, with a few Cherokee companions and with his provisions and papers loaded in an ox cart, he made several journeys into the West, received everywhere with kindness by even the wildest tribes. Disappointed in his philologic results, he started out in 1843 in quest of the lost Cherokee, who were believed to be somewhere in northern Mexico, but, being now an old man and worn out by hardship, he sank under the effort and died--alone and unattended, it is said--near the village of San Fernando, Mexico, in August of that year. Rumors having come of his helpless condition, a party had been sent out from the Nation to bring him back, but arrived too late to find him alive. A pension of three hundred dollars, previously voted to him by the Nation, was continued to his widow--the only literary pension in the United States. Besides a wife he left two sons and a daughter. [370] Sequoyah district of the Cherokee Nation was named in his honor, and the great trees of California (Sequoia gigantea) also preserve his memory. In 1846 a treaty was concluded at Washington by which the conflicting claims of the Old Settlers and later emigrants were adjusted, reimbursement was promised for sums unjustly deducted from the five-million-dollar payment guaranteed under the treaty of 1835, and a general amnesty was proclaimed for all past offenses within the Nation. [371] Final settlement of the treaty claims has not yet been made, and the matter is still a subject of litigation, including all the treaties and agreements up to the present date. In 1859 the devoted missionary Samuel Worcester, author of numerous translations and first organizer of the Advocate, died at Park Hill mission, in the Cherokee Nation, after thirty-five years spent in the service of the Cherokee, having suffered chains, imprisonment, and exile for their sake. [372] The breaking out of the civil war in 1861 found the Cherokee divided in sentiment. Being slave owners, like the other Indians removed from the southern states, and surrounded by southern influences, the agents in charge being themselves southern sympathizers, a considerable party in each of the tribes was disposed to take active part with the Confederacy. The old Ridge party, headed by Stand Watie and supported by the secret secession organization known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, declared for the Confederacy. The National party, headed by John Ross and supported by the patriotic organization known as the Kitoowah society--whose members were afterward known as Pin Indians--declared for strict neutrality. At last, however, the pressure became too strong to be resisted, and on October 7, 1861, a treaty was concluded at Tahlequah, with General Albert Pike, commissioner for the Confederate states, by which the Cherokee Nation cast its lot with the Confederacy, as the Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage, Comanche, and several smaller tribes had already done. [373] Two Cherokee regiments were raised for the Confederate service, under command of Stand Watie and Colonel Drew, respectively, the former being commissioned as brigadier-general. They participated in several engagements, chief among them being the battle of Pea Ridge, Arkansas, on March 7, 1862. [374] In the following summer the Union forces entered the Cherokee country and sent a proposition to Ross, urging him to repudiate the treaty with the Confederate states, but the offer was indignantly declined. Shortly afterward, however, the men of Drew's regiment, finding themselves unpaid and generally neglected by their allies, went over almost in a body to the Union side, thus compelling Ross to make an arrangement with the Union commander, Colonel Weir. Leaving the Cherokee country, Ross retired to Philadelphia, from which he did not return until the close of the war. [375] In the meantime Indian Territory was ravaged alternately by contending factions and armed bodies, and thousands of loyal fugitives were obliged to take refuge in Kansas, where they were cared for by the government. Among these, at the close of 1862, were two thousand Cherokee. In the following spring they were sent back to their homes under armed escort to give them an opportunity to put in a crop, seeds and tools being furnished for the purpose, but had hardly begun work when they were forced to retire by the approach of Stand Watie and his regiment of Confederate Cherokee, estimated at seven hundred men. Stand Watie and his men, with the Confederate Creeks and others, scoured the country at will, destroying or carrying off everything belonging to the loyal Cherokee, who had now, to the number of nearly seven thousand, taken refuge at Fort Gibson. Refusing to take sides against a government which was still unable to protect them, they were forced to see all the prosperous accumulations of twenty years of industry swept off in this guerrilla warfare. In stock alone their losses were estimated at more than 300,000 head. [376] "The events of the war brought to them more of desolation and ruin than perhaps to any other community. Raided and sacked alternately, not only by the Confederate and Union forces, but by the vindictive ferocity and hate of their own factional divisions, their country became a blackened and desolate waste. Driven from comfortable homes, exposed to want, misery, and the elements, they perished like sheep in a snow storm. Their houses, fences, and other improvements were burned, their orchards destroyed, their flocks and herds slaughtered or driven off, their schools broken up, their schoolhouses given to the flames, and their churches and public buildings subjected to a similar fate; and that entire portion of their country which had been occupied by their settlements was distinguishable from the virgin prairie only by the scorched and blackened chimneys and the plowed but now neglected fields." [377] After five years of desolation the Cherokee emerged from the war with their numbers reduced from 21,000 to 14,000, [378] and their whole country in ashes. On July 19, 1866, by a treaty concluded at Tahlequah, the nation was received back into the protection of the United States, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and all confiscations on account of the war prohibited; slavery was abolished without compensation to former owners, and all negroes residing within the Nation were admitted to full Cherokee citizenship. By articles 15 and 16 permission was given the United States to settle friendly Indians within the Cherokee home country or the Cherokee strip by consent and purchase from the Nation. By article 17 the Cherokee sold the 800,000-acre tract in Kansas secured by the treaty of 1835, together with a two-mile strip running along the southern border of Kansas, and thereafter to be included within the limits of that state, thus leaving the Cherokee country as it was before the recent cession of the Cherokee strip. Payment was promised for spoliations by United States troops during the war; and $3,000 were to be paid out of the Cherokee funds to the Reverend Evan Jones, then disabled and in poverty, as a reward for forty years of faithful missionary labors. By article 26 "the United States guarantee to the Cherokees the quiet and peaceable possession of their country and protection against domestic feuds and insurrection as well as hostilities of other tribes. They shall also be protected from intrusion by all unauthorized citizens of the United States attempting to settle on their lands or reside in their territory." [379] The missionary, Reverend Evan Jones, who had followed the Cherokee into exile, and his son, John B. Jones, had been admitted to Cherokee citizenship the year before by vote of the Nation. The act conferring this recognition recites that "we do bear witness that they have done their work well." [380] John Ross, now an old man, had been unable to attend this treaty, being present at the time in Washington on business for his people. Before its ratification he died in that city on August 1, 1866, at the age of seventy-seven years, fifty-seven of which had been given to the service of his Nation. No finer panegyric was ever pronounced than the memorial resolution passed by the Cherokee Nation on learning of his death. [381] Notwithstanding repeated attempts to subvert his authority, his people had remained steadfast in their fidelity to him, and he died, as he had lived for nearly forty years, the officially recognized chief of the Nation. With repeated opportunities to enrich himself at the expense of his tribe, he died a poor man. His body was brought back and interred in the territory of the Nation. In remembrance of the great chief one of the nine districts of the Cherokee Nation has been called by his Indian name, Cooweescoowee (46). Under the provisions of the late treaty the Delawares in Kansas, to the number of 985, removed to Indian territory in 1867 and became incorporated as citizens of the Cherokee Nation. They were followed in 1870 by the Shawano, chiefly also from Kansas, to the number of 770. [382] These immigrants settled chiefly along the Verdigris, in the northwestern part of the Nation. Under the same treaty the Osage, Kaw, Pawnee, Ponca, Oto and Missouri, and Tonkawa were afterward settled on the western extension known then as the Cherokee strip. The captive Nez Percés of Joseph's band were also temporarily located there, but have since been removed to the states of Washington and Idaho. In 1870 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railway, a branch of the Union Pacific system, was constructed through the lands of the Cherokee Nation under an agreement ratified by the Government, it being the first railroad to enter that country. [383] Several others have since been constructed or projected. The same year saw a Cherokee literary revival. The publication of the Advocate, which had been suspended since some years before the war, was resumed, and by authority of the Nation John B. Jones began the preparation of a series of schoolbooks in the Cherokee language and alphabet for the benefit of those children who knew no English. [384] In the spring of 1881 a delegation from the Cherokee Nation visited the East Cherokee still remaining in the mountains of North Carolina and extended to them a cordial and urgent invitation to remove and incorporate upon equal terms with the Cherokee Nation in the Indian territory. In consequence several parties of East Cherokee, numbering in all 161 persons, removed during the year to the western Nation, the expense being paid by the Federal government. Others afterwards applied for assistance to remove, but as no further appropriation was made for the purpose nothing more was done. [385] In 1883 the East Cherokee brought suit for a proportionate division of the Cherokee funds and other interests under previous treaties, [386] but their claim was finally decided adversely three years later on appeal to the Supreme Court. [387] In 1889 the Cherokee female seminary was completed at Tahlequah at a cost of over $60,000, supplementing the work of the male seminary, built some years before at a cost of $90,000. The Cherokee Nation was now appropriating annually over $80,000 for school purposes, including the support of the two seminaries, an orphan asylum, and over one hundred primary schools, besides which there were a number of mission schools. [388] For a number of years the pressure for the opening of Indian territory to white settlement had been growing in strength. Thousands of intruders had settled themselves upon the lands of each of the five civilized tribes, where they remained upon various pretexts in spite of urgent and repeated appeals to the government by the Indians for their removal. Under treaties with the five civilized tribes, the right to decide citizenship or residence claims belonged to the tribes concerned, but the intruders had at last become so numerous and strong that they had formed an organization among themselves to pass upon their own claims, and others that might be submitted to them, with attorneys and ample funds to defend each claim in outside courts against the decision of the tribe. At the same time the Government policy was steadily toward the reduction or complete breaking up of Indian reservations and the allotment of lands to the Indians in severalty, with a view to their final citizenship, and the opening of the surplus lands to white settlement. As a part of the same policy the jurisdiction of the United States courts was gradually being extended over the Indian country, taking cognizance of many things hitherto considered by the Indian courts under former treaties with the United States. Against all this the Cherokee and other civilized tribes protested, but without avail. To add to the irritation, companies of armed "boomers" were organized for the express purpose of invading and seizing the Cherokee outlet and other unoccupied portions of the Indian territory--reserved by treaty for future Indian settlement--in defiance of the civil and military power of the Government. We come now to what seems the beginning of the end of Indian autonomy. In 1889 a commission, afterward known as the Cherokee Commission, was appointed, under act of Congress, to "negotiate with the Cherokee Indians, and with all other Indians owning or claiming lands lying west of the ninety-sixth degree of longitude in the Indian territory, for the cession to the United States of all their title, claim, or interest of every kind or character in and to said lands." In August of that year the commission made a proposition to Chief J. B. Mayes for the cession of all the Cherokee lands thus described, being that portion known as the Cherokee outlet or strip. The proposition was declined on the ground that the Cherokee constitution forbade its consideration. [389] Other tribes were approached for a similar purpose, and the commission was continued, with changing personnel from year to year, until agreements for cession and the taking of allotments had been made with nearly all the wilder tribes in what is now Oklahoma. In the meantime the Attorney-General had rendered a decision denying the right of Indian tribes to lease their lands without permission of the Government. At this time the Cherokee were deriving an annual income of $150,000 from the lease of grazing privileges upon the strip, but by a proclamation of President Harrison on February 17, 1890, ordering the cattlemen to vacate before the end of the year, this income was cut off and the strip was rendered practically valueless to them. [390] The Cherokee were now forced to come to terms, and a second proposition for the cession of the Cherokee strip was finally accepted by the national council on January 4, 1892. "It was known to the Cherokees that for some time would-be settlers on the lands of the outlet had been encamped in the southern end of Kansas, and by every influence at their command had been urging the Government to open the country to settlement and to negotiate with the Cherokees afterwards, and that a bill for that purpose had been introduced in Congress." The consideration was nearly $8,600,000, or about $1.25 per acre, for something over 6,000,000 acres of land. One article of the agreement stipulates for "the reaffirmation to the Cherokee Nation of the right of local self-government." [391] The agreement having been ratified by Congress, the Cherokee strip was opened by Presidential proclamation on September 16, 1893. [392] The movement for the abolition of the Indian governments and the allotment and opening of the Indian country had now gained such force that by act of Congress approved March 3, 1893, the President was authorized to appoint a commission of three--known later as the Dawes Commission, from its distinguished chairman, Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts--to negotiate with the five civilized tribes of Indian territory, viz, the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole, for "the extinguishment of tribal titles to any lands within that territory, now held by any and all of such nations and tribes, either by cession of the same or some part thereof to the United States, or by the allotment and division of the same in severalty among the Indians of such nations or tribes respectively as may be entitled to the same, or by such other method as may be agreed upon ... to enable the ultimate creation of a state or states of the Union, which shall embrace the land within the said Indian territory." [393] The commission appointed arrived in the Indian territory in January, 1894, and at once began negotiations. [394] At this time the noncitizen element in Indian Territory was officially reported to number at least 200,000 souls, while those having rights as citizens of the five civilized tribes, including full-blood and mixed-blood Indians, adopted whites, and negroes, numbered but 70,500. [395] Not all of the noncitizens were intruders, many being there by permission of the Indian governments or on official or other legitimate business, but the great body of them were illegal squatters or unrecognized claimants to Indian rights, against whose presence the Indians themselves had never ceased to protest. A test case brought this year in the Cherokee Nation was decided by the Interior Department against the claimants and in favor of the Cherokee. Commenting upon threats made in consequence by the rejected claimants, the agent for the five tribes remarks: "It is not probable that Congress will establish a court to nullify and vacate a formal decision of the Interior Department." [396] A year later he says of these intruders that "so long as they have a foothold--a residence, legal or not--in the Indian country they will be disturbers of peace and promoters of discord, and while they cry aloud, and spare not, for allotment and statehood, they are but stumbling blocks and obstacles to that mutual good will and fraternal feeling which must be cultivated and secured before allotment is practicable and statehood desirable." [397] The removal of the intruders was still delayed, and in 1896 the decision of citizenship claims was taken from the Indian government and relegated to the Dawes Commission. [398] In 1895 the commission was increased to five members, with enlarged powers. In the meantime a survey of Indian Territory had been ordered and begun. In September the agent wrote: "The Indians now know that a survey of their lands is being made, and whether with or without their consent, the survey is going on. The meaning of such survey is too plain to be disregarded, and it is justly considered as the initial step, solemn and authoritative, toward the overthrow of their present communal holdings. At this writing surveying corps are at work in the Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw Nations, and therefore each one of these tribes has an ocular demonstration of the actual intent and ultimate purpose of the government of the United States." [399] The general prosperity and advancement of the Cherokee Nation at this time may be judged from the report of the secretary of the Cherokee national board of education to Agent Wisdom. He reports 4,800 children attending two seminaries, male and female, two high schools, and one hundred primary schools, teachers being paid from $35 to $100 per month for nine months in the year. Fourteen primary schools were for the use of the negro citizens of the Nation, besides which they had a fine high school, kept up, like all the others, at the expense of the Cherokee government. Besides the national schools there were twelve mission schools helping to do splendid work for children of both citizens and noncitizens. Children of noncitizens were not allowed to attend the Cherokee national schools, but had their own subscription schools. The orphan asylum ranked as a high school, in which 150 orphans were boarded and educated, with graduates every year. It was a large brick building of three stories, 80 by 240 feet. The male seminary, accommodating 200 pupils, and the female seminary, accommodating 225 pupils, were also large brick structures, three stories in height and 150 by 240 feet on the ground. Three members, all Cherokee by blood, constituted a board of education. The secretary adds that the Cherokee are proud of their schools and educational institutions, and that no other country under the sun is so blessed with educational advantages at large. [400] At this time the Cherokee Nation numbered something over 25,000 Indian, white, and negro citizens; the total citizen population of the three races in the five civilized tribes numbered about 70,000, while the noncitizens had increased to 250,000 and their number was being rapidly augmented. [401] Realizing that the swift, inevitable end must be the destruction of their national governments, the Cherokee began once more to consider the question of removal from the United States. The scheme is outlined in a letter written by a brother of the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation under date of May 31, 1895, from which we quote. After prefacing that the government of the United States seems determined to break up the tribal autonomy of the five civilized tribes and to divide their lands, thus bringing about conditions under which the Cherokee could not exist, he continues: Then for a remedy that will lead us out of it, away from it, and one that promises our preservation as a distinct race of people in the enjoyment of customs, social and political, that have been handed down to us from remote generations of the past. My plan is for the Cherokees to sell their entire landed possessions to the United States, divide the proceeds thereof per capita, then such as desire to do so unite in the formation of an Indian colony, and with their funds jointly purchase in Mexico or South America a body of land sufficient for all their purposes, to be forever their joint home.... I believe also that for such Indians as did not desire to join the colony and leave the country provision should be made for them to repurchase their old homes, or such other lands in the country here as they might desire, and they could remain here and meet such fate as awaits them. I believe this presents the most feasible and equitable solution of the questions that we must decide in the near future, and will prove absolutely just and fair to all classes and conditions of our citizens. I also believe that the same could be acted upon by any or all of the five civilized tribes.... [402] The final chapter is nearly written. By successive enactments within the last ten years the jurisdiction of the Indian courts has been steadily narrowed and the authority of the Federal courts proportionately extended; the right to determine Indian citizenship has been taken from the Indians and vested in a Government commission; the lands of the five tribes have been surveyed and sectionized by Government surveyors; and by the sweeping provisions of the Curtis act of June 28, 1898, "for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory," the entire control of tribal revenues is taken from the five Indian tribes and vested with a resident supervising inspector, the tribal courts are abolished, allotments are made compulsory, and authority is given to incorporate white men's towns in the Indian tribes. [403] By this act the five civilized tribes are reduced to the condition of ordinary reservation tribes under government agents with white communities planted in their midst. In the meantime the Dawes commission, continued up to the present, has by unremitting effort broken down the opposition of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, who have consented to allotment, while the Creeks and the Seminole are now wavering. [404] The Cherokee still hold out, the Ketoowah secret society (47) especially being strong in its resistance, and when the end comes it is possible that the protest will take shape in a wholesale emigration to Mexico. Late in 1897 the agent for the five tribes reports that "there seems a determined purpose on the part of many fullbloods ... to emigrate to either Mexico or South America and there purchase new homes for themselves and families. Such individual action may grow to the proportion of a colony, and it is understood that liberal grants of land can be secured from the countries mentioned. [405] Mexican agents are now (1901) among the Cherokee advocating the scheme, which may develop to include a large proportion of the five civilized tribes. [406] By the census of 1898, the most recent taken, as reported by Agent Wisdom, the Cherokee Nation numbered 34,461 persons, as follows: Cherokee by blood (including all degrees of admixture), 26,500; intermarried whites, 2,300; negro freedmen, 4,000; Delaware, 871; Shawnee, 790. The total acreage of the Nation was 5,031,351 acres, which, if divided per capita under the provisions of the Curtis bill, after deducting 60,000 acres reserved for town-site and other purposes, would give to each Cherokee citizen 144 acres. [407] It must be noted that the official rolls include a large number of persons whose claims are disputed by the Cherokee authorities. THE EASTERN BAND It remains to speak of the eastern band of Cherokee--the remnant which still clings to the woods and waters of the old home country. As has been said, a considerable number had eluded the troops in the general round-up of 1838 and had fled to the fastnesses of the high mountains. Here they were joined by others who had managed to break through the guard at Calhoun and other collecting stations, until the whole number of fugitives in hiding amounted to a thousand or more, principally of the mountain Cherokee of North Carolina, the purest-blooded and most conservative of the Nation. About one-half the refugee warriors had put themselves under command of a noted leader named U'tsala, "Lichen," who made his headquarters amid the lofty peaks at the head of Oconaluftee, from which secure hiding place, although reduced to extremity of suffering from starvation and exposure, they defied every effort to effect their capture. The work of running down these fugitives proved to be so difficult an undertaking and so well-nigh barren of result that when Charley and his sons made their bold stroke for freedom [408] General Scott eagerly seized the incident as an opportunity for compromise. To this end he engaged the services of William H. Thomas, a trader who for more than twenty years had been closely identified with the mountain Cherokee and possessed their full confidence, and authorized him to submit to U'tsala a proposition that if the latter would seize Charley and the others who had been concerned in the attack upon the soldiers and surrender them for punishment, the pursuit would be called off and the fugitives allowed to stay unmolested until an effort could be made to secure permission from the general government for them to remain. Thomas accepted the commission, and taking with him one or two Indians made his way over secret paths to U'tsala's hiding place. He presented Scott's proposition and represented to the chief that by aiding in bringing Charley's party to punishment according to the rules of war he could secure respite for his sorely pressed followers, with the ultimate hope that they might be allowed to remain in their own country, whereas if he rejected the offer the whole force of the seven thousand troops which had now completed the work of gathering up and deporting the rest of the tribe would be set loose upon his own small band until the last refugee had been either taken or killed. U'tsala turned the proposition in his mind long and seriously. His heart was bitter, for his wife and little son had starved to death on the mountain side, but he thought of the thousands who were already on their long march into exile and then he looked round upon his little band of followers. If only they might stay, even though a few must be sacrificed, it was better than that all should die--for they had sworn never to leave their country. He consented and Thomas returned to report to General Scott. Now occurred a remarkable incident which shows the character of Thomas and the masterly influence which he already had over the Indians, although as yet he was hardly more than thirty years old. It was known that Charley and his party were in hiding in a cave of the Great Smokies, at the head of Deep creek, but it was not thought likely that he could be taken without bloodshed and a further delay which might prejudice the whole undertaking. Thomas determined to go to him and try to persuade him to come in and surrender. Declining Scott's offer of an escort, he went alone to the cave, and, getting between the Indians and their guns as they were sitting around the fire near the entrance, he walked up to Charley and announced his message. The old man listened in silence and then said simply, "I will come in. I don't want to be hunted down by my own people." They came in voluntarily and were shot, as has been already narrated, one only, a mere boy, being spared on account of his youth. This boy, now an old man, is still living, Wasitû'na, better known to the whites as Washington. [409] A respite having thus been obtained for the fugitives, Thomas next went to Washington to endeavor to make some arrangement for their permanent settlement. Under the treaty of New Echota, in 1835, the Cherokee were entitled, besides the lump sum of five million dollars for the lands ceded, to an additional compensation for the improvements which they were forced to abandon and for spoliations by white citizens, together with a per capita allowance to cover the cost of removal and subsistence for one year in the new country. The twelfth article had also provided that such Indians as chose to remain in the East and become citizens there might do so under certain conditions, each head of a family thus remaining to be confirmed in a preemption right to 160 acres. In consequence of the settled purpose of President Jackson to deport every Indian, this permission was canceled and supplementary articles substituted by which some additional compensation was allowed in lieu of the promised preemptions and all individual reservations granted under previous treaties. [410] Every Cherokee was thus made a landless alien in his original country. The last party of emigrant Cherokee had started for the West in December, 1838. Nine months afterwards the refugees still scattered about in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee were reported to number 1,046. [411] By persistent effort at Washington from 1836 to 1842, including one continuous stay of three years at the capital city, Thomas finally obtained governmental permission for these to remain, and their share of the moneys due for improvements and reservations confiscated was placed at his disposal, as their agent and trustee, for the purpose of buying lands upon which they could be permanently settled. Under this authority he bought for them, at various times up to the year 1861, a number of contiguous tracts of land upon Oconaluftee river and Soco creek, within the present Swain and Jackson counties of North Carolina, together with several detached tracts in the more western counties of the same state. The main body, upon the waters of Oconaluftee, which was chiefly within the limits of the cession of 1819, came afterward to be known as the Qualla boundary, or Qualla reservation, taking the name from Thomas' principal trading store and agency headquarters. The detached western tracts were within the final cession of 1835, but all alike were bought by Thomas from white owners. As North Carolina refused to recognize Indians as landowners within the state, and persisted in this refusal until 1866, [412] Thomas, as their authorized agent under the Government, held the deeds in his own name. Before it was legally possible under the state laws to transfer the title to the Indians, his own affairs had become involved and his health impaired by age and the hardships of military service so that his mind gave way, thus leaving the whole question of the Indian title a subject of litigation until its adjudication by the United States in 1875, supplemented by further decisions in 1894. To Colonel William Holland Thomas the East Cherokee of to-day owe their existence as a people, and for half a century he was as intimately connected with their history as was John Ross with that of the main Cherokee Nation. Singularly enough, their connection with Cherokee affairs extended over nearly the same period, but while Ross participated in their national matters Thomas gave his effort to a neglected band hardly known in the councils of the tribe. In his many-sided capacity he strikingly resembles another white man prominent in Cherokee history, General Sam Houston. Thomas was born in the year 1805 on Raccoon creek, about two miles from Waynesville in North Carolina. His father, who was related to President Zachary Taylor, came of a Welsh family which had immigrated to Virginia at an early period, while on his mother's side he was descended from a Maryland family of Revolutionary stock. He was an only and posthumous child, his father having been accidentally drowned a short time before the boy was born. Being unusually bright for his age, he was engaged when only twelve years old to tend an Indian trading store on Soco creek, in the present Jackson county, owned by Felix Walker, son of the Congressman of the same name who made a national reputation by "talking for Buncombe." The store was on the south side of the creek, about a mile above the now abandoned Macedonia mission, within the present reservation, and was a branch of a larger establishment which Walker himself kept at Waynesville. The trade was chiefly in skins and ginseng, or "sang," the latter for shipment to China, where it was said to be worth its weight in silver. This trade was very profitable, as the price to the Indians was but ten cents per pound in merchandise for the green root, whereas it now brings seventy-five cents in cash upon the reservation, the supply steadily diminishing with every year. The contract was for three years' service for a total compensation of one hundred dollars and expenses, but Walker devoted so much of his attention to law studies that the Waynesville store was finally closed for debt, and at the end of his contract term young Thomas was obliged to accept a lot of second-hand law books in lieu of other payment. How well he made use of them is evident from his subsequent service in the state senate and in other official capacities. Soon after entering upon his duties he attracted the notice of Yonaguska, or Drowning-bear (Yâ'na-gûñ'ski, "Bear-drowning-him"), the acknowledged chief of all the Cherokee then living on the waters of Tuckasegee and Oconaluftee--the old Kituhwa country. On learning that the boy had neither father nor brother, the old chief formally adopted him as his son, and as such he was thenceforth recognized in the tribe under the name of Wil-Usdi', or "Little Will," he being of small stature even in mature age. From his Indian friends, particularly a boy of the same age who was his companion in the store, he learned the language as well as a white man has ever learned it, so that in his declining years it dwelt in memory more strongly than his mother tongue. After the invention of the Cherokee alphabet, he learned also to read and write the language. In 1819 the lands on Tuckasegee and its branches were sold by the Indians, and Thomas's mother soon after removed from Waynesville to a farm which she purchased on the west bank of Oconaluftee, opposite the mouth of Soco, where her son went to live with her, having now set up in business for himself at Qualla. Yonaguska and his immediate connection continued to reside on a small reservation in the same neighborhood, while the rest of the Cherokee retired to the west of the Nantahala mountains, though still visiting and trading on Soco. After several shiftings Thomas finally, soon after the removal in 1838, bought a farm on the northern bank of Tuckasegee, just above the present town of Whittier in Swain county, and built there a homestead which he called Stekoa, after an Indian town destroyed by Rutherford which had occupied the same site. At the time of the removal he was the proprietor of five trading stores in or adjoining the Cherokee country, viz, at Qualla town, near the mouth of Soco creek; on Scott's creek, near Webster; on Cheowa, near the present Robbinsville; at the junction of Valley river and Hiwassee, now Murphy; and at the Cherokee agency at Calhoun (now Charleston), Tennessee. Besides carrying on a successful trading business he was also studying law and taking an active interest in local politics. In his capacity as agent for the eastern Cherokee he laid off the lands purchased for them into five districts or "towns," which he named Bird town, Paint town, Wolf town, Yellow hill, and Big cove, the names which they still retain, the first three being those of Cherokee clans. [413] He also drew up for them a simple form of government, the execution of which was in his own and Yonaguska's hands until the death of the latter, after which the band knew no other chief than Thomas until his retirement from active life. In 1848 he was elected to the state senate and continued to serve in that capacity until the outbreak of the civil war. As state senator he inaugurated a system of road improvements for western North Carolina and was also the father of the Western North Carolina Railroad (now a part of the Southern system), originally projected to develop the copper mines of Ducktown, Tennessee. With his colleagues in the state senate he voted for secession in 1861, and at once resigned to recruit troops for the Confederacy, to which, until the close of the war, he gave his whole time, thought, and effort. In 1862 he organized the Thomas Legion, consisting of two regiments of infantry, a battalion of cavalry, a company of engineers, and a field battery, he himself commanding as colonel, although then nearly sixty years of age. Four companies were made up principally of his own Cherokee. The Thomas Legion operated chiefly as a frontier guard for the Confederacy along the mountain region southward from Cumberland gap. After the close of the conflict he returned to his home at Stekoa and again took charge, unofficially, of the affairs of the Cherokee, whom he attended during the smallpox epidemic of 1866 and assisted through the unsettled conditions of the reconstruction period. His own resources had been swept away by the war, and all his hopes had gone down with the lost cause. This, added to the effects of three years of hardship and anxiety in the field when already almost past the age limit, soon after brought about a physical and mental collapse, from which he never afterward rallied except at intervals, when for a short time the old spirit would flash out in all its brightness. He died in 1893 at the advanced age of nearly ninety, retaining to the last the courteous manner of a gentleman by nature and training, with an exact memory and the clear-cut statement of a lawyer and man of affairs. To his work in the state senate the people of western North Carolina owe more than to that of any other man, while among the older Cherokee the name of Wil-Usdi' is still revered as that of a father and a great chief. [414] Yonaguska, properly Yâ'nû-gûñ'ski, the adopted father of Thomas, is the most prominent chief in the history of the East Cherokee, although, singularly enough, his name does not occur in connection with any of the early wars or treaties. This is due partly to the fact that he was a peace chief and counselor rather than a war leader, and in part to the fact that the isolated position of the mountain Cherokee kept them aloof in a great measure from the tribal councils of those living to the west and south. In person he was strikingly handsome, being six feet three inches in height and strongly built, with a faint tinge of red, due to a slight strain of white blood on his father's side, relieving the brown of his cheek. In power of oratory he is said to have surpassed any other chief of his day. When the Cherokee lands on Tuckasegee were sold by the treaty of 1819, Yonaguska continued to reside on a reservation of 640 acres in a bend of the river a short distance above the present Bryson City, on the site of the ancient Kituhwa. He afterward moved over to Oconaluftee, and finally, after the Removal, gathered his people about him and settled with them on Soco creek on lands purchased for them by Thomas. He was a prophet and reformer as well as a chief. When about sixty years of age he had a severe sickness, terminating in a trance, during which his people mourned him as dead. At the end of twenty-four hours, however, he awoke to consciousness and announced that he had been to the spirit world, where he had talked with friends who had gone before, and with God, who had sent him back with a message to the Indians, promising to call him again at a later time. From that day until his death his words were listened to as those of one inspired. He had been somewhat addicted to liquor, but now, on the recommendation of Thomas, not only quit drinking himself, but organized his tribe into a temperance society. To accomplish this he called his people together in council, and, after clearly pointing out to them the serious effect of intemperance, in an eloquent speech that moved some of his audience to tears, he declared that God had permitted him to return to earth especially that he might thus warn his people and banish whisky from among them. He then had Thomas write out a pledge, which was signed first by the chief and then by each one of the council, and from that time until after his death whisky was unknown among the East Cherokee. Although frequent pressure was brought to bear to induce him and his people to remove to the West, he firmly resisted every persuasion, declaring that the Indians were safer from aggression among their rocks and mountains than they could ever be in a land which the white man could find profitable, and that the Cherokee could be happy only in the country where nature had planted him. While counseling peace and friendship with the white man, he held always to his Indian faith and was extremely suspicious of missionaries. On one occasion, after the first Bible translation into the Cherokee language and alphabet, some one brought a copy of Matthew from New Echota, but Yonaguska would not allow it to be read to his people until it had first been read to himself. After listening to one or two chapters the old chief dryly remarked: "Well, it seems to be a good book--strange that the white people are not better, after having had it so long." He died, aged about eighty, in April, 1839, within a year after the Removal. Shortly before the end he had himself carried into the townhouse on Soco, of which he had supervised the building, where, extended on a couch, he made a last talk to his people, commending Thomas to them as their chief and again warning them earnestly against ever leaving their own country. Then wrapping his blanket around him, he quietly lay back and died. He was buried beside Soco, about a mile below the old Macedonia mission, with a rude mound of stones to mark the spot. He left two wives and considerable property, including an old negro slave named Cudjo, who was devotedly attached to him. One of his daughters, Katâ'lsta, still survives, and is the last conservator of the potter's art among the East Cherokee. [415] Yonaguska had succeeded in authority to Yane'gwa, "Big-bear," who appears to have been of considerable local prominence in his time, but whose name, even with the oldest of the band, is now but a memory. He was among the signers of the treaties of 1798 and 1805, and by the treaty of 1819 was confirmed in a reservation of 640 acres as one of those living within the ceded territory who were "believed to be persons of industry and capable of managing their property with discretion," and who had made considerable improvements on the tracts reserved. This reservation, still known as the Big-bear farm, was on the western bank of Oconaluftee, a few miles above its mouth, and appears to have been the same afterward occupied by Yonaguska. [416] Another of the old notables among the East Cherokee was Tsunu'lahûñ'ski, corrupted by the whites to Junaluska, a great warrior, from whom the ridge west of Waynesville takes its name. In early life he was known as Gûl'`kala'ski. [417] On the outbreak of the Creek war in 1813 he raised a party of warriors to go down, as he boasted, "to exterminate the Creeks." Not meeting with complete success, he announced the result, according to the Cherokee custom, at the next dance after his return in a single word, detsinu'lahûñgû', "I tried, but could not," given out as a cue to the song leader, who at once took it as the burden of his song. Thenceforth the disappointed warrior was known as Tsunu'lahûñ'ski, "One who tries, but fails." He distinguished himself at the Horseshoe bend, where the action of the Cherokee decided the battle in favor of Jackson's army, and was often heard to say after the removal: "If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes, I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe." He accompanied the exiles of 1838, but afterward returned to his old home; he was allowed to remain, and in recognition of his services the state legislature, by special act, in 1847 conferred upon him the right of citizenship and granted to him a tract of land in fee simple, but without power of alienation. [418] This reservation was in the Cheowa Indian settlement, near the present Robbinsville, in Graham county, where he died about the year 1858. His grave is still to be seen just outside of Robbinsville. As illustrative of his shrewdness it is told that he once tracked a little Indian girl to Charleston, South Carolina, where she had been carried by kidnappers and sold as a slave, and regained her freedom by proving, from expert microscopic examination, that her hair had none of the negro characteristics. [419] Christianity was introduced among the Kituhwa Cherokee shortly before the Removal through Worcester and Boudinot's translation of Matthew, first published at New Echota in 1829. In the absence of missionaries the book was read by the Indians from house to house. After the Removal a Methodist minister, Reverend Ulrich Keener, began to make visits for preaching at irregular intervals, and was followed several years later by Baptist workers. [420] In the fall of 1839 the Commissioner of Indian Affairs reported that the East Cherokee had recently expressed a desire to join their brethren in the West, but had been deterred from so doing by the unsettled condition of affairs in the Territory. He states that "they have a right to remain or to go," but that as the interests of others are involved in their decision they should decide without delay. [421] In 1840 about one hundred Catawba, nearly all that were left of the tribe, being dissatisfied with their condition in South Carolina, moved up in a body and took up their residence with the Cherokee. Latent tribal jealousies broke out, however, and at their own request negotiations were begun in 1848, through Thomas and others, for their removal to Indian Territory. The effort being without result, they soon after began to drift back to their own homes, until, in 1852, there were only about a dozen remaining among the Cherokee. In 1890 only one was left, an old woman, the widow of a Cherokee husband. She and her daughter, both of whom spoke the language, were expert potters according to the Catawba method, which differs markedly from that of the Cherokee. There are now two Catawba women, both married to Cherokee husbands, living with the tribe, and practicing their native potter's art. While residing among the Cherokee, the Catawba acquired a reputation as doctors and leaders of the dance. [422] On August 6, 1846, a treaty was concluded at Washington with the representatives of the Cherokee Nation west by which the rights of the East Cherokee to a participation in the benefits of the New Echota treaty of 1835 were distinctly recognized, and provision was made for a final adjustment of all unpaid and pending claims due under that treaty. The right claimed by the East Cherokee to participate in the benefits of the New Echota treaty, although not denied by the government, had been held to be conditional upon their removal to the West. [423] In the spring of 1848 the author, Lanman, visited the East Cherokee and has left an interesting account of their condition at the time, together with a description of their ballplays, dances, and customs generally, having been the guest of Colonel Thomas, of whom he speaks as the guide, counselor, and friend of the Indians, as well as their business agent and chief, so that the connection was like that existing between a father and his children. He puts the number of Indians at about 800 Cherokee and 100 Catawba on the "Qualla town" reservation--the name being in use thus early--with 200 more Indians residing in the more westerly portion of the state. Of their general condition he says: About three-fourths of the entire population can read in their own language, and, though the majority of them understand English, a very few can speak the language. They practice, to a considerable extent, the science of agriculture, and have acquired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their own clothing, their own ploughs, and other farming utensils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their women are no longer treated as slaves, but as equals; the men labor in the fields and their wives are devoted entirely to household employments. They keep the same domestic animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and cultivate all the common grains of the country. They are probably as temperate as any other class of people on the face of the earth, honest in their business intercourse, moral in their thoughts, words, and deeds, and distinguished for their faithfulness in performing the duties of religion. They are chiefly Methodists and Baptists, and have regularly ordained ministers, who preach to them on every Sabbath, and they have also abandoned many of their mere senseless superstitions. They have their own court and try their criminals by a regular jury. Their judges and lawyers are chosen from among themselves. They keep in order the public roads leading through their settlement. By a law of the state they have a right to vote, but seldom exercise that right, as they do not like the idea of being identified with any of the political parties. Excepting on festive days, they dress after the manner of the white man, but far more picturesquely. They live in small log houses of their own construction, and have everything they need or desire in the way of food. They are, in fact, the happiest community that I have yet met with in this southern country. [424] Among the other notables Lanman speaks thus of Salâ'li, "Squirrel," a born mechanic of the band, who died only a few years since: He is quite a young man and has a remarkably thoughtful face. He is the blacksmith of his nation, and with some assistance supplies the whole of Qualla town with all their axes and plows; but what is more, he has manufactured a number of very superior rifles and pistols, including stock, barrel, and lock, and he is also the builder of grist mills, which grind all the corn which his people eat. A specimen of his workmanship in the way of a rifle may be seen at the Patent Office in Washington, where it was deposited by Mr. Thomas; and I believe Salola is the first Indian who ever manufactured an entire gun. But when it is remembered that he never received a particle of education in any of the mechanic arts but is entirely self-taught, his attainments must be considered truly remarkable. [425] On July 29, 1848, Congress approved an act for taking a census of all those Cherokee who had remained in North Carolina after the Removal, and who still resided east of the Mississippi, in order that their share of the "removal and subsistence fund" under the New Echota treaty might be set aside for them. A sum equivalent to $53.33-1/3 was at the same time appropriated for each one, or his representative, to be available for defraying the expenses of his removal to the Cherokee Nation west and subsistence there for one year whenever he should elect so to remove. Any surplus over such expense was to be paid to him in cash after his arrival in the west. The whole amount thus expended was to be reimbursed to the Government from the general fund to the credit of the Cherokee Nation under the terms of the treaty of New Echota. In the meantime it was ordered that to each individual thus entitled should be paid the accrued interest on this per capita sum from the date of the ratification of the New Echota treaty (May 23, 1836), payment of interest at the same rate to continue annually thereafter. [426] In accordance with this act a census of the Cherokee then residing in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia, was completed in the fall of 1848 by J. C. Mullay, making the whole number 2,133. On the basis of this enrollment several payments were made to them by special agents within the next ten years, one being a per-capita payment by Alfred Chapman in 1851-52 of unpaid claims arising under the treaty of New Echota and amounting in the aggregate to $197,534.50, the others being payments of the annual interest upon the "removal and subsistence fund" set apart to their credit in 1848. In the accomplishment of these payments two other enrollments were made by D. W. Siler in 1851 and by Chapman in 1852, the last being simply a corrected revision of the Siler roll, and neither varying greatly from the Mullay roll. [427] Upon the appointment of Chapman to make the per capita payment above mentioned, the Cherokee Nation west had filed a protest against the payment, upon the double ground that the East Cherokee had forfeited their right to participation, and furthermore that their census was believed to be enormously exaggerated. As a matter of fact the number first reported by Mullay was only 1,517, to which so many were subsequently added as to increase the number by more than 600. [428] A census taken by their agent, Colonel Thomas, in 1841, gave the number of East Cherokee (possibly only those in North Carolina intended) as 1,220, [429] while a year later the whole number residing in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia was officially estimated at from 1,000 to 1,200. [430] It is not the only time a per capita payment has resulted in a sudden increase of the census population. In 1852 (Capt.) James W. Terrell was engaged by Thomas, then in the state senate, to take charge of his store at Qualla, and remained associated with him and in close contact with the Indians from then until after the close of the war, assisting, as special United States agent, in the disbursement of the interest payments, and afterward as a Confederate officer in the organization of the Indian companies, holding a commission as captain of Company A, Sixty-ninth North Carolina Confederate infantry. Being of an investigating bent, Captain Terrell was led to give attention to the customs and mythology of the Cherokee, and to accumulate a fund of information on the subject seldom possessed by a white man. He still resides at Webster, a few miles from the reservation, and is now seventy-one years of age. In 1855 Congress directed the per capita payment to the East Cherokee of the removal fund established for them in 1848, provided that North Carolina should first give assurance that they would be allowed to remain permanently in that state. This assurance, however, was not given until 1866, and the money was therefore not distributed, but remained in the treasury until 1875, when it was made applicable to the purchase of lands and the quieting of titles for the benefit of the Indians. [431] From 1855 until after the civil war we find no official notice of the East Cherokee, and our information must be obtained from other sources. It was, however, a most momentous period in their history. At the outbreak of the war Thomas was serving his seventh consecutive term in the state senate. Being an ardent Confederate sympathizer, he was elected a delegate to the convention which passed the secession ordinance, and immediately after voting in favor of that measure resigned from the senate in order to work for the southern cause. As he was already well advanced in years it is doubtful if his effort would have gone beyond the raising of funds and other supplies but for the fact that at this juncture an effort was made by the Confederate General Kirby Smith to enlist the East Cherokee for active service. The agent sent for this purpose was Washington Morgan, known to the Indians as Â'ganstâ'ta, son of that Colonel Gideon Morgan who had commanded the Cherokee at the Horseshoe bend. By virtue of his Indian blood and historic ancestry he was deemed the most fitting emissary for the purpose. Early in 1862 he arrived among the Cherokee, and by appealing to old-time memories so aroused the war spirit among them that a large number declared themselves ready to follow wherever he led. Conceiving the question at issue in the war to be one that did not concern the Indians, Thomas had discouraged their participation in it and advised them to remain at home in quiet neutrality. Now, however, knowing Morgan's reputation for reckless daring, he became alarmed at the possible result to them of such leadership. Forced either to see them go from his own protection or to lead them himself, he chose the latter alternative and proposed to them to enlist in the Confederate legion which he was about to organize. His object, as he himself has stated, was to keep them out of danger so far as possible by utilizing them as scouts and home guards through the mountains, away from the path of the large armies. Nothing of this was said to the Indians, who might not have been satisfied with such an arrangement. Morgan went back alone and the Cherokee enrolled under the command of their white chief. [432] The "Thomas Legion," recruited in 1862 by William H. Thomas for the Confederate service and commanded by him as colonel, consisted originally of one infantry regiment of ten companies (Sixty-ninth North Carolina Infantry), one infantry battalion of six companies, one cavalry battalion of eight companies (First North Carolina Cavalry Battalion), one field battery (Light Battery) of 103 officers and men, and one company of engineers; in all about 2,800 men. The infantry battalion was recruited toward the close of the war to a full regiment of ten companies. Companies A and B of the Sixty-ninth regiment and two other companies of the infantry regiment recruited later were composed almost entirely of East Cherokee Indians, most of the commissioned officers being white men. The whole number of Cherokee thus enlisted was nearly four hundred, or about every able-bodied man in the tribe. [433] In accordance with Thomas's plan the Indians were employed chiefly as scouts and home guards in the mountain region along the Tennessee-Carolina border, where, according to the testimony of Colonel Stringfield, "they did good work and service for the South." The most important engagement in which they were concerned occurred at Baptist gap, Tennessee, September 15, 1862, where Lieutenant Astu'gatâ'ga, "a splendid specimen of Indian manhood," was killed in a charge. The Indians were furious at his death, and before they could be restrained they scalped one or two of the Federal dead. For this action ample apologies were afterward given by their superior officers. The war, in fact, brought out all the latent Indian in their nature. Before starting to the front every man consulted an oracle stone to learn whether or not he might hope to return in safety. The start was celebrated with a grand old-time war dance at the townhouse on Soco, and the same dance was repeated at frequent intervals thereafter, the Indians being "painted and feathered in good old style," Thomas himself frequently assisting as master of ceremonies. The ballplay, too, was not forgotten, and on one occasion a detachment of Cherokee, left to guard a bridge, became so engrossed in the excitement of the game as to narrowly escape capture by a sudden dash of the Federals. Owing to Thomas's care for their welfare, they suffered but slightly in actual battle, although a number died of hardship and disease. When the Confederates evacuated eastern Tennessee, in the winter of 1863-64, some of the white troops of the legion, with one or two of the Cherokee companies, were shifted to western Virginia, and by assignment to other regiments a few of the Cherokee were present at the final siege and surrender of Richmond. The main body of the Indians, with the rest of the Thomas Legion, crossed over into North Carolina and did service protecting the western border until the close of the war, when they surrendered on parole at Waynesville, North Carolina, in May, 1865, all those of the command being allowed to keep their guns. It is claimed by their officers that they were the last of the Confederate forces to surrender. About fifty of the Cherokee veterans still survive, nearly half of whom, under conduct of Colonel Stringfield, attended the Confederate reunion at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1900, where they attracted much attention. [434] In 1863, by resolution of February 12, the Confederate House of Representatives called for information as to the number and condition of the East Cherokee, and their pending relations with the Federal government at the beginning of the war, with a view to continuing these relations under Confederate auspices. In response to this inquiry a report was submitted by the Confederate commissioner of Indian affairs, S. S. Scott, based on information furnished by Colonel Thomas and Captain James W. Terrell, their former disbursing agent, showing that interest upon the "removal and subsistence fund" established in 1848 had been paid annually up to and including the year 1859, at the rate of $3.20 per capita, or an aggregate, exclusive of disbursing agent's commission, of $4,838.40 annually, based upon the original Mullay enumeration of 1,517. Upon receipt of this report it was enacted by the Confederate congress that the sum of $19,352.36 be paid the East Cherokee to cover the interest period of four years from May 23, 1860, to May 23, 1864. In this connection the Confederate commissioner suggested that the payment be made in provisions, of which the Indians were then greatly in need, and which, if the payment were made in cash, they would be unable to purchase, on account of the general scarcity. He adds that, according to his information, almost every Cherokee capable of bearing arms was then in the Confederate service. The roll furnished by Captain Terrell is the original Mullay roll corrected to May, 1860, no reference being made to the later Mullay enumeration (2,133), already alluded to. There is no record to show that the payment thus authorized was made, and as the Confederate government was then in hard straits it is probable that nothing further was done in the matter. In submitting his statement of previous payments, Colonel Thomas, their former agent, adds: As the North Carolina Cherokees have, like their brethren west, taken up arms against the Lincoln government, it is not probable that any further advances of interest will be made by that government to any portion of the Cherokee tribe. I also enclose a copy of the act of July 29, 1848, so far as relates to the North Carolina Cherokees, and a printed explanation of their rights, prepared by me in 1851, and submitted to the attorney-general, and his opinion thereon, which may not be altogether uninteresting to those who feel an interest in knowing something of the history of the Cherokee tribe of Indians, whose destiny is so closely identified with that of the Southern Confederacy. [435] In a skirmish near Bryson City (then Charleston), Swain county, North Carolina, about a year after enlistment, a small party of Cherokee--perhaps a dozen in number--was captured by a detachment of Union troops and carried to Knoxville, where, having become dissatisfied with their experience in the Confederate service, they were easily persuaded to go over to the Union side. Through the influence of their principal man, Digane'ski, several others were induced to desert to the Union army, making about thirty in all. As a part of the Third North Carolina Mounted Volunteer Infantry, they served with the Union forces in the same region until the close of the war, when they returned to their homes to find their tribesmen so bitterly incensed against them that for some time their lives were in danger. Eight of these are still alive in 1900. [436] One of these Union Cherokee had brought back with him the smallpox from an infected camp near Knoxville. Shortly after his return he became sick and soon died. As the characteristic pustules had not appeared, the disease seeming to work inwardly, the nature of his sickness was not at first suspected--smallpox having been an unknown disease among the Cherokee for nearly a century--and his funeral was largely attended. A week later a number of those who had been present became sick, and the disease was recognized by Colonel Thomas as smallpox in all its virulence. It spread throughout the tribe, this being in the early spring of 1866, and in spite of all the efforts of Thomas, who brought a doctor from Tennessee to wait upon them, more than one hundred of the small community died in consequence. The fatal result was largely due to the ignorance of the Indians, who, finding their own remedies of no avail, used the heroic aboriginal treatment of the plunge bath in the river and the cold-water douche, which resulted in death in almost every case. Thus did the war bring its harvest of death, misery, and civil feud to the East Cherokee. [437] Shortly after this event Colonel Thomas was compelled by physical and mental infirmity to retire from further active participation in the affairs of the East Cherokee, after more than half a century spent in intimate connection with them, during the greater portion of which time he had been their most trusted friend and adviser. Their affairs at once became the prey of confusion and factional strife, which continued until the United States stepped in as arbiter. In 1868 Congress ordered another census of the East Cherokee, to serve as a guide in future payments, the roll to include only those persons whose names had appeared upon the Mullay roll of 1848 and their legal heirs and representatives. The work was completed in the following year by S. H. Sweatland, and a payment of interest then due under former enactment was made by him on this basis. [438] "In accordance with their earnestly expressed desire to be brought under the immediate charge of the government as its wards," the Congress which ordered this last census directed that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs should assume the same charge over the East Cherokee as over other tribes, but as no extra funds were made available for the purpose the matter was held in abeyance. [439] An unratified treaty made this year with the Cherokee Nation west contained a stipulation that any Cherokee east of the Mississippi who should remove to the Cherokee nation within three years should be entitled to full citizenship and privileges therein, but after that date could be admitted only by act of the Cherokee national council. [440] After the retirement of Thomas, in the absence of any active governmental supervision, need was felt of some central authority. On December 9, 1868, a general council of the East Cherokee assembled at Cheowa, in Graham county, North Carolina, took preliminary steps toward the adoption of a regular form of tribal government under a constitution. N. J. Smith, afterward principal chief, was clerk of the council. The new government was formally inaugurated on December 1, 1870. It provided for a first and a second chief to serve for a term of two years, minor officers to serve one year, and an annual council representing each Cherokee settlement within the state of North Carolina. Kâ'lahû', "All-bones," commonly known to the whites as Flying-squirrel or Sawnook (Sawanu'gi), was elected chief. A new constitution was adopted five years later, by which the chief's term of office was fixed at four years. [441] The status of the lands held by the Indians had now become a matter of serious concern, As has been stated, the deeds had been made out by Thomas in his own name, as the state laws at that time forbade Indian ownership of real estate. In consequence of his losses during the war and his subsequent disability, the Thomas properties, of which the Cherokee lands were technically a part, had become involved, so that the entire estate had passed into the hands of creditors, the most important of whom, William Johnston, had obtained sheriff's deeds in 1869 for all of these Indian lands under three several judgments against Thomas, aggregating $33,887.11. To adjust the matter so as to secure title and possession to the Indians, Congress in 1870 authorized suit to be brought in their name for the recovery of their interest. This suit was begun in May, 1873, in the United States circuit court for western North Carolina. A year later the matters in dispute were submitted by agreement to a board of arbitrators, whose award was confirmed by the court in November, 1874. The award finds that Thomas had purchased with Indian funds a tract estimated to contain 50,000 acres on Oconaluftee river and Soco creek, and known as the Qualla boundary, together with a number of individual tracts outside the boundary; that the Indians were still indebted to Thomas toward the purchase of the Qualla boundary lands for the sum of $18,250, from which should be deducted $6,500 paid by them to Johnston to release titles, with interest to date of award, making an aggregate of $8,486, together with a further sum of $2,478, which had been intrusted to Terrell, the business clerk and assistant of Thomas, and by him turned over to Thomas, as creditor of the Indians, under power of attorney, this latter sum, with interest to date of award, aggregating $2,697.89; thus leaving a balance due from the Indians to Thomas or his legal creditor, Johnston, of $7,066.11. The award declares that on account of the questionable manner in which the disputed lands had been bought in by Johnston, he should be allowed to hold them only as security for the balance due him until paid, and that on the payment of the said balance of $7,066.11, with interest at 6 per cent from the date of the award, the Indians should be entitled to a clear conveyance from him of the legal title to all the lands embraced within the Qualla boundary. [442] To enable the Indians to clear off this lien on their lands and for other purposes, Congress in 1875 directed that as much as remained of the "removal and subsistence fund" set apart for their benefit in 1848 should be used "in perfecting the titles to the lands awarded to them, and to pay the costs, expenses, and liabilities attending their recent litigations, also to purchase and extinguish the titles of any white persons to lands within the general boundaries allotted to them by the court, and for the education, improvement, and civilization of their people." In accordance with this authority the unpaid balance and interest due Johnston, amounting to $7,242.76, was paid him in the same year, and shortly afterward there was purchased on behalf of the Indians some fifteen thousand acres additional, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs being constituted trustee for the Indians. For the better protection of the Indians the lands were made inalienable except by assent of the council and upon approval of the President of the United States. The deeds for the Qualla boundary and the 15,000 acre purchase were executed respectively on October 9, 1876, and August 14, 1880. [443] As the boundaries of the different purchases were but vaguely defined, a new survey of the whole Qualla boundary and adjoining tracts was authorized. The work was intrusted to M. S. Temple, deputy United States surveyor, who completed it in 1876, his survey maps of the reservation being accepted as the official standard. [444] The titles and boundaries having been adjusted, the Indian Office assumed regular supervision of East Cherokee affairs, and in June, 1875, the first agent since the retirement of Thomas was sent out in the person of W. C. McCarthy. He found the Indians, according to his report, destitute and discouraged, almost without stock or farming tools. There were no schools, and very few full-bloods could speak English, although to their credit nearly all could read and write their own language, the parents teaching the children. Under his authority a distribution was made of stock animals, seed wheat, and farming tools, and several schools were started. In the next year, however, the agency was discontinued and the educational interests of the band turned over to the state school superintendent. [445] In the meantime Kâ'lahû' had been succeeded as chief by Lloyd R. Welch (Da'si`giya'gi), an educated mixed-blood of Cheowa, who served about five years, dying shortly after his reelection to a second term (48). He made a good record by his work in reconciling the various factions which had sprung up after the withdrawal of the guiding influence of Thomas, and in defeating the intrigues of fraudulent white claimants and mischief makers. Shortly before his death the Government, through Special Agent John A. Sibbald, recognized his authority as principal chief, together with the constitution which had been adopted by the band under his auspices in 1875. N. J. Smith (Tsa'ladihi'), who had previously served as clerk of the council, was elected to his unexpired term and continued to serve until the fall of 1890. [446] We find no further official notice of the East Cherokee until 1881, when Commissioner Price reported that they were still without agent or superintendent, and that so far as the Indian Office was concerned their affairs were in an anomalous and unsatisfactory condition, while factional feuds were adding to the difficulties and retarding the progress of the band. In the spring of that year a visiting delegation from the Cherokee Nation west had extended to them an urgent invitation to remove to Indian Territory and the Indian Office had encouraged the project, with the result that 161 persons of the band removed during the year to Indian Territory, the expense being borne by the Government. Others were represented as being desirous to remove, and the Commissioner recommended an appropriation for the purpose, but as Congress failed to act the matter was dropped. [447] The neglected condition of the East Cherokee having been brought to the attention of those old-time friends of the Indian, the Quakers, through an appeal made in their behalf by members of that society residing in North Carolina, the Western Yearly Meeting, of Indiana, volunteered to undertake the work of civilization and education. On May 31, 1881, representatives of the Friends entered into a contract with the Indians, subject to approval by the Government, to establish and continue among them for ten years an industrial school and other common schools, to be supported in part from the annual interest of the trust fund held by the Government to the credit of the East Cherokee and in part by funds furnished by the Friends themselves. Through the efforts of Barnabas C. Hobbs, of the Western Yearly Meeting, a yearly contract to the same effect was entered into with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs later in the same year, and was renewed by successive commissioners to cover the period of ten years ending June 30, 1892, when the contract system was terminated and the Government assumed direct control. Under the joint arrangement, with some aid at the outset from the North Carolina Meeting, work was begun in 1881 by Thomas Brown with several teachers sent out by the Indiana Friends, who established a small training school at the agency headquarters at Cherokee, and several day schools in the outlying settlements. He was succeeded three years later by H. W. Spray, an experienced educator, who, with a corps of efficient assistants and greatly enlarged facilities, continued to do good work for the elevation of the Indians until the close of the contract system eight years later. [448] After an interregnum, during which the schools suffered from frequent changes, he was reappointed as government agent and superintendent in 1898, a position which he still holds in 1901. To the work conducted under his auspices the East Cherokee owe much of what they have to-day of civilization and enlightenment. From some travelers who visited the reservation about this time we have a pleasant account of a trip along Soco and a day with Chief Smith at Yellow Hill. They describe the Indians as being so nearly like the whites in their manner of living that a stranger could rarely distinguish an Indian's cabin or little cove farm from that of a white man. Their principal crop was corn, which they ground for themselves, and they had also an abundance of apples, peaches, and plums, and a few small herds of ponies and cattle. Their wants were so few that they had but little use for money. Their primitive costume had long been obsolete, and their dress was like that of the whites, excepting that moccasins took the place of shoes, and they manufactured their own clothing by the aid of spinning-wheels and looms. Finely cut pipes and well-made baskets were also produced, and the good influence of the schools recently established was already manifest in the children. [449] In 1882 the agency was reestablished and provision was made for taking a new census of all Cherokee east of the Mississippi, Joseph G. Hester being appointed to the work. [450] The census was submitted as complete in June, 1884, and contained the names of 1,881 persons in North Carolina, 758 in Georgia, 213 in Tennessee, 71 in Alabama, and 33 scattering, a total of 2,956. [451] Although this census received the approval and certificate of the East Cherokee council, a large portion of the band still refuse to recognize it as authoritative, claiming that a large number of persons therein enrolled have no Cherokee blood. The East Cherokee had never ceased to contend for a participation in the rights and privileges accruing to the western Nation under treaties with the Government. In 1882 a special agent had been appointed to investigate their claims, and in the following year, under authority of Congress, the eastern band of Cherokee brought suit in the Court of Claims against the United States and the Cherokee Nation west to determine its rights in the permanent annuity fund and other trust funds held by the United States for the Cherokee Indians. [452] The case was decided adversely to the eastern band, first by the Court of Claims in 1885, [453] and finally, on appeal, by the Supreme Court on March 1, 1886, that court holding in its decision that the Cherokee in North Carolina had dissolved their connection with the Cherokee Nation and ceased to be a part of it when they refused to accompany the main body at the Removal, and that if Indians in North Carolina or in any state east of the Mississippi wished to enjoy the benefits of the common property of the Cherokee Nation in any form whatever they must be readmitted to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation and comply with its constitution and laws. In accordance with this decision the agent in the Indian territory was instructed to issue no more residence permits to claimants for Cherokee citizenship, and it was officially announced that all persons thereafter entering that country without consent of the Cherokee authorities would be treated as intruders. [454] This decision, cutting off the East Cherokee from all hope of sharing in any of the treaty benefits enjoyed by their western kinsmen, was a sore disappointment to them all, especially to Chief Smith, who had worked unceasingly in their behalf from the institution of the proceedings. In view of the result, Commissioner Atkins strongly recommended, as the best method of settling them in permanent homes, secure from white intrusion and from anxiety on account of their uncertain tenure and legal status in North Carolina, that negotiations be opened through government channels for their readmission to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, to be followed, if successful, by the sale of their lands in North Carolina and their removal to Indian Territory. [455] In order to acquire a more definite legal status, the Cherokee residing in North Carolina--being practically all those of the eastern band having genuine Indian interests--became a corporate body under the laws of the state in 1889. The act, ratified on March 11, declares in its first section "That the North Carolina or Eastern Cherokee Indians, resident or domiciled in the counties of Jackson, Swain, Graham, and Cherokee, be and at the same time are hereby created and constituted a body politic and corporate under the name, style, and title of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, with all the rights, franchises, privileges and powers incident and belonging to corporations under the laws of the state of North Carolina. [456] On August 2, 1893, ex-Chief Smith died at Cherokee, in the fifty-seventh year of his life, more than twenty of which had been given to the service of his people. Nimrod Jarrett Smith, known to the Cherokee as Tsa'ladihi', was the son of a half breed father by an Indian mother, and was born near the present Murphy, Cherokee county, North Carolina, on January 3, 1837. His earliest recollections were thus of the miseries that attended the flight of the refugees to the mountains during the Removal period. His mother spoke very little English, but his father was a man of considerable intelligence, having acted as interpreter and translator for Reverend Evan Jones at the old Valleytown mission. As the boy grew to manhood he acquired a fair education, which, aided by a commanding presence, made him a person of influence among his fellows. At twenty-five years of age he enlisted in the Thomas Legion as first sergeant of Company B, Sixty-ninth North Carolina (Confederate) Infantry, and served in that capacity till the close of the war. He was clerk of the council that drafted the first East Cherokee constitution in 1868, and on the death of Principal Chief Lloyd Welch in 1880 was elected to fill the unexpired term, continuing in office by successive reelections until the close of 1891, a period of about twelve years, the longest term yet filled by an incumbent. As principal chief he signed the contract under which the school work was inaugurated in 1881. For several years thereafter his duties, particularly in connection with the suit against the western Cherokee, required his presence much of the time at Washington, while at home his time was almost as constantly occupied in attending to the wants of a dependent people. Although he was entitled under the constitution of the band to a salary of five hundred dollars per year, no part of this salary was ever paid, because of the limited resources of his people, and only partial reimbursement was made to him, shortly before his death, for expenses incurred in official visits to Washington. With frequent opportunities to enrich himself at the expense of his people, he maintained his honor and died a poor man. In person Chief Smith was a splendid specimen of physical manhood, being six feet four inches in height and built in proportion, erect in figure, with flowing black hair curling down over his shoulders, a deep musical voice, and a kindly spirit and natural dignity that never failed to impress the stranger. His widow--a white woman--and several children survive him. [457] In 1894 the long-standing litigation between the East Cherokee and a number of creditors and claimants to Indian lands within and adjoining the Qualla boundary was finally settled by a compromise by which the several white tenants and claimants within the boundary agreed to execute a quitclaim and vacate on payment to them by the Indians of sums aggregating $24,552, while for another disputed adjoining tract of 33,000 acres the United States agreed to pay, for the Indians, at the rate of $1.25 per acre. The necessary Government approval having been obtained, Congress appropriated a sufficient amount for carrying into effect the agreement, thus at last completing a perfect and unincumbered title to all the lands claimed by the Indians, with the exception of a few outlying tracts of comparative unimportance. [458] In 1895 the Cherokee residing in North Carolina upon the reservation and in the outlying settlements were officially reported to number 1,479. [459] A year later an epidemic of grippe spread through the band, with the result that the census of 1897 shows but 1,312, [460] among those who died at this time being Big-witch (Tskil-e'gwa), the oldest man of the band, who distinctly remembered the Creek war, and Wadi'yahi, the last old woman who preserved the art of making double-walled baskets. In the next year the population had recovered to 1,351. The description of the mode of living then common to most of the Indians will apply nearly as well to-day: While they are industrious, these people are not progressive farmers and have learned nothing of modern methods. The same crops are raised continuously until the soil will yield no more or is washed away, when new ground is cleared or broken. The value of rotation and fertilizing has not yet been discovered or taught.... That these people can live at all upon the products of their small farms is due to the extreme simplicity of their food, dress, and manner of living. The typical house is of logs, is about fourteen by sixteen feet, of one room, just high enough for the occupants to stand erect, with perhaps a small loft for the storage of extras. The roof is of split shingles or shakes. There is no window, the open door furnishing what light is required. At one end of the house is the fireplace, with outside chimney of stones or sticks chinked with clay. The furniture is simple and cheap. An iron pot, a bake kettle, a coffeepot and mill, small table, and a few cups, knives, and spoons are all that is needed. These, with one or two bedsteads, homemade, a few pillows and quilts, with feather mattresses for winter covering, as well as for the usual purpose, constitute the principal house possessions. For outdoor work there is an ax, hoe, and shovel plow. A wagon or cart may be owned, but is not essential. The outfit is inexpensive and answers every purpose. The usual food is bean bread, with coffee. In the fall chestnut bread is also used. Beef is seldom eaten, but pork is highly esteemed, and a considerable number of hogs are kept, running wild and untended in summer. [461] By the most recent official count, in 1900, the East Cherokee residing in North Carolina under direct charge of the agent and included within the act of incorporation number 1,376, of whom about 1,100 are on the reservation, the rest living farther to the west, on Nantahala, Cheowa, and Hiwassee rivers. This does not include mixed-bloods in adjoining states and some hundreds of unrecognized claimants. Those enumerated own approximately 100,000 acres of land, of which 83,000 are included within the Qualla reservation and a contiguous tract in Jackson and Swain counties. They receive no rations or annuities and are entirely self-supporting, the annual interest on their trust fund established in 1848, which has dwindled to about $23,000, being applied to the payment of taxes upon their unoccupied common lands. From time to time they have made leases of timber, gold-washing, and grazing privileges, but without any great profit to themselves. By special appropriation the government supports an industrial training school at Cherokee, the agency headquarters, in which 170 pupils are now being boarded, clothed, and educated in the practical duties of life. This school, which in its workings is a model of its kind, owes much of its usefulness and high standing to the efficient management of Prof. H. W. Spray (Wilsini'), already mentioned, who combines the duties of superintendent and agent for the band. His chief clerk, Mr James Blythe (Diskwa'`ni, "Chestnut-bread"), a Cherokee by blood, at one time filled the position of agent, being perhaps the only Indian who has ever served in such capacity. The exact legal status of the East Cherokee is still a matter of dispute, they being at once wards of the government, citizens of the United States, and (in North Carolina) a corporate body under state laws. They pay real estate taxes and road service, exercise the voting privilege, [462] and are amenable to the local courts, but do not pay poll tax or receive any pauper assistance from the counties; neither can they make free contracts or alienate their lands (49). Under their tribal constitution they are governed by a principal and an assistant chief, elected for a term of four years, with an executive council appointed by the chief, and sixteen councilors elected by the various settlements for a term of two years. The annual council is held in October at Cherokee, on the reservation, the proceedings being in the Cherokee language and recorded by their clerk in the Cherokee alphabet, as well as in English. The present chief is Jesse Reid (Tse'si-Ska'tsi, "Scotch Jesse"), an intelligent mixed-blood, who fills the office with dignity and ability. As a people they are peaceable and law-abiding, kind and hospitable, providing for their simple wants by their own industry without asking or expecting outside assistance. Their fields, orchards, and fish traps, with some few domestic animals and occasional hunting, supply them with food, while by the sale of ginseng and other medicinal plants gathered in the mountains, with fruit and honey of their own raising, they procure what additional supplies they need from the traders. The majority are fairly comfortable, far above the condition of most Indian tribes, and but little, if any, behind their white neighbors. In literary ability they may even be said to surpass them, as in addition to the result of nearly twenty years of school work among the younger people, nearly all the men and some of the women can read and write their own language. All wear civilized costumes, though an occasional pair of moccasins is seen, while the women find means to gratify the racial love of color in the wearing of red bandanna kerchiefs in place of bonnets. The older people still cling to their ancient rites and sacred traditions, but the dance and the ballplay wither and the Indian day is nearly spent. III--NOTES TO THE HISTORICAL SKETCH (1) Tribal synonymy (page 15): Very few Indian tribes are known to us under the names by which they call themselves. One reason for this is the fact that the whites have usually heard of a tribe from its neighbors, speaking other languages, before coming upon the tribe itself. Many of the popular tribal names were originally nicknames bestowed by neighboring tribes, frequently referring to some peculiar custom, and in a large number of cases would be strongly repudiated by the people designated by them. As a rule each tribe had a different name in every surrounding Indian language, besides those given by Spanish, French, Dutch, or English settlers. Yûñ'wiya'--This word is compounded from yûñwi (person) and ya (real or principal). The assumption of superiority is much in evidence in Indian tribal names; thus, the Iroquois, Delawares, and Pawnee call themselves, respectively, Oñwe-hoñwe, Leni-lenape', and Tsariksi-tsa'riks, all of which may be rendered "men of men," "men surpassing other men," or "real men." Kitu'hwagi--This word, which can not be analyzed, is derived from Kitu'hwa, the name of an ancient Cherokee settlement formerly on Tuckasegee river, just above the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. It is noted in 1730 as one of the "seven mother towns" of the tribe. Its inhabitants were called Ani'-Kitu'hwagi (people of Kituhwa), and seem to have exercised a controlling influence over those of all the towns on the waters of Tuckasegee and the upper part of Little Tennessee, the whole body being frequently classed together as Ani'-Kitu'hwagi. The dialect of these towns held a middle place linguistically between those spoken to the east, on the heads of Savannah, and to the west, on Hiwassee, Cheowah, and the lower course of Little Tennessee. In various forms the word was adopted by the Delawares, Shawano, and other northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee, probably from the fact that the Kituhwa people guarded the Cherokee northern frontier. In the form Cuttawa it appears on the French map of Vaugondy in 1755. From a similarity of spelling, Schoolcraft incorrectly makes it a synonym for Catawba, while Brinton incorrectly asserts that it is an Algonquian term, fancifully rendered, "inhabitants of the great wilderness." Among the western Cherokee it is now the name of a powerful secret society, which had its origin shortly before the War of the Rebellion. Cherokee--This name occurs in fully fifty different spellings. In the standard recognized form, which dates back at least to 1708, it has given name to counties in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, within the ancient territory of the tribe, and to as many as twenty other geographic locations within the United States. In the Eastern or Lower dialect, with which the English settlers first became familiar, the form is Tsa'ragi', whence we get Cherokee. In the other dialects the form is Tsa'lagi'. It is evidently foreign to the tribe, as is frequently the case in tribal names, and in all probability is of Choctaw origin, having come up from the south through the medium of the Mobilian trade jargon. It will be noted that De Soto, whose chroniclers first use the word, in the form Chalaque, obtained his interpreters from the Gulf coast of Florida. Fontanedo, writing about the year 1575, mentions other inland tribes known to the natives of Florida under names which seem to be of Choctaw origin; for instance, the Canogacole, interpreted "wicked people," the final part being apparently the Choctaw word okla or ogula, "people", which appears also in Pascagoula, Bayou Goula, and Pensacola. Shetimasha, Atakapa, and probably Biloxi, are also Choctaw names, although the tribes themselves are of other origins. As the Choctaw held much of the Gulf coast and were the principal traders of that region, it was natural that explorers landing among them should adopt their names for the more remote tribes. The name seems to refer to the fact that the tribe occupied a cave country. In the "Choctaw Leksikon" of Allen Wright, 1880, page 87, we find choluk, a noun, signifying a hole, cavity, pit, chasm, etc., and as an adjective signifying hollow. In the manuscript Choctaw dictionary of Cyrus Byington, in the library of the Bureau of American Ethnology, we find chiluk, noun, a hole, cavity, hollow, pit, etc., with a statement that in its usual application it means a cavity or hollow, and not a hole through anything. As an adjective, the same form is given as signifying hollow, having a hole, as iti chiluk, a hollow tree; aboha chiluk, an empty house; chiluk chukoa, to enter a hole. Other noun forms given are chuluk and achiluk in the singular and chilukoa in the plural, all signifying hole, pit, or cavity. Verbal forms are chilukikbi, to make a hole, and chilukba, to open and form a fissure. In agreement with the genius of the Cherokee language the root form of the tribal name takes nominal or verbal prefixes according to its connection with the rest of the sentence, and is declined, or rather conjugated, as follows: Singular--first person, tsi-Tsa'lagi, I (am) a Cherokee; second person, hi-Tsa'lagi, thou art a Cherokee; third person, a-Tsa'lagi, he is a Cherokee. Dual--first person, âsti-Tsa'lagi, we two are Cherokee; second person, sti-Tsa'lagi, you two are Cherokee; third person, ani'-Tsa'lagi, they two are Cherokee. Plural--first person, atsi-Tsa'lagi, we (several) are Cherokee; second person, hitsi-Tsa'lagi, you (several) are Cherokee; third person, ani'-Tsa'lagi, they (several) are Cherokee. It will be noticed that the third person dual and plural are alike. Oyata'ge`ronoñ', etc.--The Iroquois (Mohawk) form is given by Hewitt as O-yata'-ge`ronoñ', of which the root is yata', cave, o is the assertive prefix, ge is the locative at, and ronoñ' is the tribal suffix, equivalent to (English) -ites or people. The word, which has several dialectic forms, signifies "inhabitants of the cave country," or "cave-country people," rather than "people who dwell in caves," as rendered by Schoolcraft. The same radix yata' occurs also in the Iroquois name for the opossum, which is a burrowing animal. As is well known, the Allegheny region is peculiarly a cave country, the caves having been used by the Indians for burial and shelter purposes, as is proved by numerous remains found in them. It is probable that the Iroquois simply translated the name (Chalaque) current in the South, as we find is the case in the West, where the principal plains tribes are known under translations of the same names in all the different languages. The Wyandot name for the Cherokee, Wataiyo-ronoñ', and their Catawba name, Mañterañ', both seem to refer to coming out of the ground, and may have been originally intended to convey the same idea of cave people. Rickahockan--This name is used by the German explorer, Lederer, in 1670, as the name of the people inhabiting the mountains to the southwest of the Virginia settlements. On his map he puts them in the mountains on the southern head streams of Roanoke river, in western North Carolina. He states that, according to his Indian informants, the Rickahockan lived beyond the mountains in a land of great waves, which he interpreted to mean the sea shore (!), but it is more likely that the Indians were trying to convey, by means of the sign language, the idea of a succession of mountain ridges. The name was probably of Powhatan origin, and is evidently identical with Rechahecrian of the Virginia chronicles of about the same period, the r in the latter form being perhaps a misprint. It may be connected with Righkahauk, indicated on Smith's map of Virginia, in 1607, as the name of a town within the Powhatan territory, and still preserved in Rockahock, the name of an estate on lower Pamunkey river. We have too little material of the Powhatan language to hazard an interpretation, but it may possibly contain the root of the word for sand, which appears as lekawa, nikawa, negaw, rigawa, rekwa, etc., in various eastern Algonquian dialects, whence Rockaway (sand), and Recgawawank (sandy place). The Powhatan form, as given by Strachey, is racawh (sand). He gives also rocoyhook (otter), reihcahahcoik, hidden under a cloud, overcast, rickahone or reihcoan (a comb), and rickewh (to divide in halves). Talligewi--As Brinton well says: "No name in the Lenape' legends has given rise to more extensive discussion than this." On Colden's map in his "History of the Five Nations," 1727, we find the "Alleghens" indicated upon Allegheny river. Heckewelder, who recorded the Delaware tradition in 1819, says: "Those people, as I was told, called themselves Talligeu or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, a gentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is of the opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligewi; and it would seem that he is right from the traces of their name which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former Alligewi Sipu (the river of the Alligewi)"--Indian Nations, p. 48, ed. 1876. Loskiel, writing on the authority of Zeisberger, says that the Delawares knew the whole country drained by the Ohio under the name of Alligewinengk, meaning "the land in which they arrived from distant places," basing his interpretation upon an etymology compounded from talli or alli, there, icku, to that place, and ewak, they go, with a locative final. Ettwein, another Moravian writer, says the Delawares called "the western country" Alligewenork, meaning a warpath, and called the river Alligewi Sipo. This definition would make the word come from palliton or alliton, to fight, to make war, ewak, they go, and a locative, i. e., "they go there to fight." Trumbull, an authority on Algonquian languages, derives the river name from wulik, good, best, hanne, rapid stream, and sipu, river, of which rendering its Iroquois name, Ohio, is nearly an equivalent. Rafinesque renders Talligewi as "there found," from talli, there, and some other root, not given (Brinton, Walam Olum, pp. 229-230, 1885). It must be noted that the names Ohio and Alligewi (or Allegheny) were not applied by the Indians, as with us, to different parts of the same river, but to the whole stream, or at least the greater portion of it from its head downward. Although Brinton sees no necessary connection between the river name and the traditional tribal name, the statement of Heckewelder, generally a competent authority on Delaware matters, makes them identical. In the traditional tribal name, Talligewi or Alligewi, wi is an assertive verbal suffix, so that the form properly means "he is a Tallige," or "they are Tallige." This comes very near to Tsa'lagi', the name by which the Cherokee call themselves, and it may have been an early corruption of that name. In Zeisberger's Delaware dictionary, however, we find waloh or walok, signifying a cave or hole, while in the "Walam Olum" we have oligonunk rendered "at the place of caves," the region being further described as a buffalo land on a pleasant plain, where the Lenape', advancing seaward from a less abundant northern region, at last found food (Walam Olum, pp. 194-195). Unfortunately, like other aboriginal productions of its kind among the northern tribes, the Lenape chronicle is suggestive rather than complete and connected. With more light it may be that seeming discrepancies would disappear and we should find at last that the Cherokee, in ancient times as in the historic period, were always the southern vanguard of the Iroquoian race, always primarily a mountain people, but with their flank resting upon the Ohio and its great tributaries, following the trend of the Blue ridge and the Cumberland as they slowly gave way before the pressure from the north until they were finally cut off from the parent stock by the wedge of Algonquian invasion, but always, whether in the north or in the south, keeping their distinctive title among the tribes as the "people of the cave country." As the Cherokee have occupied a prominent place in history for so long a period their name appears in many synonyms and diverse spellings. The following are among the principal of these: SYNONYMS Tsa'lagi' (plural, Ani'-Tsa'lagi'). Proper form in the Middle and Western Cherokee dialects. Tsa'ragi'. Proper form in the Eastern or Lower Cherokee dialect. Achalaque. Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 1847 (incorrectly quoting Garcilaso). Chalakee. Nuttall, Travels, 124, 1821. Chalaque. Gentleman of Elvas, 1557; Publications of Hakluyt Society, IX, 60, 1851. Chalaquies. Barcia, Ensayo, 335, 1723. Charakeys. Homann heirs' map, about 1730. Charikees. Document of 1718, fide Rivers, South Carolina, 55, 1856. Charokees. Governor Johnson, 1720, fide Rivers, Early History South Carolina, 93, 1874. Cheelake. Barton, New Views, xliv, 1798. Cheerake. Adair, American Indians, 226, 1775. Cheerakee. Ibid., 137. Cheeraque's. Moore, 1704, in Carroll, Hist. Colls. South Carolina, II, 576, 1836. Cheerokee. Ross (?), 1776, in Historical Magazine, 2d series, II, 218, 1867. Chel-a-ke. Long, Expedition to Rocky Mountains, II, lxx, 1823. Chelakees. Gallatin, Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 90, 1836. Chelaques. Nuttall, Travels, 247, 1821. Chelekee. Keane, in Stanford's Compendium, 506, 1878. Chellokee. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, II, 204, 1852. Cheloculgee. White, Statistics of Georgia, 28, 1849 (given as plural form of Creek name). Chelokees. Gallatin, Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 104, 1836. Cheokees. Johnson, 1772, in New York Doc. Col. Hist., VIII, 314, 1857 (misprint for Cherokees). Cheraguees. Coxe, Carolina, II, 1741. Cherakees. Ibid., map, 1741. Cherakis. Chauvignerie, 1736, fide Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, III, 555, 1853. Cheraquees. Coxe, Carolana, 13, 1741. Cheraquis. Penicaut, 1699, in Margry, V, 404, 1883. Cherickees. Clarke, 1739, in New York Doc. Col. Hist., VI, 148, 1855. Cherikee. Albany conference, 1742, ibid., 218. Cherokee. Governor Johnson, 1708, in Rivers, South Carolina, 238, 1856. Cherookees. Croghan, 1760, in Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls., 4th series, IX, 372, 1871. Cheroquees. Campbell, 1761, ibid., 416. Cherrackees. Evans, 1755, in Gregg, Old Cheraws, 15, 1867. Cherrokees. Treaty of 1722, fide Drake, Book of Indians, bk. 4, 32, 1848. Cherrykees. Weiser, 1748, fide Kauffman, Western Pennsylvania, appendix, 18, 1851. Chirakues. Randolph, 1699, in Rivers, South Carolina, 449, 1856. Chirokys. Writer about 1825, Annales de la Prop. de la Foi, II, 384, 1841. Chorakis. Document of 1748, New York Doc. Col. Hist., X, 143, 1858. Chreokees. Pike, Travels, 173, 1811 (misprint, transposed). Shanaki. Gatschet, Caddo MS, Bureau Am. Ethn., 1882 (Caddo name). Shan-nack. Marcy, Red River, 273, 1854 (Wichita name). Shannaki. Gatschet, Fox MS, Bureau Am. Ethn., 1882 (Fox name: plural form, Shannakiak). Shayage. Gatschet, Kaw MS, Bur. Am. Ethn., 1878 (Kaw name). Sulluggoes. Coxe, Carolana, 22, 1741. Tcalke. Gatschet, Tonkawa MS, Bur. Am. Ethn., 1882 (Tonkawa name, Chal-ke). Tcerokiec. Gatschet, Wichita MS, Bur. Am. Ethn., 1882 (Wichita name, Cherokish). Tchatakes. La Salle, 1682, in Margry, II, 197, 1877 (misprint). Tsalakies. Gallatin, Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc., II, 90, 1836. Tsallakee. Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 310, 1847. Tsä-ló-kee. Morgan, Ancient Society, 113, 1878. Tschirokesen. Wrangell, Ethn. Nachrichten, XIII, 1839 (German form). Tsûlahki. Grayson, Creek MS, Bur. Am. Ethn., 1885 (Creek name; plural form, Tsalgal'gi or Tsûlgûl'gi--Mooney). Tzerrickey. Urlsperger, fide Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, I, 26, 1884. Tzulukis. Rafinesque, Am. Nations, I, 123, 1836. Zolucans. Rafinesque, in Marshall, Kentucky, I, 23, 1824. Zulocans. Talligeu. Heckewelder, 1819, Indian Nations, 48, reprint of 1876 Talligewi. (traditional Delaware name; singular, Tallige' or Alligewi. Allige' (see preceding explanation). Alleg. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, V, 133, 1855. Allegans. Colden, map, 1727, fide Schoolcraft, ibid., III, 525, 1853. Allegewi. Schoolcraft, ibid., V, 133, 1855. Alleghans. Colden, 1727, quoted in Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 147, 1847. Alleghanys. Rafinesque, in Marshall, Kentucky, I, 34, 1824. Alleghens. Colden, map, 1727, fide Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 305, 1847. Allegwi. Squier, in Beach, Indian Miscellany, 26, 1877. Alli. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, V, 133, 1855. Allighewis. Keane, in Stanford's Compendium, 500, 1878. Talagans. Rafinesque, in Marshall, Kentucky, I, 28, 1824. Talega. Brinton, Walam Olum, 201, 1885. Tallagewy. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, II, 36, 1852. Tallegwi. Rafinesque, fide Mercer, Lenape Stone, 90, 1885. Talligwee. Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 310, 1847. Tallike. Brinton, Walam Olum, 230, 1885. Kitu'hwagi (plural, Ani'-Kitu'hwagi. See preceding explanation). Cuttawa. Vaugondy, map, Partie de l'Amérique, Septentrionale 1755. Gatohua. Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, I, Gattochwa. 28, 1884. Katowa (plural, Katowagi). Ketawaugas. Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal Tennessee, 233, 1823. Kittuwa. Brinton, Walam Olum, 16, 1885 (Delaware name). Kuttoowauw. Aupaumut, 1791, fide Brinton, ibid., 16 (Mahican name). Oyata'ge`ronoñ'. Hewitt, oral information (Iroquois (Mohawk) name. See preceding explanation). Ojadagochroene. Livingston, 1720, in New York Doc. Col. Hist., V, 567, 1855. Ondadeonwas. Bleeker, 1701, ibid., IV, 918, 1854. Oyadackuchraono. Weiser, 1753, ibid., VI, 795, 1855. Oyadagahroenes. Letter of 1713, ibid., V, 386, 1855 (incorrectly stated to be the Flat-heads, i. e., either Catawbas or Choctaws). Oyadage'ono. Gatschet, Seneca MS, 1882, Bur. Am. Ethn. (Seneca name). O-ya-dä'-go-o-no. Morgan, League of Iroquois, 337, 1851. Oyaudah. Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 448, 1847 (Seneca name). Uwata'-yo-ro'-no. Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, 28, 1884 (Wyandot name). Uyada. Ibid. (Seneca name). We-yau-dah. Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, 253, 1847. Wa-tai-yo-ro-noñ''. Hewitt, Wyandot MS, 1893, Bur. Am. Ethn. (Wyandot name). Rickahockans. Lederer, 1672, Discoveries, 26, reprint of 1891 (see preceding explanation). Rickohockans. Map, ibid. Rechahecrians. Drake, Book of Indians, book 4, 22, 1848 (from old Virginia documents). Rechehecrians. Rafinesque, in Marshall, Kentucky, I, 36, 1824. Mâñterâñ'. Gatschet, Catawba MS, 1881, Bur. Am. Ethn. (Catawba name. See preceding explanation). Entarironnon. Potier, Racines Huronnes et Grammaire, MS, 1751 Ochie`tarironnon. (Wyandot names. The first, according to Hewitt, is equivalent to "ridge, or mountain, people"). T'kwen-tah-e-u-ha-ne. Beauchamp, in Journal Am. Folklore, V, 225, 1892 (given as the Onondaga name and rendered, "people of a beautiful red color"). Canogacole(?). Fontanedo, about 1575, Memoir, translated in French Hist. Colls., II, 257, 1875 (rendered "wicked people"). (2) Mobilian trade language (page 16): This trade jargon, based upon Choctaw, but borrowing also from all the neighboring dialects and even from the more northern Algonquian languages, was spoken and understood among all the tribes of the Gulf states, probably as far west as Matagorda bay and northward along both banks of the Mississippi to the Algonquian frontier about the entrance of the Ohio. It was called Mobilienne by the French, from Mobile, the great trading center of the Gulf region. Along the Mississippi it was sometimes known also as the Chickasaw trade language, the Chickasaw being a dialect of the Choctaw language proper. Jeffreys, in 1761, compares this jargon in its uses to the lingua franca of the Levant, and it was evidently by the aid of this intertribal medium that De Soto's interpreter from Tampa bay could converse with all the tribes they met until they reached the Mississippi. Some of the names used by Fontanedo about 1575 for the tribes northward from Appalachee bay seem to be derived from this source, as in later times were the names of the other tribes of the Gulf region, without regard to linguistic affinities, including among others the Taensa, Tunica, Atakapa, and Shetimasha, representing as many different linguistic stocks. In his report upon the southwestern tribes in 1805, Sibley says that the "Mobilian" was spoken in addition to their native languages by all the Indians who had come from the east side of the Mississippi. Among those so using it he names the Alabama, Apalachi, Biloxi, Chactoo, Pacana, Pascagula, Taensa, and Tunica. Woodward, writing from Louisiana more than fifty years later, says: "There is yet a language the Texas Indians call the Mobilian tongue, that has been the trading language of almost all the tribes that have inhabited the country. I know white men that now speak it. There is a man now living near me that is fifty years of age, raised in Texas, that speaks the language well. It is a mixture of Creek, Choctaw, Chickasay, Netches [Natchez], and Apelash [Apalachi]"--Reminiscences, 79. For further information see also Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, and Sibley, Report. The Mobilian trade jargon was not unique of its kind. In America, as in other parts of the world, the common necessities of intercommunication have resulted in the formation of several such mongrel dialects, prevailing, sometimes over wide areas. In some cases, also, the language of a predominant tribe serves as the common medium for all the tribes of a particular region. In South America we find the lingoa geral, based upon the Tupi' language, understood for everyday purposes by all the tribes of the immense central region from Guiana to Paraguay, including almost the whole Amazon basin. On the northwest coast we find the well-known "Chinook jargon," which takes its name from a small tribe formerly residing at the mouth of the Columbia, in common use among all the tribes from California far up into Alaska, and eastward to the great divide of the Rocky mountains. In the southwest the Navaho-Apache language is understood by nearly all the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, while on the plains the Sioux language in the north and the Comanche in the south hold almost the same position. In addition to these we have also the noted "sign language," a gesture system used and perfectly understood as a fluent means of communication among all the hunting tribes of the plains from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande. (3) Dialects (page 17): The linguistic affinity of the Cherokee and northern Iroquoian dialects, although now well established, is not usually obvious on the surface, but requires a close analysis of words, with a knowledge of the laws of phonetic changes, to make it appear. The superficial agreement is perhaps most apparent between the Mohawk and the Eastern (Lower) Cherokee dialects, as both of these lack the labials entirely and use r instead of l. In the short table given below the Iroquois words are taken, with slight changes in the alphabet used, from Hewitt's manuscripts, the Cherokee from those of the author: Mohawk Cherokee (Eastern) person oñgwe' yûñwi fire otsi'ra' atsi'ra (atsi'la) water aweñ' awa' (ama') stone oneñya' nûñyû' arrow ka'noñ' kûni' pipe kanoñnaweñ' kanûñ'nawû hand (arm) owe'ya' uwâ'yi milk uneñ'ta' unûñ'ti five wisk hiski tobacco [tcarhû', Tuscarora] tsârû (tsâlû) fish otcoñ'ta' û'tsûti' ghost o'skeñna' asgi'na snake eñnatûñ i'nadû' 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. (21) Scalping by whites (p. 53): To the student, aware how easily the civilized man reverts to his original savagery when brought in close contact with its conditions, it will be no surprise to learn that every barbarous practice of Indian warfare was quickly adopted by the white pioneer and soldier and frequently legalized and encouraged by local authority. Scalping, while the most common, was probably the least savage and cruel of them all, being usually performed after the victim was already dead, with the primary purpose of securing a trophy of the victory. The tortures, mutilations, and nameless deviltries inflicted upon Indians by their white conquerors in the early days could hardly be paralleled even in civilized Europe, when burning at the stake was the punishment for holding original opinions and sawing into two pieces the penalty for desertion. Actual torture of Indians by legal sanction was rare within the English colonies, but mutilation was common and scalping was the rule down to the end of the war of 1812, and has been practiced more or less in almost every Indian war down to the latest. Captain Church, who commanded in King Philip's war in 1676, states that his men received thirty shillings a head for every Indian killed or taken, and Philip's head, after it was cut off, "went at the same price." When the chief was killed one of his hands was cut off and given to his Indian slayer, "to show to such gentlemen as would bestow gratuities upon him, and accordingly he got many a penny by it." His other hand was chopped off and sent to Boston for exhibition, his head was sent to Plymouth and exposed upon a scaffold there for twenty years, while the rest of his body was quartered and the pieces left hanging upon four trees. Fifty years later Massachusetts offered a bounty of one hundred pounds for every Indian scalp, and scalp hunting thus became a regular and usually a profitable business. On one occasion a certain Lovewell, having recruited a company of forty men for this purpose, discovered ten Indians lying asleep by their fire and killed the whole party. After scalping them they stretched the scalps upon hoops and marched thus into Boston, where the scalps were paraded and the bounty of one thousand pounds paid for them. By a few other scalps sold from time to time at the regular market rate, Lovewell was gradually acquiring a competency when in May, 1725, his company met disaster. He discovered and shot a solitary hunter, who was afterward scalped by the chaplain of the party, but the Indian managed to kill Lovewell before being overpowered, on which the whites withdrew, but were pursued by the tribesmen of the slain hunter, with the result that but sixteen of them got home alive. A famous old ballad of the time tells how "Our worthy Captain Lovewell among them there did die. They killed Lieutenant Robbins and wounded good young Frye, Who was our English chaplain; he many Indians slew, And some of them he scalped when bullets round him flew." When the mission village of Norridgewock was attacked by the New England men about the same time, women and children were made to suffer the fate of the warriors. The scholarly missionary, Rasles, author of the Abnaki Dictionary, was shot down at the foot of the cross, where he was afterward found with his body riddled with balls, his skull crushed and scalped, his mouth and eyes filled with earth, his limbs broken, and all his members mutilated--and this by white men. The border men of the Revolutionary period and later invariably scalped slain Indians as often as opportunity permitted, and, as has already been shown, both British and American officials encouraged the practice by offers of bounties and rewards, even, in the case of the former, when the scalps were those of white people. Our difficulties with the Apache date from a treacherous massacre of them in 1836 by a party of American scalp hunters in the pay of the governor of Sonora. The bounty offered was one ounce of gold per scalp. In 1864 the Colorado militia under Colonel Chivington attacked a party of Cheyennes camped under the protection of the United States flag, and killed, mutilated, and scalped 170 men, women, and children, bringing the scalps into Denver, where they were paraded in a public hall. One Lieutenant Richmond killed and scalped three women and five children. Scalps were taken by American troops in the Modoc war of 1873, and there is now living in the Comanche tribe a woman who was scalped, though not mortally wounded, by white soldiers in one of the later Indian encounters in Texas. Authorities: Drake, Indians (for New England wars); Roosevelt, Virginia State Papers, etc. (Revolution, etc.); Bancroft, Pacific States (Apache); Official Report on the Condition of the Indian Tribes, 1867 (for Chivington episode); author's personal information. (22) Lower Cherokee refugees (p. 55): "In every hut I have visited I find the children exceedingly alarmed at the sight of white men, and here [at Willstown] a little boy of eight years old was excessively alarmed and could not be kept from screaming out until he got out of the door, and then he ran and hid himself; but as soon as I can converse with them and they are informed who I am they execute any order I give them with eagerness. I inquired particularly of the mothers what could be the reason for this. They said, this town was the remains of several towns who [sic] formerly resided on Tugalo and Keowee, and had been much harassed by the whites; that the old people remembered their former situation and suffering, and frequently spoke of them; that these tales were listened to by the children, and made an impression which showed itself in the manner I had observed. The women told me, who I saw gathering nuts, that they had sensations upon my coming to the camp, in the highest degree alarming to them, and when I lit from my horse, took them by the hand, and spoke to them, they at first could not reply, although one of them understood and spoke English very well."--Hawkins, manuscript journal, 1796, in library of Georgia Historical Society. (23) General Alexander McGillivray (p. 56): This famous Creek chieftain, like so many distinguished men of the southern tribes, was of mixed blood, being the son of a Scotch trader, Lachlan McGillivray, by a halfbreed woman of influential family, whose father was a French officer of Fort Toulouse. The future chief was born in the Creek Nation about 1740, and died at Pensacola, Florida, in 1793. He was educated at Charleston, studying Latin in addition to the ordinary branches, and after leaving school was placed by his father with a mercantile firm in Savannah. He remained but a short time, when he returned to the Creek country, where he soon began to attract attention, becoming a partner in the firm of Panton, Forbes & Leslie, of Pensacola, which had almost a monopoly of the Creek trade. He succeeded to the chieftainship on the death of his mother, who came of ruling stock, but refused to accept the position until called to it by a formal council, when he assumed the title of emperor of the Creek Nation. His paternal estates having been confiscated by Georgia at the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the British side with all his warriors, and continued to be a leading instigator in the border hostilities until 1790, when he visited New York with a large retinue and made a treaty of peace with the United States on behalf of his people. President Washington's instructions to the treaty commissioners, in anticipation of this visit, state that he was said to possess great abilities and an unlimited influence over the Creeks and part of the Cherokee, and that it was an object worthy of considerable effort to attach him warmly to the United States. In pursuance of this policy the Creek chiefs were entertained by the Tammany society, all the members being in full Indian dress, at which the visitors were much delighted and responded with an Indian dance, while McGillivray was induced to resign his commission as colonel in the Spanish service for a commission of higher grade in the service of the United States. Soon afterward, on account of some opposition, excited by Bowles, a renegade white man, he absented himself from his tribe for a time, but was soon recalled, and continued to rule over the Nation until his death. McGillivray appears to have had a curious mixture of Scotch shrewdness, French love of display, and Indian secretiveness. He fixed his residence at Little Talassee, on the Coosa, a few miles above the present Wetumpka, Alabama, where he lived in a handsome house with extensive quarters for his negro slaves, so that his place had the appearance of a small town. He entertained with magnificence and traveled always in state, as became one who styled himself emperor. Throughout the Indian wars he strove, so far as possible, to prevent unnecessary cruelties, being noted for his kindness to captives; and his last years were spent in an effort to bring teachers among his people. On the other hand, he conformed much to the Indian customs; and he managed his negotiations with England, Spain, and the United States with such adroitness that he was able to play off one against the other, holding commissions by turn in the service of all three. Woodward, who knew of him by later reputation, asserts positively that McGillivray's mother was of pure Indian blood and that he himself was without education, his letters having been written for him by Leslie, of the trading firm with which he was connected. The balance of testimony, however, seems to leave no doubt that he was an educated as well as an able man, whatever may have been his origin. Authorities: Drake, American Indians; documents in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 1832; Pickett, Alabama, 1896; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography; Woodward, Reminiscences, p. 59 et passim, 1859. (24) Governor John Sevier (p. 57): This noted leader and statesman in the pioneer history of Tennessee was born in Rockingham county, Virginia, in 1745, and died at the Creek town of Tukabatchee, in Alabama, in 1815. His father was a French immigrant of good birth and education, the original name of the family being Xavier. The son received a good education, and being naturally remarkably handsome and of polished manner, fine courage, and generous temperament, soon acquired a remarkable influence over the rough border men with whom his lot was cast and among whom he was afterward affectionately known as "Chucky Jack." To the Cherokee he was known as Tsan-usdi', "Little John." After some service against the Indians on the Virginia frontier he removed to the new Watauga settlement in Tennessee, in 1772, and at once became prominently identified with its affairs. He took part in Dunmore's war in 1774 and, afterward, from the opening of the Revolution in 1775 until the close of the Indian wars in Tennessee--a period extending over nearly twenty years--was the acknowledged leader or organizer in every important Indian campaign along the Tennessee border. His services in this connection have been already noted. He also commanded one wing of the American forces at the battle of King's mountain in 1780, and in 1783 led a body of mountain men to the assistance of the patriots under Marion. At one time during the Revolution a Tory plot to assassinate him was revealed by the wife of the principal conspirator. In 1779 he had been commissioned as commander of the militia of Washington county, North Carolina--the nucleus of the present state of Tennessee--a position which he had already held by common consent. Shortly after the close of the Revolution he held for a short time the office of governor of the seceding "state of Franklin," for which he was arrested and brought to trial by the government of North Carolina, but made his escape, when the matter was allowed to drop. The question of jurisdiction was finally settled in 1790, when North Carolina ceded the disputed territory to the general government. Before this Sevier had been commissioned as brigadier-general. When Tennessee was admitted as a state in 1796 he was elected its first (state) governor, serving three terms, or six years. In 1803 he was again reelected, serving three more terms. In 1811 he was elected to Congress, where he served two terms and was reelected to a third, but died before he could take his seat, having contracted a fever while on duty as a boundary commissioner among the Creeks, being then in his seventy-first year. For more than forty years he had been continuously in the service of his country, and no man of his state was ever more loved and respected. In the prime of his manhood he was reputed the handsomest man and the best Indian fighter in Tennessee. (25) Hopewell, South Carolina (p. 61): This place, designated in early treaties and also in Hawkins's manuscript journal as "Hopewell on the Keowee," was the plantation seat of General Andrew Pickens, who resided there from the close of the Revolution until his death in 1817. It was situated on the northern edge of the present Anderson county, on the east side of Keowee river, opposite and a short distance below the entrance of Little river, and about three miles from the present Pendleton. In sight of it, on the opposite side of Keowee, was the old Cherokee town of Seneca, destroyed by the Americans in 1776. Important treaties were made here with the Cherokee in 1785, and with the Chickasaw in 1786. (26) Colonel Benjamin Hawkins (p. 61): This distinguished soldier, statesman, and author, was born in Warren county, North Carolina, in 1754, and died at Hawkinsville, Georgia, in 1816. His father, Colonel Philemon Hawkins, organized and commanded a regiment in the Revolutionary war, and was a member of the convention that ratified the national constitution. At the outbreak of the Revolution young Hawkins was a student at Princeton, but offered his services to the American cause, and on account of his knowledge of French and other modern languages was appointed by Washington his staff interpreter for communicating with the French officers cooperating with the American army. He took part in several engagements and was afterward appointed commissioner for procuring war supplies abroad. After the close of the war he was elected to Congress, and in 1785 was appointed on the commission which negotiated at Hopewell the first federal treaty with the Cherokee. He served a second term in the House and another in the Senate, and in 1796 was appointed superintendent for all the Indians south of the Ohio. He thereupon removed to the Creek country and established himself in the wilderness at what is now Hawkinsville, Georgia, where he remained in the continuance of his office until his death. As Senator he signed the deed by which North Carolina ceded Tennessee to the United States in 1790, and as Indian superintendent helped to negotiate seven different treaties with the southern tribes. He had an extensive knowledge of the customs and language of the Creeks, and his "Sketch of the Creek Country," written in 1799 and published by the Historical Society of Georgia in 1848, remains a standard. His journal and other manuscripts are in possession of the same society, while a manuscript Cherokee vocabulary is in possession of the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. Authorities: Hawkins's manuscripts, with Georgia Historical Society; Indian Treaties, 1837; American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, 1832; II, 1834; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Appleton, Cyclopædia of American Biography. (27) Governor William Blount (p. 68): William Blount, territorial governor of Tennessee, was born in North Carolina in 1744 and died at Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1800. He held several important offices in his native state, including two terms in the assembly and two others as delegate to the old congress, in which latter capacity he was one of the signers of the Federal constitution in 1787. On the organization of a territorial government for Tennessee in 1790, he was appointed territorial governor and also superintendent for the southern tribes, fixing his headquarters at Knoxville. In 1791 he negotiated an important treaty with the Cherokee, and had much to do with directing the operations against the Indians until the close of the Indian war. He was president of the convention which organized the state of Tennessee in 1796, and was elected to the national senate, but was expelled on the charge of having entered into a treasonable conspiracy to assist the British in conquering Louisiana from Spain. A United States officer was sent to arrest him, but returned without executing his mission on being warned by Blount's friends that they would not allow him to be taken from the state. The impeachment proceedings against him were afterward dismissed on technical grounds. In the meantime the people of his own state had shown their confidence in him by electing him to the state senate, of which he was chosen president. He died at the early age of fifty-three, the most popular man in the state next to Sevier. His younger brother, Willie Blount, who had been his secretary, was afterward governor of Tennessee, 1809-1815. (28) St Clair's defeat, 1791 (p. 72): Early in 1791 Major-General Arthur St Clair, a veteran officer in two wars and governor of the Northwestern Territory, was appointed to the chief command of the army operating against the Ohio tribes. On November 4 of that year, while advancing upon the Miami villages with an army of 1,400 men, he was surprised by an Indian force of about the same number under Little-turtle, the Miami chief, in what is now southwestern Mercer county, Ohio, adjoining the Indiana line. Because of the cowardly conduct of the militia he was totally defeated, with the loss of 632 officers and men killed and missing, and 263 wounded, many of whom afterward died. The artillery was abandoned, not a horse being left alive to draw it off, and so great was the panic that the men threw away their arms and fled for miles, even after the pursuit had ceased. It was afterward learned that the Indians lost 150 killed, besides many wounded. Two years later General Wayne built Fort Recovery upon the same spot. The detachment sent to do the work found within a space of 350 yards 500 skulls, while for several miles along the line of pursuit the woods were strewn with skeletons and muskets. The two cannon lost were found in the adjacent stream. Authorities: St Clair's report and related documents, 1791; American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 1832; Drake, Indians 570, 571, 1880; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography. (29) Cherokee clans, (p. 74): The Cherokee have seven clans, viz: Ani'-Wa'`ya, Wolf; Ani'-Kawi', Deer; Ani'-Tsi'skwa, Bird; Ani'-Wâ'di, Paint; Ani'-Sahâ'ni; Ani'-Ga'tâge'wi; Ani'-Gilâ'hi. The names of the last three can not be translated with certainty. The Wolf clan is the largest and most important in the tribe. It is probable that, in accordance with the general system in other tribes, each clan had formerly certain hereditary duties and privileges, but no trace of these now remains. Children belong to the clan of the mother, and the law forbidding marriage between persons of the same clan is still enforced among the conservative full-bloods. The "seven clans" are frequently mentioned in the sacred formulas, and even in some of the tribal laws promulgated within the century. There is evidence that originally there were fourteen, which by extinction or absorption have been reduced to seven; thus, the ancient Turtle-dove and Raven clans now constitute a single Bird clan. The subject will be discussed more fully in a future Cherokee paper. (30) Wayne's victory, 1794 (p. 78): After the successive failures of Harmar and St Clair in their efforts against the Ohio tribes the chief command was assigned, in 1793, to Major-General Anthony Wayne, who had already distinguished himself by his fighting qualities during the Revolution. Having built Fort Recovery on the site of St Clair's defeat, he made that post his headquarters through the winter of 1793-94. In the summer of 1794 he advanced down the Maumee with an army of 3,000 men, two-thirds of whom were regulars. On August 20 he encountered the confederated Indian forces near the head of the Maumee rapids at a point known as the Fallen Timbers and defeated them with great slaughter, the pursuit being followed up by the cavalry until the Indians took refuge under the guns of the British garrison at Fort Miami, just below the rapids. His own loss was only 33 killed and 100 wounded, of whom 11 afterward died of their wounds. The loss of the Indians and their white auxiliaries was believed to be more than double this. The Indian force was supposed to number 2,000, while, on account of the impetuosity of Wayne's charge, the number of his troops actually engaged did not exceed 900. On account of this defeat and the subsequent devastation of their towns and fields by the victorious army the Indians were compelled to sue for peace, which was granted by the treaty concluded at Greenville, Ohio, August 3, 1795, by which the tribes represented ceded away nearly their whole territory in Ohio. Authorities: Wayne's report and related documents, 1794, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, 1832; Drake, Indians, 571-577, 1880; Greenville treaty, in Indian Treaties, 1837; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography. (31) First things of civilization (p. 83): We usually find that the first things adopted by the Indian from his white neighbor are improved weapons and cutting tools, with trinkets and articles of personal adornment. After a regular trade has been established certain traders marry Indian wives, and, taking up their permanent residence in the Indian country, engage in farming and stock raising according to civilized methods, thus, even without intention, constituting themselves industrial teachers for the tribe. From data furnished by Haywood, guns appear to have been first introduced among the Cherokee about the year 1700 or 1710, although he himself puts the date much earlier. Horses were probably not owned in any great number before the marking out of the horse-path for traders from Augusta about 1740. The Cherokee, however, took kindly to the animal, and before the beginning of the war of 1760 had a "prodigious number." In spite of their great losses at that time they had so far recovered in 1775 that almost every man then had from two to a dozen (Adair, p. 231). In the border wars following the Revolution companies of hundreds of mounted Cherokee and Creeks sometimes invaded the settlements. The cow is called wa'ka by the Cherokee and waga by the Creeks, indicating that their first knowledge of it came through the Spaniards. Nuttall states that it was first introduced among the Cherokee by the celebrated Nancy Ward (Travels, p. 130). It was not in such favor as the horse, being valuable chiefly for food, of which at that time there was an abundant supply from the wild game. A potent reason for its avoidance was the Indian belief that the eating of the flesh of a slow-moving animal breeds a corresponding sluggishness in the eater. The same argument applied even more strongly to the hog, and to this day a few of the old conservatives among the East Cherokee will have nothing to do with beef, pork, milk, or butter. Nevertheless, Bartram tells of a trader in the Cherokee country as early as 1775 who had a stock of cattle, and whose Indian wife had learned to make butter and cheese (Travels, p. 347). In 1796 Hawkins mentions meeting two Cherokee women driving ten very fat cattle to market in the white settlements (manuscript journal, 1796). Bees, if not native, as the Indians claim, were introduced at so early a period that the Indians have forgotten their foreign origin. The De Soto narrative mentions the finding of a pot of honey in an Indian village in Georgia in 1540. The peach was cultivated in orchards a century before the Revolution, and one variety, known as early as 1700 as the Indian peach, the Indians claimed as their own, asserting that they had had it before the whites came to America (Lawson, Carolina, p. 182, ed. 1860). Potatoes were introduced early and were so much esteemed that, according to one old informant, the Indians in Georgia, before the Removal, "lived on them." Coffee came later, and the same informant remembered when the full-bloods still considered it poison, in spite of the efforts of the chief, Charles Hicks, to introduce it among them. Spinning wheels and looms were introduced shortly before the Revolution. According to the Wahnenauhi manuscript the first among the Cherokee were brought over from England by an Englishman named Edward Graves, who taught his Cherokee wife to spin and weave. The anonymous writer may have confounded this early civilizer with a young Englishman who was employed by Agent Hawkins in 1801 to make wheels and looms for the Creeks (Hawkins, 1801, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 647). Wafford, in his boyhood, say about 1815, knew an old man named Tsi'nawi on Young-cane creek of Nottely river, in upper Georgia, who was known as a wheelwright and was reputed to have made the first spinning wheel and loom ever made among the mountain Cherokee, or perhaps in the Nation, long before Wafford's time, or "about the time the Cherokee began to drop their silver ornaments and go to work." In 1785 the commissioners for the Hopewell treaty reported that some of the Cherokee women had lately learned to spin, and many were very desirous of instruction in the raising, spinning, and weaving of flax, cotton, and wool (Hopewell Commissioners' Report, 1785, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 39). In accordance with their recommendation the next treaty made with the tribe, in 1791, contained a provision for supplying the Cherokee with farming tools (Holston treaty, 1791, Indian Treaties, p. 36, 1837), and this civilizing policy was continued and broadened until, in 1801, their agent reported that at the Cherokee agency the wheel, the loom, and the plow were in pretty general use, and farming, manufacturing, and stock raising were the principal topics of conversation among men and women (Hawkins manuscripts, Treaty Commission of 1801). (32) Colonel Return J. Meigs (p. 84): Return Jonathan Meigs was born in Middletown, Connecticut, December 17, 1734, and died at the Cherokee agency in Tennessee, January 28, 1823. He was the first-born son of his parents, who gave him the somewhat peculiar name of Return Jonathan to commemorate a romantic incident in their own courtship, when his mother, a young Quakeress, called back her lover as he was mounting his horse to leave the house forever after what he had supposed was a final refusal. The name has been handed down through five generations, every one of which has produced some man distinguished in the public service. The subject of this sketch volunteered immediately after the opening engagement of the Revolution at Lexington, and was assigned to duty under Arnold, with rank of major. He accompanied Arnold in the disastrous march through the wilderness against Quebec, and was captured in the assault upon the citadel and held until exchanged the next year. In 1777 he raised a regiment and was promoted to the rank of colonel. For a gallant and successful attack upon the enemy at Sag harbor, Long island, he received a sword and a vote of thanks from Congress, and by his conduct at the head of his regiment at Stony point won the favorable notice of Washington. After the close of the Revolution he removed to Ohio, where, as a member of the territorial legislature, he drew up the earliest code of regulations for the pioneer settlers. In 1801 he was appointed agent for the Cherokee and took up his residence at the agency at Tellico blockhouse, opposite the mouth of Tellico river, in Tennessee, continuing to serve in that capacity until his death. He was succeeded as agent by Governor McMinn, of Tennessee. In the course of twenty-two years he negotiated several treaties with the Cherokee and did much to further the work of civilization among them and to defend them against unjust aggression. He also wrote a journal of the expedition to Quebec. His grandson of the same name was special agent for the Cherokee and Creeks in 1834, afterward achieving a reputation in the legal profession both in Tennessee and in the District of Columbia. Authorities: Appleton, Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1894; Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1888; documents in American State Papers, Indian Affairs, I and II. (33) Tecumtha (p. 87): This great chief of the Shawano and commander of the allied northern tribes in the British service was born near the present Chillicothe, in western Ohio, about 1770, and fell in the battle of the Thames, in Ontario, October 5, 1813. His name signifies a "flying panther"--i. e., a meteor. He came of fighting stock good even in a tribe distinguished for its warlike qualities, his father and elder brother having been killed in battle with the whites. His mother is said to have died among the Cherokee. Tecumtha is first heard of as taking part in an engagement with the Kentuckians when about twenty years old, and in a few years he had secured recognition as the ablest leader among the allied tribes. It is said that he took part in every important engagement with the Americans from the time of Harmar's defeat in 1790 until the battle in which he lost his life. When about thirty years of age he conceived the idea of uniting the tribes northwest of the Ohio, as Pontiac had united them before, in a great confederacy to resist the further advance of the Americans, taking the stand that the whole territory between the Ohio and the Mississippi belonged to all these tribes in common and that no one tribe had the right to sell any portion of it without the consent of the others. The refusal of the government to admit this principle led him to take active steps to unite the tribes upon that basis, in which he was seconded by his brother, the Prophet, who supplemented Tecumtha's eloquence with his own claims to supernatural revelation. In the summer of 1810 Tecumtha held a conference with Governor Harrison at Vincennes to protest against a recent treaty cession, and finding after exhausting his arguments that the effort was fruitless, he closed the debate with the words: "The President is far off and may sit in his town and drink his wine, but you and I will have to fight it out." Both sides at once prepared for war, Tecumtha going south to enlist the aid of the Creek, Choctaw, and other southern tribes, while Harrison took advantage of his absence to force the issue by marching against the Prophet's town on the Tippecanoe river, where the hostile warriors from a dozen tribes had gathered. A battle fought before daybreak of November 6, 1811, resulted in the defeat of the Indians and the scattering of their forces. Tecumtha returned to find his plans brought to naught for the time, but the opening of the war between the United States and England a few months later enabled him to rally the confederated tribes once more to the support of the British against the Americans. As a commissioned brigadier-general in the British service he commanded 2,000 warriors in the war of 1812, distinguishing himself no less by his bravery than by his humanity in preventing outrages and protecting prisoners from massacre, at one time saving the lives of four hundred American prisoners who had been taken in ambush near Fort Meigs and were unable to make longer resistance. He was wounded at Maguagua, where nearly four hundred were killed and wounded on both sides. He covered the British retreat after the battle of Lake Erie, and, refusing to retreat farther, compelled the British General Proctor to make a stand at the Thames river. Almost the whole force of the American attack fell on Tecumtha's division. Early in the engagement he was shot through the arm, but continued to fight desperately until he received a bullet in the head and fell dead, surrounded by the bodies of 120 of his slain warriors. The services of Tecumtha and his Indians to the British cause have been recognized by an English historian, who says, "but for them it is probable we should not now have a Canada." Authorities: Drake, Indians, ed. 1880; Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1894; Eggleston, Tecumseh and the Shawnee Prophet. (34) Fort Mims Massacre, 1813 (p. 89): Fort Mims, so called from an old Indian trader on whose lands it was built, was a stockade fort erected in the summer of 1813 for the protection of the settlers in what was known as the Tensaw district, and was situated on Tensaw lake, Alabama, one mile east of Alabama river and about forty miles above Mobile. It was garrisoned by about 200 volunteer troops under Major Daniel Beasley, with refugees from the neighboring settlement, making a total at the time of its destruction of 553 men, women, and children. Being carelessly guarded, it was surprised on the morning of August 30 by about 1,000 Creek warriors led by the mixed-blood chief, William Weatherford, who rushed in at the open gate, and, after a stout but hopeless resistance by the garrison, massacred all within, with the exception of the few negroes and halfbreeds, whom they spared, and about a dozen whites who made their escape. The Indian loss is unknown, but was very heavy, as the fight continued at close quarters until the buildings were fired over the heads of the defenders. The unfortunate tragedy was due entirely to the carelessness of the commanding officer, who had been repeatedly warned that the Indians were about, and at the very moment of the attack a negro was tied up waiting to be flogged for reporting that he had the day before seen a number of painted warriors lurking a short distance outside the stockade. Authorities: Pickett, Alabama, ed. 1896; Hamilton and Owen, note, p. 170, in Transactions Alabama Historical Society, II, 1898; Agent Hawkins's report, 1813, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 853; Drake, Indians, ed. 1880. The figures given are those of Pickett, which in this instance seem most correct, while Drake's are evidently exaggerated. (35) General William McIntosh (p. 98): This noted halfbreed chief of the Lower Creeks was the son of a Scotch officer in the British army by an Indian mother, and was born at the Creek town of Coweta in Alabama, on the lower Chattahoochee, nearly opposite the present city of Columbus, Georgia, and killed at the same place by order of the Creek national council on April 30, 1825. Having sufficient education to keep up an official correspondence, he brought himself to public notice and came to be regarded as the principal chief of the Lower Creeks. In the Creek war of 1813-14 he led his warriors to the support of the Americans against his brethren of the Upper towns, and acted a leading part in the terrible slaughters at Autossee and the Horseshoe bend. In 1817 he again headed his warriors on the government side against the Seminole and was commissioned as major. His common title of general belonged to him only by courtesy. In 1821 he was the principal supporter of the treaty of Indian springs, by which a large tract between the Flint and Chattahoochee rivers was ceded. The treaty was repudiated by the Creek Nation as being the act of a small faction. Two other attempts were made to carry through the treaty, in which the interested motives of McIntosh became so apparent that he was branded as a traitor to his Nation and condemned to death, together with his principal underlings, in accordance with a Creek law making death the penalty for undertaking to sell lands without the consent of the national council. About the same time he was publicly exposed and denounced in the Cherokee council for an attempt to bribe John Ross and other chiefs of the Cherokee in the same fashion. At daylight of April 30, 1825, a hundred or more warriors sent by the Creek national council surrounded his house and, after allowing the women and children to come out, set fire to it and shot McIntosh and another chief as they tried to escape. He left three wives, one of whom was a Cherokee. Authorities: Drake, Indians, ed. 1880; Letters from McIntosh's son and widows, 1825, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 764 and 768. (36) William Weatherford (p. 89): This leader of the hostiles in the Creek war was the son of a white father and a halfbreed woman of Tuskegee town whose father had been a Scotchman. Weatherford was born in the Creek Nation about 1780 and died on Little river, in Monroe county, Alabama, in 1826. He came first into prominence by leading the attack upon Fort Mims, August 30, 1813, which resulted in the destruction of the fort and the massacre of over five hundred inmates. It is maintained, with apparent truth, that he did his best to prevent the excesses which followed the victory, and left the scene rather than witness the atrocities when he found that he could not restrain his followers. The fact that Jackson allowed him to go home unmolested after the final surrender is evidence that he believed Weatherford guiltless. At the battle of the Holy Ground, in the following December, he was defeated and narrowly escaped capture by the troops under General Claiborne. When the last hope of the Creeks had been destroyed and their power of resistance broken by the bloody battle of the Horseshoe bend, March 27, 1814, Weatherford voluntarily walked into General Jackson's headquarters and surrendered, creating such an impression by his straightforward and fearless manner that the general, after a friendly interview, allowed him to go back alone to gather up his people preliminary to arranging terms of peace. After the treaty he retired to a plantation in Monroe county, where he lived in comfort and was greatly respected by his white neighbors until his death. As an illustration of his courage it is told how he once, single-handed, arrested two murderers immediately after the crime, when the local justice and a large crowd of bystanders were afraid to approach them. Jackson declared him to be as high toned and fearless as any man he had ever met. In person he was tall, straight, and well proportioned, with features indicating intelligence, bravery, and enterprise. Authorities: Pickett, Alabama, ed. 1896; Drake, Indians, ed. 1880; Woodward, Reminiscences, 1859. (37) Reverend David Brainerd (p. 104): The pioneer American missionary from whom the noted Cherokee mission took its name was born at Haddam, Connecticut, April 20, 1718, and died at Northampton, Massachusetts, October 9, 1747. He entered Yale college in 1739, but was expelled on account of his religious opinions. In 1742 he was licensed as a preacher and the next year began work as missionary to the Mahican Indians of the village of Kaunameek, twenty miles from Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He persuaded them to remove to Stockbridge, where he put them in charge of a resident minister, after which he took up work with good result among the Delaware and other tribes on the Delaware and Susquehanna rivers. In 1747 his health failed and he was forced to retire to Northampton, where he died a few months later. He wrote a journal and an account of his missionary labors at Kaunameek. His later mission work was taken up and continued by his brother. Authority: Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1894. (38) Reverend Samuel Austin Worcester (p. 105): This noted missionary and philologist, the son of a Congregational minister who was also a printer, was born at Worcester, Massachusetts, January 19, 1798, and died at Park Hill, in the Cherokee Nation west, April 20, 1859. Having removed to Vermont with his father while still a child, he graduated with the honors of his class at the state university at Burlington in 1819, and after finishing a course at the theological seminary at Andover was ordained to the ministry in 1825. A week later, with his newly wedded bride, he left Boston to begin mission work among the Cherokee, and arrived in October at the mission of the American board, at Brainerd, Tennessee, where he remained until the end of 1827. He then, with his wife, removed to New Echota, in Georgia, the capital of the Cherokee Nation, where he was the principal worker in the establishment of the Cherokee Phoenix, the first newspaper printed in the Cherokee language and alphabet. In this labor his inherited printer's instinct came into play, for he himself supervised the casting of the new types and the systematic arrangement of them in the case. In March, 1831, he was arrested by the Georgia authorities for refusing to take a special oath of allegiance to the state. He was released, but was rearrested soon afterward, confined in the state penitentiary, and forced to wear prison garb, until January, 1833, notwithstanding a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States, nearly a year before, that his imprisonment was a violation of the law of the land. The Cherokee Phoenix having been suspended and the Cherokee Nation brought into disorder by the extension over it of the state laws, he then returned to Brainerd, which was beyond the limits of Georgia. In 1835 he removed to the Indian Territory, whither the Arkansas Cherokee had already gone, and after short sojourns at Dwight and Union missions took up his final residence at Park Hill in December, 1836. He had already set up his mission press at Union, printing both in the Cherokee and the Creek languages, and on establishing himself at Park Hill he began a regular series of publications in the Cherokee language. In 1843 he states that "at Park Hill, besides the preaching of the gospel, a leading object of attention is the preparation and publication of books in the Cherokee language" (Letter in Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 356, 1843). The list of his Cherokee publications (first editions) under his own name in Pilling's Bibliography comprises about twenty titles, including the Bible, hymn books, tracts, and almanacs in addition to the Phoenix and large number of anonymous works. Says Pilling: "It is very probable that he was the translator of a number of books for which he is not given credit here, especially those portions of the Scripture which are herein not assigned to any name. Indeed it is safe to say that during the thirty-four years of his connection with the Cherokee but little was done in the way of translating in which he had not a share." He also began a Cherokee geography and had both a grammar and a dictionary of the language under way when his work was interrupted by his arrest. The manuscripts, with all his personal effects, afterward went down with a sinking steamer on the Arkansas. His daughter, Mrs A. E. W. Robertson, became a missionary among the Creeks and has published a number of works in their language. Authorities: Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian languages (articles Worcester, Cherokee Phoenix, etc.), 1888; Drake, Indians, ed. 1880: Report of Indian Commissioner, 1843 (Worcester letter). (39) Death penalty for selling lands (p. 107): In 1820 the Cherokee Nation enacted a law making it treason punishable with death to enter into any negotiation for the sale of tribal lands without the consent of the national council. A similar law was enacted by the Creeks at about the same time. It was for violating these laws that McIntosh and Ridge suffered death in their respective tribes. The principal parts of the Cherokee law, as reenacted by the united Nation in the West in 1842, appear as follows in the compilation authorized in 1866: "An act against sale of land, etc.: Whereas, The peace and prosperity of Indian nations are frequently sacrificed or placed in jeopardy by the unrestrained cupidity of their own individual citizens; and whereas, we ourselves are liable to suffer from the same cause, and be subjected to future removal and disturbances: Therefore, ... "Be it further enacted, That any person or persons who shall, contrary to the will and consent of the legislative council of this nation, in general council convened, enter into a treaty with any commissioner or commissioners of the United States, or any officer or officers instructed for the purpose, and agree to cede, exchange, or dispose in any way any part or portion of the lands belonging to or claimed by the Cherokees, west of the Mississippi, he or they so offending, upon conviction before any judge of the circuit or supreme courts, shall suffer death, and any of the aforesaid judges are authorized to call a court for the trial of any person or persons so transgressing. "Be it further enacted, That any person or persons who shall violate the provisions of the second section of this act, and shall resist or refuse to appear at the place designated for trial, or abscond, are hereby declared to be outlaws; and any person or persons, citizens of this nation, may kill him or them so offending at any time and in any manner most convenient, within the limits of this nation, and shall not be held accountable to the laws for the same.... "Be it further enacted, That no treaty shall be binding upon this nation which shall not be ratified by the general council, and approved by the principal chief of the nation. December 2, 1842."--Laws of the Cherokee Nation, 1868. (40) The Cherokee syllabary (p. 110): In the various schemes of symbolic thought representation, from the simple pictograph of the primitive man to the finished alphabet of the civilized nations, our own system, although not yet perfect, stands at the head of the list, the result of three thousand years of development by Egyptian, Phoenician, and Greek. Sequoya's syllabary, the unaided work of an uneducated Indian reared amid semisavage surroundings, stands second. Twelve years of his life are said to have been given to his great work. Being entirely without instruction and having no knowledge of the philosophy of language, being not even acquainted with English, his first attempts were naturally enough in the direction of the crude Indian pictograph. He set out to devise a symbol for each word of the language, and after several years of experiment, finding this an utterly hopeless task, he threw aside the thousands of characters which he had carved or scratched upon pieces of bark, and started in anew to study the construction of the language itself. By attentive observation for another long period he finally discovered that the sounds in the words used by the Cherokee in their daily conversation and their public speeches could be analyzed and classified, and that the thousands of possible words were all formed from varying combinations of hardly more than a hundred distinct syllables. Having thoroughly tested his discovery until satisfied of its correctness, he next proceeded to formulate a symbol for each syllable. For this purpose he made use of a number of characters which he found in an old English spelling book, picking out capitals, lower-case, italics, and figures, and placing them right side up or upside down, without any idea of their sound or significance as used in English (see plate v). Having thus utilized some thirty-five ready-made characters, to which must be added a dozen or more produced by modification of the same originals, he designed from his own imagination as many more as were necessary to his purpose, making eighty-five in all. The complete syllabary, as first elaborated, would have required some one hundred and fifteen characters, but after much hard study over the hissing sound in its various combinations, he hit upon the expedient of representing the sound by means of a distinct character--the exact equivalent of our letter s--whenever it formed the initial of a syllable. Says Gallatin, "It wanted but one step more, and to have also given a distinct character to each consonant, to reduce the whole number to sixteen, and to have had an alphabet similar to ours. In practice, however, and as applied to his own language, the superiority of Guess's alphabet is manifest, and has been fully proved by experience. You must indeed learn and remember eighty-five characters instead of twenty-five [sic]. But this once accomplished, the education of the pupil is completed; he can read and he is perfect in his orthography without making it the subject of a distinct study. The boy learns in a few weeks that which occupies two years of the time of ours." Says Phillips: "In my own observation Indian children will take one or two, at times several, years to master the English printed and written language, but in a few days can read and write in Cherokee. They do the latter, in fact, as soon as they learn to shape letters. As soon as they master the alphabet they have got rid of all the perplexing questions in orthography that puzzle the brains of our children. It is not too much to say that a child will learn in a month, by the same effort, as thoroughly in the language of Sequoyah, that which in ours consumes the time of our children for at least two years." Although in theory the written Cherokee word has one letter for each syllable, the rule does not always hold good in practice, owing to the frequent elision of vowel sounds. Thus the word for "soul" is written with four letters as a-da-nûñ-ta, but pronounced in three syllables, adanta. In the same way tsâ-lûñ-i-yu-sti ("like tobacco," the cardinal flower) is pronounced tsâliyusti. There are also, as in other languages, a number of minute sound variations not indicated in the written word, so that it is necessary to have heard the language spoken in order to read with correct pronunciation. The old Upper dialect is the standard to which the alphabet has been adapted. There is no provision for the r of the Lower or the sh of the Middle dialect, each speaker usually making his own dialectic change in the reading. The letters of a word are not connected, and there is no difference between the written and the printed character. Authorities: Gallatin, Synopsis of the Indian Tribes, in Trans. Am. Antiq. Soc, II, 1836; Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September, 1870; Pilling, Bibliography of Iroquoian Languages (article on Guess and plate of syllabary), 1888; author's personal information. (41) Southern gold fields (p. 116): Almost every valuable mineral and crystal known to the manufacturer or the lapidary is found in the southern Alleghenies, although, so far as present knowledge goes, but few of these occur in paying quantities. It is probable, however, that this estimate may change with improved methods and enlarged railroad facilities. Leaving out of account the earlier operations by the Spanish, French, and English adventurers, of which mention has already been made, the first authentic account of gold finding in any of the states south of Mason and Dixon's line within what maybe called the American period appears to be that given by Jefferson, writing in 1781, of a lump of ore found in Virginia, which yielded seventeen pennyweights of gold. This was probably not the earliest, however, as we find doubtful references to gold discoveries in both Carolinas before the Revolution. The first mint returns of gold were made from North Carolina in 1793, and from South Carolina in 1829, although gold is certainly known to have been found in the latter state some years earlier. The earliest gold records for the other southern states are, approximately, Georgia (near Dahlonega), 1815-1820; Alabama, 1830; Tennessee (Coco creek, Monroe county), 1831; Maryland (Montgomery county), 1849. Systematic tracing of gold belts southward from North Carolina began in 1829, and speedily resulted in the forcible eviction of the Cherokee from the gold-bearing region. Most of the precious metal was procured from placers or alluvial deposits by a simple process of digging and washing. Very little quartz mining has yet been attempted, and that usually by the crudest methods. In fact, for a long period gold working was followed as a sort of side issue to farming between crop seasons. In North Carolina prospectors obtained permission from the owners of the land to wash or dig on shares, varying from one-fourth to one-half, and the proprietor was accustomed to put his slaves to work in the same way along the creek bottoms after the crops had been safely gathered. "The dust became a considerable medium of circulation, and miners were accustomed to carry about with them quills filled with gold, and a pair of small hand scales, on which they weighed out gold at regular rates; for instance, 3-1/2 grains of gold was the customary equivalent of a pint of whisky." For a number of years, about 1830 and later, a man named Bechtler coined gold on his own account in North Carolina, and these coins, with Mexican silver, are said to have constituted the chief currency over a large region. A regular mint was established at Dahlonega in 1838 and maintained for some years. From 1804 to 1827 all the gold produced in the United States came from North Carolina, although the total amounted to but $110,000. The discovery of the rich deposits in California checked mining operations in the south, and the civil war brought about an almost complete suspension, from which there is hardly yet a revival. According to the best official estimates the gold production of the southern Allegheny region for the century from 1799 to 1898, inclusive, has been something over $46,000,000, distributed as follows: North Carolina $21,926,376 Georgia 16,658,630 South Carolina 3,961,863 Virginia, slightly in excess of 3,216,343 Alabama, slightly in excess of 437,927 Tennessee, slightly in excess of 167,405 Maryland 47,068 ---------- Total, slightly in excess of 46,415,612 Authorities: Becker, Gold Fields of the Southern Appalachians, in the Sixteenth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, 1895; Day, Mineral Resources of the United States, Seventeenth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 3, 1896; Nitze, Gold Mining and Metallurgy in the Southern States, in North Carolina Geological Survey Report, republished in Mineral Resources of the United States, Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 6, 1899; Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, 1849. (42) Extension of Georgia laws, 1830 (p. 117): "It is hereby ordained that all the laws of Georgia are extended over the Cherokee country; that after the first day of June, 1830, all Indians then and at that time residing in said territory, shall be liable and subject to such laws and regulations as the legislature may hereafter prescribe; that all laws, usages, and customs made and established and enforced in the said territory, by the said Cherokee Indians, be, and the same are hereby, on and after the 1st day of June, 1830, declared null and void; and no Indian, or descendant of an Indian, residing within the Creek or Cherokee nations of Indians, shall be deemed a competent witness or party to any suit in any court where a white man is a defendant."--Extract from the act passed by the Georgia legislature on December 20, 1828, "to add the territory within this state and occupied by the Cherokee Indians to the counties of DeKalb et al., and to extend the laws of this state over the same." Authorities: Drake, Indians, p. 439, ed. 1880; Royce, Cherokee Nation of Indians, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 260, 1888. (43) Removal forts, 1838 (p. 130): For collecting the Cherokee preparatory to the Removal, the following stockade forts were built: In North Carolina, Fort Lindsay, on the south side of the Tennessee river at the junction of Nantahala, in Swain county; Fort Scott, at Aquone, farther up Nantahala river, in Macon county; Fort Montgomery, at Robbinsville, in Graham county; Fort Hembrie, at Hayesville, in Clay county; Fort Delaney, at Valleytown, in Cherokee county; Fort Butler, at Murphy, in the same county. In Georgia, Fort Scudder, on Frogtown creek, north of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county; Fort Gilmer, near Ellijay, in Gilmer county; Fort Coosawatee, in Murray county; Fort Talking-rock, near Jasper, in Pickens county; Fort Buffington, near Canton, in Cherokee county. In Tennessee, Fort Cass, at Calhoun, on Hiwassee river, in McMinn county. In Alabama, Fort Turkeytown, on Coosa river, at Center, in Cherokee county. Authority: Author's personal information. (44) McNair's grave, (p. 132): Just inside the Tennessee line, where the Conasauga river bends again into Georgia, is a stone-walled grave, with a slab, on which is an epitaph which tells its own story of the Removal heartbreak. McNair was a white man, prominent in the Cherokee Nation, whose wife was a daughter of the chief, Vann, who welcomed the Moravian missionaries and gave his own house for their use. The date shows that she died while the Removal was in progress, possibly while waiting in the stockade camp. The inscription, with details, is given from information kindly furnished by Mr D. K. Dunn of Conasauga, Tennessee, in a letter dated August 16, 1890: "Sacred to the memory of David and Delilah A. McNair, who departed this life, the former on the 15th of August, 1836, and the latter on the 30th of November, 1838. Their children, being members of the Cherokee Nation and having to go with their people to the West, do leave this monument, not only to show their regard for their parents, but to guard their sacred ashes against the unhallowed intrusion of the white man." (45) President Samuel Houston, (p. 145): This remarkable man was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia, March 2, 1793, and died at Huntsville, Texas, July 25, 1863. Of strangely versatile, but forceful, character, he occupies a unique position in American history, combining in a wonderful degree the rough manhood of the pioneer, the eccentric vanity of the Indian, the stern dignity of the soldier, the genius of the statesman, and withal the high chivalry of a knight of the olden time. His erratic career has been the subject of much cheap romancing, but the simple facts are of sufficient interest in themselves without the aid of fictitious embellishment. To the Cherokee, whom he loved so well, he was known as Kâ'lanû, "The Raven," an old war title in the tribe. His father having died when the boy was nine years old, his widowed mother removed with him to Tennessee, opposite the territory of the Cherokee, whose boundary was then the Tennessee river. Here he worked on the farm, attending school at intervals; but, being of adventurous disposition, he left home when sixteen years old, and, crossing over the river, joined the Cherokee, among whom he soon became a great favorite, being adopted into the family of Chief Jolly, from whom the island at the mouth of Hiwassee takes its name. After three years of this life, during which time he wore the Indian dress and learned the Indian language, he returned to civilization and enlisted as a private soldier under Jackson in the Creek war. He soon attracted favorable notice and was promoted to the rank of ensign. By striking bravery at the bloody battle of Horseshoe bend, where he scaled the breastworks with an arrow in his thigh and led his men into the thick of the enemy, he won the lasting friendship of Jackson, who made him a lieutenant, although he was then barely twenty-one. He continued in the army after the war, serving for a time as subagent for the Cherokee at Jackson's request, until the summer of 1818, when he resigned on account of some criticism by Calhoun, then Secretary of War. An official investigation, held at his demand, resulted in his exoneration. Removing to Nashville, he began the study of law, and, being shortly afterward admitted to the bar, set up in practice at Lebanon. Within five years he was successively district attorney and adjutant-general and major-general of state troops. In 1823 he was elected to Congress, serving two terms, at the end of which, in 1827, he was elected governor of Tennessee by an overwhelming majority, being then thirty-four years of age. Shortly before this time he had fought and wounded General White in a duel. In January, 1829, he married a young lady residing near Nashville, but two months later, without a word of explanation to any outsider, he left her, resigned his governorship and other official dignities, and left the state forever, to rejoin his old friends, the Cherokee, in the West. For years the reason for this strange conduct was a secret, and Houston himself always refused to talk of it, but it is now understood to have been due to the fact that his wife admitted to him that she loved another and had only been induced to marry him by the over-persuasions of her parents. From Tennessee he went to Indian Territory, whither a large part of the Cherokee had already removed, and once more took up his residence near Chief Jolly, who was now the principal chief of the western Cherokee. The great disappointment which seemed to have blighted his life at its brightest was heavy at his heart, and he sought forgetfulness in drink to such an extent that for a time his manhood seemed to have departed, notwithstanding which, such was his force of character and his past reputation, he retained his hold upon the affections of the Cherokee and his standing with the officers and their families at the neighboring posts of Fort Smith, Fort Gibson, and Fort Coffee. In the meantime his former wife in Tennessee had obtained a divorce, and Houston being thus free once more soon after married Talihina, the youngest daughter of a prominent mixed-blood Cherokee named Rogers, who resided near Fort Gibson. She was the niece of Houston's adopted father, Chief Jolly, and he had known her when a boy in the old Nation. Being a beautiful girl, and educated above her surroundings, she became a welcome guest wherever her husband was received. He started a trading store near Webbers Falls, but continued in his dissipated habits until recalled to his senses by the outcome of a drunken affray in which he assaulted his adopted father, the old chief, and was himself felled to the ground unconscious. Upon recovery from his injuries he made a public apology for his conduct and thenceforward led a sober life. In 1832 he visited Washington in the interest of the western Cherokee, calling in Indian costume upon President Jackson, who received him with old-time friendship. Being accused while there of connection with a fraudulent Indian contract, he administered a severe beating to his accuser, a member of Congress. For this he was fined $500 and reprimanded by the bar of the House, but Jackson remitted the fine. Soon after his return to the West he removed to Texas to take part in the agitation just started against Mexican rule. He was a member of the convention which adopted a separate constitution for Texas in 1833, and two years later aided in forming a provisional government, and was elected commander-in-chief to organize the new militia. In 1836 he was a member of the convention which declared the independence of Texas. At the battle of San Jacinto in April of that year he defeated with 750 men Santa Ana's army of 1,800, inflicting upon the Mexicans the terrible loss of 630 killed and 730 prisoners, among whom was Santa Ana himself. Houston received a severe wound in the engagement. In the autumn of the same year he was elected first president of the republic of Texas, receiving more than four-fifths of the votes cast. He served two years and retired at the end of his term, leaving the country on good terms with both Mexico and the Indian tribes, and with its notes at par. He was immediately elected to the Texas congress and served in that capacity until 1841, when he was reelected president. It was during these years that he made his steadfast fight in behalf of the Texas Cherokee, as is narrated elsewhere, supporting their cause without wavering, at the risk of his own popularity and position. He frequently declared that no treaty made and carried out in good faith had ever been violated by Indians. His Cherokee wife having died some time before, he was again married in 1840, this time to a lady from Alabama, who exercised over him a restraining and ennobling influence through the stormy vicissitudes of his eventful life. In June, 1842, he vetoed a bill making him dictator for the purpose of resisting a threatened invasion from Mexico. On December 29, 1845, Texas was admitted to the Union, and in the following March Houston was elected to the Senate, where he served continuously until 1859, when he resigned to take his seat as governor, to which position he had just been elected. From 1852 to 1860 his name was three times presented before national presidential nominating conventions, the last time receiving 57 votes. He had taken issue with the Democratic majority throughout his term in the Senate, and when Texas passed the secession ordinance in February, 1861, being an uncompromising Union man, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and was accordingly deposed from the office of governor, declining the proffered aid of federal troops to keep him in his seat. Unwilling either to fight against the Union or to take sides against his friends, he held aloof from the great struggle, and remained in silent retirement until his death, two years later. No other man in American history has left such a record of continuous election to high office while steadily holding to his own convictions in the face of strong popular opposition. Authorities: Appleton's Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1894; Bonnell, Texas, 1840; Thrall, Texas, 1876; Lossing, Field Book of the War of 1812, 1869; author's personal information; various periodical and newspaper articles. (46) Chief John Ross (p. 151): This great chief of the Cherokee, whose name is inseparable from their history, was himself but one-eighth of Indian blood and showed little of the Indian features, his father, Daniel Ross, having emigrated from Scotland before the Revolution and married a quarter-blood Cherokee woman whose father, John McDonald, was also from Scotland. He was born at or near the family residence at Rossville, Georgia, just across the line from Chattanooga, Tennessee. As a boy, he was known among the Cherokee as Tsan-usdi', "Little John," but after arriving at manhood was called Guwi'sguwi', the name of a rare migratory bird, of large size and white or grayish plumage, said to have appeared formerly at long intervals in the old Cherokee country. It may have been the egret or the swan. He was educated at Kingston, Tennessee, and began his public career when barely nineteen years of age. His first wife, a full-blood Cherokee woman, died in consequence of the hardships of the Removal while on the western march and was buried at Little Rock, Arkansas. Some years later he married again, this time to a Miss Stapler of Wilmington, Delaware, the marriage taking place in Philadelphia (author's personal information from Mr Allen Ross, son of John Ross; see also Meredith, "The Cherokees," in the Five Civilized Tribes, Extra Bulletin Eleventh Census, 1894.) Cooweescoowee district of the Cherokee Nation west has been named in his honor. The following biographic facts are taken from the panegyric in his honor, passed by the national council of the Cherokee, on hearing of his death, "as feebly expressive of the loss they have sustained." John Ross was born October 3, 1790, and died in the city of Washington, August 1, 1866, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. His official career began in 1809, when he was intrusted by Agent Return Meigs with an important mission to the Arkansas Cherokee. From that time until the close of his life, with the exception of two or three years in the earlier part, he was in the constant service of his people, "furnishing an instance of confidence on their part and fidelity on his which has never been surpassed in the annals of history." In the war of 1813-14 against the Creeks he was adjutant of the Cherokee regiment which cooperated with General Jackson, and was present at the battle of the Horseshoe, where the Cherokee, under Colonel Morgan, of Tennessee, rendered distinguished service. In 1817 he was elected a member of the national committee of the Cherokee council. The first duty assigned him was to prepare a reply to the United States commissioners who were present for the purpose of negotiating with the Cherokee for their lands east of the Mississippi, in firm resistance to which he was destined, a few years later, to test the power of truth and to attain a reputation of no ordinary character. In 1819, October 26, his name first appears on the statute book of the Cherokee Nation as president of the national committee, and is attached to an ordinance which looked to the improvement of the Cherokee people, providing for the introduction into the Nation of schoolmasters, blacksmiths, mechanics, and others. He continued to occupy that position till 1826. In 1827 he was associate chief with William Hicks, and president of the convention which adopted the constitution of that year. That constitution, it is believed, is the first effort at a regular government, with distinct branches and powers defined, ever made and carried into effect by any of the Indians of North America. From 1828 until the removal west, he was principal chief of the eastern Cherokee, and from 1839 to the time of his death, principal chief of the united Cherokee Nation. In regard to the long contest which culminated in the Removal, the resolutions declare that "The Cherokees, with John Ross at their head, alone with their treaties, achieved a recognition of their rights, but they were powerless to enforce them. They were compelled to yield, but not until the struggle had developed the highest qualities of patience, fortitude, and tenacity of right and purpose on their part, as well as that of their chief. The same may be said of their course after their removal to this country, and which resulted in the reunion of the eastern and western Cherokees as one people and in the adoption of the present constitution." Concerning the events of the civil war and the official attempt to depose Ross from his authority, they state that these occurrences, with many others in their trying history as a people, are confidently committed to the future page of the historian. "It is enough to know that the treaty negotiated at Washington in 1866 bore the full and just recognition of John Ross' name as principal chief of the Cherokee nation." The summing up of the panegyric is a splendid tribute to a splendid manhood: "Blessed with a fine constitution and a vigorous mind, John Ross had the physical ability to follow the path of duty wherever it led. No danger appalled him. He never faltered in supporting what he believed to be right, but clung to it with a steadiness of purpose which alone could have sprung from the clearest convictions of rectitude. He never sacrificed the interests of his nation to expediency. He never lost sight of the welfare of the people. For them he labored daily for a long life, and upon them he bestowed his last expressed thoughts. A friend of law, he obeyed it; a friend of education, he faithfully encouraged schools throughout the country, and spent liberally his means in conferring it upon others. Given to hospitality, none ever hungered around his door. A professor of the Christian religion, he practiced its precepts. His works are inseparable from the history of the Cherokee people for nearly half a century, while his example in the daily walks of life will linger in the future and whisper words of hope, temperance, and charity in the years of posterity." Resolutions were also passed for bringing his body from Washington at the expense of the Cherokee Nation and providing for suitable obsequies, in order "that his remains should rest among those he so long served" (Resolutions in honor of John Ross, in Laws of the Cherokee Nation, 1869). (47) The Ketoowah Society (p. 156): This Cherokee secret society, which has recently achieved some newspaper prominence by its championship of Cherokee autonomy, derives its name--properly Kitu'hwa, but commonly spelled Ketoowah in English print--from the ancient town in the old Nation which formed the nucleus of the most conservative element of the tribe and sometimes gave a name to the Nation itself (see Kitu'hwagi, under Tribal Synonyms). A strong band of comradeship, if not a regular society organization, appears to have existed among the warriors and leading men of the various settlements of the Kituhwa district from a remote period, so that the name is even now used in councils as indicative of genuine Cherokee feeling in its highest patriotic form. When, some years ago, delegates from the western Nation visited the East Cherokee to invite them to join their more prosperous brethren beyond the Mississippi, the speaker for the delegates expressed their fraternal feeling for their separated kinsmen by saying in his opening speech, "We are all Kituhwa people" (Ani'-Kitu'hwagi). The Ketoowah society in the Cherokee Nation west was organized shortly before the civil war by John B. Jones, son of the missionary, Evan Jones, and an adopted citizen of the Nation, as a secret society for the ostensible purpose of cultivating a national feeling among the full-bloods, in opposition to the innovating tendencies of the mixed-blood element. The real purpose was to counteract the influence of the "Blue Lodge" and other secret secessionist organizations among the wealthier slave-holding classes, made up chiefly of mixed-bloods and whites. It extended to the Creeks, and its members in both tribes rendered good service to the Union cause throughout the war. They were frequently known as "Pin Indians," for a reason explained below. Since the close of the great struggle the society has distinguished itself by its determined opposition to every scheme looking to the curtailment or destruction of Cherokee national self-government. The following account of the society was written shortly after the close of the civil war: "Those Cherokees who were loyal to the Union combined in a secret organization for self-protection, assuming the designation of the Ketoowha society, which name was soon merged in that of "Pins." The Pins were so styled because of a peculiar manner they adopted of wearing a pin. The symbol was discovered by their enemies, who applied the term in derision; but it was accepted by this loyal league, and has almost superseded the designation which its members first assumed. The Pin organization originated among the members of the Baptist congregation at Peavine, Going-snake district, in the Cherokee nation. In a short time the society counted nearly three thousand members, and had commenced proselytizing the Creeks, when the rebellion, against which it was arming, preventing its further extension, the poor Creeks having been driven into Kansas by the rebels of the Golden Circle. During the war the Pins rendered services to the Union cause in many bloody encounters, as has been acknowledged by our generals. It was distinctly an anti-slavery organization. The slave-holding Cherokees, who constituted the wealthy and more intelligent class, naturally allied themselves with the South, while loyal Cherokees became more and more opposed to slavery. This was shown very clearly when the loyalists first met in convention, in February, 1863. They not only abolished slavery unconditionally and forever, before any slave state made a movement toward emancipation, but made any attempts at enslaving a grave misdemeanor. The secret signs of the Pins were a peculiar way of touching the hat as a salutation, particularly when they were too far apart for recognition in other ways. They had a peculiar mode of taking hold of the lapel of the coat, first drawing it away from the body, and then giving it a motion as though wrapping it around the heart. During the war a portion of them were forced into the rebellion, but quickly rebelled against General Cooper, who was placed over them, and when they fought against that general, at Bird Creek, they wore a bit of corn-husk, split into strips, tied in their hair. In the night when two Pins met, and one asked the other, 'Who are you?' the reply or pass was, 'Tahlequah--who are you?' The response was, 'I am Ketoowha's son.'"--Dr D. J. MacGowan, Indian Secret Societies, in Historical Magazine, X, 1866. (48) Farewell address of Lloyd Welch (p. 175): In the sad and eventful history of the Cherokee their gifted leaders, frequently of white ancestry, have oftentimes spoken to the world with eloquent words of appeal, of protest, or of acknowledgment, but never more eloquently than in the last farewell of Chief Lloyd Welch to the eastern band, as he felt the end draw near (leaflet, MacGowan, Chattanooga [n. d., 1880]): "To the Chairman and Council of the Eastern Band of Cherokees: "My Brothers: It becomes my imperative duty to bid you an affectionate farewell, and resign into your hands the trust you so generously confided to my keeping, principal chief of the Eastern Band. It is with great solicitude and anxiety for your welfare that I am constrained to take this course. But the inexorable laws of nature, and the rapid decline of my health, admonish me that soon, very soon, I will have passed from earth, my body consigned to the tomb, my spirit to God who gave it, in that happy home in the beyond, where there is no sickness, no sorrow, no pain, no death, but one eternal joy and happiness forever more. "The only regret that I feel for thus being so soon called from among you, at the meridian of manhood, when hope is sweet, is the great anxiety I have to serve and benefit my race. For this I have studied and labored for the past ten years of my life, to secure to my brothers equal justice from their brothers of the west and the United States, and that you would no longer be hewers of wood and drawers of water, but assume that proud position among the civilized nations of the earth intended by the Creator that we should occupy, and which in the near future you will take or be exterminated. When you become educated, as a natural consequence you will become more intelligent, sober, industrious, and prosperous. "It has been the aim of my life, the chief object, to serve my race faithfully, honestly, and to the best of my ability. How well I have succeeded I will leave to history and your magnanimity to decide, trusting an all-wise and just God to guide and protect you in the future, as He will do all things well. We may fail when on earth to see the goodness and wisdom of God in removing from us our best and most useful men, but when we have crossed over on the other shore to our happy and eternal home in the far beyond then our eyes will be opened and we will be enabled to see and realize the goodness and mercy of God in thus afflicting us while here on earth, and will be enabled more fully to praise God, from whom all blessings come. "I hope that when you come to select one from among you to take the responsible position of principal chief of your band you will lay aside all personal considerations and select one in every respect competent, without stain on his fair fame, a pure, noble, honest, man--one who loves God and all that is pure--with intellect sufficient to know your rights, independence and nerve to defend them. Should you be thus fortunate in making your choice, all will be well. It has been truthfully said that 'when the righteous rule the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule the people mourn.' "I am satisfied that you have among you many who are fully competent of the task. If I was satisfied it was your wish and for the good of my brothers I might mention some of them, but think it best to leave you in the hands of an all-wise God, who does all things right, to guide and direct you aright. "And now, my brothers, in taking perhaps my last farewell on earth I do pray God that you may so conduct yourselves while here on earth that when the last sad rite is performed by loved friends we may compose one unbroken family above in that celestial city from whose bourne no traveler has ever returned to describe the beauty, grandeur, and happiness of the heaven prepared for the faithful by God himself beyond the sky. And again, my brothers, permit me to bid you a fond, but perhaps a last, farewell on earth, until we meet again where parting is never known and friends meet to part no more forever. "L. R. Welch, "Principal Chief Eastern Band Cherokee Indians. "Witness: "Samuel W. Davidson. "B. B. Merony." (49) Status of eastern band (p. 180): For some reason all authorities who have hitherto discussed the status of the eastern band of Cherokee seem to have been entirely unaware of the enactment of the supplementary articles to the treaty of New Echota, by which all preemption and reservation rights granted under the twelfth article were canceled. Thus, in the Cherokee case of "The United States et al against D. T. Boyd et al," we find the United States circuit judge quoting the twelfth article in its original form as a basis for argument, while his associate judge says: "Their forefathers availed themselves of a provision in the treaty of New Echota and remained in the state of North Carolina," etc. (Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, pp. 633-635, 1896). The truth is that the treaty as ratified with its supplementary articles canceled the residence right of every Cherokee east of the Mississippi, and it was not until thirty years afterwards that North Carolina finally gave assurance that the eastern band would be permitted to remain within her borders. The twelfth article of the new Echota treaty of December 29, 1835, provides for a pro rata apportionment to such Cherokee as desire to remain in the East, and continues: "Such heads of Cherokee families as are desirous to reside within the states of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Alabama, subject to the laws of the same, and who are qualified or calculated to become useful citizens, shall be entitled, on the certificate of the commissioners, to a preemption right to one hundred and sixty acres of land, or one quarter section, at the minimum Congress price, so as to include the present buildings or improvements of those who now reside there; and such as do not live there at present shall be permitted to locate within two years any lands not already occupied by persons entitled to preemption privilege under this treaty," etc. Article 13 defines terms with reference to individual reservations granted under former treaties. The preamble to the supplementary articles agreed upon on March 1, 1836, recites that, "Whereas the President of the United States has expressed his determination not to allow any preemptions or reservations, his desire being that the whole Cherokee people should remove together and establish themselves in the country provided for them west of the Mississippi river (article 1): It is therefore agreed that all preemption rights and reservations provided for in articles 12 and 13 shall be, and are hereby, relinquished and declared void." The treaty, in this shape, was ratified on May 23, 1836 (see Indian Treaties, pp. 633-648, 1837). IV--STORIES AND STORY TELLERS Cherokee myths may be roughly classified as sacred myths, animal stories, local legends, and historical traditions. To the first class belong the genesis stories, dealing with the creation of the world, the nature of the heavenly bodies and elemental forces, the origin of life and death, the spirit world and the invisible beings, the ancient monsters, and the hero-gods. It is almost certain that most of the myths of this class are but disjointed fragments of an original complete genesis and migration legend, which is now lost. With nearly every tribe that has been studied we find such a sacred legend, preserved by the priests of the tradition, who alone are privileged to recite and explain it, and dealing with the origin and wanderings of the people from the beginning of the world to the final settlement of the tribe in its home territory. Among the best examples of such genesis traditions are those recorded in the Walam Olum of the Delawares and Matthews' Navaho Origin Legend. Others may be found in Cusick's History of the Six Nations, Gatschet's Creek Migration Legend, and the author's Jicarilla Genesis. [463] The Cheyenne, Arapaho, and other plains tribes are known to have similar genesis myths. The former existence of such a national legend among the Cherokee is confirmed by Haywood, writing in 1823, who states on information obtained from a principal man in the tribe that they had once a long oration, then nearly forgotten, which recounted the history of their wanderings from the time when they had been first placed upon the earth by some superior power from above. Up to about the middle of the last century this tradition was still recited at the annual Green-corn dance. [464] Unlike most Indians the Cherokee are not conservative, and even before the Revolution had so far lost their primitive customs from contact with the whites that Adair, in 1775, calls them a nest of apostate hornets who for more than thirty years had been fast degenerating. [465] Whatever it may have been, their national legend is now lost forever. The secret organizations that must have existed formerly among the priesthood have also disappeared, and each man now works independently according to his individual gifts and knowledge. The sacred myths were not for every one, but only those might hear who observed the proper form and ceremony. When John Ax and other old men were boys, now some eighty years ago, the myth-keepers and priests were accustomed to meet together at night in the âsi, or low-built log sleeping house, to recite the traditions and discuss their secret knowledge. At times those who desired instruction from an adept in the sacred lore of the tribe met him by appointment in the âsi, where they sat up all night talking, with only the light of a small fire burning in the middle of the floor. At daybreak the whole party went down to the running stream, where the pupils or hearers of the myths stripped themselves, and were scratched upon their naked skin with a bone-tooth comb in the hands of the priest, after which they waded out, facing the rising sun, and dipped seven times under the water, while the priest recited prayers upon the bank. This purificatory rite, observed more than a century ago by Adair, is also a part of the ceremonial of the ballplay, the Green-corn dance, and, in fact, every important ritual performance. Before beginning one of the stories of the sacred class the informant would sometimes suggest jokingly that the author first submit to being scratched and "go to water." As a special privilege a boy was sometimes admitted to the âsi on such occasions, to tend the fire, and thus had the opportunity to listen to the stories and learn something of the secret rites. In this way John Ax gained much of his knowledge, although he does not claim to be an adept. As he describes it, the fire intended to heat the room--for the nights are cold in the Cherokee mountains--was built upon the ground in the center of the small house, which was not high enough to permit a standing position, while the occupants sat in a circle around it. In front of the fire was placed a large flat rock, and near it a pile of pine knots or splints. When the fire had burned down to a bed of coals, the boy lighted one or two of the pine knots and laid them upon the rock, where they blazed with a bright light until nearly consumed, when others were laid upon them, and so on until daybreak. Sometimes the pine splints were set up crosswise, thus, ××××, in a circle around the fire, with a break at the eastern side. They were then lighted from one end and burned gradually around the circle, fresh splints being set up behind as those in front were consumed. Lawson describes this identical custom as witnessed at a dance among the Waxhaw, on Catawba river, in 1701: Now, to return to our state house, whither we were invited by the grandees. As soon as we came into it, they placed our Englishmen near the king, it being my fortune to sit next him, having his great general or war captain on my other hand. The house is as dark as a dungeon, and as hot as one of the Dutch stoves in Holland. They had made a circular fire of split canes in the middle of the house, it was one man's employment to add more split reeds to the one end as it consumed at the other, there being a small vacancy left to supply it with fuel. [466] To the second class belong the shorter animal myths, which have lost whatever sacred character they may once have had, and are told now merely as humorous explanations of certain animal peculiarities. While the sacred myths have a constant bearing upon formulistic prayers and observances, it is only in rare instances that any rite or custom is based upon an animal myth. Moreover, the sacred myths are known as a rule only to the professional priests or conjurers, while the shorter animal stories are more or less familiar to nearly everyone and are found in almost identical form among Cherokee, Creeks, and other southern tribes. The animals of the Cherokee myths, like the traditional hero-gods, were larger and of more perfect type than their present representatives. They had chiefs, councils, and townhouses, mingled with human kind upon terms of perfect equality and spoke the same language. In some unexplained manner they finally left this lower world and ascended to Galûñ'lati, the world above, where they still exist. The removal was not simultaneous, but each animal chose his own time. The animals that we know, small in size and poor in intellect, came upon the earth later, and are not the descendants of the mythic animals, but only weak imitations. In one or two special cases, however, the present creature is the descendant of a former monster. Trees and plants also were alive and could talk in the old days, and had their place in council, but do not figure prominently in the myths. Each animal had his appointed station and duty. Thus, the Walâ'si frog was the marshal and leader in the council, while the Rabbit was the messenger to carry all public announcements, and usually led the dance besides. He was also the great trickster and mischief maker, a character which he bears in eastern and southern Indian myth generally, as well as in the southern negro stories. The bear figures as having been originally a man, with human form and nature. As with other tribes and countries, almost every prominent rock and mountain, every deep bend in the river, in the old Cherokee country has its accompanying legend. It may be a little story that can be told in a paragraph, to account for some natural feature, or it may be one chapter of a myth that has its sequel in a mountain a hundred miles away. As is usual when a people has lived for a long time in the same country, nearly every important myth is localized, thus assuming more definite character. There is the usual number of anecdotes and stories of personal adventure, some of them irredeemably vulgar, but historical traditions are strangely wanting. The authentic records of unlettered peoples are short at best, seldom going back much farther than the memories of their oldest men; and although the Cherokee have been the most important of the southern tribes, making wars and treaties for three centuries with Spanish, English, French, and Americans, Iroquois, Shawano, Catawba, and Creeks, there is little evidence of the fact in their traditions. This condition may be due in part to the temper of the Cherokee mind, which, as has been already stated, is accustomed to look forward to new things rather than to dwell upon the past. The first Cherokee war, with its stories of Âganstâ'ta and Ata-gûl'kalû', is absolutely forgotten. Of the long Revolutionary struggle they have hardly a recollection, although they were constantly fighting throughout the whole period and for several years after, and at one time were brought to the verge of ruin by four concerted expeditions, which ravaged their country simultaneously from different directions and destroyed almost every one of their towns. Even the Creek war, in which many of their warriors took a prominent part, was already nearly forgotten some years ago. Beyond a few stories of encounters with the Shawano and Iroquois there is hardly anything that can be called history until well within the present century. With some tribes the winter season and the night are the time for telling stories, but to the Cherokee all times are alike. As our grandmothers begin, "Once upon a time," so the Cherokee story-teller introduces his narrative by saying: "This is what the old men told me when I was a boy." Not all tell the same stories, for in tribal lore, as in all other sorts of knowledge, we find specialists. Some common minds take note only of common things--little stories of the rabbit, the terrapin, and the others, told to point a joke or amuse a child. Others dwell upon the wonderful and supernatural--Tsul`kalû', Tsuwe'nahi, and the Thunderers--and those sacred things to be told only with prayer and purification. Then, again, there are still a few old warriors who live in the memory of heroic days when there were wars with the Seneca and the Shawano, and these men are the historians of the tribe and the conservators of its antiquities. The question of the origin of myths is one which affords abundant opportunity for ingenious theories in the absence of any possibility of proof. Those of the Cherokee are too far broken down ever to be woven together again into any long-connected origin legend, such as we find with some tribes, although a few still exhibit a certain sequence which indicates that they once formed component parts of a cycle. From the prominence of the rabbit in the animal stories, as well as in those found among the southern negroes, an effort has been made to establish for them a negro origin, regardless of the fact that the rabbit--the Great White Rabbit--is the hero-god, trickster, and wonder-worker of all the tribes east of the Mississippi from Hudson bay to the Gulf. In European folklore also the rabbit is regarded as something uncanny and half-supernatural, and even in far-off Korea he is the central figure in the animal myths. Just why this should be so is a question that may be left to the theorist to decide. Among the Algonquian tribes the name, wabos, seems to have been confounded with that of the dawn, waban, so that the Great White Rabbit is really the incarnation of the eastern dawn that brings light and life and drives away the dark shadows which have held the world in chains. The animal itself seems to be regarded by the Indians as the fitting type of defenseless weakness protected and made safe by constantly alert vigilance, and with a disposition, moreover, for turning up at unexpected moments. The same characteristics would appeal as strongly to the primitive mind of the negro. The very expression which Harris puts into the mouth of Uncle Remus, "In dem days Brer Rabbit en his fambly wuz at the head er de gang w'en enny racket wus en hand," [467] was paraphrased in the Cherokee language by Suyeta in introducing his first rabbit story: "Tsi'stu wuliga'natûtûñ' une'gutsatû' gese'i--the Rabbit was the leader of them all in mischief." The expression struck the author so forcibly that the words were recorded as spoken. In regard to the contact between the two races, by which such stories could be borrowed from one by the other, it is not commonly known that in all the southern colonies Indian slaves were bought and sold and kept in servitude and worked in the fields side by side with negroes up to the time of the Revolution. Not to go back to the Spanish period, when such things were the order of the day, we find the Cherokee as early as 1693 complaining that their people were being kidnaped by slave hunters. Hundreds of captured Tuscarora and nearly the whole tribe of the Appalachee were distributed as slaves among the Carolina colonists in the early part of the eighteenth century, while the Natchez and others shared a similar fate in Louisiana, and as late at least as 1776 Cherokee prisoners of war were still sold to the highest bidder for the same purpose. At one time it was charged against the governor of South Carolina that he was provoking a general Indian war by his encouragement of slave hunts. Furthermore, as the coast tribes dwindled they were compelled to associate and intermarry with the negroes until they finally lost their identity and were classed with that race, so that a considerable proportion of the blood of the southern negroes is unquestionably Indian. The negro, with his genius for imitation and his love for stories, especially of the comic variety, must undoubtedly have absorbed much from the Indian in this way, while on the other hand the Indian, with his pride of conservatism and his contempt for a subject race, would have taken but little from the negro, and that little could not easily have found its way back to the free tribes. Some of these animal stories are common to widely separated tribes among whom there can be no suspicion of negro influences. Thus the famous "tar baby" story has variants, not only among the Cherokee, but also in New Mexico, Washington, and southern Alaska--wherever, in fact, the piñon or the pine supplies enough gum to be molded into a ball for Indian uses--while the incident of the Rabbit dining the Bear is found with nearly every tribe from Nova Scotia to the Pacific. The idea that such stories are necessarily of negro origin is due largely to the common but mistaken notion that the Indian has no sense of humor. In many cases it is not necessary to assume borrowing from either side, the myths being such as would naturally spring up in any part of the world among primitive people accustomed to observe the characteristics of animals, which their religious system regarded as differing in no essential from human kind, save only in outward form. Thus in Europe and America the terrapin has been accepted as the type of plodding slowness, while the rabbit, with his sudden dash, or the deer with his bounding stride, is the type of speed. What more natural than that the story-teller should set one to race against the other, with the victory in favor of the patient striver against the self-confident boaster? The idea of a hungry wolf or other beast of prey luring his victims by the promise of a new song or dance, during which they must close their eyes, is also one that would easily occur among any primitive people whose chief pastime is dancing. [468] On the other hand, such a conception as that of Flint and the Rabbit could only be the outgrowth of a special cosmogonic theology, though now indeed broken and degraded, and it is probable that many myths told now only for amusement are really worn down fragments of ancient sacred traditions. Thus the story just noted appears in a different dress among the Iroquois as a part of their great creation myth. The Cherokee being a detached tribe of the Iroquois, we may expect to find among the latter, if it be not already too late, the explanation and more perfect statement of some things which are obscure in the Cherokee myths. It must not be forgotten, however, that the Indian, like other men, does some things for simple amusement, and it is useless to look for occult meanings where none exist. Except as to the local traditions and a few others which are obviously the direct outgrowth of Cherokee conditions, it is impossible to fix a definite starting point for the myths. It would be unwise to assert that even the majority of them originated within the tribe. The Cherokee have strains of Creek, Catawba, Uchee, Natchez, Iroquois, Osage, and Shawano blood, and such admixture implies contact more or less intimate and continued. Indians are great wanderers, and a myth can travel as far as a redstone pipe or a string of wampum. It was customary, as it still is to a limited extent in the West, for large parties, sometimes even a whole band or village, to make long visits to other tribes, dancing, feasting, trading, and exchanging stories with their friends for weeks or months at a time, with the expectation that their hosts would return the visit within the next summer. Regular trade routes crossed the continent from east to west and from north to south, and when the subject has been fully investigated it will be found that this intertribal commerce was as constant and well recognized a part of Indian life as is our own railroad traffic today. The very existence of a trade jargon or a sign language is proof of intertribal relations over wide areas. Their political alliances also were often far-reaching, for Pontiac welded into a warlike confederacy all the tribes from the Atlantic border to the head of the Mississippi, while the emissaries of the Shawano prophet carried the story of his revelations throughout the whole region from the Florida coast to the Saskatchewan. In view of these facts it is as useless to attempt to trace the origin of every myth as to claim a Cherokee authorship for them all. From what we know of the character of the Shawano, their tendency toward the ceremonial and the mystic, and their close relations with the Cherokee, it may be inferred that some of the myths originated with that tribe. We should naturally expect also to find close correspondence with the myths of the Creeks and other southern tribes within the former area of the Mobilian trade language. The localization at home of all the more important myths indicates a long residence in the country. As the majority of those here given belong to the half dozen counties still familiar to the East Cherokee, we may guess how many attached to the ancient territory of the tribe are now irrecoverably lost. Contact with the white race seems to have produced very little impression on the tribal mythology, and not more than three or four stories current among the Cherokee can be assigned to a Caucasian source. These have not been reproduced here, for the reason that they are plainly European, and the author has chosen not to follow the example of some collectors who have assumed that every tale told in an Indian language is necessarily an Indian story. Scores recorded in collections from the North and West are nothing more than variants from the celebrated Hausmärchen, as told by French trappers and voyageurs to their Indian campmates and halfbreed children. It might perhaps be thought that missionary influence would be evident in the genesis tradition, but such is not the case. The Bible story kills the Indian tradition, and there is no amalgamation. It is hardly necessary to say that stories of a great fish which swallows a man and of a great flood which destroys a people are found the world over. The supposed Cherokee hero-god, Wâsi, described by one writer as so remarkably resembling the great Hebrew lawgiver is in fact that great teacher himself, Wâsi being the Cherokee approximate for Moses, and the good missionary who first recorded the story was simply listening to a chapter taken by his convert from the Cherokee testament. The whole primitive pantheon of the Cherokee is still preserved in their sacred formulas. As compared with those from some other tribes the Cherokee myths are clean. For picturesque imagination and wealth of detail they rank high, and some of the wonder stories may challenge those of Europe and India. The numerous parallels furnished will serve to indicate their relation to the general Indian system. Unless otherwise noted, every myth here given has been obtained directly from the Indians, and in nearly every case has been verified from several sources. "I know not how the truth may be, I tell the tale as 'twas told to me." First and chief in the list of story tellers comes A`yûñ'ini, "Swimmer," from whom nearly three-fourths of the whole number were originally obtained, together with nearly as large a proportion of the whole body of Cherokee material now in possession of the author. The collection could not have been made without his help, and now that he is gone it can never be duplicated. Born about 1835, shortly before the Removal, he grew up under the instruction of masters to be a priest, doctor, and keeper of tradition, so that he was recognized as an authority throughout the band and by such a competent outside judge as Colonel Thomas. He served through the war as second sergeant of the Cherokee Company A, Sixty-ninth North Carolina Confederate Infantry, Thomas Legion. He was prominent in the local affairs of the band, and no Green-corn dance, ballplay, or other tribal function was ever considered complete without his presence and active assistance. A genuine aboriginal antiquarian and patriot, proud of his people and their ancient system, he took delight in recording in his native alphabet the songs and sacred formulas of priests and dancers and the names of medicinal plants and the prescriptions with which they were compounded, while his mind was a storehouse of Indian tradition. To a happy descriptive style he added a musical voice for the songs and a peculiar faculty for imitating the characteristic cry of bird or beast, so that to listen to one of his recitals was often a pleasure in itself, even to one who understood not a word of the language. He spoke no English, and to the day of his death clung to the moccasin and turban, together with the rattle, his badge of authority. He died in March, 1899, aged about sixty-five, and was buried like a true Cherokee on the slope of a forest-clad mountain. Peace to his ashes and sorrow for his going, for with him perished half the tradition of a people. Next in order comes the name of Itagû'nahi, better known as John Ax, born about 1800 and now consequently just touching the century mark, being the oldest man of the band. He has a distinct recollection of the Creek war, at which time he was about twelve years of age, and was already married and a father when the lands east of Nantahala were sold by the treaty of 1819. Although not a professional priest or doctor, he was recognized, before age had dulled his faculties, as an authority upon all relating to tribal custom, and was an expert in the making of rattles, wands, and other ceremonial paraphernalia. Of a poetic and imaginative temperament, he cared most for the wonder stories, of the giant Tsul`kalû', of the great Uktena or of the invisible spirit people, but he had also a keen appreciation of the humorous animal stories. He speaks no English, and with his erect spare figure and piercing eye is a fine specimen of the old-time Indian. Notwithstanding his great age he walked without other assistance than his stick to the last ball game, where he watched every run with the closest interest, and would have attended the dance the night before but for the interposition of friends. Suyeta, "The Chosen One," who preaches regularly as a Baptist minister to an Indian congregation, does not deal much with the Indian supernatural, perhaps through deference to his clerical obligations, but has a good memory and liking for rabbit stories and others of the same class. He served in the Confederate army during the war as fourth sergeant in Company A, of the Sixty-ninth North Carolina, and is now a well-preserved man of about sixty-two. He speaks no English, but by an ingenious system of his own has learned to use a concordance for verifying references in his Cherokee bible. He is also a first-class carpenter and mason. Another principal informant was Ta'gwadihi', "Catawba-killer," of Cheowa, who died a few years ago, aged about seventy. He was a doctor and made no claim to special knowledge of myths or ceremonials, but was able to furnish several valuable stories, besides confirmatory evidence for a large number obtained from other sources. Besides these may be named, among the East Cherokee, the late Chief N. J. Smith; Salâ'li, mentioned elsewhere, who died about 1895; Tsesa'ni or Jessan, who also served in the war; Ayâ'sta, one of the principal conservatives among the women; and James and David Blythe, younger men of mixed blood, with an English education, but inheritors of a large share of Indian lore from their father, who was a recognized leader of ceremony. Among informants in the western Cherokee Nation the principal was James D. Wafford, known to the Indians as Tsuskwanûñ'nawa'ta, "Worn-out-blanket," a mixed-blood speaking and writing both languages, born in the old Cherokee Nation near the site of the present Clarkesville, Georgia, in 1806, and dying when about ninety years of age at his home in the eastern part of the Cherokee Nation, adjoining the Seneca reservation. The name figures prominently in the early history of North Carolina and Georgia. His grandfather, Colonel Wafford, was an officer in the American Revolutionary army, and shortly after the treaty of Hopewell, in 1785, established a colony known as "Wafford's settlement," in upper Georgia, on territory which was afterward found to be within the Indian boundary and was acquired by special treaty purchase in 1804. His name is appended, as witness for the state of Georgia, to the treaty of Holston, in 1794. [469] On his mother's side Mr Wafford was of mixed Cherokee, Natchez, and white blood, she being a cousin of Sequoya. He was also remotely connected with Cornelius Dougherty, the first trader established among the Cherokee. In the course of his long life he filled many positions of trust and honor among his people. In his youth he attended the mission school at Valleytown under Reverend Evan Jones, and just before the adoption of the Cherokee alphabet he finished the translation into phonetic Cherokee spelling of a Sunday school speller noted in Pilling's Iroquoian Bibliography. In 1824 he was the census enumerator for that district of the Cherokee Nation embracing upper Hiwassee river, in North Carolina, with Nottely and Toccoa in the adjoining portion of Georgia. His fund of Cherokee geographic information thus acquired was found to be invaluable. He was one of the two commanders of the largest detachment of emigrants at the time of the removal, and his name appears as a councilor for the western Nation in the Cherokee Almanac for 1846. When employed by the author at Tahlequah in 1891 his mind was still clear and his memory keen. Being of practical bent, he was concerned chiefly with tribal history, geography, linguistics, and every-day life and custom, on all of which subjects his knowledge was exact and detailed, but there were few myths for which he was not able to furnish confirmatory testimony. Despite his education he was a firm believer in the Nûñne'hi, and several of the best legends connected with them were obtained from him. His death takes from the Cherokee one of the last connecting links between the present and the past. V--THE MYTHS Cosmogonic Myths 1. HOW THE WORLD WAS MADE The earth is a great island floating in a sea of water, and suspended at each of the four cardinal points by a cord hanging down from the sky vault, which is of solid rock. When the world grows old and worn out, the people will die and the cords will break and let the earth sink down into the ocean, and all will be water again. The Indians are afraid of this. When all was water, the animals were above in Galûñ'lati, beyond the arch; but it was very much crowded, and they were wanting more room. They wondered what was below the water, and at last Dâyuni'si, "Beaver's Grandchild," the little Water-beetle, offered to go and see if it could learn. It darted in every direction over the surface of the water, but could find no firm place to rest. Then it dived to the bottom and came up with some soft mud, which began to grow and spread on every side until it became the island which we call the earth. It was afterward fastened to the sky with four cords, but no one remembers who did this. At first the earth was flat and very soft and wet. The animals were anxious to get down, and sent out different birds to see if it was yet dry, but they found no place to alight and came back again to Galûñ'lati. At last it seemed to be time, and they sent out the Buzzard and told him to go and make ready for them. This was the Great Buzzard, the father of all the buzzards we see now. He flew all over the earth, low down near the ground, and it was still soft. When he reached the Cherokee country, he was very tired, and his wings began to flap and strike the ground, and wherever they struck the earth there was a valley, and where they turned up again there was a mountain. When the animals above saw this, they were afraid that the whole world would be mountains, so they called him back, but the Cherokee country remains full of mountains to this day. When the earth was dry and the animals came down, it was still dark, so they got the sun and set it in a track to go every day across the island from east to west, just overhead. It was too hot this way, and Tsiska'gili', the Red Crawfish, had his shell scorched a bright red, so that his meat was spoiled; and the Cherokee do not eat it. The conjurers put the sun another hand-breadth higher in the air, but it was still too hot. They raised it another time, and another, until it was seven handbreadths high and just under the sky arch. Then it was right, and they left it so. This is why the conjurers call the highest place Gûlkwâ'gine Di'galûñ'latiyûñ', "the seventh height," because it is seven hand-breadths above the earth. Every day the sun goes along under this arch, and returns at night on the upper side to the starting place. There is another world under this, and it is like ours in everything--animals, plants, and people--save that the seasons are different. The streams that come down from the mountains are the trails by which we reach this underworld, and the springs at their heads are the doorways by which we enter it, but to do this one must fast and go to water and have one of the underground people for a guide. We know that the seasons in the underworld are different from ours, because the water in the springs is always warmer in winter and cooler in summer than the outer air. When the animals and plants were first made--we do not know by whom--they were told to watch and keep awake for seven nights, just as young men now fast and keep awake when they pray to their medicine. They tried to do this, and nearly all were awake through the first night, but the next night several dropped off to sleep, and the third night others were asleep, and then others, until, on the seventh night, of all the animals only the owl, the panther, and one or two more were still awake. To these were given the power to see and to go about in the dark, and to make prey of the birds and animals which must sleep at night. Of the trees only the cedar, the pine, the spruce, the holly, and the laurel were awake to the end, and to them it was given to be always green and to be greatest for medicine, but to the others it was said: "Because you have not endured to the end you shall lose your hair every winter." Men came after the animals and plants. At first there were only a brother and sister until he struck her with a fish and told her to multiply, and so it was. In seven days a child was born to her, and thereafter every seven days another, and they increased very fast until there was danger that the world could not keep them. Then it was made that a woman should have only one child in a year, and it has been so ever since. 2. THE FIRST FIRE In the beginning there was no fire, and the world was cold, until the Thunders (Ani'-Hyûñ'tikwalâ'ski), who lived up in Galûñ'lati, sent their lightning and put fire into the bottom of a hollow sycamore tree which grew on an island. The animals knew it was there, because they could see the smoke coming out at the top, but they could not get to it on account of the water, so they held a council to decide what to do. This was a long time ago. Every animal that could fly or swim was anxious to go after the fire. The Raven offered, and because he was so large and strong they thought he could surely do the work, so he was sent first. He flew high and far across the water and alighted on the sycamore tree, but while he was wondering what to do next, the heat had scorched all his feathers black, and he was frightened and came back without the fire. The little Screech-owl (Wa'huhu') volunteered to go, and reached the place safely, but while he was looking down into the hollow tree a blast of hot air came up and nearly burned out his eyes. He managed to fly home as best he could, but it was a long time before he could see well, and his eyes are red to this day. Then the Hooting Owl (U'guku') and the Horned Owl (Tskili') went, but by the time they got to the hollow tree the fire was burning so fiercely that the smoke nearly blinded them, and the ashes carried up by the wind made white rings about their eyes. They had to come home again without the fire, but with all their rubbing they were never able to get rid of the white rings. Now no more of the birds would venture, and so the little Uksu'hi snake, the black racer, said he would go through the water and bring back some fire. He swam across to the island and crawled through the grass to the tree, and went in by a small hole at the bottom. The heat and smoke were too much for him, too, and after dodging about blindly over the hot ashes until he was almost on fire himself he managed by good luck to get out again at the same hole, but his body had been scorched black, and he has ever since had the habit of darting and doubling on his track as if trying to escape from close quarters. He came back, and the great blacksnake, Gûle'gi, "The Climber," offered to go for fire. He swam over to the island and climbed up the tree on the outside, as the blacksnake always does, but when he put his head down into the hole the smoke choked him so that he fell into the burning stump, and before he could climb out again he was as black as the Uksu'hi. Now they held another council, for still there was no fire, and the world was cold, but birds, snakes, and four-footed animals, all had some excuse for not going, because they were all afraid to venture near the burning sycamore, until at last Kanane'ski Amai'yehi (the Water Spider) said she would go. This is not the water spider that looks like a mosquito, but the other one, with black downy hair and red stripes on her body. She can run on top of the water or dive to the bottom, so there would be no trouble to get over to the island, but the question was, How could she bring back the fire? "I'll manage that," said the Water Spider; so she spun a thread from her body and wove it into a tusti bowl, which she fastened on her back. Then she crossed over to the island and through the grass to where the fire was still burning. She put one little coal of fire into her bowl, and came back with it, and ever since we have had fire, and the Water Spider still keeps her tusti bowl. 3. KANA'TI AND SELU: THE ORIGIN OF GAME AND CORN When I was a boy this is what the old men told me they had heard when they were boys. Long years ago, soon after the world was made, a hunter and his wife lived at Pilot knob with their only child, a little boy. The father's name was Kana'ti (The Lucky Hunter), and his wife was called Selu (Corn). No matter when Kana'ti went into the wood, he never failed to bring back a load of game, which his wife would cut up and prepare, washing off the blood from the meat in the river near the house. The little boy used to play down by the river every day, and one morning the old people thought they heard laughing and talking in the bushes as though there were two children there. When the boy came home at night his parents asked him who had been playing with him all day. "He comes out of the water," said the boy, "and he calls himself my elder brother. He says his mother was cruel to him and threw him into the river." Then they knew that the strange boy had sprung from the blood of the game which Selu had washed off at the river's edge. Every day when the little boy went out to play the other would join him, but as he always went back again into the water the old people never had a chance to see him. At last one evening Kana'ti said to his son, "Tomorrow, when the other boy comes to play, get him to wrestle with you, and when you have your arms around him hold on to him and call for us." The boy promised to do as he was told, so the next day as soon as his playmate appeared he challenged him to a wrestling match. The other agreed at once, but as soon as they had their arms around each other, Kana'ti's boy began to scream for his father. The old folks at once came running down, and as soon as the Wild Boy saw them he struggled to free himself and cried out, "Let me go; you threw me away!" but his brother held on until the parents reached the spot, when they seized the Wild Boy and took him home with them. They kept him in the house until they had tamed him, but he was always wild and artful in his disposition, and was the leader of his brother in every mischief. It was not long until the old people discovered that he had magic powers, and they called him I'nage-utasûñ'hi (He-who-grew-up-wild). Whenever Kana'ti went into the mountains he always brought back a fat buck or doe, or maybe a couple of turkeys. One day the Wild Boy said to his brother, "I wonder where our father gets all that game; let's follow him next time and find out." A few days afterward Kana'ti took a bow and some feathers in his hand and started off toward the west. The boys waited a little while and then went after him, keeping out of sight until they saw him go into a swamp where there were a great many of the small reeds that hunters use to make arrowshafts. Then the Wild Boy changed himself into a puff of bird's down, which the wind took up and carried until it alighted upon Kana'ti's shoulder just as he entered the swamp, but Kana'ti knew nothing about it. The old man cut reeds, fitted the feathers to them and made some arrows, and the Wild Boy--in his other shape--thought, "I wonder what those things are for?" When Kana'ti had his arrows finished he came out of the swamp and went on again. The wind blew the down from his shoulder, and it fell in the woods, when the Wild Boy took his right shape again and went back and told his brother what he had seen. Keeping out of sight of their father, they followed him up the mountain until he stopped at a certain place and lifted a large rock. At once there ran out a buck, which Kana'ti shot, and then lifting it upon his back he started for home again. "Oho!" exclaimed the boys, "he keeps all the deer shut up in that hole, and whenever he wants meat he just lets one out and kills it with those things he made in the swamp." They hurried and reached home before their father, who had the heavy deer to carry, and he never knew that they had followed. A few days later the boys went back to the swamp, cut some reeds, and made seven arrows, and then started up the mountain to where their father kept the game. When they got to the place, they raised the rock and a deer came running out. Just as they drew back to shoot it, another came out, and then another and another, until the boys got confused and forgot what they were about. In those days all the deer had their tails hanging down like other animals, but as a buck was running past the Wild Boy struck its tail with his arrow so that it pointed upward. The boys thought this good sport, and when the next one ran past the Wild Boy struck its tail so that it stood straight up, and his brother struck the next one so hard with his arrow that the deer's tail was almost curled over his back. The deer carries his tail this way ever since. The deer came running past until the last one had come out of the hole and escaped into the forest. Then came droves of raccoons, rabbits, and all the other four-footed animals--all but the bear, because there was no bear then. Last came great flocks of turkeys, pigeons, and partridges that darkened the air like a cloud and made such a noise with their wings that Kana'ti, sitting at home, heard the sound like distant thunder on the mountains and said to himself, "My bad boys have got into trouble; I must go and see what they are doing." So he went up the mountain, and when he came to the place where he kept the game he found the two boys standing by the rock, and all the birds and animals were gone. Kana'ti was furious, but without saying a word he went down into the cave and kicked the covers off four jars in one corner, when out swarmed bedbugs, fleas, lice, and gnats, and got all over the boys. They screamed with pain and fright and tried to beat off the insects, but the thousands of vermin crawled over them and bit and stung them until both dropped down nearly dead. Kana'ti stood looking on until he thought they had been punished enough, when he knocked off the vermin and made the boys a talk. "Now, you rascals," said he, "you have always had plenty to eat and never had to work for it. Whenever you were hungry all I had to do was to come up here and get a deer or a turkey and bring it home for your mother to cook; but now you have let out all the animals, and after this when you want a deer to eat you will have to hunt all over the woods for it, and then maybe not find one. Go home now to your mother, while I see if I can find something to eat for supper." When the boys got home again they were very tired and hungry and asked their mother for something to eat. "There is no meat," said Selu, "but wait a little while and I'll get you something." So she took a basket and started out to the storehouse. This storehouse was built upon poles high up from the ground, to keep it out of the reach of animals, and there was a ladder to climb up by, and one door, but no other opening. Every day when Selu got ready to cook the dinner she would go out to the storehouse with a basket and bring it back full of corn and beans. The boys had never been inside the storehouse, so wondered where all the corn and beans could come from, as the house was not a very large one; so as soon as Selu went out of the door the Wild Boy said to his brother, "Let's go and see what she does." They ran around and climbed up at the back of the storehouse and pulled out a piece of clay from between the logs, so that they could look in. There they saw Selu standing in the middle of the room with the basket in front of her on the floor. Leaning over the basket, she rubbed her stomach--so--and the basket was half full of corn. Then she rubbed under her armpits--so--and the basket was full to the top with beans. The boys looked at each other and said, "This will never do; our mother is a witch. If we eat any of that it will poison us. We must kill her." When the boys came back into the house, she knew their thoughts before they spoke. "So you are going to kill me?" said Selu. "Yes," said the boys, "you are a witch." "Well," said their mother, "when you have killed me, clear a large piece of ground in front of the house and drag my body seven times around the circle. Then drag me seven times over the ground inside the circle, and stay up all night and watch, and in the morning you will have plenty of corn." The boys killed her with their clubs, and cut off her head and put it up on the roof of the house with her face turned to the west, and told her to look for her husband. Then they set to work to clear the ground in front of the house, but instead of clearing the whole piece they cleared only seven little spots. This is why corn now grows only in a few places instead of over the whole world. They dragged the body of Selu around the circle, and wherever her blood fell on the ground the corn sprang up. But instead of dragging her body seven times across the ground they dragged it over only twice, which is the reason the Indians still work their crop but twice. The two brothers sat up and watched their corn all night, and in the morning it was full grown and ripe. When Kana'ti came home at last, he looked around, but could not see Selu anywhere, and asked the boys where was their mother. "She was a witch, and we killed her," said the boys; "there is her head up there on top of the house." When he saw his wife's head on the roof, he was very angry, and said, "I won't stay with you any longer; I am going to the Wolf people." So he started off, but before he had gone far the Wild Boy changed himself again to a tuft of down, which fell on Kana'ti's shoulder. When Kana'ti reached the settlement of the Wolf people, they were holding a council in the townhouse. He went in and sat down with the tuft of bird's down on his shoulder, but he never noticed it. When the Wolf chief asked him his business, he said: "I have two bad boys at home, and I want you to go in seven days from now and play ball against them." Although Kana'ti spoke as though he wanted them to play a game of ball, the Wolves knew that he meant for them to go and kill the two boys. They promised to go. Then the bird's down blew off from Kana'ti's shoulder, and the smoke carried it up through the hole in the roof of the townhouse. When it came down on the ground outside, the Wild Boy took his right shape again and went home and told his brother all that he had heard in the townhouse. But when Kana'ti left the Wolf people he did not return home, but went on farther. The boys then began to get ready for the Wolves, and the Wild Boy--the magician--told his brother what to do. They ran around the house in a wide circle until they had made a trail all around it excepting on the side from which the Wolves would come, where they left a small open space. Then they made four large bundles of arrows and placed them at four different points on the outside of the circle, after which they hid themselves in the woods and waited for the Wolves. In a day or two a whole party of Wolves came and surrounded the house to kill the boys. The Wolves did not notice the trail around the house, because they came in where the boys had left the opening, but the moment they went inside the circle the trail changed to a high brush fence and shut them in. Then the boys on the outside took their arrows and began shooting them down, and as the Wolves could not jump over the fence they were all killed, excepting a few that escaped through the opening into a great swamp close by. The boys ran around the swamp, and a circle of fire sprang up in their tracks and set fire to the grass and bushes and burned up nearly all the other Wolves. Only two or three got away, and from these have come all the wolves that are now in the world. Soon afterward some strangers from a distance, who had heard that the brothers had a wonderful grain from which they made bread, came to ask for some, for none but Selu and her family had ever known corn before. The boys gave them seven grains of corn, which they told them to plant the next night on their way home, sitting up all night to watch the corn, which would have seven ripe ears in the morning. These they were to plant the next night and watch in the same way, and so on every night until they reached home, when they would have corn enough to supply the whole people. The strangers lived seven days' journey away. They took the seven grains and watched all through the darkness until morning, when they saw seven tall stalks, each stalk bearing a ripened ear. They gathered the ears and went on their way. The next night they planted all their corn, and guarded it as before until daybreak, when they found an abundant increase. But the way was long and the sun was hot, and the people grew tired. On the last night before reaching home they fell asleep, and in the morning the corn they had planted had not even sprouted. They brought with them to their settlement what corn they had left and planted it, and with care and attention were able to raise a crop. But ever since the corn must be watched and tended through half the year, which before would grow and ripen in a night. As Kana'ti did not return, the boys at last concluded to go and find him. The Wild Boy took a gaming wheel and rolled it toward the Darkening land. In a little while the wheel came rolling back, and the boys knew their father was not there. He rolled it to the south and to the north, and each time the wheel came back to him, and they knew their father was not there. Then he rolled it toward the Sunland, and it did not return. "Our father is there," said the Wild Boy, "let us go and find him." So the two brothers set off toward the east, and after traveling a long time they came upon Kana'ti walking along with a little dog by his side. "You bad boys," said their father, "have you come here?" "Yes," they answered, "we always accomplish what we start out to do--we are men." "This dog overtook me four days ago," then said Kana'ti, but the boys knew that the dog was the wheel which they had sent after him to find him. "Well," said Kana'ti, "as you have found me, we may as well travel together, but I shall take the lead." Soon they came to a swamp, and Kana'ti told them there was something dangerous there and they must keep away from it. He went on ahead, but as soon as he was out of sight the Wild Boy said to his brother, "Come and let us see what is in the swamp." They went in together, and in the middle of the swamp they found a large panther asleep. The Wild Boy got out an arrow and shot the panther in the side of the head. The panther turned his head and the other boy shot him on that side. He turned his head away again and the two brothers shot together--tust, tust, tust! But the panther was not hurt by the arrows and paid no more attention to the boys. They came out of the swamp and soon overtook Kana'ti, waiting for them. "Did you find it?" asked Kana'ti. "Yes," said the boys, "we found it, but it never hurt us. We are men." Kana'ti was surprised, but said nothing, and they went on again. After a while he turned to them and said, "Now you must be careful. We are coming to a tribe called the Anada'dûñtaski ("Roasters," i. e., cannibals), and if they get you they will put you into a pot and feast on you." Then he went on ahead. Soon the boys came to a tree which had been struck by lightning, and the Wild Boy directed his brother to gather some of the splinters from the tree and told him what to do with them. In a little while they came to the settlement of the cannibals, who, as soon as they saw the boys, came running out, crying, "Good, here are two nice fat strangers. Now we'll have a grand feast!" They caught the boys and dragged them into the townhouse, and sent word to all the people of the settlement to come to the feast. They made up a great fire, put water into a large pot and set it to boiling, and then seized the Wild Boy and put him down into it. His brother was not in the least frightened and made no attempt to escape, but quietly knelt down and began putting the splinters into the fire, as if to make it burn better. When the cannibals thought the meat was about ready they lifted the pot from the fire, and that instant a blinding light filled the townhouse, and the lightning began to dart from one side to the other, striking down the cannibals until not one of them was left alive. Then the lightning went up through the smoke-hole, and the next moment there were the two boys standing outside the townhouse as though nothing had happened. They went on and soon met Kana'ti, who seemed much surprised to see them, and said, "What! are you here again?" "O, yes, we never give up. We are great men!" "What did the cannibals do to you?" "We met them and they brought us to their townhouse, but they never hurt us." Kana'ti said nothing more, and they went on. He soon got out of sight of the boys, but they kept on until they came to the end of the world, where the sun comes out. The sky was just coming down when they got there, but they waited until it went up again, and then they went through and climbed up on the other side. There they found Kana'ti and Selu sitting together. The old folk received them kindly and were glad to see them, telling them they might stay there a while, but then they must go to live where the sun goes down. The boys stayed with their parents seven days and then went on toward the Darkening land, where they are now. We call them Anisga'ya Tsunsdi' (The Little Men), and when they talk to each other we hear low rolling thunder in the west. After Kana'ti's boys had let the deer out from the cave where their father used to keep them, the hunters tramped about in the woods for a long time without finding any game, so that the people were very hungry. At last they heard that the Thunder Boys were now living in the far west, beyond the sun door, and that if they were sent for they could bring back the game. So they sent messengers for them, and the boys came and sat down in the middle of the townhouse and began to sing. At the first song there was a roaring sound like a strong wind in the northwest, and it grew louder and nearer as the boys sang on, until at the seventh song a whole herd of deer, led by a large buck, came out from the woods. The boys had told the people to be ready with their bows and arrows, and when the song was ended and all the deer were close around the townhouse, the hunters shot into them and killed as many as they needed before the herd could get back into the timber. Then the Thunder Boys went back to the Darkening land, but before they left they taught the people the seven songs with which to call up the deer. It all happened so long ago that the songs are now forgotten--all but two, which the hunters still sing whenever they go after deer. WAHNENAUHI VERSION After the world had been brought up from under the water, "They then made a man and a woman and led them around the edge of the island. On arriving at the starting place they planted some corn, and then told the man and woman to go around the way they had been led. This they did, and on returning they found the corn up and growing nicely. They were then told to continue the circuit. Each trip consumed more time. At last the corn was ripe and ready for use." Another story is told of how sin came into the world. A man and a woman reared a large family of children in comfort and plenty, with very little trouble about providing food for them. Every morning the father went forth and very soon returned bringing with him a deer, or a turkey, or some other animal or fowl. At the same time the mother went out and soon returned with a large basket filled with ears of corn which she shelled and pounded in a mortar, thus making meal for bread. When the children grew up, seeing with what apparent ease food was provided for them, they talked to each other about it, wondering that they never saw such things as their parents brought in. At last one proposed to watch when their parents went out and to follow them. Accordingly next morning the plan was carried out. Those who followed the father saw him stop at a short distance from the cabin and turn over a large stone that appeared to be carelessly leaned against another. On looking closely they saw an entrance to a large cave, and in it were many different kinds of animals and birds, such as their father had sometimes brought in for food. The man standing at the entrance called a deer, which was lying at some distance and back of some other animals. It rose immediately as it heard the call and came close up to him. He picked it up, closed the mouth of the cave, and returned, not once seeming to suspect what his sons had done. When the old man was fairly out of sight, his sons, rejoicing how they had outwitted him, left their hiding place and went to the cave, saying they would show the old folks that they, too, could bring in something. They moved the stone away, though it was very heavy and they were obliged to use all their united strength. When the cave was opened, the animals, instead of waiting to be picked up, all made a rush for the entrance, and leaping past the frightened and bewildered boys, scattered in all directions and disappeared in the wilderness, while the guilty offenders could do nothing but gaze in stupefied amazement as they saw them escape. There were animals of all kinds, large and small--buffalo, deer, elk, antelope, raccoons, and squirrels; even catamounts and panthers, wolves and foxes, and many others, all fleeing together. At the same time birds of every kind were seen emerging from the opening, all in the same wild confusion as the quadrupeds--turkeys, geese, swans, ducks, quails, eagles, hawks, and owls. Those who followed the mother saw her enter a small cabin, which they had never seen before, and close the door. The culprits found a small crack through which they could peer. They saw the woman place a basket on the ground and standing over it shake herself vigorously, jumping up and down, when lo and behold! large ears of corn began to fall into the basket. When it was well filled she took it up and, placing it on her head, came out, fastened the door, and prepared their breakfast as usual. When the meal had been finished in silence the man spoke to his children, telling them that he was aware of what they had done; that now he must die and they would be obliged to provide for themselves. He made bows and arrows for them, then sent them to hunt for the animals which they had turned loose. Then the mother told them that as they had found out her secret she could do nothing more for them; that she would die, and they must drag her body around over the ground; that wherever her body was dragged corn would come up. Of this they were to make their bread. She told them that they must always save some for seed and plant every year. 4. ORIGIN OF DISEASE AND MEDICINE In the old days the beasts, birds, fishes, insects, and plants could all talk, and they and the people lived together in peace and friendship. But as time went on the people increased so rapidly that their settlements spread over the whole earth, and the poor animals found themselves beginning to be cramped for room. This was bad enough, but to make it worse Man invented bows, knives, blowguns, spears, and hooks, and began to slaughter the larger animals, birds, and fishes for their flesh or their skins, while the smaller creatures, such as the frogs and worms, were crushed and trodden upon without thought, out of pure carelessness or contempt. So the animals resolved to consult upon measures for their common safety. The Bears were the first to meet in council in their townhouse under Kuwâ'hi mountain, the "Mulberry place," and the old White Bear chief presided. After each in turn had complained of the way in which Man killed their friends, ate their flesh, and used their skins for his own purposes, it was decided to begin war at once against him. Some one asked what weapons Man used to destroy them. "Bows and arrows, of course," cried all the Bears in chorus. "And what are they made of?" was the next question. "The bow of wood, and the string of our entrails," replied one of the Bears. It was then proposed that they make a bow and some arrows and see if they could not use the same weapons against Man himself. So one Bear got a nice piece of locust wood and another sacrificed himself for the good of the rest in order to furnish a piece of his entrails for the string. But when everything was ready and the first Bear stepped up to make the trial, it was found that in letting the arrow fly after drawing back the bow, his long claws caught the string and spoiled the shot. This was annoying, but some one suggested that they might trim his claws, which was accordingly done, and on a second trial it was found that the arrow went straight to the mark. But here the chief, the old White Bear, objected, saying it was necessary that they should have long claws in order to be able to climb trees. "One of us has already died to furnish the bow-string, and if we now cut off our claws we must all starve together. It is better to trust to the teeth and claws that nature gave us, for it is plain that man's weapons were not intended for us." No one could think of any better plan, so the old chief dismissed the council and the Bears dispersed to the woods and thickets without having concerted any way to prevent the increase of the human race. Had the result of the council been otherwise, we should now be at war with the Bears, but as it is, the hunter does not even ask the Bear's pardon when he kills one. The Deer next held a council under their chief, the Little Deer, and after some talk decided to send rheumatism to every hunter who should kill one of them unless he took care to ask their pardon for the offense. They sent notice of their decision to the nearest settlement of Indians and told them at the same time what to do when necessity forced them to kill one of the Deer tribe. Now, whenever the hunter shoots a Deer, the Little Deer, who is swift as the wind and can not be wounded, runs quickly up to the spot and, bending over the blood-stains, asks the spirit of the Deer if it has heard the prayer of the hunter for pardon. If the reply be "Yes," all is well, and the Little Deer goes on his way; but if the reply be "No," he follows on the trail of the hunter, guided by the drops of blood on the ground, until he arrives at his cabin in the settlement, when the Little Deer enters invisibly and strikes the hunter with rheumatism, so that he becomes at once a helpless cripple. No hunter who has regard for his health ever fails to ask pardon of the Deer for killing it, although some hunters who have not learned the prayer may try to turn aside the Little Deer from his pursuit by building a fire behind them in the trail. Next came the Fishes and Reptiles, who had their own complaints against Man. They held their council together and determined to make their victims dream of snakes twining about them in slimy folds and blowing foul breath in their faces, or to make them dream of eating raw or decaying fish, so that they would lose appetite, sicken, and die. This is why people dream about snakes and fish. Finally the Birds, Insects, and smaller animals came together for the same purpose, and the Grubworm was chief of the council. It was decided that each in turn should give an opinion, and then they would vote on the question as to whether or not Man was guilty. Seven votes should be enough to condemn him. One after another denounced Man's cruelty and injustice toward the other animals and voted in favor of his death. The Frog spoke first, saying: "We must do something to check the increase of the race, or people will become so numerous that we shall be crowded from off the earth. See how they have kicked me about because I'm ugly, as they say, until my back is covered with sores;" and here he showed the spots on his skin. Next came the Bird--no one remembers now which one it was--who condemned Man "because he burns my feet off," meaning the way in which the hunter barbecues birds by impaling them on a stick set over the fire, so that their feathers and tender feet are singed off. Others followed in the same strain. The Ground-squirrel alone ventured to say a good word for Man, who seldom hurt him because he was so small, but this made the others so angry that they fell upon the Ground-squirrel and tore him with their claws, and the stripes are on his back to this day. They began then to devise and name so many new diseases, one after another, that had not their invention at last failed them, no one of the human race would have been able to survive. The Grubworm grew constantly more pleased as the name of each disease was called off, until at last they reached the end of the list, when some one proposed to make menstruation sometimes fatal to women. On this he rose up in his place and cried: "Wadâñ'! [Thanks!] I'm glad some more of them will die, for they are getting so thick that they tread on me." The thought fairly made him shake with joy, so that he fell over backward and could not get on his feet again, but had to wriggle off on his back, as the Grubworm has done ever since. When the Plants, who were friendly to Man, heard what had been done by the animals, they determined to defeat the latters' evil designs. Each Tree, Shrub, and Herb, down even to the Grasses and Mosses, agreed to furnish a cure for some one of the diseases named, and each said: "I shall appear to help Man when he calls upon me in his need." Thus came medicine; and the plants, every one of which has its use if we only knew it, furnish the remedy to counteract the evil wrought by the revengeful animals. Even weeds were made for some good purpose, which we must find out for ourselves. When the doctor does not know what medicine to use for a sick man the spirit of the plant tells him. 5. THE DAUGHTER OF THE SUN The Sun lived on the other side of the sky vault, but her daughter lived in the middle of the sky, directly above the earth, and every day as the Sun was climbing along the sky arch to the west she used to stop at her daughter's house for dinner. Now, the Sun hated the people on the earth, because they could never look straight at her without screwing up their faces. She said to her brother, the Moon, "My grandchildren are ugly; they grin all over their faces when they look at me." But the Moon said, "I like my younger brothers; I think they are very handsome"--because they always smiled pleasantly when they saw him in the sky at night, for his rays were milder. The Sun was jealous and planned to kill all the people, so every day when she got near her daughter's house she sent down such sultry rays that there was a great fever and the people died by hundreds, until everyone had lost some friend and there was fear that no one would be left. They went for help to the Little Men, who said the only way to save themselves was to kill the Sun. The Little Men made medicine and changed two men to snakes, the Spreading-adder and the Copperhead, and sent them to watch near the door of the daughter of the Sun to bite the old Sun when she came next day. They went together and hid near the house until the Sun came, but when the Spreading-adder was about to spring, the bright light blinded him and he could only spit out yellow slime, as he does to this day when he tries to bite. She called him a nasty thing and went by into the house, and the Copperhead crawled off without trying to do anything. So the people still died from the heat, and they went to the Little Men a second time for help. The Little Men made medicine again and changed one man into the great Uktena and another into the Rattlesnake and sent them to watch near the house and kill the old Sun when she came for dinner. They made the Uktena very large, with horns on his head, and everyone thought he would be sure to do the work, but the Rattlesnake was so quick and eager that he got ahead and coiled up just outside the house, and when the Sun's daughter opened the door to look out for her mother, he sprang up and bit her and she fell dead in the doorway. He forgot to wait for the old Sun, but went back to the people, and the Uktena was so very angry that he went back, too. Since then we pray to the rattlesnake and do not kill him, because he is kind and never tries to bite if we do not disturb him. The Uktena grew angrier all the time and very dangerous, so that if he even looked at a man, that man's family would die. After a long time the people held a council and decided that he was too dangerous to be with them, so they sent him up to Galûñ'lati, and he is there now. The Spreading-adder, the Copperhead, the Rattlesnake, and the Uktena were all men. When the Sun found her daughter dead, she went into the house and grieved, and the people did not die any more, but now the world was dark all the time, because the Sun would not come out. They went again to the Little Men, and these told them that if they wanted the Sun to come out again they must bring back her daughter from Tsûsginâ'i, the Ghost country, in Usûñhi'yi, the Darkening land in the west. They chose seven men to go, and gave each a sourwood rod a hand-breadth long. The Little Men told them they must take a box with them, and when they got to Tsûsginâ'i they would find all the ghosts at a dance. They must stand outside the circle, and when the young woman passed in the dance they must strike her with the rods and she would fall to the ground. Then they must put her into the box and bring her back to her mother, but they must be very sure not to open the box, even a little way, until they were home again. They took the rods and a box and traveled seven days to the west until they came to the Darkening land. There were a great many people there, and they were having a dance just as if they were at home in the settlements. The young woman was in the outside circle, and as she swung around to where the seven men were standing, one struck her with his rod and she turned her head and saw him. As she came around the second time another touched her with his rod, and then another and another, until at the seventh round she fell out of the ring, and they put her into the box and closed the lid fast. The other ghosts seemed never to notice what had happened. They took up the box and started home toward the east. In a little while the girl came to life again and begged to be let out of the box, but they made no answer and went on. Soon she called again and said she was hungry, but still they made no answer and went on. After another while she spoke again and called for a drink and pleaded so that it was very hard to listen to her, but the men who carried the box said nothing and still went on. When at last they were very near home, she called again and begged them to raise the lid just a little, because she was smothering. They were afraid she was really dying now, so they lifted the lid a little to give her air, but as they did so there was a fluttering sound inside and something flew past them into the thicket and they heard a redbird cry, "kwish! kwish! kwish!" in the bushes. They shut down the lid and went on again to the settlements, but when they got there and opened the box it was empty. So we know the Redbird is the daughter of the Sun, and if the men had kept the box closed, as the Little Men told them to do, they would have brought her home safely, and we could bring back our other friends also from the Ghost country, but now when they die we can never bring them back. The Sun had been glad when they started to the Ghost country, but when they came back without her daughter she grieved and cried, "My daughter, my daughter," and wept until her tears made a flood upon the earth, and the people were afraid the world would be drowned. They held another council, and sent their handsomest young men and women to amuse her so that she would stop crying. They danced before the Sun and sang their best songs, but for a long time she kept her face covered and paid no attention, until at last the drummer suddenly changed the song, when she lifted up her face, and was so pleased at the sight that she forgot her grief and smiled. 6. HOW THEY BROUGHT BACK THE TOBACCO In the beginning of the world, when people and animals were all the same, there was only one tobacco plant, to which they all came for their tobacco until the Dagûl`kû geese stole it and carried it far away to the south. The people were suffering without it, and there was one old woman who grew so thin and weak that everybody said she would soon die unless she could get tobacco to keep her alive. Different animals offered to go for it, one after another, the larger ones first and then the smaller ones, but the Dagûl`kû saw and killed every one before he could get to the plant. After the others the little Mole tried to reach it by going under the ground, but the Dagûl`kû saw his track and killed him as he came out. At last the Hummingbird offered, but the others said he was entirely too small and might as well stay at home. He begged them to let him try, so they showed him a plant in a field and told him to let them see how he would go about it. The next moment he was gone and they saw him sitting on the plant, and then in a moment he was back again, but no one had seen him going or coming, because he was so swift. "This is the way I'll do," said the Hummingbird, so they let him try. He flew off to the east, and when he came in sight of the tobacco the Dagûl`kû were watching all about it, but they could not see him because he was so small and flew so swiftly. He darted down on the plant--tsa!--and snatched off the top with the leaves and seeds, and was off again before the Dagûl`kû knew what had happened. Before he got home with the tobacco the old woman had fainted and they thought she was dead, but he blew the smoke into her nostrils, and with a cry of "Tsâ'lû! [Tobacco!]" she opened her eyes and was alive again. SECOND VERSION The people had tobacco in the beginning, but they had used it all, and there was great suffering for want of it. There was one old man so old that he had to be kept alive by smoking, and as his son did not want to see him die he decided to go himself to try and get some more. The tobacco country was far in the south, with high mountains all around it, and the passes were guarded, so that it was very hard to get into it, but the young man was a conjurer and was not afraid. He traveled southward until he came to the mountains on the border of the tobacco country. Then he opened his medicine bag and took out a hummingbird skin and put it over himself like a dress. Now he was a hummingbird and flew over the mountains to the tobacco field and pulled some of the leaves and seed and put them into his medicine bag. He was so small and swift that the guards, whoever they were, did not see him, and when he had taken as much as he could carry he flew back over the mountains in the same way. Then he took off the hummingbird skin and put it into his medicine bag, and was a man again. He started home, and on his way came to a tree that had a hole in the trunk, like a door, near the first branches, and a very pretty woman was looking out from it. He stopped and tried to climb the tree, but although he was a good climber he found that he always slipped back. He put on a pair of medicine moccasins from his pouch, and then he could climb the tree, but when he reached the first branches he looked up and the hole was still as far away as before. He climbed higher and higher, but every time he looked up the hole seemed to be farther than before, until at last he was tired and came down again. When he reached home he found his father very weak, but still alive, and one draw at the pipe made him strong again. The people planted the seed and have had tobacco ever since. 7. THE JOURNEY TO THE SUNRISE A long time ago several young men made up their minds to find the place where the Sun lives and see what the Sun is like. They got ready their bows and arrows, their parched corn and extra moccasins, and started out toward the east. At first they met tribes they knew, then they came to tribes they had only heard about, and at last to others of which they had never heard. There was a tribe of root eaters and another of acorn eaters, with great piles of acorn shells near their houses. In one tribe they found a sick man dying, and were told it was the custom there when a man died to bury his wife in the same grave with him. They waited until he was dead, when they saw his friends lower the body into a great pit, so deep and dark that from the top they could not see the bottom. Then a rope was tied around the woman's body, together with a bundle of pine knots, a lighted pine knot was put into her hand, and she was lowered into the pit to die there in the darkness after the last pine knot was burned. The young men traveled on until they came at last to the sunrise place where the sky reaches down to the ground. They found that the sky was an arch or vault of solid rock hung above the earth and was always swinging up and down, so that when it went up there was an open place like a door between the sky and ground, and when it swung back the door was shut. The Sun came out of this door from the east and climbed along on the inside of the arch. It had a human figure, but was too bright for them to see clearly and too hot to come very near. They waited until the Sun had come out and then tried to get through while the door was still open, but just as the first one was in the doorway the rock came down and crushed him. The other six were afraid to try it, and as they were now at the end of the world they turned around and started back again, but they had traveled so far that they were old men when they reached home. 8. THE MOON AND THE THUNDERS. The Sun was a young woman and lived in the East, while her brother, the Moon, lived in the West. The girl had a lover who used to come every month in the dark of the moon to court her. He would come at night, and leave before daylight, and although she talked with him she could not see his face in the dark, and he would not tell her his name, until she was wondering all the time who it could be. At last she hit upon a plan to find out, so the next time he came, as they were sitting together in the dark of the âsi, she slyly dipped her hand into the cinders and ashes of the fireplace and rubbed it over his face, saying, "Your face is cold; you must have suffered from the wind," and pretending to be very sorry for him, but he did not know that she had ashes on her hand. After a while he left her and went away again. The next night when the Moon came up in the sky his face was covered with spots, and then his sister knew he was the one who had been coming to see her. He was so much ashamed to have her know it that he kept as far away as he could at the other end of the sky all the night. Ever since he tries to keep a long way behind the Sun, and when he does sometimes have to come near her in the west he makes himself as thin as a ribbon so that he can hardly be seen. Some old people say that the moon is a ball which was thrown up against the sky in a game a long time ago. They say that two towns were playing against each other, but one of them had the best runners and had almost won the game, when the leader of the other side picked up the ball with his hand--a thing that is not allowed in the game--and tried to throw it to the goal, but it struck against the solid sky vault and was fastened there, to remind players never to cheat. When the moon looks small and pale it is because some one has handled the ball unfairly, and for this reason they formerly played only at the time of a full moon. When the sun or moon is eclipsed it is because a great frog up in the sky is trying to swallow it. Everybody knows this, even the Creeks and the other tribes, and in the olden times, eighty or a hundred years ago, before the great medicine men were all dead, whenever they saw the sun grow dark the people would come together and fire guns and beat the drum, and in a little while this would frighten off the great frog and the sun would be all right again. The common people call both Sun and Moon Nûñda, one being "Nûñda that dwells in the day" and the other "Nûñda that dwells in the night," but the priests call the Sun Su'talidihi', "Six-killer," and the Moon Ge'`yagu'ga, though nobody knows now what this word means, or why they use these names. Sometimes people ask the Moon not to let it rain or snow. The great Thunder and his sons, the two Thunder boys, live far in the west above the sky vault. The lightning and the rainbow are their beautiful dress. The priests pray to the Thunder and call him the Red Man, because that is the brightest color of his dress. There are other Thunders that live lower down, in the cliffs and mountains, and under waterfalls, and travel on invisible bridges from one high peak to another where they have their town houses. The great Thunders above the sky are kind and helpful when we pray to them, but these others are always plotting mischief. One must not point at the rainbow, or one's finger will swell at the lower joint. 9. WHAT THE STARS ARE LIKE There are different opinions about the stars. Some say they are balls of light, others say they are human, but most people say they are living creatures covered with luminous fur or feathers. One night a hunting party camping in the mountains noticed two lights like large stars moving along the top of a distant ridge. They wondered and watched until the light disappeared on the other side. The next night, and the next, they saw the lights again moving along the ridge, and after talking over the matter decided to go on the morrow and try to learn the cause. In the morning they started out and went until they came to the ridge, where, after searching some time, they found two strange creatures about so large (making a circle with outstretched arms), with round bodies covered with fine fur or downy feathers, from which small heads stuck out like the heads of terrapins. As the breeze played upon these feathers showers of sparks flew out. The hunters carried the strange creatures back to the camp, intending to take them home to the settlements on their return. They kept them several days and noticed that every night they would grow bright and shine like great stars, although by day they were only balls of gray fur, except when the wind stirred and made the sparks fly out. They kept very quiet, and no one thought of their trying to escape, when, on the seventh night, they suddenly rose from the ground like balls of fire and were soon above the tops of the trees. Higher and higher they went, while the wondering hunters watched, until at last they were only two bright points of light in the dark sky, and then the hunters knew that they were stars. 10. ORIGIN OF THE PLEIADES AND THE PINE Long ago, when the world was new, there were seven boys who used to spend all their time down by the townhouse playing the gatayû'sti game, rolling a stone wheel along the ground and sliding a curved stick after it to strike it. Their mothers scolded, but it did no good, so one day they collected some gatayû'sti stones and boiled them in the pot with the corn for dinner. When the boys came home hungry their mothers dipped out the stones and said, "Since you like the gatayû'sti better than the cornfield, take the stones now for your dinner." The boys were very angry, and went down to the townhouse, saying, "As our mothers treat us this way, let us go where we shall never trouble them any more." They began a dance--some say it was the Feather dance--and went round and round the townhouse, praying to the spirits to help them. At last their mothers were afraid something was wrong and went out to look for them. They saw the boys still dancing around the townhouse, and as they watched they noticed that their feet were off the earth, and that with every round they rose higher and higher in the air. They ran to get their children, but it was too late, for they were already above the roof of the townhouse--all but one, whose mother managed to pull him down with the gatayû'sti pole, but he struck the ground with such force that he sank into it and the earth closed over him. The other six circled higher and higher until they went up to the sky, where we see them now as the Pleiades, which the Cherokee still call Ani'tsutsa (The Boys). The people grieved long after them, but the mother whose boy had gone into the ground came every morning and every evening to cry over the spot until the earth was damp with her tears. At last a little green shoot sprouted up and grew day by day until it became the tall tree that we call now the pine, and the pine is of the same nature as the stars and holds in itself the same bright light. 11. THE MILKY WAY Some people in the south had a corn mill, in which they pounded the corn into meal, and several mornings when they came to fill it they noticed that some of the meal had been stolen during the night. They examined the ground and found the tracks of a dog, so the next night they watched, and when the dog came from the north and began to eat the meal out of the bowl they sprang out and whipped him. He ran off howling to his home in the north, with the meal dropping from his mouth as he ran, and leaving behind a white trail where now we see the Milky Way, which the Cherokee call to this day Gi`li'-utsûñ'stanûñ'yi, "Where the dog ran." 12. ORIGIN OF STRAWBERRIES When the first man was created and a mate was given to him, they lived together very happily for a time, but then began to quarrel, until at last the woman left her husband and started off toward Nûñdâgûñ'yi, the Sun land, in the east. The man followed alone and grieving, but the woman kept on steadily ahead and never looked behind, until Une'`lanûñ'hi, the great Apportioner (the Sun), took pity on him and asked him if he was still angry with his wife. He said he was not, and Une'`lanûñ'hi then asked him if he would like to have her back again, to which he eagerly answered yes. So Une'`lanûñ'hi caused a patch of the finest ripe huckleberries to spring up along the path in front of the woman, but she passed by without paying any attention to them. Farther on he put a clump of blackberries, but these also she refused to notice. Other fruits, one, two, and three, and then some trees covered with beautiful red service berries, were placed beside the path to tempt her, but she still went on until suddenly she saw in front a patch of large ripe strawberries, the first ever known. She stooped to gather a few to eat, and as she picked them she chanced to turn her face to the west, and at once the memory of her husband came back to her and she found herself unable to go on. She sat down, but the longer she waited the stronger became her desire for her husband, and at last she gathered a bunch of the finest berries and started back along the path to give them to him. He met her kindly and they went home together. 13. THE GREAT YELLOW-JACKET: ORIGIN OF FISH AND FROGS A long time ago the people of the old town of Kanu'ga`lâ'yi ("Brier place," or Briertown), on Nantahala river, in the present Macon county, North Carolina, were much annoyed by a great insect called U'la`gû', as large as a house, which used to come from some secret hiding place, and darting swiftly through the air, would snap up children from their play and carry them away. It was unlike any other insect ever known, and the people tried many times to track it to its home, but it was too swift to be followed. They killed a squirrel and tied a white string to it, so that its course could be followed with the eye, as bee hunters follow the flight of a bee to its tree. The U'la`gû' came and carried off the squirrel with the string hanging to it, but darted away so swiftly through the air that it was out of sight in a moment. They killed a turkey and put a longer white string to it, and the U'la`gû' came and took the turkey, but was gone again before they could see in what direction it flew. They took a deer ham and tied a white string to it, and again the U'la`gû' swooped down and bore it off so swiftly that it could not be followed. At last they killed a yearling deer and tied a very long white string to it. The U'la`gû' came again and seized the deer, but this time the load was so heavy that it had to fly slowly and so low down that the string could be plainly seen. The hunters got together for the pursuit. They followed it along a ridge to the east until they came near where Franklin now is, when, on looking across the valley to the other side, they saw the nest of the U'la`gû' in a large cave in the rocks. On this they raised a great shout and made their way rapidly down the mountain and across to the cave. The nest had the entrance below with tiers of cells built up one above another to the roof of the cave. The great U'la`gû' was there, with thousands of smaller ones, that we now call yellow-jackets. The hunters built fires around the hole, so that the smoke filled the cave and smothered the great insect and multitudes of the smaller ones, but others which were outside the cave were not killed, and these escaped and increased until now the yellow-jackets, which before were unknown, are all over the world. The people called the cave Tsgâgûñ'yi, "Where the yellow-jacket was," and the place from which they first saw the nest they called A`tahi'ta, "Where they shouted," and these are their names today. They say also that all the fish and frogs came from a great monster fish and frog which did much damage until at last they were killed by the people, who cut them up into little pieces which were thrown into the water and afterward took shape as the smaller fishes and frogs. 14. THE DELUGE A long time ago a man had a dog, which began to go down to the river every day and look at the water and howl. At last the man was angry and scolded the dog, which then spoke to him and said: "Very soon there is going to be a great freshet and the water will come so high that everybody will be drowned; but if you will make a raft to get upon when the rain comes you can be saved, but you must first throw me into the water." The man did not believe it, and the dog said, "If you want a sign that I speak the truth, look at the back of my neck." He looked and saw that the dog's neck had the skin worn off so that the bones stuck out. Then he believed the dog, and began to build a raft. Soon the rain came and he took his family, with plenty of provisions, and they all got upon it. It rained for a long time, and the water rose until the mountains were covered and all the people in the world were drowned. Then the rain stopped and the waters went down again, until at last it was safe to come off the raft. Now there was no one alive but the man and his family, but one day they heard a sound of dancing and shouting on the other side of the ridge. The man climbed to the top and looked over; everything was still, but all along the valley he saw great piles of bones of the people who had been drowned, and then he knew that the ghosts had been dancing. Quadruped Myths 15. THE FOURFOOTED TRIBES In Cherokee mythology, as in that of Indian tribes generally, there is no essential difference between men and animals. In the primal genesis period they seem to be completely undifferentiated, and we find all creatures alike living and working together in harmony and mutual helpfulness until man, by his aggressiveness and disregard for the rights of the others, provokes their hostility, when insects, birds, fishes, reptiles, and fourfooted beasts join forces against him (see story, "Origin of Disease and Medicine"). Henceforth their lives are apart, but the difference is always one of degree only. The animals, like the people, are organized into tribes and have like them their chiefs and townhouses, their councils and ballplays, and the same hereafter in the Darkening land of Usûñhi'yi. Man is still the paramount power, and hunts and slaughters the others as his own necessities compel, but is obliged to satisfy the animal tribes in every instance, very much as a murder is compounded for, according to the Indian system, by "covering the bones of the dead" with presents for the bereaved relatives. This pardon to the hunter is made the easier through a peculiar doctrine of reincarnation, according to which, as explained by the shamans, there is assigned to every animal a definite life term which can not be curtailed by violent means. If it is killed before the expiration of the allotted time the death is only temporary and the body is immediately resurrected in its proper shape from the blood drops, and the animal continues its existence until the end of the predestined period, when the body is finally dissolved and the liberated spirit goes to join its kindred shades in the Darkening land. This idea appears in the story of the bear man and in the belief concerning the Little Deer. Death is thus but a temporary accident and the killing a mere minor crime. By some priests it is held that there are seven successive reanimations before the final end. Certain supernatural personages, Kana'ti and Tsul`kalû' (see the myths), have dominion over the animals, and are therefore regarded as the distinctive gods of the hunter. Kana'ti at one time kept the game animals, as well as the pestiferous insects, shut up in a cave under ground, from which they were released by his undutiful sons. The primeval animals--the actors in the animal myths and the predecessors of the existing species--are believed to have been much larger, stronger, and cleverer than their successors of the present day. In these myths we find the Indian explanation of certain peculiarities of form, color, or habit, and the various animals are always consistently represented as acting in accordance with their well-known characteristics. First and most prominent in the animal myths is the Rabbit (Tsistu), who figures always as a trickster and deceiver, generally malicious, but often beaten at his own game by those whom he had intended to victimize. The connection of the rabbit with the dawn god and the relation of the Indian myths to the stories current among the southern negroes are discussed in another place. Ball players while in training are forbidden to eat the flesh of the rabbit, because this animal so easily becomes confused in running. On the other hand, their spies seek opportunity to strew along the path which must be taken by their rivals a soup made of rabbit hamstrings, with the purpose Of rendering them timorous in action. In a ball game between the birds and the fourfooted animals (see story) the Bat, which took sides with the birds, is said to have won the victory for his party by his superior dodging abilities. For this reason the wings or sometimes the stuffed skin of the bat are tied to the implements used in the game to insure success for the players. According to the same myth the Flying Squirrel (Tewa) also aided in securing the victory, and hence both these animals are still invoked by the ball player. The meat of the common gray squirrel (salâ'li) is forbidden to rheumatic patients, on account of the squirrel's habit of assuming a cramped position when eating. The stripes upon the back of the ground squirrel (kiyu'`ga) are the mark of scratches made by the angry animals at a memorable council in which he took it upon himself to say a good word for the archenemy, Man (see "Origin of Disease and Medicine"). The peculiarities of the mink (sûñgi) are accounted for by another story. The buffalo, the largest game animal of America, was hunted in the southern Allegheny region until almost the close of the last century, the particular species being probably that known in the West as the wood or mountain buffalo. The name in use among the principal gulf tribes was practically the same, and can not be analyzed, viz, Cherokee, yûñsû'; Hichitee, ya'nasi; Creek, yena'sa; Choctaw, yanash. Although the flesh of the buffalo was eaten, its skin dressed for blankets and bed coverings, its long hair woven into belts, and its horns carved into spoons, it is yet strangely absent from Cherokee folklore. So far as is known it is mentioned in but a single one of the sacred formulas, in which a person under treatment for rheumatism is forbidden to eat the meat, touch the skin, or use a spoon made from the horn of the buffalo, upon the ground of an occult connection between the habitual cramped attitude of a rheumatic and the natural "hump" of that animal. The elk is known, probably by report, under the name of a`wi' e'gwa, "great deer", but there is no myth or folklore in connection with it. The deer, a`wi', which is still common in the mountains, was the principal dependence of the Cherokee hunter, and is consequently prominent in myth, folklore, and ceremonial. One of the seven gentes of the tribe is named from it (Ani'-Kawi', "Deer People"). According to a myth given elsewhere, the deer won his horns in a successful race with the rabbit. Rheumatism is usually ascribed to the work of revengeful deer ghosts, which the hunter has neglected to placate, while on the other hand the aid of the deer is invoked against frostbite, as its feet are believed to be immune from injury by frost. The wolf, the fox, and the opossum are also invoked for this purpose, and for the same reason. When the redroot (Ceanothus americanus) puts forth its leaves the people say the young fawns are then in the mountains. On killing a deer the hunter always cuts out the hamstring from the hind quarter and throws it away, for fear that if he ate it he would thereafter tire easily in traveling. The powerful chief of the deer tribe is the A[`]wi' Usdi', or "Little Deer," who is invisible to all except the greatest masters of the hunting secrets, and can be wounded only by the hunter who has supplemented years of occult study with frequent fasts and lonely vigils. The Little Deer keeps constant protecting watch over his subjects, and sees well to it that not one is ever killed in wantonness. When a deer is shot by the hunter the Little Deer knows it at once and is instantly at the spot. Bending low his head he asks of the blood stains upon the ground if they have heard--i. e., if the hunter has asked pardon for the life that he has taken. If the formulistic prayer has been made, all is well, because the necessary sacrifice has been atoned for; but if otherwise, the Little Deer tracks the hunter to his house by the blood drops along the trail, and, unseen and unsuspected, puts into his body the spirit of rheumatism that shall rack him with aches and pains from that time henceforth. As seen at rare intervals--perhaps once in a long lifetime--the Little Deer is pure white and about the size of a small dog, has branching antlers, and is always in company with a large herd of deer. Even though shot by the master-hunter, he comes to life again, being immortal, but the fortunate huntsman who can thus make prize of his antlers has in them an unfailing talisman that brings him success in the chase forever after. The smallest portion of one of those horns of the Little Deer, when properly consecrated, attracts the deer to the hunter, and when exposed from the wrapping dazes them so that they forget to run and thus become an easy prey. Like the Ulûñsû'ti stone (see number 50), it is a dangerous prize when not treated with proper respect, and is--or was--kept always in a secret place away from the house to guard against sacrilegious handling. Somewhat similar talismanic power attached to the down from the young antler of the deer when properly consecrated. So firm was the belief that it had influence over "anything about a deer" that eighty and a hundred years ago even white traders used to bargain with the Indians for such charms in order to increase their store of deerskins by drawing the trade to themselves. The faith in the existence of the miraculous Little Deer is almost as strong and universal to-day among the older Cherokee as is the belief in a future life. The bears (yânû) are transformed Cherokee of the old clan of the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi (see story, "Origin of the Bear"). Their chief is the White Bear, who lives at Kuwâ'hi, "Mulberry place," one of the high peaks of the Great Smoky mountains, near to the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hi (see number 69), to which the wounded bears go to be cured of their hurts. Under Kuwâ'hi and each of three other peaks in the same mountain region the bears have townhouses, where they congregate and hold dances every fall before retiring to their dens for the winter. Being really human, they can talk if they only would, and once a mother bear was heard singing to her cub in words which the hunter understood. There is one variety known as kalâs'-gûnahi'ta, "long hams," described as a large black bear with long legs and small feet, which is always lean, and which the hunter does not care to shoot, possibly on account of its leanness. It is believed that new-born cubs are hairless, like mice. The wolf (wa'`ya) is revered as the hunter and watchdog of Kana'ti, and the largest gens in the tribe bears the name of Ani'-wa'`ya, "Wolf people." The ordinary Cherokee will never kill one if he can possibly avoid it, but will let the animal go by unharmed, believing that the kindred of a slain wolf will surely revenge his death, and that the weapon with which the deed is done will be rendered worthless for further shooting until cleaned and exorcised by a medicine man. Certain persons, however, having knowledge of the proper atonement rites, may kill wolves with impunity, and are hired for this purpose by others who have suffered from raids upon their fish traps or their stock. Like the eagle killer (see "The Bird Tribes"), the professional wolf killer, after killing one of these animals, addresses to it a prayer in which he seeks to turn aside the vengeance of the tribe by laying the burden of blame upon the people of some other settlement. He then unscrews the barrel of his gun and inserts into it seven small sourwood rods heated over the fire, and allows it to remain thus overnight in the running stream; in the morning the rods are taken out and the barrel is thoroughly dried and cleaned. The dog (gi`li'), although as much a part of Indian life among the Cherokee as in other tribes, hardly appears in folklore. One myth makes him responsible for the milky way; another represents him as driving the wolf from the comfortable house fire and taking the place for himself. He figures also in connection with the deluge. There is no tradition of the introduction of the horse (sâ'gwali, asâ'gwalihû', "a pack or burden") or of the cow (wa'`ka, from the Spanish, vaca). The hog is called sikwa, this being originally the name of the opossum, which somewhat resembles it in expression, and which is now distinguished as sikwa utse'tsti, "grinning sikwa." In the same way the sheep, another introduced animal, is called a`wi' unade'na, "woolly deer"; the goat, a`wi' ahanu'lahi, "bearded deer," and the mule, sâ'gwa'li digû'lanahi'ta, "long-eared horse." The cat, also obtained from the whites, is called wesa, an attempt at the English "pussy." When it purrs by the fireside, the children say it is counting in Cherokee, "ta'ladu', nûñ'gi, ta'ladu', nûñ'gi," "sixteen, four, sixteen, four." The elephant, which a few of the Cherokee have seen in shows, is called by them kama'ma u'tanû, "great butterfly," from the supposed resemblance of its long trunk and flapping ears to the proboscis and wings of that insect. The anatomical peculiarities of the opossum, of both sexes, are the subject of much curious speculation among the Indians, many of whom believe that its young are produced without any help from the male. It occurs in one or two of the minor myths. The fox (tsu'`la) is mentioned in one of the formulas, but does not appear in the tribal folklore. The black fox is known by a different name (inâ'li). The odor of the skunk (dila') is believed to keep off contagious diseases, and the scent bag is therefore taken out and hung over the doorway, a small hole being pierced in it in order that the contents may ooze out upon the timbers. At times, as in the smallpox epidemic of 1866, the entire body of the animal was thus hung up, and in some cases, as an additional safeguard, the meat was cooked and eaten and the oil rubbed over the skin of the person. The underlying idea is that the fetid smell repels the disease spirit, and upon the same principle the buzzard, which is so evidently superior to carrion smells, is held to be powerful against the same diseases. The beaver (dâ'yi), by reason of its well-known gnawing ability, against which even the hardest wood is not proof, is invoked on behalf of young children just getting their permanent teeth. According to the little formula which is familiar to nearly every mother in the tribe, when the loosened milk tooth is pulled out or drops out of itself, the child runs with it around the house, repeating four times, "Dâ'yi, skinta' (Beaver, put a new tooth into my jaw)" after which he throws the tooth upon the roof of the house. In a characteristic song formula to prevent frostbite the traveler, before starting out on a cold winter morning, rubs his feet in the ashes of the fire and sings a song of four verses, by means of which, according to the Indian idea, he acquires in turn the cold-defying powers of the wolf, deer, fox, and opossum, four animals whose feet, it is held, are never frostbitten. After each verse he imitates the cry and the action of the animal. The words used are archaic in form and may be rendered "I become a real wolf," etc. The song runs: Tsûñ'wa'`ya-ya' (repeated four times), wa + a! (prolonged howl). (Imitates a wolf pawing the ground with his feet.) Tsûñ'-ka'wi-ye' (repeated four times), sauh! sauh! sauh! sauh! (Imitates call and jumping of a deer.) Tsûñ'-tsu'`la-ya' (repeated four times), gaih! gaih! gaih! gaih! (Imitates barking and scratching of a fox.) Tsûñ'-si'kwa-ya' (repeated four times), ki +. (Imitates the cry of an opossum when cornered, and throws his head back as that animal does when feigning death.) 16. THE RABBIT GOES DUCK HUNTING The Rabbit was so boastful that he would claim to do whatever he saw anyone else do, and so tricky that he could usually make the other animals believe it all. Once he pretended that he could swim in the water and eat fish just as the Otter did, and when the others told him to prove it he fixed up a plan so that the Otter himself was deceived. Soon afterward they met again and the Otter said, "I eat ducks sometimes." Said the Rabbit, "Well, I eat ducks too." The Otter challenged him to try it; so they went up along the river until they saw several ducks in the water and managed to get near without being seen. The Rabbit told the Otter to go first. The Otter never hesitated, but dived from the bank and swam under water until he reached the ducks, when he pulled one down without being noticed by the others, and came back in the same way. While the Otter had been under the water the Rabbit had peeled some bark from a sapling and made himself a noose. "Now," he said, "Just watch me;" and he dived in and swam a little way under the water until he was nearly choking and had to come up to the top to breathe. He went under again and came up again a little nearer to the ducks. He took another breath and dived under, and this time he came up among the ducks and threw the noose over the head of one and caught it. The duck struggled hard and finally spread its wings and flew up from the water with the Rabbit hanging on to the noose. It flew on and on until at last the Rabbit could not hold on any longer, but had to let go and drop. As it happened, he fell into a tall, hollow sycamore stump without any hole at the bottom to get out from, and there he stayed until he was so hungry that he had to eat his own fur, as the rabbit does ever since when he is starving. After several days, when he was very weak with hunger, he heard children playing outside around the trees. He began to sing: Cut a door and look at me; I'm the prettiest thing you ever did see. The children ran home and told their father, who came and began to cut a hole in the tree. As he chopped away the Rabbit inside kept singing, "Cut it larger, so you can see me better; I'm so pretty." They made the hole larger, and then the Rabbit told them to stand back so that they could take a good look as he came out. They stood away back, and the Rabbit watched his chance and jumped out and got away. 17. HOW THE RABBIT STOLE THE OTTER'S COAT The animals were of different sizes and wore coats of various colors and patterns. Some wore long fur and others wore short. Some had rings on their tails, and some had no tails at all. Some had coats of brown, others of black or yellow. They were always disputing about their good looks, so at last they agreed to hold a council to decide who had the finest coat. They had heard a great deal about the Otter, who lived so far up the creek that he seldom came down to visit the other animals. It was said that he had the finest coat of all, but no one knew just what it was like, because it was a long time since anyone had seen him. They did not even know exactly where he lived--only the general direction; but they knew he would come to the council when the word got out. Now the Rabbit wanted the verdict for himself, so when it began to look as if it might go to the Otter he studied up a plan to cheat him out of it. He asked a few sly questions until he learned what trail the Otter would take to get to the council place. Then, without saying anything, he went on ahead and after four days' travel he met the Otter and knew him at once by his beautiful coat of soft dark-brown fur. The Otter was glad to see him and asked him where he was going. "O," said the Rabbit, "the animals sent me to bring you to the council; because you live so far away they were afraid you mightn't know the road." The Otter thanked him, and they went on together. They traveled all day toward the council ground, and at night the Rabbit selected the camping place, because the Otter was a stranger in that part of the country, and cut down bushes for beds and fixed everything in good shape. The next morning they started on again. In the afternoon the Rabbit began to pick up wood and bark as they went along and to load it on his back. When the Otter asked what this was for the Rabbit said it was that they might be warm and comfortable at night. After a while, when it was near sunset, they stopped and made their camp. When supper was over the Rabbit got a stick and shaved it down to a paddle. The Otter wondered and asked again what that was for. "I have good dreams when I sleep with a paddle under my head," said the Rabbit. When the paddle was finished the Rabbit began to cut away the bushes so as to make a clean trail down to the river. The Otter wondered more and more and wanted to know what this meant. Said the Rabbit, "This place is called Di'tatlâski'yi [The Place Where it Rains Fire]. Sometimes it rains fire here, and the sky looks a little that way to-night. You go to sleep and I'll sit up and watch, and if the fire does come, as soon as you hear me shout, you run and jump into the river. Better hang your coat on a limb over there, so it won't get burnt." The Otter did as he was told, and they both doubled up to go to sleep, but the Rabbit kept awake. After a while the fire burned down to red coals. The Rabbit called, but the Otter was fast asleep and made no answer. In a little while he called again, but the Otter never stirred. Then the Rabbit filled the paddle with hot coals and threw them up into the air and shouted, "It's raining fire! It's raining fire!" The hot coals fell all around the Otter and he jumped up. "To the water!" cried the Rabbit, and the Otter ran and jumped into the river, and he has lived in the water ever since. The Rabbit took the Otter's coat and put it on, leaving his own instead, and went on to the council. All the animals were there, every one looking out for the Otter. At last they saw him in the distance, and they said one to the other, "The Otter is coming!" and sent one of the small animals to show him the best seat. They were all glad to see him and went up in turn to welcome him, but the Otter kept his head down, with one paw over his face. They wondered that he was so bashful, until the Bear came up and pulled the paw away, and there was the Rabbit with his split nose. He sprang up and started to run, when the Bear struck at him and pulled his tail off, but the Rabbit was too quick for them and got away. 18. WHY THE POSSUM'S TAIL IS BARE The Possum used to have a long, bushy tail, and was so proud of it that he combed it out every morning and sang about it at the dance, until the Rabbit, who had had no tail since the Bear pulled it out, became very jealous and made up his mind to play the Possum a trick. There was to be a great council and a dance at which all the animals were to be present. It was the Rabbit's business to send out the news, so as he was passing the Possum's place he stopped to ask him if he intended to be there. The Possum said he would come if he could have a special seat, "because I have such a handsome tail that I ought to sit where everybody can see me." The Rabbit promised to attend to it and to send some one besides to comb and dress the Possum's tail for the dance, so the Possum was very much pleased and agreed to come. Then the Rabbit went over to the Cricket, who is such an expert hair cutter that the Indians call him the barber, and told him to go next morning and dress the Possum's tail for the dance that night. He told the Cricket just what to do and then went on about some other mischief. In the morning the Cricket went to the Possum's house and said he had come to get him ready for the dance. So the Possum stretched himself out and shut his eyes while the Cricket combed out his tail and wrapped a red string around it to keep it smooth until night. But all this time, as he wound the string around, he was clipping off the hair close to the roots, and the Possum never knew it. When it was night the Possum went to the townhouse where the dance was to be and found the best seat ready for him, just as the Rabbit had promised. When his turn came in the dance he loosened the string from his tail and stepped into the middle of the floor. The drummers began to drum and the Possum began to sing, "See my beautiful tail." Everybody shouted and he danced around the circle and sang again, "See what a fine color it has." They shouted again and he danced around another time, singing, "See how it sweeps the ground." The animals shouted more loudly than ever, and the Possum was delighted. He danced around again and sang, "See how fine the fur is." Then everybody laughed so long that the Possum wondered what they meant. He looked around the circle of animals and they were all laughing at him. Then he looked down at his beautiful tail and saw that there was not a hair left upon it, but that it was as bare as the tail of a lizard. He was so much astonished and ashamed that he could not say a word, but rolled over helpless on the ground and grinned, as the Possum does to this day when taken by surprise. 19. HOW THE WILDCAT CAUGHT THE GOBBLER The Wildcat once caught the Rabbit and was about to kill him, when the Rabbit begged for his life, saying: "I'm so small I would make only a mouthful for you, but if you let me go I'll show you where you can get a whole drove of Turkeys." So the Wildcat let him up and went with him to where the Turkeys were. When they came near the place the Rabbit said to the Wildcat, "Now, you must do just as I say. Lie down as if you were dead and don't move, even if I kick you, but when I give the word jump up and catch the largest one there." The Wildcat agreed and stretched out as if dead, while the Rabbit gathered some rotten wood and crumbled it over his eyes and nose to make them look flyblown, so that the Turkeys would think he had been dead some time. Then the Rabbit went over to the Turkeys and said, in a sociable way, "Here, I've found our old enemy, the Wildcat, lying dead in the trail. Let's have a dance over him." The Turkeys were very doubtful, but finally went with him to where the Wildcat was lying in the road as if dead. Now, the Rabbit had a good voice and was a great dance leader, so he said, "I'll lead the song and you dance around him." The Turkeys thought that fine, so the Rabbit took a stick to beat time and began to sing: "Galagi'na hasuyak', Galagi'na hasuyak' (pick out the Gobbler, pick out the Gobbler)." "Why do you say that?" said the old Turkey. "O, that's all right," said the Rabbit, "that's just the way he does, and we sing about it." He started the song again and the Turkeys began to dance around the Wildcat. When they had gone around several times the Rabbit said, "Now go up and hit him, as we do in the war dance." So the Turkeys, thinking the Wildcat surely dead, crowded in close around him and the old gobbler kicked him. Then the Rabbit drummed hard and sang his loudest, "Pick out the Gobbler, pick out the Gobbler," and the Wildcat jumped up and caught the Gobbler. 20. HOW THE TERRAPIN BEAT THE RABBIT The Rabbit was a great runner, and everybody knew it. No one thought the Terrapin anything but a slow traveler, but he was a great warrior and very boastful, and the two were always disputing about their speed. At last they agreed to decide the matter by a race. They fixed the day and the starting place and arranged to run across four mountain ridges, and the one who came in first at the end was to be the winner. The Rabbit felt so sure of it that he said to the Terrapin, "You know you can't run. You can never win the race, so I'll give you the first ridge and then you'll have only three to cross while I go over four." The Terrapin said that would be all right, but that night when he went home to his family he sent for his Terrapin friends and told them he wanted their help. He said he knew he could not outrun the Rabbit, but he wanted to stop the Rabbit's boasting. He explained his plan to his friends and they agreed to help him. When the day came all the animals were there to see the race. The Rabbit was with them, but the Terrapin was gone ahead toward the first ridge, as they had arranged, and they could hardly see him on account of the long grass. The word was given and the Rabbit started off with long jumps up the mountain, expecting to win the race before the Terrapin could get down the other side. But before he got up the mountain he saw the Terrapin go over the ridge ahead of him. He ran on, and when he reached the top he looked all around, but could not see the Terrapin on account of the long grass. He kept on down the mountain and began to climb the second ridge, but when he looked up again there was the Terrapin just going over the top. Now he was surprised and made his longest jumps to catch up, but when he got to the top there was the Terrapin away in front going over the third ridge. The Rabbit was getting tired now and nearly out of breath, but he kept on down the mountain and up the other ridge until he got to the top just in time to see the Terrapin cross the fourth ridge and thus win the race. The Rabbit could not make another jump, but fell over on the ground, crying mi, mi, mi, mi, as the Rabbit does ever since when he is too tired to run any more. The race was given to the Terrapin and all the animals wondered how he could win against the Rabbit, but he kept still and never told. It was easy enough, however, because all the Terrapin's friends looked just alike, and he had simply posted one near the top of each ridge to wait until the Rabbit came in sight and then climb over and hide in the long grass. When the Rabbit came on he could not find the Terrapin and so thought the Terrapin was ahead, and if he had met one of the other terrapins he would have thought it the same one because they looked so much alike. The real Terrapin had posted himself on the fourth ridge, so as to come in at the end of the race and be ready to answer questions if the animals suspected anything. Because the Rabbit had to lie down and lose the race the conjurer now, when preparing his young men for the ball play, boils a lot of rabbit hamstrings into a soup, and sends some one at night to pour it across the path along which the other players are to come in the morning, so that they may become tired in the same way and lose the game. It is not always easy to do this, because the other party is expecting it and has watchers ahead to prevent it. 21. THE RABBIT AND THE TAR WOLF Once there was such a long spell of dry weather that there was no more water in the creeks and springs, and the animals held a council to see what to do about it. They decided to dig a well, and all agreed to help except the Rabbit, who was a lazy fellow, and said, "I don't need to dig for water. The dew on the grass is enough for me." The others did not like this, but they went to work together and dug their well. They noticed that the Rabbit kept sleek and lively, although it was still dry weather and the water was getting low in the well. They said, "That tricky Rabbit steals our water at night," so they made a wolf of pine gum and tar and set it up by the well to scare the thief. That night the Rabbit came, as he had been coming every night, to drink enough to last him all next day. He saw the queer black thing by the well and said, "Who's there?" but the tar wolf said nothing. He came nearer, but the wolf never moved, so he grew braver and said, "Get out of my way or I'll strike you." Still the wolf never moved and the Rabbit came up and struck it with his paw, but the gum held his foot and it stuck fast. Now he was angry and said, "Let me go or I'll kick you." Still the wolf said nothing. Then the Rabbit struck again with his hind foot, so hard that it was caught in the gum and he could not move, and there he stuck until the animals came for water in the morning. When they found who the thief was they had great sport over him for a while and then got ready to kill him, but as soon as he was unfastened from the tar wolf he managed to get away.--Wafford. SECOND VERSION "Once upon a time there was such a severe drought that all streams of water and all lakes were dried up. In this emergency the beasts assembled together to devise means to procure water. It was proposed by one to dig a well. All agreed to do so except the hare. She refused because it would soil her tiny paws. The rest, however, dug their well and were fortunate enough to find water. The hare beginning to suffer and thirst, and having no right to the well, was thrown upon her wits to procure water. She determined, as the easiest way, to steal from the public well. The rest of the animals, surprised to find that the hare was so well supplied with water, asked her where she got it. She replied that she arose betimes in the morning and gathered the dewdrops. However the wolf and the fox suspected her of theft and hit on the following plan to detect her: They made a wolf of tar and placed it near the well. On the following night the hare came as usual after her supply of water. On seeing the tar wolf she demanded who was there. Receiving no answer she repeated the demand, threatening to kick the wolf if he did not reply. She receiving no reply kicked the wolf, and by this means adhered to the tar and was caught. When the fox and wolf got hold of her they consulted what it was best to do with her. One proposed cutting her head off. This the hare protested would be useless, as it had often been tried without hurting her. Other methods were proposed for dispatching her, all of which she said would be useless. At last it was proposed to let her loose to perish in a thicket. Upon this the hare affected great uneasiness and pleaded hard for life. Her enemies, however, refused to listen and she was accordingly let loose. As soon, however, as she was out of reach of her enemies she gave a whoop, and bounding away she exclaimed: 'This is where I live.'"--Cherokee Advocate, December 18, 1845. 22. THE RABBIT AND THE POSSUM AFTER A WIFE The Rabbit and the Possum each wanted a wife, but no one would marry either of them. They talked over the matter and the Rabbit said, "We can't get wives here; let's go to the next settlement. I'm the messenger for the council, and I'll tell the people that I bring an order that everybody must take a mate at once, and then we'll be sure to get our wives." The Possum thought this a fine plan, so they started off together to the next town. As the Rabbit traveled faster he got there first and waited outside until the people noticed him and took him into the townhouse. When the chief came to ask his business the Rabbit said he brought an important order from the council that everybody must get married without delay. So the chief called the people together and told them the message from the council. Every animal took a mate at once, and the Rabbit got a wife. The Possum traveled so slowly that he got there after all the animals had mated, leaving him still without a wife. The Rabbit pretended to feel sorry for him and said, "Never mind, I'll carry the message to the people in the next settlement, and you hurry on as fast as you can, and this time you will get your wife." So he went on to the next town, and the Possum followed close after him. But when the Rabbit got to the townhouse he sent out the word that, as there had been peace so long that everybody was getting lazy the council had ordered that there must be war at once and they must begin right in the townhouse. So they all began fighting, but the Rabbit made four great leaps and got away just as the Possum came in. Everybody jumped on the Possum, who had not thought of bringing his weapons on a wedding trip, and so could not defend himself. They had nearly beaten the life out of him when he fell over and pretended to be dead until he saw a good chance to jump up and get away. The Possum never got a wife, but he remembers the lesson, and ever since he shuts his eyes and pretends to be dead when the hunter has him in a close corner. 23. THE RABBIT DINES THE BEAR The Bear invited the Rabbit to dine with him. They had beans in the pot, but there was no grease for them, so the Bear cut a slit in his side and let the oil run out until they had enough to cook the dinner. The Rabbit looked surprised, and thought to himself, "That's a handy way. I think I'll try that." When he started home he invited the Bear to come and take dinner with him four days later. When the Bear came the Rabbit said, "I have beans for dinner, too. Now I'll get the grease for them." So he took a knife and drove it into his side, but instead of oil, a stream of blood gushed out and he fell over nearly dead. The Bear picked him up and had hard work to tie up the wound and stop the bleeding. Then he scolded him, "You little fool, I'm large and strong and lined with fat all over; the knife don't hurt me; but you're small and lean, and you can't do such things." 24. THE RABBIT ESCAPES FROM THE WOLVES Some Wolves once caught the Rabbit and were going to eat him when he asked leave to show them a new dance he was practicing. They knew that the Rabbit was a great song leader, and they wanted to learn the latest dance, so they agreed and made a ring about him while he got ready. He patted his feet and began to dance around in a circle, singing: Tlâge'sitûñ' gali'sgi'sidâ'ha-- Ha'nia lil! lil! Ha'nia lil! lil! On the edge of the field I dance about-- Ha'nia lil! lil! Ha'nia lil! lil! "Now," said the Rabbit, "when I sing 'on the edge of the field,' I dance that way"--and he danced over in that direction--"and when I sing 'lil! lil!' you must all stamp your feet hard." The Wolves thought it fine. He began another round singing the same song, and danced a little nearer to the field, while the Wolves all stamped their feet. He sang louder and louder and danced nearer and nearer to the field until at the fourth song, when the Wolves were stamping as hard as they could and thinking only of the song, he made one jump and was off through the long grass. They were after him at once, but he ran for a hollow stump and climbed up on the inside. When the the Wolves got there one of them put his head inside to look up, but the Rabbit spit into his eye, so that he had to pull his head out again. The others were afraid to try, and they went away, with the Rabbit still in the stump. 25. FLINT VISITS THE RABBIT In the old days Tawi'skala (Flint) lived up in the mountains, and all the animals hated him because he had helped to kill so many of them. They used to get together to talk over means to put him out of the way, but everybody was afraid to venture near his house until the Rabbit, who was the boldest leader among them, offered to go after Flint and try to kill him. They told him where to find him, and the Rabbit set out and at last came to Flint's house. Flint was standing at his door when the Rabbit came up and said, sneeringly, "Siyu'! Hello! Are you the fellow they call Flint?" "Yes; that's what they call me," answered Flint. "Is this where you live?" "Yes; this is where I live." All this time the Rabbit was looking about the place trying to study out some plan to take Flint off his guard. He had expected Flint to invite him into the house, so he waited a little while, but when Flint made no move, he said, "Well, my name is Rabbit; I've heard a good deal about you, so I came to invite you to come and see me." Flint wanted to know where the Rabbit's house was, and he told him it was down in the broom-grass field near the river. So Flint promised to make him a visit in a few days. "Why not come now and have supper with me?" said the Rabbit, and after a little coaxing Flint agreed and the two started down the mountain together. When they came near the Rabbit's hole the Rabbit said, "There is my house, but in summer I generally stay outside here where it is cooler." So he made a fire, and they had their supper on the grass. When it was over, Flint stretched out to rest and the Rabbit got some heavy sticks and his knife and cut out a mallet and wedge. Flint looked up and asked what that was for. "Oh," said the Rabbit, "I like to be doing something, and they may come handy." So Flint lay down again, and pretty soon he was sound asleep. The Rabbit spoke to him once or twice to make sure, but there was no answer. Then he came over to Flint and with one good blow of the mallet he drove the sharp stake into his body and ran with all his might for his own hole; but before he reached it there was a loud explosion, and pieces of flint flew all about. That is why we find flint in so many places now. One piece struck the Rabbit from behind and cut him just as he dived into his hole. He sat listening until everything seemed quiet again. Then he put his head out to look around, but just at that moment another piece fell and struck him on the lip and split it, as we still see it. 26. HOW THE DEER GOT HIS HORNS In the beginning the Deer had no horns, but his head was smooth just like a doe's. He was a great runner and the Rabbit was a great jumper, and the animals were all curious to know which could go farther in the same time. They talked about it a good deal, and at last arranged a match between the two, and made a nice large pair of antlers for a prize to the winner. They were to start together from one side of a thicket and go through it, then turn and come back, and the one who came out first was to get the horns. On the day fixed all the animals were there, with the antlers put down on the ground at the edge of the thicket to mark the starting point. While everybody was admiring the horns the Rabbit said: "I don't know this part of the country; I want to take a look through the bushes where I am to run." They thought that all right, so the Rabbit went into the thicket, but he was gone so long that at last the animals suspected he must be up to one of his tricks. They sent a messenger to look for him, and away in the middle of the thicket he found the Rabbit gnawing down the bushes and pulling them away until he had a road cleared nearly to the other side. The messenger turned around quietly and came back and told the other animals. When the Rabbit came out at last they accused him of cheating, but he denied it until they went into the thicket and found the cleared road. They agreed that such a trickster had no right to enter the race at all, so they gave the horns to the Deer, who was admitted to be the best runner, and he has worn them ever since. They told the Rabbit that as he was so fond of cutting down bushes he might do that for a living hereafter, and so he does to this day. 27. WHY THE DEER'S TEETH ARE BLUNT The Rabbit felt sore because the Deer had won the horns (see the last story), and resolved to get even. One day soon after the race he stretched a large grapevine across the trail and gnawed it nearly in two in the middle. Then he went back a piece, took a good run, and jumped up at the vine. He kept on running and jumping up at the vine until the Deer came along and asked him what he was doing? "Don't you see?" says the Rabbit. "I'm so strong that I can bite through that grapevine at one jump." The Deer could hardly believe this, and wanted to see it done. So the Rabbit ran back, made a tremendous spring, and bit through the vine where he had gnawed it before. The Deer, when he saw that, said, "Well, I can do it if you can." So the Rabbit stretched a larger grapevine across the trail, but without gnawing it in the middle. The Deer ran back as he had seen the Rabbit do, made a spring, and struck the grapevine right in the center, but it only flew back and threw him over on his head. He tried again and again, until he was all bruised and bleeding. "Let me see your teeth," at last said the Rabbit. So the Deer showed him his teeth, which were long like a wolf's teeth, but not very sharp. "No wonder you can't do it," says the Rabbit; "your teeth are too blunt to bite anything. Let me sharpen them for you like mine. My teeth are so sharp that I can cut through a stick just like a knife." And he showed him a black locust twig, of which rabbits gnaw the young shoots, which he had shaved off as well as a knife could do it, in regular rabbit fashion. The Deer thought that just the thing. So the Rabbit got a hard stone with rough edges and filed and filed away at the Deer's teeth until they were worn down almost to the gums. "It hurts," said the Deer; but the Rabbit said it always hurt a little when they began to get sharp; so the Deer kept quiet. "Now try it," at last said the Rabbit. So the Deer tried again, but this time he could not bite at all. "Now you've paid for your horns," said the Rabbit, as he jumped away through the bushes. Ever since then the Deer's teeth are so blunt that he can not chew anything but grass and leaves. 28. WHAT BECAME OF THE RABBIT The Deer was very angry at the Rabbit for filing his teeth and determined to be revenged, but he kept still and pretended to be friendly until the Rabbit was off his guard. Then one day, as they were going along together talking, he challenged the Rabbit to jump against him. Now the Rabbit is a great jumper, as every one knows, so he agreed at once. There was a small stream beside the path, as there generally is in that country, and the Deer said: "Let's see if you can jump across this branch. We'll go back a piece, and then when I say Kû! then both run and jump." "All right," said the Rabbit. So they went back to get a good start, and when the Deer gave the word Kû! they ran for the stream, and the Rabbit made one jump and landed on the other side. But the Deer had stopped on the bank, and when the Rabbit looked back the Deer had conjured the stream so that it was a large river. The Rabbit was never able to get back again and is still on the other side. The rabbit that we know is only a little thing that came afterwards. 29. WHY THE MINK SMELLS The Mink was such a great thief that at last the animals held a council about the matter. It was decided to burn him, so they caught the Mink, built a great fire, and threw him into it. As the blaze went up and they smelt the roasted flesh, they began to think he was punished enough and would probably do better in the future, so they took him out of the fire. But the Mink was already burned black and is black ever since, and whenever he is attacked or excited he smells again like roasted meat. The lesson did no good, however, and he is still as great a thief as ever. 30. WHY THE MOLE LIVES UNDERGROUND A man was in love with a woman who disliked him and would have nothing to do with him. He tried every way to win her favor, but to no purpose, until at last he grew discouraged and made himself sick thinking over it. The Mole came along, and finding him in such low condition asked what was the trouble. The man told him the whole story, and when he had finished the Mole said: "I can help you, so that she will not only like you, but will come to you of her own will." So that night the Mole burrowed his way underground to where the girl was in bed asleep and took out her heart. He came back by the same way and gave the heart to the man, who could not see it even when it was put into his hand. "There," said the Mole, "swallow it, and she will be drawn to come to you and can not keep away." The man swallowed the heart, and when the girl woke up she somehow thought at once of him, and felt a strange desire to be with him, as though she must go to him at once. She wondered and could not understand it, because she had always disliked him before, but at last the feeling grew so strong that she was compelled to go herself to the man and tell him she loved him and wanted to be his wife. And so they were married, but all the magicians who had known them both were surprised and wondered how it had come about. When they found that it was the work of the Mole, whom they had always before thought too insignificant for their notice, they were very jealous and threatened to kill him, so that he hid himself under the ground and has never since dared to come up to the surface. 31. THE TERRAPIN'S ESCAPE FROM THE WOLVES The Possum and the Terrapin went out together to hunt persimmons, and found a tree full of ripe fruit. The Possum climbed it and was throwing down the persimmons to the Terrapin when a wolf came up and began to snap at the persimmons as they fell, before the Terrapin could reach them. The Possum waited his chance, and at last managed to throw down a large one (some say a bone which he carried with him), so that it lodged in the wolf's throat as he jumped up at it and choked him to death. "I'll take his ears for hominy spoons," said the Terrapin, and cut off the wolf's ears and started home with them, leaving the Possum still eating persimmons up in the tree. After a while he came to a house and was invited to have some kanahe'na gruel from the jar that is set always outside the door. He sat down beside the jar and dipped up the gruel with one of the wolf's ears for a spoon. The people noticed and wondered. When he was satisfied he went on, but soon came to another house and was asked to have some more kanahe'na. He dipped it up again with the wolf's ear and went on when he had enough. Soon the news went around that the Terrapin had killed the Wolf and was using his ears for spoons. All the Wolves got together and followed the Terrapin's trail until they came up with him and made him prisoner. Then they held a council to decide what to do with him, and agreed to boil him in a clay pot. They brought in a pot, but the Terrapin only laughed at it and said that if they put him into that thing he would kick it all to pieces. They said they would burn him in the fire, but the Terrapin laughed again and said he would put it out. Then they decided to throw him into the deepest hole in the river and drown him. The Terrapin begged and prayed them not to do that, but they paid no attention, and dragged him over to the river and threw him in. That was just what the Terrapin had been waiting for all the time, and he dived under the water and came up on the other side and got away. Some say that when he was thrown into the river he struck against a rock, which broke his back in a dozen places. He sang a medicine song: Gû'daye'wû, Gû'daye'wû, I have sewed myself together, I have sewed myself together, and the pieces came together, but the scars remain on his shell to this day. 32. ORIGIN OF THE GROUNDHOG DANCE: THE GROUNDHOG'S HEAD Seven wolves once caught a Groundhog and said, "Now we'll kill you and have something good to eat." But the Groundhog said, "When we find good food we must rejoice over it, as people do in the Green-corn dance. I know you mean to kill me and I can't help myself, but if you want to dance I'll sing for you. This is a new dance entirely. I'll lean up against seven trees in turn and you will dance out and then turn and come back, as I give the signal, and at the last turn you may kill me." The wolves were very hungry, but they wanted to learn the new dance, so they told him to go ahead. The Groundhog leaned up against a tree and began the song, Ha'wiye'ehi', and all the wolves danced out in front, until he gave the signal, Yu! and began with Hi'yagu'we, when they turned and danced back in line. "That's fine," said the Groundhog, and went over to the next tree and started the second song. The wolves danced out and then turned at the signal and danced back again. "That's very fine," said the Groundhog, and went over to another tree and started the third song. The wolves danced their best and the Groundhog encouraged them, but at each song he took another tree, and each tree was a little nearer to his hole under a stump. At the seventh song he said, "Now, this is the last dance, and when I say Yu! you will all turn and come after me, and the one who gets me may have me." So he began the seventh song and kept it up until the wolves were away out in front. Then he gave the signal, Yu! and made a jump for his hole. The wolves turned and were after him, but he reached the hole first and dived in. Just as he got inside, the foremost wolf caught him by the tail and gave it such a pull that it broke off, and the Groundhog's tail has been short ever since. The unpleasant smell of the Groundhog's head was given it by the other animals to punish an insulting remark made by him in council. The story is a vulgar one, without wit enough to make it worth recording. 33. THE MIGRATION OF THE ANIMALS In the old times when the animals used to talk and hold councils, and the Grubworm and Woodchuck used to marry people, there was once a great famine of mast in the mountains, and all the animals and birds which lived upon it met together and sent the Pigeon out to the low country to see if any food could be found there. After a time she came back and reported that she had found a country where the mast was "up to our ankles" on the ground. So they got together and moved down into the low country in a great army. 34. THE WOLF'S REVENGE--THE WOLF AND THE DOG Kana'ti had wolves to hunt for him, because they are good hunters and never fail. He once sent out two wolves at once. One went to the east and did not return. The other went to the north, and when he returned at night and did not find his fellow he knew he must be in trouble and started after him. After traveling on some time he found his brother lying nearly dead beside a great greensnake (salikwâ'yi) which had attacked him. The snake itself was too badly wounded to crawl away, and the angry wolf, who had magic powers, taking out several hairs from his own whiskers, shot them into the body of the snake and killed it. He then hurried back to Kana'ti, who sent the Terrapin after a great doctor who lived in the west to save the wounded wolf. The wolf went back to help his brother and by his magic powers he had him cured long before the doctor came from the west, because the Terrapin was such a slow traveler and the doctor had to prepare his roots before he started. In the beginning, the people say, the Dog was put on the mountain and the Wolf beside the fire. When the winter came the Dog could not stand the cold, so he came down to the settlement and drove the Wolf from the fire. The Wolf ran to the mountains, where it suited him so well that he prospered and increased, until after a while he ventured down again and killed some animals in the settlements. The people got together and followed and killed him, but his brothers came from the mountains and took such revenge that ever since the people have been afraid to hurt a wolf. Bird Myths 35. THE BIRD TRIBES Winged creatures of all kinds are classed under the generic term of aninâ'hilidâ'hi (flyers). Birds are called, alike in the singular and plural, tsi'skwa, the term being generally held to exclude the domestic fowls introduced by the whites. When it is necessary to make the distinction they are mentioned, respectively, as inagehi (living in the woods), and uluñni'ta (tame). The robin is called tsiskwa'gwa, a name which can not be analyzed, while the little sparrow is called tsiskwâ'ya (the real or principal bird), perhaps, in accord with a principle in Indian nomenclature, on account of its wide distribution. As in other languages, many of the bird names are onomatopes, as wa`huhu' (the screech owl), u'guku' (the hooting owl), waguli' (the whippoorwill), kâgû (the crow), gugwe' (the quail), huhu (the yellow mocking-bird), tsi'kilili' (the chickadee), sa'sa' (the goose). The turtledove is called gule'-diska`nihi' (it cries for acorns), on account of the resemblance of its cry to the sound of the word for acorn (gule'). The meadow lark is called nakwisi' (star), on account of the appearance of its tail when spread out as it soars. The nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis) is called tsulie'na (deaf), and is supposed to be without hearing, possibly on account of its fearless disregard for man's presence. Certain diseases are diagnosed by the doctors as due to birds, either revengeful bird ghosts, bird feathers about the house, or bird shadows falling upon the patient from overhead. The eagle (awâ'hili) is the great sacred bird of the Cherokee, as of nearly all our native tribes, and figures prominently in their ceremonial ritual, especially in all things relating to war. The particular species prized was the golden or war eagle (Aquila chrysætus), called by the Cherokee the "pretty-feathered eagle," on account of its beautiful tail feathers, white, tipped with black, which were in such great demand for decorative and ceremonial purposes that among the western tribes a single tail was often rated as equal in value to a horse. Among the Cherokee in the old times the killing of an eagle was an event which concerned the whole settlement, and could be undertaken only by the professional eagle killer, regularly chosen for the purpose on account of his knowledge of the prescribed forms and the prayers to be said afterwards in order to obtain pardon for the necessary sacrilege, and thus ward off vengeance from the tribe. It is told of one man upon the reservation that having deliberately killed an eagle in defiance of the ordinances he was constantly haunted by dreams of fierce eagles swooping down upon him, until the nightmare was finally exorcised after a long course of priestly treatment. In 1890 there was but one eagle killer remaining among the East Cherokee. It does not appear that the eagle was ever captured alive as among the plains tribes. The eagle must be killed only in the winter or late fall after the crops were gathered and the snakes had retired to their dens. If killed in the summertime a frost would come to destroy the corn, while the songs of the Eagle dance, when the feathers were brought home, would so anger the snakes that they would become doubly dangerous. Consequently the Eagle songs were never sung until after the snakes had gone to sleep for the winter. When the people of a town had decided upon an Eagle dance the eagle killer was called in, frequently from a distant settlement, to procure the feathers for the occasion. He was paid for his services from offerings made later at the dance, and as the few professionals guarded their secrets carefully from outsiders their business was a quite profitable one. After some preliminary preparation the eagle killer sets out alone for the mountains, taking with him his gun or bow and arrows. Having reached the mountains, he goes through a vigil of prayer and fasting, possibly lasting four days, after which he hunts until he succeeds in killing a deer. Then, placing the body in a convenient exposed situation upon one of the highest cliffs, he conceals himself near by and begins to sing in a low undertone the songs to call down the eagles from the sky. When the eagle alights upon the carcass, which will be almost immediately if the singer understands his business, he shoots it, and then standing over the dead bird, he addresses to it a prayer in which he begs it not to seek vengeance upon his tribe, because it is not a Cherokee, but a Spaniard (Askwa'ni) that has done the deed. The selection of such a vicarious victim of revenge is evidence at once of the antiquity of the prayer in its present form and of the enduring impression which the cruelties of the early Spanish adventurers made upon the natives. The prayer ended, he leaves the dead eagle where it fell and makes all haste to the settlement, where the people are anxiously expecting his return. On meeting the first warriors he says simply, "A snowbird has died," and passes on at once to his own quarters, his work being now finished. The announcement is made in this form in order to insure against the vengeance of any eagles that might overhear, the little snowbird being considered too insignificant a creature to be dreaded. Having waited four days to allow time for the insect parasites to leave the body, the hunters delegated for the purpose go out to bring in the feathers. On arriving at the place they strip the body of the large tail and wing feathers, which they wrap in a fresh deerskin brought with them, and then return to the settlement, leaving the body of the dead eagle upon the ground, together with that of the slain deer, the latter being intended as a sacrifice to the eagle spirits. On reaching the settlement, the feathers, still wrapped in the deerskin, are hung up in a small, round hut built for this special purpose near the edge of the dance ground (detsanûñ'li) and known as the place "where the feathers are kept," or feather house. Some settlements had two such feather houses, one at each end of the dance ground. The Eagle dance was held on the night of the same day on which the feathers were brought in, all the necessary arrangements having been made beforehand. In the meantime, as the feathers were supposed to be hungry after their journey, a dish of venison and corn was set upon the ground below them and they were invited to eat. The body of a flaxbird or scarlet tanager (Piranga rubra) was also hung up with the feathers for the same purpose. The food thus given to the feathers was disposed of after the dance, as described in another place. The eagle being regarded as a great ada'wehi, only the greatest warriors and those versed in the sacred ordinances would dare to wear the feathers or to carry them in the dance. Should any person in the settlement dream of eagles or eagle feathers he must arrange for an Eagle dance, with the usual vigil and fasting, at the first opportunity; otherwise some one of his family will die. Should the insect parasites which infest the feathers of the bird in life get upon a man they will breed a skin disease which is sure to develop, even though it may be latent for years. It is for this reason that the body of the eagle is allowed to remain four days upon the ground before being brought into the settlement. The raven (kâ'lanû) is occasionally seen in the mountains, but is not prominent in folk belief, excepting in connection with the grewsome tales of the Raven Mocker (q. v.). In former times its name was sometimes assumed as a war title. The crow, so prominent in other tribal mythologies, does not seem to appear in that of the Cherokee. Three varieties of owls are recognized, each under a different name, viz: tskili', the dusky horned owl (Bubo virginianus saturatus); u'guku', the barred or hooting owl (Syrnium nebulosum), and wa`huhu', the screech owl (Megascops asio). The first of these names signifies a witch, the others being onomatopes. Owls and other night-crying birds are believed to be embodied ghosts or disguised witches, and their cry is dreaded as a sound of evil omen. If the eyes of a child be bathed with water in which one of the long wing or tail feathers of an owl has been soaked, the child will be able to keep awake all night. The feather must be found by chance, and not procured intentionally for the purpose. On the other hand, an application of water in which the feather of a blue jay, procured in the same way, has been soaked will make the child an early riser. The buzzard (suli') is said to have had a part in shaping the earth, as was narrated in the genesis myth. It is reputed to be a doctor among birds, and is respected accordingly, although its feathers are never worn by ball players, for fear of becoming bald. Its own baldness is accounted for by a vulgar story. As it thrives upon carrion and decay, it is held to be immune from sickness, especially of a contagious character, and a small quantity of its flesh eaten, or of the soup used as a wash, is believed to be a sure preventive of smallpox, and was used for this purpose during the smallpox epidemic among the East Cherokee in 1866. According to the Wahnenauhi manuscript, it is said also that a buzzard feather placed over the cabin door will keep out witches. In treating gunshot wounds, the medicine is blown into the wound through a tube cut from a buzzard quill and some of the buzzard's down is afterwards laid over the spot. There is very little concerning hawks, excepting as regards the great mythic hawk, the Tla'nuwa'. The tla'nuwa' usdi', or "little tla'nuwa," is described as a bird about as large as a turkey and of a grayish blue color, which used to follow the flocks of wild pigeons, flying overhead and darting down occasionally upon a victim, which it struck and killed with its sharp breast and ate upon the wing, without alighting. It is probably the goshawk (Astur atricapillus). The common swamp gallinule, locally known as mudhen or didapper (Gallinula galeata), is called diga'gwani' (lame or crippled), on account of its habit of flying only for a very short distance at a time. In the Diga'gwani' dance the performers sing the name of the bird and endeavor to imitate its halting movements. The dagûl'kû, or white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons), appears in connection with the myth of the origin of tobacco. The feathers of the tskwâyi, the great white heron or American egret (Herodias egretta), are worn by ball players, and this bird probably the "swan" whose white wing was used as a peace emblem in ancient times. A rare bird said to have been seen occasionally upon the reservation many years ago was called by the curious name of nûñda-dikani', "it looks at the sun," "sun-gazer." It is described as resembling a blue crane, and may possibly have been the Floridus cerulea, or little blue heron. Another infrequent visitor, which sometimes passed over the mountain country in company with flocks of wild geese, was the gu'wisguwi', so called from its cry. It is described as resembling a large snipe, with yellow legs and feet unwebbed, and is thought to visit Indian Territory at intervals. It is chiefly notable from the fact that the celebrated chief John Ross derives his Indian name, Gu'wisguwi', from this bird, the name being perpetuated in Cooweescoowee district of the Cherokee Nation in the West. Another chance visitant, concerning which there is much curious speculation among the older men of the East Cherokee, was called tsun'digwûntsu'`gi or tsun'digwûn'tski, "forked," referring to the tail. It appeared but once, for a short season, about forty years ago, and has not been seen since. It is said to have been pale blue, with red in places, and nearly the size of a crow, and to have had a long forked tail like that of a fish. It preyed upon hornets, which it took upon the wing, and also feasted upon the larvæ in the nests. Appearing unexpectedly and as suddenly disappearing, it was believed to be not a bird but a transformed red-horse fish (Moxostoma, Cherokee âliga'), a theory borne out by the red spots and the long, forked tail. It is even maintained that about the time those birds first appeared some hunters on Oconaluftee saw seven of them sitting on the limb of a tree and they were still shaped like a red-horse, although they already had wings and feathers. It was undoubtedly the scissor-tail or swallow-tailed flycatcher (Milvulus forficatus), which belongs properly in Texas and the adjacent region, but strays occasionally into the eastern states. On account of the red throat appendage of the turkey, somewhat resembling the goitrous growth known in the South as "kernels" (Cherokee, dule'tsi), the feathers of this bird are not worn by ball players, neither is the neck allowed to be eaten by children or sick persons, under the fear that a growth of "kernels" would be the result. The meat of the ruffed grouse, locally known as the pheasant (Bonasa umbellus), is tabued to a pregnant woman, because this bird hatches a large brood, but loses most of them before maturity. Under a stricter construction of the theory this meat is forbidden to a woman until she is past child bearing. The redbird, tatsu'hwa, is believed to have been originally the daughter of the Sun (see the story). The huhu, or yellow mocking-bird, occurs in several stories. It is regarded as something supernatural, possibly on account of its imitative powers, and its heart is given to children to make them quick to learn. The chickadee (Parus carolinensis), tsikilili', and the tufted titmouse, (Parus bicolor), utsu'`gi, or u'stûti, are both regarded as news bringers, but the one is venerated as a truth teller while the other is scoffed at as a lying messenger, for reasons which appear in the story of Nûñyunu'wi (q. v.). When the tsikilili' perches on a branch near the house and chirps its song it is taken as an omen that an absent friend will soon be heard from or that a secret enemy is plotting mischief. Many stories are told in confirmation of this belief, among which may be instanced that of Tom Starr, a former noted outlaw of the Cherokee Nation of the West, who, on one occasion, was about to walk unwittingly into an ambush prepared for him along a narrow trail, when he heard the warning note of the tsikilili', and, turning abruptly, ran up the side of the ridge and succeeded in escaping with his life, although hotly pursued by his enemies. 36. THE BALL GAME OF THE BIRDS AND ANIMALS Once the animals challenged the birds to a great ballplay, and the birds accepted. The leaders made the arrangements and fixed the day, and when the time came both parties met at the place for the ball dance, the animals on a smooth grassy bottom near the river and the birds in the treetops over by the ridge. The captain of the animals was the Bear, who was so strong and heavy that he could pull down anyone who got in his way. All along the road to the ball ground he was tossing up great logs to show his strength and boasting of what he would do to the birds when the game began. The Terrapin, too--not the little one we have now, but the great original Terrapin--was with the animals. His shell was so hard that the heaviest blows could not hurt him, and he kept rising up on his hind legs and dropping heavily again to the ground, bragging that this was the way he would crush any bird that tried to take the ball from him. Then there was the Deer, who could outrun every other animal. Altogether it was a fine company. The birds had the Eagle for their captain, with the Hawk and the great Tla'nuwa, all swift and strong of flight, but still they were a little afraid of the animals. The dance was over and they were all pruning their feathers up in the trees and waiting for the captain to give the word when here came two little things hardly larger than field mice climbing up the tree in which sat perched the bird captain. At last they reached the top, and creeping along the limb to where the Eagle captain sat they asked to be allowed to join in the game. The captain looked at them, and seeing that they were four-footed, he asked why they did not go to the animals, where they belonged. The little things said that they had, but the animals had made fun of them and driven them off because they were so small. Then the bird captain pitied them and wanted to take them. But how could they join the birds when they had no wings? The Eagle, the Hawk, and the others consulted, and at last it was decided to make some wings for the little fellows. They tried for a long time to think of something that might do, until someone happened to remember the drum they had used in the dance. The head was of ground-hog skin and maybe they could cut off a corner and make wings of it. So they took two pieces of leather from the drumhead and cut them into shape for wings, and stretched them with cane splints and fastened them on to the forelegs of one of the small animals, and in this way came Tla'meha, the Bat. They threw the ball to him and told him to catch it, and by the way he dodged and circled about, keeping the ball always in the air and never letting it fall to the ground, the birds soon saw that he would be one of their best men. Now they wanted to fix the other little animal, but they had used up all their leather to make wings for the Bat, and there was no time to send for more. Somebody said that they might do it by stretching his skin, so two large birds took hold from opposite sides with their strong bills, and by pulling at his fur for several minutes they managed to stretch the skin on each side between the fore and hind feet, until they had Tewa, the Flying Squirrel. To try him the bird captain threw up the ball, when the Flying Squirrel sprang off the limb after it, caught it in his teeth and carried it through the air to another tree nearly across the bottom. When they were all ready the signal was given and the game began, but almost at the first toss the Flying Squirrel caught the ball and carried it up a tree, from which he threw it to the birds, who kept it in the air for some time until it dropped. The Bear rushed to get it, but the Martin darted after it and threw it to the Bat, who was flying near the ground, and by his dodging and doubling kept it out of the way of even the Deer, until he finally threw it in between the posts and won the game for the birds. The Bear and the Terrapin, who had boasted so of what they would do, never got a chance even to touch the ball. For saving the ball when it dropped, the birds afterwards gave the Martin a gourd in which to build his nest, and he still has it. 37. HOW THE TURKEY GOT HIS BEARD When the Terrapin won the race from the Rabbit (see the story) all the animals wondered and talked about it a great deal, because they had always thought the Terrapin slow, although they knew that he was a warrior and had many conjuring secrets beside. But the Turkey was not satisfied and told the others there must be some trick about it. Said he, "I know the Terrapin can't run--he can hardly crawl--and I'm going to try him." So one day the Turkey met the Terrapin coming home from war with a fresh scalp hanging from his neck and dragging on the ground as he traveled. The Turkey laughed at the sight and said: "That scalp don't look right on you. Your neck is too short and low down to wear it that way. Let me show you." The Terrapin agreed and gave the scalp to the Turkey, who fastened it around his neck. "Now," said the Turkey, "I'll walk a little way and you can see how it looks." So he walked ahead a short distance and then turned and asked the Terrapin how he liked it. Said the Terrapin, "It looks very nice; it becomes you." "Now I'll fix it in a different way and let you see how it looks," said the Turkey. So he gave the string another pull and walked ahead again. "O, that looks very nice," said the Terrapin. But the Turkey kept on walking, and when the Terrapin called to him to bring back the scalp he only walked faster and broke into a run. Then the Terrapin got out his bow and by his conjuring art shot a number of cane splints into the Turkey's leg to cripple him so that he could not run, which accounts for all the many small bones in the Turkey's leg, that are of no use whatever; but the Terrapin never caught the Turkey, who still wears the scalp from his neck. 38. WHY THE TURKEY GOBBLES The Grouse used to have a fine voice and a good halloo in the ballplay. All the animals and birds used to play ball in those days and were just as proud of a loud halloo as the ball players of to-day. The Turkey had not a good voice, so he asked the Grouse to give him lessons. The Grouse agreed to teach him, but wanted pay for his trouble, and the Turkey promised to give him some feathers to make himself a collar. That is how the Grouse got his collar of turkey feathers. They began the lessons and the Turkey learned very fast until the Grouse thought it was time to try his voice. "Now," said the Grouse, "I'll stand on this hollow log, and when I give the signal by tapping on it, you must halloo as loudly as you can." So he got upon the log ready to tap on it, as a Grouse does, but when he gave the signal the Turkey was so eager and excited that he could not raise his voice for a shout, but only gobbled, and ever since then he gobbles whenever he hears a noise. 39. HOW THE KINGFISHER GOT HIS BILL Some old men say that the Kingfisher was meant in the beginning to be a water bird, but as he had not been given either web feet or a good bill he could not make a living. The animals held a council over it and decided to make him a bill like a long sharp awl for a fish-gig (fish-spear). So they made him a fish-gig and fastened it on in front of his mouth. He flew to the top of a tree, sailed out and darted down into the water, and came up with a fish on his gig. And he has been the best gigger ever since. Some others say it was this way: A Blacksnake found a Yellowhammer's nest in a hollow tree, and after swallowing the young birds, coiled up to sleep in the nest, where the mother bird found him when she came home. She went for help to the Little People, who sent her to the Kingfisher. He came, and after flying back and forth past the hole a few times, made one dart at the snake and pulled him out dead. When they looked they found a hole in the snake's head where the Kingfisher had pierced it with a slender tugalû'na fish, which he carried in his bill like a lance. From this the Little People concluded that he would make a first-class gigger if he only had the right spear, so they gave him his long bill as a reward. 40. HOW THE PARTRIDGE GOT HIS WHISTLE In the old days the Terrapin had a fine whistle, but the Partridge had none. The Terrapin was constantly going about whistling and showing his whistle to the other animals until the Partridge became jealous, so one day when they met the Partridge asked leave to try it. The Terrapin was afraid to risk it at first, suspecting some trick, but the Partridge said, "I'll give it back right away, and if you are afraid you can stay with me while I practice." So the Terrapin let him have the whistle and the Partridge walked around blowing on it in fine fashion. "How does it sound with me?" asked the Partridge. "O, you do very well," said the Terrapin, walking alongside. "Now, how do you like it," said the Partridge, running ahead and whistling a little faster. "That's fine," answered the Terrapin, hurrying to keep up, "but don't run so fast." "And now, how do you like this?" called the Partridge, and with that he spread his wings, gave one long whistle, and flew to the top of a tree, leaving the poor Terrapin to look after him from the ground. The Terrapin never recovered his whistle, and from that, and the loss of his scalp, which the Turkey stole from him, he grew ashamed to be seen, and ever since he shuts himself up in his box when anyone comes near him. 41. HOW THE REDBIRD GOT HIS COLOR A Raccoon passing a Wolf one day made several insulting remarks, until at last the Wolf became angry and turned and chased him. The Raccoon ran his best and managed to reach a tree by the river side before the Wolf came up. He climbed the tree and stretched out on a limb overhanging the water. When the Wolf arrived he saw the reflection in the water, and thinking it was the Raccoon he jumped at it and was nearly drowned before he could scramble out again, all wet and dripping. He lay down on the bank to dry and fell asleep, and while he was sleeping the Raccoon came down the tree and plastered his eyes with dung. When the Wolf awoke he found he could not open his eyes, and began to whine. Along came a little brown bird through the bushes and heard the Wolf crying and asked what was the matter. The Wolf told his story and said, "If you will get my eyes open, I will show you where to find some nice red paint to paint yourself." "All right," said the brown bird; so he pecked at the Wolf's eyes until he got off all the plaster. Then the Wolf took him to a rock that had streaks of bright red paint running through it, and the little bird painted himself with it, and has ever since been a Redbird. 42. THE PHEASANT BEATING CORN; ORIGIN OF THE PHEASANT DANCE The Pheasant once saw a woman beating corn in a wooden mortar in front of the house. "I can do that, too," said he, but the woman would not believe it, so the Pheasant went into the woods and got upon a hollow log and "drummed" with his wings as a pheasant does, until the people in the house heard him and thought he was really beating corn. In the Pheasant dance, a part of the Green-corn dance, the instrument used is the drum, and the dancers beat the ground with their feet in imitation of the drumming sound made by the pheasant. They form two concentric circles, the men being on the inside, facing the women in the outer circle, each in turn advancing and retreating at the signal of the drummer, who sits at one side and sings the Pheasant songs. According to the story, there was once a winter famine among the birds and animals. No mast (fallen nuts) could be found in the woods, and they were near starvation when a Pheasant discovered a holly tree, loaded with red berries, of which the Pheasant is said to be particularly fond. He called his companion birds, and they formed a circle about the tree, singing, dancing, and drumming with their wings in token of their joy, and thus originated the Pheasant dance. 43. THE RACE BETWEEN THE CRANE AND THE HUMMINGBIRD The Hummingbird and the Crane were both in love with a pretty woman. She preferred the Hummingbird, who was as handsome as the Crane was awkward, but the Crane was so persistent that in order to get rid of him she finally told him he must challenge the other to a race and she would marry the winner. The Hummingbird was so swift--almost like a flash of lightning--and the Crane so slow and heavy, that she felt sure the Hummingbird would win. She did not know the Crane could fly all night. They agreed to start from her house and fly around the circle of the world to the beginning, and the one who came in first would marry the woman. At the word the Hummingbird darted off like an arrow and was out of sight in a moment, leaving his rival to follow heavily behind. He flew all day, and when evening came and he stopped to roost for the night he was far ahead. But the Crane flew steadily all night long, passing the Hummingbird soon after midnight and going on until he came to a creek and stopped to rest about daylight. The Hummingbird woke up in the morning and flew on again, thinking how easily he would win the race, until he reached the creek and there found the Crane spearing tadpoles, with his long bill, for breakfast. He was very much surprised and wondered how this could have happened, but he flew swiftly by and soon left the Crane out of sight again. The Crane finished his breakfast and started on, and when evening came he kept on as before. This time it was hardly midnight when he passed the Hummingbird asleep on a limb, and in the morning he had finished his breakfast before the other came up. The next day he gained a little more, and on the fourth day he was spearing tadpoles for dinner when the Hummingbird passed him. On the fifth and sixth days it was late in the afternoon before the Hummingbird came up, and on the morning of the seventh day the Crane was a whole night's travel ahead. He took his time at breakfast and then fixed himself up as nicely as he could at the creek and came in at the starting place where the woman lived, early in the morning. When the Hummingbird arrived in the afternoon he found he had lost the race, but the woman declared she would never have such an ugly fellow as the Crane for a husband, so she stayed single. 44. THE OWL GETS MARRIED A widow with one daughter was always warning the girl that she must be sure to get a good hunter for a husband when she married. The young woman listened and promised to do as her mother advised. At last a suitor came to ask the mother for the girl, but the widow told him that only a good hunter could have her daughter. "I'm just that kind," said the lover, and again asked her to speak for him to the young woman. So the mother went to the girl and told her a young man had come a-courting, and as he said he was a good hunter she advised her daughter to take him. "Just as you say," said the girl. So when he came again the matter was all arranged, and he went to live with the girl. The next morning he got ready and said he would go out hunting, but before starting he changed his mind and said he would go fishing. He was gone all day and came home late at night, bringing only three small fish, saying that he had had no luck, but would have better success to-morrow. The next morning he started off again to fish and was gone all day, but came home at night with only two worthless spring lizards (duwe'ga) and the same excuse. Next day he said he would go hunting this time. He was gone again until night, and returned at last with only a handful of scraps that he had found where some hunters had cut up a deer. By this time the old woman was suspicious. So next morning when he started off again, as he said, to fish, she told her daughter to follow him secretly and see how he set to work. The girl followed through the woods and kept him in sight until he came down to the river, where she saw her husband change to a hooting owl (uguku') and fly over to a pile of driftwood in the water and cry, "U-gu-ku! hu! hu! u! u!" She was surprised and very angry and said to herself, "I thought I had married a man, but my husband is only an owl." She watched and saw the owl look into the water for a long time and at last swoop down and bring up in his claws a handful of sand, from which he picked out a crawfish. Then he flew across to the bank, took the form of a man again, and started home with the crawfish. His wife hurried on ahead through the woods and got there before him. When he came in with the crawfish in his hand, she asked him where were all the fish he had caught. He said he had none, because an owl had frightened them all away. "I think you are the owl," said his wife, and drove him out of the house. The owl went into the woods and there he pined away with grief and love until there was no flesh left on any part of his body except his head. 45. THE HUHU GETS MARRIED A widow who had an only a daughter, but no son, found it very hard to make a living and was constantly urging upon the young woman that they ought to have a man in the family, who would be a good hunter and able to help in the field. One evening a stranger lover came courting to the house, and when the girl told him that she could marry only one who was a good worker, he declared that he was exactly that sort of man; so the girl talked to her mother, and on her advice they were married. The next morning the widow gave her new son-in-law a hoe and sent him out to the cornfield. When breakfast was ready she went to call him, following a sound as of some one hoeing on stony soil, but when she came to the spot she found only a small circle of hoed ground and no sign of her son-in-law. Away over in the thicket she heard a huhu calling. He did not come in for dinner, either, and when he returned home in the evening the old woman asked him where he had been all day. "Hard at work," said he. "But I didn't see you when I came to call you to breakfast." "I was down in the thicket cutting sticks to mark off the field," said he. "But why didn't you come in to dinner?" "I was too busy working," said he. So the old woman was satisfied, and they had their supper together. Early next morning he started off with his hoe over his shoulder. When breakfast was ready the old woman went again to call him, but found no sign of him, only the hoe lying there and no work done. And away over in the thicket a huhu was calling, "Sau-h! sau-h! sau-h! hu! hu! hu! hu! hu! hu! chi! chi! chi!--whew!" She went back to the house, and when at last he came home in the evening she asked him again what he had been doing all day. "Working hard," said he. "But you were not there when I came after you." "O, I just went over in the thicket a while to see some of my kinsfolk," said he. Then the old woman said, "I have lived here a long time and there is nothing living in the swamp but huhus. My daughter wants a husband that can work and not a lazy huhu; so you may go." And she drove him from the house. 46. WHY THE BUZZARD'S HEAD IS BARE The buzzard used to have a fine topknot, of which he was so proud that he refused to eat carrion, and while the other birds were pecking at the body of a deer or other animal which they had found he would strut around and say: "You may have it all, it is not good enough for me." They resolved to punish him, and with the help of the buffalo carried out a plot by which the buzzard lost not his topknot alone, but nearly all the other feathers on his head. He lost his pride at the same time, so that he is willing enough now to eat carrion for a living. 47. THE EAGLE'S REVENGE Once a hunter in the mountains heard a noise at night like a rushing wind outside the cabin, and on going out he found that an eagle had just alighted on the drying pole and was tearing at the body of a deer hanging there. Without thinking of the danger, he shot the eagle. In the morning he took the deer and started back to the settlement, where he told what he had done, and the chief sent out some men to bring in the eagle and arrange for an Eagle dance. They brought back the dead eagle, everything was made ready, and that night they started the dance in the townhouse. About midnight there was a whoop outside and a strange warrior came into the circle and began to recite his exploits. No one knew him, but they thought he had come from one of the farther Cherokee towns. He told how he had killed a man, and at the end of the story he gave a hoarse yell, Hi! that startled the whole company, and one of the seven men with the rattles fell over dead. He sang of another deed, and at the end straightened up with another loud yell. A second rattler fell dead, and the people were so full of fear that they could not stir from their places. Still he kept on, and at every pause there came again that terrible scream, until the last of the seven rattlers fell dead, and then the stranger went out into the darkness. Long afterward they learned from the eagle killer that it was the brother of the eagle shot by the hunter. 48. THE HUNTER AND THE BUZZARD A hunter had been all day looking for deer in the mountains without success until he was completely tired out and sat down on a log to rest and wonder what he should do, when a buzzard--a bird which always has magic powers--came flying overhead and spoke to him, asking him what was his trouble. When the hunter had told his story the buzzard said there were plenty of deer on the ridges beyond if only the hunter were high up in the air where he could see them, and proposed that they exchange forms for a while, when the buzzard would go home to the hunter's wife while the hunter would go to look for deer. The hunter agreed, and the buzzard became a man and went home to the hunter's wife, who received him as her husband, while the hunter became a buzzard and flew off over the mountain to locate the deer. After staying some time with the woman, who thought always it was her real husband, the buzzard excused himself, saying he must go again to look for game or they would have nothing to eat. He came to the place where he had first met the hunter, and found him already there, still in buzzard form, awaiting him. He asked the hunter what success he had had, and the hunter replied that he had found several deer over the ridge, as the buzzard had said. Then the buzzard restored the hunter to human shape, and became himself a buzzard again and flew away. The hunter went where he had seen the deer and killed several, and from that time he never returned empty-handed from the woods. Snake, Fish, and Insect Myths 49. THE SNAKE TRIBE The generic name for snakes is inadû'. They are all regarded as anida'wehi, "supernaturals," having an intimate connection with the rain and thunder gods, and possessing a certain influence over the other animal and plant tribes. It is said that the snakes, the deer, and the ginseng act as allies, so that an injury to one is avenged by all. The feeling toward snakes is one of mingled fear and reverence, and every precaution is taken to avoid killing or offending one, especially the rattlesnake. He who kills a snake will soon see others; and should he kill a second one, so many will come around him whichever way he may turn that he will become dazed at the sight of their glistening eyes and darting tongues and will go wandering about like a crazy man, unable to find his way out of the woods. To guard against this misfortune there are certain prayers which the initiated say in order that a snake may not cross their path, and on meeting the first one of the season the hunter humbly begs of him, "Let us not see each other this summer." Certain smells, as that of the wild parsnip, and certain songs, as those of the Unika'wi or Townhouse dance, are offensive to the snakes and make them angry. For this reason the Unika'wi dance is held only late in the fall, after they have retired to their dens for the winter. When one dreams of being bitten by a snake he must be treated the same as for an actual bite, because it is a snake ghost that has bitten him; otherwise the place will swell and ulcerate in the same way, even though it be years afterwards. For fear of offending them, even in speaking, it is never said that a man has been bitten by a snake, but only that he has been "scratched by a brier." Most of the beliefs and customs in this connection have more special reference to the rattlesnake. The rattlesnake is called utsa'nati, which may be rendered, "he has a bell," alluding to the rattle. According to a myth given elsewhere, he was once a man, and was transformed to his present shape that he might save the human race from extermination by the Sun, a mission which he accomplished successfully after others had failed. By the old men he is also spoken of as "the Thunder's necklace" (see the story of Ûñtsaiyi'), and to kill one is to destroy one of the most prized ornaments of the thunder god. In one of the formulas addressed to the Little Men, the sons of the Thunder, they are implored to take the disease snake to themselves, because "it is just what you adorn yourselves with." For obvious reasons the rattlesnake is regarded as the chief of the snake tribe and is feared and respected accordingly. Few Cherokee will venture to kill one except under absolute necessity, and even then the crime must be atoned for by asking pardon of the snake ghost, either in person or through the mediation of a priest, according to a set formula. Otherwise the relatives of the dead snake will send one of their number to track up the offender and bite him so that he will die (see story, "The Rattlesnake's Vengeance"). The only thing of which the rattlesnake is afraid is said to be the plant known as campion, or "rattlesnake's master" (Silene stellata), which is used by the doctors to counteract the effect of the bite, and it is believed that a snake will flee in terror from the hunter who carries a small piece of the root about his person. Chewed linn bark is also applied to the bite, perhaps from the supposed occult connection between the snake and the thunder, as this tree is said to be immune from the lightning stroke. Notwithstanding the fear of the rattlesnake, his rattles, teeth, flesh, and oil are greatly prized for occult or medical uses, the snakes being killed for this purpose by certain priests who know the necessary rites and formulas for obtaining pardon. This device for whipping the devil around the stump, and incidentally increasing their own revenues, is a common trick of Indian medicine men. Outsiders desiring to acquire this secret knowledge are discouraged by being told that it is a dangerous thing to learn, for the reason that the new initiate is almost certain to be bitten, in order that the snakes may "try" him to know if he has correctly learned the formula. When a rattlesnake is killed the head must be cut off and buried an arm's length deep in the ground and the body carefully hidden away in a hollow log. If it is left exposed to the weather, the angry snakes will send such torrents of rain that all the streams will overflow their banks. Moreover, they will tell their friends, the deer, and the ginseng in the mountains, so that these will hide themselves and the hunters will seek them in vain. The tooth of a rattlesnake which has been killed by the priest with the proper ceremonies while the snake was lying stretched out from east to west is used to scarify patients preliminary to applying the medicine in certain ailments. Before using it the doctor holds it between the thumb and finger of his right hand and addresses it in a prayer, at the end of which the tooth "becomes alive," when it is ready for the operation. The explanation is that the tense, nervous grasp of the doctor causes his hand to twitch and the tooth to move slightly between his fingers. The rattles are worn on the head, and sometimes a portion of the flesh is eaten by ball players to make them more terrible to their opponents, but it is said to have the bad effect of making them cross to their wives. From the lower half of the body, thought to be the fattest portion, the oil is extracted and is in as great repute among the Indians for rheumatism and sore joints as among the white mountaineers. The doctor who prepares the oil must also eat the flesh of the snake. In certain seasons of epidemic a roasted (barbecued) rattlesnake was kept hanging up in the house, and every morning the father of the family bit off a small piece and chewed it, mixing it then with water, which he spit upon the bodies of the others to preserve them from the contagion. It was said to be a sure cure, but apt to make the patients hot tempered. The copperhead, wâ'dige-askâ'li, "brown-head," although feared on account of its poisonous bite, is hated, instead of being regarded with veneration, as is the rattlesnake. It is believed to be a descendant of a great mythic serpent (see number 5) and is said to have "eyes of fire," on account of their intense brightness. The blacksnake is called gûle'gi, "the climber." Biting its body is said to be a preventive of toothache, and there is also a belief, perhaps derived from the whites, that if the body of one be hung upon a tree it will bring rain within three (four?) days. The small greensnake is called salikwâ'yi, the same name being also applied to a certain plant, the Eryngium virginianum, or bear grass, whose long, slender leaves bear some resemblance to a greensnake. As with the blacksnake, it is believed that toothache may be prevented and sound teeth insured as long as life lasts by biting the greensnake along its body. It must be held by the head and tail, and all the teeth at once pressed down four times along the middle of its body, but without biting into the flesh or injuring the snake. Some informants say that the operation must be repeated four times upon as many snakes and that a certain food tabu must also be observed. The water moccasin, kanegwâ'ti, is not specially regarded, but a very rare wood snake, said to resemble it except that it has blue eyes, is considered to have great supernatural powers, in what way is not specified. The repulsive but harmless spreading adder (Heterodon) is called daliksta', "vomiter," on account of its habit of spitting, and sometimes kwandaya'hû, a word of uncertain etymology. It was formerly a man, but was transformed into a snake in order to accomplish the destruction of the Daughter of the Sun (see the story). For its failure on this occasion it is generally despised. The Wahnenauhi manuscript mentions a legend of a great serpent called on account of its color the "ground snake." To see it was an omen of death to the one who saw it, and if it was seen by several persons some great tribal calamity was expected. For traditions and beliefs in regard to the Uktena, the Uksuhi, and other mythic serpents, see under those headings. 50. THE UKTENA AND THE ULÛÑSÛ'TI Long ago--hilahi'yu--when the Sun became angry at the people on earth and sent a sickness to destroy them, the Little Men changed a man into a monster snake, which they called Uktena, "The Keen-eyed," and sent him to kill her. He failed to do the work, and the Rattlesnake had to be sent instead, which made the Uktena so jealous and angry that the people were afraid of him and had him taken up to Galûñ'lati, to stay with the other dangerous things. [470] He left others behind him, though, nearly as large and dangerous as himself, and they hide now in deep pools in the river and about lonely passes in the high mountains, the places which the Cherokee call "Where the Uktena stays." Those who know say that the Uktena is a great snake, as large around as a tree trunk, with horns on its head, and a bright, blazing crest like a diamond upon its forehead, and scales glittering like sparks of fire. It has rings or spots of color along its whole length, and can not be wounded except by shooting in the seventh spot from the head, because under this spot are its heart and its life. The blazing diamond is called Ulûñsû'ti, "Transparent," and he who can win it may become the greatest wonder worker of the tribe, but it is worth a man's life to attempt it, for whoever is seen by the Uktena is so dazed by the bright light that he runs toward the snake instead of trying to escape. Even to see the Uktena asleep is death, not to the hunter himself, but to his family. Of all the daring warriors who have started out in search of the Ulûñsû'ti only Âgan-uni'tsi ever came back successful. [471] The East Cherokee still keep the one which he brought. It is like a large transparent crystal, nearly the shape of a cartridge bullet, with a blood-red streak running through the center from top to bottom. The owner keeps it wrapped in a whole deerskin, inside an earthen jar hidden away in a secret cave in the mountains. Every seven days he feeds it with the blood of small game, rubbing the blood all over the crystal as soon as the animal has been killed. Twice a year it must have the blood of a deer or some other large animal. Should he forget to feed it at the proper time it would come out from its cave at night in a shape of fire and fly through the air to slake its thirst with the lifeblood of the conjurer or some one of his people. He may save himself from this danger by telling it, when he puts it away, that he will not need it again for a long time. It will then go quietly to sleep and feel no hunger until it is again brought out to be consulted. Then it must be fed again with blood before it is used. No white man must ever see it and no person but the owner will venture near it for fear of sudden death. Even the conjurer who keeps it is afraid of it, and changes its hiding place every once in a while so that it can not learn the way out. When he dies it will be buried with him. Otherwise it will come out of its cave, like a blazing star, to search for his grave, night after night for seven years, when, if still not able to find him, it will go back to sleep forever where he has placed it. Whoever owns the Ulûñsû'ti is sure of success in hunting, love, rain-making, and every other business, but its great use is in life prophecy. When it is consulted for this purpose the future is seen mirrored in the clear crystal as a tree is reflected in the quiet stream below, and the conjurer knows whether the sick man will recover, whether the warrior will return from battle, or whether the youth will live to be old. 51. ÂGAN-UNI'TSI'S SEARCH FOR THE UKTENA In one of their battles with the Shawano, who are all magicians, the Cherokee captured a great medicine-man whose name was Âgan-uni'tsi, "The Ground-hogs' Mother." They had tied him ready for the torture when he begged for his life and engaged, if spared, to find for them the great wonder worker, the Ulûñsû'ti. Now, the Ulûñsû'ti is like a blazing star set in the forehead of the great Uktena serpent, and the medicine-man who could possess it might do marvelous things, but everyone knew this could not be, because it was certain death to meet the Uktena. They warned him of all this, but he only answered that his medicine was strong and he was not afraid. So they gave him his life on that condition and he began the search. The Uktena used to lie in wait in lonely places to surprise its victims, and especially haunted the dark passes of the Great Smoky mountains. Knowing this, the magician went first to a gap in the range on the far northern border of the Cherokee country. He searched and found there a monster blacksnake, larger than had ever been known before, but it was not what he was looking for, and he laughed at it as something too small for notice. Coming southward to the next gap he found there a great moccasin snake, the largest ever seen, but when the people wondered he said it was nothing. In the next gap he found a greensnake and called the people to see "the pretty salikwâ'yi," but when they found an immense greensnake coiled up in the path they ran away in fear. Coming on to U'tawagûn'ta, the Bald mountain, he found there a great diya'hali (lizard) basking, but, although it was large and terrible to look at, it was not what he wanted and he paid no attention to it. Going still south to Walâsi'yi, the Frog place, he found a great frog squatting in the gap, but when the people who came to see it were frightened like the others and ran away from the monster he mocked at them for being afraid of a frog and went on to the next gap. He went on to Duniskwa`lgûñ'yi, the Gap of the Forked Antler, and to the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hi, and at each he found monstrous reptiles, but he said they were nothing. He thought the Uktena might be hiding in the deep water at Tlanusi'yi, the Leech place, on Hiwassee, where other strange things had been seen before, and going there he dived far down under the surface. He saw turtles and water snakes, and two immense sun-perches rushed at him and retreated again, but that was all. Other places he tried, going always southward, and at last on Gahû'ti mountain he found the Uktena asleep. Turning without noise, he ran swiftly down the mountain side as far as he could go with one long breath, nearly to the bottom of the slope. There he stopped and piled up a great circle of pine cones, and inside of it he dug a deep trench. Then he set fire to the cones and came back again up the mountain. The Uktena was still asleep, and, putting an arrow to his bow, Âgan-uni'tsi shot and sent the arrow through its heart, which was under the seventh spot from the serpent's head. The great snake raised his head, with the diamond in front flashing fire, and came straight at his enemy, but the magician, turning quickly, ran at full speed down the mountain, cleared the circle of fire and the trench at one bound, and lay down on the ground inside. The Uktena tried to follow, but the arrow was through his heart, and in another moment he rolled over in his death struggle, spitting poison over all the mountain side. But the poison drops could not pass the circle of fire, but only hissed and sputtered in the blaze, and the magician on the inside was untouched except by one small drop which struck upon his head as he lay close to the ground; but he did not know it. The blood, too, as poisonous as the froth, poured from the Uktena's wound and down the slope in a dark stream, but it ran into the trench and left him unharmed. The dying monster rolled over and over down the mountain, breaking down large trees in its path until it reached the bottom. Then Âgan-uni'tsi called every bird in all the woods to come to the feast, and so many came that when they were done not even the bones were left. After seven days he went by night to the spot. The body and the bones of the snake were gone, all eaten by the birds, but he saw a bright light shining in the darkness, and going over to it he found, resting on a low-hanging branch, where a raven had dropped it, the diamond from the head of the Uktena. He wrapped it up carefully and took it with him, and from that time he became the greatest medicine-man in the whole tribe. When Âgan-uni'tsi came down again to the settlement the people noticed a small snake hanging from his head where the single drop of poison from the Uktena had struck; but so long as he lived he himself never knew that it was there. Where the blood of the Uktena had filled the trench a lake formed afterwards, and the water was black and in this water the women used to dye the cane splits for their baskets. 52. THE RED MAN AND THE UKTENA Two brothers went hunting together, and when they came to a good camping place in the mountains they made a fire, and while one gathered bark to put up a shelter the other started up the creek to look for a deer. Soon he heard a noise on the top of the ridge as if two animals were fighting. He hurried through the bushes to see what it might be, and when he came to the spot he found a great uktena coiled around a man and choking him to death. The man was fighting for his life, and called out to the hunter: "Help me, nephew; he is your enemy as well as mine." The hunter took good aim, and, drawing the arrow to the head, sent it through the body of the uktena, so that the blood spouted from the hole. The snake loosed its coils with a snapping noise, and went tumbling down the ridge into the valley, tearing up the earth like a water spout as it rolled. The stranger stood up, and it was the Asga'ya Gi'gagei, the Red Man of the Lightning. He said to the hunter: "You have helped me, and now I will reward you, and give you a medicine so that you can always find game." They waited until it was dark, and then went down the ridge to where the dead uktena had rolled, but by this time the birds and insects had eaten the body and only the bones were left. In one place were flashes of light coming up from the ground, and on digging here, just under the surface, the Red Man found a scale of the uktena. Next he went over to a tree that had been struck by lightning, and gathering a handful of splinters he made a fire and burned the uktena scale to a coal. He wrapped this in a piece of deerskin and gave it to the hunter, saying: "As long as you keep this you can always kill game." Then he told the hunter that when he went back to camp he must hang up the medicine on a tree outside, because it was very strong and dangerous. He told him also that when he went into the cabin he would find his brother lying inside nearly dead on account of the presence of the uktena's scale, but he must take a small piece of cane, which the Red Man gave him, and scrape a little of it into water and give it to his brother to drink and he would be well again. Then the Red Man was gone, and the hunter could not see where he went. He returned to camp alone, and found his brother very sick, but soon cured him with the medicine from the cane, and that day and the next, and every day after, he found game whenever he went for it. 53. THE HUNTER AND THE UKSU'HI A man living down in Georgia came to visit some relatives at Hickory-log. He was a great hunter, and after resting in the house a day or two got ready to go into the mountains. His friends warned him not to go toward the north, as in that direction, near a certain large uprooted tree, there lived a dangerous monster uksu'hi snake. It kept constant watch, and whenever it could spring upon an unwary hunter it would coil about him and crush out his life in its folds and then drag the dead body down the mountain side into a deep hole in Hiwassee. He listened quietly to the warning, but all they said only made him the more anxious to see such a monster, so, without saying anything of his intention, he left the settlement and took his way directly up the mountain toward the north. Soon he came to the fallen tree and climbed upon the trunk, and there, sure enough, on the other side was the great uksu'hi stretched out in the grass, with its head raised, but looking the other way. It was about so large [making a circle of a foot in diameter with his hands]. The frightened hunter got down again at once and started to run; but the snake had heard the noise and turned quickly and was after him. Up the ridge the hunter ran, the snake close behind him, then down the other side toward the river. With all his running the uksu'hi gained rapidly, and just as he reached the low ground it caught up with him and wrapped around him, pinning one arm down by his side, but leaving the other free. Now it gave him a terrible squeeze that almost broke his ribs, and then began to drag him along toward the water. With his free hand the hunter clutched at the bushes as they passed, but the snake turned its head and blew its sickening breath into his face until he had to let go his hold. Again and again this happened, and all the time they were getting nearer to a deep hole in the river, when, almost at the last moment, a lucky thought came into the hunter's mind. He was sweating all over from his hard run across the mountain, and suddenly remembered to have heard that snakes can not bear the smell of perspiration. Putting his free hand into his bosom he worked it around under his armpit until it was covered with perspiration. Then withdrawing it he grasped at a bush until the snake turned its head, when he quickly slapped his sweaty hand on its nose. The uksu'hi gave one gasp almost as if it had been wounded, loosened its coil, and glided swiftly away through the bushes, leaving the hunter, bruised but not disabled, to make his way home to Hickory-log. 54. THE USTÛ'TLI There was once a great serpent called the Ustû'tli that made its haunt upon Cohutta mountain. It was called the Ustû'tli or "foot" snake, because it did not glide like other snakes, but had feet at each end of its body, and moved by strides or jerks, like a great measuring worm. These feet were three-cornered and flat and could hold on to the ground like suckers. It had no legs, but would raise itself up on its hind feet, with its snaky head waving high in the air until it found a good place to take a fresh hold; then it would bend down and grip its front feet to the ground while it drew its body up from behind. It could cross rivers and deep ravines by throwing its head across and getting a grip with its front feet and then swinging its body over. Wherever its footprints were found there was danger. It used to bleat like a young fawn, and when the hunter heard a fawn bleat in the woods he never looked for it, but hurried away in the other direction. Up the mountain or down, nothing could escape the Ustû'tli's pursuit, but along the side of the ridge it could not go, because the great weight of its swinging head broke its hold on the ground when it moved sideways. It came to pass after a while that not a hunter about Cohutta would venture near the mountain for dread of the Ustû'tli. At last a man from one of the northern settlements came down to visit some relatives in that neighborhood. When he arrived they made a feast for him, but had only corn and beans, and excused themselves for having no meat because the hunters were afraid to go into the mountains. He asked the reason, and when they told him he said he would go himself to-morrow and either bring in a deer or find the Ustû'tli. They tried to dissuade him from it, but as he insisted upon going they warned him that if he heard a fawn bleat in the thicket he must run at once and if the snake came after him he must not try to run down the mountain, but along the side of the ridge. In the morning he started out and went directly toward the mountain. Working his way through the bushes at the base, he suddenly heard a fawn bleat in front. He guessed at once that it was the Ustû'tli, but he had made up his mind to see it, so he did not turn back, but went straight forward, and there, sure enough, was the monster, with its great head in the air, as high as the pine branches, looking in every direction to discover a deer, or maybe a man, for breakfast. It saw him and came at him at once, moving in jerky strides, every one the length of a tree trunk, holding its scaly head high above the bushes and bleating as it came. The hunter was so badly frightened that he lost his wits entirely and started to run directly up the mountain. The great snake came after him, gaining half its length on him every time it took a fresh grip with its fore feet, and would have caught the hunter before he reached the top of the ridge, but that he suddenly remembered the warning and changed his course to run along the sides of the mountain. At once the snake began to lose ground, for every time it raised itself up the weight of its body threw it out of a straight line and made it fall a little lower down the side of the ridge. It tried to recover itself, but now the hunter gained and kept on until he turned the end of the ridge and left the snake out of sight. Then he cautiously climbed to the top and looked over and saw the Ustû'tli still slowly working its way toward the summit. He went down to the base of the mountain, opened his fire pouch, and set fire to the grass and leaves. Soon the fire ran all around the mountain and began to climb upward. When the great snake smelled the smoke and saw the flames coming it forgot all about the hunter and turned to make all speed for a high cliff near the summit. It reached the rock and got upon it, but the fire followed and caught the dead pines about the base of the cliff until the heat made the Ustû'tli's scales crack. Taking a close grip of the rock with its hind feet it raised its body and put forth all its strength in an effort to spring across the wall of fire that surrounded it, but the smoke choked it and its hold loosened and it fell among the blazing pine trunks and lay there until it was burned to ashes. 55. THE UW'TSÛÑ'TA At Nûñ'daye'`li, the wildest spot on Nantahala river, in what is now Macon county, North Carolina, where the overhanging cliff is highest and the river far below, there lived in the old time a great snake called the Uw'tsûñ'ta or "bouncer," because it moved by jerks like a measuring worm, with only one part of its body on the ground at a time. It stayed generally on the east side, where the sun came first in the morning, and used to cross by reaching over from the highest point of the cliff until it could get a grip on the other side, when it would pull over the rest of its body. It was so immense that when it was thus stretched across its shadow darkened the whole valley below. For a long time the people did not know it was there, but when at last they found out about it they were afraid to live in the valley, so that it was deserted even while still Indian country. 56. THE SNAKE BOY There was a boy who used to go bird hunting every day, and all the birds he brought home he gave to his grandmother, who was very fond of him. This made the rest of the family jealous, and they treated him in such fashion that at last one day he told his grandmother he would leave them all, but that she must not grieve for him. Next morning he refused to eat any breakfast, but went off hungry to the woods and was gone all day. In the evening he returned, bringing with him a pair of deer horns, and went directly to the hothouse (âsi), where his grandmother was waiting for him. He told the old woman he must be alone that night, so she got up and went into the house where the others were. At early daybreak she came again to the hothouse and looked in, and there she saw an immense uktena that filled the âsi, with horns on its head, but still with two human legs instead of a snake tail. It was all that was left of her boy. He spoke to her and told her to leave him, and she went away again from the door. When the sun was well up, the uktena began slowly to crawl out, but it was full noon before it was all out of the âsi. It made a terrible hissing noise as it came out, and all the people ran from it. It crawled on through the settlement, leaving a broad trail in the ground behind it, until it came to a deep bend in the river, where it plunged in and went under the water. The grandmother grieved much for her boy, until the others of the family got angry and told her that as she thought -so much of him she ought to go and stay with him. So she left them and went along the trail made by the uktena to the river and walked directly into the water and disappeared. Once after that a man fishing near the place saw her sitting on a large rock in the river, looking just as she had always looked, but as soon as she caught sight of him she jumped into the water and was gone. 57. THE SNAKE MAN Two hunters, both for some reason under a tabu against the meat of a squirrel or turkey, had gone into the woods together. When evening came they found a good camping place and lighted a fire to prepare their supper. One of them had killed several squirrels during the day, and now got ready to broil them over the fire. His companion warned him that if he broke the tabu and ate squirrel meat he would become a snake, but the other laughed and said that was only a conjurer's story. He went on with his preparation, and when the squirrels were roasted made his supper of them and then lay down beside the fire to sleep. Late that night his companion was aroused by groaning, and on looking around he found the other lying on the ground rolling and twisting in agony, and with the lower part of his body already changed to the body and tail of a large water snake. The man was still able to speak and called loudly for help, but his companion could do nothing, but only sit by and try to comfort him while he watched the arms sink into the body and the skin take on a scaly change that mounted gradually toward the neck, until at last even the head was a serpent's head and the great snake crawled away from the fire and down the bank into the river. 58. THE RATTLESNAKE'S VENGEANCE One day in the old times when we could still talk with other creatures, while some children were playing about the house, their mother inside heard them scream. Running out she found that a rattlesnake had crawled from the grass, and taking up a stick she killed it. The father was out hunting in the mountains, and that evening when coming home after dark through the gap he heard a strange wailing sound. Looking about he found that he had come into the midst of a whole company of rattlesnakes, which all had their mouths open and seemed to be crying. He asked them the reason of their trouble, and they told him that his own wife had that day killed their chief, the Yellow Rattlesnake, and they were just now about to send the Black Rattlesnake to take revenge. The hunter said he was very sorry, but they told him that if he spoke the truth he must be ready to make satisfaction and give his wife as a sacrifice for the life of their chief. Not knowing what might happen otherwise, he consented. They then told him that the Black Rattlesnake would go home with him and coil up just outside the door in the dark. He must go inside, where he would find his wife awaiting him, and ask her to get him a drink of fresh water from the spring. That was all. He went home and knew that the Black Rattlesnake was following. It was night when he arrived and very dark, but he found his wife waiting with his supper ready. He sat down and asked for a drink of water. She handed him a gourd full from the jar, but he said he wanted it fresh from the spring, so she took a bowl and went out of the door. The next moment he heard a cry, and going out he found that the Black Rattlesnake had bitten her and that she was already dying. He stayed with her until she was dead, when the Black Rattlesnake came out from the grass again and said his tribe was now satisfied. He then taught the hunter a prayer song, and said, "When you meet any of us hereafter sing this song and we will not hurt you; but if by accident one of us should bite one of your people then sing this song over him and he will recover." And the Cherokee have kept the song to this day. 59. THE SMALLER REPTILES--FISHES AND INSECTS There are several varieties of frogs and toads, each with a different name, but there is very little folklore in connection with them. The common green frog is called walâ'si, and among the Cherokee, as among uneducated whites, the handling of it is thought to cause warts, which for this reason are called by the same name, walâ'si. A solar eclipse is believed to be caused by the attempt of a great frog to swallow the sun, and in former times it was customary on such occasions to fire guns and make other loud noises to frighten away the frog. The smaller varieties are sometimes eaten, and on rare occasions the bullfrog also, but the meat is tabued to ball players while in training, for fear that the brittleness of the frog's bones would be imparted to those of the player. The land tortoise (tûksi') is prominent in the animal myths, and is reputed to have been a great warrior in the old times. On account of the stoutness of its legs ball players rub their limbs with them before going into the contest. The common water turtle (saligu'gi), which occupies so important a place in the mythology of the northern tribes, is not mentioned in Cherokee myth or folklore, and the same is true of the soft-shelled turtle (u`lana'wa), perhaps for the reason that both are rare in the cold mountain streams of the Cherokee country. There are perhaps half a dozen varieties of lizard, each with a different name. The gray road lizard, or diyâ'hali (alligator lizard, Sceloporus undulatus), is the most common. On account of its habit of alternately puffing out and drawing in its throat as though sucking, when basking in the sun, it is invoked in the formulas for drawing out the poison from snake bites. If one catches the first diyâ'hali seen in the spring, and, holding it between his fingers, scratches his legs downward with its claws, he will see no dangerous snakes all summer. Also, if one be caught alive at any time and rubbed over the head and throat of an infant, scratching the skin very slightly at the same time with the claws, the child will never be fretful, but will sleep quietly without complaining, even when sick or exposed to the rain. This is a somewhat risky experiment, however, as the child is liable thereafter to go to sleep wherever it may be laid down for a moment, so that the mother is in constant danger of losing it. According to some authorities this sleep lizard is not the diyâ'hali, but a larger variety akin to the next described. The giga-tsuha'`li ("bloody mouth," Pleistodon?) is described as a very large lizard, nearly as large as a water dog, with the throat and corners of the mouth red, as though from drinking blood. It is believed to be not a true lizard but a transformed ugûñste'li fish (described below) on account of the similarity of coloring and the fact that the fish disappears about the time the giga-tsuha'`li begins to come out. It is ferocious and a hard biter, and pursues other lizards. In dry weather it cries or makes a noise like a cicada, raising itself up as it cries. It has a habit of approaching near to where some person is sitting or standing, then halting and looking fixedly at him, and constantly puffing out its throat until its head assumes a bright red color. It is thought then to be sucking the blood of its victim, and is dreaded and shunned accordingly. The small scorpion lizard (tsâne'ni) is sometimes called also giga-danegi'ski, "blood taker." It is a striped lizard which frequents sandy beaches and resemble the diyâ'hali, but is of a brown color. It is believed also to be sucking blood in some mysterious way whenever it nods its head, and if its heart be eaten by a dog that animal will be able to extract all the nutrient properties from food by simply looking at these who are eating. The small spring lizard (duwe'`ga), which lives in springs, is supposed to cause rain whenever it crawls out of the spring. It is frequently invoked in the formulas. Another spring (?) lizard, red, with black spots, is called dagan'`tû' or aniganti'ski "the rain maker," because its cry is said to bring rain. The water dog (tsuwa', mud puppy, Menopoma or Protonopsis) is a very large lizard, or rather salamander, frequenting muddy water. It is rarely eaten, from an unexplained belief that if one who has eaten its meat goes into the field immediately afterward the crop will be ruined. There are names for one or two other varieties of lizard as well as for the alligator (tsula'ski), but no folklore in connection with them. Although the Cherokee country abounds in swift-flowing streams well stocked with fish, of which the Indians make free use, there is but little fish lore. A number of "dream" diseases, really due to indigestion, are ascribed to revengeful fish ghosts, and the doctor usually tries to effect the cure by invoking some larger fish or fish-eating bird to drive out the ghost. Toco creek, in Monroe county, Tennessee, derives its name from a mythic monster fish, the Dakwa', considered the father of all the fish tribe, which is said to have lived formerly in Little Tennessee river at that point (see story, "The Hunter and the Dakwa'"). A fish called ugûñste'li, "having horns," which appears only in spring, is believed to be transformed later into the giga-tsuha'li lizard, already mentioned. The fish is described as having horns or projections upon its nose and beautiful red spots upon its head, and as being attended or accompanied by many smaller red fish, all of which, including the ugûñste'li, are accustomed to pile up small stones in the water. As the season advances it disappears and is believed then to have turned into a giga-tsuha'li lizard, the change beginning at the head and finishing with the tail. It is probably the Campostoma or stone roller, which is conspicuous for its bright coloring in early spring, but loses its tints after spawning. The meat of the sluggish hog-sucker is tabued to the ball player, who must necessarily be active in movement. The fresh-water mussel is called dagû'na, and the same name is applied to certain pimples upon the face, on account of a fancied resemblance. The ball player rubs himself with an eel skin to make himself slippery and hard to hold, and, according to the Wahnenauhi manuscript, women formerly tied up their hair with the dried skin of an eel to make it grow long. A large red crawfish called tsiska'gili, much resembling a lobster, is used to scratch young children in order to give them a strong grip, each hand of the child being lightly scratched once with the pincer of the living animal. A mother whose grown son had been thus treated when an infant claimed that he could hold anything with his thumb and finger. It is said, however, to render the child quarrelsome and disposed to bite. Of insects there is more to be said. The generic name for all sorts of small insects and worms is tsgâya, and according to the doctors, who had anticipated the microbe theory by several centuries, these tsgâya are to blame for nearly every human ailment not directly traceable to the asgina of the larger animals or to witchcraft. The reason is plain. There are such myriads of them everywhere on the earth and in the air that mankind is constantly destroying them by wholesale, without mercy and almost without knowledge, and this is their method of taking revenge. Beetles are classed together under a name which signifies "insects with shells." The little water-beetle or mellow-bug (Dineutes discolor) is called dâyuni'si, "beaver's grandmother," and according to the genesis tradition it brought up the first earth from under the water. A certain green-headed beetle with horns (Phanæus carnifex) is spoken of as the dog of the Thunder boys, and the metallic-green luster upon its forehead is said to have been caused by striking at the celebrated mythic gambler, Ûñtsaiyi', "Brass" (see the story). The June-bug (Allorhina nitida), another green beetle, is tagû, but is frequently called by the curious name of tu'ya-di'skalaw`sti'ski, "one who keeps fire under the beans." Its larva is the grubworm which presided at the meeting held by the insects to compass the destruction of the human race (see the story, "Origin of Disease and Medicine"). The large horned beetle (Dynastes tityus?) is called tsistû'na, "crawfish," a`wi', "deer," or galagi'na, "buck," on account of its branching horns. The snapping beetle (Alaus oculatus?) is called tûlsku'wa, "one that snaps with his head." When the lâlû or jar-fly (Cicada auletes) begins to sing in midsummer they say: "The jar-fly has brought the beans," his song being taken as the signal that beans are ripe and that green corn is not far behind. When the katydid (tsikiki') is heard a little later they say, "Katydid has brought the roasting-ear bread." The cricket (tala'tu') is often called "the barber" (ditastaye'ski), on account of its habit of gnawing hair from furs, and when the Cherokee meet a man with his hair clipped unevenly they sometimes ask playfully, "Did the cricket cut your hair?" (see story, "Why the Possum's Tail is Bare"). Certain persons are said to drink tea made of crickets in order to become good singers. The mole cricket (Gryllotalpa), so called because it tunnels in the earth and has hand-like claws fitted for digging, is known to the Cherokee as gûl`kwâgi, a word which literally means "seven," but is probably an onomatope. It is reputed among them to be alert, hard to catch, and an excellent singer, who "never makes mistakes." Like the crawfish and the cricket, it plays an important part in preparing people for the duties of life. Infants slow in learning to speak have their tongues scratched with the claw of a gûl`kwâgi, the living insect being held in the hand during the operation, in order that they may soon learn to speak distinctly and be eloquent, wise, and shrewd of speech as they grow older, and of such quick intelligence as to remember without effort anything once heard. The same desirable result may be accomplished with a grown person, but with much more difficulty, as in that case it is necessary to scratch the inside of the throat for four successive mornings, the insect being pushed down with the fingers and again withdrawn, while the regular tabus must be strictly observed for the same period, or the operation will be without effect. In some cases the insect is put into a small bowl of water overnight, and if still alive in the morning it is taken out and the water given to the patient to drink, after which the gûl`kwâgi is set at liberty. Bees are kept by many of the Cherokee, in addition to the wild bees which are hunted in the woods. Although they are said to have come originally from the whites, the Cherokee have no tradition of a time when they did not know them; there seems, however, to be no folklore connected with them. The cow-ant (Myrmica?), a large, red, stinging ant, is called properly dasûñ'tali atatsûñ'ski, "stinging ant," but, on account of its hard body-case, is frequently called nûñ'yunu'wi, "stone-dress," after a celebrated mythic monster. Strange as it may seem, there appears to be no folklore connected with either the firefly or the glowworm, while the spider, so prominent in other tribal mythologies, appears in but a single Cherokee myth, where it brings back the fire from across the water. In the formulas it is frequently invoked to entangle in its threads the soul of a victim whom the conjurer desires to bring under his evil spells. From a fancied resemblance in appearance the name for spider, ka'nane'ski, is applied also to a watch or clock. A small yellowish moth which flies about the fire at night is called tûñ'tawû, a name implying that it goes into and out of the fire, and when at last it flits too near and falls into the blaze the Cherokee say, "Tûñ'tawû is going to bed." On account of its affinity for the fire it is invoked by the doctor in all "fire diseases," including sore eyes and frostbite. 60. WHY THE BULLFROG'S HEAD IS STRIPED According to one version the Bullfrog was always ridiculing the great gambler Ûñtsai'yi, "Brass," (see the story) until the latter at last got angry and dared the Bullfrog to play the gatayû'sti (wheel-and-stick) game with him, whichever lost to be scratched on his forehead. Brass won, as he always did, and the yellow stripes on the Bullfrog's head show where the gambler's fingers scratched him. Another story is that the Bullfrog had a conjurer to paint his head with yellow stripes (brass) to make him appear more handsome to a pretty woman he was courting. 61. THE BULLFROG LOVER A young man courted a girl, who liked him well enough, but her mother was so much opposed to him that she would not let him come near the house. At last he made a trumpet from the handle of a gourd and hid himself after night near the spring until the old woman came down for water. While she was dipping up the water he put the trumpet to his lips and grumbled out in a deep voice like a bullfrog's: Yañdaska'ga hûñyahu'ska, Yañdaska'ga hûñyahu'ska. The faultfinder will die, The faultfinder will die. The woman thought it a witch bullfrog, and was so frightened that she dropped her dipper and ran back to the house to tell the people They all agreed that it was a warning to her to stop interfering with her daughter's affairs, so she gave her consent, and thus the young man won his wife. There is another story of a girl who, every day when she went down to the spring for water, heard a voice singing, Kûnu'nu tû'tsahyesi', Kûnu'nu tû'tsahyesi', "A bullfrog will marry you, A bullfrog will marry you." She wondered much until one day when she came down she saw sitting on a stone by the spring a bullfrog, which suddenly took the form of a young man and asked her to marry him. She consented and took him back with her to the house. But although he had the shape of a man there was a queer bullfrog look about his face, so that the girl's family hated him and at last persuaded her to send him away. She told him and he went away, but when they next went down to the spring they heard a voice: Ste'tsi tûya'husi, Ste'tsi tûyahusi', "Your daughter will die, Your daughter will die," and so it happened soon after. As some tell it, the lover was a tadpole, who took on human shape, retaining only his tadpole mouth. To conceal it he constantly refused to eat with the family, but stood with his back to the fire and his face screwed up, pretending that he had a toothache. At last his wife grew suspicious and turning him suddenly around to the firelight, exposed the tadpole mouth, at which they all ridiculed him so much that he left the house forever. 62. THE KATYDID'S WARNING Two hunters camping in the woods were preparing supper one night when a Katydid began singing near them. One of them said sneeringly, "Kû! It sings and don't know that it will die before the season ends." The Katydid answered: "Kû! niwi (onomatope); O, so you say; but you need not boast. You will die before to-morrow night." The next day they were surprised by the enemy and the hunter who had sneered at the Katydid was killed. Wonder Stories 63. ÛÑTSAIYI', THE GAMBLER Thunder lives in the west, or a little to the south of west, near the place where the sun goes down behind the water. In the old times he sometimes made a journey to the east, and once after he had come back from one of these journeys a child was born in the east who, the people said, was his son. As the boy grew up it was found that he had scrofula sores all over his body, so one day his mother said to him, "Your father, Thunder, is a great doctor. He lives far in the west, but if you can find him he can cure you." So the boy set out to find his father and be cured. He traveled long toward the west, asking of every one he met where Thunder lived, until at last they began to tell him that it was only a little way ahead. He went on and came to Ûñtiguhi', on Tennessee, where lived Ûñtsaiyi' "Brass." Now Ûñtsaiyi' was a great gambler, and made his living that way. It was he who invented the gatayûsti game that we play with a stone wheel and a stick. He lived on the south side of the river, and everybody who came that way he challenged to play against him. The large flat rock, with the lines and grooves where they used to roll the wheel, is still there, with the wheels themselves and the stick turned to stone. He won almost every time, because he was so tricky, so that he had his house filled with all kinds of fine things. Sometimes he would lose, and then he would bet all that he had, even to his own life, but the winner got nothing for his trouble, for Ûñtsaiyi' knew how to take on different shapes, so that he always got away. As soon as Ûñtsaiyi' saw him he asked him to stop and play a while, but the boy said he was looking for his father, Thunder, and had no time to wait. "Well," said Ûñtsaiyi', "he lives in the next house; you can hear him grumbling over there all the time"--he meant the Thunder--"so we may as well have a game or two before you go on." The boy said he had nothing to bet. "That's all right," said the gambler, "we'll play for your pretty spots." He said this to make the boy angry so that he would play, but still the boy said he must go first and find his father, and would come back afterwards. He went on, and soon the news came to Thunder that a boy was looking for him who claimed to be his son. Said Thunder, "I have traveled in many lands and have many children. Bring him here and we shall soon know." So they brought in the boy, and Thunder showed him a seat and told him to sit down. Under the blanket on the seat were long, sharp thorns of the honey locust, with the points all sticking up, but when the boy sat down they did not hurt him, and then Thunder knew that it was his son. He asked the boy why he had come. "I have sores all over my body, and my mother told me you were my father and a great doctor, and if I came here you would cure me." "Yes," said his father, "I am a great doctor, and I'll soon fix you." There was a large pot in the corner and he told his wife to fill it with water and put it over the fire. When it was boiling, he put in some roots, then took the boy and put him in with them. He let it boil a long time until one would have thought that the flesh was boiled from the poor boy's bones, and then told his wife to take the pot and throw it into the river, boy and all. She did as she was told, and threw it into the water, and ever since there is an eddy there that we call Ûñ'tiguhi', "Pot-in-the-water." A service tree and a calico bush grew on the bank above. A great cloud of steam came up and made streaks and blotches on their bark, and it has been so to this day. When the steam cleared away she looked over and saw the boy clinging to the roots of the service tree where they hung down into the water, but now his skin was all clean. She helped him up the bank, and they went back to the house. On the way she told him, "When we go in, your father will put a new dress on you, but when he opens his box and tells you to pick out your ornaments be sure to take them from the bottom. Then he will send for his other sons to play ball against you. There is a honey-locust tree in front of the house, and as soon as you begin to get tired strike at that and your father will stop the play, because he does not want to lose the tree." When they went into the house, the old man was pleased to see the boy looking so clean, and said, "I knew I could soon cure those spots. Now we must dress you." He brought out a fine suit of buckskin, with belt and headdress, and had the boy put them on. Then he opened a box and said, "Now pick out your necklace and bracelets." The boy looked, and the box was full of all kinds of snakes gliding over each other with their heads up. He was not afraid, but remembered what the woman had told him, and plunged his hand to the bottom and drew out a great rattlesnake and put it around his neck for a necklace. He put down his hand again four times and drew up four copperheads and twisted them around his wrists and ankles. Then his father gave him a war club and said, "Now you must play a ball game with your two elder brothers. They live beyond here in the Darkening land, and I have sent for them." He said a ball game, but he meant that the boy must fight for his life. The young men came, and they were both older and stronger than the boy, but he was not afraid and fought against them. The thunder rolled and the lightning flashed at every stroke, for they were the young Thunders, and the boy himself was Lightning. At last he was tired from defending himself alone against two, and pretended to aim a blow at the honey-locust tree. Then his father stopped the fight, because he was afraid the lightning would split the tree, and he saw that the boy was brave and strong. The boy told his father how Ûñtsaiyi' had dared him to play, and had even offered to play for the spots on his skin. "Yes," said Thunder, "he is a great gambler and makes his living that way, but I will see that you win." He brought a small cymling gourd with a hole bored through the neck, and tied it on the boy's wrist. Inside the gourd there was a string of beads, and one end hung out from a hole in the top, but there was no end to the string inside. "Now," said his father, "go back the way you came, and as soon as he sees you he will want to play for the beads. He is very hard to beat, but this time he will lose every game. When he cries out for a drink, you will know he is getting discouraged, and then strike the rock with your war club and water will come, so that you can play on without stopping. At last he will bet his life, and lose. Then send at once for your brothers to kill him, or he will get away, he is so tricky." The boy took the gourd and his war club and started east along the road by which he had come. As soon as Ûñtsaiyi' saw him he called to him, and when he saw the gourd with the bead string hanging out he wanted to play for it. The boy drew out the string, but there seemed to be no end to it, and he kept on pulling until enough had come out to make a circle all around the playground. "I will play one game for this much against your stake," said the boy, "and when that is over we can have another game." They began the game with the wheel and stick and the boy won. Ûñtsaiyi' did not know what to think of it, but he put up another stake and called for a second game. The boy won again, and so they played on until noon, when Ûñtsaiyi' had lost nearly everything he had and was about discouraged. It was very hot, and he said, "I am thirsty," and wanted to stop long enough to get a drink. "No," said the boy, and struck the rock with his club so that water came out, and they had a drink. They played on until Ûñtsaiyi' had lost all his buckskins and beaded work, his eagle feathers and ornaments, and at last offered to bet his wife. They played and the boy won her. Then Ûñtsaiyi' was desperate and offered to stake his life. "If I win I kill you, but if you win you may kill me." They played and the boy won. "Let me go and tell my wife," said Ûñtsaiyi', "so that she will receive her new husband, and then you may kill me." He went into the house, but it had two doors, and although the boy waited long Ûñtsaiyi' did not come back. When at last he went to look for him he found that the gambler had gone out the back way and was nearly out of sight going east. The boy ran to his father's house and got his brothers to help him. They brought their dog--the Horned Green Beetle--and hurried after the gambler. He ran fast and was soon out of sight, and they followed as fast as they could. After a while they met an old woman making pottery and asked her if she had seen Ûñtsaiyi' and she said she had not. "He came this way," said the brothers. "Then he must have passed in the night," said the old woman, "for I have been here all day." They were about to take another road when the Beetle, which had been circling about in the air above the old woman, made a dart at her and struck her on the forehead, and it rang like brass--ûñtsaiyi'! Then they knew it was Brass and sprang at him, but he jumped up in his right shape and was off, running so fast that he was soon out of sight again. The Beetle had struck so hard that some of the brass rubbed off, and we can see it on the beetle's forehead yet. They followed and came to an old man sitting by the trail, carving a stone pipe. They asked him if he had seen Brass pass that way and he said no, but again the Beetle--which could know Brass under any shape--struck him on the forehead so that it rang like metal, and the gambler jumped up in his right form and was off again before they could hold him. He ran east until he came to the great water; then he ran north until he came to the edge of the world, and had to turn again to the west. He took every shape to throw them off the track, but the Green Beetle always knew him, and the brothers pressed him so hard that at last he could go no more and they caught him just as he reached the edge of the great water where the sun goes down. They tied his hands and feet with a grapevine and drove a long stake through his breast, and planted it far out in the deep water. They set two crows on the end of the pole to guard it and called the place Kâgûñ'yi, "Crow place." But Brass never died, and can not die until the end of the world, but lies there always with his face up. Sometimes he struggles under the water to get free, and sometimes the beavers, who are his friends, come and gnaw at the grapevine to release him. Then the pole shakes and the crows at the top cry Ka! Ka! Ka! and scare the beavers away. 64. THE NEST OF THE TLA'NUWA On the north bank of Little Tennessee river, in a bend below the mouth of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee, is a high cliff hanging over the water, and about halfway up the face of the rock is a cave with two openings. The rock projects outward above the cave, so that the mouth can not be seen from above, and it seems impossible to reach the cave either from above or below. There are white streaks in the rock from the cave down to the water. The Cherokee call it Tla'nuwâ'i, "the place of the Tla'nuwa," or great mythic hawk. In the old time, away back soon after the creation, a pair of Tla'nuwas had their nest in this cave. The streaks in the rock were made by the droppings from the nest. They were immense birds, larger than any that live now, and very strong and savage. They were forever flying up and down the river, and used to come into the settlements and carry off dogs and even young children playing near the houses. No one could reach the nest to kill them, and when the people tried to shoot them the arrows only glanced off and were seized and carried away in the talons of the Tla'nuwas. At last the people went to a great medicine man, who promised to help them. Some were afraid that if he failed to kill the Tla'nuwas they would take revenge on the people, but the medicine man said he could fix that. He made a long rope of linn bark, just as the Cherokee still do, with loops in it for his feet, and had the people let him down from the top of the cliff at a time when he knew that the old birds were away. When he came opposite the mouth of the cave he still could not reach it, because the rock above hung over, so he swung himself backward and forward several times until the rope swung near enough for him to pull himself into the cave with a hooked stick that he carried, which he managed to fasten in some bushes growing at the entrance. In the nest he found four young ones, and on the floor of the cave were the bones of all sorts of animals that had been carried there by the hawks. He pulled the young ones out of the nest and threw them over the cliff into the deep water below, where a great Uktena serpent that lived there finished them. Just then he saw the two old ones coming, and had hardly time to climb up again to the top of the rock before they reached the nest. When they found the nest empty they were furious, and circled round and round in the air until they saw the snake put up its head from the water. Then they darted straight downward, and while one seized the snake in his talons and flew far up in the sky with it, his mate struck at it and bit off piece after piece until nothing was left. They were so high up that when the pieces fell they made holes in the rock, which are still to be seen there, at the place which we call "Where the Tla'nuwa cut it up," opposite the mouth of Citico. Then the two Tla'nuwas circled up and up until they went out of sight, and they have never been seen since. 65. THE HUNTER AND THE TLA'NUWA A hunter out in the woods one day saw a Tla'nuwa overhead and tried to hide from it, but the great bird had already seen him, and sweeping down struck its claws into his hunting pack and carried him far up into the air. As it flew, the Tla'nuwa, which was a mother bird, spoke and told the hunter that he need not be afraid, as she would not hurt him, but only wanted him to stay for a while with her young ones to guard them until they were old enough to leave the nest. At last they alighted at the mouth of a cave in the face of a steep cliff. Inside the water was dripping from the roof, and at the farther end was a nest of sticks in which were two young birds. The old Tla'nuwa set the hunter down and then flew away, returning soon with a fresh-killed deer, which it tore in pieces, giving the first piece to the hunter and then feeding the two young hawks. The hunter stayed in the cave many days until the young birds were nearly grown, and every day the old mother hawk would fly away from the nest and return in the evening with a deer or a bear, of which she always gave the first piece to the hunter. He grew very anxious to see his home again, but the Tla'nuwa kept telling him not to be uneasy, but to wait a little while longer. At last he made up his mind to escape from the cave and finally studied out a plan. The next morning, after the old bird had gone, he dragged one of the young birds to the mouth of the cave and tied himself to one of its legs with a strap from his hunting pack. Then with the flat side of his tomahawk he struck it several times in the head until it was dazed and helpless, and pushed the bird and himself together off the shelf of rock into the air. They fell far, far down toward the earth, but the air from below held up the bird's wings, so that it was almost as if they were flying. As the Tla'nuwa revived it tried to fly upward toward the nest, but the hunter struck it again with his hatchet until it was dazed and dropped again. At last they came down in the top of a poplar tree, when the hunter untied the strap from the leg of the young bird and let it fly away, first pulling out a feather from its wing. He climbed down from the tree and went to his home in the settlement, but when he looked in his pack for the feather he found a stone instead. 66. U`TLÛÑ'TA, THE SPEAR-FINGER Long, long ago--hilahi'yu--there dwelt in the mountains a terrible ogress, a woman monster, whose food was human livers. She could take on any shape or appearance to suit her purpose, but in her right form she looked very much like an old woman, excepting that her whole body was covered with a skin as hard as a rock that no weapon could wound or penetrate, and that on her right hand she had a long, stony forefinger of bone, like an awl or spearhead, with which she stabbed everyone to whom she could get near enough. On account of this fact she was called U`tlûñ'ta, "Spear-finger," and on account of her stony skin she was sometimes called Nûñ'yunu'wi, "Stone-dress." There was another stone-clothed monster that killed people, but that is a different story. Spear-finger had such powers over stone that she could easily lift and carry immense rocks, and could cement them together by merely striking one against another. To get over the rough country more easily she undertook to build a great rock bridge through the air from Nûñyû'-tlu`gûñ'yi, the "Tree rock," on Hiwassee, over to Sanigilâ'gi (Whiteside mountain), on the Blue ridge, and had it well started from the top of the "Tree rock" when the lightning struck it and scattered the fragments along the whole ridge, where the pieces can still be seen by those who go there. She used to range all over the mountains about the heads of the streams and in the dark passes of Nantahala, always hungry and looking for victims. Her favorite haunt on the Tennessee side was about the gap on the trail where Chilhowee mountain comes down to the river. Sometimes an old woman would approach along the trail where the children were picking strawberries or playing near the village, and would say to them coaxingly, "Come, my grandchildren, come to your granny and let granny dress your hair." When some little girl ran up and laid her head in the old woman's lap to be petted and combed the old witch would gently run her fingers through the child's hair until it went to sleep, when she would stab the little one through the heart or back of the neck with the long awl finger, which she had kept hidden under her robe. Then she would take out the liver and eat it. She would enter a house by taking the appearance of one of the family who happened to have gone out for a short time, and would watch her chance to stab some one with her long finger and take out his liver. She could stab him without being noticed, and often the victim did not even know it himself at the time--for it left no wound and caused no pain--but went on about his own affairs, until all at once he felt weak and began gradually to pine away, and was always sure to die, because Spear-finger had taken his liver. When the Cherokee went out in the fall, according to their custom, to burn the leaves off from the mountains in order to get the chestnuts on the ground, they were never safe, for the old witch was always on the lookout, and as soon as she saw the smoke rise she knew there were Indians there and sneaked up to try to surprise one alone. So as well as they could they tried to keep together, and were very cautious of allowing any stranger to approach the camp. But if one went down to the spring for a drink they never knew but it might be the liver eater that came back and sat with them. Sometimes she took her proper form, and once or twice, when far out from the settlements, a solitary hunter had seen an old woman, with a queer-looking hand, going through the woods singing low to herself: Uwe'la nátsikû'. Su' sa' sai'. Liver, I eat it. Su' sa' sai'. It was rather a pretty song, but it chilled his blood, for he knew it was the liver eater, and he hurried away, silently, before she might see him. At last a great council was held to devise some means to get rid of U'tlûñ'ta before she should destroy everybody. The people came from all around, and after much talk it was decided that the best way would be to trap her in a pitfall where all the warriors could attack her at once. So they dug a deep pitfall across the trail and covered it over with earth and grass as if the ground had never been disturbed. Then they kindled a large fire of brush near the trail and hid themselves in the laurels, because they knew she would come as soon as she saw the smoke. Sure enough they soon saw an old woman coming along the trail. She looked like an old woman whom they knew well in the village, and although several of the wiser men wanted to shoot at her, the others interfered, because they did not want to hurt one of their own people. The old woman came slowly along the trail, with one hand under her blanket, until she stepped upon the pitfall and tumbled through the brush top into the deep hole below. Then, at once, she showed her true nature, and instead of the feeble old woman there was the terrible U'tlûñ'ta with her stony skin, and her sharp awl finger reaching out in every direction for some one to stab. The hunters rushed out from the thicket and surrounded the pit, but shoot as true and as often as they could, their arrows struck the stony mail of the witch only to be broken and fall useless at her feet, while she taunted them and tried to climb out of the pit to get at them. They kept out of her way, but were only wasting their arrows when a small bird, Utsu'`gi, the titmouse, perched on a tree overhead and began to sing "un, un, un." They thought it was saying u'nahu', heart, meaning that they should aim at the heart of the stone witch. They directed their arrows where the heart should be, but the arrows only glanced off with the flint heads broken. Then they caught the Utsu'`gi and cut off its tongue, so that ever since its tongue is short and everybody knows it is a liar. When the hunters let it go it flew straight up into the sky until it was out of sight and never came back again. The titmouse that we know now is only an image of the other. They kept up the fight without result until another bird, little Tsi'kilili', the chickadee, flew down from a tree and alighted upon the witch's right hand. The warriors took this as a sign that they must aim there, and they were right, for her heart was on the inside of her hand, which she kept doubled into a fist, this same awl hand with which she had stabbed so many people. Now she was frightened in earnest, and began to rush furiously at them with her long awl finger and to jump about in the pit to dodge the arrows, until at last a lucky arrow struck just where the awl joined her wrist and she fell down dead. Ever since the tsi'kilili' is known as a truth teller, and when a man is away on a journey, if this bird comes and perches near the house and chirps its song, his friends know he will soon be safe home. 67. NÛÑ'YUNU'WI, THE STONE MAN This is what the old men told me when I was a boy. Once when all the people of the settlement were out in the mountains on a great hunt one man who had gone on ahead climbed to the top of a high ridge and found a large river on the other side. While he was looking across he saw an old man walking about on the opposite ridge, with a cane that seemed to be made of some bright, shining rock. The hunter watched and saw that every little while the old man would point his cane in a certain direction, then draw it back and smell the end of it. At last he pointed it in the direction of the hunting camp on the other side of the mountain, and this time when he drew back the staff he sniffed it several times as if it smelled very good, and then started along the ridge straight for the camp. He moved very slowly, with the help of the cane, until he reached the end of the ridge, when he threw the cane out into the air and it became a bridge of shining rock stretching across the river. After he had crossed over upon the bridge it became a cane again, and the old man picked it up and started over the mountain toward the camp. The hunter was frightened, and felt sure that it meant mischief, so he hurried on down the mountain and took the shortest trail back to the camp to get there before the old man. When he got there and told his story the medicine-man said the old man was a wicked cannibal monster called Nûñ'yunu'wi, "Dressed in Stone," who lived in that part of the country, and was always going about the mountains looking for some hunter to kill and eat. It was very hard to escape from him, because his stick guided him like a dog, and it was nearly as hard to kill him, because his whole body was covered with a skin of solid rock. If he came he would kill and eat them all, and there was only one way to save themselves. He could not bear to look upon a menstrual woman, and if they could find seven menstrual women to stand in the path as he came along the sight would kill him. So they asked among all the women, and found seven who were sick in that way, and with one of them it had just begun. By the order of the medicine-man they stripped themselves and stood along the path where the old man would come. Soon they heard Nûñ'yunu'wi coming through the woods, feeling his way with his stone cane. He came along the trail to where the first woman was standing, and as soon as he saw her he started and cried out: "Yu! my grandchild; you are in a very bad state!" He hurried past her, but in a moment he met the next woman, and cried out again: "Yu! my child; you are in a terrible way," and hurried past her, but now he was vomiting blood. He hurried on and met the third and the fourth and the fifth woman, but with each one that he saw his step grew weaker until when he came to the last one, with whom the sickness had just begun, the blood poured from his mouth and he fell down on the trail. Then the medicine-man drove seven sourwood stakes through his body and pinned him to the ground, and when night came they piled great logs over him and set fire to them, and all the people gathered around to see. Nûñ'yunu'wi was a great ada'wehi and knew many secrets, and now as the fire came close to him he began to talk, and told them the medicine for all kinds of sickness. At midnight he began to sing, and sang the hunting songs for calling up the bear and the deer and all the animals of the woods and mountains. As the blaze grew hotter his voice sank low and lower, until at last when daylight came, the logs were a heap of white ashes and the voice was still. Then the medicine-man told them to rake off the ashes, and where the body had lain they found only a large lump of red wâ'di paint and a magic u'lûñsû'ti stone. He kept the stone for himself, and calling the people around him he painted them, on face and breast, with the red wâ'di, and whatever each person prayed for while the painting was being done--whether for hunting success, for working skill, or for a long life--that gift was his. 68. THE HUNTER IN THE DAKWA' In the old days there was a great fish called the Dakwa', which lived in Tennessee river where Toco creek comes in at Dakwâ'i, the "Dakwa' place," above the mouth of Tellico, and which was so large that it could easily swallow a man. Once a canoe filled with warriors was crossing over from the town to the other side of the river, when the Dakwa' suddenly rose up under the boat and threw them all into the air. As they came down it swallowed one with a single snap of its jaws and dived with him to the bottom of the river. As soon as the hunter came to his senses he found that he had not been hurt, but it was so hot and close inside the Dakwa' that he was nearly smothered. As he groped around in the dark his hand struck a lot of mussel shells which the fish had swallowed, and taking one of these for a knife he began to cut his way out, until soon the fish grew uneasy at the scraping inside his stomach and came up to the top of the water for air. He kept on cutting until the fish was in such pain that it swam this way and that across the stream and thrashed the water into foam with its tail. Finally the hole was so large that he could look out and saw that the Dakwa' was now resting in shallow water near the shore. Reaching up he climbed out from the side of the fish, moving very carefully so that the Dakwa' would not know it, and then waded to shore and got back to the settlement, but the juices in the stomach of the great fish had scalded all the hair from his head and he was bald ever after. WAHNENAUHI VERSION A boy was sent on an errand by his father, and not wishing to go he ran away to the river. After playing in the sand for a short time some boys of his acquaintance came by in a canoe and invited him to join them. Glad of the opportunity to get away he went with them, but had no sooner got in than the canoe began to tip and rock most unaccountably. The boys became very much frightened, and in the confusion the bad boy fell into the water and was immediately swallowed by a large fish. After lying in its stomach for some time he became very hungry, and on looking around he saw the fish's liver hanging over his head. Thinking it dried meat, he tried to cut off a piece with a mussel shell he had been playing with and still held in his hand. The operation sickened the fish and it vomited the boy. 69. ATAGÂ'HI, THE ENCHANTED LAKE Westward from the headwaters of Oconaluftee river, in the wildest depths of the Great Smoky mountains, which form the line between North Carolina and Tennessee, is the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hi, "Gall place." Although all the Cherokee know that it is there, no one has ever seen it, for the way is so difficult that only the animals know how to reach it. Should a stray hunter come near the place he would know of it by the whirring sound of the thousands of wild ducks flying about the lake, but on reaching the spot he would find only a dry flat, without bird or animal or blade of grass, unless he had first sharpened his spiritual vision by prayer and fasting and an all-night vigil. Because it is not seen, some people think the lake has dried up long ago, but this is not true. To one who had kept watch and fast through the night it would appear at daybreak as a wide-extending but shallow sheet of purple water, fed by springs spouting from the high cliffs around. In the water are all kinds of fish and reptiles, and swimming upon the surface or flying overhead are great flocks of ducks and pigeons, while all about the shores are bear tracks crossing in every direction. It is the medicine lake of the birds and animals, and whenever a bear is wounded by the hunters he makes his way through the woods to this lake and plunges into the water, and when he comes out upon the other side his wounds are healed. For this reason the animals keep the lake invisible to the hunter. 70. THE BRIDE FROM THE SOUTH The North went traveling, and after going far and meeting many different tribes he finally fell in love with the daughter of the South and wanted to marry her. The girl was willing, but her parents objected and said, "Ever since you came the weather has been cold, and if you stay here we may all freeze to death." The North pleaded hard, and said that if they would let him have their daughter he would take her back to his own country, so at last they consented. They were married and he took his bride to his own country, and when she arrived there she found the people all living in ice houses. The next day, when the sun rose, the houses began to leak, and as it climbed higher they began to melt, and it grew warmer and warmer, until finally the people came to the young husband and told him he must send his wife home again, or the weather would get so warm that the whole settlement would be melted. He loved his wife and so held out as long as he could, but as the sun grew hotter the people were more urgent, and at last he had to send her home to her parents. The people said that as she had been born in the South, and nourished all her life upon food that grew in the same climate, her whole nature was warm and unfit for the North. 71. THE ICE MAN Once when the people were burning the woods in the fall the blaze set fire to a poplar tree, which continued to burn until the fire went down into the roots and burned a great hole in the ground. It burned and burned, and the hole grew constantly larger, until the people became frightened and were afraid it would burn the whole world. They tried to put out the fire, but it had gone too deep, and they did not know what to do. At last some one said there was a man living in a house of ice far in the north who could put out the fire, so messengers were sent, and after traveling a long distance they came to the ice house and found the Ice Man at home. He was a little fellow with long hair hanging down to the ground in two plaits. The messengers told him their errand and he at once said, "O yes, I can help you," and began to unplait his hair. When it was all unbraided he took it up in one hand and struck it once across his other hand, and the messengers felt a wind blow against their cheeks. A second time he struck his hair across his hand, and a light rain began to fall. The third time he struck his hair across his open hand there was sleet mixed with the raindrops, and when he struck the fourth time great hailstones fell upon the ground, as if they had come out from the ends of his hair. "Go back now," said the Ice Man, "and I shall be there to-morrow." So the messengers returned to their people, whom they found still gathered helplessly about the great burning pit. The next day while they were all watching about the fire there came a wind from the north, and they were afraid, for they knew that it came from the Ice Man. But the wind only made the fire blaze up higher. Then a light rain began to fall, but the drops seemed only to make the fire hotter. Then the shower turned to a heavy rain, with sleet and hail that killed the blaze and made clouds of smoke and steam rise from the red coals. The people fled to their homes for shelter, and the storm rose to a whirlwind that drove the rain into every burning crevice and piled great hailstones over the embers, until the fire was dead and even the smoke ceased. When at last it was all over and the people returned they found a lake where the burning pit had been, and from below the water came a sound as of embers still crackling. 72. THE HUNTER AND SELU A hunter had been tramping over the mountains all day long without finding any game and when the sun went down, he built a fire in a hollow stump, swallowed a few mouthfuls of corn gruel and lay down to sleep, tired out and completely discouraged. About the middle of the night he dreamed and seemed to hear the sound of beautiful singing, which continued until near daybreak and then appeared to die away into the upper air. All next day he hunted with the same poor success, and at night made his lonely camp again in the woods. He slept and the strange dream came to him again, but so vividly that it seemed to him like an actual happening. Rousing himself before daylight, he still heard the song, and feeling sure now that it was real, he went in the direction of the sound and found that it came from a single green stalk of corn (selu). The plant spoke to him, and told him to cut off some of its roots and take them to his home in the settlement, and the next morning to chew them and "go to water" before anyone else was awake, and then to go out again into the woods, and he would kill many deer and from that time on would always be successful in the hunt. The corn plant continued to talk, teaching him hunting secrets and telling him always to be generous with the game he took, until it was noon and the sun was high, when it suddenly took the form of a woman and rose gracefully into the air and was gone from sight, leaving the hunter alone in the woods. He returned home and told his story, and all the people knew that he had seen Selu, the wife of Kana'ti. He did as the spirit had directed, and from that time was noted as the most successful of all the hunters in the settlement. 73. THE UNDERGROUND PANTHERS A hunter was in the woods one day in winter when suddenly he saw a panther coming toward him and at once prepared to defend himself. The panther continued to approach, and the hunter was just about to shoot when the animal spoke, and at once it seemed to the man as if there was no difference between them, and they were both of the same nature. The panther asked him where he was going, and the man said that he was looking for a deer. "Well," said the panther, "we are getting ready for a Green-corn dance, and there are seven of us out after a buck, so we may as well hunt together." The hunter agreed and they went on together. They started up one deer and another, but the panther made no sign, and said only, "Those are too small; we want something better." So the hunter did not shoot, and they went on. They started up another deer, a larger one, and the panther sprang upon it and tore its throat, and finally killed it after a hard struggle. The hunter got out his knife to skin it, but the panther said the skin was too much torn to be used and they must try again. They started up another large deer, and this the panther killed without trouble, and then, wrapping his tail around it, threw it across his back. "Now, come to our townhouse," he said to the hunter. The panther led the way, carrying the captured deer upon his back, up a little stream branch until they came to the head spring, when it seemed as if a door opened in the side of the hill and they went in. Now the hunter found himself in front of a large townhouse, with the finest detsanûñ'li he had ever seen, and the trees around were green, and the air was warm, as in summer. There was a great company there getting ready for the dance, and they were all panthers, but somehow it all seemed natural to the hunter. After a while the others who had been out came in with the deer they had taken, and the dance began. The hunter danced several rounds, and then said it was growing late and he must be getting home. So the panthers opened the door and he went out, and at once found himself alone in the woods again, and it was winter and very cold, with snow on the ground and on all the trees. When he reached the settlement he found a party just starting out to search for him. They asked him where he had been so long, and he told them the story, and then he found that he had been in the panther townhouse several days instead of only a very short time, as he had thought. He died within seven days after his return, because he had already begun to take on the panther nature, and so could not live again with men. If he had stayed with the panthers he would have lived. 74. THE TSUNDIGE'WI Once some young men of the Cherokee set out to see what was in the world and traveled south until they came to a tribe of little people called Tsundige'wi, with very queer shaped bodies, hardly tall enough to reach up to a man's knee, who had no houses, but lived in nests scooped in the sand and covered over with dried grass. The little fellows were so weak and puny that they could not fight at all, and were in constant terror from the wild geese and other birds that used to come in great flocks from the south to make war upon them. Just at the time that the travelers got there they found the little men in great fear, because there was a strong wind blowing from the south and it blew white feathers and down along the sand, so that the Tsundige'wi knew their enemies were coming not far behind. The Cherokee asked them why they did not defend themselves, but they said they could not, because they did not know how. There was no time to make bows and arrows, but the travelers told them to take sticks for clubs, and showed them where to strike the birds on the necks to kill them. The wind blew for several days, and at last the birds came, so many that they were like a great cloud in the air, and alighted on the sands. The little men ran to their nests, and the birds followed and stuck in their long bills to pull them out and eat them. This time, though, the Tsundige'wi had their clubs, and they struck the birds on the neck, as the Cherokee had shown them, and killed so many that at last the others were glad to spread their wings and fly away again to the south. The little men thanked the Cherokee for their help and gave them the best they had until the travelers went on to see the other tribes. They heard afterwards that the birds came again several times, but that the Tsundige'wi always drove them off with their clubs, until a flock of sandhill cranes came. They were so tall that the little men could not reach up to strike them on the neck, and so at last the cranes killed them all. 75. ORIGIN OF THE BEAR: THE BEAR SONGS Long ago there was a Cherokee clan called the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, and in one family of this clan was a boy who used to leave home and be gone all day in the mountains. After a while he went oftener and stayed longer, until at last he would not eat in the house at all, but started off at daybreak and did not come back until night. His parents scolded, but that did no good, and the boy still went every day until they noticed that long brown hair was beginning to grow out all over his body. Then they wondered and asked him why it was that he wanted to be so much in the woods that he would not even eat at home. Said the boy, "I find plenty to eat there, and it is better than the corn and beans we have in the settlements, and pretty soon I am going into the woods to stay all the time." His parents were worried and begged him not to leave them, but he said, "It is better there than here, and you see I am beginning to be different already, so that I can not live here any longer. If you will come with me, there is plenty for all of us and you will never have to work for it; but if you want to come you must first fast seven days." The father and mother talked it over and then told the headmen of the clan. They held a council about the matter and after everything had been said they decided: "Here we must work hard and have not always enough. There he says there is always plenty without work. We will go with him." So they fasted seven days, and on the seventh morning all the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi left the settlement and started for the mountains as the boy led the way. When the people of the other towns heard of it they were very sorry and sent their headmen to persuade the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi to stay at home and not go into the woods to live. The messengers found them already on the way, and were surprised to notice that their bodies were beginning to be covered with hair like that of animals, because for seven days they had not taken human food and their nature was changing. The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi would not come back, but said, "We are going where there is always plenty to eat. Hereafter we shall be called yânû (bears), and when you yourselves are hungry come into the woods and call us and we shall come to give you our own flesh. You need not be afraid to kill us, for we shall live always." Then they taught the messengers the songs with which to call them, and the bear hunters have these songs still. When they had finished the songs the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi started on again and the messengers turned back to the settlements, but after going a little way they looked back and saw a drove of bears going into the woods. First Bear Song He-e! Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, akwandu'li e'lanti' ginûn'ti, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, akwandu'li e'lanti' ginûn'ti--Yû! He-e! The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, I want to lay them low on the ground, The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi, I want to lay them low on the ground--Yû! The bear hunter starts out each morning fasting and does not eat until near evening. He sings this song as he leaves camp, and again the next morning, but never twice the same day. Second Bear Song This song also is sung by the bear hunter, in order to attract the bears, while on his way from the camp to the place where he expects to hunt during the day. The melody is simple and plaintive. He-e! Hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', Tsistuyi' nehandu'yanû', Tsistuyi' nehandu'yanû'--Yoho-o! He-e! Hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', Kuwâhi' nehandu'yanû', Kuwâhi' nehandu'yanû'--Yoho-o! He-e! Hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', Uyâhye' nehandu'yanû', Uyâhye' nehandu'yanû'--Yoho-o! He-e! Hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', hayuya'haniwa', Gâtegwâ' nehandu'yanû', Gâtegwâ' nehandu'yanû'--Yoho-o! (Recited) Ûle-`nû' asehi' tadeyâ'statakûhi' gûñ'nage astû' tsiki'. He! Hayuya'haniwa' (four times), In Tsistu'yi you were conceived (two times)--Yoho! He! Hayuya'haniwa' (four times), In Kuwâ'hi you were conceived (two times)--Yoho! He! Hayuya'haniwa' (four times), In Uyâ'hye you were conceived (two times)--Yoho! He! Hayuya'haniwa' (four times), In Gâte'gwâ you were conceived (two times)--Yoho! And now surely we and the good black things, the best of all, shall see each other. 76. THE BEAR MAN A man went hunting in the mountains and came across a black bear, which he wounded with an arrow. The bear turned and started to run the other way, and the hunter followed, shooting one arrow after another into it without bringing it down. Now, this was a medicine bear, and could talk or read the thoughts of people without their saying a word. At last he stopped and pulled the arrows out of his side and gave them to the man, saying, "It is of no use for you to shoot at me, for you can not kill me. Come to my house and let us live together." The hunter thought to himself, "He may kill me;" but the bear read his thoughts and said, "No, I won't hurt you." The man thought again, "How can I get anything to eat?" but the bear knew his thoughts, and said, "There shall be plenty." So the hunter went with the bear. They went on together until they came to a hole in the side of the mountain, and the bear said, "This is not where I live, but there is going to be a council here and we will see what they do." They went in, and the hole widened as they went, until they came to a large cave like a townhouse. It was full of bears--old bears, young bears, and cubs, white bears, black bears, and brown bears--and a large white bear was the chief. They sat down in a corner, but soon the bears scented the hunter and began to ask, "What is it that smells bad?" The chief said, "Don't talk so; it is only a stranger come to see us. Let him alone." Food was getting scarce in the mountains, and the council was to decide what to do about it. They had sent out messengers all over, and while they were talking two bears came in and reported that they had found a country in the low grounds where there were so many chestnuts and acorns that mast was knee deep. Then they were all pleased, and got ready for a dance, and the dance leader was the one the Indians call Kalâs'-gûnahi'ta, "Long Hams," a great black bear that is always lean. After the dance the bears noticed the hunter's bow and arrows, and one said, "This is what men use to kill us. Let us see if we can manage them, and may be we can fight man with his own weapons." So they took the bow and arrows from the hunter to try them. They fitted the arrow and drew back the string, but when they let go it caught in their long claws and the arrows dropped to the ground. They saw that they could not use the bow and arrows and gave them back to the man. When the dance and the council were over, they began to go home, excepting the White Bear chief, who lived there, and at last the hunter and the bear went out together. They went on until they came to another hole in the side of the mountain, when the bear said, "This is where I live," and they went in. By this time the hunter was very hungry and was wondering how he could get something to eat. The other knew his thoughts, and sitting up on his hind legs he rubbed his stomach with his forepaws--so--and at once he had both paws full of chestnuts and gave them to the man. He rubbed his stomach again--so--and had his paws full of huckleberries, and gave them to the man. He rubbed again--so--and gave the man both paws full of blackberries. He rubbed again--so--and had his paws full of acorns, but the man said that he could not eat them, and that he had enough already. The hunter lived in the cave with the bear all winter, until long hair like that of a bear began to grow all over his body and he began to act like a bear; but he still walked like a man. One day in early spring the bear said to him, "Your people down in the settlement are getting ready for a grand hunt in these mountains, and they will come to this cave and kill me and take these clothes from me"--he meant his skin--"but they will not hurt you and will take you home with them." The bear knew what the people were doing down in the settlement just as he always knew what the man was thinking about. Some days passed and the bear said again, "This is the day when the Topknots will come to kill me, but the Split-noses will come first and find us. When they have killed me they will drag me outside the cave and take off my clothes and cut me in pieces. You must cover the blood with leaves, and when they are taking you away look back after you have gone a piece and you will see something." Soon they heard the hunters coming up the mountain, and then the dogs found the cave and began to bark. The hunters came and looked inside and saw the bear and killed him with their arrows. Then they dragged him outside the cave and skinned the body and cut it in quarters to carry home. The dogs kept on barking until the hunters thought there must be another bear in the cave. They looked in again and saw the man away at the farther end. At first they thought it was another bear on account of his long hair, but they soon saw it was the hunter who had been lost the year before, so they went in and brought him out. Then each hunter took a load of the bear meat and they started home again, bringing the man and the skin with them. Before they left the man piled leaves over the spot where they had cut up the bear, and when they had gone a little way he looked behind and saw the bear rise up out of the leaves, shake himself, and go back into the woods. When they came near the settlement the man told the hunters that he must be shut up where no one could see him, without anything to eat or drink for seven days and nights, until the bear nature had left him and he became like a man again. So they shut him up alone in a house and tried to keep very still about it, but the news got out and his wife heard of it. She came for her husband, but the people would not let her near him; but she came every day and begged so hard that at last after four or five days they let her have him. She took him home with her, but in a short time he died, because he still had a bear's nature and could not live like a man. If they had kept him shut up and fasting until the end of the seven days he would have become a man again and would have lived. 77. THE GREAT LEECH OF TLANUSI'YI The spot where Valley river joins Hiwassee, at Murphy, in North Carolina, is known among the Cherokees as Tlanusi'yi, "The Leech place," and this is the story they tell of it: Just above the junction is a deep hole in Valley river, and above it is a ledge of rock running across the stream, over which people used to go as on a bridge. On the south side the trail ascended a high bank, from which they could look down into the water. One day some men going along the trail saw a great red object, full as large as a house, lying on the rock ledge in the middle of the stream below them. As they stood wondering what it could be they saw it unroll--and then they knew it was alive--and stretch itself out along the rock until it looked like a great leech with red and white stripes along its body. It rolled up into a ball and again stretched out at full length, and at last crawled down the rock and was out of sight in the deep water. The water began to boil and foam, and a great column of white spray was thrown high in the air and came down like a waterspout upon the very spot where the men had been standing, and would have swept them all into the water but that they saw it in time and ran from the place. More than one person was carried down in this way, and their friends would find the body afterwards lying upon the bank with the ears and nose eaten off, until at last the people were afraid to go across the ledge any more, on account of the great leech, or even to go along that part of the trail. But there was one young fellow who laughed at the whole story, and said that he was not afraid of anything in Valley river, as he would show them. So one day he painted his face and put on his finest buckskin and started off toward the river, while all the people followed at a distance to see what might happen. Down the trail he went and out upon the ledge of rock, singing in high spirits: Tlanu'si gane'ga digi'gage Dakwa'nitlaste'sti. I'll tie red leech skins On my legs for garters. But before he was half way across the water began to boil into white foam and a great wave rose and swept over the rock and carried him down, and he was never seen again. Just before the Removal, sixty years ago, two women went out upon the ledge to fish. Their friends warned them of the danger, but one woman who had her baby on her back said, "There are fish there and I'm going to have some; I'm tired of this fat meat." She laid the child down on the rock and was preparing the line when the water suddenly rose and swept over the ledge, and would have carried off the child but that the mother ran in time to save it. The great leech is still there in the deep hole, because when people look down they see something alive moving about on the bottom, and although they can not distinguish its shape on account of the ripples on the water, yet they know it is the leech. Some say there is an underground waterway across to Nottely river, not far above the mouth, where the river bends over toward Murphy, and sometimes the leech goes over there and makes the water boil as it used to at the rock ledge. They call this spot on Nottely "The Leech place" also. 78. THE NÛÑNE'HI AND OTHER SPIRIT FOLK The Nûñne'hi or immortals, the "people who live anywhere," were a race of spirit people who lived in the highlands of the old Cherokee country and had a great many townhouses, especially in the bald mountains, the high peaks on which no timber ever grows. They had large townhouses in Pilot knob and under the old Nikwasi' mound in North Carolina, and another under Blood mountain, at the head of Nottely river, in Georgia. They were invisible excepting when they wanted to be seen, and then they looked and spoke just like other Indians. They were very fond of music and dancing, and hunters in the mountains would often hear the dance songs and the drum beating in some invisible townhouse, but when they went toward the sound it would shift about and they would hear it behind them or away in some other direction, so that they could never find the place where the dance was. They were a friendly people, too, and often brought lost wanderers to their townhouses under the mountains and cared for them there until they were rested and then guided them back to their homes. More than once, also, when the Cherokee were hard pressed by the enemy, the Nûñne'hi warriors have come out, as they did at old Nikwasi', and have saved them from defeat. Some people have thought that they are the same as the Yûñwi Tsunsdi', the "Little People"; but these are fairies, no larger in size than children. There was a man in Nottely town who had been with the Nûñne'hi when he was a boy, and he told Wafford all about it. He was a truthful, hard-headed man, and Wafford had heard the story so often from other people that he asked this man to tell it. It was in this way: When he was about 10 or 12 years old he was playing one day near the river, shooting at a mark with his bow and arrows, until he became tired, and started to build a fish trap in the water. While he was piling up the stones in two long walls a man came and stood on the bank and asked him what he was doing. The boy told him, and the man said, "Well, that's pretty hard work and you ought to rest a while. Come and take a walk up the river." The boy said, "No"; that he was going home to dinner soon. "Come right up to my house," said the stranger, "and I'll give you a good dinner there and bring you home again in the morning." So the boy went with him up the river until they came to a house, when they went in, and the man's wife and the other people there were very glad to see him, and gave him a fine dinner, and were very kind to him. While they were eating a man that the boy knew very well came in and spoke to him, so that he felt quite at home. After dinner he played with the other children and slept there that night, and in the morning, after breakfast, the man got ready to take him home. They went down a path that had a cornfield on one side and a peach orchard fenced in on the other, until they came to another trail, and the man said, "Go along this trail across that ridge and you will come to the river road that will bring you straight to your home, and now I'll go back to the house." So the man went back to the house and the boy went on along the trail, but when he had gone a little way he looked back, and there was no cornfield or orchard or fence or house; nothing but trees on the mountain side. He thought it very queer, but somehow he was not frightened, and went on until he came to the river trail in sight of his home. There were a great many people standing about talking, and when they saw him they ran toward him shouting, "Here he is! He is not drowned or killed in the mountains!" They told him they had been hunting him ever since yesterday noon, and asked him where he had been. "A man took me over to his house just across the ridge, and I had a fine dinner and a good time with the children," said the boy, "I thought Udsi'skala here"--that was the name of the man he had seen at dinner--"would tell you where I was." But Udsi'skala said, "I haven't seen you. I was out all day in my canoe hunting you. It was one of the Nûñne'hi that made himself look like me." Then his mother said, "You say you had dinner there?" "Yes, and I had plenty, too," said the boy; but his mother answered, "There is no house there--only trees and rocks--but we hear a drum sometimes in the big bald above. The people you saw were the Nûñne'hi." Once four Nûñne'hi women came to a dance at Nottely town, and danced half the night with the young men there, and nobody knew that they were Nûñne'hi, but thought them visitors from another settlement. About midnight they left to go home, and some men who had come out from the townhouse to cool off watched to see which way they went. They saw the women go down the trail to the river ford, but just as they came to the water they disappeared, although it was a plain trail, with no place where they could hide. Then the watchers knew they were Nûñne'hi women. Several men saw this happen, and one of them was Wafford's father-in-law, who was known for an honest man. At another time a man named Burnt-tobacco was crossing over the ridge from Nottely to Hemptown in Georgia and heard a drum and the songs of dancers in the hills on one side of the trail. He rode over to see who could be dancing in such a place, but when he reached the spot the drum and the songs were behind him, and he was so frightened that he hurried back to the trail and rode all the way to Hemptown as hard as he could to tell the story. He was a truthful man, and they believed what he said. There must have been a good many of the Nûñne'hi living in that neighborhood, because the drumming was often heard in the high balds almost up to the time of the Removal. On a small upper branch of Nottely, running nearly due north from Blood mountain, there was also a hole, like a small well or chimney, in the ground, from which there came up a warm vapor that heated all the air around. People said that this was because the Nûñne'hi had a townhouse and a fire under the mountain. Sometimes in cold weather hunters would stop there to warm themselves, but they were afraid to stay long. This was more than sixty years ago, but the hole is probably there yet. Close to the old trading path from South Carolina up to the Cherokee Nation, somewhere near the head of Tugaloo, there was formerly a noted circular depression about the size of a townhouse, and waist deep. Inside it was always clean as though swept by unknown hands. Passing traders would throw logs and rocks into it, but would always, on their return, find them thrown far out from the hole. The Indians said it was a Nûñne'hi townhouse, and never liked to go near the place or even to talk about it, until at last some logs thrown in by the traders were allowed to remain there, and then they concluded that the Nûñne'hi, annoyed by the persecution of the white men, had abandoned their townhouse forever. There is another race of spirits, the Yûñwi Tsunsdi', or "Little People," who live in rock caves on the mountain side. They are little fellows, hardly reaching up to a man's knee, but well shaped and handsome, with long hair falling almost to the ground. They are great wonder workers and are very fond of music, spending half their time drumming and dancing. They are helpful and kind-hearted, and often when people have been lost in the mountains, especially children who have strayed away from their parents, the Yûñwi Tsunsdi' have found them and taken care of them and brought them back to their homes. Sometimes their drum is heard in lonely places in the mountains, but it is not safe to follow it, because the Little People do not like to be disturbed at home, and they throw a spell over the stranger so that he is bewildered and loses his way, and even if he does at last get back to the settlement he is like one dazed ever after. Sometimes, also, they come near a house at night and the people inside hear them talking, but they must not go out, and in the morning they find the corn gathered or the field cleared as if a whole force of men had been at work. If anyone should go out to watch, he would die. When a hunter finds anything in the woods, such as a knife or a trinket, he must say, "Little People, I want to take this," because it may belong to them, and if he does not ask their permission they will throw stones at him as he goes home. Once a hunter in winter found tracks in the snow like the tracks of little children. He wondered how they could have come there and followed them until they led him to a cave, which was full of Little People, young and old, men, women, and children. They brought him in and were kind to him, and he was with them some time; but when he left they warned him that he must not tell or he would die. He went back to the settlement and his friends were all anxious to know where he had been. For a long time he refused to say, until at last he could not hold out any longer, but told the story, and in a few days he died. Only a few years ago two hunters from Raventown, going behind the high fall near the head of Oconaluftee on the East Cherokee reservation, found there a cave with fresh footprints of the Little People all over the floor. During the smallpox among the East Cherokee just after the war one sick man wandered off, and his friends searched, but could not find him. After several weeks he came back and said that the Little People had found him and taken him to one of their caves and tended him until he was cured. About twenty-five years ago a man named Tsantawû' was lost in the mountains on the head of Oconaluftee. It was winter time and very cold and his friends thought he must be dead, but after sixteen days he came back and said that the Little People had found him and taken him to their cave, where he had been well treated, and given plenty of everything to eat except bread. This was in large loaves, but when he took them in his hand to eat they seemed to shrink into small cakes so light and crumbly that though he might eat all day he would not be satisfied. After he was well rested they had brought him a part of the way home until they came to a small creek, about knee deep, when they told him to wade across to reach the main trail on the other side. He waded across and turned to look back, but the Little People were gone and the creek was a deep river. When he reached home his legs were frozen to the knees and he lived only a few days. Once the Yûñwi Tsunsdi' had been very kind to the people of a certain settlement, helping them at night with their work and taking good care of any lost children, until something happened to offend them and they made up their minds to leave the neighborhood. Those who were watching at the time saw the whole company of Little People come down to the ford of the river and cross over and disappear into the mouth of a large cave on the other side. They were never heard of near the settlement again. There are other fairies, the Yûñwi Amai'yine'hi, or Water-dwellers, who live in the water, and fishermen pray to them for help. Other friendly spirits live in people's houses, although no one can see them, and so long as they are there to protect the house no witch can come near to do mischief. Tsawa'si and Tsaga'si are the names of two small fairies, who are mischievous enough, but yet often help the hunter who prays to them. Tsawa'si, or Tsawa'si Usdi'ga (Little Tsawa'si), is a tiny fellow, very handsome, with long hair falling down to his feet, who lives in grassy patches on the hillsides and has great power over the game. To the deer hunter who prays to him he gives skill to slip up on the deer through the long grass without being seen. Tsaga'si is another of the spirits invoked by the hunter and is very helpful, but when someone trips and falls, we know that it is Tsaga'si who has caused it. There are several other of these fairies with names, all good-natured, but more or less tricky. Then there is De'tsata. De'tsata was once a boy who ran away to the woods to avoid a scratching and tries to keep himself invisible ever since. He is a handsome little fellow and spends his whole time hunting birds with blowgun and arrow. He has a great many children who are all just like him and have the same name. When a flock of birds flies up suddenly as if frightened it is because De'tsata is chasing them. He is mischievous and sometimes hides an arrow from the bird hunter, who may have shot it off into a perfectly clear space, but looks and looks without finding it. Then the hunter says, "De'tsata, you have my arrow, and if you don't give it up I'll scratch you," and when he looks again he finds it. There is one spirit that goes about at night with a light. The Cherokee call it Atsil'-dihye'gi, "The Fire-carrier," and they are all afraid of it, because they think it dangerous, although they do not know much about it. They do not even know exactly what it looks like, because they are afraid to stop when they see it. It may be a witch instead of a spirit. Wafford's mother saw the "Fire-carrier" once when she was a young woman, as she was coming home at night from a trading post in South Carolina. It seemed to be following her from behind, and she was frightened and whipped up her horse until she got away from it and never saw it again. 79. THE REMOVED TOWNHOUSES Long ago, long before the Cherokee were driven from their homes in 1838, the people on Valley river and Hiwassee heard voices of invisible spirits in the air calling and warning them of wars and misfortunes which the future held in store, and inviting them to come and live with the Nûñne'hi, the Immortals, in their homes under the mountains and under the waters. For days the voices hung in the air, and the people listened until they heard the spirits say, "If you would live with us, gather everyone in your townhouses and fast there for seven days, and no one must raise a shout or a warwhoop in all that time. Do this and we shall come and you will see us and we shall take you to live with us." The people were afraid of the evils that were to come, and they knew that the Immortals of the mountains and the waters were happy forever, so they counciled in their townhouses and decided to go with them. Those of Anisgayâ'yi town came all together into their townhouse and prayed and fasted for six days. On the seventh day there was a sound from the distant mountains, and it came nearer and grew louder until a roar of thunder was all about the townhouse and they felt the ground shake under them. Now they were frightened, and despite the warning some of them screamed out. The Nûñne'hi, who had already lifted up the townhouse with its mound to carry it away, were startled by the cry and let a part of it fall to the earth, where now we see the mound of Se'tsi. They steadied themselves again and bore the rest of the townhouse, with all the people in it, to the top of Tsuda'ye`lûñ'yi (Lone peak), near the head of Cheowa, where we can still see it, changed long ago to solid rock, but the people are invisible and immortal. The people of another town, on Hiwassee, at the place which we call now Du'stiya`lûñ'yi, where Shooting creek comes in, also prayed and fasted, and at the end of seven days the Nûñne'hi came and took them away down under the water. They are there now, and on a warm summer day, when the wind ripples the surface, those who listen well can hear them talking below. When the Cherokee drag the river for fish the fish-drag always stops and catches there, although the water is deep, and the people know it is being held by their lost kinsmen, who do not want to be forgotten. When the Cherokee were forcibly removed to the West one of the greatest regrets of those along Hiwassee and Valley rivers was that they were compelled to leave behind forever their relatives who had gone to the Nûñne'hi. In Tennessee river, near Kingston, 18 miles below Loudon, Tennessee, is a place which the Cherokee call Gusti', where there once was a settlement long ago, but one night while the people were gathered in the townhouse for a dance the bank caved in and carried them all down into the river. Boatmen passing the spot in their canoes see the round dome of the townhouse--now turned to stone--in the water below them and sometimes hear the sound of the drum and dance coming up, and they never fail to throw food into the water in return for being allowed to cross in safety. 80. THE SPIRIT DEFENDERS OF NIKWASI' Long ago a powerful unknown tribe invaded the country from the southeast, killing people and destroying settlements wherever they went. No leader could stand against them, and in a little while they had wasted all the lower settlements and advanced into the mountains. The warriors of the old town of Nikwasi', on the head of Little Tennessee, gathered their wives and children into the townhouse and kept scouts constantly on the lookout for the presence of danger. One morning just before daybreak the spies saw the enemy approaching and at once gave the alarm. The Nikwasi' men seized their arms and rushed out to meet the attack, but after a long, hard fight they found themselves overpowered and began to retreat, when suddenly a stranger stood among them and shouted to the chief to call off his men and he himself would drive back the enemy. From the dress and language of the stranger the Nikwasi' people thought him a chief who had come with reinforcements from the Overhill settlements in Tennessee. They fell back along the trail, and as they came near the townhouse they saw a great company of warriors coming out from the side of the mound as through an open doorway. Then they knew that their friends were the Nûñne'hi, the Immortals, although no one had ever heard before that they lived under Nikwasi' mound. The Nûñne'hi poured out by hundreds, armed and painted for the fight, and the most curious thing about it all was that they became invisible as soon as they were fairly outside of the settlement, so that although the enemy saw the glancing arrow or the rushing tomahawk, and felt the stroke, he could not see who sent it. Before such invisible foes the invaders soon had to retreat, going first south along the ridge to where joins the main ridge which separates the French Broad from the Tuckasegee, and then turning with it to the northeast. As they retreated they tried to shield themselves behind rocks and trees, but the Nûñne'hi arrows went around the rocks and killed them from the other side, and they could find no hiding place. All along the ridge they fell, until when they reached the head of Tuckasegee not more than half a dozen were left alive, and in despair they sat down and cried out for mercy. Ever since then the Cherokee have called the place Dayûlsûñ'yi, "Where they cried." Then the Nûñne'hi chief told them they had deserved their punishment for attacking a peaceful tribe, and he spared their lives and told them to go home and take the news to their people. This was the Indian custom, always to spare a few to carry back the news of defeat. They went home toward the north and the Nûñne'hi went back to the mound. And they are still there, because, in the last war, when a strong party of Federal troops came to surprise a handful of Confederates posted there they saw so many soldiers guarding the town that they were afraid and went away without making an attack. There is another story, that once while all the warriors of a certain town were off on a hunt, or at a dance in another settlement, one old man was chopping wood on the side of the ridge when suddenly a party of the enemy came upon him--Shawano, Seneca, or some other tribe. Throwing his hatchet at the nearest one, he turned and ran for the house to get his gun and make the best defense that he might. On coming out at once with the gun he was surprised to find a large body of strange warriors driving back the enemy. It was no time for questions, and taking his place with the others, they fought hard until the enemy was pressed back up the creek and finally broke and retreated across the mountain. When it was over and there was time to breathe again, the old man turned to thank his new friends, but found that he was alone--they had disappeared as though the mountain had swallowed them. Then he knew that they were the Nûñne'hi, who had come to help their friends, the Cherokee. 81. TSUL`KALÛ', THE SLANT-EYED GIANT A long time ago a widow lived with her one daughter at the old town of Kanuga on Pigeon river. The girl was of age to marry, and her mother used to talk with her a good deal, and tell her she must be sure to take no one but a good hunter for a husband, so that they would have some one to take care of them and would always have plenty of meat in the house. The girl said such a man was hard to find, but her mother advised her not to be in a hurry, and to wait until the right one came. Now the mother slept in the house while the girl slept outside in the âsi. One dark night a stranger came to the âsi wanting to court the girl, but she told him her mother would let her marry no one but a good hunter. "Well," said the stranger, "I am a great hunter," so she let him come in, and he stayed all night. Just before day he said he must go back now to his own place, but that he had brought some meat for her mother, and she would find it outside. Then he went away and the girl had not seen him. When day came she went out and found there a deer, which she brought into the house to her mother, and told her it was a present from her new sweetheart. Her mother was pleased, and they had deersteaks for breakfast. He came again the next night, but again went away before daylight, and this time he left two deer outside. The mother was more pleased this time, but said to her daughter, "I wish your sweetheart would bring us some wood." Now wherever he might be, the stranger knew their thoughts, so when he came the next time he said to the girl, "Tell your mother I have brought the wood"; and when she looked out in the morning there were several great trees lying in front of the door, roots and branches and all. The old woman was angry, and said, "He might have brought us some wood that we could use instead of whole trees that we can't split, to litter up the road with brush." The hunter knew what she said, and the next time he came he brought nothing, and when they looked out in the morning the trees were gone and there was no wood at all, so the old woman had to go after some herself. Almost every night he came to see the girl, and each time he brought a deer or some other game, but still he always left before daylight. At last her mother said to her, "Your husband always leaves before daylight. Why don't he wait? I want to see what kind of a son-in-law I have." When the girl told this to her husband he said he could not let the old woman see him, because the sight would frighten her. "She wants to see you, anyhow," said the girl, and began to cry, until at last he had to consent, but warned her that her mother must not say that he looked frightful (usga'se`ti'yu). The next morning he did not leave so early, but stayed in the âsi, and when it was daylight the girl went out and told her mother. The old woman came and looked in, and there she saw a great giant, with long slanting eyes (tsul`kalû'), lying doubled up on the floor, with his head against the rafters in the left-hand corner at the back, and his toes scraping the roof in the right-hand corner by the door. She gave only one look and ran back to the house, crying, Usga'se`ti'yu! Usga'se`ti'yu! Tsul`kalû' was terribly angry. He untwisted himself and came out of the âsi, and said good-bye to the girl, telling her that he would never let her mother see him again, but would go back to his own country. Then he went off in the direction of Tsunegûñ'yi. Soon after he left the girl had her monthly period. There was a very great flow of blood, and the mother threw it all into the river. One night after the girl had gone to bed in the âsi her husband came again to the door and said to her, "It seems you are alone," and asked where was the child. She said there had been none. Then he asked where was the blood, and she said that her mother had thrown it into the river. She told just where the place was, and he went there and found a small worm in the water. He took it up and carried it back to the âsi, and as he walked it took form and began to grow, until, when he reached the âsi, it was a baby girl that he was carrying. He gave it to his wife and said, "Your mother does not like me and abuses our child, so come and let us go to my home." The girl wanted to be with her husband, so, after telling her mother good-bye, she took up the child and they went off together to Tsunegûñ'yi. Now, the girl had an older brother, who lived with his own wife in another settlement, and when he heard that his sister was married he came to pay a visit to her and her new husband, but when he arrived at Kanuga his mother told him his sister had taken her child and gone away with her husband, nobody knew where. He was sorry to see his mother so lonely, so he said he would go after his sister and try to find her and bring her back. It was easy to follow the footprints of the giant, and the young man went along the trail until he came to a place where they had rested, and there were tracks on the ground where a child had been lying and other marks as if a baby had been born there. He went on along the trail and came to another place where they had rested, and there were tracks of a baby crawling about and another lying on the ground. He went on and came to where they had rested again, and there were tracks of a child walking and another crawling about. He went on until he came where they had rested again, and there were tracks of one child running and another walking. Still he followed the trail along the stream into the mountains, and came to the place where they had rested again, and this time there were footprints of two children running all about, and the footprints can still be seen in the rock at that place. Twice again he found where they had rested, and then the trail led up the slope of Tsunegûñ'yi, and he heard the sound of a drum and voices, as if people were dancing inside the mountain. Soon he came to a cave like a doorway in the side of the mountain, but the rock was so steep and smooth that he could not climb up to it, but could only just look over the edge and see the heads and shoulders of a great many people dancing inside. He saw his sister dancing among them and called to her to come out. She turned when she heard his voice, and as soon as the drumming stopped for a while she came out to him, finding no trouble to climb down the rock, and leading her two little children by the hand. She was very glad to meet her brother and talked with him a long time, but did not ask him to come inside, and at last he went away without having seen her husband. Several other times her brother came to the mountain, but always his sister met him outside, and he could never see her husband. After four years had passed she came one day to her mother's house and said her husband had been hunting in the woods near by, and they were getting ready to start home to-morrow, and if her mother and brother would come early in the morning they could see her husband. If they came too late for that, she said, they would find plenty of meat to take home. She went back into the woods, and the mother ran to tell her son. They came to the place early the next morning, but Tsul`kalû' and his family were already gone. On the drying poles they found the bodies of freshly killed deer hanging, as the girl had promised, and there were so many that they went back and told all their friends to come for them, and there were enough for the whole settlement. Still the brother wanted to see his sister and her husband, so he went again to the mountain, and she came out to meet him. He asked to see her husband, and this time she told him to come inside with her. They went in as through a doorway, and inside he found it like a great townhouse. They seemed to be alone, but his sister called aloud, "He wants to see you," and from the air came a voice, "You can not see me until you put on a new dress, and then you can see me." "I am willing," said the young man, speaking to the unseen spirit, and from the air came the voice again, "Go back, then, and tell your people that to see me they must go into the townhouse and fast seven days, and in all that time they must not come out from the townhouse or raise the war whoop, and on the seventh day I shall come with new dresses for you to put on so that you can all see me." The young man went back to Kanuga and told the people. They all wanted to see Tsul`kalû', who owned all the game in the mountains, so they went into the townhouse and began the fast. They fasted the first day and the second and every day until the seventh--all but one man from another settlement, who slipped out every night when it was dark to get something to eat and slipped in again when no one was watching. On the morning of the seventh day the sun was just coming up in the east when they heard a great noise like the thunder of rocks rolling down the side of Tsunegûñ'yi. They were frightened and drew near together in the townhouse, and no one whispered. Nearer and louder came the sound until it grew into an awful roar, and every one trembled and held his breath--all but one man, the stranger from the other settlement, who lost his senses from fear and ran out of the townhouse and shouted the war cry. At once the roar stopped and for some time there was silence. Then they heard it again, but as if it were going farther away, and then farther and farther, until at last it died away in the direction of Tsunegûñ'yi, and then all was still again. The people came out from the townhouse, but there was silence, and they could see nothing but what had been seven days before. Still the brother was not disheartened, but came again to see his sister, and she brought him into the mountain. He asked why Tsul`kâlû' had not brought the new dresses, as he had promised, and the voice from the air said, "I came with them, but you did not obey my word, but broke the fast and raised the war cry." The young man answered, "It was not done by our people, but by a stranger. If you will come again, we will surely do as you say." But the voice answered, "Now you can never see me." Then the young man could not say any more, and he went back to Kanuga. 82. KANA'STA, THE LOST SETTLEMENT Long ago, while people still lived in the old town of Kana'sta, on the French Broad, two strangers, who looked in no way different from other Cherokee, came into the settlement one day and made their way into the chief's house. After the first greetings were over the chief asked them from what town they had come, thinking them from one of the western settlements, but they said, "We are of your people and our town is close at hand, but you have never seen it. Here you have wars and sickness, with enemies on every side, and after a while a stronger enemy will come to take your country from you. We are always happy, and we have come to invite you to live with us in our town over there," and they pointed toward Tsuwa`tel'da (Pilot knob). "We do not live forever, and do not always find game when we go for it, for the game belongs to Tsul`kalû', who lives in Tsunegûñ'yi, but we have peace always and need not think of danger. We go now, but if your people will live with us let them fast seven days, and we shall come then to take them." Then they went away toward the west. The chief called his people together into the townhouse and they held a council over the matter and decided at last to go with the strangers. They got all their property ready for moving, and then went again into the townhouse and began their fast. They fasted six days, and on the morning of the seventh, before yet the sun was high, they saw a great company coming along the trail from the west, led by the two men who had stopped with the chief. They seemed just like Cherokee from another settlement, and after a friendly meeting they took up a part of the goods to be carried, and the two parties started back together for Tsuwa`tel'da. There was one man from another town visiting at Kana'sta, and he went along with the rest. When they came to the mountain, the two guides led the way into a cave, which opened out like a great door in the side of the rock. Inside they found an open country and a town, with houses ranged in two long rows from east to west. The mountain people lived in the houses on the south side, and they had made ready the other houses for the new comers, but even after all the people of Kana'sta, with their children and belongings, had moved in, there were still a large number of houses waiting ready for the next who might come. The mountain people told them that there was another town, of a different people, above them in the same mountain, and still farther above, at the very top, lived the Ani'-Hyûñtikwalâ'ski (the Thunders). Now all the people of Kana'sta were settled in their new homes, but the man who had only been visiting with them wanted to go back to his own friends. Some of the mountain people wanted to prevent this, but the chief said, "No; let him go if he will, and when he tells his friends they may want to come, too. There is plenty of room for all." Then he said to the man, "Go back and tell your friends that if they want to come and live with us and be always happy, there is a place here ready and waiting for them. Others of us live in Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi and in the high mountains all around, and if they would rather go to any of them it is all the same. We see you wherever you go and are with you in all your dances, but you can not see us unless you fast. If you want to see us, fast four days, and we will come and talk with you; and then if you want to live with us, fast again seven days, and we will come and take you." Then the chief led the man through the cave to the outside of the mountain and left him there, but when the man looked back he saw no cave, but only the solid rock. The people of the lost settlement were never seen again, and they are still living in Tsuwa`tel'da. Strange things happen there, so that the Cherokee know the mountain is haunted and do not like to go near it. Only a few years ago a party of hunters camped there, and as they sat around their fire at supper time they talked of the story and made rough jokes about the people of old Kana'sta. That night they were aroused from sleep by a noise as of stones thrown at them from among the trees, but when they searched they could find nobody, and were so frightened that they gathered up their guns and pouches and left the place. 83. TSUWE'NAHI: A LEGEND OF PILOT KNOB In the old town of Kanuga, on Pigeon river, there was a lazy fellow named Tsuwe'nahi, who lived from house to house among his relatives and never brought home any game, although he used to spend nearly all his time in the woods. At last his friends got very tired of keeping him, so he told them to get some parched corn ready for him and he would go and bring back a deer or else would never trouble them again. They filled his pouch with parched corn, enough for a long trip, and he started off for the mountains. Day after day passed until they thought they had really seen the last of him, but before the month was half gone he was back again at Kanuga, with no deer, but with a wonderful story to tell. He said that he had hardly turned away from the trail to go up the ridge when he met a stranger, who asked him where he was going. Tsuwe'nahi answered that his friends in the settlement had driven him out because he was no good hunter, and that if he did not find a deer this time he would never go back again. "Why not come with me?" said the stranger, "my town is not far from here, and you have relatives there." Tsuwe'nahi was very glad of the chance, because he was ashamed to go back to his own town; so he went with the stranger, who took him to Tsuwa`tel'da (Pilot knob). They came to a cave, and the other said, "Let us go in here;" but the cave ran clear to the heart of the mountain, and when they were inside the hunter found there an open country like a wide bottom land, with a great settlement and hundreds of people. They were all glad to see him, and brought him to their chief, who took him into his own house and showed him a seat near the fire. Tsuwe'nahi sat down, but he felt it move under him, and when he looked again he saw that it was a turtle, with its head sticking out from the shell. He jumped up, but the chief said, "It won't hurt you; it only wants to see who you are." So he sat down very carefully, and the turtle drew in its head again. They brought food, of the same kind that he had been accustomed to at home, and when he had eaten the chief took him through the settlement until he had seen all the houses and talked with most of the people. When he had seen everything and had rested some days, he was anxious to get back to his home, so the chief himself brought him to the mouth of the cave and showed him the trail that led down to the river. Then he said, "You are going back to the settlement, but you will never be satisfied there any more. Whenever you want to come to us, you know the way." The chief left him, and Tsuwe'nahi went down the mountain and along the river until he came to Kanuga. He told his story, but no one believed it and the people only laughed at him. After that he would go away very often and be gone for several days at a time, and when he came back to the settlement he would say he had been with the mountain people. At last one man said he believed the story and would go with him to see. They went off together to the woods, where they made a camp, and then Tsuwe'nahi went on ahead, saying he would be back soon. The other waited for him, doing a little hunting near the camp, and two nights afterwards Tsuwe'nahi was back again. He seemed to be alone, but was talking as he came, and the other hunter heard girls' voices, although he could see no one. When he came up to the fire he said, "I have two friends with me, and they say there is to be a dance in their town in two nights, and if you want to go they will come for you." The hunter agreed at once, and Tsuwe'nahi called out, as if to some one close by, "He says he will go." Then he said, "Our sisters have come for some venison." The hunter had killed a deer and had the meat drying over the fire, so he said, "What kind do they want?" The voices answered, "Our mother told us to ask for some of the ribs," but still he could see nothing. He took down some rib pieces and gave them to Tsuwe'nahi, who took them and said, "In two days we shall come again for you." Then he started off, and the other heard the voices going through the woods until all was still again. In two days Tsuwe'nahi came, and this time he had two girls with him. As they stood near the fire the hunter noticed that their feet were short and round, almost like dogs' paws, but as soon as they saw him looking they sat down so that he could not see their feet. After supper the whole party left the camp and went up along the creek to Tsuwa`tel'da. They went in through the cave door until they got to the farther end and could see houses beyond, when all at once the hunter's legs felt as if they were dead and he staggered and fell to the ground. The others lifted him up, but still he could not stand, until the medicine-man brought some "old tobacco" and rubbed it on his legs and made him smell it until he sneezed. Then he was able to stand again and went in with the others. He could not stand at first, because he had not prepared himself by fasting before he started. The dance had not yet begun and Tsuwe'nahi took the hunter into the townhouse and showed him a seat near the fire, but it had long thorns of honey locust sticking out from it and he was afraid to sit down. Tsuwe'nahi told him not to be afraid, so he sat down and found that the thorns were as soft as down feathers. Now the drummer came in and the dancers, and the dance began. One man followed at the end of the line, crying Kû! Kû! all the time, but not dancing. The hunter wondered, and they told him, "This man was lost in the mountains and had been calling all through the woods for his friends until his, voice failed and he was only able to pant Kû! Kû! and then we found him and took him in." When it was over Tsuwe'nahi and the hunter went back to the settlement. At the next dance in Kanuga they told all they had seen at Tsuwa`tel'da, what a large town was there and how kind everybody was, and this time--because there were two of them--the people believed it. Now others wanted to go, but Tsuwe'nahi told them they must first fast seven days, while he went ahead to prepare everything, and then he would come and bring them. He went away and the others fasted, until at the end of seven days he came for them and they went with him to Tsuwa`tel'da, and their friends in the settlement never saw them again. 84. THE MAN WHO MARRIED THE THUNDER'S SISTER In the old times the people used to dance often and all night. Once there was a dance at the old town of Sâkwi'yi, on the head of Chattahoochee, and after it was well started two young women with beautiful long hair came in, but no one knew who they were or whence they had come. They danced with one partner and another, and in the morning slipped away before anyone knew that they were gone; but a young warrior had fallen in love with one of the sisters on account of her beautiful hair, and after the manner of the Cherokee had already asked her through an old man if she would marry him and let him live with her. To this the young woman had replied that her brother at home must first be consulted, and they promised to return for the next dance seven days later with an answer, but in the meantime if the young man really loved her he must prove his constancy by a rigid fast until then. The eager lover readily agreed and impatiently counted the days. In seven nights there was another dance. The young warrior was on hand early, and later in the evening the two sisters appeared as suddenly as before. They told him their brother was willing, and after the dance they would conduct the young man to their home, but warned him that if he told anyone where he went or what he saw he would surely die. He danced with them again and about daylight the three came away just before the dance closed, so as to avoid being followed, and started off together. The women led the way along a trail through the woods, which the young man had never noticed before, until they came to a small creek, where, without hesitating, they stepped into the water. The young man paused in surprise on the bank and thought to himself, "They are walking in the water; I don't want to do that." The women knew his thoughts just as though he had spoken and turned and said to him, "This is not water; this is the road to our house." He still hesitated, but they urged him on until he stepped into the water and found it was only soft grass that made a fine level trail. They went on until the trail came to a large stream which he knew for Tallulah river. The women plunged boldly in, but again the warrior hesitated on the bank, thinking to himself, "That water is very deep and will drown me; I can't go on." They knew his thoughts and turned and said, "This is no water, but the main trail that goes past our house, which is now close by." He stepped in, and instead of water there was tall waving grass that closed above his head as he followed them. They went only a short distance and came to a rock cave close under Ugûñ'yi (Tallulah falls). The women entered, while the warrior stopped at the mouth; but they said, "This is our house; come in and our brother will soon be home; he is coming now." They heard low thunder in the distance. He went inside and stood up close to the entrance. Then the women took off their long hair and hung it up on a rock, and both their heads were as smooth as a pumpkin. The man thought, "It is not hair at all," and he was more frightened than ever. The younger woman, the one he was about to marry, then sat down and told him to take a seat beside her. He looked, and it was a large turtle, which raised itself up and stretched out its claws as if angry at being disturbed. The young man said it was a turtle, and refused to sit down, but the woman insisted that it was a seat. Then there was a louder roll of thunder and the woman said, "Now our brother is nearly home." While they urged and he still refused to come nearer or sit down, suddenly there was a great thunder clap just behind him, and turning quickly he saw a man standing in the doorway of the cave. "This is my brother," said the woman, and he came in and sat down upon the turtle, which again rose up and stretched out its claws. The young warrior still refused to come in. The brother then said that he was just about to start to a council, and invited the young man to go with him. The hunter said he was willing to go if only he had a horse; so the young woman was told to bring one. She went out and soon came back leading a great uktena snake, that curled and twisted along the whole length of the cave. Some people say this was a white uktena and that the brother himself rode a red one. The hunter was terribly frightened, and said "That is a snake; I can't ride that." The others insisted that it was no snake, but their riding-horse. The brother grew impatient and said to the woman, "He may like it better if you bring him a saddle, and some bracelets for his wrists and arms." So they went out again and brought in a saddle and some arm bands, and the saddle was another turtle, which they fastened on the uktena's back, and the bracelets were living slimy snakes, which they got ready to twist around the hunter's wrists. He was almost dead with fear, and said, "What kind of horrible place is this? I can never stay here to live with snakes and creeping things." The brother got very angry and called him a coward, and then it was as if lightening flashed from his eyes and struck the young man, and a terrible crash of thunder stretched him senseless. When at last he came to himself again he was standing with his feet in the water and both hands grasping a laurel bush that grew out from the bank, and there was no trace of the cave or the Thunder People, but he was alone in the forest. He made his way out and finally reached his own settlement, but found then that he had been gone so very long that all the people had thought him dead, although to him it seemed only the day after the dance. His friends questioned him closely, and, forgetting the warning, he told the story; but in seven days he died, for no one can come back from the underworld and tell it and live. 85. THE HAUNTED WHIRLPOOL At the mouth of Suck creek, on the Tennessee, about 8 miles below Chattanooga, is a series of dangerous whirlpools, known as "The Suck," and noted among the Cherokee as the place where Ûñtsaiyi', the gambler, lived long ago (see the story). They call it Ûñ'tiguhi', "Pot-in-the-water," on account of the appearance of the surging, tumbling water, suggesting a boiling pot. They assert that in the old times the whirlpools were intermittent in character, and the canoemen attempting to pass the spot used to hug the bank, keeping constantly on the alert for signs of a coming eruption, and when they saw the water begin to revolve more rapidly would stop and wait until it became quiet again before attempting to proceed. It happened once that two men, going down the river in a canoe, as they came near this place saw the water circling rapidly ahead of them. They pulled up to the bank to wait until it became smooth again, but the whirlpool seemed to approach with wider and wider circles, until they were drawn into the vortex. They were thrown out of the canoe and carried down under the water, where one man was seized by a great fish and was never seen again. The other was taken round and round down to the very lowest center of the whirlpool, when another circle caught him and bore him outward and upward until he was finally thrown up again to the surface and floated out into the shallow water, whence he made his escape to shore. He told afterwards that when he reached the narrowest circle of the maelstrom the water seemed to open below him and he could look down as through the roof beams of a house, and there on the bottom of the river he had seen a great company of people, who looked up and beckoned to him to join them, but as they put up their hands to seize him the swift current caught him and took him out of their reach. 86. YAHULA Yahoola creek, which flows by Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Georgia, is called Yahulâ'i (Yahula place) by the Cherokees, and this is the story of the name: Years ago, long before the Revolution, Yahula was a prosperous stock trader among the Cherokee, and the tinkling of the bells hung around the necks of his ponies could be heard on every mountain trail. Once there was a great hunt and all the warriors were out, but when it was over and they were ready to return to the settlement Yahula was not with them. They waited and searched, but he could not be found, and at last they went back without him, and his friends grieved for him as for one dead. Some time after his people were surprised and delighted to have him walk in among them and sit down as they were at supper in the evening. To their questions he told them that he had been lost in the mountains, and that the Nûñne'hi, the Immortals, had found him and brought him to their town, where he had been kept ever since, with the kindest care and treatment, until the longing to see his old friends had brought him back. To the invitation of his friends to join them at supper he said that it was now too late--he had tasted the fairy food and could never again eat with human kind, and for the same reason he could not stay with his family, but must go back to the Nûñne'hi. His wife and children and brother begged him to stay, but he said that he could not; it was either life with the Immortals or death with his own people--and after some further talk he rose to go. They saw him as he sat talking to them and as he stood up, but the moment he stepped out the doorway he vanished as if he had never been. After that he came back often to visit his people. They would see him first as he entered the house, and while he sat and talked he was his old self in every way, but the instant he stepped across the threshold he was gone, though a hundred eyes might be watching. He came often, but at last their entreaties grew so urgent that the Nûñne'hi must have been offended, and he came no more. On the mountain at the head of the creek, about 10 miles above the present Dahlonega, is a small square inclosure of uncut stone, without roof or entrance. Here it was said that he lived, so the Cherokee called it Yahulâ'i and called the stream by the same name. Often at night a belated traveler coming along the trail by the creek would hear the voice of Yahula singing certain favorite old songs that he used to like to sing as he drove his pack of horses across the mountain, the sound of a voice urging them on, and the crack of a whip and the tinkling of bells went with the song, but neither driver nor horses could be seen, although the sounds passed close by. The songs and the bells were heard only at night. There was one man who had been his friend, who sang the same songs for a time after Yahula had disappeared, but he died suddenly, and then the Cherokee were afraid to sing these songs any more until it was so long since anyone had heard the sounds on the mountain that they thought Yahula must be gone away, perhaps to the West, where others of the tribe had already gone. It is so long ago now that even the stone house may have been destroyed by this time, but more than one old man's father saw it and heard the songs and the bells a hundred years ago. When the Cherokee went from Georgia to Indian Territory in 1838 some of them said, "Maybe Yahula has gone there and we shall hear him," but they have never heard him again. 87. THE WATER CANNIBALS Besides the friendly Nûñne'hi of the streams and mountains there is a race of cannibal spirits, who stay at the bottom of the deep rivers and live upon human flesh, especially that of little children. They come out just after daybreak and go about unseen from house to house until they find some one still asleep, when they shoot him with their invisible arrows and carry the dead body down under the water to feast upon it. That no one may know what has happened they leave in place of the body a shade or image of the dead man or little child, that wakes up and talks and goes about just as he did, but there is no life in it, and in seven days it withers and dies, and the people bury it and think they are burying their dead friend. It was a long time before the people found out about this, but now they always try to be awake at daylight and wake up the children, telling them "The hunters are among you." This is the way they first knew about the water cannibals: There was a man in Tikwali'tsi town who became sick and grew worse until the doctors said he could not live, and then his friends went away from the house and left him alone to die. They were not so kind to each other in the old times as they are now, because they were afraid of the witches that came to torment dying people. He was alone several days, not able to rise from his bed, when one morning an old woman came in at the door. She looked just like the other women of the settlement, but he did not know her. She came over to the bed and said, "You are very sick and your friends seem to have left you. Come with me and I will make you well." The man was so near death that he could not move, but now her words made him feel stronger at once, and he asked her where she wanted him to go. "We live close by; come with me and I will show you," said the woman, so he got up from his bed and she led the way down to the water. When she came to the water she stepped in and he followed, and there was a road under the water, and another country there just like that above. They went on until they came to a settlement with a great many houses, and women going about their work and children playing. They met a party of hunters coming in from a hunt, but instead of deer or bear quarters hanging from their shoulders they carried the bodies of dead men and children, and several of the bodies the man knew for those of his own friends in Tikwali'tsi. They came to a house and the woman said "This is where I live," and took him in and fixed a bed for him and made him comfortable. By this time he was very hungry, but the woman knew his thoughts and said, "We must get him something to eat." She took one of the bodies that the hunters had just brought in and cut off a slice to roast. The man was terribly frightened, but she read his thoughts again and said, "I see you can not eat our food." Then she turned away from him and held her hands before her stomach--so--and when she turned around again she had them full of bread and beans such as he used to have at home. So it was every day, until soon he was well and strong again. Then she told him he might go home now, but he must be sure not to speak to anyone for seven days, and if any of his friends should question him he must make signs as if his throat were sore and keep silent. She went with him along the same trail to the water's edge, and the water closed over her and he went back alone to Tikwali'tsi. When he came there his friends were surprised, because they thought he had wandered off and died in the woods. They asked him where he had been, but he only pointed to his throat and said nothing, so they thought he was not yet well and let him alone until the seven days were past, when he began to talk again and told the whole story. Historical Traditions 88. FIRST CONTACT WITH WHITES There are a few stories concerning the first contact of the Cherokee with whites and negroes. They are very modern and have little value as myths, but throw some light upon the Indian estimate of the different races. One story relates how the first whites came from the east and tried to enter into friendly relations, but the Indians would have nothing to do with them for a long time. At last the whites left a jug of whisky and a dipper near a spring frequented by the Indians. The Indians came along, tasted the liquor, which they had never known before, and liked it so well that they ended by all getting comfortably drunk. While they were in this happy frame of mind some white men came up, and this time the Indians shook hands with them and they have been friends after a fashion ever since. This may possibly be a Cherokee adaptation of the story of Hudson's first landing on the island of Manhattan. At the creation an ulûñsû'ti was given to the white man, and a piece of silver to the Indian. But the white man despised the stone and threw it away, while the Indian did the same with the silver. In going about the white man afterward found the silver piece and put it into his pocket and has prized it ever since. The Indian, in like manner, found the ulûñsû'ti where the white man had thrown it. He picked it up and has kept it since as his talisman, as money is the talismanic power of the white man. This story is quite general and is probably older than others of its class. When Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, was trying to introduce it among his people, about 1822, some of them opposed it upon the ground that Indians had no business with reading. They said that when the Indian and the white man were created, the Indian, being the elder, was given a book, while the white man received a bow and arrows. Each was instructed to take good care of his gift and make the best use of it, but the Indian was so neglectful of his book that the white man soon stole it from him, leaving the bow in its place, so that books and reading now belong of right to the white man, while the Indian ought to be satisfied to hunt for a living.--Cherokee Advocate, October 26, 1844. The negro made the first locomotive for a toy and put it on a wooden track and was having great fun with it when a white man came along, watched until he saw how to run it, and then killed the negro and took the locomotive for himself. This, also, although plainly of very recent origin, was heard from several informants. 89. THE IROQUOIS WARS Long wars were waged between the Cherokee and their remote northern relatives, the Iroquois, with both of whom the recollection, now nearly faded, was a vivid tradition fifty years ago. The (Seneca) Iroquois know the Cherokee as Oyada'ge`oñnoñ, a name rather freely rendered "cave people." The latter call the Iroquois, or rather their largest and most aggressive tribe, the Seneca, Nûndawe'gi, Ani'-Nûn-dawe'gi, or Ani'-Se'nika, the first forms being derived from Nûndawa'ga or Nûndawa'-ono, "people of the great hills," the name by which the Seneca know themselves. According to authorities quoted by Schoolcraft, the Seneca claim to have at one time had a settlement, from which they were afterward driven, at Seneca, South Carolina, known in history as one of the principal towns of the Lower Cherokee. The league of the Iroquois was probably founded about the middle of the sixteenth century. Before 1680 they had conquered or exterminated all the tribes upon their immediate borders and had turned their arms against the more distant Illinois, Catawba, and Cherokee. According to Iroquois tradition, the Cherokee were the aggressors, having attacked and plundered a Seneca hunting party somewhere in the west, while in another story they are represented as having violated a peace treaty by the murder of the Iroquois delegates. Whatever the cause, the war was taken up by all the tribes of the league. From the Iroquois country to the Cherokee frontier was considered a five days' journey for a rapidly traveling war party. As the distance was too great for large expeditions, the war consisted chiefly of a series of individual exploits, a single Cherokee often going hundreds of miles to strike a blow, which was sure to be promptly retaliated by the warriors from the north, the great object of every Iroquois boy being to go against the Cherokee as soon as he was old enough to take the war path. Captives were made on both sides, and probably in about equal numbers, the two parties being too evenly matched for either to gain any permanent advantage, and a compromise was finally made by which the Tennessee river came to be regarded as the boundary between their rival claims, all south of that stream being claimed by the Cherokee, and being acknowledged by the Iroquois, as the limit of their own conquests in that direction. This Indian boundary was recognized by the British government up to the time of the Revolution. Morgan states that a curious agreement was once made between the two tribes, by which this river was also made the limit of pursuit. If a returning war party of the Cherokee could recross the Tennessee before they were overtaken by the pursuing Iroquois they were as safe from attack as though entrenched behind a stockade. The pursuers, if they chose, might still invade the territory of the enemy, but they passed by the camp of the retreating Cherokee without offering to attack them. A similar agreement existed for a time between the Seneca and the Erie. The Buffalo dance of the Iroquois is traditionally said to have had its origin in an expedition against the Cherokee. When the warriors on their way to the south reached the Kentucky salt lick they found there a herd of buffalo, and heard them, for the first time, "singing their favorite songs," i. e., bellowing and snorting. From the bellowing and the movements of the animals were derived the music and action of the dance. According to Cherokee tradition, as given by the chief Stand Watie, the war was finally brought to an end by the Iroquois, who sent a delegation to the Cherokee to propose a general alliance of the southern and western tribes. The Cherokee accepted the proposition, and in turn sent out invitations to the other tribes, all of which entered into the peace excepting the Osage, of whom it was therefore said that they should be henceforth like a wild fruit on the prairie, at which every bird should pick, and so the Osage have remained ever a predatory tribe without friends or allies. This may be the same treaty described in the story of "The Seneca Peacemakers." A formal and final peace between the two tribes was arranged through the efforts of the British agent, Sir William Johnson, in 1768. In 1847 there were still living among the Seneca the grandchildren of Cherokee captives taken in these wars. In 1794 the Seneca pointed out to Colonel Pickering a chief who was a native Cherokee, having been taken when a boy and adopted among the Seneca, who afterward made him chief. This was probably the same man of whom they told Schoolcraft fifty years later. He was a full-blood Cherokee, but had been captured when too young to have any memory of the event. Years afterward, when he had grown to manhood and had become a chief in the tribe, he learned of his foreign origin, and was filled at once with an overpowering longing to go back to the south to find his people and live and die among them. He journeyed to the Cherokee country, but on arriving there found to his great disappointment that the story of his capture had been forgotten in the tribe, and that his relatives, if any were left, failed to recognize him. Being unable to find his kindred, he made only a short visit and returned again to the Seneca. From James Wafford, of Indian Territory, the author obtained a detailed account of the Iroquois peace embassy referred to by Stand Watie, and of the wampum belt that accompanied it. Wafford's information concerning the proceedings at Echota was obtained directly from two eyewitnesses--Sequoya, the inventor of the alphabet, and Gatûñ'wa`li, "Hard-mush," who afterward explained the belt at the great council near Tahlequah seventy years later. Sequoya, at the time of the Echota conference, was a boy living with his mother at Taskigi town a few miles away, while Gatûñ'wa`li was already a young man. The treaty of peace between the Cherokee and Iroquois, made at Johnson Hall in New York in 1768, appears from the record to have been brought about by the Cherokee, who sent for the purpose a delegation of chiefs, headed by Âganstâ'ta, "Groundhog-sausage," of Echota, their great leader in the war of 1760-61 against the English. After the treaty had been concluded the Cherokee delegates invited some of the Iroquois chiefs to go home with them for a visit, but the latter declined on the ground that it was not yet safe, and in fact some of their warriors were at that very time out against the Cherokee, not yet being aware of the peace negotiations. It is probable, therefore, that the Iroquois delegates did not arrive at Echota until some considerable time, perhaps three years, after the formal preliminaries had been concluded in the north. According to Sequoya's account, as given to Wafford, there had been a long war between the Cherokee and the northern Indians, who were never able to conquer the Cherokee or break their spirit, until at last the Iroquois were tired of fighting and sent a delegation to make peace. The messengers set out for the south with their wampum belts and peace emblems, but lost their way after passing Tennessee river, perhaps from the necessity of avoiding the main trail, and instead of arriving at Itsâ'ti or Echota, the ancient peace town and capital of the Cherokee Nation--situated on Little Tennessee river below Citico creek, in the present Monroe county, Tennessee--they found themselves on the outskirts of Ta'likwa' or Tellico, on Tellico river, some 10 or 15 miles to the southward. Concealing themselves in the neighborhood, they sent one of their number into the town to announce their coming. As it happened the chief and his family were at work in their cornfield, and his daughter had just gone up to the house for some reason when the Iroquois entered and asked for something to eat. Seeing that he was a stranger, she set out food for him according to the old custom of hospitality. While he was eating her father, the chief, came in to see what was delaying her, and was surprised to find there one of the hereditary enemies of his tribe. By this time the word had gone out that an Iroquois was in the chief's house, and the men of the town had left their work and seized their guns to kill him, but the chief heard them coming and standing in the doorway kept them off, saying: "This man has come here on a peace mission, and before you kill him you must first kill me." They finally listened to him, and allowed the messenger to go out and bring his companions to the chief's house, where they were all taken care of. When they were well rested after their long journey the chief of Ta'likwa himself went with them to Itsâ'ti, the capital, where lived the great chief Âganstâ'ta, who was now the civil ruler of the Nation. The chiefs of the various towns were summoned and a council was held, at which the speaker for the Iroquois delegation delivered his message and produced the wampum belts and pipes, which they brought as proofs of their mission and had carried all the way in packs upon their backs. He said that for three years his people had been wanting to make peace. There was a spring of dark, cloudy water in their country, and they had covered it over for one year and then looked, but the water was still cloudy. Again they had covered it over, but when they looked at the end of another year it was still dark and troubled. For another year they had covered the spring, and this time when they looked the water was clear and sparkling. Then they knew the time had come, and they left home with their wampum belts to make peace with their enemies. The friendly message was accepted by the Cherokee, and the belts and other symbolic peace tokens were delivered over to their keeping. Other belts in turn were probably given to the Iroquois, and after the usual round of feasting and dancing the messengers returned to their people in the north and the long war was at an end. For nearly a century these symbolic records of the peace with the Iroquois were preserved by the Cherokee, and were carried with them to the western territory when the tribe was finally driven from its old home in 1838. They were then in the keeping of John Ross, principal chief at the time of the removal, and were solemnly produced at a great intertribal council held near Tahlequah, in the Indian Territory, in June, 1843, when they were interpreted by the Cherokee speaker, Gatûñ'wa`li, "Hard-mush," who had seen them delivered to the chiefs of his tribe at old Itsâ'ti seventy years before. Wafford was present on this occasion and describes it. Holding the belts over his arm while speaking, Hard-mush told of the original treaty with the Iroquois, and explained the meaning of each belt in turn. According to the best of Wafford's recollection, there was one large belt, to which the smaller belts were fitted. The beads did not seem to be of shell, and may have been of porcelain. There were also red pipes for the warriors, grayish-white pipes for the chiefs who were foremost in making the peace, and some fans or other ornaments of feathers. There were several of the red pipes, resembling the red-stone pipes of the Sioux, but only one, or perhaps two, of the white peace pipes, which may have been only painted, and were much larger than the others. The pipes were passed around the circle at the council, so that each delegate might take a whiff. The objects altogether made a considerable package, which was carefully guarded by the Cherokee keeper. It is thought that they were destroyed in the War of the Rebellion when the house of John Ross, a few miles south of Tahlequah, was burned by the Confederate Cherokee under their general, Stand Watie. 90. HIADEONI, THE SENECA "Hiadeoni was the father of the late chief Young-king. He was a Seneca warrior, a man of great prowess, dexterity, and swiftness of foot, and had established his reputation for courage and skill on many occasions. He resolved while the Seneca were still living on the Genesee river to make an incursion alone into the country of the Cherokee. He plumed himself with the idea that he could distinguish himself in this daring adventure, and he prepared for it, according to the custom of warriors. They never encumber themselves with baggage. He took nothing but his arms and the meal of a little parched and pounded corn. The forest gave him his meat. Hiadeoni reached the confines of the Cherokee country in safety and alone. He waited for evening before he entered the precincts of a village. He found the people engaged in a dance. He watched his opportunity, and when one of the dancers went out from the ring into the bushes he dispatched him with his hatchet. In this way he killed two men that night in the skirts of the woods without exciting alarm, and took their scalps and retreated. It was late when he came to a lodge, standing remote from the rest, on his course homeward. Watching here, he saw a young man come out, and killed him as he had done the others, and took his scalp. Looking into the lodge cautiously he saw it empty, and ventured in with the hope of finding some tobacco and ammunition to serve him on his way home. While thus busied in searching the lodge he heard footsteps at the door, and immediately threw himself on the bed from which the young man had risen, and covered his face, feigning sleep. They proved to be the footsteps of his last victim's mother. She, supposing him to be her son, whom she had a short time before left lying there, said, "My son, I am going to such a place, and will not be back till morning." He made a suitable response, and the old woman went out. Insensibly he fell asleep, and knew nothing till morning, when the first thing he heard was the mother's voice. She, careful for her son, was at the fireplace very early, pulling some roasted squashes out of the ashes, and after putting them out, and telling him she left them for him to eat, she went away. He sprang up instantly and fled; but the early dawn had revealed his inroad, and he was hotly pursued. Light of foot, and having the start, he succeeded in reaching and concealing himself in a remote piece of woods, where he laid till night, and then pursued his way toward the Genesee, which, in due time he reached, bringing his three Cherokee scalps as trophies of his victory and prowess."--Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 253, 1847. 91. THE TWO MOHAWKS "In the year 1747 a couple of the Mohawk Indians came against the lower towns of the Cheerake, and so cunningly ambuscaded them through most part of the spring and summer, as to kill above twenty in different attacks before they were discovered by any party of the enraged and dejected people. They had a thorough knowledge of the most convenient ground for their purpose, and were extremely swift and long-winded. Whenever they killed any and got the scalp they made off to the neighboring mountains, and ran over the broad ledges of rocks in contrary courses, as occasion offered, so as the pursuers could by no means trace them. Once, when a large company was in chase of them, they ran round a steep hill at the head of the main eastern branch of Savana river, intercepted, killed, and scalped the hindmost of the party, and then made off between them and Keeowhee. As this was the town to which the company belonged, they hastened home in a close body, as the proper place of security from such enemy wizards. In this manner did those two sprightly, gallant savages perplex and intimidate their foes for the space of four moons in the greatest security, though they often were forced to kill and barbecue what they chiefly lived upon, in the midst of their watchful enemies. Having sufficiently revenged their relations' blood and gratified their own ambition with an uncommon number of scalps, they resolved to captivate one and run home with him as a proof of their having killed none but the enemies of their country. Accordingly, they approached very near to Keeowhee, about half a mile below the late Fort Prince George. Advancing with the usual caution on such an occasion, one crawled along under the best cover of the place about the distance of a hundred yards ahead, while the other shifted from tree to tree, looking sharply every way. In the evening, however, an old, beloved man discovered them from the top of an adjoining hill, and knew them to be enemies by the cut of their hair, light trim for running, and their postures. He returned to the town and called first at the house of one of our traders and informed him of the affair, enjoining him not to mention it to any, lest the people should set off against them without success before their tracks were to be discovered and he be charged with having deceived them. But, contrary to the true policy of traders among unforgiving savages, that thoughtless member of the Choktah Sphynx Company busied himself, as usual, out of his proper sphere, sent for the headmen, and told them the story. As the Mohawks were allies and not known to molest any of the traders in the paths and woods, he ought to have observed a strict neutrality. The youth of the town, by order of their headmen, carried on their noisy public diversions in their usual manner to prevent their foes from having any suspicion of their danger, while runners were sent from the town to their neighbors to come silently and assist them to secure the prey in its state of security. They came like silent ghosts, concerted their plan of operation, passed over the river at the old trading ford opposite to the late fort, which lay between two contiguous commanding hills, and, proceeding downward over a broad creek, formed a large semicircle from the river bank, while the town seemed to be taking its usual rest. They then closed into a narrower compass, and at last discovered the two brave, unfortunate men lying close under the tops of some fallen young pine trees. The company gave the war signal, and the Mohawks, bounding up, bravely repeated it; but, by their sudden spring from under thick cover, their arms were useless. They made desperate efforts, however, to kill or be killed, as their situation required. One of the Cheerake, the noted half-breed of Istanare [Ustana'li] town, which lay 2 miles from thence, was at the first onset knocked down and almost killed with his own cutlass, which was wrested from him, though he was the strongest of the whole nation. But they were overpowered by numbers, captivated, and put to the most exquisite tortures of fire, amidst a prodigious crowd of exulting foes. One of the present Choktah traders, who was on the spot, told me that when they were tied to the stake the younger of the two discovered our traders on a hill near, addressed them in English, and entreated them to redeem their lives. The elder immediately spoke to him, in his own language, to desist. On this, he recollected himself, and became composed like a stoic, manifesting an indifference to life or death, pleasure or pain, according to their standard of martial virtue, and their dying behaviour did not reflect the least dishonor on their former gallant actions. All the pangs of fiery torture served only to refine their manly spirits, and as it was out of the power of the traders to redeem them they, according to our usual custom, retired as soon as the Indians began the diabolical tragedy."--Adair, American Indians, p. 383, 1775. 92. ESCAPE OF THE SENECA BOYS Some Seneca warriors were hunting in the woods, and one morning, on starting out for the day, they left two boys behind to take care of the camp. Soon after they had gone, a war party of Cherokee came up, and finding the boys alone took them both and started back to the south, traveling at such a rate that when the hunters returned in the evening they decided that it was of no use to follow them. When the Cherokee reached their own country they gave the boys to an old man, whose sons had been killed by the Seneca. He took the boys and adopted them for his own, and they grew up with him until they were large and strong enough to go hunting for themselves. But all the time they remembered their own home, and one day the older one said to his brother, "Let's kill the old man and run away." "No," said the other, "we might get lost if we ran away, we are so far from home." "I remember the way," said his brother, so they made a plan to escape. A few days later the old man took the boys with him and the three set out together for a hunt in the mountains. When they were well away from the settlement the boys killed the old man, took all the meat and parched corn meal they could easily carry, and started to make their way back to the north, keeping away from the main trail and following the ridge of the mountains. After many days they came to the end of the mountains and found a trail which the older brother knew as the one along which they had been taken when they were first captured. They went on bravely now until they came to a wide clearing with houses at the farther end, and the older brother said, "I believe there is where we used to live." It was so long ago that they were not quite sure, and besides they were dressed now like Cherokee, so they thought it safer to wait until dark. They saw a river ahead and went down to it and sat behind a large tree to wait. Soon several women came down for water and passed close to the tree without noticing the boys. Said the older brother, "I know those women. One of them is our mother." They waited until the women had filled their buckets and started to the village, when both ran out to meet them with the Seneca hailing-shout, "Gowe'! Gowe'!" At first the women were frightened and thought it a party of Cherokee, but when they heard their own language they came nearer. Then the mother recognized her two sons, and said, "Let us go back and dance for the dead come to life," and they were all very glad and went into the village together.--Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript. 93. THE UNSEEN HELPERS Ganogwioeoñ, a war chief of the Seneca, led a party against the Cherokee. When they came near the first town he left his men outside and went in alone. At the first house he found an old woman and her granddaughter. They did not see him, and he went into the âsi and hid himself under some wood. When darkness came on he heard the old woman say, "Maybe Ganogwioeoñ is near; I'll close the door." After a while he heard them going to bed. When he thought they were asleep he went into the house. The fire had burned down low, but the girl was still awake and saw him. She was about to scream, when he said, "I am Ganogwioeoñ. If you scream I'll kill you. If you keep quiet I'll not hurt you." They talked together, and he told her that in the morning she must bring the chief's daughter to him. She promised to do it, and told him where he should wait. Just before daylight he left the house. In the morning the girl went to the chief's house and said to his daughter, "Let's go out together for wood." The chief's daughter got ready and went with her, and when they came to the place where Ganogwioeoñ was hiding he sprang out and killed her, but did not hurt the other girl. He pulled off the scalp and gave such a loud scalp yell that all the warriors in the town heard it and came running out after him. He shook the scalp at them and then turned and ran. He killed the first one that came up, but when he tried to shoot the next one the bow broke and the Cherokee got him. They tied him and carried him to the two women of the tribe who had the power to decide what should be done with him. Each of these women had two snakes tattooed on her lips, with their heads opposite each other, in such a way that when she opened her mouth the two snakes opened their mouths also. They decided to burn the soles of his feet until they were blistered, then to put grains of corn under the skin and to chase him with clubs until they had beaten him to death. They stripped him and burnt his feet. Then they tied a bark rope around his waist, with an old man to hold the other end, and made him run between two lines of people, and with clubs in their hands. When they gave the word to start Ganogwioeoñ pulled the rope away from the old man and broke through the line and ran until he had left them all out of sight. When night came he crawled into a hollow log. He was naked and unarmed, with his feet in a pitiful condition, and thought he could never get away. He heard footsteps on the leaves outside and thought his enemies were upon him. The footsteps came up to the log and some one said to another, "This is our friend." Then the stranger said to Ganogwioeoñ, "You think you are the same as dead; but it is not so. We will take care of you. Stick out your feet." He put out his feet from the log and felt something licking them. After a while the voice said, "I think we have licked his feet enough. Now we must crawl inside the log and lie on each side of him to keep him warm." They crawled in beside him. In the morning they crawled out and told him to stick out his feet again. They licked them again and then said to him, "Now we have done all we can do this time. Go on until you come to the place where you made a bark shelter a long time ago, and under the bark you will find something to help you." Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the log, but they were gone. His feet were better now and he could walk comfortably. He went on until about noon, when he came to the bark shelter, and under it he found a knife, an awl, and a flint, that his men had hidden there two years before. He took them and started on again. Toward evening he looked around until he found another hollow tree and crawled into it to sleep. At night he heard the footsteps and voices again. When he put out his feet again, as the strangers told him to do, they licked his feet as before and then crawled in and lay down on each side of him to keep him warm. Still he could not see them. In the morning after they went out they licked his feet again and said to him, "At noon you will find food." Then they went away. Ganogwioeoñ crawled out of the tree and went on. At noon he came to a burning log, and near it was a dead bear, which was still warm, as if it had been killed only a short time before. He skinned the bear and found it very fat. He cut up the meat and roasted as much as he could eat or carry. While it was roasting he scraped the skin and rubbed rotten wood dust on it to clean it until he was tired. When night came he lay down to sleep. He heard the steps and the voices again and one said, "Well, our friend is lying down. He has plenty to eat, and it does not seem as if he is going to die. Let us lick his feet again." When they had finished they said to him, "You need not worry any more now. You will get home all right." Before it was day they left him. When morning came he put the bearskin around him like a shirt, with the hair outside, and started on again, taking as much of the meat as he could carry. That night his friends came to him again. They said, "Your feet are well, but you will be cold," so they lay again on each side of him. Before daylight they left, saying, "About noon you will find something to wear." He went on and about midday he came to two young bears just killed. He skinned them and dressed the skins, then roasted as much meat as he wanted and lay down to sleep. In the morning he made leggings of the skins, took some of the meat, and started on. His friends came again the next night and told him that in the morning he would come upon something else to wear. As they said, about noon he found two fawns just killed. He turned the skins and made himself a pair of moccasins, then cut some of the meat, and traveled on until evening, when he made a fire and had supper. That night again he heard the steps and voices, and one said, "My friend, very soon now you will reach home safely and find your friends all well. Now we will tell you why we have helped you. Whenever you went hunting you always gave the best part of the meat to us and kept only the smallest part for yourself. For that we are thankful and help you. In the morning you will see us and know who we are." In the morning when he woke up they were still there--two men as he thought--but after he had said the last words to them and started on, he turned again to look, and one was a white wolf and the other a black wolf. That day he reached home.--Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript. 94. HATCINOÑDOÑ'S ESCAPE FROM THE CHEROKEE Hatcinoñdoñ was a great warrior, the greatest among the Seneca. Once he led a company against the Cherokee. They traveled until they came to the great ridge on the border of the Cherokee country, and then they knew their enemies were on the lookout on the other side. Hatcinoñdoñ told his men to halt where they were while he went ahead to see what was in front. The enemy discovered and chased him, and he ran into a canebrake, where the canes were in two great patches with a narrow strip of open ground between. They saw him go into the canes, so they set fire to the patch and watched at the open place for him to come out, but before they got around to it he had run across into the second patch and escaped. When the canes had burned down the Cherokee looked for his body in the ashes, but could not find any trace of it, so they went home. When Hatcinoñdoñ got into the second canebrake he was tired out, so he lay down and fell asleep. At night while he was asleep two men came and took him by the arm, saying: "We have come for you. Somebody has sent for you." They took him a long way, above the sky vault, until they came to a house. Then they said: "This is where the man lives who sent for you." He looked, but could see no door. Then a voice from the inside said "Come in," and something like a door opened of itself. He went in and there sat Haweñni'o, the Thunder-god. Haweñni'o said, "I have sent for you and you are here. Are you hungry?" Hatcinoñdoñ thought: "That's a strange way to talk; that's not the way I do--I give food." The Thunder knew his thoughts, so he laughed and said, "I said that only in fun." He rose and brought half a cake of bread, half of a wild apple, and half a pigeon. Hatcinoñdoñ said, "This is very little to fill me," but the Thunder replied, "If you eat that, there is more." He began eating, but, as he ate, everything became whole again, so that he was not able to finish it. While he was sitting he heard some one running outside, and directly the door was thrown open and the Sun came in, so bright that Hatcinoñdoñ had to hold his head down. The two beings talked together, but the Seneca could not understand a word, and soon the visitor went out again. Then the Thunder said: "That is the one you call the Sun, who watches in the world below. It is night down there now, and he is hurrying to the east. He says there has just been a battle. I love both the Seneca and the Cherokee, and when you get back to your warriors you must tell them to stop fighting and go home." Again he brought food, half of each kind, and when Hatcinoñdoñ had eaten, the Thunder said, "Now my messengers will take you to your place." The door opened again of itself, and Hatcinoñdoñ followed the two Sky People until they brought him to the place where he had slept, and there left him. He found his party and told the warriors what he had seen. They held a council over it and decided to strike the enemy once before going home. Hatcinoñdoñ led them. They met the Cherokee and went home with scalps. He led another party against the Cherokee, but this time he was taken and carried to the Cherokee town. It was the custom among the Cherokee to let two women say what should be done with captives. They decided that he should be tortured with fire, so he was tied to a tree, and the wood was piled around him. Hatcinoñdoñ gave himself up for lost, when a rain storm came up and the people concluded to wait until it was over. They went away and left him tied to the tree. Pretty soon an old woman came up to him, and said, "My grandson, you think you are going to die, but you are not. Try to stir your limbs." He struggled and finally got his limbs free. Then she said, "Now you are free. I have come to repay your kindness. You remember that you once found a frog in the middle of a circle of fire and that you picked it up and put it into the water. I was that frog, and now I help you. I sent the rain storm, and now you must go down to the creek and follow the current." When the rain was over the people came back, but Hatcinoñdoñ was gone. They trailed him down to the creek, but he had found a hollow tree lying in the water, with a hole on the upper side through which he could breathe, so he crawled into it and they could not find him. Once two of the Cherokee came and sat on the log and he could hear them talking about him, but they did not know that he was inside. When they were all gone, he came out and kept on down the stream. After dark he came to a place where three hunters had made a fire and gone to sleep for the night. Their hatchets and arms were hung up on a tree. Hatcinoñdoñ was naked. He listened until he was sure the men were asleep, then he took one of their hatchets and killed all three, one after another. He dressed himself in the clothes of one, and put on his belt, with the knife and hatchet. Then he washed himself at the creek and sat down by the fire and cooked his supper. After that he stretched and painted the three scalps and lay down by the fire to sleep. In the morning he took what provision he could carry and traveled in a great circle until he found the road by which he and his warriors had come. He found fresh tracks and followed them until he saw smoke ahead. He listened until he heard men speaking Seneca, and knew that it was his party. Then he gave the Seneca shout--Gowe'!--three times and his friends ran out to meet him. They had been afraid that he was killed, but were glad now that they had waited for him. They went home together. This is their story.--Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript. 95. HEMP-CARRIER On the southern slope of the ridge, along the trail from Robbinsville to Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, are the remains of a number of stone cairns. The piles are leveled now, but thirty years ago the stones were still heaped up into pyramids, to which every Cherokee who passed added a stone. According to the tradition these piles marked the graves of a number of women and children of the tribe who were surprised and killed on the spot by a raiding party of the Iroquois shortly before the final peace between the two Nations. As soon as the news was brought to the settlements on Hiwassee and Cheowa a party was made under Tâle'danigi'ski, "Hemp-carrier," to follow and take vengeance on the enemy. Among others of the party was the father of the noted chief Tsunu'lahûñ'ski, or Junaluska, who (Junaluska) died on Cheowa about 1855. For days they followed the trail of the Iroquois across the Great Smoky mountains, through forests and over rivers, until they finally tracked them to their very town in the far northern Seneca country. On the way they met another war party headed for the south, and the Cherokee killed them all and took their scalps. When they came near the Seneca town it was almost night, and they heard shouts in the townhouse, where the women were dancing over the fresh Cherokee scalps. The avengers hid themselves near the spring, and as the dancers came down to drink the Cherokee silently killed one and another until they had counted as many scalps as had been taken on Cheowa, and still the dancers in the townhouse never thought that enemies were near. Then said the Cherokee leader, "We have covered the scalps of our women and children. Shall we go home now like cowards, or shall we raise the war whoop and let the Seneca know that we are men?" "Let them come, if they will," said his men; and they raised the scalp yell of the Cherokee. At once there was an answering shout from the townhouse, and the dance came to a sudden stop. The Seneca warriors swarmed out with ready gun and hatchet, but the nimble Cherokee were off and away. There was a hot pursuit in the darkness, but the Cherokee knew the trails and were light and active runners, and managed to get away with the loss of only a single man. The rest got home safely, and the people were so well pleased with Hemp-carrier's bravery and success that they gave him seven wives. 96. THE SENECA PEACEMAKERS In the course of the long war with the Cherokee it happened once that eight Seneca determined to undertake a journey to the south to see if they could make a peace with their enemies. On coming near the border of the Cherokee country they met some hunters of that tribe to whom they told their purpose. The latter at once hurried ahead with the news, and when the peacemakers arrived they found themselves well received by the Cherokee chiefs, who called a council to consider the proposition. All but one of the chiefs favored the peace, but he demanded that the eight delegates should first join them in a war party which was just preparing to go against a tribe farther south, probably the Creeks. The Seneca agreed, and set out with the war party for the south; but in the fight which resulted, the Seneca leader, The Owl, was captured. The other seven escaped with the Cherokee. A council was held in the enemy's camp, and it was decided that The Owl should be burned at the stake. The wood was gathered and everything made ready, but as they were about to tie him he claimed the warrior's privilege to sing his death song and strike the post as he recited his warlike deeds. The request pleased his enemies, who put a tomahawk into his hands and told him to begin. He told first his exploits in the north, and then in the west, giving times and places and the number of scalps taken, until his enemies were so pleased and interested that they forgot the prisoner in the warrior. It was a long story, but at last he came to the battle in which he was taken. He told how many relatives he had killed of the very men around him, and then, striking the post with his tomahawk, "So many of your people have I killed, and so many will I yet kill;" and with that he struck down two men, sprang through the circle of warriors, and was away. It was all so sudden that it was some moments before his enemies could recover from their surprise. Then they seized their weapons and were after him through the woods, but he had had a good start and was running for his life, so that he outran the chase and finally reached the Cherokee camp in safety and rejoined his seven companions. On this proof of good will the Cherokee then concluded the treaty, and the peacemakers returned to their own country.--Arranged from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 258. 97. ORIGIN OF THE YONTOÑWISAS DANCE Two Seneca women who were sisters, with the baby boy of the older one, were in a sugar grove near their home when a war party of Cherokee came upon them and carried them off. When the people of the town learned what had happened, they decided not to go after the enemy for fear they would kill the women, so their made no pursuit. The Cherokee carried the women with them until they were within one day of the Cherokee towns. The elder sister learned this and made up her mind to try to escape. She had a knife without a handle hidden under her belt, and that night when all lay down to sleep by the fire she kept awake. When they were sleeping soundly, she looked around. She and her sister were tied together, and on each side of them was a Cherokee with the end of the rope under his body on the ground. Taking out her knife, she cut the rope without waking the men, and then rousing her sister quietly she whispered to her to come. They were going to leave the little boy, but he started to cry, so she said, "Let us die together," and took him up on her back, and the two women hurried away. In a little while they heard an alarm behind them, and knew that their escape was discovered, and then they saw the blazing pine knots waving through the trees where the Cherokee were coming on looking for them. The women knew the Cherokee would hunt for them toward the north, along the trail to the Seneca country, so they made a circuit and went around to the south until they came in sight of a fire and saw a man sitting by a tree, shaking a rattle and singing in a low voice. They found they had come directly back to the enemy's camp, so the older sister said, "This will never do; we must try again. Let us go straight ahead to that big tree in front, and from that straight on to the next, and the next." In this way they kept on a straight course until morning. When the sun came up, they took another direction toward home, and at night they rested in the woods. They traveled all the next day, and at night rested again. In the night a voice spoke to the younger woman, "Is that where you are resting?" and she answered, "Yes." The voice said again, "Keep on, and you will come out at the spot where you were captured. No harm will come to you. To-morrow you will find food." She roused her sister and told her what the voice had said. In the morning they went on and at noon found a buck freshly killed. Near by they found a log on fire, so they roasted some of the meat, had a good meal, and carried away afterwards as much of the meat as they could. They kept on, camping every night, and when the meat was nearly gone they saved the rest for the little boy. At last one night the voice spoke again to the younger sister and said, "You are on the right road, and to-morrow you will be on the border of the Seneca country. You will find food. That is all." In the morning she told her older sister. They started on again and walked until about noon, when they came to a patch of wild potatoes. They dug and found plenty, and as they looked around they saw smoke where there had been a camp fire. They gathered wood, made up the fire, and roasted the potatoes. Then they ate as many as they wanted and carried the rest with them. They traveled on until the potatoes were almost gone. Then at night the voice came again to the younger woman, saying: "At noon tomorrow you will reach your home, and the first person you will meet will be your uncle. When you get to the town, you must call the people together and tell them all that has happened. You must go to the long house and take off your skirt and carry it on your shoulder. Then you must go inside and go around once, singing, 'We have come home; we are here.' This is the Yontoñwisas song, and it shall be for women only. Know now that we are the Hadionyageonoñ, the Sky People, who have watched over you all this time." When the girl awoke, she told her sister, and they said, "We must do all this," and they began to sing as they went along. About noon they heard the sound of chopping, and when they went to the place they found it was their uncle cutting blocks to make spoons. He did not see them until they spoke, and at first could hardly believe that they were living women, because he knew that they had been taken by the Cherokee. He was very glad to see them, and as they walked on to the town they told him all they had been commanded to do by the Sky People. When they arrived at the town, he called all the people together, and they went to the long house. There the two women sang their song and did everything exactly as they had been told to do, and when it was over they said, "This is all," and sat down. This is the same Yontoñwisas song that is still sung by the women.--Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript. 98. GA'NA'S ADVENTURES AMONG THE CHEROKEE Ga'na' was a Seneca war chief. He called a council and said, "We must go to the Cherokee and see if we can't agree to be friendly together and live in peace hereafter." The people consented, and the chief said, "We must go to water first before we start." So they went, a great party of warriors, far away into the deep forest by the river side. There were no women with them. For ten days they drank medicine every morning to make them vomit and washed and bathed in the river each day. Then the chief said, "Now we must get the eagle feathers." They went to the top of a high hill and dug a trench there the length of a man's body, and put a man into it, with boughs over the top so that he could not be seen, and above that they put the whole body of a deer. Then the people went off out of sight, and said the words to invite Shada'ge'a, the great eagle that lives in the clouds, to come down. The man under the brushwood heard a noise, and a common eagle came and ate a little and flew away again. Soon it came back, ate a little more, and flew off in another direction. It told the other birds and they came, but the man scared them away, because he did not want common birds to eat the meat. After a while he heard a great noise coming through the air, and he knew it was Shada'ge'a, the bird he wanted. Shada'ge'a is very cautious, and looked around in every direction for some time before he began to eat the meat. As soon as he was eating the man put his hand up cautiously and caught hold of the bird's tail and held on to it. Shada'ge'a rose up and flew away, and the man had pulled out one feather. They had to trap a good many eagles in this way, and it was two years before they could get enough feathers to make a full tail, and were ready to start for the Cherokee country. They were many days on the road, and when they got to the first Cherokee town they found there was a stockade around it so that no enemy could enter. They waited until the gate was open, and then two Seneca dancers went forward, carrying the eagle feathers and shouting the signal yell. When the Cherokee heard the noise they came out and saw the two men singing and dancing, and the chief said, "These men must have come upon some errand." The Seneca messengers came up and said, "Call a council; we have come to talk on important business." All turned and went toward the townhouse, the rest of the Seneca following the two who were dancing. The townhouse was crowded, and the Seneca sang and danced until they were tired before they stopped. The Cherokee did not dance. After the dance the Seneca chief said, "Now I will tell you why we have come so far through the forest to see you. We have thought among ourselves that it is time to stop fighting. Your people and ours are always on the lookout to kill each other, and we think it is time for this to stop. Here is a belt of wampum to show that I speak the truth. If your people are willing to be friendly, take it," and he held up the belt. The Cherokee chief stepped forward and said, "I will hold it in my hand, and to-morrow we will tell you what we decide." He then turned and said to the people, "Go home and bring food." They went and brought so much food that it made a great pile across the house, and all of both tribes ate together, but could not finish it. Next day they ate together again, and when all were done the Cherokee chief said to the Seneca, "We have decided to be friendly and to bury our weapons, these knives and hatchets, so that no man may take them up again." The Seneca chief replied, "We are glad you have accepted our offer, and now we have all thrown our weapons in a pile together, and the white wampum hangs between us, and the belt shall be as long as a man and hang down to the ground." Then the Cherokee chief said to his people, "Now is the time for any of you that wishes to adopt a relative from among the Seneca to do so." So some Cherokee women went and picked out one man and said, "You shall be our uncle," and some more took another for their brother, and so on until only Ga'na', the chief, was left, but the Cherokee chief said, "No one must take Ga'na', for a young man is here to claim him as his father." Then the young man came up to Ga'na' and said, "Father, I am glad to see you. Father, we will go home," and he led Ga'na' to his own mother's house, the house where Ga'na' had spent the first night. The young man was really his son, and when Ga'na' came to the house he recognized the woman as his wife who had been carried off long ago by the Cherokee. While they were there a messenger came from the Seoqgwageono tribe, that lived near the great salt water in the east, to challenge the Cherokee to a ball play. He was dressed in skins which were so long that they touched the ground. He said that his people were already on the way and would arrive in a certain number of days. They came on the appointed day and the next morning began to make the bets with the Cherokee. The Seneca were still there. The strangers bet two very heavy and costly robes, besides other things. They began to play, and the Cherokee lost the game. Then the Seneca said, "We will try this time." Both sides bet heavily again, and the game began, but after a little running the Seneca carried the ball to their goal and made a point. Before long they made all the points and won the game. Then the bets were doubled, and the Seneca won again. When they won a third game also the Seoqgwageono said, "Let us try a race," and the Seneca agreed. The course was level, and the open space was very wide. The Cherokee selected the Seneca runner, and it was agreed that they would run the first race without betting and then make their bets on the second race. They ran the first race, and when they reached the post the Seneca runner was just the measure of his body behind the other. His people asked him if he had done his best, but he said, "No; I have not," so they made their bets, and the second race--the real race--began. When they got to the middle the Seneca runner said to the other, "Do your best now, for I am going to do mine," and as he said it he pulled out and left the other far behind and won the race. Then the Seoqgwageono said, "There is one more race yet--the long race," and they got ready for it, but the Cherokee chief said to his own men, "We have won everything from these people. I think it will be best to let them have one race, for if they lose all, they may make trouble." They selected a Cherokee to run, and he was beaten, and the Seoqgwageono went home. In a few days they sent a messenger to challenge the Cherokee to meet them halfway for a battle. When the Cherokee heard this they said to the Seneca, "There are so few of you here that we don't want to have you killed. It is better for you to go home." So the Seneca went back to their own country. Three years later they came again to visit the Cherokee, who told them that the Seoqgwageono had won the battle, and that the chief of the enemy had said afterward, "I should like to fight the Seneca, for I am a double man." Before long the enemy heard that the Seneca were there and sent them a challenge to come and fight. The Seneca said, "We must try to satisfy them," so with Cherokee guides they set out for the country of the Seoqgwageono. They went on until they came to an opening in the woods within one day's journey of the first village. Then they stopped and got ready to send two messengers to notify the enemy, but the Cherokee said, "You must send them so as to arrive about sundown." They did this, and when the messengers arrived near the town they saw all the people out playing ball. The two Seneca went around on the other side, and began throwing sumac darts as they approached, so that the others would think they were some of their own men at play. In this way they got near enough to kill a man who was standing alone. They scalped him, and then raising the scalp yell they rushed off through the woods, saying to each other as they ran, "Be strong--Be strong." Soon they saw the Seoqgwageono coming on horses, but managed to reach a dry creek and to hide under the bank, so that the enemy passed on without seeing them. The next morning they came out and started on, but the enemy was still on the watch, and before long the two men saw the dust of the horses behind them. The others came up until they were almost upon them and began to shoot arrows at them, but by this time the two Seneca were near the opening where their own friends were hiding, drawn up on each side of the pass. As the pursuers dashed in the two lines of the Seneca closed in and every man of the Seoqgwageono was either killed or taken. The Seneca went back to the Cherokee country and after about a month they returned to their own homes. Afterward the Cherokee told them, "We hear the Seoqgwageono think you dangerous people. They themselves are conjurers and can tell what other people are going to do, but they cannot tell what the Seneca are going to do. The Seneca medicine is stronger."--Arranged from Curtin, Seneca manuscript. 99. THE SHAWANO WARS Among the most inveterate foes of the Cherokee were the Shawano, known to the Cherokee as Ani'-Sawanu'gi, who in ancient times, probably as early as 1680, removed from Savannah (i. e., Shawano) river, in South Carolina, and occupied the Cumberland river region in middle Tennessee and Kentucky, from which they were afterward driven by the superior force of the southern tribes and compelled to take refuge north of the Ohio. On all old maps we find the Cumberland marked as the "river of the Shawano." Although the two tribes were frequently, and perhaps for long periods, on friendly terms, the ordinary condition was one of chronic warfare, from an early traditional period until the close of the Revolution. This hostile feeling was intensified by the fact that the Shawano were usually the steady allies of the Creeks, the hereditary southern enemies of the Cherokee. In 1749, however, we find a party of Shawano from the north, accompanied by several Cherokee, making an inroad into the Creek country, and afterward taking refuge among the Cherokee, thus involving the latter in a new war with their southern neighbors (Adair, Am. Inds., 276, 1775). The Shawano made themselves respected for their fighting qualities, gaining a reputation for valor which they maintained in their later wars with the whites, while from their sudden attack and fertility of stratagem they came to be regarded as a tribe of magicians. By capture or intermarriage in the old days there is quite an admixture of Shawano blood among the Cherokee. According to Haywood, an aged Cherokee chief, named the Little Cornplanter (Little Carpenter?), stated in 1772 that the Shawano had removed from the Savannah river a long time before in consequence of a disastrous war with several neighboring tribes, and had settled upon the Cumberland, by permission of his people. A quarrel having afterward arisen between the two tribes, a strong body of Cherokee invaded the territory of the Shawano, and, treacherously attacking them, killed a great number. The Shawano fortified themselves and a long war ensued, which continued until the Chickasaw came to the aid of the Cherokee, when the Shawano were gradually forced to withdraw north of the Ohio. At the time of their final expulsion, about the year 1710, the boy Charleville was employed at a French post, established for the Shawano trade, which occupied a mound on the south side of Cumberland river, where now is the city of Nashville. For a long time the Shawano had been so hard pressed by their enemies that they had been withdrawing to the north in small parties for several years, until only a few remained behind, and these also now determined to leave the country entirely. In March the trader sent Charleville ahead with several loads of skins, intending himself to follow with the Shawano a few months later. In the meantime the Chickasaw, learning of the intended move, posted themselves on both sides of Cumberland river, above the mouth of Harpeth, with canoes to cut off escape by water, and suddenly attacked the retreating Shawano, killing a large part of them, together with the trader, and taking all their skins, trading goods, and other property. Charleville lived to tell the story nearly seventy years later. As the war was never terminated by any formal treaty of peace, the hostile warriors continued to attack each other whenever they chanced to meet on the rich hunting grounds of Kentucky, until finally, from mutual dread, the region was abandoned by both parties, and continued thus unoccupied until its settlement by the whites. [473] According to Cherokee tradition, a body of Creeks was already established near the mouth of Hiwassee while the Cherokee still had their main settlements upon the Little Tennessee. The Creeks, being near neighbors, pretended friendship, while at the same time secretly aiding the Shawano. Having discovered the treachery, the Cherokee took advantage of the presence of the Creeks at a great dance at Itsâ'ti, or Echota, the ancient Cherokee capital, to fall suddenly upon them and kill nearly the whole party. The consequence was a war, with the final result that the Creeks were defeated and forced to abandon all their settlements on the waters of the Tennessee river. [474] Haywood says that "Little Cornplanter" had seen Shawano scalps brought into the Cherokee towns. When he was a boy, his father, who was also a chief, had told him how he had once led a party against the Shawano and was returning with several scalps, when, as they were coming through a pass in the mountains, they ran into another party of Cherokee warriors, who, mistaking them for enemies, fired into them and killed several before they discovered their mistake. [475] Schoolcraft also gives the Cherokee tradition of the war with the Shawano, as obtained indirectly from white informants, but incorrectly makes it occur while the latter tribe still lived upon the Savannah. "The Cherokees prevailed after a long and sanguinary contest and drove the Shawnees north. This event they cherish as one of their proudest achievements. 'What!' said an aged Cherokee chief to Mr Barnwell, who had suggested the final preservation of the race by intermarriage with the whites. 'What! Shall the Cherokees perish! Shall the conquerors of the Shawnees perish! Never!'" [476] Tribal warfare as a rule consisted of a desultory succession of petty raids, seldom approaching the dignity of a respectable skirmish and hardly worthy of serious consideration except in the final result. The traditions necessarily partake of the same trivial character, being rather anecdotes than narratives of historical events which had dates and names. Lapse of time renders them also constantly more vague. On the Carolina side the Shawano approach was usually made up the Pigeon river valley, so as to come upon the Cherokee settlements from behind, and small parties were almost constantly lurking about waiting the favorable opportunity to pick up a stray scalp. On one occasion some Cherokee hunters were stretched around the camp fire at night when they heard the cry of a flying squirrel in the woods--tsu-u! tsu-u! tsu-u! Always on the alert for danger, they suspected it might be the enemy's signal, and all but one hastily left the fire and concealed themselves. That one, however, laughed at their fears and, defiantly throwing some heavy logs on the fire, stretched himself out on his blanket and began to sing. Soon he heard a stealthy step coming through the bushes and gradually approaching the fire, until suddenly an enemy sprang out upon him from the darkness and bore him to the earth. But the Cherokee was watchful, and putting up his hands he seized the other by the arms, and with a mighty effort threw him backward into the fire. The dazed Shawano lay there a moment squirming upon the coals, then bounded to his feet and ran into the woods, howling with pain. There was an answering laugh from his comrades hidden in the bush, but although the Cherokee kept watch for some time the enemy made no further attack, probably led by the very boldness of the hunter to suspect some ambush. On another occasion a small hunting party in the Smoky mountains heard the gobble of a turkey (in telling the story Swimmer gives a good imitation). Some eager young hunters were for going at once toward the game, but others, more cautious, suspected a ruse and advised a reconnaissance. Accordingly a hunter went around to the back of the ridge, and on coming up from the other side found a man posted in a large tree, making the gobble call to decoy the hunters within reach of a Shawano war party concealed behind some bushes midway between the tree and the camp. Keeping close to the ground, the Cherokee crept up without being discovered until within gunshot, then springing to his feet he shot the man in the tree, and shouting "Kill them all," rushed upon the enemy, who, thinking that a strong force of Cherokee was upon them, fled down the mountain without attempting to make a stand. Another tradition of these wars is that concerning Tunâ'i, a great warrior and medicine-man of old Itsâ'ti, on the Tennessee. In one hard fight with the Shawano, near the town, he overpowered his man and stabbed him through both arms. Running cords through the holes he tied his prisoner's arms and brought him thus into Itsâ'ti, where he was put to death by the women with such tortures that his courage broke and he begged them to kill him at once. After retiring to the upper Ohio the Shawano were received into the protection of the Delawares and their allies, and being thus strengthened felt encouraged to renew the war against the Cherokee with increased vigor. The latter, however, proved themselves more than a match for their enemies, pursuing them even to their towns in western Pennsylvania, and accidentally killing there some Delawares who occupied the country jointly with the Shawano. This involved the Cherokee in a war with the powerful Delawares, which continued until brought to an end in 1768 at the request of the Cherokee, who made terms of friendship at the same time with the Iroquois. The Shawano being thus left alone, and being, moreover, roundly condemned by their friends, the Delawares, as the cause of the whole trouble, had no heart to continue the war and were obliged to make final peace. [477] 100. THE RAID ON TIKWALI'TSI The last noted leader of the Shawano raiding parties was a chief known to the Cherokee as Tawa'li-ukwanûñ'ti, "Punk-plugged-in," on account of a red spot on his cheek which looked as though a piece of punk (tawa'li) had been driven into the flesh. The people of Tikwali'tsi town, on Tuckasegee, heard rumors that a war party under this leader had come in from the north and was lurking somewhere in the neighborhood. The Cherokee conjurer, whose name was Etawa'ha-tsistatla'ski, "Dead-wood-lighter," resorted to his magic arts and found that the Shawano were in ambush along the trail on the north side of the river a short distance above the town. By his advice a party was fitted out to go up on the south side and come in upon the enemy's rear. A few foolhardy fellows, however, despised his words and boldly went up the trail on the north side until they came to Deep Creek, where the Shawano in hiding at the ford took them "like fish in a trap" and killed nearly all of them. Their friends on the other side of the river heard the firing, and crossing the river above Deep creek they came in behind the Shawano and attacked them, killing a number and forcing the others to retreat toward the Smoky mountains, with the Cherokee in pursuit. The invaders had with them two Cherokee prisoners who were not able to keep up with the rapid flight, so their captors took them, bound as they were, and threw them over a cliff. An old conjurer of their own party finding himself unable to keep up deliberately sat down against a tree near the same spot to wait for death. The pursuers coming up split his head with a hatchet and threw his body over the same cliff, which takes its name from this circumstance. The Shawano continued to retreat, with the Cherokee close behind them, until they crossed the main ridge at the gap just below Clingman's dome. Here the Cherokee gave up the pursuit and returned to their homes. 101. THE LAST SHAWANO INVASION Perhaps a year after the raid upon Tikwali'tsi, the Shawano again, under the same leader, came down upon the exposed settlement of Kanuga, on Pigeon river, and carried off a woman and two children whom they found gathering berries near the town. Without waiting to make an attack they hastily retreated with their prisoners. The people of Kanuga sent for aid to the other settlements farther south, and a strong party was quickly raised to pursue the enemy and recover the captives. By this time, however, the Shawano had had several days' start and it was necessary for the Cherokee to take a shorter course across the mountains to overtake them. A noted conjurer named Kâ'lanû, "The Raven," of Hiwassee town, was called upon to discover by his magic arts what direction the Shawano had taken and how far they had already gone. Calling the chiefs together he told them to fill the pipe and smoke and he would return with the information before the pipe was smoked out. They sat down in a circle around the fire and lighted the pipe, while he went out into the woods. Soon they heard the cry of an owl, and after some interval they heard it again, and the next moment the conjurer walked out from the trees before yet the first smoke was finished. He reported that he had trailed the Shawano to their camp and that they were seven days ahead. The Cherokee at once followed as The Raven guided, and reached the place in seven days and found all the marks of a camp, but the enemy was already gone. Again and once again the conjurer went ahead in his own mysterious fashion to spy out the country, and they followed as he pointed the way. On returning the third time he reported that their enemies had halted beside the great river (the Ohio), and soon afterward he came in with the news that they were crossing it. The Cherokee hurried on to the river, but by this time the Shawano were on the other side. The pursuers hunted up and down until they found a favorable spot in the stream, and then waiting until it was dark they prepared to cross, using logs as rafts and tacking with the current, and managed it so well that they were over long before daylight without alarming the enemy. The trail was now fresh, and following it they soon came upon the camp, which was asleep and all unguarded, the Shawano, thinking themselves now safe in their own country, having neglected to post sentinels. Rushing in with their knives and tomahawks, the Cherokee fell upon their sleeping foe and killed a number of them before the others could wake and seize their arms to defend themselves. Then there was a short, desperate encounter, but the Shawano were taken at a disadvantage, their leader himself being among the first killed, and in a few moments they broke and ran, every man for himself, to escape as best he could. The Cherokee released the captives, whom they found tied to trees, and after taking the scalps from the dead Shawano, with their guns and other equipments, returned to their own country. 102. THE FALSE WARRIORS OF CHILHOWEE Some warriors of Chilhowee town, on Little Tennessee, organized a war party, as they said, to go against the Shawano. They started off north along the great war trail, but when they came to Pigeon river they changed their course, and instead of going on toward the Shawano country they went up the river and came in at the back of Cowee, one of the Middle settlements of their own tribe. Here they concealed themselves near the path until a party of three or four unsuspecting townspeople came by, when they rushed out and killed them, took their scalps and a gun belonging to a man named Gûñskali'ski, and then hurriedly made their way home by the same roundabout route to Chilhowee, where they showed the fresh scalps and the gun, and told how they had met the Shawano in the north and defeated them without losing a man. According to custom, preparations were made at once for a great scalp dance to celebrate the victory over the Shawano. The dance was held in the townhouse and all the people of the settlement were there and looked on, while the women danced with the scalps and the gun, and the returned warriors boasted of their deeds. As it happened, among those looking on was a visitor from Cowee, a gunstocker, who took particular notice of the gun and knew it at once as one he had repaired at home for Gûñskali'ski. He said nothing, but wondered much how it had come into possession of the Shawano. The scalp dance ended, and according to custom a second dance was appointed to be held seven days later, to give the other warriors also a chance to boast of their own war deeds. The gunstocker, whose, name was Gûlsadihi', returned home to Cowee, and there heard for the first time how a Shawano war party had surprised some of the town people, killed several, and taken their scalps and a gun. He understood it all then, and told the chief that the mischief had been done, not by a hostile tribe, but by the false men of Chilhowee. It seemed too much to believe, and the chief said it could not be possible, until the gunstocker declared that he had recognized the gun as one he had himself repaired for the man who had been killed. At last they were convinced that his story was true, and all Cowee was eager for revenge. It was decided to send ten of their bravest warriors, under the leadership of the gunstocker, to the next dance at Chilhowee, there to take their own method of reprisal. Volunteers offered at once for the service. They set out at the proper time and arrived at Chilhowee on the night the dance was to begin. As they crossed the stream below the town they met a woman coming for water and took their first revenge by killing her. Men, women, and children were gathered in the townhouse, but the Cowee men concealed themselves outside and waited. In this dance it was customary for each warrior in turn to tell the story of some deed against the enemy, putting his words into a song which he first whispered to the drummer, who then sang with him, drumming all the while. Usually it is serious business, but occasionally, for a joke, a man will act the clown or sing of some extravagant performance that is so clearly impossible that all the people laugh. One man after another stepped into the ring and sang of what he had done against the enemies of his tribe. At last one of the late war party rose from his seat, and after a whisper to the drummer began to sing of how they had gone to Cowee and taken scalps and the gun, which he carried as he danced. The chief and the people, who knew nothing of the treacherous act, laughed heartily at what they thought was a great joke. But now the gunstocker, who had been waiting outside with the Cowee men, stripped off his breechcloth and rushed naked into the townhouse. Bending down to the drummer--who was one of the traitors, but failed to recognize Gûlsadihi'--he gave him the words, and then straightening up he began to sing, "Hi! Ask who has done this!" while he danced around the circle, making insulting gestures toward everyone there. The song was quick and the drummer beat very fast. He made one round and bent down again to the drummer, then straightened up and sang, "Yu! I have killed a pregnant woman at the ford and thrown her body into the river!" Several men started with surprise, but the chief said, "He is only joking; go on with the dance," and the drummer beat rapidly. Another round and he bent down again to the drummer and then began to sing, "We thought our enemies were from the north, but we have followed them and they are here!" Now the drummer knew at last what it all meant and he drummed very slowly, and the people grew uneasy. Then, without waiting on the drummer, Gûlsadihi' sang, "Cowee will have a ball play with you!"--and everyone knew this was a challenge to battle--and then fiercely: "But if you want to fight now my men are ready to die here!" With that he waved his hand and left the townhouse. The dancers looked at each other uneasily and some of them rose to go. The chief, who could not understand it, urged them to go on with the dance, but it was of no avail. They left the townhouse, and as they went out they met the Cowee men standing with their guns ready and their hatchets in their belts. Neither party said anything, because they were still on friendly ground, but everyone knew that trouble was ahead. The Cowee men returned home and organized a strong party of warriors from their own and all the neighboring Middle settlements to go and take vengeance on Chilhowee and on Kuwâ'hi, just below, which had also been concerned in the raid. They went down the Tennessee and crossed over the mountains, but when they came on the other side they found that their enemies had abandoned their homes and fled for refuge to the remoter settlements or to the hostile Shawano in the north. 103. COWEE TOWN Cowee', properly Kawi'yi, abbreviated Kawi', was the name of two Cherokee settlements, one of which existed in 1755 on a branch of Keowee river, in upper South Carolina, while the other and more important was on Little Tennessee river, at the mouth of Cowee creek, about 10 miles below the present Franklin, in North Carolina. It was destroyed by the Americans in 1876, when it contained about a hundred houses, but was rebuilt and continued to be occupied until the cession of 1819. The name can not be translated, but may possibly mean "the place of the Deer clan" (Ani'-Kawi'). It was one of the oldest and largest of the Cherokee towns, and when Wafford visited it as a boy he found the trail leading to it worn so deep in places that, although on horseback, he could touch the ground with his feet on each side. There is a story, told by Wafford as a fact, of a Shawano who had been a prisoner there, but had escaped to his people in the north, and after the peace between the two tribes wandered back into the neighborhood on a hunting trip. While standing on a hill overlooking the valley he saw several Cherokee on an opposite hill, and called out to them, "Do you still own Cowee?" They shouted in reply, "Yes; we own it yet." Back came the answer from the Shawano, who wanted to encourage them not to sell any more of their lands, "Well, it's the best town of the Cherokee. It's a good country; hold on to it." 104. THE EASTERN TRIBES Besides the Iroquois and Shawano, the Cherokee remember also the Delawares, Tuscarora, Catawba, and Cheraw as tribes to the east or north with which they formerly had relations. The Cherokee call the Delawares Anakwan'`ki, in the singular Akwan'`ki, a derivative formed according to usual Cherokee phonetic modification from Wapanaq'ki, "Easterners," the generic name by which the Delawares and their nearest kindred call themselves. In the most ancient tradition of the Delawares the Cherokee are called Talega, Tallige, Tallige-wi, etc. [478] In later Delaware tradition they are called Kitu'hwa, and again we find the two tribes at war, for which their neighbors are held responsible. According to the Delaware account, the Iroquois, in one of their forays to the south, killed a Cherokee in the woods and purposely left a Delaware war club near the body to make it appear that the work had been done by men of that tribe. The Cherokee found the body and the club, and naturally supposing that the murder had been committed by the Delawares, they suddenly attacked the latter, the result being a long and bloody war between the two tribes. [479] At this time, i. e., about the end of the seventeenth century, it appears that a part at least of the Cherokee lived on the waters of the Upper Ohio, where the Delawares made continual inroads upon them, finally driving them from the region and seizing it for themselves about the year 1708. [480] A century ago the Delawares used to tell how their warriors would sometimes mingle in disguise with the Cherokee at their night dances until the opportunity came to strike a sudden blow and be off before their enemies recovered from the surprise. Later there seems to have been peace until war was again brought on by the action of the Shawano, who had taken refuge with the Delawares, after having been driven from their old home on Cumberland river by the Cherokee. Feeling secure in their new alliance, the Shawano renewed their raids upon the Cherokee, who retaliated by pursuing them into the Delaware country, where they killed several Delawares by mistake. This inflamed the latter people, already excited by the sight of Cherokee scalps and prisoners brought back through their country by the Iroquois, and another war was the result, which lasted until the Cherokee, tired of fighting so many enemies, voluntarily made overtures for peace in 1768, saluting the Delawares as Grandfather, an honorary title accorded them by all the Algonquian tribes. The Delawares then reprimanded the Shawano, as the cause of the trouble, and advised them to keep quiet, which, as they were now left to fight their battles alone, they were glad enough to do. At the same time the Cherokee made peace with the Iroquois, and the long war with the northern tribes came to an end. The friendly feeling thus established was emphasized in 1779, when the Cherokee sent a message of condolence upon the death of the Delaware chief White-eyes. [481] The Tuscarora, formerly the ruling tribe of eastern North Carolina, are still remembered under the name Ani'-Skalâ'li, and are thus mentioned in the Feather dance of the Cherokee, in which some of the actors are supposed to be visiting strangers from other tribes. As the majority of the Tuscarora fled from Carolina to the Iroquois country about 1713, in consequence of their disastrous war with the whites, their memory has nearly faded from the recollection of the southern Indians. From the scanty light which history throws upon their mutual relations, the two tribes seem to have been almost constantly at war with each other. When at one time the Cherokee, having already made peace with some other of their neighbors, were urged by the whites to make peace also with the Tuscarora, they refused, on the ground that, as they could not live without war, it was better to let matters stand as they were than to make peace with the Tuscarora and be obliged immediately to look about for new enemies with whom to fight. For some years before the outbreak of the Tuscarora war in 1711 the Cherokee had ceased their inroads upon this tribe, and it was therefore supposed that they were more busily engaged with some other people west of the mountains, these being probably the Shawano, whom they drove out of Tennessee about this time. [482] In the war of 1711-1713 the Cherokee assisted the whites against the Tuscarora. In 1731 the Cherokee again threatened to make war upon the remnant of that tribe still residing in North Carolina and the colonial government was compelled to interfere. [483] The Cheraw or Sara, ranging at different periods from upper South Carolina to the southern frontier of Virginia, are also remembered under the name of Ani'-Suwa'li, or Ani'-Suwa'la, which agrees with the Spanish form Xuala of De Soto's chronicle, and Suala, or Sualy, of Lederer. The Cherokee remember them as having lived east of the Blue ridge, the trail to their country leading across the gap at the head of Swannanoa river, east from Asheville. The name of the stream and gap is a corruption of the Cherokee Suwa'li-Nûñnâ'hi, "Suwa'li trail." Being a very warlike tribe, they were finally so reduced by conflicts with the colonial governments and the Iroquois that they were obliged to incorporate with the Catawba, among whom they still maintained their distinct language as late as 1743. [484] The Catawba are known to the Cherokee as Ani'ta'gwa, singular Ata'gwa, or Ta'gwa, the Cherokee attempt at the name by which they are most commonly known. They were the immediate neighbors of the Cherokee on the east and southeast, having their principal settlements on the river of their name, just within the limits of South Carolina, and holding the leading place among all the tribes east of the Cherokee country with the exception of the Tuscarora. On the first settlement of South Carolina there were estimated to be about 7,000 persons in the tribe, but their decline was rapid, and by war and disease their number had been reduced in 1775 to barely 500, including the incorporated remnants of the Cheraw and several smaller tribes. There are now, perhaps, 100 still remaining on a small reservation near the site of their ancient towns. Some local names in the old Cherokee territory seem to indicate the former presence of Catawba, although there is no tradition of any Catawba settlement within those limits. Among such names may be mentioned Toccoa creek, in northeastern Georgia, and Toccoa river, in north-central Georgia, both names being derived from the Cherokee Tagwâ'hi, "Catawba place." An old Cherokee personal name is Ta'gwadihi', "Catawba-killer." The two tribes were hereditary enemies, and the feeling between them is nearly as bitter to-day as it was a hundred years ago. Perhaps the only case on record of their acting together was in the war of 1711-13, when they cooperated with the colonists against the Tuscarora. The Cherokee, according to the late Colonel Thomas, claim to have formerly occupied all the country about the head of the Catawba river, to below the present Morganton, until the game became scarce, when they retired to the west of the Blue ridge, and afterward "loaned" the eastern territory to the Catawba. This agrees pretty well with a Catawba tradition recorded in Schoolcraft, according to which the Catawba--who are incorrectly represented as comparatively recent immigrants from the north--on arriving at Catawba river found their progress disputed by the Cherokee, who claimed original ownership of the country. A battle was fought, with incredible loss on both sides, but with no decisive result, although the advantage was with the Catawba, on account of their having guns, while their opponents had only Indian weapons. Preparations were under way to renew the fight when the Cherokee offered to recognize the river as the boundary, allowing the Catawba to settle anywhere to the east. The overture was accepted and an agreement was finally made by which the Catawba were to occupy the country east of that river and the Cherokee the country west of Broad river, with the region between the two streams to remain as neutral territory. Stone piles were heaped up on the battlefield to commemorate the treaty, and the Broad river was henceforth called Eswau Huppeday (Line river), by the Catawba, the country eastward to Catawba river being left unoccupied. [485] The fact that one party had guns would bring this event within the early historic period. The Catawba assisted the whites against the Cherokee in the war of 1760 and in the later Revolutionary struggle. About 100 warriors, nearly the whole fighting strength of the tribe, took part in the first-mentioned war, several being killed, and a smaller number accompanied Williamson's force in 1776. [486] At the battle fought under Williamson near the present site of Franklin, North Carolina, the Cherokee, according to the tradition related by Wafford, mistook the Catawba allies of the troops for some of their own warriors, and were fighting for some time under this impression before they noticed that the Catawba wore deer tails in their hair so that the whites might not make the same mistake. In this engagement, which was one of the bloodiest Indian encounters of the Revolution, the Cherokee claim that they had actually defeated the troops and their Catawba allies, when their own ammunition gave out and they were consequently forced to retire. The Cherokee leader was a noted war chief named Tsani (John). About 1840 nearly the whole Catawba tribe moved up from South Carolina and joined the eastern band of Cherokee, but in consequence of tribal jealousies they remained but a short time, and afterward returned to their former home, as is related elsewhere. Other tribal names (of doubtful authority) are Ani'-Sa'ni and Ani'-Sawahâ'ni, belonging to people said to have lived toward the north; both names are perhaps intended for the Shawano or Shawnee, properly Ani'-Sawanu'gi. The Ani'-Gili' are said to have been neighbors of the Anin'tsi or Natchez; the name may possibly be a Cherokee form for Congaree. 105. THE SOUTHERN AND WESTERN TRIBES The nearest neighbors of the Cherokee to the south were the Creeks or Muscogee, who found mixed confederacy holding central and southern Georgia and Alabama. They were known to the Cherokee as Ani'-Ku'sa or Ani'-Gu'sa. from Kusa, the principal town of the Upper Creeks, which was situated on Coosa river, southwest from the present Talladega, Alabama. The Lower Creeks, residing chiefly on Chattahoochee river, were formerly always distinguished as Ani-Kawi'ta, from Kawita or Coweta, their ancient capital, on the west side of the river, in Alabama, nearly opposite the present Columbus, Georgia. In number the Creeks were nearly equal to the Cherokee, but differed in being a confederacy of cognate or incorporated tribes, of which the Muscogee proper was the principal. The Cherokee were called by them Tsal-gal'gi or Tsûlgûl'gi, a plural derivative from Tsa'lagi', the proper name of the tribe. The ordinary condition between the two tribes was one of hostility, with occasional intervals of good will. History, tradition, and linguistic evidence combine to show that the Creeks at one time occupied almost the whole of northern Georgia and Alabama, extending a considerable distance into Tennessee and perhaps North Carolina, and were dispossessed by the Cherokee pressing upon them from the north and northeast. This conquest was accomplished chiefly during the first half of the eighteenth century, and culminated with the decisive engagement of Tali'wa about 1755. In most of their early negotiations with the Government the Creeks demanded that the lands of the various tribes be regarded as common property, and that only the boundary between the Indians and the whites be considered. Failing in that, they claimed as theirs the whole region of the Chattahoochee and Coosa, north to the dividing ridge between those streams and the Tennessee, or even beyond to the Tennessee itself, and asserted that any Cherokee settlements within those limits were only by their own permission. In 1783 they claimed the Savannah river as the eastern boundary between themselves and the Cherokee, and asserted their own exclusive right of sale over all the territory between that river and the Oconee. On the other hand the Cherokee as stoutly claimed all to a point some 70 miles south of the present city of Atlanta, on the ground of having driven the Creeks out of it in three successive wars, and asserted that their right had been admitted by the Creeks themselves in a council held to decide the question between the two tribes before the Revolution. By mutual agreement, about 1816, members of either tribe were allowed to settle within the territory claimed by the other. The line as finally established through the mediation of the colonial and Federal governments ran from the mouth of Broad river on Savannah nearly due west across Georgia, passing about 10 miles north of Atlanta, to Coosa river in Alabama, and thence northwest to strike the west line of Alabama about 20 miles south of the Tennessee. [487] Among the names which remain to show the former presence of Creeks north of this boundary are the following: Coweeta, a small creek entering the Little Tennessee above Franklin. North Carolina; Tomatola (Cherokee. Tama'`li), a former town site on Valley river, near Murphy, North Carolina, the name being that of a former Creek town on Chattahoochee: Tomotley (Cherokee, Tama'`li), a ford at another town site on Little Tennessee, above Tellico mouth, in Tennessee: Coosa (Cherokee, Kusa'), an upper creek of Nottely river, in Union county, Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu'gi), a river in northwest Georgia: Chattooga (Cherokee, Tsatu'gi), another river, a head-stream of Savannah: Chattahoochee river (Creek, Chatu-huchi, "pictured rocks"); Coosawatee (Cherokee, Ku'sa-weti'yi, "Old Creek place"), a river in northwestern Georgia; Tali'wa, the Cherokee form of a Creek name for a place on an upper branch of Etowah river in Georgia, probably from the Creek ta'lua or ita'lua, "town"; Euharlee (Cherokee, Yuha'li, said by the Cherokee to be from Yufala or Eufaula, the name of several Creek towns), a creek flowing into lower Etowah river; Suwanee (Cherokee, Suwa`ni) a small creek on upper Chattahoochee, the site of a former Cherokee town with a name which the Cherokee say is Creek. Several other names within the same territory are said by the Cherokee to be of foreign origin, although perhaps not Creek, and may be from the Taskigi language. According to Cherokee tradition as given to Haywood nearly eighty years ago the country about the mouth of Hiwassee river, in Tennessee, was held by the Creeks, while the Cherokee still had their main settlements farther to the north, on the Little Tennessee. In the Shawano war, about the year 1700, the Creeks pretended friendship for the Cherokee while secretly helping their enemies, the Shawano. The Cherokee discovered the treachery, and took occasion, when a party of Creeks was visiting a dance at Itsâ'ti (Echota), the Cherokee capital, to fall upon them and massacre nearly every man. The consequence was a war between the two tribes, with the final result that the Creeks were forced to abandon all their settlements upon the waters of the Tennessee, and to withdraw south to the Coosa and the neighborhood of the "Creek path," an old trading trail from South Carolina, which crossed at the junction of the Oostanaula and Etowah rivers, where now is the city of Rome, Georgia, and struck the Tennessee at the present Guntersville, Alabama. As an incident of this war the same tradition relates how the Cherokee once approached a large Creek settlement "at the island on the Creek path," in Tennessee river, opposite Guntersville, and, concealing their main force, sent a small party ahead to decoy the Creeks to an engagement. The Creek warriors at once crossed over in their canoes to the attack, when the Cherokee suddenly rose up from their ambush, and surrounded the Creeks and defeated them after a desperate battle. Then, taking the captured canoes, they went over to the island and destroyed all that was there. The great leader of the Cherokee in this war was a chief named Bullhead, renowned in tradition for his bravery and skill in strategy. [488] At about the same time, according to Wafford, the Cherokee claim to have driven the Creeks and Shawano from a settlement which they occupied jointly near Savannah, Georgia. There was a tradition among the few old traders still living in upper Georgia in 1890 that a large tract in that part of the State had been won by the Cherokee from the Creeks in a ballplay. [489] There are no Indians now living in that region to substantiate the story. As originally told it may have had a veiled meaning, as among the Cherokee the expression "to play a ball game" is frequently used figuratively to denote fighting a battle. There seems to be no good ground for Bartram's statement that the Cherokee had been dispossessed by the Creeks of the region between the Savannah and the Ocmulgee, in southwestern Georgia, within the historic period. [490] The territory is south of any traditional Cherokee claim, and the statement is at variance with what we know through history. He probably had in mind the Uchee, who did actually occupy that country until incorporated with the Creeks. The victory was not always on one side, however, for Adair states that toward the end of the last war between the two tribes the Creeks, having easily defeated the Cherokee in an engagement, contemptuously sent against them a number of women and boys. According to this writer, the "true and sole cause" of this last war was the killing of some adopted relatives of the Creeks in 1749 by a party of northern Shawano, who had been guided and afterward sheltered by the Cherokee. The war, which he represents as a losing game for the Cherokee, was finally brought to an end through the efforts of the governor of South Carolina, with the unfortunate result to the English that the Creeks encouraged the Cherokee in the war of 1760 and rendered them very essential help in the way of men and ammunition. [491] The battle of Tali'wa, which decided in favor of the Cherokee the long war between themselves and the Creeks, was fought about 1755 or a few years later at a spot on Mountain creek or Long-swamp creek, which enters Etowah river above Canton, Georgia, near where the old trail crossed the river about Long-swamp town. All our information concerning it is traditional, obtained from James Wafford, who heard the story when a boy, about the year 1815, from an old trader named Brian Ward, who had witnessed the battle sixty years before. According to his account, it was probably the hardest battle ever fought between the two tribes, about five hundred Cherokee and twice that number of Creek warriors being engaged. The Cherokee were at first overmatched and fell back, but rallied again and returned to the attack, driving the Creeks from cover so that they broke and ran. The victory was complete and decisive, and the defeated tribe immediately afterward abandoned the whole upper portion of Georgia and the adjacent part of Alabama to the conquerors. Before this battle the Creeks had been accustomed to shift about a good deal from place to place, but thereafter they confined themselves more closely to fixed home locations. It was in consequence of this defeat that they abandoned their town on Nottely river, below Coosa creek, near the present Blairsville, Georgia, their old fields being at once occupied by Cherokee, who moved over from their settlements on the head of Savannah river. As has been already stated, a peace was made about 1759, just in time to enable the Creeks to assist the Cherokee in their war with South Carolina. We hear little more concerning the relations of the two tribes until the Creek war of 1813-14, described in detail elsewhere; after this their histories drift apart. The Yuchi or Uchee, called Ani'-Yu'tsi by the Cherokee, were a tribe of distinct linguistic stock and of considerable importance in early days; their territory bordered Savannah river on both sides immediately below the Cherokee country, and extended some distance westward into Georgia, where it adjoined that of the Creeks. They were gradually dispossessed by the whites, and were incorporated with the Creeks about the year 1740, but retain their separate identity and language to this day, their town being now the largest in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory. According to the testimony of a Cherokee mixed-blood named Ganse'`ti or Rattling-gourd, who was born on Hiwassee river in 1820 and came west with his people in 1838, a number of Yuchi lived, before the Removal, scattered among the Cherokee near the present Cleveland, Tennessee, and on Chickamauga, Cohutta, and Pinelog creeks in the adjacent section of Georgia. They had no separate settlements, but spoke their own language, which he described as "hard and grunting." Some of them spoke also Cherokee and Creek. They had probably drifted north from the Creek country before a boundary had been fixed between the tribes. When Tahlequah was established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation in the West in 1839 a few Yuchi were found already settled at the spot, being supposed to have removed from the East with some Creeks after the chief McIntosh was killed in 1825. They perished in the smallpox epidemic which ravaged the frontier in 1840, and their graves were still pointed out at Tahlequah in 1891. Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil war there was a large and prosperous Yuchi settlement on Cimarron river, in what was afterward the Cherokee strip. Ramsey states that "a small tribe of Uchees" once occupied the country near the mouth of the Hiwassee, and was nearly exterminated in a desperate battle with the Cherokee at the Uchee Old Fields, in Rhea (now Meigs) county, Tennessee, the few survivors retreating to Florida, where they joined the Seminoles. [492] There seems to be no other authority for the statement. Another broken tribe incorporated in part with the Creeks and in part with the Cherokee was that of the Na'`tsi, or Natchez, who originally occupied the territory around the site of the present town of Natchez in southern Mississippi, and exercised a leading influence over all the tribes of the region. In consequence of a disastrous war with the French in 1729-31 the tribe was disrupted, some taking refuge with the Chickasaw, others with the Creeks, either then or later, while others, in 1736, applied to the government of South Carolina for permission to settle on the Savannah river. The request was evidently granted, and we find the "Nachee" mentioned as one of the tribes living with the Catawba in 1743, but retaining their distinct language. In consequence of having killed some of the Catawba in a drunken quarrel they were forced to leave this region, and seem to have soon afterward joined the Cherokee, as we find them twice mentioned in connection with that tribe in 1755. This appears to be the last reference to them in the South Carolina records. [493] Just here the Cherokee tradition takes them up, under the name of Anin'tsi, abbreviated from Ani'-Na'`tsi, the plural of Na'`tsi. From a chance coincidence with the word for pine tree, na`tsi', some English speaking Indians have rendered this name as "Pine Indians." The Cherokee generally agree that the Natchez came to them from South Carolina, though some say that they came from the Creek country. It is probable that the first refugees were from Carolina and were joined later by others from the Creeks and the Chickasaw. Bienville states, in 1742, that some of them had gone to the Cherokee directly from the Chickasaw when they found the latter too hard pressed by the French to be able to care for them. [494] They seem to have been regarded by the Cherokee as a race of wizards and conjurers, a view which was probably due in part to their peculiar religious rites and in part to the interest which belonged to them as the remnant of an extirpated tribe. Although we have no direct knowledge on the subject, there is every reason to suppose that the two tribes had had communication with each other long before the period of the Natchez war. According to the statement of James Wafford, who was born in 1806 near the site of Clarkesville, Ga., when this region was still Indian country, the "Notchees" had their town on the north bank of Hiwassee, just above Peachtree creek, on the spot where a Baptist mission was established by the Rev. Evan Jones in 1821, a few miles above the present Murphy, Cherokee county, North Carolina. On his mother's side he had himself a strain of Natchez blood. His grandmother had told him that when she was a young woman, perhaps about 1755, she once had occasion to go to this town on some business, which she was obliged to transact through an interpreter, as the Natchez had been there so short a time that only one or two spoke any Cherokee. They were all in the one town, which the Cherokee called Gwal`gâ'hi, "Frog place," but he was unable to say whether or not it had a townhouse. In 1824, as one of the census takers for the Cherokee Nation, he went over the same section and found the Natchez then living jointly with the Cherokee in a town called Gû`lani'yi at the junction of Brasstown and Gumlog creeks, tributary to Hiwassee, some 6 miles southeast of their former location and close to the Georgia line. The removal may have been due to the recent establishment of the mission at the old place. It was a large settlement, made up about equally from the two tribes, but by this time the Natchez were not distinguishable in dress or general appearance from the others, and nearly all spoke broken Cherokee, while still retaining their own language. As most of the Indians had come under Christian influences so far as to have quit dancing, there was no townhouse. Harry Smith, who was born about 1820, father of the late chief of the East Cherokee, also remembers them as living on Hiwassee and calling themselves Na'`tsi. Ganse'`ti, already mentioned, states that when he was a boy the Natchez were scattered among the Cherokee settlements along the upper part of Hiwassee, extending down into Tennessee. They had then no separate townhouses. Some of them, at least, had come up from the Creeks, and spoke Creek and Cherokee, as well as their own language, which he could not understand, although familiar with both of the others. They were great dance leaders, which agrees with their traditional reputation for ceremonial and secret knowledge. They went west with the Cherokee at the final removal of the tribe to Indian Territory in 1838. In 1890 there was a small settlement on Illinois river a few miles south of Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, several persons in which still spoke their own language. Some of these may have come with the Creeks, as by an agreement between Creeks and Cherokee about the time of the Removal it had been arranged that citizens of either tribe living within the boundaries claimed by the other might remain without question if they so elected. There are still several persons claiming Natchez descent among the East Cherokee, but the last one said to have been of full Natchez blood, an old woman named Alkini', died about 1895. She was noted for her peculiarities, especially for a drawling tone, said to have been characteristic of her people, as old men remembered them years ago. Haywood, the historian of Tennessee, says that a remnant of the Natchez lived within the present limits of the State as late as 1750, and were even then numerous. He refers to those with the Cherokee, and tells a curious story, which seems somehow to have escaped the notice of other writers. According to his statement, a portion of the Natchez, who had been parceled out as slaves among the French in the vicinity of their old homes after the downfall of their tribe, took advantage of the withdrawal of the troops to the north, in 1758, to rise and massacre their masters and make their escape to the neighboring tribes. On the return of the troops after the fall of Fort Du Quesne they found the settlement at Natchez destroyed and their Indian slaves fled. Some time afterward a French deserter seeking an asylum among the Cherokee, having made his way to the Great Island town, on the Tennessee, just below the mouth of Tellico river, was surprised to find there some of the same Natchez whom he had formerly driven as slaves. He lost no time in getting away from the place to find safer quarters among the mountain towns. Notchy creek, a lower affluent of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee, probably takes its name from these refugees. Haywood states also that, although incorporated with the Cherokee, they continued for a long time a separate people, not marrying or mixing with other tribes, and having their own chiefs and holding their own councils; but in 1823 hardly anything was left of them but the name. [495] Another refugee tribe incorporated partly with the Cherokee and partly with the Creeks was that of the Taskigi, who at an early period had a large town of the same name on the south side of the Little Tennessee, just above the mouth of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee. Sequoya, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet, lived here in his boyhood, about the time of the Revolution. The land was sold in 1819. There was another settlement of the name, and perhaps once occupied by the same people, on the north bank of Tennessee river, in a bend just below Chattanooga, Tennessee, on land sold also in 1819. Still another may have existed at one time on Tuskegee creek, on the south bank of Little Tennessee river, north of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina, on land which was occupied until the Removal in 1838. Taskigi town of the Creek country was on Coosa river, near the junction with the Tallapoosa, some distance above the present Montgomery, Alabama. We find Tasquiqui mentioned as a town in the Creek country visited by the Spanish captain, Juan Pardo, in 1567. The name is evidently the same, though we can not be sure that the location was identical with that of the later town. Who or what the Taskigi were is uncertain and can probably never be known, but they were neither Cherokee nor Muscogee proper. It would seem most probable that they were of Muskhogean affinity, but they may have been an immigrant tribe from another section, or may even have constituted a distinct linguistic stock, representing all that was left of an ancient people whose occupation of the country antedated the coming of the Cherokee and the Creeks. The name may be derived from taska or tasha'ya, meaning "warrior" in several of the Muskhogean dialects. It is not a Cherokee word, and Cherokee informants state positively that the Taskigi were a foreign people, with distinct language and customs. They were not Creeks, Natchez, Uchee, or Shawano, with all of whom the Cherokee were well acquainted under other names. In the townhouse of their settlement at the mouth of Tellico they had an upright pole, from the top of which hung their protecting "medicine," the image of a human figure cut from a cedar log. For this reason the Cherokee in derision sometimes called the place Atsina'-k`taûñ, "Hanging-cedar place." Before the sale of the land in 1819 they were so nearly extinct that the Cherokee had moved in and occupied the ground. Adair, in 1775, mentions the Tae-keo-ge (sic--a double misprint) as one of several broken tribes which the Creeks had "artfully decoyed" to incorporate with them in order to strengthen themselves against hostile attempts. Milfort, about 1780, states that the Taskigi on Coosa river were a foreign people who had been driven by wars to seek an asylum among the Creeks, being encouraged thereto by the kind reception accorded to another fugitive tribe. Their request was granted by the confederacy, and they were given lands upon which they built their town. He puts this event shortly before the incorporation of the Yuchi, which would make it early in the eighteenth century. In 1799, according to Hawkins, the town had but 35 warriors, "had lost its ancient language," and spoke Creek. There is still a "white" or peace town named Taskigi in the Creek Nation in Indian Territory. [496] The nearest neighbors of the Cherokee on the west, after the expulsion of the Shawano, were the Chickasaw, known to the Cherokee as Ani'-Tsi'ksû, whose territory lay chiefly between the Mississippi and the Tennessee, in what is now western Kentucky and Tennessee and the extreme northern portion of Mississippi. By virtue, however, of conquest from the Shawano or of ancient occupancy they claimed a large additional territory to the east of this, including all upon the waters of Duck river and Elk creek. This claim was disputed by the Cherokee. According to Haywood, the two tribes had been friends and allies in the expulsion of the Shawano, but afterward, shortly before the year 1769, the Cherokee, apparently for no sufficient reason, picked a quarrel with the Chickasaw and attacked them in their town at the place afterward known as the Chickasaw Old Fields, on the north side of Tennessee river, some twenty miles below the present Guntersville, Alabama. The Chickasaw defended themselves so well that the assailants were signally defeated and compelled to retreat to their own country. [497] It appears, however, that the Chickasaw, deeming this settlement too remote from their principal towns, abandoned it after the battle. Although peace was afterward made between the two tribes their rival claim continued to be a subject of dispute throughout the treaty period. The Choctaw, a loose confederacy of tribes formerly occupying southern Mississippi and the adjacent coast region, are called Ani'-Tsa'`ta by the Cherokee, who appear to have had but little communication with them, probably because the intermediate territory was held by the Creeks, who were generally at war with one or the other. In 1708 we find mention of a powerful expedition by the Cherokee, Creeks, and Catawba against the Choctaw living about Mobile bay. [498] Of the Indians west of the Mississippi those best known to the Cherokee were the Ani'-Wasa'si, or Osage, a powerful predatory tribe formerly holding most of the country between the Missouri and Arkansas rivers, and extending from the Mississippi far out into the plains. The Cherokee name is a derivative from Wasash', the name by which the Osage call themselves. [499] The relations of the two tribes seem to have been almost constantly hostile from the time when the Osage refused to join in the general Indian peace concluded in 1768 (see "The Iroquois Wars") up to 1822, when the Government interfered to compel an end of the bloodshed. The bitterness was largely due to the fact that ever since the first Cherokee treaty with the United States, made at Hopewell, South Carolina, in 1785, small bodies of Cherokee, resenting the constant encroachments of the whites, had been removing beyond the Mississippi to form new settlements within the territory claimed by the Osage, where in 1817 they already numbered between two and three thousand persons. As showing how new is our growth as a nation, it is interesting to note that Wafford, when a boy, attended near the site of the present Clarkesville, Georgia, almost on Savannah river, a Cherokee scalp dance, at which the women danced over some Osage scalps sent by their relatives in the west as trophies of a recent victory. Other old Cherokee names for western tribes which can not be identified are Tayûñ'ksi, the untranslatable name of a tribe described simply as living in the West; Tsuniya'tiga, "Naked people," described as living in the far West; Gûn'-tsuskwa'`li, "Short-arrows," who lived in the far West, and were small, but great fighters; Yûñ'wini'giski, "Man-eaters," a hostile tribe west or north, possibly the cannibal Atakapa or Tonkawa, of Louisiana or Texas. Their relations with the tribes with which they have become acquainted since the removal to Indian Territory do not come within the scope of this paper. 106. THE GIANTS FROM THE WEST James Wafford, of the western Cherokee, who was born in Georgia in 1806, says that his grandmother, who must have been born about the middle of the last century, told him that she had heard from the old people that long before her time a party of giants had come once to visit the Cherokee. They were nearly twice as tall as common men, and had their eyes set slanting in their heads, so that the Cherokee called them Tsunil' kalû', "The Slant-eyed people," because they looked like the giant hunter Tsul`kalû' (see the story). They said that these giants lived very far away in the direction in which the sun goes down. The Cherokee received them as friends, and they stayed some time, and then returned to their home in the west. The story may be a distorted historical tradition. 107. THE LOST CHEROKEE When the first lands were sold by the Cherokee, in 1721, a part of the tribe bitterly opposed the sale, saying that if the Indians once consented to give up any of their territory the whites would never be satisfied, but would soon want a little more, and a little again, until at last there would be none left for the Indians. Finding all they could say not enough to prevent the treaty, they determined to leave their old homes forever and go far into the West, beyond the Great river, where the white men could never follow them. They gave no heed to the entreaties of their friends, but began preparations for the long march, until the others, finding that they could not prevent their going, set to work and did their best to fit them out with pack horses loaded with bread, dried venison, and other supplies. When all was ready they started, under the direction of their chief. A company of picked men was sent with them to help them in crossing the Great river, and every night until they reached it runners were sent back to the tribe, and out from the tribe to the marching band, to carry messages and keep each party posted as to how the other was getting along. At last they came to the Mississippi, and crossed it by the help of those warriors who had been sent with them. These then returned to the tribe, while the others kept on to the west. All communication was now at an end. No more was heard of the wanderers, and in time the story of the lost Cherokee was forgotten or remembered only as an old tale. Still the white man pressed upon the Cherokee and one piece of land after another was sold, until as years went on the dispossessed people began to turn their faces toward the west as their final resting place, and small bands of hunters crossed the Mississippi to learn what might be beyond. One of these parties pushed on across the plains and there at the foot of the great mountains--the Rockies--they found a tribe speaking the old Cherokee language and living still as the Cherokee had lived before they had ever known the white man or his ways. 108. THE MASSACRE OF THE ANI'-KUTA'NI Among other perishing traditions is that relating to the Ani'-Kuta'ni or Ani'-Kwata'ni, concerning whom the modern Cherokee know so little that their very identity is now a matter of dispute, a few holding that they were an ancient people who preceded the Cherokee and built the mounds, while others, with more authority, claim that they were a clan or society in the tribe and were destroyed long ago by pestilence or other calamity. Fortunately, we are not left to depend entirely upon surmise in the matter, as the tradition was noted by Haywood some seventy years ago, and by another writer some forty years later, while the connected story could still be obtained from competent authorities. From the various statements it would seem that the Ani'-Kuta'ni were a priestly clan, having hereditary supervision of all religious ceremonies among the Cherokee, until, in consequence of having abused their sacred privileges, they were attacked and completely exterminated by the rest of the tribe, leaving the priestly functions to be assumed thereafter by individual doctors and conjurers. Haywood says, without giving name or details, "The Cherokees are addicted to conjuration to ascertain whether a sick person will recover. This custom arose after the destruction of their priests. Tradition states that such persons lived among their ancestors and were deemed superior to others, and were extirpated long ago, in consequence of the misconduct of one of the priests, who attempted to take the wife of a man who was the brother of the leading chief of the nation." [500] A more detailed statement, on the authority of Chief John Ross and Dr J. B. Evans, is given in 1866 by a writer who speaks of the massacre as having occurred about a century before, although from the dimness of the tradition it is evident that it must have been much earlier: "The facts, though few, are interesting. The order was hereditary; in this respect peculiar, for among Indians seldom, and among the Cherokees never, does power pertain to any family as a matter of right. Yet the family of the Nicotani--for it seems to have been a family or clan--enjoyed this privilege. The power that they exercised was not, however, political, nor does it appear that chiefs were elected from among them. "The Nicotani were a mystical, religious body, of whom the people stood in great awe, and seem to have been somewhat like the Brahmins of India. By what means they attained their ascendancy, or how long it was maintained, can never be ascertained. Their extinction by massacre is nearly all that can be discovered concerning them. They became haughty, insolent, overbearing, and licentious to an intolerable degree. Relying on their hereditary privileges and the strange awe which they inspired, they did not hesitate by fraud or violence to rend asunder the tender relations of husband and wife when a beautiful woman excited their passions. The people long brooded in silence over the oppressions and outrages of this high caste, whom they deeply hated but greatly feared. At length a daring young man, a member of an influential family, organized a conspiracy among the people for the massacre of the priesthood. The immediate provocation was the abduction of the wife of the young leader of the conspiracy. His wife was remarkable for her beauty, and was forcibly abducted and violated by one of the Nicotani while he was absent on the chase. On his return he found no difficulty in exciting in others the resentment which he himself experienced. So many had suffered in the same way, so many feared that they might be made to suffer, that nothing was wanted but a leader. A leader appearing in the person of the young brave whom we have named, the people rose under his direction and killed every Nicotani, young and old. Thus perished a hereditary secret society, since which time no hereditary privileges have been tolerated among the Cherokees." [501] 109. THE WAR MEDICINE Some warriors had medicine to change their shape as they pleased, so that they could escape from their enemies. Once one of these medicine warriors who had been away from home came back and found a strong party of the enemy attacking the settlement while nearly all the men were off on a hunt. The town was on the other side of the river, but his grandmother was there, so he made up his mind to save her. Going down the stream a little way, he hunted until he found a mussel shell. With his medicine he changed this to a canoe, in which he crossed over to his grandmother's house, and found her sitting there, waiting for the enemy to come and kill her. Again he made medicine and put her into a small gourd which he fastened to his belt. Then climbing a tree he changed himself to a swamp woodcock, and with one cry he spread his wings and flew across to the other side of the river, where both took their natural shape again and made their way through the woods to another settlement. There was another great Cherokee warrior, named Dasi`giya'gi, or Shoe-boots, as the whites called him, who lived on Hightower creek, in Georgia. He was so strong that it was said he could throw a corn mortar over a house, and with his magic power could clear a river at one jump. His war medicine was an uktena scale and a very large turtle shell which he got from the Shawano. In the Creek war he put this scale into water and bathed his body with the water, and also burned a piece of the turtle shell and drew a black line around his men with the coal, and he was never wounded and never had a man killed. Some great warriors had a medicine by the aid of which they could dive under the ground as under water, come up among the enemy to kill and scalp one, then dive under the ground again and come up among their friends. Some war captains knew how to put their lives up in the tree tops during a fight, so that even if they were struck by the enemy they could not be killed. Once, in a battle with the Shawano, the Cherokee leader stood directly in front of the enemy and let the whole party shoot at him, but was not hurt until the Shawano captain, who knew this war medicine himself, ordered his men to shoot into the branches above the head of the other. They did this and the Cherokee leader fell dead. 110. INCIDENTS OF PERSONAL HEROISM In the Cherokee war of 1760 when small bodies of the enemy, according to Haywood, were pushing their inroads eastward almost to Salisbury, a party of six or eight warriors was discovered, watched, and followed until they were seen to enter a deserted cabin to pass the night. The alarm was given, and shortly before daylight the whites surrounded the house, posting themselves behind the fodder stack and some outbuildings so as to command both the door and the wide chimney top. They then began to throw fire upon the roof to drive out the Indians, when, as the blaze caught the dry shingles, and death either by fire or bullet seemed certain, one of the besieged warriors called to his companions that it was better that one should be a sacrifice than that all should die, and that if they would follow his directions he would save them, but die himself. He proposed to sally out alone to draw the fire of the besiegers, while his friends stood ready to make for the woods as soon as the guns of the whites were empty. They agreed, and the door was opened, when he suddenly rushed forth, dodging and running in a zigzag course, so that every gun was emptied at him before he fell dead, covered with wounds. While the whites were reloading, the other warriors ran out and succeeded in reaching the woods before the besiegers could recover from their surprise. The historian adds, "How greatly it is to be regretted that the name of this hero is not known to the writer, that it might be recorded with this specimen of Cherokee bravery and patriotism, firmness and presence of mind in the hour of danger." [502] More than once women seem to have shown the courage of warriors when the occasion demanded. At the beginning of the last century there was still living among the Cherokee a woman who had killed her husband's slayer in one of the Revolutionary engagements. For this deed she was treated with so much consideration that she was permitted to join the warriors in the war dance, carrying her gun and tomahawk. The Wahnenauhi manuscript has a tradition of an attack upon a Cherokee town and the killing of the chief by a hostile war party. His wife, whose name was Cuhtahlatah (Gatûñ'lati, "Wild-hemp"?), on seeing her husband fall, snatched up his tomahawk, shouting, "Kill! Kill!" and rushed upon the enemy with such fury that the retreating Cherokee rallied and renewed the battle with so great courage as to gain a complete victory. This may be a different statement of the same incident. In Rutherford's expedition against the Cherokee, in 1776, the Indians made a stand near Waya gap, in the Nantahala mountains, and a hard-fought engagement took place, with a loss to the Americans of nineteen men, although the enemy was finally driven from the ground. After the main body had retreated, an Indian was seen looking out from behind a tree, and was at once shot and killed by the soldiers, who, on going to the spot, found that it was a woman, painted and striped like a warrior and armed with bow and arrows. She had already been shot through the thigh, and had therefore been unable to flee with the rest. 111. THE MOUNDS AND THE CONSTANT FIRE: THE OLD SACRED THINGS Some say that the mounds were built by another people. Others say they were built by the ancestors of the old Ani'-Kitu'hwagi for townhouse foundations, so that the townhouses would be safe when freshets came. The townhouse was always built on the level bottom lands by the river in order that the people might have smooth ground for their dances and ballplays and might be able to go down to water during the dance. When they were ready to build the mound they began by laying a circle of stones on the surface of the ground. Next they made a fire in the center of the circle and put near it the body of some prominent chief or priest who had lately died--some say seven chief men from the different clans--together with an Ulûñsû'ti stone, an uktena scale or horn, a feather from the right wing of an eagle or great tla'nuwa, which lived in those days, and beads of seven colors, red, white, black, blue, purple, yellow, and gray-blue. The priest then conjured all these with disease, so that, if ever an enemy invaded the country, even though he should burn and destroy the town and the townhouse, he would never live to return home. The mound was then built up with earth, which the women brought in baskets, and as they piled it above the stones, the bodies of their great men, and the sacred things, they left an open place at the fire in the center and let down a hollow cedar trunk, with the bark on, which fitted around the fire and protected it from the earth. This cedar log was cut long enough to reach nearly to the surface inside the townhouse when everything was done. The earth was piled up around it, and the whole mound was finished off smoothly, and then the townhouse was built upon it. One man, called the fire keeper, stayed always in the townhouse to feed and tend the fire. When there was to be a dance or a council he pushed long stalks of the ihyâ'ga weed, which some call atsil'-sûñ'ti, "the fire maker" (Erigeron canadense or fleabane), down through the opening in the cedar log to the fire at the bottom. He left the ends of the stalks sticking out and piled lichens and punk around, after which he prayed, and as he prayed the fire climbed up along the stalks until it caught the punk. Then he put on wood, and by the time the dancers were ready there was a large fire blazing in the townhouse. After the dance he covered the hole over again with ashes, but the fire was always smoldering below. Just before the Green-corn dance, in the old times, every fire in the settlement was extinguished and all the people came and got new fire from the townhouse. This was called atsi'la galûñkw'ti'yu, "the honored or sacred fire." Sometimes when the fire in a house went out, the woman came to the fire keeper, who made a new fire by rubbing an ihyâ'ga stalk against the under side of a hard dry fungus that grows upon locust trees. Some say this everlasting fire was only in the larger mounds at Nikwasi', Kitu'hwa, and a few other towns, and that when the new fire was thus drawn up for the Green-corn dance it was distributed from them to the other settlements. The fire burns yet at the bottom of these great mounds, and when the Cherokee soldiers were camped near Kitu'hwa during the civil war they saw smoke still rising from the mound. The Cherokee once had a wooden box, nearly square and wrapped up in buckskin, in which they kept the most sacred things of their old religion. Upon every important expedition two priests carried it in turn and watched over it in camp so that nothing could come near to disturb it. The Delawares captured it more than a hundred years ago, and after that the old religion was neglected and trouble came to the Nation. They had also a great peace pipe, carved from white stone, with seven stem-holes, so that seven men could sit around and smoke from it at once at their peace councils. In the old town of Keowee they had a drum of stone, cut in the shape of a turtle, which was hung up inside the townhouse and used at all the town dances. The other towns of the Lower Cherokee used to borrow it, too, for their own dances. All the old things are gone now and the Indians are different. Miscellaneous Myths and Legends 112. THE IGNORANT HOUSEKEEPER An old man whose wife had died lived alone with his son. One day he said to the young man, "We need a cook here, so you would better get married." So the young man got a wife and brought her home. Then his father said, "Now we must work together and do all we can to help her. You go hunting and bring in the meat and I'll look after the corn and beans, and then she can cook." The young man went into the woods to look for a deer and his father went out into the field to attend to the corn. When they came home at night they were hungry, and the young woman set out a bowl of walnut hominy (kanâ'talu'hi) before them. It looked queer, somehow, and when the old man examined it he found that the walnuts had been put in whole. "Why didn't you shell the walnuts and then beat up the kernels," said he to the young woman. "I didn't know they had to be shelled," she replied. Then the old man said, "You think about marrying and you don't know how to cook," and he sent her away. 113. THE MAN IN THE STUMP A man who had a field of growing corn went out one day to see how it was ripening and climbed a tall stump to get a better view. The stump was hollow and a bear had a nest of cubs in the bottom. The man slipped and fell down upon the cubs, which set up such a squealing that the old she-bear heard them and came climbing down into the stump tail first, in bear fashion, to see what was the matter. The man caught hold of her by the hind legs and the old bear was so frightened that she at once climbed out again, dragging the man, who thus got out of the stump, when the bear ran away. 114. TWO LAZY HUNTERS A party of warriors once started out for a long hunting trip in the mountains. They went on until they came to a good game region, when they set up their bark hut in a convenient place near the river side. Every morning after breakfast they scattered out, each man for himself, to be gone all day, until they returned at night with whatever game they had taken. There was one lazy fellow who went out alone every morning like the others, but only until he found a sunny slope, when he would stretch out by the side of a rock to sleep until evening, returning then to camp empty-handed, but with his moccasins torn and a long story of how he had tramped all day and found nothing. This went on until one of the others began to suspect that something was wrong, and made it his business to find it out. The next morning he followed him secretly through the woods until he saw him come out into a sunny opening, where he sat down upon a large rock, took off his moccasins, and began rubbing them against the rocks until he had worn holes in them. Then the lazy fellow loosened his belt, lay down beside the rock, and went to sleep. The spy set fire to the dry leaves and watched until the flame crept close up to the sleeping man, who never opened his eyes. The spy went back to camp and told what he had seen. About supper time the lazy fellow came in with the same old story of a long day's hunt and no game started. When he had finished the others all laughed and called him a sleepyhead. He insisted that he had been climbing the ridges all day, and put out his moccasins to show how worn they were, not knowing that they were scorched from the fire, as he had slept on until sundown. When they saw the blackened moccasins they laughed again, and he was too much astonished to say a word in his defense; so the captain said that such a liar was not fit to stay with them, and he was driven from the camp. There was another lazy fellow who courted a pretty girl, but she would have nothing to do with him, telling him that her husband must be a good hunter or she would remain single all her life. One morning he went into the woods, and by a lucky accident managed to kill a deer. Lifting it upon his back, he carried it into the settlement, passing right by the door of the house where the girl and her mother lived. As soon as he was out of sight of the house he went by a roundabout course into the woods again and waited until evening, when he appeared with the deer on his shoulder and came down the trail past the girl's house as he had in the morning. He did this the next day, and the next, until the girl began to think he must be killing all the deer in the woods. So her mother--the old women are usually the matchmakers--got ready and went to the young man's mother to talk it over. When she arrived and the greetings were done she said, "Your son must be a good hunter." "No," replied the old woman, "he seldom kills anything." "But he has been killing a great many deer lately." "I haven't seen any," said his mother. "Why, he has been carrying deer past our house twice a day for the last three days." "I don't know what he did with them," said the young man's mother; "he never brought them here." Then the girl's mother was sure there was something wrong, so she went home and told her husband, who followed up the young man's trail into the woods until it brought him to where the body of the deer was hidden, now so far decayed that it had to be thrown away. 115. THE TWO OLD MEN Two old men went hunting. One had an eye drawn down and was called Uk-kwûnagi'ta, "Eye-drawn-down." The other had an arm twisted out of shape and was called Uk-ku'sûñtsûti, "Bent-bow-shape." They killed a deer and cooked the meat in a pot. The second old man dipped a piece of bread into the soup and smacked his lips as he ate it. "Is it good?" said the first old man. Said the other, "Hayû'! uk-kwûnagi'sti--Yes, sir! It will draw down one's eye." Thought the first old man to himself, "He means me." So he dipped a piece of bread into the pot, and smacked his lips as he tasted it. "Do you find it good?" said the other old man. Said his comrade, "Hayû'! uk-ku'sûñtsûteti'--Yes, sir! It will twist up one's arm." Thought the second old man, "He means me"; so he got very angry and struck the first old man, and then they fought until each killed the other. 116. THE STAR FEATHERS A long time ago a warrior of roving disposition went down into the white settlements toward the east, where for the first time he saw a peacock. The beautiful long feathers surprised and delighted him, and by trading some valuable Indian possession of his own he managed to buy a few of them, which he took with him to the mountains and hid, until he was ready to use them, in an old beaver lodge under the river bank. To get into the beaver lodge he had to dive under the water. Then he set to work secretly and made himself a headdress, with the long peacock feathers in the front and trailing out behind and the shorter ones at the sides. At the next dance he wore the new headdress, and asserted that he had been up to the sky and that these were star feathers (see number 9, "What the stars are like"). He made a long speech also, which he pretended was a message he had received from the star spirits to deliver to the people. Everyone wondered at the beautiful feathers, so different from any they had ever seen before. They made no doubt that he had been up to the sky and talked with spirits. He became a great prophet, and used to keep himself hidden all day in the beaver hole, and whenever there was a night gathering for a dance or a council he would suddenly appear among them wearing his feather headdress and give the people a new message from the sky. Then he would leave them again, pretending that he went up to heaven. He grew famous and powerful among all the medicine men, until at last it happened that another Cherokee went down among the white settlements and saw there another peacock, and knew at once that the prophet was a fraud. On his return he quietly told some of his friends, and they decided to investigate. When the next night dance came around the prophet was on hand as usual with a new message fresh from the stars. The people listened reverently, and promised to do all that he commanded. Then he left them, saying that he must return at once to the sky, but as he went out from the circle the spies followed him in the darkness, and saw him go down to the river and dive under the water. They waited, but he did not come up again, and they went back and told the people. The next morning a party went to the spot and discovered the beaver lodge under the bank. One man dived and came up inside, and there he found the prophet sitting with the peacock feathers by his side. 117. THE MOTHER BEAR'S SONG A hunter in the woods one day heard singing in a cave. He came near and peeped in, and it was a mother bear singing to her cubs and telling them what to do when the hunters came after them. Said the mother bear to the cubs, "When you hear the hunters coming down the creek, then-- Tsâ'gi, tsâ'gi, hwi'lahi'; Tsâ'gi, tsâ'gi, hwi'lahi'. Upstream, upstream, you (must) go; Upstream, upstream, you (must) go. "But if you hear them coming up the creek, children, then-- Ge'i, ge'i, hwi'lahi'; Ge'i, ge'i, hwi'lahi'. Downstream, downstream, you (must) go; Downstream, downstream, you (must) go." Another hunter out in the woods one day thought he heard a woman singing to a baby. He followed the sound up to the head of the branch until he came to a cave under the bushes, and inside was a mother bear rocking her cub in her paws and singing to it this baby song, which the Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi used to know before they were turned into bears: Ha'-mama', ha'-mama', ha'-mama', ha'-mama'; Udâ'hale'yi hi'lûñnû, hi'lûñnû; Udâ'hale'yi hi'lûñnû, hi'lûñnû. Let me carry you on my back (four times); On the sunny side go to sleep, go to sleep; On the sunny side go to sleep, go to sleep. 118. BABY SONG, TO PLEASE THE CHILDREN Ha'wiye'-hyuwe', Ha'wiye'-hyuwe', Yu'we-yuwehe', Ha'wiyehyu'-uwe'-- Yâ'nû une'guhi' tsana'sehâ'; E'ti une'guhi' tsana'sehâ'; Yâ'nû nudûñnelû' tsa'nadiskâ'. Ha'wiye'-hyuwe', Ha'wiye'-hyuwe', Yu'we-yuwehe', Ha'wiyehyu'-uwe'-- The Bear is very bad, so they say; Long time ago he was very bad, so they say; The Bear did so and so, they say. 119. WHEN BABIES ARE BORN: THE WREN AND THE CRICKET The little Wren is the messenger of the birds, and pries into everything. She gets up early in the morning and goes round to every house in the settlement to get news for the bird council. When a new baby is born she finds out whether it is a boy or girl and reports to the council. If it is a boy the birds sing in mournful chorus: "Alas! the whistle of the arrow! my shins will burn," because the birds know that when the boy grows older he will hunt them with his blowgun and arrows and roast them on a stick. But if the baby is a girl, they are glad and sing: "Thanks! the sound of the pestle! At her home I shall surely be able to scratch where she sweeps," because they know that after a while they will be able to pick up stray grains where she beats the corn into meal. When the Cricket hears that a girl is born, it also is glad, and says, "Thanks, I shall sing in the house where she lives." But if it is a boy the Cricket laments: "Gwe-he! He will shoot me! He will shoot me! He will shoot me!" because boys make little bows to shoot crickets and grasshoppers. When inquiring as to the sex of the new arrival the Cherokee asks, "Is it a bow or a (meal) sifter?" or, "Is it ballsticks or bread?" 120. THE RAVEN MOCKER Of all the Cherokee wizards or witches the most dreaded is the Raven Mocker (Kâ'lanû Ahyeli'ski), the one that robs the dying man of life. They are of either sex and there is no sure way to know one, though they usually look withered and old, because they have added so many lives to their own. At night, when some one is sick or dying in the settlement, the Raven Mocker goes to the place to take the life. He flies through the air in fiery shape, with arms outstretched like wings, and sparks trailing behind, and a rushing sound like the noise of a strong wind. Every little while as he flies he makes a cry like the cry of a raven when it "dives" in the air--not like the common raven cry--and those who hear are afraid, because they know that some man's life will soon go out. When the Raven Mocker comes to the house he finds others of his kind waiting there, and unless there is a doctor on guard who knows how to drive them away they go inside, all invisible, and frighten and torment the sick man until they kill him. Sometimes to do this they even lift him from the bed and throw him on the floor, but his friends who are with him think he is only struggling for breath. After the witches kill him they take out his heart and eat it, and so add to their own lives as many days or years as they have taken from his. No one in the room can see them, and there is no scar where they take out the heart, but yet there is no heart left in the body. Only one who has the right medicine can recognize a Raven Mocker, and if such a man stays in the room with the sick person these witches are afraid to come in, and retreat as soon as they see him, because when one of them is recognized in his right shape he must die within seven days. There was once a man named Gûñskali'ski, who had this medicine and used to hunt for Raven Mockers, and killed several. When the friends of a dying person know that there is no more hope they always try to have one of these medicine men stay in the house and watch the body until it is buried, because after burial the witches do not steal the heart. The other witches are jealous of the Raven Mockers and afraid to come into the same house with one. Once a man who had the witch medicine was watching by a sick man and saw these other witches outside trying to get in. All at once they heard a Raven Mocker cry overhead and the others scattered "like a flock of pigeons when the hawk swoops." When at last a Raven Mocker dies these other witches sometimes take revenge by digging up the body and abusing it. The following is told on the reservation as an actual happening: A young man had been out on a hunting trip and was on his way home when night came on while he was still a long distance from the settlement. He knew of a house not far off the trail where an old man and his wife lived, so he turned in that direction to look for a place to sleep until morning. When he got to the house there was nobody in it. He looked into the âsi and found no one there either. He thought maybe they had gone after water, and so stretched himself out in the farther corner to sleep. Very soon he heard a raven cry outside, and in a little while afterwards the old man came into the âsi and sat down by the fire without noticing the young man, who kept still in the dark corner. Soon there was another raven cry outside, and the old man said to himself, "Now my wife is coming," and sure enough in a little while the old woman came in and sat down by her husband. Then the young man knew they were Raven Mockers and he was frightened and kept very quiet. Said the old man to his wife, "Well, what luck did you have?" "None," said the old woman, "there were too many doctors watching. What luck did you have?" "I got what I went for," said the old man, "there is no reason to fail, but you never have luck. Take this and cook it and let's have something to eat." She fixed the fire and then the young man smelled meat roasting and thought it smelled sweeter than any meat he had ever tasted. He peeped out from one eye, and it looked like a man's heart roasting on a stick. Suddenly the old woman said to her husband, "Who is over in the corner?" "Nobody," said the old man. "Yes, there is," said the old woman, "I hear him snoring," and she stirred the fire until it blazed and lighted up the whole place, and there was the young man lying in the corner. He kept quiet and pretended to be asleep. The old man made a noise at the fire to wake him, but still he pretended to sleep. Then the old man came over and shook him, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes as if he had been asleep all the time. Now it was near daylight and the old woman was out in the other house getting breakfast ready, but the hunter could hear her crying to herself. "Why is your wife crying?" he asked the old man. "Oh, she has lost some of her friends lately and feels lonesome," said her husband; but the young man knew that she was crying because he had heard them talking. When they came out to breakfast the old man put a bowl of corn mush before him and said, "This is all we have--we have had no meat for a long time." After breakfast the young man started on again, but when he had gone a little way the old man ran after him with a fine piece of beadwork and gave it to him, saying, "Take this, and don't tell anybody what you heard last night, because my wife and I are always quarreling that way." The young man took the piece, but when he came to the first creek he threw it into the water and then went on to the settlement. There he told the whole story, and a party of warriors started back with him to kill the Raven Mockers. When they reached the place it was seven days after the first night. They found the old man and his wife lying dead in the house, so they set fire to it and burned it and the witches together. 121. HERBERT'S SPRING "From the head of the southern branch of Savannah 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 northwest course, and, joining other rivers, they empty themselves into the great Missisippi. The above fountain is called 'Herbert's spring,' so named from an early commissioner of Indian affairs, 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. 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 another such dangerous poison, even though he should be forced to go 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 enlarged diverted themselves much at their cost, for it was a noted favorite place, on account of the name it went by; and, being a well situated and good spring, there all travelers commonly drank a bottle of choice. But now most of the pack-horse 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."--Adair, American Indians, p. 231, 1775. 122. LOCAL LEGENDS OF NORTH CAROLINA Owing chiefly to the fact that the Cherokee still occupy western North Carolina, the existing local legends for that section are more numerous than for all the rest of their ancient territory. For the more important legends see the stories: Agân-unitsi's Search for the Uktena, Atagâ'hi, Hemp-carrier, Herbert's Spring, Kana'sta, The Great Leech of Tlanusi'yi, The Great Yellow-jacket, The Nûñne'hi, The Raid on Tikwali'tsi, The Removed Townhouses, The Spirit Defenders of Nikwasi', The Uw'tsûñ'ta, Tsul`kalû', Tsuwe'nahi, The U`tlûñ'ta. Akwe`ti'yi: A spot on Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, between Dick's creek and the upper end of Cowee tunnel. According to tradition there was a dangerous water monster in the river there. The meaning of the name is lost. Atsi'la-wa'i: "Fire's relative," a peak, sometimes spoken of as Rattlesnake knob, east of Oconaluftee river and about 2 miles northeast of Cherokee or Yellow Hill, in Swain county. So called from a tradition that a ball of fire was once seen to fly through the air from the direction of Highlands, in Macon county, and alight upon this mountain. The Indians believe it to have been an ulûñsûti (see number 50), which its owner had kept in a hiding place upon the summit, from which, after his death, it issued nightly to search for him. Black rock: A very high bald peak toward the head of Scott's creek, northeast of Webster, on the line of Jackson and Haywood counties. Either this peak or the adjacent Jones knob, of equal height, is known to the Cherokee as Ûñ'wadâ-tsu`gilasûñ', "Where the storehouse was taken off," from a large flat rock, supported by four other rocks, so as to resemble a storehouse (ûñwadâ'li) raised on poles, which was formerly in prominent view upon the summit until thrown down by lightning some fifty years ago. Buffalo creek, West: A tributary of Cheowa river, in Graham county. The Cherokee name is Yûnsâi'i, "Buffalo place," from a tradition that a buffalo formerly lived under the water at its mouth (see Tsuta'tsinasûñ'yi). Cheowa Maximum: A bald mountain at the head of Cheowa river, on the line between Graham and Macon counties. This and the adjoining peak, Swim bald, are together called Sehwate'yi, "Hornet place," from a monster hornet, which, according to tradition, formerly had its nest there, and could be seen flying about the tree tops or sunning itself on the bald spots, and which was so fierce that it drove away every one who came near the mountain. It finally disappeared. Dakwâ'i: "Dakwa' place," in French Broad river, about 6 miles above Warm Springs, in Madison county, and 30 miles below Asheville. A dakwa' or monster fish is said to have lived in the stream at that point. Da'`nawa-(a) Sa'`tsûñyi: "War crossing," a ford in Cheowa river about 3 miles below Robbinsville, in Graham county. A hostile war party from the North, probably Shawano or Iroquois, after having killed a man on Cheowa, was pursued and crossed the river at this place. Datle'yasta'i: "Where they fell down," on Tuckasegee river, at the bend above Webster, in Jackson county, where was formerly the old town of Gansâ'gi (Conasauga). Two large uktenas, twined about each other as though in combat, were once seen to lift themselves from a deep hole in the river there and fall back into the water. Dâtsi'yi: "Dâtsi place," just above Eagle creek, on Little Tennessee river, between Graham and Swain counties. So called from a traditional water monster of that name, said to have lived in a deep hole in the stream. Degal`gûñ'yi: "Where they are piled up," a series of cairns on both sides of the trail down the south side of Cheowa river, in Graham county. They extend along the trail for several miles, from below Santeetla creek nearly to Slick Rock creek, on the Tennessee line (the first being just above Disgâ'gisti'yi, q. v.), and probably mark the site of an ancient battle. One at least, nearly off Yellow creek, is reputed to be the grave of a Cherokee killed by the enemy. Every passing Indian throws an additional stone upon each heap, believing that some misfortune will befall him should he neglect this duty. Other cairns are on the west side of Slick Rock creek about a mile from Little Tennessee river, and others south of Robbinsville, near where the trail crosses the ridge to Valleytown, in Cherokee county. Dida'skasti'yi: "Where they were afraid of each other," a spot on the east side of Little Tennessee river, near the mouth of Alarka creek, in Swain county. A ball game once arranged to take place there, before the Removal, between rival teams from Qualla and Valleytown, was abandoned on account of the mutual fear of the two parties. Disgâ'gisti'yi: "Where they gnaw," a spot where the trail down the south side of Cheowa river crosses a small branch about half way between Cockram creek and Yellow creek, in Graham county. Indians passing gnaw the twigs from the laurel bushes here, in the belief that if they should fail to do so they will encounter some misfortune before crossing the next ridge. Near by is a cairn to which each also adds a stone (see Degal`gûñ'yi). Duduñ'leksûñ'yi: "Where its legs were broken off," a spot on the east side of Tuckasegee river, opposite the mouth of Cullowhee river, a few miles above Webster, in Jackson county. The name suggests a tradition, which appears to be lost. Dulastûñ'yi: "Potsherd place," a former settlement on Nottely river, in Cherokee county, near the Georgia line. A half-breed Cherokee ball captain who formerly lived there, John Butler or Tsan-uga'sita (Sour John), having been defeated in a ball game, said, in contempt of his men, that they were of no more use than broken pots. Dunidû'lalûñyi: "Where they made arrows," on Straight creek, a head-stream of Oconaluftee river, near Cataluchee peak, in Swain county. A Shawano war party coming against the Cherokee, after having crossed the Smoky mountains, halted there to prepare arrows. French Broad river: A magazine writer states that the Indians called this stream "the racing river." This is only partially correct. The Cherokee have no name for the river as a whole, but the district through which it flows about Asheville is called by them Un-ta'kiyasti'yi, "Where they race." The name of the city they translate as Kâsdu'yi, "Ashes place." Gakati'yi: "Place of setting free," a south bend in Tuckasegee river about 3 miles above Bryson City, in Swain county. It is sometimes put in the plural form, Diga'katiyi, "Place of setting them free." In one of their old wars the Cherokee generously released some prisoners there. Gatuti'yi: "Town-building place," near the head of Santeetla creek, southwest from Robbinsville, in Graham county. High up on the slopes of the neighboring mountain, Stratton bald, is a wide "bench," where the people once started to build a settlement, but were frightened off by a strange noise, which they thought was made by an uktena. Gi`li'-Dinehûñ'yi: "Where the dogs live," a deep place in Oconaluftee river, Swain county, a short distance above Yellow Hill (Cherokee) and just below the mound. It is so named from a tradition that two "red dogs" were once seen there playing on the bank. They were supposed to live under the water. Gisehûñ'yi: "Where the Female lives," on Tuckasegee river, about 2 miles above Bryson City, Swain county. There is a tradition that some supernatural "white people" were seen there washing clothes in the river and hanging them out upon the bank to dry. They were probably supposed to be the family of the Agis'-e'gwa, or "Great Female," a spirit invoked by the conjurers. Gregory bald: A high peak of the Great Smoky mountains on the western border of Swain county, adjoining Tennessee. The Cherokee call it Tsistu'yi, "Rabbit place." Here the rabbits had their townhouse and here lived their chief, the Great Rabbit, and in the old times the people could see him. He was as large as a deer, and all the little rabbits were subject to him. Joanna bald: A bald mountain near the head of Valley river, on the line between Graham and Cherokee counties. Called Diyâ'hali'yi, "Lizard place," from a traditional great lizard, with glistening throat, which used to haunt the place and was frequently seen sunning itself on the rocky slopes. Jutaculla old fields: A bald spot of perhaps a hundred acres on the slope of Tennessee bald (Tsul`kalû' Tsunegûñ'yi), at the extreme head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, on the ridge from which the lines of Haywood, Jackson, and Transylvania counties diverge. The giant Tsul`kalû', or Jutaculla, as the name is corrupted by the whites, had his residence in the mountain (see story), and according to local legend among the whites, said to be derived from the Indians, this bald spot was a clearing which he made for a farm. Some distance farther to the west, on the north bank of Cany fork, about 1 mile above Moses creek and perhaps 10 miles above Webster, in the same county, is the Jutaculla rock, a large soapstone slab covered with rude carvings, which, according to the same tradition, are scratches made by the giant in jumping from his farm on the mountain to the creek below. Jutaculla rock: See Jutaculla old fields. Kâl-Detsi'yûñyi: "Where the bones are," a ravine on the north side of Cheowa river, just above the mouth of East Buffalo creek, in Graham county. In the old time two Cherokee were killed here by the enemy, and their fate was unknown until, long afterward, their friends found their bones scattered about in the ravine. Nantahala: A river and ridge of very steep mountains in Macon county, the name being a corruption of Nûñ'daye'`li, applied to a former settlement about the mouth of Briertown creek, the townhouse being on the west side of the river, about the present Jarretts. The word means "middle sun," i. e., "midday sun," from nûñda', "sun," and aye'`li, "middle," and refers to the fact that in places along the stream the high cliffs shut out the direct light of the sun until nearly noon. From a false idea that it is derived from unûñti, "milk," it has been fancifully rendered, "Center of a woman's breast," "Maiden's bosom," etc. The valley was the legendary haunt of the Uw'tsûñ'ta (see number 45). As illustrating the steepness of the cliffs along the stream it was said of a noted hunter, Tsasta'wi, who lived in the old town, that he used to stand on the top of the bluff overlooking the settlement and throw down upon the roof of his house the liver of the freshly killed deer, so that his wife would have it cooked and waiting for him by the time he got down the mountain. Nugatsa'ni: A ridge below Yellow Hill (Cherokee), on Oconaluftee river, in Swain county, said to be a resort of the Nûñne'hi fairies. The word is an archaic form denoting a high ridge with a long, gradual slope. Qualla: A post-office and former trading station in Jackson county, on the border of the present East Cherokee reservation, hence sometimes called the Qualla reservation. The Cherokee form is Kwali, or Kwalûñyi in the locative. According to Captain Terrell, the former trader at that place, it was named from Kwali, i. e., Polly, an old Indian woman who lived there some sixty years ago. Saligu'gi: "Turtle place," a deep hole in Oconaluftee river, about half a mile below Adams creek, near Whittier, in Swain county, said to be the resort of a monster turtle. Skwan'-digû`gûñ'yi: For Askwan'-digû`gûñ'yi, "Where the Spaniard is in the water," on Soco creek, just above the entrance of Wright's creek, in Jackson county. According to tradition a party of Spaniards advancing into the mountains was attacked here by the Cherokee, who threw one of them (dead?) into the stream. Soco gap: Ahalu'na, A'halunûñ'yi, or Uni'halu'na, "Ambush," or "Where they ambushed"; at the head of Soco creek, on the line between Swain and Haywood counties. The trail from Pigeon river crosses this gap, and in the old times the Cherokee were accustomed to keep a lookout here for the approach of enemies from the north. On the occasion which gave it the name, they ambushed here, just below the gap, on the Haywood side, a large party of invading Shawano, and killed all but one, whose ears they cut off, after which, according to a common custom, they released him to carry the news back to his people. Standing Indian: A high bald peak at the extreme head of Nantahala river, in Macon county. The name is a rendering of the Cherokee name, Yûñ'wi-tsulenûñ'yi, "Where the man stood" (originally Yû'ñwi-dikatâgûñ'yi, "Where the man stands"), given to it on account of a peculiarly shaped rock formerly jutting out from the bald summit, but now broken off. As the old memory faded, a tradition grew up of a mysterious being once seen standing upon the mountain top. Stekoa: A spot on Tuckasegee river, just above Whittier, in Swain county, better known as the Thomas farm, from its being the former residence of Colonel W. H. Thomas, for a long time the agent of the East Cherokee. The correct form is Stikâ'yi, the name of an ancient settlement at the place, as also of another on a creek of the same name in Rabun county, Georgia. The word has been incorrectly rendered "little grease," from usdi'ga or usdi', "little," and ka'i, "grease" or "oil," but the true meaning is lost. Swannanoa: A river joining the French Broad at Asheville, and the gap in the Blue ridge at its head. A magazine writer has translated this name "the beautiful." The word, however, is a corruption of Suwa'li-nûñnâ'(-hi), "Suwali trail," the Cherokee name, not of the stream, but of the trail crossing the gap toward the country of the Ani'-Suwa'li or Cheraw (see number 104, "The Eastern Tribes"). Swim bald or Wolf Creek bald. See Cheowa Maximum. Tsi'skwunsdi'-adsisti'yi: "Where they killed Little-bird," a place near the head of West Buffalo creek, southwest of Robbinsville, in Graham county. A trail crosses the ridge near this place, which takes its name from a man who was killed here by a hostile war party in the old fighting days. Tsu'dinûñti'yi: "Throwing down place," the site of a former settlement in a bend on the west side of Nantahala river, just within the limits of Macon county. So called from a tradition that a Cherokee pursued by the enemy threw away his equipment there. Tsukilûñnûñ'yi: "Where he alighted," two small bald spots on the side of the mountain at the head of Little Snowbird creek, southwest of Robbinsville, in Graham county. A mysterious being, having the form of a giant, with head blazing like the sun, was once seen to fly through the air, alight at this place, and stand for some time looking out over the landscape. It then flew away, and when the people came afterward to look, they found the herbage burned from the ground where it had stood. They do not know who it was, but some think it may have been the Sun. Tsulâ'sinûñ'yi: "Where the footprint is," on Tuckasegee river, about a mile above Deep creek, in Swain county. From a rock now blasted out to make way for the railroad, on which were impressions said to have been the footprints of the giant Tsul`kalû' (see story) and a deer. Tsunda`nilti'yi: "Where they demanded the debt from him," a fine camping ground, on the north side of Little Santeetla creek, about halfway up, west from Robbinsville, Graham county. Here a hunter once killed a deer, which the others of the party demanded in payment of a debt due them. The Cherokee commonly give the creek the same name. Tsûta'ga Uweyûñ'i: "Chicken creek," an extreme eastern head-stream of Nantahala river, entering about 4 miles above Clear branch, in Macon county. So called from a story that some hunters camping there for the night once heard a noise as of chickens constantly crowing upon a high rock farther up the stream. Tsuta'tsinâsûñ'yi: "Where it eddies," a deep hole at the mouth of Cockram creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, where is an eddy said to be caused by a buffalo which lives under the water at this spot, and which anciently lived at the mouth of West Buffalo creek, farther up the river. Tusquittee bald: A bald mountain at the head of Tusquittee creek, eastward from Hayesville, in Clay county. The Cherokee name is Tsuwa'-uniyetsûñ'yi, "Where, the water-dogs laughed," the water-dog of the southern Alleghenies, sometimes also called mud-puppy or hell-bender, being a large amphibious lizard or salamander of the genus Menopoma, frequenting muddy waters. According to the story, a hunter once crossing over the mountain in a very dry season, heard voices, and creeping silently toward the place from which the sound proceeded, peeped over a rock and saw two water-dogs walking together on their hind legs along the trail and talking as they went. Their pond had dried up and they were on the way over to Nantahala river. As he listened one said to the other, "Where's the water? I'm so thirsty that my apron (gills) hangs down," and then both water-dogs laughed. Ukte'na-tsuganûñ'tatsûñ'yi: "Where the uktena fastened," a spot on Tuckasegee river, about 2 miles above Deep creek, near Bryson City, in Swain county. There is a tradition that an uktena, trying to make his way upstream, became fastened here, and in his struggles pried up some large rocks now lying in the bed of the river, and left deep scratches upon other rocks along the bank. Ukte'na-utansi'nastûñ'yi: "Where the uktena crawled," a large rock on the Hyatt farm, on the north bank of Tuckasegee river, about four miles above Bryson City, in Swain county. In the rock bed of the stream and along the rocks on the side are wavy depressions said to have been made by an uktena in going up the river. Untlasgâsti'yi: "Where they scratched," at the head of Hyatt creek, of Valley river, in Cherokee county. According to hunting tradition, every animal on arriving at this spot was accustomed to scratch the ground like a turkey. Vengeance creek: A south tributary of Valley river, in Cherokee county. So called by the first settlers from an old Indian woman who lived there and whom they nicknamed "Vengeance," on account of her cross looks. The Cherokee call the district Gansa`ti'yi, "Robbing place," from their having robbed a trader there in the Revolution. Waya gap: A gap in the Nantahala mountains, in Macon county, where the trail crosses from Laurel creek of Nantahala river to Cartoogaja creek of the Little Tennessee. The Cherokee call it A`tâhi'ta, "Shouting place." For the tradition see number 13. It was the scene of a stubborn encounter in the Revolution (see page 49). The name Waya appears to be from the Cherokee wa'`ya, "wolf." Webster: The county seat of Jackson county, on Tuckasegee river. Known to the Cherokee as Unadanti'yi, "Where they conjured." The name properly belongs to a gap 3 miles east of Webster, on the trail going up Scotts creek. According to tradition, a war party of Shawano, coming from the direction of Pigeon river, halted here to "make medicine" against the Cherokee, but while thus engaged were surprised by the latter, who came up from behind and killed several, including the conjurer. Yâ'nû-dinehûñ'yi: "Where the bears live," on Oconaluftee river, about a mile above its junction with Tuckasegee, in Swain county. A family of "water bears" is said to live at the bottom of the river in a deep hole at this point. Yâ'nû-u'natawasti'yi: "Where the bears wash," a small pond of very cold, purple water, which has no outlet and is now nearly dried up, in a gap of the Great Smoky mountains, at the extreme head of Raven fork of Oconaluftee, in Swain county. It was said to be a favorite bear wallow, and according to some accounts its waters had the same virtues ascribed to those of Atagâ'hi (see number 69). Yawâ'i: "Yawa place," a spot on the south side of Yellow creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, about a mile above the trail crossing near the mouth of the creek. The legend is that a mysterious personage, apparently a human being, formerly haunted a round knob near there, and was sometimes seen walking about the top of the knob and crying, Yawa'! Yawa'! while the sound of invisible guns came from the hill, so that the people were afraid to go near it. 123. LOCAL LEGENDS OF SOUTH CAROLINA As the Cherokee withdrew from all of South Carolina except a small strip in the extreme west as early as 1777, the memory of the old legends localized within the state has completely faded from the tribe. There remain, however, some local names upon which the whites who succeeded to the inheritance have built traditions of more or less doubtful authenticity. In Pickens and Anderson counties, in the northwest corner of the state, is a series of creeks joining Keowee river and named, respectively in order, from above downward, Mile, Six-mile, Twelve-mile, Eighteen-mile, Twenty-three-mile, and Twenty-six-mile. According to the local story, they were thus christened by a young woman, in one of the early Indian wars, as she crossed each ford on a rapid horseback flight to the lower settlements to secure help for the beleaguered garrison of Fort Prince George. The names really date back almost to the first establishment of the colony, and were intended to indicate roughly the distances along the old trading path from Fort Ninety-six, on Henleys creek of Saluda river, to Keowee, at that time the frontier town of the Cherokee Nation, the two points being considered 96 miles apart as the trail ran. Fort Prince George was on the east bank of Keowee river, near the entrance of Crow creek, and directly opposite the Indian town. Conneross: The name of a creek which enters Keowee (or Seneca) river from the west, in Anderson county; it is a corruption of the Lower Cherokee dialectic form, Kawân'-urâ'sûñyi or Kawân'-tsurâ'-sûñyi, "Where the duck fell off." According to the still surviving Cherokee tradition, a duck once had her nest upon a cliff overlooking the stream in a cave with the mouth so placed that in leaving the nest she appeared to fall from the cliff into the water. There was probably an Indian settlement of the same name: Toxaway: The name of a creek and former Cherokee settlement at the extreme head of Keowee river; it has been incorrectly rendered "Place of shedding tears," from daksawa'ihû, "he is shedding tears." The correct Cherokee form of the name is Dûksa'i or Dûkw'sa'i, a word which can not be analyzed and of which the meaning is now lost. 124. LOCAL LEGENDS OF TENNESSEE For the more important legends localized in Tennessee see the stories The Hunter in the Dakwa', The Nest of the Tla'nuwa, The Removed Townhouses, The Haunted Whirlpool, Ûñtsaiyi', and U`tlûñ'ta. Buffalo Track rock: This rock, of which the Indian name is now lost, is indefinitely mentioned as located southwest from Cumberland gap, on the northern border of the state. According to Wafford, it was well known some eighty years ago to the old Cherokee hunters, who described it as covered with deep impressions made by buffalo running along the rock and then butting their heads, as though in mad fury, against a rock wall, leaving the prints of their heads and horns in the stone. Chattanooga: This city, upon Tennessee river, near the entrance of the creek of the same name in Hamilton county, was incorporated in 1848. So far as is known there was no Cherokee settlement at the place, although some prominent men of the tribe lived in the vicinity. The name originally belonged to some location upon the creek. The Cherokee pronounce it Tsatanu'gi, but say that it is not a Cherokee word and has no meaning in their language. The best informants express the opinion that it was from the Chickasaw (Choctaw) language, which seems possible, as the Chickasaw country anciently extended a considerable distance up the Tennessee, the nearest settlement being within 80 miles of the present city. The Cherokee sometimes call the city A`tla'nuwa', "Tla'nuwa (Hawk) hole," that being their old name for a bluff on the south side of the river at the foot of the present Market street. From this circumstance probably originated the statement by a magazine writer that the name Chattanooga signifies "The crow's nest." Chickamauga: The name of two creeks in Hamilton county, entering Tennessee river from opposite sides a few miles above Chattanooga. A creek of the same name is one of the head-streams of Chattahoochee river, in White county, Georgia. The Cherokee pronounce it Tsikama'gi, applying the name in Tennessee to the territory about the mouth of the southern, or principal, stream, where they formerly had a town, from which they removed in 1782. They state, however, that it is not a Cherokee word and has no meaning in their language. Filson, in 1793, erroneously states that it is from the Cherokee language and signifies "Boiling pot," referring to a dangerous whirlpool in the river near by, and later writers have improved upon this by translating it to mean "Whirlpool." The error arises from confounding this place with The Suck, a whirlpool in Tennessee river 15 miles farther down and known to the Cherokee as Ûñtiguhi', "Pot in the water" (see number 63, "Ûñtsaiyi', the Gambler"). On account of the hard fighting in the neighborhood during the Civil war, the stream was sometimes called, poetically, "The River of Death," the term being frequently given as a translation of the Indian word. It has been suggested that the name is derived from an Algonquian word referring to a fishing or fish-spearing place, in which case it may have originated with the Shawano, who formerly occupied middle Tennessee, and some of whom at a later period resided jointly with the Cherokee in the settlements along this part of the river. If not Shawano it is probably from the Creek or Chickasaw. Concerning "Chickamauga gulch," a canyon on the northern stream of that name, a newspaper writer gives the following so-called legend, which it is hardly necessary to say is not genuine: The Cherokees were a tribe singularly rich in tradition, and of course so wild, gloomy, and remarkable a spot was not without its legend. The descendants of the expatriated semi-barbarians believe to this day that in ages gone a great serpent made its den in the gulch, and that yearly he demanded of the red men ten of their most beautiful maidens as a sacrificial offering. Fearful of extermination, the demand was always complied with by the tribe, amid weeping and wailing by the women. On the day before the tribute was due the serpent announced its presence by a demoniacal hiss, and the next morning the fair ones who had been chosen to save the tribe were taken to the summit of a cliff and left to be swallowed by the scaly Moloch. Chilhowee: A mountain and station on the north side of Little Tennessee river, in Blount county. The correct Cherokee form is Tsû`lûñwe'i, applied to the lower part of Abrams creek, which enters the river from the north just above. The meaning of the word is lost, although it may possibly have a connection with tsû`lû, "kingfisher." It has been incorrectly rendered "fire deer," an interpretation founded on the false assumption that the name is compounded from atsi'la, "fire," and a`wi', "deer," whence, Chil-howee. For legends localized in this vicinity, see the stories noted above. Chilhowee occurs also as the name of a stream in the mountains of southwestern Virginia. Lenoir: On the north bank of the main Tennessee, at the junction of the Little Tennessee, in Loudon county. The Cherokee name is Wa'ginsi', of which the meaning is lost, and was applied originally to an eddy in the stream, where, it was said, there dwelt a large serpent, to see which was an omen of evil. On one occasion a man crossing the river at this point saw the snake in the water and soon afterward lost one of his children. Morganton: On a rocky hill on the old Indian trail on the west side of Little Tennessee river, above and nearly opposite Morganton, in Loudon county, are, or were a few years ago, four trees blazed in a peculiar manner, concerning which the Indians had several unsatisfactory stories, the most common opinion being that the marks were very old and had been made by Indians to indicate the position of hidden mines. Nashville: The state capital, in Davidson county. The Cherokee name is Dagû'nawela'hi, "Mussel-liver place," which would seem to have originated in some now forgotten legend. Nickajack: A creek entering Tennessee river from the south about 15 miles below Chattanooga. Near its mouth is a noted cave of the same name. The Cherokee form is Nikutse'gi, the name of a former settlement of that tribe at the mouth of the creek; but the word has no meaning in that language, and is probably of foreign, perhaps Chickasaw, origin. The derivation from a certain "Nigger Jack," said to have made the cave his headquarters is purely fanciful. Savannah: A farm on the north bank of Hiwassee river at a ford of the same name, about 5 miles above Conasauga creek and Columbus, in Polk county. Here are extensive remains of an ancient settlement, including mounds, cemetery, and also, some seventy years ago, a small square inclosure or "fort" of undressed stone. According to a tradition given to Wafford, the Cherokee once prepared an ambush here for a hostile war party which they were expecting to come up the river, but were themselves defeated by the enemy, who made a detour around the Black mountain and came in upon their rear. Tennessee: The Cherokee form is Tanasi', and was applied to several localities within the old territory of the tribe. The most important town of this name was on the south bank of Little Tennessee river, halfway between Citico and Toco creeks, in Monroe county, Tennessee. Another was on the south side of Hiwassee, just above the junction of Ocoee, in Polk county, Tennessee. A third district of the same name was on Tennessee creek, the extreme easterly head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina. The meaning of the name is lost. It was not the Indian name of the river, and does not mean "Big spoon," as has been incorrectly asserted. 125. LOCAL LEGENDS OF GEORGIA For more important legends localized in Georgia see the stories Yahula, The Nûñnehi, The Ustû'tli, Âgan-uni'tsi's Search for the Uktena, and The Man who Married the Thunder's Sister. White's Historical Collections of Georgia is responsible for a number of pseudo-myths. Chopped oak: A noted tree, scarred with hundreds of hatchet marks, formerly in Habersham county, 6 miles east of Clarkesville, on the summit of Chattahoochee ridge, and on the north side of the road from Clarkesville to Toccoa creek. The Cherokee name is Digalu'yatûñ'yi, "Where it is gashed with hatchets." It was a favorite assembly place for the Indians, as well as for the early settlers, according to whom the gashes were tally marks by means of which the Indians kept the record of scalps taken in their forays. The tradition is thus given by White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 489, 1855) on some earlier authority: Among the curiosities of this country was the Chopped Oak, a tree famous in Indian history and in the traditions of the early settlers. This tree stood about 6 miles southeast of Clarkesville, and was noted as being the Law Ground, or place of holding company musters and magistrates' courts. According to tradition, the Chopped Oak was a celebrated rendezvous of the Indians in their predatory excursions, it being at a joint where a number of trails met. Here their plans of warfare were laid; here the several parties separated; and here, on their return, they awaited each other; and then, in their brief language, the result of their enterprise was stated, and for every scalp taken a gash cut in the tree. If tradition tells the truth, and every scar on the blasted oak counts for a scalp, the success of their scouting parties must have been great. This tree was alive a few years since when a young man, possessing all the prejudices of his countrymen, and caring less for the traditions of the Indians than his own revenge, killed the tree by girdling it, that it might be no longer a living monument of the cruelties of the savages. The stump is still standing. Dead Man's gap: One mile below Tallulah falls, on the west side of the railroad, in Habersham county. So called from a former reputed Indian grave, now almost obliterated. According to the story, it was the grave of an Indian who was killed here while eloping with a white woman, whom he had stolen from her husband. Frogtown: A creek at the head of Chestatee river, north of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county. The Cherokee name is Walâsi'yi, "Frog place." The name was originally applied to a mountain to the northeast (Rock mountain?), from a tradition that a hunter had once seen there a frog as large as a house. The Indian settlement along the creek bore the same name. Hiwassee: A river having its source in Towns county, of northern Georgia, and flowing northwestward to join the Tennessee. The correct Cherokee form, applied to two former settlements on the stream, is Ayuhwa'si (meaning "A savanna"). Although there is no especial Cherokee story connected with the name, White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 660) makes it the subject of a long pseudo-myth, in which Hiwassee, rendered "The Pretty Fawn," is the beautiful daughter of a Catawba chief, and is wooed, and at last won, by a young Cherokee warrior named Notley, "The Daring Horseman," who finally becomes the head chief of the Cherokee and succeeds in making perpetual peace between the two tribes. The story sounds very pretty, but is a pure invention. Nacoochee: A village on the site of a former Cherokee settlement, in a beautiful and fertile valley of the same name at the head of Chattahoochee river, in White county. The Cherokee form is Nagu`tsi', but the word has no meaning in that language and seems to be of foreign, perhaps Creek, origin. About 2 miles above the village, on the east bank of the river, is a large mound. White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 486) quotes a fictitious legend, according to which Nacoochee, "The Evening Star," was a beautiful Indian princess, who unfortunately fell in love with a chieftain of a hostile tribe and was killed, together with her lover, while fleeing from the vengeance of an angry father. The two were buried in the same grave and the mound was raised over the spot. The only grain of truth in the story is that the name has a slight resemblance to nakwisi', the Cherokee word for "star." Nottely: A river rising in Union county and flowing northwestward into Hiwassee. The Cherokee form is Na'dû`li', applied to a former settlement on the west side of the river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina, about a mile from the Georgia line. Although suggestive of na`tû`li, "spicewood," it is a different word and has no meaning in the Cherokee language, being apparently of foreign, perhaps Creek, origin. For a pseudo-myth connected with the name, see the preceding note on Hiwassee. Talking Rock: A creek in upper Georgia flowing northward to join Coosawatee river. The Indian settlements upon it were considered as belonging to Sanderstown, on the lower part of the creek, the townhouse being located about a mile above the present Talking Rock station on the west side of the railroad. The name is a translation of the Cherokee Nûñyû'-gûñwani'ski, "Rock that talks," and refers, according to one informant, to an echo rock somewhere upon the stream below the present railroad station. An old-time trader among the Cherokee in Georgia says that the name was applied to a rock at which the Indians formerly held their councils, but the etymology of the word is against this derivation. Tallulah: A river in Rabun county, northeastern Georgia, which flows into the Tugaloo, and has a beautiful fall about 2 miles above its mouth. The Cherokee form is Talulu' (Taruri' in the lower Cherokee dialect), the name of an ancient settlement some distance above the falls, as also of a creek and district at the head of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. The name can not be translated. A magazine writer has rendered it "The Terrible," for which there is no authority. Schoolcraft, on the authority of a Cherokee lady, renders it "There lies your child," derived from a story of a child having been carried over the falls. The name, however, was not applied to the falls, but to a district on the stream above, as well as to another in North Carolina. The error arises from the fact that a word of somewhat similar sound denotes "having children" or "being pregnant," used in speaking of a woman. One informant derives it from talulu', the cry of a certain species of frog known as dulusi, which is found in that neighborhood, but not upon the reservation, and which was formerly eaten as food. A possible derivation is from a'talulû', "unfinished, premature, unsuccessful." The fall was called Ugûñ'yi, a name of which the meaning is lost, and which was applied also to a locality on Little Tennessee river near Franklin, North Carolina. For a myth localized at Tallulah falls, see number 84, "The Man who Married the Thunder's Sister." In this connection Lanman gives the following story, which, notwithstanding its white man's dress, appears to be based upon a genuine Cherokee tradition of the Nûñne'hi: During my stay at the Falls of Tallulah I made every effort to obtain an Indian legend or two connected with them, and it was my good fortune to hear one which has never yet been printed. It was originally obtained by the white man who first discovered the falls from the Cherokees, who lived in the region at the time. It is in substance as follows: Many generations ago it so happened that several famous hunters, who had wandered from the West toward what is now the Savannah river, in search of game, never returned to their camping grounds. In process of time the curiosity as well as the fears of the nation were excited, and an effort was made to ascertain the cause of their singular disappearance, whereupon a party of medicine men were deputed to make a pilgrimage toward the great river. They were absent a whole moon, and, on returning to their friends, they reported that they had discovered a dreadful fissure in an unknown part of the country, through which a mountain torrent took its way with a deafening noise. They said that it was an exceedingly wild place, and that its inhabitants were a species of little men and women, who dwelt in the crevices of the rocks and in grottoes under the waterfalls. They had attempted by every artifice in their power to hold a council with the little people, but all in vain; and, from the shrieks they frequently uttered, the medicine men knew that they were the enemies of the Indian race, and, therefore, it was concluded in the nation at large that the long-lost hunters had been decoyed to their death in the dreadful gorge, which they called Tallulah. In view of this little legend, it is worthy of remark that the Cherokee nation, previous to their departure for the distant West, always avoided the Falls of Tallulah, and were seldom found hunting or fishing in their vicinity. [503] Toccoa: (1) A creek flowing into Tugaloo river, in Habersham county, with a fall upon its upper course, near the village of the same name. (2) A river in upper Georgia, flowing northwestward into Hiwassee. The correct Cherokee form applied to the former settlement on both streams is Tagwâ'hi, "Catawba place," implying the former presence of Indians of that tribe. The lands about Toccoa falls were sold by the Cherokee in 1783 and were owned at one time by Wafford's grandfather. According to Wafford, there was a tradition that when the whites first visited the place they saw, as they thought, an Indian woman walking beneath the surface of the water under the falls, and on looking again a moment after they saw her sitting upon an overhanging rock 200 feet in the air, with her feet dangling over. Said Wafford, "She must have been one of the Nûñne'hi." Track Rock gap: A gap about 5 miles east of Blairsville, in Union county, on the ridge separating Brasstown creek from the waters of Nottely river. The micaceous soapstone rocks on both sides of the trail are covered with petroglyphs, from which the gap takes its name. The Cherokee call the place Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi, "Where there are tracks," or Degayelûñ'ha, "Printed (Branded) place." The carvings are of many and various patterns, some of them resembling human or animal footprints, while others are squares, crosses, circles, "bird tracks," etc., disposed without any apparent order. On the authority of a Doctor Stevenson, writing in 1834, White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 658, 1855), and after him Jones (Antiquities of the Southern Indians, 1873), give a misleading and greatly exaggerated account of these carvings, without having taken the trouble to investigate for themselves, although the spot is easily accessible. No effort, either state or local, is made to preserve the pictographs from destruction, and many of the finest have been cut out from the rock and carried off by vandals, Stevenson himself being among the number, by his own confession. The illustration (plate XX) is from a rough sketch made by the author in 1890. The Cherokee have various theories to account for the origin of the carvings, the more sensible Indians saying that they were made by hunters for their own amusement while resting in the gap. Another tradition is that they were made while the surface of the newly created earth was still soft by a great army of birds and animals fleeing through the gap to escape some pursuing danger from the west--some say a great "drive hunt" of the Indians. Haywood confounds them with other petroglyphs in North Carolina connected with the story of the giant Tsul`kalû' (see number 81). The following florid account of the carvings and ostensible Indian tradition of their origin is from White, on the authority of Stevenson: The number visible or defined is 136, some of them quite natural and perfect, and others rather rude imitations, and most of them from the effects of time have become more or less obliterated. They comprise human feet from those 4 inches in length to those of great warriors which measure 17-1/2 inches in length and 7-3/4 in breadth across the toes. What is a little curious, all the human feet are natural except this, which has 6 toes, proving him to have been a descendant of Titan. There are 26 of these impressions, all bare except one, which has the appearance of having worn moccasins. A fine turned hand, rather delicate, occupied a place near the great warrior, and probably the impression of his wife's hand, who no doubt accompanied her husband in all his excursions, sharing his toils and soothing his cares away. Many horse tracks are to be seen. One seems to have been shod, some are very small, and one measures 12-1/2 inches by 9-1/2 inches. This the Cherokee say was the footprint of the great war horse which their chieftain rode. The tracks of a great many turkeys, turtles, terrapins, a large bear's paw, a snake's trail, and the footprints of two deer are to be seen. The tradition respecting these impressions varies. One asserts that the world was once deluged with water, and men with all animated beings were destroyed, except one family, together with various animals necessary to replenish the earth; that the Great Spirit before the floods came commanded them to embark in a big canoe, which after long sailing was drawn to this spot by a bevy of swans and rested there, and here the whole troop of animals was disembarked, leaving the impressions as they passed over the rock, which being softened by reason of long submersion kindly received and preserved them. War Woman's creek: Enters Chattooga river in Rabun county, northeastern Georgia, in the heart of the old Lower Cherokee country. The name seems to be of Indian origin, although the Cherokee name is lost and the story has perished. A writer quoted by White (Historical Collections of Georgia, p. 444) attempts to show its origin from the exploit of a certain Revolutionary amazon, in capturing a party of Tories, but the name occurs in Adair (note, p. 185) as early as 1775. There is some reason for believing that it refers to a former female dignitary among the Cherokee, described by Haywood under the title of the "Pretty Woman" as having authority to decide the fate of prisoners of war. Wafford once knew an old woman whose name was Da`na-gâ'sta, an abbreviated form for Da`nawa-gâsta'ya, "Sharp war," understood to mean "Sharp (i. e., Fierce) warrior." Several cases of women acting the part of warriors are on record among the Cherokee. 126. PLANT LORE The Cherokee have always been an agricultural people, and their old country is a region of luxuriant flora, with tall trees and tangled undergrowth on the slopes and ridges, and myriad bright-tinted blossoms and sweet wild fruits along the running streams. The vegetable kingdom consequently holds a far more important place in the mythology and ceremonial of the tribe than it does among the Indians of the treeless plains and arid sage deserts of the West, most of the beliefs and customs in this connection centering around the practice of medicine, as expounded by the priests and doctors in every settlement. In general it is held that the plant world is friendly to the human species, and constantly at the willing service of the doctors to counteract the jealous hostility of the animals. The sacred formulas contain many curious instructions for the gathering and preparation of the medicinal roots and barks, which are selected chiefly in accordance with the theory of correspondences. The Indians are close observers, and some of their plant names are peculiarly apt. Thus the mistletoe, which never grows alone, but is found always with its roots fixed in the bark of some supporting tree or shrub from which it draws its sustenance, is called by a name which signifies "it is married" (uda'`li). The violet is still called by a plural name, dinda'skwate'ski, "they pull each other's heads off," showing that the Cherokee children have discovered a game not unknown among our own. The bear-grass (Eryngium), with its long, slender leaves like diminutive blades of corn, is called salikwâ'yi, "greensnake," and the larger grass known as Job's tears, on account of its glossy, rounded grains, which the Indian children use for necklaces, is called sel-utsi', "the mother of corn." The black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia) of our children is the "deer-eye" (a`wi'-akta') of the Cherokee, and our lady-slipper (Cypripedium) is their "partridge moccasin" (gugwe'-ulasu'la). The May-apple (Podophyllum), with its umbrella-shaped top, is called u'niskwetu'`gi, meaning "it wears a hat," while the white puffball fungus is nakwisi'-usdi', "the little star," and the common rock lichen bears the musical, if rather unpoetic, name of utsale'ta, "pot scrapings." Some plants are named from their real or supposed place in the animal economy, as the wild rose, tsist-uni'gisti, "the rabbits eat it"--referring to the seed berries--and the shield fern (Aspidium), yân-utse'stû, "the bear lies on it." Others, again, are named from their domestic or ceremonial uses, as the fleabane (Erigeron canadense), called atsil'-sûñ`ti, "fire maker," because its dried stalk was anciently employed in producing fire by friction, and the bugle weed (Lycopus virginicus), known as aniwani'ski, "talkers," because the chewed root, given to children to swallow, or rubbed upon their lips, is supposed to endow them with the gift of eloquence. Some few, in addition to the ordinary term in use among the common people, have a sacred or symbolic name, used only by the priests and doctors in the prayer formulas. Thus ginseng, or "sang," as it is more often called by the white mountaineers, is known to the laity as â'tali-gûli', "the mountain climber," but is addressed in the formulas as Yûñwi Usdi', "Little Man," while selu (corn) is invoked under the name of Agawe'la in myths, as, for instance, that of Prosartes lanuginosa, which bears the curious name of walâs'-unûl'sti, "frogs fight with it," from a story that in the long ago--hilahi'yu--two quarrelsome frogs once fought a duel, using its stalks as lances. In the locative form this was the name of a former Cherokee settlement in Georgia, called by the whites Fighting-town, from a misapprehension of the meaning of the word. Of the white clover, the Cherokee say that "it follows the white man." The division of trees into evergreen and deciduous is accounted for by a myth, related elsewhere, according to which the loss of their leaves in winter time is a punishment visited upon the latter for their failure to endure an ordeal to the end. With the Cherokee, as with nearly all other tribes east and west, the cedar is held sacred above other trees. The reasons for this reverence are easily found in its ever-living green, its balsamic fragrance, and the beautiful color of its fine-grained wood, unwarping and practically undecaying. The small green twigs are thrown upon the fire as incense in certain ceremonies, particularly to counteract the effect of asgina dreams, as it is believed that the anisgi'na or malevolent ghosts can not endure the smell; but the wood itself is considered too sacred to be used as fuel. In the war dance, the scalp trophies, stretched on small hoops, were hung upon a cedar sapling trimmed and decorated for the occasion. According to a myth the red color comes originally from the blood of a wicked magician, whose severed head was hung at the top of a tall cedar. The story is now almost forgotten, but it was probably nearly identical with one still existing among the Yuchi, former neighbors of the Cherokee. According to the Yuchi myth, a malevolent magician disturbed the daily course of the sun until at last two brave warriors sought him out and killed him in his cave. They cut off his head and brought it home with them to show to the people, but it continued still alive. To make it die they were advised to tie it in the topmost branches of a tree. This they did, trying one tree after another, but each morning the head was found at the foot of the tree and still alive. At last they tied it in a cedar, and there the head remained until it was dead, while the blood slowly trickling down along the trunk gave the wood its red color, and henceforth the cedar was a "medicine" tree. [504] The linn or basswood (Tilia) is believed never to be struck by lightning, and the hunter caught in one of the frequent thunderstorms of the southern mountains always seeks its shelter. From its stringy bark are twisted the hunting belts worn about the waist. Sourwood (Oxydendrum) is used by the hunters for barbecue sticks to roast meat before the fire, on account of the acid flavor of the wood, which they believe to be thus communicated to the meat. Spoons and combs are also carved from the wood, but it is never burned, from an idea that lye made from the ashes will bring sickness to those who use it in preparing their food. It is said also that if one should sleep beside a fire containing sourwood sticks the sourwood "will barbecue him," which may possibly mean that he will have hot or feverish pains thereafter. The laurel, in its two varieties, large and small (Rhododendron and Kalmia, or "ivy"), is much used for spoons and combs, on account of its close grain, as also in medicine, but is never burned, as it is believed that this would bring on cold weather, and would furthermore destroy the medicinal virtues of the whole species. The reason given is that the leaves, when burning, make a hissing sound suggestive of winter winds and falling snow. When the doctor is making up a compound in which any part of the laurel is an ingredient, great precautions are taken to prevent any of the leaves or twigs being swept into the fire, as this would render the decoction worthless. Sassafras is tabued as fuel among the Cherokee, as also among their white neighbors, perhaps for the practical reason that it is apt to pop out of the fire when heated and might thus set the house on fire. Pounded walnut bark is thrown into small streams to stupefy the fish, so that they may be easily dipped out in baskets as they float on the surface of the water. Should a pregnant woman wade into the stream at the time, its effect is nullified, unless she has first taken the precaution to tie a strip of the bark about her toe. A fire of post-oak and the wood of the telûñ'lati or summer grape (Vitis æstivalis) is believed to bring a spell of warm weather even in the coldest winter season. Mysterious properties attach to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning, especially when the tree itself still lives, and such wood enters largely into the secret compounds of the conjurers. An ordinary person of the laity will not touch it, for fear of having cracks come upon his hands and feet, nor is it burned for fuel, for fear that lye made from the ashes will cause consumption. In preparing ballplayers for the contest, the medicine-man sometimes burns splinters of it to coal, which he gives to the players to paint themselves with in order that they may be able to strike their opponents with all the force of a thunderbolt. Bark or wood from a tree struck by lightning, but still green, is beaten up and put into the water in which seeds are soaked before planting, to insure a good crop, but, on the other hand, any lightning-struck wood thrown into the field will cause the crop to wither, and it is believed to have a bad effect even to go into the field immediately after having been near such a tree. Among all vegetables the one which holds first place in the household economy and ceremonial observance of the tribe is selu, "corn," invoked in the sacred formulas under the name of Agawe'la, "The Old Woman," in allusion to its mythic origin from the blood of an old woman killed by her disobedient sons (see number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"). In former times the annual thanksgiving ceremony of the Green-corn dance, preliminary to eating the first new corn, was the most solemn tribal function, a propitiation and expiation for the sins of the past year, an amnesty for public criminals, and a prayer for happiness and prosperity for the year to come. Only those who had properly prepared themselves by prayer, fasting, and purification were allowed to take part in this ceremony, and no one dared to taste the new corn until then. Seven ears from the last year's crop were always put carefully aside, in order to attract the corn until the new crop was ripened and it was time for the dance, when they were eaten with the rest. In eating the first new corn after the Green Corn dance, care was observed not to blow upon it to cool it, for fear of causing a wind storm to beat down the standing crop in the field. Much ceremony accompanied the planting and tending of the crop. Seven grains, the sacred number, were put into each hill, and these were not afterward thinned out. After the last working of the crop, the priest and an assistant--generally the owner of the field--went into the field and built a small inclosure (detsanûñ'li) in the center. Then entering it, they seated themselves upon the ground, with heads bent down, and while the assistant kept perfect silence the priest, with rattle in hand, sang songs of invocation to the spirit of the corn. Soon, according to the orthodox belief, a loud rustling would be heard outside, which they would know was caused by the "Old Woman" bringing the corn into the field, but neither must look up until the song was finished. This ceremony was repeated on four successive nights, after which no one entered the field for seven other nights, when the priest himself went in, and, if all the sacred regulations had been properly observed, was rewarded by finding young ears upon the stalks. The corn ceremonies could be performed by the owner of the field himself, provided he was willing to pay a sufficient fee to the priest in order to learn the songs and ritual. Care was always taken to keep a clean trail from the field to the house, so that the corn might be encouraged to stay at home and not go wandering elsewhere. Most of these customs have now fallen into disuse excepting among the old people, by many of whom they are still religiously observed. Another curious ceremony, of which even the memory is now almost forgotten, was enacted after the first working of the corn, when the owner or priest stood in succession at each of the four corners of the field and wept and wailed loudly. Even the priests are now unable to give a reason for this performance, which may have been a lament for the bloody death of Selu, as the women of Byblos were wont to weep for Adonis. Next to corn, the bean (tuya) is the most important food plant of the Cherokee and other southern Indians, with whom it is probably native, but there does not appear to be much special ceremony or folklore in connection with it. Beans which crack open in cooking are sometimes rubbed by mothers on the lips of their children in order to make them look smiling and good-tempered. The association of ideas seems to be the same as that which in Ireland causes a fat mealy potato, which cracks open in boiling, to be called a "laughing" potato. Melons and squashes must not be counted or examined too closely, while still growing upon the vine, or they will cease to thrive; neither must one step over the vine, or it will wither before the fruit ripens. One who has eaten a May-apple must not come near the vines under any circumstances, as this plant withers and dries up very quickly, and its presence would make the melons wither in the same way. Tobacco was used as a sacred incense or as the guarantee of a solemn oath in nearly every important function--in binding the warrior to take up the hatchet against the enemy, in ratifying the treaty of peace, in confirming sales or other engagements, in seeking omens for the hunter, in driving away witches or evil spirits, and in regular medical practice. It was either smoked in the pipe or sprinkled upon the fire, never rolled into cigarettes, as among the tribes of the Southwest, neither was it ever smoked for the mere pleasure of the sensation. Of late years white neighbors have taught the Indians to chew it, but the habit is not aboriginal. It is called tsâlû, a name which has lost its meaning in the Cherokee language, but is explained from the cognate Tuscarora, in which charhû', "tobacco," can still be analyzed as "fire to hold in the mouth," showing that the use is as old as the knowledge of the plant. The tobacco originally in use among the Cherokee, Iroquois, and other eastern tribes was not the common tobacco of commerce (Nicotiana tabacum), which has been introduced from the West Indies, but the Nicotiana rustica, or wild tobacco, now distinguished by the Cherokee as tsâl-agayûñ'li, "old tobacco," and by the Iroquois as "real tobacco." Its various uses in ritual and medicine are better described under other headings. For the myth of its loss and recovery see number 6, "How They Brought Back the Tobacco." The cardinal flower (Lobelia), mullein (Verbascum), and one or two related species are called tsâliyu'sti, "like tobacco," on account of their general resemblance to it in appearance, but they were never used in the same way. The poisonous wild parsnip (Peucedanum?) bears an unpleasant reputation on account of its frequent use in evil spells, especially those intended to destroy the life of the victim. In one of these conjurations seven pieces of the root are laid upon one hand and rubbed gently with the other, the omen being taken from the position of the pieces when the hand is removed. It is said also that poisoners mix it secretly with the food of their intended victim, when, if he eats, he soon becomes drowsy, and, unless kept in motion until the effect wears off, falls asleep, never to wake again. Suicides are said to eat it to procure death. Before starting on a journey a small piece of the root is sometimes chewed and blown upon the body to prevent sickness, but the remedy is almost as bad as the disease, for the snakes are said to resent the offensive smell by biting the one who carries it. In spite of its poisonous qualities, a decoction of the root is much used for steaming patients in the sweat bath, the idea seeming to be that the smell drives away the disease spirits. The poison oak or poison ivy (Rhus radicans), so abundant in the damp eastern forests, is feared as much by Indians as by whites. When obliged to approach it or work in its vicinity, the Cherokee strives to conciliate it by addressing it as "My friend" (hi'ginalii). If poisoned by it, he rubs upon the affected part the beaten flesh of a crawfish. One variety of brier (Smilax) is called di`nû'ski, "the breeder," from a belief that a thorn of it, if allowed to remain in the flesh, will breed others in a day or two. Ginseng, which is sold in large quantities to the local traders, as well as used in the native medical practice, is called âtali-gûli', "the mountain climber," but is addressed by the priests as Yûñwi Usdi', "Little Man," or Yûñwi Usdi'ga Ada'wehi'yu, "Little Man, Most Powerful Magician," the Cherokee sacred term, like the Chinese name, having its origin from the frequent resemblance of the root in shape to the body of a man. The beliefs and ceremonies in connection with its gathering and preparation are very numerous. The doctor speaks constantly of it as of a sentient being, and it is believed to be able to make itself invisible to those unworthy to gather it. In hunting it, the first three plants found are passed by. The fourth is taken, after a preliminary prayer, in which the doctor addresses it as the "Great Ada'wehi," and humbly asks permission to take a small piece of its flesh. On digging it from the ground, he drops into the hole a bead and covers it over, leaving it there, by way of payment to the plant spirit. After that he takes them as they come without further ceremony. The catgut or devil's shoestring (Tephrosia) is called distai'yi, "they are tough," in allusion to its stringy roots, from which Cherokee women prepare a decoction with which to wash their hair in order to impart to it the strength and toughness of the plant, while a preparation of the leaves is used by ballplayers to wash themselves in order to toughen their limbs. To enable them to spring quickly to their feet if thrown to the ground, the players bathe their limbs also with a decoction of the small rush (Juncus tenuis), which, they say, always recovers its erect position, no matter how often trampled down. The white seeds of the viper's bugloss (Echium vulgare) were formerly used in many important ceremonies of which the purpose was to look into the future, but have now been superseded by the ordinary glass beads of the traders. The culver root (Leptandra) is used in love conjurations, the omen being taken from the motion of the root when held in the hand. The campion (Silene stellata), locally known as "rattlesnake's master," is called ganidawâ'ski, "it disjoints itself," because the dried stalk is said to break off by joints, beginning at the top. As among the white mountaineers, the juice is held to be a sovereign remedy for snake bites, and it is even believed that the deadliest snake will flee from one who carries a small portion of the root in his mouth. Almost all varieties of burs, from the Spanish needle up to the cocklebur and Jimsonweed, are classed together under the generic name of u'nistilûn'isti, which may be freely rendered as "stickers." From their habit of holding fast to whatever object they may happen to touch, they are believed to have an occult power for improving the memory and inducing stability of character. Very soon after a child is born, one of the smaller species, preferably the Lespedeza repens, is beaten up and a portion is put into a bowl of water taken from a fall or cataract, where the stream makes a constant noise. This is given to the child to drink on four successive days, with the intention of making him quick to learn and retain in memory anything once heard. The noise of the cataract from which the water is taken is believed to be the voice of Yûñwi Gûnahi'ta, the "Long Man," or river god, teaching lessons which the child may understand, while the stream itself is revered for its power to seize and hold anything cast upon its surface. A somewhat similar ceremony is sometimes used for adults, but in this case the matter is altogether more difficult, as there are tabus for four or seven days, and the mind must be kept fixed upon the purpose of the rite throughout the whole period, while if the subject so far forgets himself as to lose his temper in that time he will remain of a quarrelsome disposition forever after. A flowering vine, known as nuniyu'sti, "potato-like," which grows in cultivated fields, and has a tuberous root somewhat resembling a potato, is used in hunting conjurations. The bruised root, from which a milky juice oozes, is rubbed upon the deer bleat, a`wi'-ahyeli'ski, with which the hunter imitates the bleating of the fawn, under the idea that the doe, hearing it, will think that her offspring desires to suck, and will therefore come the sooner. The putty-root (Adam-and-Eve, Aplectrum hiemale), which is of an oily, mucilaginous nature, is carried by the deer hunter, who, on shooting a deer, puts a small piece of the chewed root into the wound, expecting as a necessary result to find the animal unusually fat when skinned. Infants which seem to pine and grow thin are bathed with a decoction of the same root in order to fatten them. The root of the rare plant known as Venus' flytrap (Dionæa), which has the remarkable property of catching and digesting insects which alight upon it, is chewed by the fisherman and spit upon the bait that no fish may escape him, and the plant is tied upon the fish trap for the same purpose. The root of a plant called unatlûñwe'hitû, "having spirals," is used in conjurations designed to predispose strangers in favor of the subject. The priest "takes it to water"--i. e., says certain prayers over it while standing close to the running stream, then chews a small piece and rubs and blows it upon the body and arms of the patient, who is supposed to be about to start upon a journey, or to take part in a council, with the result that all who meet him or listen to his words are at once pleased with his manner and appearance, and disposed to give every assistance to his projects. VI--NOTES AND PARALLELS TO MYTHS In the preparation of the following notes and parallels the purpose has been to incorporate every Cherokee variant or pseudomyth obtainable from any source, and to give some explanation of tribal customs and beliefs touched upon in the myths, particularly among the Southern tribes. A certain number of parallels have been incorporated, but it must be obvious that this field is too vast for treatment within the limits of a single volume. Moreover, in view of the small number of tribes that have yet been studied, in comparison with the great number still unstudied, it is very doubtful whether the time has arrived for any extended treatment of Indian mythology. The most complete index of parallels that has yet appeared is that accompanying the splendid collection by Dr Franz Boas, Indianische Sagen von der nordpacifischen Küste Amerikas. [505] In drawing the line it has been found necessary to restrict comparisons, excepting in a few special cases, to the territory of the United States or the immediate border country, although this compels the omission of several of the best collections, particularly from the northwest coast and the interior of British America. Enough has been given to show that our native tribes had myths of their own without borrowing from other races, and that these were so widely and constantly disseminated by trade and travel and interchange of ceremonial over wide areas as to make the Indian myth system as much a unit in this country as was the Aryan myth structure in Europe and Asia. Every additional tribal study may be expected to corroborate this result. A more special study of Cherokee myths in their connection with the medical and religious ritual of the tribe is reserved for a future paper, of which preliminary presentation has been given in the author's Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. Stories and story tellers (p. 229): Migration legend--In Buttrick's Antiquities [506] we find some notice of this migration legend, which, as given by the missionary, is unfortunately so badly mixed up with the Bible story that it is almost impossible to isolate the genuine. He starts them under the leadership of their "greatest prophet," Wâsi--who is simply Moses--in search of a far distant country where they may be safe from their enemies. Who these enemies are, or in what quarter they live, is not stated. Soon after setting out they come to a great water, which Wâsi strikes with his staff; the water divides so that they pass through safely, and then rolls back and prevents pursuit by their enemies. They then enter a wilderness and come to a mountain, and we are treated to the Bible story of Sinai and the tables of stone. Here also they receive sacred fire from heaven, which thereafter they carry with them until the house in which it is kept is at last destroyed by a hostile invasion. This portion of the myth seems to be genuine Indian (see notes to number 111, "The Mounds and the Constant Fire"). In this journey "the tribes marched separately and also the clans. The clans were distinguished by having feathers of different colors fastened to their ears. They had two great standards, one white and one red. The white standard was under the control of the priests, and used for civil purposes; but the red standard was under the direction of the war priests, for purposes of war and alarm. These were carried when they journeyed, and the white standard erected in front of the building above mentioned [the ark or palladium], when they rested." They cross four rivers in all--which accords with the Indian idea of the sacred four--and sit down at last beyond the fourth, after having been for many years on the march. "Their whole journey through this wilderness was attended with great distress and danger. At one time they were beset by the most deadly kind of serpents, which destroyed a great many of the people, but at length their leader shot one with an arrow and drove them away. Again, they were walking along in single file, when the ground cracked open and a number of people sank down and were destroyed by the earth closing upon them. At another time they came nigh perishing for water. Their head men dug with their staves in all the low places, but could find no water. At length their leader found a most beautiful spring coming out of a rock." [507] At one point in this migration, according to a tradition given to Schoolcraft by Stand Watie, they encountered a large river or other great body of water, which they crossed upon a bridge made by tying grapevines together. [508] This idea of a vine bridge or ladder occurs also in the traditions of the Iroquois, Mandan, and other tribes. Farther on the missionary already quoted says: "Shield-eater once inquired if I ever heard of houses with flat roofs, saying that his father's great grandfather used to say that once their people had a great town, with a high wall about it; that on a certain occasion their enemies broke down a part of this wall; that the houses in this town had flat roofs--though, he used to say, this was so long ago it is not worth talking about now." [509] Fire of cane splints--Bartram thus describes the method as witnessed by him at Attasse (Autossee) among the Creeks about 1775. The fire which blazed up so mysteriously may have been kept constantly smoldering below, as described in number 111: "As their virgils [sic] and manner of conducting their vespers and mystical fire in this rotunda, are extremely singular, and altogether different from the customs and usages of any other people, I shall proceed to describe them. In the first place, the governor or officer who has the management of this business, with his servants attending, orders the black drink to be brewed, which is a decoction or infusion of the leaves and tender shoots of the cassine. This is done under an open shed or pavilion, at twenty or thirty yards distance, directly opposite the door of the council-house. Next he orders bundles of dry canes to be brought in: these are previously split and broken in pieces to about the length of two feet, and then placed obliquely crossways upon one another on the floor, forming a spiral circle round about the great centre pillar, rising to a foot or eighteen inches in height from the ground; and this circle spreading as it proceeds round and round, often repeated from right to left, every revolution increases its diameter, and at length extends to the distance of ten or twelve feet from the centre, more or less, according to the length of time the assembly or meeting is to continue. By the time these preparations are accomplished, it is night, and the assembly have taken their seats in order. The exterior or outer end of the spiral circle takes fire and immediately rises into a bright flame (but how this is effected I did not plainly apprehend; I saw no person set fire to it; there might have been fire left on the earth; however I neither saw nor smelt fire or smoke until the blaze instantly ascended upwards), which gradually and slowly creeps round the centre pillar, with the course of the sun, feeding on the dry canes, and affords a cheerful, gentle and sufficient light until the circle is consumed, when the council breaks up." [510] 1. How the world was made (p. 239): From decay of the old tradition and admixture of Bible ideas the Cherokee genesis myth is too far broken down to be recovered excepting in disjointed fragments. The completeness of the destruction may be judged by studying the similar myth of the Iroquois or the Ojibwa. What is here preserved was obtained chiefly from Swimmer and John Ax, the two most competent authorities of the eastern band. The evergreen story is from Ta'gwadihi'. The incident of the brother striking his sister with a fish to make her pregnant was given by Ayâsta, and may have a phallic meaning. John Ax says the pregnancy was brought about by the "Little People," Yuñwi Tsunsdi', who commanded the woman to rub spittle (of the brother?) upon her back, and to lie upon her breast, with her body completely covered, for seven days and nights, at the end of which period the child was born, and another thereafter every seven days until the period was made longer. According to Wafford the first man was created blind and remained so for some time. The incident of the buzzard shaping the mountains occurs also in the genesis myth of the Creeks [511] and Yuchi, [512] southern neighbors of the Cherokee, but by them the first earth is said to have been brought up from under the water by the crawfish. Among the northern tribes it is commonly the turtle which continues to support the earth upon its back. The water beetle referred to is the Gyrinus, locally known as mellow bug or apple beetle. One variant makes the dilsta'ya`ti, water-spider ("scissors," Dolomedes), help in the work. Nothing is said as to whence the sun is obtained. By some tribes it is believed to be a gaming wheel stolen from a race of superior beings. See also number 7, "The Journey to the Sunrise." The missionaries Buttrick and Washburn give versions of the Cherokee genesis, both of which are so badly warped by Bible interpretation as to be worthless. No native cosmogonic myth yet recorded goes back to the first act of creation, but all start out with a world and living creatures already in existence, though not in their final form and condition. Hand-breadth--The Cherokee word is utawâ'hilû, from uwâyi, hand. This is not to be taken literally, but is a figurative expression much used in the sacred formulas to denote a serial interval of space. The idea of successive removals of the sun, in order to modify the excessive heat, is found with other tribes. Buttrick, already quoted, says in his statement of the Cherokee cosmogony: "When God created the world he made a heaven or firmament about as high as the tops of the mountains, but this was too warm. He then created a second, which was also too warm. He thus proceeded till he had created seven heavens and in the seventh fixed His abode. During some of their prayers they raise their hands to the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh heaven," etc. [513] In Hindu cosmogony also we find seven heavens or stages, increasing in sanctity as they ascend; the Aztecs had nine, as had also the ancient Scandinavians. [514] Some Polynesian tribes have ten, each built of azure stone, with apertures for intercommunication. The lowest originally almost touched the earth and was elevated to its present position by successive pushes from the gods Ru and Matti, resting first prostrate upon the ground, then upon their knees, then lifting with their shoulders, their hands, and their finger tips, until a last supreme effort sent it to its present place. [515] Seven: The sacred numbers--In every tribe and cult throughout the world we find sacred numbers. Christianity and the Christian world have three and seven. The Indian has always four as the principal sacred number, with usually another only slightly subordinated. The two sacred numbers of the Cherokee are four and seven, the latter being the actual number of the tribal clans, the formulistic number of upper worlds or heavens, and the ceremonial number of paragraphs or repetitions in the principal formulas. Thus in the prayers for long life the priest raises his client by successive stages to the first, second, third, fourth, and finally to the seventh heaven before the end is accomplished. The sacred four has direct relation to the four cardinal points, while seven, besides these, includes also "above," "below," and "here in the center." In many tribal rituals color and sometimes sex are assigned to each point of direction. In the sacred Cherokee formulas the spirits of the East, South, West, and North are, respectively, Red, White, Black, and Blue, and each color has also its own symbolic meaning of Power (War), Peace, Death, and Defeat. 2. The first fire (p. 240): This myth was obtained from Swimmer and John Ax. It is noted also in Foster's "Sequoyah" [516] and in the Wahnenauhi manuscript. [517] The uksu'hi and the gûle'gi are, respectively, the Coluber obsoletus and Bascanion constrictor. The water-spider is the large hairy species Argyroneta. In the version given in the Wahnenauhi manuscript the Possum and the Buzzard first make the trial, but come back unsuccessful, one losing the hair from his tail, while the other has the feathers scorched from his head and neck. In another version the Dragon-fly assists the Water-spider by pushing the tusti from behind. In the corresponding Creek myth, as given in the Tuggle manuscript, the Rabbit obtains fire by the stratagem of touching to the blaze a cap trimmed with sticks of rosin, while pretending to bend low in the dance. In the Jicarilla myth the Fox steals fire by wrapping cedar bark around his tail and thrusting it into the blaze while dancing around the circle. [518] 3. Kana'ti and Selu: Origin of corn and game (p. 242): This story was obtained in nearly the same form from Swimmer and John Ax (east) and from Wafford (west), and a version is also given in the Wahnenauhi manuscript. Hagar notes it briefly in his manuscript Stellar Legends of the Cherokee. So much of belief and custom depend upon the myth of Kana'ti that references to the principal incidents are constant in the songs and formulas. It is one of those myths held so sacred that in the old days one who wished to hear it from the priest of the tradition must first purify himself by "going to water," i. e., bathing in the running stream before daylight when still fasting, while the priest performed his mystic ceremonies upon the bank. In his Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, written more than fifty years ago, Lanman gives (pp. 136, 137) a very fair synopsis of this myth, locating the game preserve of Kana'ti, whom he makes an old Cherokee chief, in a (traditional) cave on the north side of the Black mountain, now Mount Mitchell, in Yancey county, North Carolina, the highest peak east of the Rocky mountains. After his father had disappeared, and could not be found by long search, "The boy fired an arrow towards the north, but it returned and fell at his feet, and he knew that his father had not travelled in that direction. He also fired one towards the east and the south and the west, but they all came back in the same manner. He then thought that he would fire one directly above his head, and it so happened that this arrow never returned, and so the boy knew that his father had gone to the spirit land. The Great Spirit was angry with the Cherokee nation, and to punish it for the offense of the foolish boy he tore away the cave from the side of the Black mountain and left only a large cliff in its place, which is now a conspicuous feature, and he then declared that the time would come when another race of men should possess the mountains where the Cherokees had flourished for many generations." The story has numerous parallels in Indian myth, so many in fact that almost every important concept occurring in it is duplicated in the North, in the South, and on the plains, and will probably be found also west of the mountains when sufficient material of that region shall have been collected. The Ojibwa story of "The Weendigoes," [519] in particular, has many striking points of resemblance; so, also, the Omaha myth, "Two-faces and the Twin Brothers," as given by Dorsey. [520] His wife was Selu, "Corn"--In Cherokee belief, as in the mythologies of nearly every eastern tribe, the corn spirit is a woman, and the plant itself has sprung originally from the blood drops or the dead body of the Corn Woman. In the Cherokee sacred formulas the corn is sometimes invoked as Agawe'la, "The Old Woman," and one myth (number 72, "The Hunter and Selu") tells how a hunter once witnessed the transformation of the growing stalk into a beautiful woman. In the Creek myth "Origin of Indian Corn," as given in the Tuggle manuscript, the corn plant appears to be the transformed body of an old woman whose only son, endowed with magic powers, has developed from a single drop of her (menstrual?) blood. In Iroquois legend, according to Morgan, the corn plant sprang from the bosom of the mother of the Great Spirit (sic) after her burial. The spirits of corn, bean, and squash are represented as three sisters. "They are supposed to have the forms of beautiful females, to be very fond of each other, and to delight to dwell together. This last belief is illustrated by a natural adaptation of the plants themselves to grow up together in the same field and perhaps from the same hill." [521] Sprang from blood--This concept of a child born of blood drops reappears in the Cherokee story of Tsul`kalû' (see number 81). Its occurrence among the Creeks has just been noted. It is found also among the Dakota (Dorsey, "The Blood-clots Boy," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, IX, 1893), Omaha (Dorsey, "The Rabbit and the Grizzly Bear," Cont. to N. A. Eth., VI, 1890), Blackfeet ("Kutoyis," in Grinnell, "Blackfoot Lodge Tales"; New York, 1892), and other tribes. Usually the child thus born is of wilder and more mischievous nature than is common. Deer shut up in hole--The Indian belief that the game animals were originally shut up in a cave, from which they were afterward released by accident or trickery, is very widespread. In the Tuggle version of the Creek account of the creation of the earth we find the deer thus shut up and afterward set free. The Iroquois "believed that the game animals were not always free, but were enclosed in a cavern where they had been concealed by Tawiskara'; but that they might increase and fill the forest Yoskeha' gave them freedom." [522] The same idea occurs in the Omaha story of "Ictinike, the Brothers and Sister" (Dorsey, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, 1890). The Kiowa tell how the buffalo were kept thus imprisoned by the Crow until released by Sinti when the people were all starving for want of meat. When the buffalo so suddenly and completely disappeared from the plains about twenty-five years ago, the prairie tribes were unable to realize that it had been exterminated, but for a long time cherished the belief that it had been again shut up by the superior power of the whites in some underground prison, from which the spells of their own medicine men would yet bring it back (see references in the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, part 1, 1901). The Kiowa tradition is almost exactly paralleled among the Jicarilla (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla Apaches, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Oct., 1898). Storehouse--The unwadâ'li, or storehouse for corn, beans, dried pumpkins, and other provisions, was a feature of every Cherokee homestead and was probably common to all the southern tribes. Lawson thus describes it among the Santee in South Carolina about the year 1700: "They make themselves cribs after a very curious manner, wherein they secure their corn from vermin, which are more frequent in these warm climates than in countries more distant from the sun. These pretty fabrics are commonly supported with eight feet or posts about seven feet high from the ground, well daubed within and without upon laths, with loam or clay, which makes them tight and fit to keep out the smallest insect, there being a small door at the gable end, which is made of the same composition and to be removed at pleasure, being no bigger than that a slender man may creep in at, cementing the door up with the same earth when they take the corn out of the crib and are going from home, always finding their granaries in the same posture they left them--theft to each other being altogether unpracticed." [523] Rubbed her stomach--This miraculous procuring of provisions by rubbing the body occurs also in number 76, "The Bear Man." Knew their thoughts--Mind reading is a frequent concept in Indian myth and occurs in more than one Cherokee story. Seven times--The idea of sacred numbers has already been noted, and the constant recurrence of seven in the present myth exemplifies well the importance of that number in Cherokee ritual. A tuft of down--In the Omaha story, "The Corn Woman and the Buffalo Woman" (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, 1890), the magician changes himself into a feather and allows himself to be blown about by the wind in order to accomplish his purpose. The wolf does the same in a Thompson River myth. [524] The self-transformation of the hero into a tuft of bird's down, a feather, a leaf, or some other light object, which is then carried by the wind wherever he wishes to go, is very common in Indian myth. Play ball against them--This is a Cherokee figurative expression for a contest of any kind, more particularly a battle. Left an open space--When the Cherokee conjurer, by his magic spells, coils the great (invisible) serpent around the house of a sick man to keep off the witches, he is always careful to leave a small space between the head and tail of the snake, so that the members of the family can go down to the spring to get water. Wolves--The wolf is regarded as the servant and watchdog of Kana'ti. See number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes." From these have come all--In nearly every Indian mythology we find the idea of certain animal tribes being descended from a single survivor of some great slaughter by an early hero god or trickster. Thus the Kiowa say that all the prairie dogs on the plains are descended from a single little fellow who was too wary to close his eyes, as his companions did, when the hungry vagrant Sinti was planning to capture them all for his dinner under pretense of teaching them a new dance. A gaming wheel--This was the stone wheel or circular disk used in the wheel-and-stick game, called by the Cherokee gatayûsti, and which in one form or another was practically universal among the tribes. It was the game played by the great mythic gambler Ûñtsaiyi' (see number 63). It has sometimes been known in the north as the "snow-snake," while to the early southern traders it was known as chunki or chungkey, a corruption of the Creek name. Timberlake (page 77) mentions it under the name of nettecawaw--for which there seems to be no other authority--as he saw it among the Cherokee in 1762. [525] It was also noted among the Carolina tribes by Lederer in 1670 and Lawson in 1701. John Ax, the oldest man now living among the East Cherokee, is the only one remaining in the tribe who has ever played the game, having been instructed in it when a small boy by an old man who desired to keep up the memory of the ancient things. The sticks used have long since disappeared, but the stones remain, being frequently picked up in the plowed fields, especially in the neighborhood of mounds. The best description of the southern game is given by Adair: "They have near their state house a square piece of ground well cleaned, and fine sand is carefully strewed over it, when requisite, to promote a swifter motion to what they throw along the surface. Only one, or two on a side, play at this ancient game. They have a stone about two fingers broad at the edge and two spans round. Each party has a pole of about eight feet long, smooth, and tapering at each end, the points flat. They set off abreast of each other at 6 yards from the end of the playground; then one of them hurls the stone on its edge, in as direct a line as he can, a considerable distance toward the middle of the other end of the square. When they have ran [sic] a few yards each darts his pole, anointed with bear's oil, with a proper force, as near as he can guess in proportion to the motion of the stone, that the end may lie close to the stone. When this is the case, the person counts two of the game, and in proportion to the nearness of the poles to the mark, one is counted, unless by measuring both are found to be at an equal distance from the stone. In this manner the players will keep running most part of the day at half speed, under the violent heat of the sun, staking their silver ornaments, their nose, finger and ear rings; their breast, arm and wrist plates, and even all their wearing apparel except that which barely covers their middle. All the American Indians are much addicted to this game, which to us appears to be a task of stupid drudgery. It seems, however, to be of early origin, when their forefathers used diversions as simple as their manners. The hurling stones they use at present were time immemorial rubbed smooth on the rocks, and with prodigious labour. They are kept with the strictest religious care from one generation to another, and are exempted from being buried with the dead. They belong to the town where they are used, and are carefully preserved." [526] In one version of the Kana'ti myth the wheel is an arrow, which the wild boy shoots toward the four cardinal points and finally straight upward, when it comes back no more. When they get above the sky they find Kana'ti and Selu sitting together, with the arrow sticking in the ground in front of them. In the Creek story, "The Lion [Panther?] and the Little Girl," of the Tuggle collection, the lion has a wheel "which could find anything that was lost." The twilight land--Usûñhi'yi, "Where it is always growing dark," the spirit land in the west. This is the word constantly used in the sacred formulas to denote the west, instead of the ordinary word Wude'ligûñ'yi, "Where it sets." In the same way Nûñdâ'yi, or Nûñdâgûñ'yi, the "Sun place, or region," is the formulistic name for the east instead of Digalûñgûñ'yi, "Where it [i. e., the sun] comes up," the ordinary term. These archaic expressions give to myths and formulas a peculiar beauty which is lost in the translation. As the interpreter once said, "I love to hear these old words." Struck by lightning--With the American tribes, as in Europe, a mysterious potency attaches to the wood of a tree which has been struck by lightning. The Cherokee conjurers claim to do wonderful things by means of such wood. Splinters of it are frequently buried in the field to make the corn grow. It must not be forgotten that the boys in this myth are Thunder Boys. The end of the world--See notes to number 7, "The Journey to the Sunrise." Anisga'ya Tsunsdi'--Abbreviated from Anisga'ya Tsunsdi'ga, "Little Men." These two sons of Kana'ti, who are sometimes called Thunder Boys and who live in Usûñhi'yi above the sky vault, must not be confounded with the Yûñwi Tsunsdi', or "Little People," who are also Thunderers, but who live in caves of the rocks and cause the short, sharp claps of thunder. There is also the Great Thunderer, the thunder of the whirlwind and the hurricane, who seems to be identical with Kana'ti himself. Deer songs--The Indian hunters of the olden time had many songs intended to call up the deer and the bear. Most of these have perished, but a few are still remembered. They were sung by the hunter, with some accompanying ceremony, to a sweetly plaintive tune, either before starting out or on reaching the hunting ground. One Cherokee deer song; sung with repetition, may be freely rendered: O Deer, you stand close by the tree, You sweeten your saliva with acorns, Now you are standing near, You have come where your food rests on the ground. Gatschet, in his Creek Migration Legend (I, p. 79), gives the following translation of a Hichitee deer hunting song: Somewhere (the deer) lies on the ground, I think; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It is raising up its head, I believe; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It attempts to rise, I believe; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! Slowly it raises its body, I think; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! It has now risen on its feet, I presume; I walk about. Awake, arise, stand up! 4. Origin of disease and medicine (p. 250): This myth was obtained first from Swimmer, as explaining the theory upon which is based the medical practice of the Cherokee doctor. It was afterward heard, with less detail, from John Ax (east) and James Wafford (west). It was originally published in the author's Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology. In the mythology of most Indian tribes, as well as of primitive peoples generally, disease is caused by animal spirits, ghosts, or witchcraft, and the doctor's efforts are directed chiefly to driving out the malevolent spirit. In Creek belief, according to the Tuggle manuscript, "all disease is caused by the winds, which are born in the air and then descend to the earth." It is doubtful, however, if this statement is intended to apply to more than a few classes of disease, and another myth in the same collection recites that "once upon a time the beasts, birds, and reptiles held a council to devise means to destroy the enemy, man." For an extended discussion of the Indian medical theory, see the author's paper mentioned above. Animal chiefs and tribes--For an exposition of the Cherokee theory of the tribal organization of the animals, with townhouses and councils, under such chiefs as the White Bear, the Little Deer, etc., see number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes." Kuwâ'hi mountain--"The Mulberry place," one of the high peaks in the Great Smoky mountains, on the dividing line between Swain county, North Carolina, and Sevier county, Tennessee. The bears have a townhouse under it. Ask the bear's pardon--See number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes," and notes. The ground squirrel's stripes--According to a Creek myth in the Tuggle collection the stripes on the back of the ground squirrel were made by the bear, who scratched the little fellow in anger at a council held by the animals to decide upon the proper division of day and night. Precisely the same explanation is given by the Iroquois of New York state [527] and by the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia. [528] 5. The Daughter of the Sun: Origin of death (p. 252): This is one of the principal myths of the Cherokee, and like most of its class, has several variants. The sequel has an obvious resemblance to the myth of Pandora. It was obtained in whole or in part from Swimmer, John Ax, James Blythe, and others of the eastern band. The version mainly followed is that of Swimmer, which differs in important details from that of John Ax. As told by John Ax, it is the Sun herself, instead of her daughter, who is killed, the daughter having been assigned the duty of lighting the earth after the death of her mother, the original Sun. The only snakes mentioned are the Spreading Adder and the Rattlesnake, the first being a transformed man, while the other is a stick, upon which the Little Men cut seven rings before throwing it in the pathway of the Sun, where it becomes a rattlesnake. The seven rods or staves of the Swimmer version are with John Ax seven corncobs, which are thrown at the girl as she passes in the dance (cf. Hagar variant of number 8 in notes). The Little Men (see number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu," and other stories) belong to the John Ax version. The others have only a conjurer or chief to direct proceedings. This myth is noted in the Payne manuscript, of date about 1835, quoted in Squier, Serpent Symbol, page 67: "The Cherokees state that a number of beings were engaged in the creation. The Sun was made first. The intention of the creators was that men should live always. But the Sun, when he passed over, told them that there was not land enough and that people had better die. At length the daughter of the Sun, who was with them, was bitten by a snake and died. The Sun, on his return, inquired for her and was told that she was dead. He then consented that human beings might live always, and told them to take a box and go where the spirit of his daughter was and bring it back to her body, charging them that when they got her spirit they should not open the box until they had arrived where her body was. However, impelled by curiosity, they opened it, contrary to the injunction of the Sun, and the spirit escaped; and then the fate of all men was decided, that they must die." This is copied without credit by Foster, Sequoyah, page 241. Another version is thus given by the missionary Buttrick, who died in 1847, in his Antiquities of the Cherokee Indians, page 3: "Soon after the creation one of the family was bitten by a serpent and died. All possible means were resorted to to bring back life, but in vain. Being overcome in this first instance, the whole race was doomed to follow, not only to death, but to misery afterwards, as it was supposed that that person went to misery. Another tradition says that soon after the creation a young woman was bitten by a serpent and died, and her spirit went to a certain place, and the people were told that if they would get her spirit back to her body that the body would live again, and they would prevent the general mortality of the body. Some young men therefore started with a box to catch the spirit. They went to a place and saw it dancing about, and at length caught it in the box and shut the lid, so as to confine it, and started back. But the spirit kept constantly pleading with them to open the box, so as to afford a little light, but they hurried on until they arrived near the place where the body was, and then, on account of her peculiar urgency, they removed the lid a very little, and out flew the spirit and was gone, and with it all their hopes of immortality." In a variant noted by Hagar the messengers carry four staves and are seven days traveling to the ghost country. "They found her dancing in the land of spirits. They struck her with the first 'stick,' it produced no effect--with the second, and she ceased to dance--with the third, and she looked around--with the fourth, and she came to them. They made a box and placed her in it." He was told by one informant: "Only one man ever returned from the land of souls. He went there in a dream after a snake had struck him in the forehead. He, Turkey-head, came back seven days after and described it all. The dead go eastward at first, then westward to the Land of Twilight. It is in the west in the sky, but not amongst the stars" (Stellar Legends of the Cherokee, MS, 1898). In a Shawano myth a girl dies, and, after grieving long for her, her brother sets out to bring her back from the land of shadows. He travels west until he reaches the place where the earth and sky meet; then he goes through and climbs up on the other side until he comes to the house of a great beneficent spirit, who is designated, according to the Indian system of respect, as grandfather. On learning his errand this helper gives him "medicine" by which he will be able to enter the spirit world, and instructs him how and in what direction to proceed to find his sister. "He said she would be at a dance, and when she rose to join in the movement he must seize and ensconce her in the hollow of a reed with which he was furnished, and cover the orifice with the end of his finger." He does as directed, secures his sister, and returns to the house of his instructor, who transforms both into material beings again, and, after giving them sacred rituals to take back to their tribe, dismisses them by a shorter route through a trapdoor in the sky. [529] In an Algonquian myth of New Brunswick a bereaved father seeks his son's soul in the spirit domain of Papkootpawut, the Indian Pluto, who gives it to him in the shape of a nut, which he is told to insert in his son's body, when the boy will come to life. He puts it into a pouch, and returns with the friends who had accompanied him. Preparations are made for a dance of rejoicing. "The father, wishing to take part in it, gave his son's soul to the keeping of a squaw who stood by. Being curious to see it, she opened the bag, on which it escaped at once and took its flight for the realms of Papkootpawut." [530] In a myth from British Columbia two brothers go upon a similar errand to bring back their mother's soul. After crossing over a great lake they approach the shore of the spirit world and hear the sound of singing and dancing in the distance, but are stopped at the landing by a sentinel, who tells them: "Your mother is here, but you cannot enter alive to see her, neither can you take her away." One of them said, "I must see her!" Then the man took his body or mortal part away from him and he entered. The other brother came back. [531] In the ancient Egyptian legend of Râ and Isis, preserved in a Turin papyrus dating from the twentieth dynasty, the goddess Isis, wishing to force from the great god Râ, the sun, the secret of his power, sends a serpent to bite him, with the intention of demanding the secret for herself as the price of assistance. Taking some of her spittle, "Isis with her hand kneaded it together with the earth that was there. She made thereof a sacred serpent unto which she gave the form of a spear. She ... cast it on the way which the great god traversed in his double kingdom whenever he would. The venerable god advanced, the gods who served him as their Pharaoh followed him, he went forth as on every day. Then the sacred serpent bit him. The divine god opened his mouth and his cry reached unto heaven.... The poison seized on his flesh," etc. [532] The sky vault--See other references in number 1, "How the World was Made;" number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu," and number 7, "The Journey to the Sunrise." My grandchildren--The Sun calls the people tsûñgili'si, "my grandchildren," this being the term used by maternal grandparents, the corresponding term used by paternal grandparents being tsûñgini'si. The Moon calls the people tsûñkina'tli, "my younger brothers," the term used by a male speaking, the Moon being personified as a man in Cherokee mythology. The corresponding term used by a female is tsûñkita'. The Little Men--The Thunder Boys, sons of Kana'ti (see number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"). They are always represented as beneficent wonder workers, of great power. Changed to snakes--The Cherokee names of the rattlesnake (Crotalus), copperhead (Trigonocephalus), and spreading adder (Heterodon) are, respectively, utsa'nati, "he has a bell" (?); wâ'dige'i askâ'li, "red-brown head"; and da'liksta', "vomiter," from its habit of vomiting yellow slime, as is told in the story. For more concerning the Uktena see number 50, "The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'ti." Hand-breadth--See note to number 1, "How the World was Made." 6. How they brought back the tobacco (p. 254): The first version of this myth as here given was obtained from Swimmer, and agrees with that of John Ax, except that for the humming bird the latter substitutes the wasulû, or large red-brown moth, which flies about the tobacco flower in the evening, and states that it was selected because it could fly so quietly that it would not be noticed. The second version was obtained from Wafford, in the Cherokee Nation west, who heard it from his great-uncle nearly ninety years ago, and differs so much from the other that it has seemed best to give it separately. The incident of the tree which grows taller as the man climbs it has close parallels in the mythology of the Kiowa and other Western tribes, but has no obvious connection with the story, and is probably either one of a series of adventures originally belonging to the trip or else a fragment from some otherwise forgotten myth. It may be mentioned that Wafford was a man of rather practical character, with but little interest or memory for stories, being able to fill in details of but few of the large number which he remembered having heard when a boy. In his Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, pages 119-121, Lanman gives the story as he obtained it in 1848 from Chief Kâlahû (see p. 173), still well remembered by those who knew him as an authority upon tribal traditions and ritual. In the Kâlahû version the story is connected with Hickorynut gap, a remarkable pass in the Blue ridge southeast from Asheville, North Carolina, and a comparison with the later versions shows clearly how much has been lost in fifty years. The whole body of Cherokee tradition has probably suffered a proportionate loss. "Before visiting this remarkable passage through the mountains [Hickorynut gap], I endeavored to ascertain, from the Cherokees of Qualla town, its original Indian name, but without succeeding. It was my good fortune, however, to obtain a romantic legend connected therewith. I heard it from the lips of a chief who glories in the two names of All-bones and Flying-squirrel, and, though he occupied no less than two hours in telling the story, I will endeavor to give it to my readers in about five minutes. "There was a time when the Cherokees were without the famous tso-lungh, or tobacco weed, with which they had previously been made acquainted by a wandering stranger from the far east. Having smoked it in their large stone pipes, they became impatient to obtain it in abundance. They ascertained that the country where it grew in the greatest quantities was situated on the big waters, and that the gateway to that country (a mighty gorge among the mountains) was perpetually guarded by an immense number of little people or spirits. A council of the bravest men in the nation was called, and, while they were discussing the dangers of visiting the unknown country, and bringing therefrom a large knapsack of the fragrant tobacco, a young man stepped boldly forward and said that he would undertake the task. The young warrior departed on his mission and never returned. The Cherokee nation was now in great tribulation, and another council was held to decide upon a new measure. At this council a celebrated magician rose and expressed his willingness to relieve his people of their difficulties, and informed them that he would visit the tobacco country and see what he could accomplish. He turned himself into a mole, and as such made his appearance eastward of the mountains; but having been pursued by the guardian spirits, he was compelled to return without any spoil. He next turned himself into a humming-bird, and thus succeeded, to a very limited extent, in obtaining what he needed. On returning to his country he found a number of his friends at the point of death, on account of their intense desire for the fragrant weed; whereupon he placed some of it in a pipe, and, having blown the smoke into the nostrils of those who were sick, they all revived and were quite happy. The magician now took into his head that he would revenge the loss of the young warrior, and at the same time become the sole possessor of all the tobacco in the unknown land. He therefore turned himself into a whirlwind, and in passing through the Hickorynut gorge he stripped the mountains of their vegetation, and scattered huge rocks in every part of the narrow valley; whereupon the little people were all frightened away, and he was the only being in the country eastward of the mountains. In the bed of a stream he found the bones of the young warrior, and having brought them to life, and turned himself into a man again, the twain returned to their own country heavily laden with tobacco; and ever since that time it has been very abundant throughout the entire land." In the Iroquois story of "The Lad and the Chestnuts," the Cherokee myth is paralleled with the substitution of a chestnut tree guarded by a white heron for the tobacco plant watched by the dagûl`kû geese (see Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1883). Tobacco--Tobacco, as is well known, is of American origin and is sacred among nearly all our tribes, having an important place in almost every deliberative or religious ceremony. The tobacco of commerce (Nicotiana tabacum) was introduced from the West Indies. The original tobacco of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes was the "wild tobacco" (Nicotiana rustica), which they distinguish now as tsâl-agayûñ'li, "old tobacco." By the Iroquois the same species is called the "real tobacco." Dagûl`kû geese--The dagûl`kû is the American white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons gambeli). It is said to have been of bluish-white color, and to have been common in the low country toward the coast, but very rare in the mountains. About the end of September it goes south, and can be heard at night flying far overhead and crying dugalu! dugalu! dugalu! Swimmer had heard them passing over, but had never seen one. 7. The journey to the sunrise (p. 255): This story, obtained from John Ax, with additional details by Swimmer and Wafford, has parallels in many tribes. Swimmer did not know the burial incident, but said--evidently a more recent interpolation--that when they came near the sunrise they found there a race of black men at work. It is somewhat remarkable that the story has nothing to say of the travelers reaching the ocean, as the Cherokee were well aware of its proximity. What the Sun is like--According to the Payne manuscript, already quoted, the Cherokee anciently believed that the world, the first man and woman, and the sun and moon were all created by a number of beneficent beings who came down for the purpose from an upper world, to which they afterward returned, leaving the sun and moon as their deputies to finish and rule the world thus created. "Hence whenever the believers in this system offer a prayer to their creator, they mean by the creator rather the Sun and Moon. As to which of these two was supreme, there seems to have been a wide difference of opinion. In some of their ancient prayers, they speak of the Sun as male, and consider, of course, the Moon as female. In others, however, they invoke the Moon as male and the Sun as female; because, as they say, the Moon is vigilant and travels by night. But both Sun and Moon, as we have before said, are adored as the creator.... The expression, 'Sun, my creator,' occurs frequently in their ancient prayers. Indeed, the Sun was generally considered the superior in their devotions" (quoted in Squier, Serpent Symbol, p. 68). Haywood, in 1823, says: "The sun they call the day moon or female, and the night moon the male" (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 266). According to Swimmer, there is also a tradition that the Sun was of cannibal habit, and in human form was once seen killing and devouring human beings. Sun and Moon are sister and brother. See number 8, "The Moon and the Thunders." The Indians of Thompson river, British Columbia, say of the sun that formerly "He was a man and a cannibal, killing people on his travels every day.... He hung up the people whom he had killed during his day's travel when he reached home, taking down the bodies of those whom he had hung up the night before and eating them." He was finally induced to abandon his cannibal habit (Teit, Thompson River Traditions, p. 53). In the same grave--This reminds us of the adventure in the voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, as narrated in the Arabian Nights. The sacrifice of the wife at her husband's funeral was an ancient custom in the Orient and in portions of Africa, and still survives in the Hindu suttee. It may once have had a counterpart in America, but so far as known to the author the nearest approach to it was found in the region of the lower Columbia and adjacent northwest coast, where a slave was frequently buried alive with the corpse. Vault of solid rock--The sky vault which is constantly rising and falling at the horizon and crushes those who try to go beyond occurs in the mythologies of the Iroquois of New York, the Omaha and the Sioux of the plains, the Tillamook of Oregon, and other widely separated tribes. The Iroquois concept is given by Hewitt, "Rising and Falling of the Sky," in Iroquois Legends, in the American Anthropologist for October, 1892. In the Omaha story of "The Chief's Son and the Thunders" (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, 1890), a party of travelers in search of adventures "came to the end of the sky, and the end of the sky was going down into the ground." They tried to jump across, and all succeeded excepting one, who failed to clear the distance, and "the end of the sky carried him away under the ground." The others go on behind the other world and return the same way. In the Tillamook myth six men go traveling and reach "the lightning door, which opened and closed with great rapidity and force." They get through safely, but one is caught on the return and has his back cut in half by the descending sky (Boas, Traditions of the Tillamook Indians, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Jan., 1898). See also number 1, "How the World was Made" and number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." 8. The Moon and the Thunders (p. 256): The story of the sun and the moon, as here given, was obtained first from Swimmer and afterward from other informants. It is noted by Hagar, in his manuscript Stellar Legends of the Cherokee, one narrator making the girl blacken her brother's face with seven (charred?) corn cobs (cf. John Ax's version of number 5 in notes). Exactly the same myth is found with the native tribes of Greenland, Panama, Brazil, and Northern India. Among the Khasias of the Himalaya mountains "the changes of the moon are accounted for by the theory that this orb, who is a man, monthly falls in love with his wife's mother, who throws ashes in his face. The sun is female." On some northern branches of the Amazon "the moon is represented as a maiden who fell in love with her brother and visited him at night, but who was finally betrayed by his passing his blackened hand over her face." With the Greenland Eskimo the Sun and Moon are sister and brother, and were playing in the dark, "when Malina, being teased in a shameful manner by her brother Anninga, smeared her hands with the soot of the lamp and rubbed them over the face and hands of her persecutor, that she might recognize him by daylight. Hence arise the spots in the moon (see Timothy Harley, Moon Lore, London, 1885, and the story "The Sun and the Moon," in Henry Rink's Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo, London, 1875). In British Columbia the same incident occurs in the story of a girl and her lover, who was a dog transformed to the likeness of a man (Teit, Thompson River Traditions, p. 62). A very similar myth occurs among the Cheyenne, in which the chief personages are human, but the offspring of the connection become the Pleiades (A. L. Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900). In nearly all mythologies the Sun and Moon are sister and brother, the Moon being generally masculine, while the Sun is feminine (cf. German, Der Mond, Die Sonne). The myth connecting the moon with the ballplay is from Haywood (Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, p. 285), apparently on the authority of Charles Hicks, a mixed-blood chief. Eclipse--Of the myth of the eclipse monster, which may be frightened away by all sorts of horrible noises, it is enough to say that it is universal (see Harley, Moon Lore). The Cherokee name for the phenomenon is nûñda' walâ'si u'giska', "the frog is swallowing the sun or moon." Says Adair (History of the American Indians p. 65): "The first lunar eclipse I saw after I lived with the Indians was among the Cherokee, An. 1736, and during the continuance of it their conduct appeared very surprizing to one who had not seen the like before. They all ran wild, this way and that way, like lunatics, firing their guns, whooping and hallooing, beating of kettles, ringing horse bells, and making the most horrid noises that human beings possibly could. This was the effect of their natural philosophy and done to assist the suffering moon." Sun and moon names--In probably every tribe both sun and moon are called by the same name, accompanied by a distinguishing adjective. The Thunders--The Cherokee name for Thunder, Ani'-Hyûñ'tikwalâ'ski, is an animate plural form and signifies literally, "The Thunderers" or "They who make the Thunder." The great Thunderers are Kana'ti and his sons (see the story), but inferior thunder spirits people all the cliffs and mountains, and more particularly the great waterfalls, such as Tallulah, whose never-ceasing roar is believed to be the voice of the Thunderers speaking to such as can understand. A similar conception prevailed among the Iroquois and the eastern tribes generally. Adair says (History of the American Indians, p. 65), speaking of the southern tribes: "I have heard them say, when it rained, thundered, and blew sharp for a considerable time, that the beloved or holy people were at war above the clouds, and they believe that the war at such times is moderate or hot in proportion to the noise and violence of the storm." In Portuguese West Africa also the Thunderers are twin brothers who quarreled and went, one to the east, the other to the west, whence each answers the other whenever a great storm arises. [533] Among the plains tribes both thunder and lightning are caused by a great bird. Rainbow--The conception of the rainbow as the beautiful dress of the Thunder god occurs also among the South Sea islanders. In Mangaia it is the girdle of the god Tangaroa, which he loosens and allows to hang down until the end reaches to the earth whenever he wishes to descend (Gill, Myths and Songs of the South Pacific, p. 44). For some unexplained reason the dread of pointing at the rainbow, on penalty of having the finger wither or become misshapen, is found among most of the tribes even to the Pacific coast. The author first heard of it from a Puyallup boy of Puget sound, Washington. 9. What the stars are like (p. 257): This story, told by Swimmer, embodies the old tribal belief. By a different informant Hagar was told: "Stars are birds. We know this because one once shot from the sky to the ground, and some Cherokee who looked for it found a little bird, about the size of a chicken just hatched, where it fell" (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee, 1898). The story closely resembles something heard by Lawson among the Tuscarora in eastern North Carolina about the year 1700. An Indian having been killed by lightning, the people were assembled for the funeral, and the priest made them a long discourse upon the power of lightning over all men, animals, and plants, save only mice and the black-gum tree. "At last he began to tell the most ridiculous absurd parcel of lies about lightning that could be; as that an Indian of that nation had once got lightning in the likeness of a partridge; that no other lightning could harm him whilst he had that about him; and that after he had kept it for several years it got away from him, so that he then became as liable to be struck with lightning as any other person. There was present at the same time an Indian that had lived from his youth chiefly in an English house, so I called to him and told him what a parcel of lies the conjurer told, not doubting but he thought so as well as I; but I found to the contrary, for he replied that I was much mistaken, for the old man--who, I believe, was upwards of an hundred years old--did never tell lies; and as for what he said, it was very true, for he knew it himself to be so. Thereupon seeing the fellow's ignorance, I talked no more about it (History of Carolina, page 346). According to Hagar a certain constellation of seven stars, which he identifies as the Hyades, is called by the Cherokee "The Arm," on account of its resemblance to a human arm bent at the elbow, and they say that it is the broken arm of a man who went up to the sky because, having been thus crippled, he was of no further use upon earth. A meteor, and probably also a comet, is called Atsil'-Tlûñtû'tsi" "Fire-panther," the same concept being found among the Shawano, embodied in the name of their great chief, Tecumtha (see p. 215). 10. Origin of the Pleiades and the pine (p. 258): This myth is well known in the tribe, and was told in nearly the same form by Swimmer, Ta'gwadihi' and Suyeta. The Feather dance, also called the Eagle dance, is one of the old favorites, and is the same as the ancient Calumet dance of the northern tribes. For a description of the gatayû'sti game, see note to number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." In a variant recorded by Stansbury Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) the boys spend their time shooting at cornstalks. According to Squier (Serpent Symbol, p. 69), probably on the authority of the Payne manuscript, "The Cherokees paid a kind of veneration to the morning star, and also to the seven stars, with which they have connected a variety of legends, all of which, no doubt, are allegorical, although their significance is now unknown." The corresponding Iroquois myth below, as given by Mrs Erminnie Smith in her Myths of the Iroquois (Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology, p. 80), is practically the same so far as it goes, and the myth was probably once common over a wide area in the East: "Seven little Indian boys were once accustomed to bring at eve their corn and beans to a little mound, upon the top of which, after their feast, the sweetest of their singers would sit and sing for his mates who danced around the mound. On one occasion they resolved on a more sumptuous feast, and each was to contribute towards a savory soup. But the parents refused them the needed supplies, and they met for a feastless dance. Their heads and hearts grew lighter as they flew around the mound, until suddenly the whole company whirled off into the air. The inconsolable parents called in vain for them to return, but it was too late. Higher and higher they arose, whirling around their singer, until, transformed into bright stars, they took their places in the firmament, where, as the Pleiades, they are dancing still, the brightness of the singer having been dimmed, however, on account of his desire to return to earth." In an Eskimo tale a hunter was pursued by enemies, and as he ran he gradually rose from the ground and finally reached the sky, where he was turned into a star (Kroeber, Tales of the Smith Sound Eskimo, in Journal of American Folk-Lore). This transformation of human beings into stars and constellations is one of the most common incidents of primitive myth. 11. The Milky Way (p. 259): This story, in slightly different forms, is well known among the Cherokee east and west. The generic word for mill is dista'sti, including also the self-acting pound-mill or ûlskwûlte'gi. In the original version the mill was probably a wooden mortar, such as was commonly used by the Cherokee and other eastern and southern tribes. In a variant recorded in the Hagar Cherokee manuscript there are two hunters, one living in the north and hunting big game, while the other lives in the south and hunts small game. The former, discovering the latter's wife grinding corn, seizes her and carries her far away across the sky to his home in the north. Her dog, after eating what meal is left, follows the pair across the sky, the meal falling from his mouth as he runs, making the Milky Way. With the Kiowa, Cheyenne, and other plains tribes the Milky Way is the dusty track along which the Buffalo and the Horse once ran a race across the sky. 12. Origin of strawberries (p. 259): This myth, as here given, was obtained from Ta'gwadihi', who said that all the fruits mentioned were then for the first time created, and added, "So some good came from the quarrel, anyhow." The Swimmer version has more detail, but seems overdressed. 13. The Great Yellow-jacket: Origin of fish and frogs (p. 260): This story, obtained from Swimmer, is well known in the tribe, and has numerous parallels in other Indian mythologies. In nearly every tribal genesis we find the primitive world infested by ferocious monster animals, which are finally destroyed or rendered harmless, leaving only their descendants, the present diminutive types. Conspicuous examples are afforded in Matthew's Navaho Legends [534] and in the author's story of the Jicarilla genesis in the American Anthropologist for July, 1898. Another version of the Cherokee legend is given by Lanman in his Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, pages 73-74: "The Cherokees relate that there once existed among those mountains [about Nantahala and Franklin] a very large bird, which resembled in appearance the green-winged hornet, and this creature was in the habit of carrying off the younger children of the nation who happened to wander into the woods. Very many children had mysteriously disappeared in this manner, and the entire people declared a warfare against the monster. A variety of means were employed for his destruction, but without success. In process of time it was determined that the wise men (or medicine-men) of the nation should try their skill in the business. They met in council and agreed that each one should station himself on the summit of a mountain, and that, when the creature was discovered, the man who made the discovery should utter a loud halloo, which shout should be taken up by his neighbor on the next mountain, and so continued to the end of the line, that all the men might have a shot at the strange bird. This experiment was tried, and resulted in finding out the hiding place of the monster, which was a deep cavern on the eastern side of the Blue ridge and at the fountain-head of the river Too-ge-lah [Tugaloo river, South Carolina]. On arriving at this place, they found the entrance to the cavern entirely inaccessible by mortal feet, and they therefore prayed to the Great Spirit that he would bring out the bird from his den, and place him within reach of their arms. Their petition was granted, for a terrible thunder-storm immediately arose, and a stroke of lightning tore away one half of a large mountain, and the Indians were successful in slaying their enemy. The Great Spirit was pleased with the courage manifested by the Cherokees during this dangerous fight, and, with a view of rewarding the same, he willed it that all the highest mountains in their land should thereafter be destitute of trees, so that they might always have an opportunity of watching the movements of their enemies. As a sequel to this legend, it may be appropriately mentioned, that at the head of the Too-ge-lah is to be found one of the most remarkable curiosities of this mountain-land. It is a granite cliff with a smooth surface or front, half a mile long, and twelve hundred feet high, and generally spoken of in this part of the country as the White-side mountain, or the Devil's court-house. To think of it is almost enough to make one dizzy, but to see it fills one with awe. Near the top of one part of this cliff is a small cave, which can be reached only by passing over a strip of rock about two feet wide. One man only has ever been known to enter it, and when he performed the deed he met at the entrance of the cave a large bear, which animal, in making its escape, slipped off the rock, fell a distance of near a thousand feet, and was of course killed. When the man saw this, he became so excited that it was some hours before he could quiet his nerves sufficiently to retrace his dangerous pathway." The Cherokee myth has a close parallel in the Iroquois story of the great mosquito, as published by the Tuscarora traditionist, Cusick, in 1825, and quoted by Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, V, page 638: "About this time a great musqueto invaded the fort Onondaga; the musqueto was mischievous to the people, it flew about the fort with a long stinger, and sucked the blood of a number of lives; the warriors made several oppositions to expel the monster, but failed; the country was invaded until the Holder of the Heavens was pleased to visit the people; while he was visiting the king at the fort Onondaga, the musqueto made appearance as usual and flew about the fort, the Holder of the Heavens attacked the monster, it flew so rapidly that he could hardly keep in sight of it, but after a few days chase the monster began to fail, he chased on the borders of the great lakes towards the sun-setting, and round the great country, at last he overtook the monster and killed it near the salt lake Onondaga, and the blood became small musquetos." U'la`gû'--This is not the name of any particular species, but signifies a leader, principal, or colloquially, "boss," and in this sense is applied to the large queen yellow-jacket seen in spring, or to the leader of a working gang. The insect of the story is described as a monster yellow-jacket. 14. The Deluge (p. 261): This story is given by Schoolcraft in his Notes on the Iroquois, page 358, as having been obtained in 1846 from the Cherokee chief, Stand Watie. It was obtained by the author in nearly the same form in 1890 from James Wafford, of Indian Territory, who had heard it from his grandmother nearly eighty years before. The incident of the dancing skeletons is not given by Schoolcraft, and seems to indicate a lost sequel to the story. Haywood (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 161) mentions the Cherokee deluge myth and conjectures that the petroglyphs at Track Rock gap in Georgia may have some reference to it. The versions given by the missionaries Buttrick and Washburn are simply the Bible narrative as told by the Indians. Washburn's informant, however, accounted for the phenomenon by an upheaval and tilting of the earth, so that the waters for a time overflowed the inhabited parts (Reminiscences, pp. 196-197). In a variant related by Hagar (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) a star with fiery tail falls from heaven and becomes a man with long hair, who warns the people of the coming deluge. It is not in place here to enter into a discussion of the meaning and universality of the deluge myth, for an explanation of which the reader is referred to Bouton's Bible Myths and Bible Folklore. [535] Suffice it to say that such a myth appears to have existed with every people and in every age. Among the American tribes with which it was found Brinton enumerates the Athapascan, Algonquian, Iroquois, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Caddo, Natchez, Dakota, Apache, Navaho, Mandan, Pueblo, Aztec, Mixtec, Zapotec, Tlascalan, Michoacan, Toltec, Maya, Quiche, Haitian, Darien, Popayan, Muysca, Quichua, Tupinamba, Achagua, Auraucanian, "and doubtless others." [536] It is found also along the Northwest coast, was known about Albemarle sound, and, as has been said, was probably common to all the tribes. In one Creek version the warning is given by wolves; in another by cranes (see Bouton, cited above). 15. The four-footed tribes (p. 261): No essential difference--"I have often reflected on the curious connexion which appears to subsist in the mind of an Indian between man and the brute creation, and found much matter in it for curious observation. Although they consider themselves superior to all other animals and are very proud of that superiority; although they believe that the beasts of the forest, the birds of the air, and the fishes of the waters were created by the Almighty Being for the use of man; yet it seems as if they ascribe the difference between themselves and the brute kind, and the dominion which they have over them, more to their superior bodily strength and dexterity than to their immortal souls. All being endowed by the Creator with the power of volition and self motion, they view in a manner as a great society of which they are the head, whom they are appointed, indeed, to govern, but between whom and themselves intimate ties of connexion and relationship may exist, or at least did exist in the beginning of time. They are, in fact, according to their opinions, only the first among equals, the legitimate hereditary sovereigns of the whole animated race, of which they are themselves a constituent part. Hence, in their languages, these inflections of their nouns, which we call genders, are not, as with us, descriptive of the masculine and feminine species, but of the animate and inanimate kinds. Indeed, they go so far as to include trees, and plants within the first of these descriptions. All animated nature, in whatever degree, is in their eyes a great whole from which they have not yet ventured to separate themselves. They do not exclude other animals from their world of spirits, the place to which they expect to go after death." [537] According to the Ojibwa the animals formerly had the faculty of speech, until it was taken from them by Nanibojou as a punishment for having conspired against the human race. [538] Animal chiefs and councils--In Pawnee belief, according to Grinnell, the animals, or Nahurac, possess miraculous attributes given them by the great creator, Tirawa. "The Pawnees know of five places where these animals meet to hold council--five of these Nahurac lodges." He gives a detailed description of each. The fourth is a mound-shaped hill, on the top of which is a deep well or water hole, into which the Pawnee throw offerings. The fifth is a rock hill in Kansas, known to the whites as Guide rock, and "in the side of the hill there is a great hole where the Nahurac hold councils." [539] The same belief is noted by Chatelain in Angola, West Africa: "In African folk tales the animal world, as also the spirit world, is organized and governed just like the human world. In Angola the elephant is the supreme king of all animal creation, and the special chief of the edible tribe of wild animals. Next to him in rank the lion is special chief of the tribe of ferocious beasts and highest vassal of the elephant. Chief of the reptile tribe is the python. Chief of the finny tribe is, in the interior, the di-lenda, the largest river fish. Chief of the feathery tribe is the kakulu ka humbi, largest of the eagles. Among the domestic animals the sceptre belongs to the bull; among the locusts to the one called di-ngundu. Even the ants and termites have their kings or queens. Every chief or king has his court, consisting of the ngolambole, tandala, and other officers, his parliament of ma-kota and his plebeian subjects, just like any human African saba" (Folk tales of Angola, p. 22). Asking pardon of animals--For other Cherokee references see remarks upon the Little Deer, the Wolf, and the Rattlesnake; also number 4, "Origin of Disease and Medicine," and number 58, "The Rattlesnake's Vengeance." This custom was doubtless general among the tribes, as it is thoroughly in consonance with Indian idea. The trader Henry thus relates a characteristic instance among the Ojibwa in 1764 on the occasion of his killing a bear near the winter camp: "The bear being dead, all my assistants approached, and all, but more particularly my old mother (as I was wont to call her), took his head in their hands, stroking and kissing it several times; begging a thousand pardons for taking away her life; calling her their relation and grandmother; and requesting her not to lay the fault upon them, since it was truly an Englishman that had put her to death. "This ceremony was not of long duration; and if it was I that killed their grandmother, they were not themselves behind-hand in what remained to be performed. The skin being taken off, we found the fat in several places six inches deep. This, being divided into two parts, loaded two persons; and the flesh parts were as much as four persons could carry. In all, the carcass must have exceeded five hundred weight. "As soon as we reached the lodge, the bear's head was adorned with all the trinkets in the possession of the family, such as silver arm-bands and wrist-bands, and belts of wampum; and then laid upon a scaffold, set up for its reception, within the lodge. Near the nose was placed a large quantity of tobacco. "The next morning no sooner appeared, than preparations were made for a feast to the manes. The lodge was cleaned and swept; and the head of the bear lifted up, and a new stroud of blanket, which had never been used before, spread under it. The pipes were now lit; and Wawatam blew tobacco smoke into the nostrils of the bear, telling me to do the same, and thus appease the anger of the bear on account of my having killed her. I endeavored to persuade my benefactor and friendly adviser, that she no longer had any life, and assured him that I was under no apprehension from her displeasure; but, the first proposition obtained no credit, and the second gave but little satisfaction. "At length, the feast being ready, Wawatam commenced a speech, resembling, in many things, his address to the manes of his relations and departed companions; but, having this peculiarity, that he here deplored the necessity under which men labored thus to destroy their friends. He represented, however, that the misfortune was unavoidable, since without doing so, they could by no means subsist. The speech ended, we all ate heartily of the bear's flesh; and even the head itself, after remaining three days on the scaffold, was put into the kettle."--Travels, pp. 143-145. The Rabbit--The part played by the Rabbit or Hare and his symbolic character in Indian myth has been already noted (see "Stories and Story Tellers"). In his purely animal character, as an actor among the fourfooted creatures, the same attributes of trickery and surpassing sagacity are assigned him in other parts of the world. In the folktales of Angola, West Africa, "The Hare seems to surpass the fox in shrewdness," and "The Hare has the swiftness and shrewdness of the Monkey, but he is never reckless, as the Monkey sometimes appears to be" (Chatelain, Folktales of Angola, pp. 295, 300). In farthest Asia also "The animals, too, have their stories, and in Korea, as in some other parts of the world, the Rabbit seems to come off best, as a rule" (H. N. Allen, Korean Tales, p. 34; New York and London, 1889). The buffalo--Timberlake repeatedly remarks upon the abundance of the buffalo in the Cherokee country of East Tennessee in 1762. On one occasion, while in camp, they heard rapid firing from their scouts and "in less than a minute seventeen or eighteen buffaloes ran in amongst us, before we discovered them, so that several of us had like to have been run over, especially the women, who with some difficulty sheltered themselves behind the trees. Most of the men fired, but firing at random, one only was killed, tho' several more wounded" (Memoirs, p. 101). According to a writer in the Historical Magazine, volume VIII, page 71,1864, the last two wild buffalo known in Ohio were killed in Jackson county in 1800. The elk--This animal ranged in eastern Carolina in 1700. "The elk is a monster of the venison sort. His skin is used almost in the same nature as the buffelo's [sic].... His flesh is not so sweet as the lesser deer's. His hams exceed in weight all creatures which the new world affords. They will often resort and feed with the buffelo, delighting in the same range as they do" (Lawson, Carolina, p. 203). Cuts out the hamstring--No satisfactory reason has been obtained for this custom, which has been noted for more than a century. Buttrick says of the Cherokee: "The Indians never used to eat a certain sinew in the thigh.... Some say that if they eat of the sinew they will have cramp in it on attempting to run. It is said that once a woman had cramp in that sinew and therefore none must eat it" (Antiquities, p. 12). Says Adair, speaking of the southern tribes generally: "When in the woods the Indians cut a small piece out of the lower part of the thigh of the deer they kill, length-ways and pretty deep. Among the great number of venison hams they bring to our trading houses I do not remember to have observed one without it" (History of the American Indians, pp. 137-138). White animals sacred--According to a formula in the Tuggle manuscript for curing the "deer sickness," the "White Deer" is chief of his tribe in Creek mythology also. Peculiar sacredness always attaches, in the Indian mind, to white and albino animals, partly on account of the symbolic meaning attached to the color itself and partly by reason of the mystery surrounding the phenomenon of albinism. Among the Cherokee the chiefs both of the Deer and of the Bear tribe were white. On the plains the so-called white buffalo was always sacred. Among the Iroquois, according to Morgan (League of the Iroquois, p. 210), "the white deer, white squirrel and other chance animals of the albino kind, were regarded as consecrated to the Great Spirit." One of their most solemn sacrifices was that of the White Dog. The bear--A reverence for the bear and a belief that it is half human is very general among the tribes, and is probably based in part upon the ability of the animal to stand upright and the resemblance of its tracks to human footprints. According to Grinnell (Blackfoot Lodge Tales, p. 260), "The Blackfeet believe it to be part brute and part human, portions of its body, particularly the ribs and feet, being like those of a man." In a note upon a Navaho myth Matthews says (Navaho Legends, p. 249): "The bear is a sacred animal with the Navahoes; for this reason the hero did not skin the bears or eat their flesh. The old man, being a wizard, might do both." The Ojibwa idea has been noted in connection with the ceremony of asking pardon of the slain animal. A curious illustration of the reverse side of the picture is given by Heckewelder (Indian Nations, p. 255): "A Delaware hunter once shot a huge bear and broke its backbone. The animal fell and set up a most plaintive cry, something like that of the panther when he is hungry. The hunter instead of giving him another shot, stood up close to him, and addressed him in these words: 'Hark ye! bear; you are a coward and no warrior as you pretend to be. Were you a warrior, you would shew it by your firmness, and not cry and whimper like an old woman. You know, bear, that our tribes are at war with each other, and that yours was the aggressor [probably alluding to a tradition which the Indians have of a very ferocious kind of bear, called the naked bear, which they say once existed, but was totally destroyed by their ancestors].... You have found the Indians too powerful for you, and you have gone sneaking about in the woods, stealing their hogs; perhaps at this time you have hog's flesh in your belly. Had you conquered me, I would have borne it with courage and died like a brave warrior; but you, bear, sit here and cry, and disgrace your tribe by your cowardly conduct.' I was present at the delivery of this curious invective. When the hunter had despatched the bear, I asked him how he thought that poor animal could understand what he said to it? 'Oh,' said he in answer, 'the bear understood me very well; did you not observe how ashamed he looked while I was upbraiding him?'" The wolf and wolf killer--Speaking of the Gulf tribes generally, Adair says: "The wolf, indeed, several of them do not care to meddle with, believing it unlucky to kill them, which is the sole reason that few of the Indians shoot at that creature, through a notion of spoiling their guns" (History of the American Indians, p. 16). The author has heard among the East Cherokee an incident of a man who, while standing one night upon a fish trap, was scented by a wolf, which came so near that the man was compelled to shoot it. He at once went home and had the gun exorcised by a conjurer. Wafford, when a boy in the old Nation, knew a professional wolf killer. It is always permissible to hire a white man to kill a depredating wolf, as in that case no guilt attaches to the Indian or his tribe. 16. The Rabbit goes duck hunting (p. 266): This story was heard from Swimmer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and Wafford (west). Discussions between animals as to the kind of food eaten are very common in Indian myth, the method chosen to decide the dispute being usually quite characteristic. The first incident is paralleled in a Creek story of the Rabbit and the Lion (Panther?) in the Tuggle manuscript collection and among the remote Wallawalla of Washington (see Kane, Wanderings of an Artist among the Indians of North America, p. 268; London, 1859). In an Omaha myth, Ictinike and the Buzzard, the latter undertakes to carry the trickster across a stream, but drops him into a hollow tree, from which he is chopped out by some women whom he has persuaded that there are raccoons inside (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). In the Iroquois tale, "A Hunter's Adventures," a hunter, endeavoring to trap some geese in the water, is carried up in the air and falls into a hollow stump, from which he is released by women (Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report of Bureau of Ethnology). In the Uncle Remus story, "Mr. Rabbit Meets His Match Again," the Buzzard persuades the Rabbit to get upon his back in order to be carried across a river, but alights with him upon a tree overhanging the water and thus compels the Rabbit, by fear of falling, to confess a piece of trickery. [540] 17. How the Rabbit stole the Otter's coat (p. 267): This story is well known in the tribe and was heard from several informants, both east and west. Nothing is said as to how the Otter recovered his coat. It has exact parallels in the Creek myths of the Tuggle collection, in one of which the Rabbit tries to personate a boy hero by stealing his coat, while in another he plays a trick on the Lion (Panther) by throwing hot coals over him while asleep, at a creek which the Rabbit says is called "Throwing-hot-ashes-on-you." 18. Why the Possum's tail is bare (p. 269): This story was heard from several informants, east and west. In one variant the hair clipping was done by the Moth, and in another by the spells of the Snail, who is represented as a magician. The version here given is the most common, and agrees best with the Cherokee folklore concerning the Cricket (see number 59, "The Smaller Reptiles, Fishes, and Insects"). In the Creek myth, as given in the Tuggle collection, the Opossum burned the hair from his tail in trying to put rings upon it like those of the Raccoon's tail, and grins from chewing a bitter oak ball which he mistook for a ripened fruit. The anatomical peculiarities of the opossum, of both sexes, have occasioned much speculation among the Indians, many of whom believe that the female produces her young without any help from the male. The Creeks, according to the Tuggle manuscript, believe that the young are born in the pouch, from the breathing of the female against it when curled up, and even Lawson and Timberlake assert that they are born at the teat, from which they afterward drop off into the pouch. A council and a dance--In the old days, as to-day among the remote Western tribes, every great council gathering was made the occasion of a series of dances, accompanied always by feasting and a general good time. 19. How the Wildcat caught the Gobbler (p. 269): This story was heard from John Ax and David Blythe (east) and from Wafford and Boudinot (west). The version given below, doctored to suit the white man's idea, appears without signature in the Cherokee Advocate of December 18, 1845: "There was once a flock of wild turkeys feeding in a valley. As they fed they heard a voice singing. They soon discovered that the musician was a hare, and the burden of his song was that he had a secret in his breast which he would on no account divulge. The curiosity of the turkeys was excited, and they entreated the hare to tell them the secret. This he finally consented to do if they would procure for him the king's daughter for his wife and go with him and dance around their enemy. They engaged to do all, and the hare led them to where a wildcat lay apparently dead. The hare prevailed upon them to close their eyes as they danced. The wildcat meanwhile silently arose and killed several of them before the rest found out what a snare they had been caught in. By this artifice on the part of the wildcat, seconded by the hare, the former had a sumptuous repast." This, with its variants, is one of the most widespread of the animal myths. The same story told by the Cherokee, identical even to the song, is given in the Creek collection of Tuggle, with the addition that the Rabbit's tail is afterward bitten off by the enraged Turkeys. In another Creek version, evidently a later invention, the Raccoon plays a similar trick upon the Deer for the benefit of the Panther. The Kiowa of the southern plains tell how the hungry trickster, Sinti, entices a number of prairie dogs to come near him, under pretense of teaching them a new dance, and then kills all but one, while they are dancing around him, according to instruction, with their eyes shut. With the Omaha the Rabbit himself captures the Turkeys while they dance around, with closed eyes, to his singing (Dorsey, "The Rabbit and the Turkeys," and "Ictinike, the Turkeys, Turtle, and Elk," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). The same stratagem, with only a change of names, recurs in another Omaha story, "The Raccoon and the Crabs," of the same collection, and in a Cheyenne story of White-man (A. L. Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900), and in the Jicarilla story of "The Fox and the Wildcat" (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, ibid., October, 1898). The Southern negro version, which lacks the important song and dance feature, is given by Harris in his story of "Brother Rabbit and Mr Wildcat." [541] 20. How the Terrapin beat the Rabbit (p. 270): This story was obtained from John Ax and Suyeta and is well known in the tribe. It is sometimes told with the Deer instead of the Rabbit as the defeated runner, and in this form is given by Lanman, who thus localizes it: "The race was to extend from the Black mountain to the summit of the third pinnacle extending to the eastward" (Letters, p. 37). In the Creek collection of Tuggle the same story is given in two versions, in one of which the Deer and in the other the Wolf is defeated by the stratagem of the Terrapin. The Southern negro parallel is given by Harris (Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings) in the story, "Mr Rabbit Finds His Match at Last." It seems almost superfluous to call attention to the European folklore version, the well-known story of the race between the Hare and the Tortoise. 21. The Rabbit and the tar wolf (p. 271): This story was obtained in the Indian Territory from James Wafford, who said he had repeatedly heard it in boyhood about Valley river, in the old Nation, from Cherokee who spoke no English. The second version, from the Cherokee Advocate, December 18, 1845, is given, together with the story of "How the Wildcat caught the Gobbler," with this introduction: "Indian Fables. Mr William P. Ross: I have recently stumbled on the following Cherokee fables, and perhaps you may think them worth inserting in the Advocate for the sake of the curious. I am told that the Cherokees have a great many fables. If I understand the following, the intention seems to be to teach cunning and artifice in war. Æsop." The newspaper paragraph bears the pencil initials of S[amuel] W[orcester] B[utler]. Other Indian versions are found with the Jicarilla ("Fox and Rabbit," Myths of the Jicarilla, by Frank Russell, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1898) and Sioux (S. D. Hinman, cited in Transactions of the Anthropological Society of Washington, I, p. 103, Washington, 1882). The southern negro variant, "The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story," is the introductory tale in Harris's Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings. A close parallel occurs in the West African story of "Leopard, Monkey, and Hare" (Chatelain, Folktales of Angola). 22. The Rabbit and the Possum after a wife (p. 273): This specimen of Indian humor was obtained at different times from Swimmer, John Ax, Suyeta (east), and Wafford (west), and is well known in the tribe. Wafford, in telling the story, remarked that the Rabbit was the chief's runner, and according to custom was always well entertained wherever he went. 23. The Rabbit dines the Bear (p. 273): This favorite story with the Cherokee east and west is another of the animal myths of wide distribution, being found with almost every tribe from Maine to the Pacific. Beans and peas in several varieties were indigenous among the agricultural tribes. In the Creek version, in the Tuggle manuscript, "The Bear invited the Rabbit to dinner. When he came the Bear called his wife and said, 'Have peas for dinner: the Rabbit loves peas.' 'But there is no grease,' said the Bear's wife, 'to cook them with.' 'O,' said the Bear, 'that's no trouble, bring me a knife.' So she brought the knife and the Bear took it and split between his toes, while the Rabbit looked on in wonder. 'No grease between my toes! Well, I know where there is some,' so he cut a gash in his side and out, ran the grease. His wife took it and cooked the peas and they had a fine dinner and vowed always to be good friends," etc. The wounded Rabbit is put under the care of the Buzzard, who winds up by eating his patient. In the Passamaquoddy version, "The Rabbit's Adventure with Mooin, the Bear," the Bear cuts a slice from his foot and puts it into the pot. The Rabbit invites the Bear to dinner and attempts to do the same thing, but comes to grief. [542] In a Jicarilla myth a somewhat similar incident is related of the Fox (Coyote?) and the Prairie-dog (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1898). In a British Columbian myth, nearly the same thing happens when the Coyote undertakes to return the hospitality of the Black Bear (Teit, Thompson River Indian Traditions, p. 40). 24. The Rabbit escapes from the wolves (p. 274): This story was obtained from James Wafford, in Indian Territory. Compare number 19, "How the Wildcat Caught the Gobbler." 25. Flint visits the Rabbit (p. 274): This story was told in slightly different form by John Ax and Swimmer (east) and was confirmed by Wafford (west). Although among the Cherokee it has degenerated to a mere humorous tale for the amusement of a winter evening, it was originally a principal part of the great cosmogonic myth common to probably all the Iroquoian and Algonquian tribes, and of which we find traces also in the mythologies of the Aztec and the Maya. Among the northern Algonquian tribes "the West was typified as a flint stone, and the twin brother of Michabo, the Great Rabbit. The feud between them was bitter, and the contest long and dreadful.... At last Michabo mastered his fellow twin and broke him into pieces. He scattered the fragments over the earth...." Among the Iroquoian tribes, cognate with the Cherokee, the name is variously Tawiskaroñ, Tawiskara, and sometimes Ohaa, all of which are names both for flint and for hail or ice. Tawiskara is the evil-working god, in perpetual conflict with his twin brother Yoskeha, the beneficent god, by whom he is finally overpowered, when the blood that drops from his wounds is changed into flint stones. Brinton sees in the Great Rabbit and the Flint the opposing forces of day and night, light and darkness, locally personified as East and West, while in the twin gods of the Iroquois Hewitt sees the conflicting agents of heat and cold, summer and winter. Both conceptions are identical in the final analysis. Hewitt derives the Iroquois name from a root denoting "hail, ice, glass"; in Cherokee we have tawiskalûñ'i, tawi'skala, "flint," tawi'ska, "smooth," une'stalûñ, "ice." (See Brinton, American Hero Myths, pp. 48, 56, 61; Hewitt, The Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois, in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., XLIV, 1895.) In one of the Cherokee sacred formulas collected by the author occurs the expression: "The terrible Flint is coming. He has his paths laid down in this direction. He is shaking the red switches threateningly. Let us run toward the Sun land." Siyu'--This word, abbreviated from âsiyu', "good," is the regular Cherokee salutation. With probably all the tribes the common salutation is simply the word "good," and in the sign language of the plains the gesture conveying that meaning is used in the same way. The ordinary good-bye is usually some equivalent of "I go now." 26. How the Deer got his horns (p. 275): This story was heard from Swimmer, Suyeta, and others, and is well known in the tribe. In a parallel Pawnee myth, "How the Deer Lost His Gall," the Deer and Antelope wager their galls in a race, which the Antelope wins, but in sympathy takes off his own dewclaws and gives them to the Deer. In the Blackfoot variant the Deer and the Antelope run two races. The first, which is over the prairie, the Antelope wins and takes the Deer's gall, while in the second, which the Deer stipulates shall be run through the timber, the Deer wins and takes the Antelope's dewclaws (Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Tales, pp. 204, 205). 27. Why the Deer's teeth are blunt (p. 276): This story follows the last in regular sequence and was told by the same informants. In a Jicarilla myth the Fox kills a dangerous Bear monster under pretense of trimming down his legs so that he can run faster (Russell, Myth of the Jicarilla, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, p. 262, October, 1898). 28. What became of the Rabbit (p. 277): This version was obtained from Suyeta, who says the Rabbit never went up, because he was "too mean" to be with the other animals. Swimmer, however, says that he did afterward go up to Galûñ'lati. The belief in a large rabbit still existing beyond a great river may possibly have its origin in indirect reports of the jack-rabbit west of the Missouri. The myth has close parallel in the southern negro story of "The Origin of the Ocean" (Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus), in which the Rabbit by a stratagem persuades the Lion to jump across a creek, when the Rabbit "cut de string w'at hol' de banks togedder.... Co'se wen Brer Rabbit tuck'n cut de string, de banks er de creek, de banks dey fall back, dey did, en Mr Lion can't jump back. De banks dey keep on fallin' back, en de creek keep on gittin' wider en wider, twel bimeby Brer Rabbit en Mr Lion ain't in sight er one er n'er, en fum dat day to dis de big waters bin rollin' 'twix um." Kû!--A Cherokee exclamation used as a starting signal and in introducing the paragraphs of a speech. It might be approximately rendered, Now! 29. Why the Mink smells (p. 277): Obtained from John Ax. 30. Why the Mole lives underground (p. 277): This story, from John Ax, not only accounts for the Mole's underground habit, but illustrates a common Cherokee witchcraft belief, which has parallels all over the world. 31. The Terrapin's escape from the Wolves (p. 278): This story, of which the version here given, from Swimmer and John Ax, is admittedly imperfect, is known also among the western Cherokee, having been mentioned by Wafford and others in the Nation, although for some reason none of them seemed able to fill in the details. A somewhat similar story was given as belonging to her own tribe by a Catawba woman married among the East Cherokee. It suggests number 21, "The Rabbit and the tar wolf," and has numerous parallels. In the Creek version, in the Tuggle manuscript, the Terrapin ridicules a woman, who retaliates by crushing his shell with a corn pestle. He repairs the injury by singing a medicine song, but the scars remain in the checkered spots on his back. In a variant in the same collection the ants mend his shell with tar, in return for his fat and blood. Other parallels are among the Omaha, "How the Big Turtle went on the Warpath" (Dorsey, Contributions to North American Ethnology; VI, p. 275), and the Cheyenne, "The Turtle, the Grasshopper, and the Skunk" (Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900). The myth is recorded also from west Africa by Chatelain ("The Man and the Turtle," in Folktales of Angola, 1894). Kanahe'na.--This is a sour corn gruel, the tamfuli or "Tom Fuller" of the Creeks, which is a favorite food preparation among all the southern tribes. A large earthern jar of kanahe'na, with a wooden spoon upright in it, is always upon a bench just inside the cabin door, for every visitor to help himself. 32. Origin of the Groundhog dance (p. 279): This story is from Swimmer, the supplementary part being added by John Ax. The Groundhog dance is one of those belonging to the great thanksgiving ceremony, Green-corn dance. It consists of alternate advances and retreats by the whole line of dancers in obedience to signals by the song leader, who sings to the accompaniment of a rattle. The burden of the song, which is without meaning, is Ha'wiye'ehi' Yaha'wiye'ehi [twice] Yu-u Hi'yagu'we Hahi'yagu'we [twice] Yu-yu. 33. The migration of the animals (p. 280): This little story is given just as related by Ayâsta, the only woman privileged to speak in council among the East Cherokee. A similar incident occurs in number 76, "The Bear Man." According to one Cherokee myth concerning the noted Track Rock gap, near Blairsville in upper Georgia, the pictographs in the rocks there are the footprints of all sorts of birds and animals which once crossed over the gap in a great migration toward the south. 34. The Wolf's revenge: The Wolf and the Dog (p. 280): These short stories from Swimmer illustrate the Cherokee belief that if a wolf be injured his fellows will surely revenge the injury. See also note to number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes," and number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." In a West African tale recorded by Chatelain (Folktales of Angola, 1894) the dog and the jackal are kinsmen, who live together in the bush until the jackal sends the dog to the village for fire. The dog goes, enters a house and is fed by a woman, and thereupon concludes to stay in the village, where there is always food. 35. The bird tribes (p. 280): The eagle killer--Of the Southern tribes generally Adair says: "They use the feathers of the eagle's tail in certain friendly and religious dances, but the whole town will contribute, to the value of 200 deerskins, for killing a large eagle--the bald eagle they do not esteem--and the man also gets an honorable title for the exploit, as if he had brought in the scalp of an enemy." [543] Timberlake says that the Cherokee held the tail of an eagle in the greatest esteem, as these tails were sometimes given with the wampum in their treaties, and none of their warlike ceremonies could be performed without them (Memoirs, p. 81). The figurative expression, "a snowbird has been killed," used to avoid offending the eagle tribe, is paralleled in the expression, "he has been scratched by a brier," used by the Cherokee to mean, "he has been bitten by a snake." Professional eagle killers existed among many tribes, together with a prescribed ceremonial for securing the eagle. The most common method was probably that described in a note to number 98, "Gana's Adventures among the Cherokee." A detailed account of the Blackfoot method is given by Grinnell, in his Blackfoot Lodge Tales, pp. 236-240. The eagle, being a bird of prey, as well as a sacred bird, was never eaten. The shifting of responsibility for the killing to a vicarious victim is a common feature of Indian formulas for obtaining pardon, especially for offenses against the animal tribe or the spirits of the dead. A remarkable parallel to the Cherokee prayer, from the Quichua of Peru, is given by Dr G. A. Dorsey. Having started, with a party of Indian laborers and a Spanish gentleman who was well acquainted with the native language, to examine some cave tombs near the ancient city of Cuzco, they had arrived at the spot and he was about to give the order to begin operations, when the Indians, removing their blankets and hats, knelt down and recited in unison in their own language a prayer to the spirits of the dead, of which the following translation is an extract: "Chiefs, sons of the sun, you and we are brothers, sons of the great Pachacamac. You only know this, but we know that three persons exist, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This is the only difference between you and us.... Chiefs, sons of the sun, we have not come to disturb your tranquil sleep in this, your abode. We come only because we have been compelled by our superiors; toward them may you direct your vengeance and your curses." Then followed sacrifices of coca leaves, aguardiente, and chicha, after which they called upon the snow-capped mountain to witness their affection for their ancestors, and were then ready to begin work (Dorsey, A Ceremony of the Quichuas of Peru, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1894). Night birds--Says Adair of the Southern tribes (History of the American Indians, p. 130, 1775): "They reckon all birds of prey, and birds of night, to be unclean and unlawful to be eaten." The mixed feeling of fear and reverence for all night birds is universal among the Western tribes. Owls particularly are believed to bring prophetic tidings to the few great conjurers who can interpret their language. The hawk--This, being a bird of prey, was never eaten. The following incident is related by Adair, probably from the Chickasaw: "Not long ago when the Indians were making their winter's hunt and the old women were without flesh meat at home, I shot a small fat hawk and desired one of them to take and dress it; but though I strongly importuned her by way of trial, she as earnestly refused it for fear of contracting pollution, which she called the 'accursed sickness,' supposing disease would be the necessary effect of such an impurity" (Hist. Am. Indians, p. 130). Chickadee and titmouse--Adair speaks of having once observed a party of Southern Indians "to be intimidated at the voice of a small uncommon bird, when it pitched and chirped on a tree over their camp" (op. cit., p. 26). At a conference with the Six Nations at Albany in 1775 the Oneida speaker said: "We, the Six Nations, have heard the voice of a bird called Tskleleli (Tsikilili'?), a news carrier, that came among us. It has told us that the path at the western connection, by Fort Stanwix, would be shut up by either one party or the other." In reply, the commissioners said: "We apprehend the bird Tskleleli has been busy again; he seems to be a mischievous bird and ought not to be nourished or entertained" (New York Colonial Documents, VIII, pp. 612, 628, 1857). The bird name is in the Oneida dialect. Bruyas gives teksereri as the Mohawk name for the tomtit. 36. The ball game of the birds and animals (p. 286): This is one of the best-known animal stories and was heard with more or less of detail from John Ax, Swimmer, Suyeta, and A`wani'ta in the east, and from Wafford in the Territory. The Creeks and the Seminoles also, as we learn from the Tuggle manuscript collection, have stories of ball games by the birds against the fourfooted animals. In one story the bat is rejected by both sides, but is finally accepted by the fourfooted animals on account of his having teeth, and enables them to win the victory from the birds. The ballplay--The ballplay, a`ne'tsâ, is the great athletic game of the Cherokee and the Gulf tribes, as well as with those of the St Lawrence and Great lakes. It need hardly be stated that it is not our own game of base ball, but rather a variety of tennis, the ball being thrown, not from the hand, but from a netted racket or pair of rackets. The goals are two sets of upright poles at either end of the ball ground, which is always a level grassy bottom beside a small stream. There is much accompanying ceremonial and conjuration, with a ball dance, in which the women take part, the night before. It is the same game by which the hostile tribes gained entrance to the British post at Mackinaw in 1763, and under the name of lacrosse has become the national game of Canada. It has also been adopted by the French Creoles of Louisiana under the name of raquette. In British Columbia it is held to be the favorite amusement of the people of the underworld (Teit, Thompson River Traditions, p. 116). In the southern states the numerous localities bearing the names of "Ballplay," "Ball flat," and "Ball ground," bear witness to the Indian fondness for the game. Large sums were staked upon it, and there is even a tradition that a considerable territory in northern Georgia was won from the Creeks by the Cherokee in a ball game. For an extended description see the the author's article "The Cherokee Ball Play," in the American Anthropologist for April, 1890. Won the game--On account of their successful work on this occasion the Cherokee ballplayer invokes the aid of the bat and the flying squirrel, and also ties a small piece of the bat's wing to his ball stick or fastens it to the frame over which the sticks are hung during the preliminary dance the night before. Gave the martin a gourd--The black house-martin is a favorite with the Cherokee, who attract it by fastening hollow gourds to the tops of long poles set up near their houses so that the birds may build their nests in them. In South Carolina, as far back as 1700, according to Lawson: "The planters put gourds on standing holes [poles] on purpose for these fowl to build in, because they are a very warlike bird and beat the crows from the plantations" (History of Carolina, p. 238). 37. How the Turkey got his beard (p. 287): This story is well known in the tribe and was heard from several informants. According to a Creek myth in the Tuggle collection the Turkey was once a warrior and still wears his last scalp from his neck. In another story of the same collection it is a man's scalp which he seized from the Terrapin and accidentally swallowed as he ran off, so that it grew out from his breast. 38. Why the Turkey gobbles (p. 288): This story was first heard from John Ax (east) and afterward from Wafford (west). The grouse is locally called "partridge" in the southern Alleghenies. 39. How the Kingfisher got his bill (p. 288): The first version is from John Ax, the other from Swimmer. Yûñwi tsunsdi'--"Little People," another name for the Nuñne'hi (see number 78). These are not to be confounded with the Anisga'ya Tsunsdi', "Little Men," or Thunder Boys. Tugalû'na--A small slender-bodied spotted fish about four inches in length, which likes to lie upon the rocks at the bottom of the larger streams. The name refers to a gourd, from a fancied resemblance of the long nose to the handle of a gourd. 40. How the Partridge got his whistle (p. 289): This little story is well known in the tribe. Whistles and flutes or flageolets are in use among nearly all tribes for ceremonial and amusement purposes. The whistle, usually made from an eagle bone, was worn suspended from the neck. The flute or flageolet was commonly made from cedar wood. 41. How the Redbird got his color (p. 289): This short story was obtained from Cornelius Boudinot, a prominent mixed-blood of Tahlequah, and differs from the standard Cherokee myth, according to which the redbird is the transformed daughter of the Sun (see number 5, "The Daughter of the Sun"). Red paint--Much sacredness attaches, in the Indian mind, to red paint, the color being symbolic of war, strength, success, and spirit protection. The word paint, in any Indian language, is generally understood to mean red paint, unless it is otherwise distinctly noted. The Indian red paint is usually a soft hematite ore, found in veins of hard-rock formation, from which it must be dug with much labor and patience. In the western tribes everyone coming thus to procure paint makes a prayer beside the rock and hangs a small sacrifice upon a convenient bush or stick before beginning operations. 42. The Pheasant beating corn: The Pheasant dance (p. 290): The first of these little tales is from John Ax, the second from Swimmer. The pheasant (Bonasa umbella; Cherokee tluñti'sti) is also locally called grouse or partridge. 43. The race between the Crane and the Hummingbird (p. 290): This story is a favorite one in the tribe, and was heard from several informants, both East and West. The sequel may surprise those who have supposed that woman has no rights in Indian society. In a Creek story under the same title, in the Tuggle collection, the rivals agree to fly from a certain spot on a stream to the spring at its head. The humming bird is obliged to follow the windings of the stream, but the crane takes a direct course above the trees and thus wins the race. Fly around the world--Not around a globe, but around the circumference of a disk, according to the Indian idea. 44. The Owl gets married (p. 291): Told by Swimmer. The three owls of the Cherokee country are known, respectively, as tskili' (i. e., "witch," Bubo virginianus saturatus, great, dusky-horned owl), wa`huhu' (Megascops asio, screech owl), and uguku' (Syrnium nebulosum, hooting or barred owl). There is no generic term. The Cherokee say that there is almost no flesh upon the body of the hooting owl except upon the head. 45. The Huhu gets married (p. 292): This story was heard at different times from Swimmer, John Ax, and Ta'gwadihi'. The first named always gave in the proper place a very good imitation of the huhu call, drawing out the sau-h slowly, giving the hu, hu, hu, hu, hu, hu in quick, smothered tones, and ending with three chirps and a long whistle. From this and one or two other stories of similar import it would seem that the woman is the ruling partner in the Cherokee domestic establishment. Matches were generally arranged by the mother, and were conditional upon the consent of the girl (see notes to number 84, "The Man who Married the Thunder's Sister"). The huhu of the Cherokee, so called from its cry, is the yellow-breasted chat (Icteria virens), also known as the yellow mocking bird on account of its wonderful mimic powers. 46. Why the Buzzard's head is bare (p. 293): This story was told by Swimmer and other informants, and is well known. It has an exact parallel in the Omaha story of "Ictinike and the Buzzard" (Dorsey, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, vi). 47. The Eagle's revenge (p. 293): This story, told by John Ax, illustrates the tribal belief and custom in connection with the eagle and the eagle dance, as already described in number 35, "The Bird Tribes," and the accompanying notes. Drying pole--A pole laid horizontally in the forks of two upright stakes, planted firmly in the ground, for the purpose of temporarily hanging up game and fresh meat in the hunting camp, to protect it from wolves and other prey animals or to allow it to dry out before the fire. 48. The Hunter and the Buzzard (p. 294): Told by Swimmer. The custom of lending or exchanging wives in token of hospitality and friendship, on certain ceremonial occasions, or as the price of obtaining certain secret knowledge, was very general among the tribes, and has been noted by explorers and other observers, east and west, from the earliest period. 49. The snake tribe (p. 294): Rattlesnake--The custom of asking pardon of slain or offended animals has already been noted under number 15, "The Fourfooted Tribes," and number 35, "The Bird Tribes" (eagle). Reverence for the rattlesnake was universal among the Indians, and has been repeatedly remarked by travelers in every part of the country. To go into a dissertation upon the great subject of serpent worship is not a part of our purpose. The missionary Washburn tells how, among the Cherokee of Arkansas, he was once riding along, accompanied by an Indian on foot, when they discovered a poisonous snake coiled beside the path. "I observed Blanket turned aside to avoid the serpent, but made no signs of attack, and I requested the interpreter to get down and kill it. He did so, and I then inquired of Blanket why he did not kill the serpent. He answered, 'I never kill snakes and so the snakes never kill me; but I will tell you about it when you next come to see me.'" He kept his word soon after by relating as a personal experience (probably, in fact, an Indian dream) a long story of having once been conducted by a rattlesnake to an underground council of the rattlesnake tribe, where he found all the snakes lamenting over one of their number who had been recently killed by an Indian, and debating the method of punishment, which was executed a day or two later by inflicting a fatal bite upon the offender while engaged in the ballplay (Reminiscences, pp. 208-212). As told by the missionary, the story is very much dressed up, but strikingly resembles number 58, "The Rattlesnake's Vengeance." Adair, evidently confusing several Cherokee snake myths, speaks of some reputed gigantic rattlesnakes in the Cherokee mountains, with beautiful changing colors and great power of fascination, by which they drew into their jaws any living creature coming within their vision, and continues: "They call them and all of the rattlesnake 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 show him the place of their resort; but the headmen 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 the serpentine tribe, who love their chieftains and know by instinct those who maliciously killed them, as they fight only in their own defense and that of their young ones, never biting those who do not disturb them." He mentions also an instance of a Chickasaw priest who, after having applied to his hands the juice of a certain plant, took up a rattlesnake without damage and laid it carefully in a hollow tree to prevent Adair's killing it (History of the American Indians, pp. 237-238). Of the Carolina tribes generally, Lawson, in 1701, says: "As for killing of snakes, they avoid it if they lie in their way, because their opinion is that some of the serpents' kindred would kill some of the savage's relations that should destroy him" (History of Carolina, p. 341). Bartram says of the Seminoles, about 1775: "These people never kill the rattlesnake or any other serpent, saying, if they do so, the spirit of the killed snake will excite or influence his living kindred or relatives to revenge the injury or violence done to him when alive." He recounts an amusing incident of his own experience where the Indians sent for him to come and kill a rattlesnake which had invaded their camp ground, and which they were afraid to disturb. Their request having been complied with, the Indians then insisted upon scratching him, according to the Indian custom, in order to let out some of his superabundant blood and courage, but were finally, with some difficulty, dissuaded from their purpose. "Thus it seemed that the whole was a ludicrous farce to satisfy their people and appease the manes of the dead rattlesnake" (Travels, pp. 258-261). The trader Henry (Travels, pp. 176-179) narrates a most interesting instance from among the Ojibwa of Lake Superior in 1764. While gathering wood near the camp he was startled by a sudden rattle, and looking down discovered a rattlesnake almost at his feet, with body coiled and head raised to strike. "I no sooner saw the snake, than I hastened to the canoe, in order to procure my gun; but, the Indians observing what I was doing, inquired the occasion, and being informed, begged me to desist. At the same time, they followed me to the spot, with their pipes and tobacco-pouches in their hands. On returning, I found the snake still coiled. "The Indians, on their part, surrounded it, all addressing it by turns, and calling it their grandfather; but yet keeping at some distance. During this part of the ceremony, they filled their pipes; and now each blew the smoke toward the snake, who, as it appeared to me, really received it with pleasure. In a word, after remaining coiled, and receiving incense, for the space of half an hour, it stretched itself along the ground, in visible good humor. Its length was between four and five feet. Having remained outstretched for some time, at last it moved slowly away, the Indians following it, and still addressing it by the title of grandfather, beseeching it to take care of their families during their absence, and to be pleased to open the heart of Sir William Johnson [the British Indian agent, whom they were about to visit], so that he might show them charity, and fill their canoe with rum. One of the chiefs added a petition, that the snake would take no notice of the insult which had been offered him by the Englishman, who would even have put him to death, but for the interference of the Indians, to whom it was hoped he would impute no part of the offence. They further requested, that he would remain, and inhabit their country, and not return among the English; that is, go eastward." He adds that the appearance of the rattlesnake so far north was regarded as an extraordinary omen, and that very little else was spoken of for the rest of the evening. The next day, while steering across Lake Huron in their canoe, a terrible storm came up. "The Indians, beginning to be alarmed, frequently called on the rattlesnake to come to their assistance. By degrees the waves grew high; and at 11 o'clock it blew a hurricane, and we expected every moment to be swallowed up. From prayers, the Indians now proceeded to sacrifices, both alike offered to the god-rattlesnake, or manito-kinibic. One of the chiefs took a dog, and after tying its forelegs together, threw it overboard, at the same time calling on the snake to preserve us from being drowned, and desiring him to satisfy his hunger with the carcass of the dog. The snake was unpropitious, and the wind increased. Another chief sacrificed another dog, with the addition of some tobacco. In the prayer which accompanied these gifts, he besought the snake, as before, not to avenge upon the Indians the insult which he had received from myself, in the conception of a design to put him to death. He assured the snake, that I was absolutely an Englishman, and of kin neither to him nor to them. At the conclusion of this speech, an Indian, who sat near me, observed, that if we were drowned it would be for my fault alone, and that I ought myself to be sacrificed, to appease the angry manito, nor was I without apprehensions, that in case of extremity, this would be my fate; but, happily for me, the storm at length abated, and we reached the island safely." The Delawares also, according to Heckewelder, called the rattlesnake grandfather and refrained from injuring him. He says: "One day, as I was walking with an elderly Indian on the banks of the Muskingum, I saw a large rattlesnake lying across the path, which I was going to kill. The Indian immediately forbade my doing so; 'for,' said he, 'the rattlesnake is grandfather to the Indians, and is placed here on purpose to guard us, and to give us notice of impending danger by his rattle, which is the same as if he were to tell us, 'look about.' 'Now,' added he, 'if we were to kill one of those, the others would soon know it, and the whole race would rise upon us and bite us.' I observed to him that the white people were not afraid of this; for they killed all the rattlesnakes that they met with. On this he enquired whether any white man had been bitten by these animals, and of course I answered in the affirmative. 'No wonder, then!' replied he, 'you have to blame yourselves for that. You did as much as declaring war against them, and you will find them in your country, where they will not fail to make frequent incursions. They are a very dangerous enemy; take care you do not irritate them in our country; they and their grandchildren are on good terms, and neither will hurt the other.' These ancient notions have, however in a great measure died away with the last generation, and the Indians at present kill their grandfather, the rattlesnake, without ceremony, whenever they meet with him" (Indian Nations, p. 252). Salikwâyi--"The old Tuscaroras had a custom, which they supposed would keep their teeth white and strong through life. A man caught a snake and held it by its head and tail. Then he bit it through, all the way from the head to the tail, and this kept the teeth from decay" (W. M. Beauchamp, Iroquois Notes, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1892). Send torrents of rain--The belief in a connection between the serpent and the rain-gods is well-nigh universal among primitive peoples, and need only be indicated here. 50. The Uktena and the Ûlûñsû'ti (p. 297): The belief in the great Uktena and the magic power of the Ûlûñsû'ti is firmly implanted in the Cherokee breast. The Uktena has its parallel in the Gitchi-Kenebig or Great Horned Serpent of the northern Algonquian tribes, and is somewhat analogous to the Zemo`gu'ani or Great Horned Alligator of the Kiowa. Myths of a jewel in the head of a serpent or of a toad are so common to all Aryan nations as to have become proverbial. Talismanic and prophetic stones, which are carefully guarded, and to which prayer and sacrifice are offered, are kept in many tribes (see Dorsey, Teton Folklore, in American Anthropologist, April, 1889). The name of the serpent is derived from akta, "eye," and may be rendered "strong looker," i.e., "keen eyed," because nothing within the range of its vision can escape discovery. From the same root is derived akta'ti, "to look into," "to examine closely," the Cherokee name for a field glass or telescope. By the English-speaking Indians the serpent is sometimes called the diamond rattlesnake. The mythic diamond crest, when in its proper place upon the snake's head, is called ulstitlû', literally, "it is on his head," but when detached and in the hands of the conjurer it becomes the Ulûñsû'ti, "Transparent," the great talisman of the tribe. On account of its glittering brightness it is sometimes called Igagû'ti, "Day-light." Inferior magic crystals are believed to be the scales from the same serpent, and are sometimes also called ulûñsû'ti. The earliest notice of the Ulûñsû'ti is given by the young Virginian officer, Timberlake, who was sent upon a peace mission to the Cherokee in 1762, shortly after the close of their first war with the whites. He says (Memoirs, pp. 47-49): "They have many beautiful stones of different colours, many of which, I am apt to believe, are of great value; but their superstition has always prevented their disposing of them to the traders, who have made many attempts to that purpose; but as they use them in their conjuring ceremonies, they believe their parting with them or bringing them from home, would prejudice their health or affairs. Among others there is one in the possession of a conjurer, remarkable for its brilliancy and beauty, but more so for the extraordinary manner in which it was found. It grew, if we may credit the Indians, on the head of a monstrous serpent, whose retreat was, by its brilliancy, discovered; but a great number of snakes attending him, he being, as I suppose by his diadem, of a superior rank among the serpents, made it dangerous to attack him. Many were the attempts made by the Indians, but all frustrated, till a fellow more bold than the rest, casing himself in leather, impenetrable to the bite of the serpent or his guards, and watching a convenient opportunity, surprised and killed him, tearing his jewel from his head, which the conjurer has kept hid for many years, in some place unknown to all but two women, who have been offered large presents to betray it, but steadily refused, lest some signal judgment or mischance should follow. That such a stone exists, I believe, having seen many of great beauty; but I cannot think it would answer all the encomiums the Indians bestow upon it. The conjurer, I suppose, hatched the account of its discovery; I have however given it to the reader, as a specimen of an Indian story, many of which are much more surprising." A few years later Adair gives us an account of the serpent and the stone. According to his statement the uktenas had their home in a deep valley between the heads of the Tuckasegee and the "northern branch of the lower Cheerake river" (i. e., the Little Tennessee), the valley being the deep defile of Nantahala, where, by reason of its gloomy and forbidding aspect, Cherokee tradition locates more than one legendary terror. With pardonable error he confounds the Uktena with the Chief of the Rattlesnakes. The two, however, are distinct, the latter being simply the head of the rattlesnake tribe, without the blazing carbuncle or the immense size attributed to the Uktena. "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 rattlesnakes, 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 around in their shortest orbit; but bountiful nature compensates the heavy motion of their bodies, for, as they say, no living creature moves within the reach of their sight, but they can draw it to them.... "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 the 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 these creatures, that no temptation can induce them to betray their secret recess to the prophane. They call them and all of the rattlesnake 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."--History of the American Indians, pp. 237-238. In another place (page 87) he tells us of an ulûñsûti owned by a medicine-man who resided at Tymahse (Tomassee), a former Cherokee town on the creek of the same name near the present Seneca, South Carolina. "The above Cheerake prophet had a carbuncle near as big as an egg, which they said he found where a great rattlesnake lay dead, and that it sparkled with such surprising lustre as to illuminate his dark winter house, like strong flashes of continued lightning, to the great terror of the weak, who durst not upon any account approach the dreadful fire-darting place, for fear of sudden death. When he died it was buried along with him, according to custom, in the town of Tymahse, under the great beloved cabbin [seat], which stood in the westernmost part of that old fabric, where they who will run the risk of searching may luckily find it." Hagar also mentions the "Oolunsade," and says, on the authority of John Ax: "He who owns a crystal can call one of the Little People to him at any time and make him do his bidding. Sometimes when people are ill it is because some evil invisible being has taken possession of him. Then the Little Man called up by the crystal can be placed on guard near the ill man to prevent the evil spirit from re-entering after it has been expelled" (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee). The Southern Alleghenies, the old Cherokee country, abound with crystals of various kinds, as well as with minerals. The Ulûñsû'ti is described as a triangular crystal about two inches long, flat on the bottom, and with slightly convex sides tapering up to a point, and perfectly transparent with the exception of a single red streak running through the center from top to bottom. It is evidently a rare and beautiful specimen of rutile quartz, crystals of which, found in the region, may be seen in the National Museum at Washington. Other small stones of various shapes and color are in common use among the Cherokee conjurers to discover lost articles or for other occult purposes. These also are frequently called by the same name, and are said to have been originally the scales of the Uktena, but the Ulûñsû'ti--the talisman from the forehead of the serpent--is the crystal here described, and is so exceedingly rare that so far as is known only one remained among the East Cherokee in 1890. Its owner, a famous hunter, kept it hidden in a cave, wrapped up in a deerskin, but refused all inducements to show it, much less to part with it, stating that if he should expose it to the gaze of a white man he could kill no more game, even were he permitted to live after such a sacrilege. The possession of the talisman insures success in hunting, love, rain making, and all other undertakings, but its great use is in life divination, and when it is invoked for this purpose by its owner the future is mirrored in the transparent crystal as a tree is reflected in the quiet stream below. When consulting it the conjurer gazes into the crystal, and after some little time sees in its transparent depths a picture of the person or event in question. By the action of the specter, or its position near the top or bottom of the crystal, he learns not only the event itself, but also its nearness in time or place. Many of the East Cherokee who enlisted in the Confederate service during the late war consulted the Ulûñsû'ti before starting, and survivors declare that their experiences verified the prediction. One of these had gone with two others to consult the fates. The conjurer, placing the three men facing him, took the talisman upon the end of his outstretched finger and bade them look intently into it. After some moments they saw their own images at the bottom of the crystal. The images gradually ascended along the red line. Those of the other two men rose to the middle and then again descended, but the presentment of the one who tells the story continued to ascend until it reached the top before going down again. The conjurer then said that the other two would die in the second year of the war, but the third would survive through hardships and narrow escapes and live to return home. As the prophecy, so the event. When consulted by the friends of a sick man to know if he will recover; the conjurer shows them the image of the sick man lying at the bottom of the Ulûñsû'ti. He then tells them to go home and kill some game (or, in these latter days, any food animal) and to prepare a feast. On the appointed day the conjurer, at his own home, looks into the crystal and sees there the picture of the party at dinner. If the image of the sick man rises and joins them at the feast the patient will recover; if otherwise, he is doomed. 51. Âgan-uni'tsi's search for the Uktena (p. 248): This is one of the most important of the Cherokee traditions, for the reason that it deals with the mythic monster, the Uktena, and explains the origin of the great talisman, the Ulûñsû'ti. As here given it was obtained from Swimmer (east) with additions and variants from Wafford (west) and others. It is recorded by Ten Kate as obtained by him in the Territory (Legends of the Cherokees, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, January, 1889), and is mentioned in connection with the Ulûñsû'ti, by Adair, in 1775, and by Timberlake as early as 1762 (see notes to number 50, "The Uktena and the Ulûñsû'ti"). One variant makes the Ulûñsû'ti a scale from the seventh ring of the serpent. The Shawano, who at one time occupied the Cumberland region of Tennessee immediately adjoining the Cherokee, were regarded as wizards by all the southern tribes. Brinton says: "Among the Algonkins the Shawnee tribe did more than all others combined to introduce and carry about religious legends and ceremonies. From the earliest times they seem to have had peculiar aptitude for the ecstacies, deceits, and fancies that make up the spiritual life of their associates. Their constantly roving life brought them in contact with the myths of many nations, and it is extremely probable that they first brought the tale of the horned serpent from the Creeks and Cherokees" (Myths of the New World, p. 137). Localities--Utawagûn'ta mountain, Walâsi'yi gap, Duniskwa`lgûñ'yi gap and Atagâ'hi (mythic) lake, are all points in the Great Smoky range, which forms the dividing line between North Carolina and Tennessee. Tlanusi'yi is the native name for the site of Murphy, at the junction of Hiwassee and Valley rivers, North Carolina. Gahû'ti is Cohutta mountain in Murray county, Georgia. According to Wafford there are on the sides of this mountain several stone inclosures which were built by Âgan-uni'tsi for shelter places before attacking the Uktena (see also Glossary). 52. The Red Man and the Uktena (p. 300): This story was obtained from John Ax. Swimmer had heard it also, but remembered only a part of it. For more in regard to the Uktena and the talisman derived from it, see numbers 50 and 51, with notes. Asga'ya Gi'gage'i--The "Red Man," or lightning spirit, who is frequently invoked in the sacred formulas. Struck by lightning--As has been explained elsewhere, the wood of a tree that has been struck by lightning plays an important part in Cherokee folklore. Strong and dangerous--It is a common article of Indian belief that the presence of a powerful talisman, no matter how beneficent in itself, is enervating or positively dangerous to those in its vicinity unless they be fortified by some ceremonial tonic. For this reason every great "medicine" is usually kept apart in a hut or tipi built for the purpose, very much as we are accustomed to store explosives at some distance from the dwelling or business house. 53. The Hunter and the Uksu'hi (p. 301): This story was told by Swimmer and John Ax as an actual fact. The uksu'hi is the mountain blacksnake or black racer (Coluber obsoletus). The name seems to refer to some peculiarity of the eye, akta (cf. uktena). Hickory-log, properly Wane'asûñ'tlûñyi, "Hickory footlog," was a Cherokee settlement on Hiwassee river, near the present Hayesville, Clay county, North Carolina. Another of the same name was on Etowah river in Georgia. Perspiration--The Indian belief may or may not have foundation in fact. 54. The Ustû'tli (p. 302): This story was told by Swimmer and John Ax (east) and by Wafford (west), and is a common tradition throughout the tribe. The name ustû'tli refers to the sole of the foot, and was given to the serpent on account of its peculiar feet or "suckers." The same name is given to the common hoop-snake of the south (Abastor erythrogrammus), about which such wonderful tales are told by the white mountaineers. Cohutta (Gahû'ti) mountain, in Murray county, Georgia, was also the traditional haunt of the Uktena (see number 51, "Âgan-Uni'tsi's search for the Uktena," and compare also number 55, "The Uw`tsûñ'ta.") 55. The Uw`tsûñ'ta (p. 303): This story was obtained from James Blythe. Nûñdaye'`i, whence Nantahala, was on the river of that name below the present Jarrett's station. 56. The Snake Boy (p. 304): This myth was told by Swimmer. Âsi--The Cherokee âsi, or "hot-house," as it was called by the old traders, is the equivalent of the sweat-house of the western tribes. It is a small hut of logs plastered over with clay, with a shed roof, and just tall enough to permit a sitting or reclining, but not a standing, position inside. It is used for sweat-bath purposes, and as it is tight and warm, and a fire is usually kept smoldering within, it is a favorite sleeping place for the old people in cold weather. It is now nearly obsolete. 57. The Snake Man (p. 304): This myth, obtained from Chief Smith, seems designed to impress upon the laity the importance of a strict observance of the innumerable gaktûñ'ta, or tabus, which beset the daily life of the Cherokee, whether in health or sickness, hunting, war, or arts of peace (see the author's "Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees," in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology). Similar transformation myths are found all over the world. One of the most ancient is the story of Cadmus, in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," with the despair of the wife as she sees the snaky change come over her husband. "Cadmus, what means this? Where are thy feet? Where are both thy shoulders and thy hands? Where is thy color? and, while I speak, where all else besides?" In a Pawnee story given by Grinnell two brothers, traveling, camp for the night. The elder eats some tabued food, and wakes from his sleep to find that he is changing into a great rattlesnake, the change beginning at his feet. He rouses his brother and gives him his last instructions: "When I have changed into a snake, take me in your arms and carry me over to that hole. That will be my home, for that is the house of the snakes." Having still a man's mind, he continues to talk as the metamorphosis extends upward, until at last his head changes to that of a snake, when his brother takes him up and carries him to the hole. The relatives make frequent visits to the place to visit the snake, who always comes out when they call, and the brother brings it a share of his war trophies, including a horse and a woman, and receives in return the protection of the snake man (Pawnee Hero Stories, pp. 171-181). A close Omaha variant is given by Dorsey ("The warriors who were changed to snakes," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI). 58. The Rattlesnake's vengeance (p. 305): This story, told by Swimmer, exemplifies the Indian reverence for the rattlesnake and dread of offending it already explained in number 49, "The Snake Tribe," and the accompanying notes. Prayer song--See other references under number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." Many of the Indian ceremonial prayers and invocations are in the form of songs or chants. 59. The smaller reptiles, fishes, and insects (p. 306): Gi'ga-tsuha'`li--This lizard is probably the Pleistodon erythrocephalus, which is described in Holbrook's "Herpetology" as being about 11 to 13 inches long, with bright red head, olive-brown body and tail, and yellowish-white throat and abdomen. "The Pleistodon erythrocephalus chooses his residence in deep forests, and is commonly found about hollow trees, often at a height of 30 or 40 feet from the ground, sometimes taking up his abode in the last year's nest of the woodpecker, out of which he thrusts his bright red head in a threatening manner to those who would disturb his home. He never makes his habitation on or near the ground, and in fact seldom descends from his elevation unless in search of food or water. Though shy and timid, he is very fierce when taken, and bites severely, owing to the great strength of his jaws, as well as the size and firmness of the teeth. The bite, however, though sharp and painful, is not, as is commonly supposed, venomous." [544] Large horned beetle--This beetle, variously called by the Cherokee crawfish, deer or buck, on account of its branching horns, is probably the "flying stag" of early travelers. Says Timberlake: "Of insects, the flying stag is almost the only one worthy of notice. It is about the shape of a beetle, but has very large, beautiful, branching horns, like those of a stag, from whence it took its name" (Memoirs p. 46). Lawson, about 1700, also mentions "the flying stags, with horns," among the insects of eastern Carolina. 60. Why the Bullfrog's head is striped (p. 310): The first version is from John Ax, the second from Swimmer, who had forgotten the details. 61. The Bullfrog lover (p. 310): The first amusing little tale was heard from several story-tellers. The warning words are sometimes given differently, but always in a deep, gruff, singing tone, which makes a very fair imitation of a bullfrog's note. The other stories were told by Tsesa'ni (Jessan) and confirmed by Swimmer. In a Creek variant of the first story, in the Tuggle collection, it is a pretty girl, who is obdurate until her lover, the Rabbit, conceals himself in the same way near the spring, with a blowgun for a trumpet, and frightens her into consent by singing out: "The girl who stays single will die, will die, will die." 62. The Katydid's warning (p. 311): Told by Swimmer and James Blythe. 63. Ûñtsaiyi', the Gambler (p. 311): This story was obtained from Swimmer and John Ax (east), and confirmed also by James Wafford (west), who remembered, however, only the main points of the pursuit and final capture at Kâgûñ'yi. The two versions corresponded very closely, excepting that Ax sends the boy to the Sunset land to play against his brothers, while Swimmer brings them to meet him at their father's house. In the Ax version, also, the gambler flees directly to the west, and as often as the brothers shoot at him with their arrows the thunder rolls and the lightning flashes, but he escapes by sinking into the earth, which opens for him, to reappear in another form somewhere else. Swimmer makes the Little People help in the chase. In Cherokee figure an invitation to a ball contest is a challenge to battle. Thunder is always personified in the plural, Ani'-Hyûñ'tikwalâ'ski, "The Thunderers." The father and the two older sons seem to be Kana'ti and the Thunder Boys (see number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"), although neither informant would positively assert this, while the boy hero, who has no other name, is said to be the lightning. Nothing is told of his after career. Ûñtsaiyi'--In this name (sometimes E'tsaiyi' or Tsaiyi') the first syllable is almost silent and the vowels are prolonged to imitate the ringing sound produced by striking a thin sheet of metal. The word is now translated "brass," and is applied to any object made of that metal. The mythic gambler, who has his counterpart in the mythologies of many tribes, is the traditional inventor of the wheel-and-stick game, so popular among the southern and eastern Indians, and variously known as gatayûsti, chenco, or chûnki (see note under number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"). He lived on the south side of Tennessee river, at Ûñ'tiguhi'. Ûñ'tiguhi' or The Suck--The noted and dangerous rapid known to the whites as "The Suck" and to the Cherokee as Ûñ'tiguhi', "Pot in the water," is in Tennessee river, near the entrance of Suck creek, about 8 miles below Chattanooga, at a point where the river gathers its whole force into a contracted channel to break through the Cumberland mountain. The popular name, Whirl, or Suck, dates back at least to 1780, the upper portion being known at the same time as "The boiling pot" (Donelson diary, in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 71), [545] a close paraphrase of the Indian name. In the days of pioneer settlement it was a most dangerous menace to navigation, but some of the most serious obstacles in the channel have now been removed by blasting and other means. The Cherokee name and legend were probably suggested by the appearance of the rapids at the spot. Close to where Ûñtsaiyi' lived, according to the Indian account, may still be seen the large flat rock upon which he was accustomed to play the gatayûsti game with all who accepted his challenge, the lines and grooves worn by the rolling of the wheels being still plainly marked, and the stone wheels themselves now firmly attached to the surface of the rock. A similarly grooved or striped rock, where also, it is said, Ûñtsaiyi' used to roll his wheel, is reported to be on the north side of Hiwassee, just below Calhoun, Tennessee. The Suck is thus described by a traveler in 1818, while the whole was still Indian country and Chattanooga was yet undreamed of: "And here, I cannot forbear pausing a moment to call your attention to the grand and picturesque scenery which opens to the view of the admiring spectator. The country is still possessed by the aborigines, and the hand of civilization has done but little to soften the wild aspect of nature. The Tennessee river, having concentrated into one mass the numerous streams it has received in its course of three or four hundred miles, glides through an extended valley with a rapid and overwhelming current, half a mile in width. At this place, a group of mountains stand ready to dispute its progress. First, the 'Lookout,' an independent range, commencing thirty miles below, presents, opposite the river's course, its bold and rocky termination of two thousand feet. Around its brow is a pallisade [sic] of naked rocks, from seventy to one hundred feet. The river flows upon its base, and instantly twines to the right. Passing on for six miles farther it turns again, and is met by the side of the Rackoon mountain. Collecting its strength into a channel of seventy yards, it severs the mountain, and rushes tumultuously through the rocky defile, wafting the trembling navigator at the rate of a mile in two or three minutes. The passage is called 'The Suck.' The summit of the Lookout mountain overlooks the whole country. And to those who can be delighted with the view of an interminable forest, penetrated by the windings of a bold river, interspersed with hundreds of verdant prairies, and broken by many ridges and mountains, furnishes in the month of May, a landscape, which yields to few others, in extent, variety or beauty."--Rev. Elias Cornelius, in (Silliman's) American Journal of Science, I, p. 223, 1818. Bet even his life--The Indian was a passionate gambler and there was absolutely no limit to the risks which he was willing to take, even to the loss of liberty, if not of life. Says Lawson (History of Carolina, p. 287): "They game very much and often strip one another of all they have in the world; and what is more, I have known several of them play themselves away, so that they have remained the winners' servants till their relations or themselves could pay the money to redeem them." His skin was clean--The idea of purification or cleansing through the efficacy of the sweat-bath is very common in Indian myth and ceremonial. In an Omaha story given by Dorsey the hero has been transformed, by witchcraft, into a mangy dog. He builds a sweat lodge, goes into it as a dog and sweats himself until, on his command, the people take off the blankets, when "Behold, he was not a dog; he was a very handsome man" ("Adventures of Hingpe-agce," in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, p. 175). From the bottom--The choice of the most remote or the most insignificant appearing of several objects, as being really the most valuable, is another common incident in the myths. Honey-locust tree--The favorite honey-locust tree and the seat with thorns of the same species in the home of the Thunder Man may indicate that in Indian as in Aryan thought there was an occult connection between the pinnated leaves and the lightning, as we know to be the case with regard to the European rowan or mountain ash. All kinds of snakes--It will be remembered that the boy's father was a thunder god. The connection between the snake and the rain or thunder spirit has already been noted. It appears also in number 84, "The Man who Married the Thunder's Sister." Elder brother--My elder brother (male speaking), ûñgini'li; my elder brother (female speaking), ûñgida'; thy two elder brothers (male speaking), tsetsani'li. Sunset land--The Cherokee word here used is Wusûhihûñ'yi, "there where they stay over night." The usual expression in the sacred formula is usûñhi'yi, "the darkening, or twilight place"; the common word is wude'ligûñ'yi, "there where it (the sun) goes down." Lightning at every stroke--In the Omaha myth of "The Chief's Son and the Thunders," given by Dorsey, some young men traveling to the end of the world meet a Thunder Man, who bids the leader to select one of four medicine bags. Having been warned in advance, he selects the oldest, but most powerful, and is then given also a club which causes thunder whenever flourished in the air (Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, p. 185). Strike the rock--This method of procuring water is as old at least as the book of Exodus. The brass rubbed off--The beautiful metallic luster on the head of Phanæus carnifex is thus accounted for. The common roller beetle is called "dung roller," but this species is distinguished as the "horned, brass" beetle. It is also sometimes spoken of as the dog of the Thunder Boys. Beavers gnaw at the grapevine--Something like this is found among the Cheyenne: "The earth rests on a large beam or post. Far in the north there is a beaver as white as snow who is a great father of all mankind. Some day he will gnaw through the support at the bottom. We shall be helpless and the earth will fall. This will happen when he becomes angry. The post is already partly eaten through. For this reason one band of the Cheyenne never eat beaver or even touch the skin. If they do touch it, they become sick" (Kroeber, Cheyenne Tales, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, July, 1900). 64. The nest of the Tla'nuwa (p. 315): This story was obtained first from John Ax and Ta'gwadihi', and was afterward heard of frequently in connection with the cave at Citico. It is mentioned by Ten Kate in "Legends of the Cherokees," obtained in the Indian Territory, in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, January, 1889. Tla'nuwa--The Tla'nuwa (Tsa'nuwa or Sû'nawa in the Middle dialect) is a mythic bird, described as a great hawk, larger than any bird now existing. There is a small hawk called tla'nuwa usdi', "little tla'nuwa," which is described as its smaller counterpart or image, and which the Cherokee say accompanies flocks of wild pigeons, occasionally when hungry swooping down and killing one by striking it with its sharp breast bone. It is probably the goshawk (Astur atricapillus). The great Tla'nuwa, like the other animals, "went up." According to Adair (History of the American Indians, p. 17) the Cherokee used to compare a miserly person to a "sinnawah." When John Ax first recited the story he insisted that the whites must also believe it, as they had it pictured on their money, and holding up a silver coin, he triumphantly pointed out what he claimed was the figure of the Tla'nuwa, holding in its talons the arrows and in its beak the serpent. He was not so far wrong, as it is well known that the Mexican coat of arms, stamped upon the coins of the republic, has its origin in a similar legend handed down from the Aztec. Myths of dangerous monster serpents destroyed by great birds were common to a number of tribes. The Tuscarora, formerly eastern neighbors of the Cherokee, told "a long tale of a great rattlesnake, which, a great while ago, lived by a creek in that river, which was Neus, and that it killed abundance of Indians; but at last a bald eagle killed it, and they were rid of a serpent that used to devour whole canoes full of Indians at a time" (Lawson, Carolina, p. 346). Tla'nuwa'i--"Tla'nuwa place," the cliff so called by the Cherokee, with the cave half way up its face, is on the north bank of Little Tennessee river, a short distance below the entrance of the Citico creek, on land formerly belonging to Colonel John Lowrey, one of the Cherokee officers at the battle of the Horseshoe bend (Wafford). Just above, but on the opposite side of the river, is U`tlûñti'yi, the former haunt of the cannibal liver eater (see number 66, "U`tlûñta, the Spear-finger"). Soon after the creation--As John Ax put it, adopting the Bible expression, Hilahi'yu dine'tlana a'nigwa--"A long time ago the creation soon after." Rope of linn bark--The old Cherokee still do most of their tying and packing with ropes twisted from the inner bark of trees. In one version of the story the medicine-man uses a long udâ'i or cohosh (Actæa?) vine. Holes are still there--The place which the Cherokee call Tla'nuwa-a'tsiyelûñisûñ'yi, "Where the Tla'nuwa cut it up," is nearly opposite Citico, on Little Tennessee river, just below Talassee ford, in Blount county, Tennessee. The surface of the rock bears a series of long trenchlike depressions, extending some distance, which, according to the Indians, are the marks where the pieces bitten from the body of the great serpent were dropt by the Tla'nuwa. 65. The hunter and the Tla'nuwa (p. 316): This myth was told by Swimmer. 66. U`tlûñ'ta, the Spear-finger (p. 316): This is one of the most noted among the Cherokee myths, being equally well known both east and west. The version here given was obtained from John Ax, with some corrections and additions from Swimmer, Wafford (west) and others. A version of it, "The Stone-shields," in which the tomtit is incorrectly made a jay, is given by Ten Kate, in his "Legends of the Cherokees," in the Journal of American Folk-Lore for January, 1889, as obtained from a mixed-blood informant in Tahlequah. Another version, "The Demon of Consumption," by Capt. James W. Terrell, formerly a trader among the East Cherokee, appears in the same journal for April, 1892. Still another variant, apparently condensed from Terrell's information, is given by Zeigler and Grosscup, "Heart of the Alleghanies," page 24 (Raleigh and Cleveland, 1883). In Ten Kate's version the stone coat of mail broke in pieces as soon as the monster was killed, and the fragments were gathered up and kept as amulets by the people. There is some confusion between this story of U`tlûñ'ta and that of Nûñ'yunu'wi (number 67). According to some myth tellers the two monsters were husband and wife and lived together, and were both alike dressed in stone, had awl fingers and ate human livers, the only difference being that the husband waylaid hunters, while his female partner gave her attention to children. This story has a close parallel in the Creek myth of the Tuggle collection, "The Big Rock Man," in which the people finally kill the stony monster by acting upon the advice of the Rabbit to shoot him in the ear. Far away, in British Columbia, the Indians tell how the Coyote transformed himself to an Elk, covering his body with a hard shell. "Now this shell was like an armor, for no arrow could pierce it; but being hardly large enough to cover all his body, there was a small hole left underneath his throat." He attacks the people, stabbing them with his antlers and trampling them under foot, while their arrows glance harmlessly from his body, until "the Meadow-lark, who was a great telltale, appeared and cried out, 'There is just a little hole at his throat!'" A hunter directs his arrow to that spot and the Elk falls dead (Teit, Thompson River Traditions, pp. 33-34). U`tlûñ'ta--The word means literally "he (or she) has it sharp," i. e., has some sharp part or organ. It might be used of a tooth or finger nail or some other attached portion of the body, but here refers to the awl-like finger. Ten Kate spells the name Uilata. On Little Tennessee river, nearly opposite the entrance of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee, is a place which the Cherokee call U`tlûñtûñ'yi, "Sharp-finger place," because, they say, U`tlûñ'ta used to frequent the spot. Nûñyû'-tlu`gûñ'i--"Tree rock," so called on account of its resemblance to a standing tree trunk; a notable monument-shape rock on the west side of Hiwassee river, about four miles above Hayesville, North Carolina, and nearly on the Georgia line. Whiteside mountain--This noted mountain, known to the Cherokee as Sanigilâ'gi, a name for which they have no meaning, is one of the prominent peaks of the Blue ridge, and is situated southeast from Franklin and about four miles from Highlands, or the dividing line between Macon and Jackson counties, North Carolina. It is 4,900 feet high, being the loftiest elevation on the ridge which forms the watershed between the tributaries of the Little Tennessee and the Chattooga branch of Savannah. It takes its name from the perpendicular cliff on its western exposure, and is also known sometimes as the Devil's courthouse. The Indians compare the appearance of the cliff to that of a sheet of ice, and say that the western summit was formerly crowned by a projecting rock, since destroyed by lightning, which formed a part of the great bridge which U`tlûñ'ta attempted to build across the valley. Lanman's description of this mountain, in 1848, has been quoted in the notes to number 13, "The Great Yellow-jacket." Following is a notice by a later writer: "About five miles from Highlands is that huge old cliff, Whitesides, which forms the advanced guard of all the mountain ranges trending on the south. It is no higher than the Righi, but, like it, rising direct from the plain, it overpowers the spectator more than its loftier brethren. Through all the lowlands of upper Georgia and Alabama this dazzling white pillar of rock, uplifting the sky, is an emphatic and significant landmark. The ascent can be made on horseback, on the rear side of the mountain, to within a quarter of a mile of the summit. When the top is reached, after a short stretch of nearly perpendicular climbing, the traveler finds himself on the edge of a sheer white wall of rock, over which, clinging for life to a protecting hand, he can look, if he chooses, two thousand feet down into the dim valley below. A pebble dropped from his hand will fall straight as into a well. On the vast plain below he can see the wavelike hills on which the great mountain ranges which have stretched from Maine along the continent ebb down finally into the southern plains"--Rebecca H. Davis, Bypaths in the Mountains, in Harper's Magazine, LXI, p. 544, September, 1880. Picking strawberries--For more than a hundred years, as readers of Bartram will remember, the rich bottom lands of the old Cherokee country have been noted for their abundance of strawberries and other wild fruits. My grandchildren--As in most Indian languages, Cherokee kinship terms are usually specialized, and there is no single term for grandchild. "My son's child" is ûñgini'si, plural tsûñgini'si; "my daughter's child" is ûñgili'si, plural tsûñgili'si. The use of kinship terms as expressive of affection or respect is very common among Indians. Taking the appearance--This corresponds closely with the European folk-belief in fairy changelings. To burn the leaves--The burning of the fallen leaves in the autumn, in order to get at the nuts upon the ground below, is still practiced by the white mountaineers of the southern Alleghenies. The line of fire slowly creeping up the mountain side upon a dark night is one of the picturesque sights of that picturesque country. The song--As rendered by Swimmer, the songs seem to be intended for an imitation of the mournful notes of some bird, such as the turtle dove, hidden in the deep forests. Pitfall--The pitfall trap for large game was known among nearly all the tribes, but seems not to have been in frequent use. Chickadee and tomtit--These two little birds closely resemble each other, the Carolina chickadee (Parus carolinensis) or tsikilili being somewhat smaller than the tufted titmouse (Parus bicolor) or utsu`gi, which is also distinguished by a topknot or crest. The belief that the tsikilili foretells the arrival of an absent friend is general among the Cherokee, and has even extended to their neighbors, the white mountaineers. See also number 35, "The Bird Tribes," and accompanying notes. Her heart--The conception of a giant or other monster whose heart or "life" is in some unaccustomed part of the body, or may even be taken out and laid aside at will, so that it is impossible to kill the monster by ordinary means, is common in Indian as well as in European and Asiatic folklore. In a Navaho myth we are told that the Coyote "did not, like other beings, keep his vital principle in his chest, where it might easily be destroyed. He kept it in the tip of his nose and in the end of his tail, where no one would expect to find it." He meets several accidents, any one of which would be sufficient to kill an ordinary creature, but as his nose and tail remain intact he is each time resurrected. Finally a girl whom he wishes to marry beats him into small pieces with a club, grinds the pieces to powder, and scatters the powder to the four winds. "But again she neglected to crush the point of the nose and the tip of the tail," with the result that the Coyote again comes to life, when of course they are married and live happily until the next chapter (Matthews, Navaho Legends, pp. 91-94). In a tale of the Gaelic highlands the giant's life is in an egg which he keeps concealed in a distant place, and not until the hero finds and crushes the egg does the giant die. The monster or hero with but one vulnerable spot, as was the case with Achilles, is also a common concept. 67. Nûñyunu'wi, the Stone Man (p. 319): This myth, although obtained from Swimmer, the best informant in the eastern band, is but fragmentary, for the reason that he confounded it with the somewhat similar story of U`tlûñ'ta (number 66). It was mentioned by Ayâsta and others (east) and by Wafford (west) as a very old and interesting story, although none of these could recall the details in connected form. It is noted as one of the stories heard in the Territory by Ten Kate (Legends of the Cherokees, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, January, 1889), who spells the name Nayunu'wi. Nûñyunu'wi, "Dressed in stone"; adâ'lanûñsti, a staff or cane; asûñ'tli, asûñ'tlûñi, a foot log or bridge; ada'wehi, a great magician or supernatural wonder-worker; see the glossary. A very close parallel is found among the Iroquois, who have traditions of an invasion by a race of fierce cannibals known as the Stonish Giants, who, originally like ordinary humans, had wandered off into the wilderness, where they became addicted to eating raw flesh and wallowing in the sand until their bodies grew to gigantic size and were covered with hard scales like stone, which no arrow could penetrate (see Cusick, in Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, V, p. 637). One of these, which preyed particularly upon the Onondaga, was at last taken in a pitfall and thus killed. Another, in tracking his victims used "something which looked like a finger, but was really a pointer made of bone. With this he could find anything he wished." The pointer was finally snatched from him by a hunter, on which the giant, unable to find his way without it, begged piteously for its return, promising to eat no more men and to send the hunter long life and good luck for himself and all his friends. The hunter thereupon restored it and the giant kept his promises (Beauchamp, W. M., Iroquois Notes, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, Boston, July, 1892.) As told by Mrs Smith ("The Stone Giant's Challenge," Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1883), the pointer was a human finger. "He placed it upright upon his hand, and it immediately pointed the way for him to go." Menstrual woman--Among all our native tribes it is believed that there is something dangerous or uncanny in the touch or presence of a menstrual woman. Hence the universal institution of the "menstrual lodge," to which the woman retires at such periods, eating, working, and sleeping alone, together with a host of tabus and precautions bearing upon the same subject. Nearly the same ideas are held in regard to a pregnant woman. Sourwood stakes--Cherokee hunters impale meat upon sourwood (Oxydendrum) stakes for roasting, and the wood is believed, also, to have power against the spells of witches. Began to talk--The revealing of "medicine" secrets by a magician when in his final agony is a common incident in Indian myths. Whatever he prayed for--Swimmer gives a detailed statement of the particular petition made by several of those thus painted. Painting the face and body, especially with red paint, is always among Indians a more or less sacred performance, usually accompanied with prayers. 68. The hunter in the Dakwa'--This story was told by Swimmer and Ta'gwadihi' and is well known in the tribe. The version from the Wahnenauhi manuscript differs considerably from that here given. In the Bible translation the word dakwa' is used as the equivalent of whale. Haywood thus alludes to the story (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 244): "One of the ancient traditions of the Cherokees is that once a whale swallowed a little boy, and after some time spewed him upon the land." It is pretty certain that the Cherokee formerly had some acquaintance with whales, which, about the year 1700, according to Lawson, were "very numerous" on the coast of North Carolina, being frequently stranded along the shore, so that settlers derived considerable profit from the oil and blubber. He enumerates four species there known, and adds a general statement that "some Indians in America" hunted them at sea (History of Carolina, pp. 251-252). In almost every age and country we find a myth of a great fish swallowing a man, who afterward finds his way out alive. Near to the Cherokee myth are the Bible story of Jonah, and the Greek story of Hercules, swallowed by a fish and coming out afterward alive, but bald. For parallels and theories of the origin and meaning of the myth among the ancient nations, see chapter IX of Bouton's Bible Myths. In an Ojibwa story, the great Manabozho is swallowed, canoe and all, by the king of the fishes. With his war club he strikes repeated blows upon the heart of the fish, which attempts to spew him out. Fearing that he might drown in deep water, Manabozho frustrates the endeavor by placing his canoe crosswise in the throat of the fish, and continues striking at the heart until the monster makes for the shore and there dies, when the hero makes his escape through a hole which the gulls have torn in the side of the carcass (Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, I, pp. 145-146). 69. Atagâ'hi, the enchanted lake (p. 321): This story was heard from Swimmer, Ta'gwadihi', and others, and is a matter of familiar knowledge to every hunter among the East Cherokee. If Indian testimony be believed there is actually a large bare flat of this name in the difficult recesses of the Great Smoky mountains on the northern boundary of Swain county, North Carolina, somewhere between the heads of Bradleys fork and Eagle creek. It appears to be a great resort for bears and ducks, and is perhaps submerged at long intervals, which would account for the legend. Prayer, fasting, and vigil--In Indian ritual, as among the Orientals and in all ancient religions, these are prime requisites for obtaining clearness of spiritual vision. In almost every tribe the young warrior just entering manhood voluntarily subjected himself to an ordeal of this kind, of several days' continuance, in order to obtain a vision of the "medicine" which was to be his guide and protector for the rest of his life. 70. The bride from the south (p. 322): This unique allegory was heard from both Swimmer and Ta'gwadihi' in nearly the same form. Hagar also (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee) heard something of it from Ayâsta, who, however, confused it with the Hagar variant of number 11, "The Milky Way" (see notes to number 11). In a myth from British Columbia, "The Hot and the Cold Winds," the cold-wind people of the north wage war with the hot-wind people of the south, until the Indians, whose country lay between, and who constantly suffer from both sides, bring about a peace, to be ratified by a marriage between the two parties. Accordingly, the people of the south send their daughter to marry the son of the north. The two are married and have one child, whom the mother after a time decides to take with her to visit her own people in the north. Her visit ended, she starts on her return, accompanied by her elder brother. "They embarked in a bark canoe for the country of the cold. Her brother paddled. After going a long distance, and while crossing a great lake, the cold became so intense that her brother could not endure it any longer. He took the child from his sister and threw it into the water. Immediately the air turned warm and the child floated on the water as a lump of ice."--Teit, Traditions of the Thompson River Indians, pp. 55, 56. 71. The Ice Man (p. 322): This story, told by Swimmer, may be a veiled tradition of a burning coal mine in the mountains, accidentally ignited in firing the woods in the fall, according to the regular Cherokee practice, and finally extinguished by a providential rainstorm. One of Buttrick's Cherokee informants told him that "a great while ago a part of the world was burned, though it is not known now how, or by whom, but it is said that other land was formed by washing in from the mountains" (Antiquities, p. 7). When the French built Fort Caroline, near the present Charleston, South Carolina, in 1562, an Indian village was in the vicinity, but shortly afterward the chief, with all his people, removed to a considerable distance in consequence of a strange accident--"a large piece of peat bog [was] kindled by lightning and consumed, which he supposed to be the work of artillery." [546] Volcanic activities, some of very recent date, have left many traces in the Carolina mountains. A mountain in Haywood county, near the head of Fines creek, has been noted for its noises and quakings for nearly a century, one particular explosion having split solid masses of granite as though by a blast of gunpowder. These shocks and noises used to recur at intervals of two or three years, but have not now been noticed for some time. In 1829 a violent earthquake on Valley river split open a mountain, leaving a chasm extending for several hundred yards, which is still to be seen. Satoola mountain, near Highlands, in Macon county, has crevices from which smoke is said to issue at intervals. In Madison county there is a mountain which has been known to rumble and smoke, a phenomenon with which the Warm springs in the same county may have some connection. Another peak, known as Shaking or Rumbling bald, in Rutherford county, attracted widespread attention in 1874 by a succession of shocks extending over a period of six months (see Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 228-229). 72. The Hunter and Selu (p. 323): The explanation of this story, told by Swimmer, lies in the myth which derives corn from the blood of the old woman Selu (see number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"). In Iroquois myth the spirits of Corn, Beans, and Squash are three sisters. Corn was originally much more fertile, but was blighted by the jealousy of an evil spirit. "To this day, when the rustling wind waves the corn leaves with a moaning sound, the pious Indian fancies that he hears the Spirit of Corn, in her compassion for the red man, still bemoaning with unavailing regrets her blighted fruitfulness" (Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 162). See number 126, "Plant Lore," and accompanying notes. 73. The Underground Panthers (p. 324): This story was told by John Ax. For an explanation of the Indian idea concerning animals see number 15, "The Four-footed Tribes," and number 76, "The Bear Man." Several days--The strange lapse of time, by which a period really extending over days or even years seems to the stranger under the spell to be only a matter of a few hours, is one of the most common incidents of European fairy recitals, and has been made equally familiar to American readers through Irving's story of Rip Van Winkle. 74. The Tsundige'wi (p. 325): This curious story was told by Swimmer and Ta'gwadihi' (east) and Wafford (west). Swimmer says the dwarfs lived in the west, but Ta'gwadihi' and Wafford locate them south from the Cherokee country. A story which seems to be a variant of the same myth was told to the Spanish adventurer Ayllon by the Indians on the South Carolina coast in 1520, and is thus given in translation from Peter Martyr's Decades, in the Discovery and Conquest of Florida, ninth volume of the Hakluyt Society's publications, pages XV-XVI, London, 1851. "Another of Ayllon's strange stories refers to a country called Inzignanin, ... The inhabitauntes, by report of their ancestors, say, that a people as tall as the length of a man's arme, with tayles of a spanne long, sometime arrived there, brought thither by sea, which tayle was not movable or wavering, as in foure-footed beastes, but solide, broad above, and sharpe beneath, as wee see in fishes and crocodiles, and extended into a bony hardness. Wherefore, when they desired to sitt, they used seates with holes through them, or wanting them, digged upp the earth a spanne deepe or little more, they must convay their tayle into the hole when they rest them." It is given thus in Barcia, Ensayo, page 5: "Tambien llegaron a la Provincia de Yncignavin adonde les contaron aquellos Indios, que en cierto tiempo, avian aportado à ella, unas Gentes, que tenian Cola ... de una quarta de largo, flexible, que les estorvaba tanto, que para sentarse agujereaban los asientos: que el Pellejo era mui aspero, y como escamoso, y que comìan solo Peces crudos: y aviendo estos muerto, se acabò esta Nacion, y la Verdad del Caso, con ella." A close parallel to the Cherokee story is found among the Nisqualli of Washington, in a story of three [four?] brothers, who are captured by a miraculously strong dwarf who ties them and carries them off in his canoe. "Having rounded the distant point, where they had first descried him, they came to a village inhabited by a race of people as small as their captor, their houses, boats and utensils being all in proportion to themselves. The three brothers were then taken out and thrown, bound as they were, into a lodge, while a council was convened to decide upon their fate. During the sitting of the council an immense flock of birds, resembling geese, but much larger, pounced down upon the inhabitants and commenced a violent attack. These birds had the power of throwing their sharp quills like the porcupine, and although the little warriors fought with great valour, they soon became covered with the piercing darts and all sunk insensible on the ground. When all resistance has ceased, the birds took to flight and disappeared. The brothers had witnessed the conflict from their place of confinement, and with much labour had succeeded in releasing themselves from their bonds, when they went to the battle ground, and commenced pulling the quills from the apparently lifeless bodies; but no sooner had they done this, than all instantly returned to consciousness" (Kane, Wanderings of an Artist, pp. 252-253). 75. Origin of the Bear (p. 325): This story was told by Swimmer, from whom were also obtained the hunting songs, and was frequently referred to by other informants. The Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi are said to have been an actual clan in ancient times. For parallels, see number 76, "The Bear Man." Had not taken human food--The Indian is a thorough believer in the doctrine that "man is what he eats." Says Adair (History of the American Indians, p. 133): "They believe that nature is possessed of such a property as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the food they use or of those objects that are presented to their senses. He who feeds on venison is, according to their physical system, swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the clumsy bear or helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy wallowing swine. This is the reason that several of their old men recommend and say that formerly their greatest chieftains observed a constant rule in their diet, and seldom ate of any animal of a gross quality or heavy motion of body, fancying it conveyed a dullness through the whole system and disabled them from exerting themselves with proper vigour in their martial, civil, and religious duties." A continuous adherence to the diet commonly used by a bear will finally give to the eater the bear nature, if not also the bear form and appearance. A certain term of "white man's food" will give the Indian the white man's nature, so that neither the remedies nor the spells of the Indian doctor will have any effect upon him (see the author's "Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees," in Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1891). Shall live always--For explanation of the doctrine of animal reincarnation, see number 15, "The Four-footed Tribes." The songs--These are fair specimens of the hunting songs found in every tribe, and intended to call up the animals or to win the favor of the lords of the game (see also deer songs in notes to number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu"). As usual, the word forms are slightly changed to suit the requirements of the tune. The second song was first published by the author in the paper on sacred formulas, noted above. Tsistu'yi, Kuwâ'hi, Uya'hye, and Gâte'gwâ (-hi) are four mountains, under each of which the bears have a townhouse in which they hold a dance before retiring to their dens for their winter sleep. At Tsistu'yi, "Rabbit place," known to us as Gregory bald, in the Great Smoky range, dwells the Great Rabbit, the chief of the rabbit tribe. At Kuwâ'hi, "Mulberry place," farther northeast along the same range, resides the White Bear, the chief of the bear tribe, and near by is the enchanted lake of Atagâ'hi, to which wounded bears go to bathe and be cured (see number 15, "The Four-footed Tribes," and number 69, "Atagâ'hi, the Enchanted Lake"). Uyâhye is also a peak of the Great Smokies, while Gâtegwâ'hi, "Great swamp or thicket (?)," is southeast of Franklin, North Carolina, and is perhaps identical with Fodderstack mountain (see also the glossary). 76. The Bear Man (p. 327): This story was obtained first from John Ax, and has numerous parallels in other tribes, as well as in European and oriental folklore. The classic legend of Romulus and Remus and the stories of "wolf boys" in India will at once suggest themselves. Swimmer makes the trial of the hunter's weapons by the bears a part of his story of the origin of disease and medicine (number 4), but says that it may have happened on this occasion (see also number 15, "The Four-footed Tribes," and notes to number 75, "Origin of the Bear"). In a strikingly similar Creek myth of the Tuggle collection, "Origin of the Bear Clan," a little girl lost in the woods is adopted by a she-bear, with whom she lives for four years, when the bear is killed by the hunter and the girl returns to her people to become the mother of the Bear clan. The Iroquois have several stories of children adopted by bears. In one, "The Man and His Stepson," a boy thus cared for is afterward found by a hunter, who tames him and teaches him to speak, until in time he almost forgets that he had lived like a bear. He marries a daughter of the hunter and becomes a hunter himself, but always refrains from molesting the bears, until at last, angered by the taunts of his mother-in-law, he shoots one, but is himself killed by an accident while on his return home (Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology). In line with this is the story of a hunter who had pursued a bear into its den. "When some distance in he could no longer see the bear, but he saw a fire and around it sat several men. The oldest of the three men looked up and asked, 'Why did you try to shoot one of my men. We sent him out to entice you to us'" (Curtin, Seneca MS in Bureau of American Ethnology archives). In a Pawnee myth, "The Bear Man," a boy whose father had put him under the protection of the bears grows up with certain bear traits and frequently prays and sacrifices to these animals. On a war party against the Sioux he is killed and cut to pieces, when two bears find and recognize the body, gather up and arrange the pieces and restore him to life, after which they take him to their den, where they care for him and teach him their secret knowledge until he is strong enough to go home (Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories, pp. 121-128). In a Jicarilla myth, "Origin and Destruction of the Bear," a boy playing about in animal fashion runs into a cave in the hillside. "When he came out his feet and hands had been transformed into bear's paws." Four times this is repeated, the change each time mounting higher, until he finally emerges as a terrible bear monster that devours human beings (Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1898). Read the thoughts--Thought reading is a very common feature of Indian myths. Certain medicine ceremonies are believed to confer the power upon those who fulfil the ordeal conditions. Food was getting scarce--Several references in the myths indicate that, through failure of the accustomed wild crops, famine seasons were as common among the animal tribes as among the Indians (see number 33, "The Migration of the Animals"). Kalâs'-Gûnahi'ta--See number 15, "The Four-footed Tribes." Rubbed his stomach--This very original method of procuring food occurs also in number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." Topknots and Splitnoses--Tsuni'stsahi', "Having topknots"--i. e., Indians, in allusion to the crests of upright hair formerly worn by warriors of the Cherokee and other eastern tribes. Timberlake thus describes the Cherokee warrior's headdress in 1762: "The hair of their head is shaved, tho' many of the old people have it plucked out by the roots, except a patch on the hinder part of the head about twice the bigness of a crown piece, which is ornamented with beads, feathers, wampum, stained deer's hair, and such like baubles" (Memoirs, p. 49). Tsunû'`liyû' sûnestlâ'ta, "they have split noses"--i. e., dogs. Cover the blood--The reincarnation of the slain animal from the drops of blood spilt upon the ground or from the bones is a regular part of Cherokee hunting belief, and the same idea occurs in the folklore of many tribes. In the Omaha myth, "Ictinike and the Four Creators," the hero visits the Beaver, who kills and cooks one of his own children to furnish the dinner. When the meal was over "the Beaver gathered the bones and put them into a skin, which he plunged beneath the water. In a moment the youngest beaver came up alive out of the water" (Dorsey, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, p. 557). Like a man again--It is a regular article of Indian belief, which has its parallels in European fairy lore, that one who has eaten the food of the spirit people or supernaturals can not afterward return to his own people and live, unless at once, and sometimes for a long time, put under a rigid course of treatment intended to efface the longing for the spirit food and thus to restore his complete human nature. See also number 73, "The Underground Panthers." In "A Yankton Legend," recorded by Dorsey, a child falls into the water and is taken by the water people. The father hears the child crying under the water and employs two medicine men to bring it back. After preparing themselves properly they go down into the deep water, where they find the child sitting beside the water spirit, who, when they declare their message, tells them that if they had come before the child had eaten anything he might have lived, but now if taken away "he will desire the food which I eat; that being the cause of the trouble, he shall die." They return and report: "We have seen your child, the wife of the water deity has him. Though we saw him alive, he had eaten part of the food which the water deity eats, therefore the water deity says that if we bring the child back with us out of the water he shall die," and so it happened. Some time after the parents lose another child in like manner, but this time "she did not eat any of the food of the water deity and therefore they took her home alive." In each case a white dog is thrown in to satisfy the water spirits for the loss of the child (Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI, p. 357). 77. The Great Leech of Tlanusi'yi (p. 329): This legend was heard first from Swimmer and Chief Smith, the latter of whom was born near Murphy; it was confirmed by Wafford (west) and others, being one of the best known myths in the tribe and embodied in the Cherokee name for Murphy. It is apparently founded upon a peculiar appearance, as of something alive or moving, at the bottom of a deep hole in Valley river, just below the old Unicoi turnpike ford, at Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. It is said that a tinsmith of the town once made a tin bomb which he filled with powder and sank in the stream at this spot with the intention of blowing up the strange object to see what it might be, but the contrivance failed to explode. The hole is caused by a sudden drop or split in the rock bed of the stream, extending across the river. Wafford, who once lived on Nottely river, adds the incident of the two women and says that the Leech had wings and could fly. He asserts also that he found rich lead ore in the hole, but that the swift current prevented working it. About two miles above the mouth of Nottely river a bend of the stream brings it within about the same distance of the Hiwassee at Murphy. This nearest point of approach on Nottely is also known to the Cherokee as Tlanusi'yi, "leech place," and from certain phenomena common to both streams it is a general belief among Indians and whites that they are connected here by a subterranean water way. The legend and the popular belief are thus noted in 1848 by Lanman, who incorrectly makes the leech a turtle: "The little village of Murphy, whence I date this letter, lies at the junction of the Owassa and Valley rivers, and in point of location is one of the prettiest places in the world. Its Indian name was Klausuna, or the Large Turtle. It was so called, says a Cherokee legend, on account of its being the sunning place of an immense turtle which lived in its vicinity in ancient times. The turtle was particularly famous for its repelling power, having been known not to be at all injured by a stroke of lightning. Nothing on earth had power to annihilate the creature; but, on account of the many attempts made to take its life, when it was known to be a harmless and inoffensive creature, it became disgusted with this world, and burrowed its way into the middle of the earth, where it now lives in peace. "In connection with this legend, I may here mention what must be considered a remarkable fact in geology. Running directly across the village of Murphy is a belt of marble, composed of the black, grey, pure white and flesh-colored varieties, which belt also crosses the Owassa river. Just above this marble causeway the Owassa, for a space of perhaps two hundred feet, is said to be over one hundred feet deep, and at one point, in fact, a bottom has never been found. All this is simple truth, but I have heard the opinion expressed that there is a subterranean communication between this immense hole in Owassa and the river Notely, which is some two miles distant. The testimony adduced in proof of this theory is, that a certain log was once marked on the Notely, which log was subsequently found floating in the pool of the Deep Hole in the Owassa" (Letters, pp. 63-64). 78. The Nûñne'hi and other spirit folk (p. 330): The belief in fairies and kindred spirits, frequently appearing as diminutive beings in human form, is so universal among all races as to render citation of parallels unnecessary. Every Indian tribe has its own spirits of the woods, the cliffs, and the waters, usually benevolent and kindly when not disturbed, but often mischievous, and in rare cases malicious and revengeful. These invisible spirit people are regarded as a sort of supernatural human beings, entirely distinct from ghosts and from the animal and plant spirits, as well as from the godlike beings who rule the sun, the rain, and the thunder. Most of the Nûñne'hi stories here given were told by Wafford, who believed them all firmly in spite of his white man's blood and education. The others, excepting that of the offended spirits (Wahnenauhi MS) and the Fire-carrier (Wafford), were heard from various persons upon the reservation. For other Nûñne'hi references see the stories of Tsuwe'nahi, Kana'sta, Yahula, etc. Nûñne'hi--This word (gûñne'hi in a dialectic form and naye'hi in the singular) may be rendered "dwellers anywhere" or "those who live anywhere," but is understood to mean "those who live forever," i. e., Immortals. It is spelled Nanehi by Buttrick and Nuhnayie in the Wahnenauhi manuscript. The singular form, Naye'hi, occurs also as a personal name, equivalent to Edâ'hi, "One who goes about." Some invisible townhouse--The ancient Creek town of Okmulgee, where now is the city of Macon, in Georgia, was destroyed by the Carolina people about the time of the Yamassee war. Sixty years later Adair says of the Creeks: "They strenuously aver that when the necessity forces them to encamp there, they always hear at the dawn of the morning the usual noise of Indians singing their joyful religious notes and dancing, as if going down to the river to purify themselves, and then returning to the old townhouse; with a great deal more to the same effect. Whenever I have been there, however, all hath been silent.... But they say this was 'because I am an obdurate infidel that way'" (Hist. Am. Indians, p. 36). Nottely town--Properly Na'dû`li, was on Nottely river, a short distance above Raper creek in Cherokee county, North Carolina. The old townhouse was upon a large mound on the west side of the river and about five miles below the Georgia line. The town was practically deserted before the removal in 1838 (see glossary). Hemptown--Properly Gatûñlti'yi, "Hemp place," existed until the Removal, on Hemptown creek, a branch of Toccoa river, a few miles north of the present Morganton, in Fannin county, Georgia. Noted circular depression--This may have been a circular earthwork of about thirty feet diameter, described as existing in 1890 a short distance east of Soquee post-office near the head of Soquee creek, about ten miles northwest of Clarkesville, Habersham county, Georgia. There are other circular structures of stone on elevated positions within a few miles of Clarkesville (see author's manuscript notes on Cherokee archeology, in Bureau of American Ethnology archives). The same story about throwing logs and stones into one of these sacred places, only to have them thrown out again by invisible hands, is told by Zeigler and Grosscup, in connection with the Jutaculla old fields (see note under number 81, "Tsul`kalû'"). Bewildered--"Crazy persons were supposed to be possessed with the devil or afflicted with the Nanehi" (Buttrick, Antiquities, p. 14). According to Hagar's informant: "The little people cause men to lose their minds and run away and wander in the forests. They wear very long hair, down to their heels" (MS Stellar Legends of the Cherokee). In Creek belief, according to the Tuggle manuscript, "Fairies or little people live in hollow trees and on rocky cliffs. They often decoy people from their homes and lose them in the woods. When a man's mind becomes bewildered--not crazy--this is caused by the little people." Loaves seemed to shrink--The deceptive and unsatisfactory character of all fairy belongings when the spell is lifted is well known to the European peasantry. Tsawa'si and Tsaga'si--These sprites are frequently named in the hunting prayers and other sacred formulas. Scratching--This is a preliminary rite of the ballplay and other ceremonies, as well as the doctor's method of hypodermic injection. As performed in connection with the ballplay it is a painful operation, being inflicted upon the naked skin with a seven-toothed comb of turkey bone, the scratches being drawn in parallel lines upon the breast, back, arms and legs, until the sufferer is bleeding from head to foot. In medical practice, in order that the external application may take hold more effectually, the scratching is done with a rattlesnake's tooth, a brier, a flint, or a piece of glass. See author's Cherokee Ball Play, in American Anthropologist, April, 1890, and Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, in Seventh Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, 1891. The practice seems to have been general among the southern tribes, and was sometimes used as a punishment for certain delinquents. According to Adair the doctor bled patients by scratching them with the teeth of garfish after the skin had been first well softened by the application of warm water, while any unauthorized person who dared to intrude upon the sacred square during ceremonial performances "would be dry-scratched with snakes' teeth, fixed in the middle of a split reed or piece of wood, without the privilege of warm water to supple the stiffened skin" (Hist. Am. Indians, pp. 46, 120). The Fire-carrier--This is probably the gaseous phenomenon known as the will-of-the-wisp, which has been a thing of mystery and fear to others beside Indians. 79. The removed townhouses (p. 335): The first of these stories was told by John Ax. The second was obtained from Salâ'li, "Squirrel," mentioned elsewhere as a self-taught mechanic of the East Cherokee. Wafford (west) had also heard it, but confused it with that of Tsal`kalû' (number 81). Excepting Gusti', the localities are all in western North Carolina. The large mound of Se`tsi is on the south side of Valley river, about three miles below Valleytown, in Cherokee county. Anisgaya'yi town is not definitely located by the story teller, but was probably in the same neighborhood. Tsudaye`lûñ'yi, literally "where it is isolated," or "isolated place," is a solitary high peak near Cheowa Maximum, a few miles northeast of Robbinsville, in Graham county, on the summit of which there is said to be a large rock somewhat resembling in appearance a circular townhouse with a part wanting from one side. Du'stiya`lûñ'yi, "Where it was shot," i. e., "Where it was struck by lightning," is the territory on Hiwassee river, about the mouth of Shooting creek, above Hayesville, in Clay county (see also glossary). No one must shout--The same injunction occurs in the legend of Tsul`kalû' (number 81). The necessity for strict silence while under the conduct of fairy guides is constantly emphasized in European folklore. Townhouse in the water below--Breton legend tells of a submerged city which rises out of the sea at long intervals, when it can be seen by those who possess the proper talisman, and we know that in Ireland "On Lough Neagh's banks as the fisherman strays, When the clear cold eve's declining, He sees the round towers of other days In the wave beneath him shining." 80. The spirit defenders of Nikwasi' (p. 336): This story was obtained from Swimmer. Nikwasi' or Nikw'si', one of the most ancient settlements of the Cherokee, was on the west bank of Little Tennessee river, where is now the town of Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. The mound upon which the townhouse stood, in a field adjoining the river, is probably the largest in western Carolina and has never been explored. The Cherokee believe that it is the abode of the Nûñne'hi or Immortals (see number 78) and that a perpetual fire burns within it. The name, which can not be translated, appears as Nucassee in old documents. The British agent held a council here with the Cherokee as early as 1730. Although twice destroyed, the town was rebuilt and continued to be occupied probably until the land was sold in 1819. Bring the news home--It was a frequent custom in Indian warfare to spare a captive taken in battle in order that he might carry back to his people the news of the defeat. After the disastrous defeat of the French under D'Artaguette by the Chickasaw in upper Mississippi in 1736, D'Artaguette, Lieutenant Vincennes, Father Senac, and fifteen others were burned at the stake by the victors, but "one of the soldiers was spared to carry the news of the triumph of the Chickasaws and the death of these unhappy men to the mortified Bienville" (Pickett, History of Alabama, p. 298, ed. 1896). 81. Tsul`kalû', the slant-eyed giant (p. 337): The story of Tsul`kalû' is one of the finest and best known of the Cherokee legends. It is mentioned as early as 1823 by Haywood, who spells the name Tuli-cula, and the memory is preserved in the local nomenclature of western Carolina. Hagar also alludes briefly to it in his manuscript Stellar Legends of the Cherokee. The name signifies literally "he has them slanting," being understood to refer to his eyes, although the word eye (akta', plural dikta') is not a part of it. In the plural form it is also the name of a traditional race of giants in the far west (see number 106, "The Giants from the West"). Tsul`kalû' lives in Tsunegûñ'yi and is the great lord of the game, and as such is frequently invoked in the hunting formulas. The story was obtained from Swimmer and John Ax, the Swimmer version being the one here followed. For parallels to the incident of the child born from blood see notes to number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu." In the John Ax version it is the girl's father and mother, instead of her mother and brother, who try to bring her back. They are told they must fast seven days to succeed. They fast four days before starting, and then set out and travel two days, when they come to the mouth of the cave and hear the sound of the drum and the dance within. They are able to look over the edge of the rock and see their daughter among the dancers, but can not enter until the seventh day is arrived. Unluckily the man is very hungry by this time, and after watching nearly all night he insists that it is so near daylight of the seventh morning that he may safely take a small bite. His wife begs him to wait until the sun appears, but hunger overcomes him and he takes a bite of food from his pouch. Instantly the cave and the dancers disappear, and the man and his wife find themselves alone on the mountain. John Ax was a very old man at the time of the recital, with memory rapidly failing, and it is evident that his version is only fragmentary. Haywood notes the story on the authority of Charles Hicks, an educated halfbreed (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 280): "They have a fabulous tradition respecting the mounds, which proves that they are beyond the events of their history. The mounds, they say, were caused by the quaking of the earth and great noise with it, a ceremony used for the adoption of their people into the family of Tuli-cula, who was an invisible person and had taken a wife of one of their town's people. And at the time when his first son was born the quaking of the earth and noise had commenced, but had ceased at the alarm whoop, which had been raised by two imprudent young men of the town, in consequence of which the mounds had been raised by the quaking noise. Whereupon the father took the child and mother and removed to near Brasstown, and had made the tracks in the rocks which are to be seen there." From Buttrick we get the following version of the tradition, evidently told for the missionary's special benefit: "God directed the Indians to ascend a certain mountain--that is, the warriors--and he would there send them assistance. They started and had ascended far up the mountain, when one of the warriors began to talk about women. His companion immediately reproved him, but instantly a voice like thunder issued from the side of the mountain and God spoke and told them to return, as he could not assist them on account of that sin. They put the man to death, yet the Lord never returned to them afterwards" (Antiquities, p. 14). On the next page he tells it in a somewhat different form: "It is said that before coming to this continent, while in their own country, they were in great distress from their enemies, and God told them to march to the top of a certain mountain and He would come down and afford them relief. They ascended far up the mountain and thought they saw something coming down from above, which they supposed was for their aid. But just then one of the warriors," etc. Zeigler and Grosscup give another version, which, although dressed up for advertising purposes, makes a fairly good story: "But there is another legend of the Balsams more significant than any of these. It is the Paradise Gained of Cherokee mythology, and bears some distant resemblance to the Christian doctrine of mediation. The Indians believed that they were originally mortal in spirit as well as body, but above the blue vault of heaven there was, inhabited by a celestial race, a forest into which the highest mountains lifted their dark summits. * * * "The mediator, by whom eternal life was secured for the Indian mountaineers, was a maiden of their own tribe. Allured by the haunting sound and diamond sparkle of a mountain stream, she wandered far up into a solitary glen, where the azalea, the kalmia, and the rhododendron brilliantly embellished the deep, shaded slopes, and filled the air with their delicate perfume. The crystal stream wound its crooked way between moss-covered rocks over which tall ferns bowed their graceful stems. Enchanted by the scene, she seated herself upon the soft moss, and, overcome by fatigue, was soon asleep. The dream picture of a fairyland was presently broken by the soft touch of a strange hand. The spirit of her dream occupied a place at her side, and, wooing, won her for his bride. "Her supposed abduction caused great excitement among her people, who made diligent search for her recovery in their own villages. Being unsuccessful, they made war upon the neighboring tribes in the hope of finding the place of her concealment. Grieved because of so much bloodshed and sorrow, she besought the great chief of the eternal hunting grounds to make retribution. She was accordingly appointed to call a council of her people at the forks of the Wayeh (Pigeon) river. She appeared unto the chiefs in a dream, and charged them to meet the spirits of the hunting ground with fear and reverence. "At the hour appointed the head men of the Cherokees assembled. The high Balsam peaks were shaken by thunder and aglare with lightning. The cloud, as black as midnight, settled over the valley, then lifted, leaving upon a large rock a cluster of strange men, armed and painted as for war. An enraged brother of the abducted maiden swung his tomahawk and raised the war whoop, but a swift thunderbolt dispatched him before the echo had died in the hills. The chiefs, terror-stricken, fled to their towns. "The bride, grieved by the death of her brother and the failure of the council, prepared to abandon her new home and return to her kindred in the valleys. To reconcile her the promise was granted that all brave warriors and their faithful women should have an eternal home in the happy hunting ground above, after death. The great chief of the forest beyond the clouds became the guardian spirit of the Cherokees. All deaths, either from wounds in battle or disease, were attributed to his desire to make additions to the celestial hunting ground, or, on the other hand, to his wrath, which might cause their unfortunate spirits to be turned over to the disposition of the evil genius of the mountain tops."--Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 22-24. Kanu'ga--An ancient Cherokee town on Pigeon river, in the present Haywood county, North Carolina. It was deserted before the beginning of the historic period, but may have been located about the junction of the two forks of Pigeon river, a few miles east of Waynesville, where there are still a number of mounds and ancient cemeteries extending for some miles down the stream. Being a frontier town, it was probably abandoned early on account of its exposed position. The name, signifying "scratcher," is applied to a comb, used for scratching the ballplayers, and is connected with kanugû'`la, or nugû'`la, a blackberry bush or brier. There are other mounds on Richland creek, in the neighborhood of Waynesville. Tsul`kalû' Tsunegûñ'yi--Abbreviated Tsunegûñ'yi; the mountain in which the giant is supposed to have his residence, is Tennessee bald, in North Carolina, where the Haywood, Jackson, and Transylvania county lines come together, on the ridge separating the waters of Pigeon river from those flowing into Tennessee creek and Cany fork of the Tuckasegee, southeastward from Waynesville and Webster. The name seems to mean, "at the white place," from une'ga, "white," and may refer to a bald spot of perhaps a hundred acres on the top, locally known among the whites as Jutaculla old fields, from a tradition, said to be derived from the Indians, that it was a clearing made by "Jutaculla" (i. e., Tsul`kalû') for a farm. Some distance farther west, on the north side of Cany fork and about ten miles above Webster, in Jackson county, is a rock known as Jutaculla rock, covered with various rude carvings, which, according to the same tradition, are scratches made by the giant in jumping from his farm on the mountain to the creek below. Zeigler and Grosscup refer to the mountain under the name of "Old Field mountain" and mention a tradition among the pioneers that it was regarded by the Indians as the special abode of the Indian Satan! "On the top of the mountain there is a prairie-like tract, almost level, reached by steep slopes covered with thickets of balsam and rhododendron, which seem to garrison the reputed sacred domain. It was understood among the Indians to be forbidden territory, but a party one day permitted their curiosity to tempt them. They forced a way through the entangled thickets, and with merriment entered the open ground. Aroused from sleep and enraged by their audacious intrusion, the devil, taking the form of an immense snake, assaulted the party and swallowed fifty of them before the thicket could be gained. Among the first whites who settled among the Indians, and traded with them, was a party of hunters who used this superstition to escape punishment for their reprehensible conduct. They reported that they were in league with the great spirit of evil, and to prove that they were, frequented this 'old field.' They described his bed, under a large overhanging rock, as a model of neatness. They had frequently thrown into it stones and brushwood during the day, while the master was out, but the place was invariably as clean the next morning 'as if it had been brushed with a bunch of feathers'" (Heart of the Alleghanies, p. 22). The footprints can still be seen--Shining rock or Cold mountain, between the Forks of Pigeon river, in Haywood county, North Carolina, is known to the Cherokee as Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi, "where their tracks are this way," on account of a rock at its base, toward Sonoma and three miles south of the trail, upon which are impressions said to be the footprints made by the giant and his children on their way to Tsunegûñ'yi. Within the mountain is also the legendary abode of invisible spirits. Haywood confounds this with Track Rock gap, near Blairsville, Georgia, where are other noted petroglyphs (see number 125, Minor Legends of Georgia). The rapid growth of the two children is paralleled in many other tribal mythologies. The sequence of growth as indicated by the footprints reminds us of the concluding incident of the Arabian Nights, when Queen Scheherazade stands before the king to make a last request: "And the king answered her, 'Request, thou shalt receive, O Scheherazade.' So thereupon she called out to the nurses and the eunuchs and said to them, 'Bring ye my children.' Accordingly they brought them to her quickly, and they were three male children; one of them walked, and one crawled, and one was at the breast." Must not raise the war whoop--See note under number 79, "The Removed Townhouses." 82. Kana'sta, the lost settlement (p. 341): This story, obtained from Swimmer, bears resemblance to those of Tsul`kalû', Tsuwe'nahi, The Removed Townhouses, and others, in which individuals, or even whole settlements, elect to go with the invisible spirit people in order to escape hardships or coming disaster. Kana'sta--Abbreviated from Kanastûñ'yi, a name which can not be translated, is described as an ancient Cherokee town on the French Broad where the trail from Tennessee creek of the Tuckasegee comes in, near the present Brevard, in Transylvania county, North Carolina. No mounds are known there, and we find no notice of the town in history, but another of the same name existed on Hiwassee and was destroyed in 1776. Tsuwa`tel'da--Abbreviated from Tsuwa`teldûñ'yi, and known to the whites as Pilot knob, is a high mountain in Transylvania county, about eight miles north of Brevard. On account of the peculiar stratified appearance of the rocks, the faces of the cliffs are said frequently to present a peculiar appearance under the sun's rays, as of shining walls with doors, windows, and shingled roofs. Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi--Shining rock. See note under number 81, "Tsul`kalû'." Fast seven days--This injunction of a seven days' fast upon those who would join the spirit people appears in several Cherokee myths, the idea being, as we learn from the priests, to spiritualize the human nature and quicken the spiritual vision by abstinence from earthly food. The doctrine is exemplified in an incident of the legend of Tsuwe'nahi, q. v. In a broader application, the same idea is a foundation principle of every ancient religion. In ordinary Cherokee ceremonial the fast is kept for one day--i. e., from midnight to sunset. On occasions of supreme importance it continues four or even seven days. Among the plains tribes those who voluntarily enter the Sun dance to make supplication and sacrifice for their people abstain entirely from food and drink during the four days and nights of the ceremony. The Thunders--See number 3, "Kana'ti and Selu" and notes, and number 8, "The Moon and the Thunders," with notes. 83. Tsuwe'nahi, a legend of Pilot knob (p. 343): This story, from Swimmer, is of the same order as the legends of Tsul`kalû', Kana'sta, etc. The people whom the hunter met inside the enchanted mountain are evidently the same described in the last-named story (number 82), with the guests from the lost settlement. The name Tsuwe'nahi can not be translated, but may possibly have, a connection with uwe'nahi, "rich." Kanu'ga and Tsuwa`tel'da--See notes under number 81, "Tsul`kalû'," and number 82, "Kana'sta." Parched corn--This was the standard provision of the warrior when on the march among all the tribes east of the Mississippi and probably among all the corn-growing tribes of America. It is the pinole of the Tarumari and other Mexican tribes. The Cherokee call it gahawi'sita. Hawkins thus describes it as seen with his Cherokee guides in 1796: "They are small eaters, use no salt and but little bread. They carry their parched corn meal, wissactaw, and mix a handful in a pint of water, which they drink. Although they had plenty of corn and fowls, they made no other provision than a small bag of this for the path. I have plenty of provisions and give them some at every meal. I have several times drank of the wissactaw, and am fond of it with the addition of some sugar. To make of the best quality, I am told the corn should first be boiled, then parched in hot ashes, sifted, powdered, and made into flour." [547] The seat was a turtle--This incident also occurs in number 84, "The Man who Married the Thunder's Sister." The species meant is the saligu'gi or common water turtle. Like dogs' paws--No reason is given for this peculiarity, which is nowhere else mentioned as a characteristic of the mountain spirits. Old tobacco--Tsâl-agayûñ'li, "ancient tobacco," the Nicotiana rustica, sacred among all the eastern tribes. See number 6, "How they Brought back the Tobacco," and number 126, "Plant Lore." Thorns of honey locust--This incident occurs also in number 63, "Ûñtsaiyi', The Gambler." 84. The man who married the Thunder's sister (p. 345): This story was heard first from John Ax, and afterward with additions and variants from Swimmer and others. It is also briefly noted in Hagar's manuscript "Stellar Legends of the Cherokee." As explained elsewhere, the Thunder spirits are supposed to have their favorite residence under cataracts, of which Tallulah falls is probably the greatest in the Cherokee country. The connection of Thunder and Rain spirits with snakes and water animals is a matter of universal primitive belief and has already been noted. One Cherokee informant told Hagar (see above) that "Thunder is a horned snake (?), and lightning its tongue, and it lives with water and rains." It is hardly necessary to state that the dance was, and is, among all the tribes, not only the most frequent form of social amusement, but also an important part of every great religious or other ceremonial function. Sâkwi'yi--Abbreviated Sâkwi', an ancient town about on the site of the present village of Soquee on the creek of the same name near Clarkesville, in Habersham county, Georgia. Marry him--Among nearly all the tribes, with the exception of the Pueblo, the marriage ceremony was simple, consisting chiefly of the giving, by the lover, of certain presents to the parents of the intended bride, by way of compensating them for the loss of their daughter, after she herself had first signified her consent to the union. Although this has been represented as a purchase, it was really only a formal ratification of the contract, which the girl was free to accept or reject as she chose. On the other hand, should the presents be insufficient to satisfy the parents, they were refused or returned and the marriage could not take place, however willing the girl might be. The young man usually selected a friend to act as go-between with the girl's family, and in all tribes--as now in the West--the result seems to have been largely at the disposal of her brother, who continued to exercise some supervision and claim over her even after her marriage. Lawson's statement concerning the eastern Carolina tribes in 1700 will hold almost equally good to-day in any part of the West: "As for the Indian marriages, I have read and heard of a great deal of form and ceremony used, which I never saw; nor yet could learn in the time I have been amongst them any otherwise than I shall here give you an account of, which is as follows: "When any young Indian has a mind for such a girl to his wife, he, or some one for him, goes to the young woman's parents, if living; if not, to her nearest relations, where they make offers of the match betwixt the couple. The relations reply, they will consider of it; which serves for a sufficient answer, till there be a second meeting about the marriage, which is generally brought into debate before all the relations that are old people, on both sides, and sometimes the king with all his great men give their opinions therein. If it be agreed on and the young woman approve thereof--for these savages never give their children in marriage without their own consent--the man pays so much for his wife, and the handsomer she is the greater price she bears" (History of Carolina, pp. 302-303). According to Adair, who makes it a little more formal among the Gulf tribes, "When an Indian makes his first address to the young woman he intends to marry, she is obliged by ancient custom to sit by him till he hath done eating and drinking, whether she likes or dislikes him; but afterward she is at her own choice whether to stay or retire" (Hist. Am. Indians, p. 139). Would surely die--In Cherokee myth and ritual we frequently meet the idea that one who reveals supernatural secrets will die. Sometimes the idea is reversed, as when the discovery of the nefarious doings of a wizard or conjurer causes his death. The latter belief has its parallel in Europe. Smooth as a pumpkin--This is the rendering of the peculiar tautologic Cherokee expression, i'ya iya'-tawi'skage--tawi'skage i'ya-iyu'sti, literally, "pumpkin, of pumpkin smoothness--smooth like a pumpkin." The rendering is in line with the repetition in such children's stories as that of "The House that Jack Built," but the translation fails to convey the amusing sound effect of the original. A large turtle--This incident occurs also in number 83, "Tsuwe'nahi." A horse--Although the reference to the horse must be considered a more modern interpolation it may easily date back two centuries, or possibly even to De Soto's expedition in 1540. Among the plains tribes the horse quickly became so essential a part of Indian life that it now enters into their whole social and mythic system. The bracelets were snakes--The same concept appears also in number 63, "Ûñtsaiyi'," when the hero visits his father, the Thunder god. 85. The haunted whirlpool (p. 347): This legend was related by an East Cherokee known to the whites as Knotty Tom. For a description of the whirlpool rapids known as The Suck, see notes under number 63, "Ûñtsaiyi', the Gambler." 86. Yahula (p. 347): This fine myth was obtained in the Territory from Wafford, who had it from his uncle, William Scott, a halfbreed who settled upon Yahoola creek shortly after the close of the Revolution. Scott claimed to have heard the bells and the songs, and of the story itself Wafford said, "I've heard it so often and so much that I'm inclined to believe it." It has its explanation in the beliefs connected with the Nûñne'hi (see number 78 and notes), in whom Wafford had firm faith. Yahula--This is a rather frequent Cherokee personal name, but seems to be of Creek origin, having reference to the song used in the "black drink" or "busk" ceremony of that tribe, and the songs which the lost trader used to sing may have been those of that ceremony. See the glossary. Tinkling of the bells--Among the southern tribes in the old days the approach of a trader's cavalcade along the trail was always heralded by the jingling of bells hung about the necks of the horses, somewhat in the manner of our own winter sleighing parties. Among the plains tribes the children's ponies are always equipped with collars of sleigh bells. In his description of a trader's pack-train before the Revolution, Bartram says (Travels, p. 439): "Every horse has a bell on, which being stopped, when we start in the morning, with a twist of grass or leaves, soon shakes out, and they are never stopped again during the day. The constant ringing and clattering of the bells, smacking of the whips, whooping and too frequent cursing these miserable quadrupeds, cause an incessant uproar and confusion inexpressibly disagreeable." 87. The water cannibals (p. 349): This story was obtained from Swimmer and contains several points of resemblance to other Cherokee myths. The idea of the spirit changeling is common to European fairy lore. Tikwali'tsi--This town, called by the whites Tuckalechee, was on Tuckasegee river, at the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina, where traces of the mound can still be seen on the south side of the river. Afraid of the witches--See number 120, "The Raven Mocker," and notes. 88. First contact with whites (p. 350): The story of the jug of whisky left near a spring was heard first from Swimmer; the ulûñsû'ti story from Wafford; the locomotive story from David Blythe. Each was afterward confirmed from other sources. The story of the book and the bow, quoted from the Cherokee Advocate of October 26, 1844, was not heard on the reservation, but is mentioned by other authorities. According to an old Cherokee quoted by Buttrick, "God gave the red man a book and a paper and told him to write, but he merely made marks on the paper, and as he could not read or write, the Lord gave him a bow and arrows, and gave the book to the white man." Boudinot, in "A Star in the West," [548] quoted by the same author, says: "They have it handed down from their ancestors, that the book which the white people have was once theirs; that while they had it they prospered exceedingly; but that the white people bought it of them and learned many things from it, while the Indians lost credit, offended the Great Spirit, and suffered exceedingly from the neighboring nations; that the Great Spirit took pity on them and directed them to this country," etc. It is simply another version of the common tale of decadent nations, "We were once as great as you." 89. The Iroquois wars (p. 351): The Iroquois league--The Iroquois league consisted originally of a confederacy of five kindred tribes, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca, in what is now the state of New York; to these were added the cognate Tuscarora after their expulsion from Carolina about 1715. The name Iroquois, by which they were known to the French, is supposed to be a derivative from some Indian term. To the English they were known as the Five, afterward the Six Nations. They called themselves by a name commonly spelt Hodenosaunee, and interpreted "People of the Long House." Of this symbolic long house the Mohawk guarded the eastern door, while the Seneca protected the western. Their remarkable governmental and clan system is still well preserved, each tribe, except the Mohawk and Oneida, having eight clans, arranged in two groups or phratries. The Mohawk and Oneida are said to have now but three clans apiece, probably because of their losses by withdrawals to the French missions. The Seneca clans, which are nearly the same for the other tribes, are the Wolf, Bear, Turtle, Beaver, Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk. The confederacy is supposed to have been formed about the middle of the sixteenth century, and by 1680 the Iroquois had conquered and destroyed or incorporated all the surrounding tribes, and had asserted a paramount claim over the whole territory from the Cherokee border to Hudson bay and from southern New England to the Mississippi. According to a careful estimate in 1677 the Five Nations then numbered 2,150 warriors, or about 10,750 persons. The Tuscarora in Carolina were estimated a few years later at 1,200 warriors, or 5,000 persons, but this is probably an exaggeration. The league afterward lost heavily by wars with the French, and still more by withdrawals of Christianized Indians to the French Catholic mission colonies at Caughnawaga, Saint Regis, and elsewhere, the Mohawk being the chief sufferers. The Revolution brought about another separation, when about two-fifths of those remaining, including nearly all of the Mohawk and Cayuga, removed in a body to Canada. A mixed band of Seneca and Cayuga, known as the "Seneca of Sandusky," had previously settled in Ohio, whence they removed in 1831 to Indian Territory. Between 1820 and 1826 the greater portion of the Oneida removed from New York to lands in Wisconsin purchased from the Menomini. In spite, however, of wars and removals the Iroquois have held their own with a tenacity and a virility which mark their whole history, and both in this country and in Canada they are fairly prosperous and are increasing in population, being apparently more numerous to-day than at any former period. Those in New York and Pennsylvania, except the Saint Regis, and on the Grand River reservation in Canada, constituting together about one-half of the whole number, still keep up the forms and ceremonies of the ancient league. According to a special bulletin of the census of 1890 the total number of Indians then belonging to the tribes originally constituting the Six Nations was 15,833, of whom 8,483 were living in Canada and 7,350 in the United States, excluding from the latter count 37 resident members of other tribes. Those in the United States were on six reservations in the State of New York, one in Pennsylvania, one in Wisconsin, and one in the Indian Territory, and were classed as follows: Mohawk (including Indians of Saint Regis and Caughnawaga): in New York 1,162 Oneida: in New York, 212; at Green Bay agency, Wisconsin, 1,716 1,928 Onondaga: in New York, 470; on Cornplanter reservation, Pennsylvania, 11 481 Cayuga: in New York 183 Seneca: in New York, 2,680; on Cornplanter reservation, Pennsylvania, 87 2,767 Tuscarora: in New York 408 Iroquois mixed bloods, separately enumerated, on reservations in New York 87 Iroquois outside reservations in New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts 79 Mixed Seneca and Cayuga at Quapaw agency, Indian Territory 255 ----- 7,350 Those in Canada were at the same time officially reported thus: Mohawk: at Caughnawaga, 1,722; at Saint Regis, 1,190; on Grand River reservation, 1,344; at Bay of Quinte, 1,056 5,312 Oneida: on Thames river, 715; on Grand River reservation, 244 959 Onondaga: on Grand River reservation 325 Cayuga: on Grand River reservation 865 Seneca: on Grand River reservation 183 Tuscarora: on Grand River reservation 327 Iroquois of Lake of Two Mountains 375 Iroquois of Gibson 137 ----- 8,483 A few Algonkin are included among the Iroquois of Caughnawaga and Saint Regis, the Iroquois of these two settlements having been originally Catholic emigrants from the Mohawk villages in New York, with a few Oneida and Onondaga. When the boundary line between New York and Canada was run it cut the Saint Regis reservation in two. The report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1900 shows 7,700 Iroquois living on the reservations in New York, Wisconsin, and Indian Territory, an increase within these limits of 527 in nine years. Assuming the same rate of increase in Pennsylvania and on the Canada side, the whole number of Iroquois to-day would be approximately 17,000. For detailed information see Colden, History of the Five Nations; Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois; Morgan, League of the Hodenosaunee or Iroquois; Parkman's works; reports of the commissioners of Indian affairs for both the United States and Canada, and the excellent report on "The Six Nations of New York," by Donaldson and Carrington, contained in an extra bulletin of the Eleventh Census of the United States. Seneca town, South Carolina--The statement given by Schoolcraft (Notes on Iroquois, 161), on the authority of Calhoun, that the Seneca once lived at Seneca town, in South Carolina, has probably no foundation in fact, the story having evidently arisen from a supposed similarity of name. The Cherokee call it I`sû'nigû', and do not connect it in any way with A-Se'nika or Ani'-Se'nika, their name for the northern tribe. The Cherokee war--The Iroquois story of the war between themselves and the Cherokee is from Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, pages 252 and 256. Five days' journey--This statement is on Morgan's authority, but the distance was certainly greater, unless we are to understand only the distance that separated their extreme accustomed hunting ranges, not that between the permanent settlements of the two peoples. The Tennessee river boundary--The statement from Morgan (League of the Iroquois, p. 337) in regard to the truce line established at Tennessee river seems to find confirmation in incidental references in early documents. Boundaries beyond which war parties might not go, or neutral grounds where hereditary enemies met in peace, were a regular institution in ancient Indian society, the most notable instance being perhaps the famous pipestone quarry in Minnesota. Notwithstanding the claim of the Iroquois, backed by Sir William Johnson, to all the country north of the Tennessee river, it is very plain from history and the treaties that the Cherokee asserted a more or less valid claim as far north as the Ohio. Their actual settlements, however, were all south of the main Tennessee. The Buffalo dance--The origin ascribed to the Buffalo dance of the Iroquois (Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 287) is in agreement with the common Indian idea, according to which dances named from animals are performed in imitation of the peculiar actions and cries of these animals, or in obedience to supposed commands from the ruling spirit animals. The peace embassy--The story of the proposed intertribal alliance, with the statements as to Cherokee captives among the Seneca, are from Schoolcraft (Notes on Iroquois, pp. 158, 252, 257). The records of the conference at Johnson Hall in 1768 are published in the New York Colonial Documents. The account of the Iroquois peace embassy to Echota was given to Wafford by two eyewitnesses, one of whom was his mother's cousin, Sequoya. As the old man said, "Sequoya told me all about it." As stated in the narrative, Wafford himself had also seen the belts brought out and explained in a great intertribal council at Tahlequah. By common tribal custom ambassadors of peace were secure from molestation, whatever might be the result of the negotiations, although, as among more civilized nations, this rule was sometimes violated. According to tradition, the ancient peace pipe of the Cherokee, and probably of other eastern tribes, was of white stone, white being the universal peace color. The red stone pipe of the Sioux was also used in peace ceremonials, from the peculiar sacredness attached to it among the western tribes. The accuracy of Wafford's statement from memory in 1891 is strikingly confirmed by a contemporary account of the great intertribal council at Tahlequah in 1843, by the artist, Stanley, who was present and painted a number of portraits on that occasion. The council was convened by John Ross in June and remained in session four weeks, some ten thousand Indians being in attendance, representing seventeen tribes. "During the whole session the utmost good feeling and harmony prevailed. The business was brought to a close at sundown, after which the various tribes joined in dancing, which was usually kept up to a late hour." The wampum belt was explained, according to Stanley's account, by Major George Lowrey (Agi`li, "Rising"), second chief of the Nation, who thus recited the tradition of its coming from the Seneca [i. e. Iroquois]. The talk abounds in Indian reference and symbolism: "You will now hear a talk from our forefathers. You must not think hard if we make a few mistakes in describing our wampum. If we do, we will try and rectify them. "My Brothers, you will now hear what our forefathers said to us. "In the first place, the Senecas, a great many years ago, devised a plan for us to become friends. When the plan was first laid, the Seneca rose up and said, I fear the Cherokee, because the tomahawk is stuck in several parts of his head. The Seneca afterwards remarked, that he saw the tomahawk still sticking in all parts of the Cherokee's head, and heard him whooping and hallooing say [sic] that he was too strong to die. The Seneca further said, Our warriors in old times used to go to war; when they did go, they always went to fight the Cherokees; sometimes one or two would return home--sometimes none. He further said, The Great Spirit must love the Cherokees, and we must be in the wrong, going to war with them. The Seneca then said, Suppose we make friends with the Cherokee, and wash his wounds and cause them to heal up, that he may grow larger than he was before. The Seneca, after thus speaking, sat down. The Wyandot then rose and said, You have done right, and let it be. I am your youngest brother, and you our oldest. This word was told to the Shawnees; They replied, We are glad, let it be; you are our elder brothers. The Senecas then said, they would go about and pray to the Great Spirit for four years to assist them in making peace, and that they would set aside a vessel of water and cover it, and at the end of every year they would take the cover off, and examine the water, which they did; every time they opened it they found it was changed; at the end of four years they uncovered the vessel and found that the water had changed to a colour that suited them. The Seneca then said, The Great Spirit has had mercy upon us, and the thing has taken place just as we wished it. "The Shawnee then said, We will make straight paths; but let us make peace among our neighbouring tribes first, before we make this path to those afar off. "The Seneca then said, Before we make peace, we must give our neighboring tribes some fire; for it will not do to make peace without it,--they might be traveling about, and run against each other, and probably cause them to hurt each other. These three tribes said, before making peace, that this fire which was to be given to them should be kindled in order that a big light may be raised, so they may see each other at a long distance; this is to last so long as the earth stands; They said further, that this law of peace shall last from generation to generation--so long as there shall be a red man living on this earth: They also said, that the fire shall continue among us and shall never be extinguished as long as one remains. The Seneca further said to the Shawnees, I have put a belt around you, and have tied up the talk in a bundle, and placed it on your backs; we will now make a path on which we will pass to the Sioux. The Seneca said further, You shall continue your path until it shall reach the lodge of the Osage. When the talk was brought to the Sioux, they replied, we feel thankful to you and will take your talk; we can see a light through the path you have made for us. "When the Shawnees brought the talk to the Osages, they replied, By to-morrow, by the middle of the day, we shall have finished our business. The Osage said further, The Great Spirit has been kind to me. He has brought something to me, I being fatigued hunting for it. When the Shawnees returned to the lodge of the Osages, they were informed that they were to be killed, and they immediately made their escape. "When the Shawnees returned to their homes whence they came, they said they had been near being killed. "The Seneca then said to the Shawnees, that the Osages must be mistaken. The Shawnees went again to see the Osages--they told them their business. The Osages remarked, The Great Spirit has been good to us,--to-morrow by the middle of the day he will give us something without fatigue. When the Shawnees arrived at the lodge, an old man of the Osages told them that they had better make their escape; that if they did not, by the middle of the following day, they were all to be destroyed, and directed them to the nearest point of the woods. The Shawnees made their escape about midday. They discovered the Osages following them, and threw away their packs, reserving the bag their talk was in, and arrived at their camp safe. When the Shawnees arrived home, they said they had come near being killed, and the Osages refused to receive their talk. The Seneca then said, If the Osages will not take our talk, let them remain as they are; and when the rising generation shall become as one, the Osages shall be like some herb standing alone. The Seneca further said, The Osages shall be like a lone cherry-tree, standing in the prairies, where the birds of all kinds shall light upon it at pleasure. The reason this talk was made about the Osages was, that they prided themselves upon their warriors and manhood, and did not wish to make peace. "The Seneca further said, we have succeeded in making peace with all the Northern and neighbouring tribes. The Seneca then said to the Shawnees, You must now turn your course to the South: you must take your path to the Cherokees, and even make it into their houses. When the Shawnees started at night they took up their camp and sat up all night, praying to the Great Spirit to enable them to arrive in peace and safety among the Cherokees. The Shawnees still kept their course, until they reached a place called Tah-le-quah, where they arrived in safety, as they wished, and there met the chiefs and warriors of the Cherokees. When they arrived near Tah-le-quah, they went to a house and sent two men to the head chiefs. The chief's daughter was the only person in the house. As soon as she saw them, she went out and met them, and shook them by the hand and asked them into the house to sit down. The men were all in the field at work--the girl's father was with them. She ran and told him that there were two men in the house, and that they were enemies. The chief immediately ran to the house and shook them by the hand, and stood at the door. The Cherokees all assembled around the house, and said, Let us kill them, for they are enemies. Some of the men said, No, the chief's daughter has taken them by the hand; so also has our chief. The men then became better satisfied. The chief asked the two men if they were alone. They answered, No; that there were some more with them. He told them to go after them and bring them to his house. When these two men returned with the rest of their people, the chief asked them what their business was. They then opened this valuable bundle, and told him that it contained a talk for peace. The chief told them, I cannot do business alone; all the chiefs are assembled at a place called Cho-qua-ta [for E-cho-ta], where I will attend to your business in general council. When the messengers of peace arrived at Cho-qua-ta, they were kindly received by the chiefs, who told them they would gladly receive their talk of peace. The messengers of peace then said to the Cherokees, We will make a path for you to travel in, and the rising generation may do the same,--we also will keep it swept clean and white, so that the rising generation may travel in peace. The Shawnee further said, We will keep the doors of our houses open, so that when the rising generation come among us they shall be welcome. He further said, This talk is intended for all the different tribes of our red brothers, and is to last to the end of time. He further said, I have made a fire out of the dry elm--this fire is for all the different tribes to see by. I have put one chunk toward the rising sun, one toward the north, and one toward the south. This fire is not to be extinguished so long as time lasts. I shall stick up a stick close by this fire, in order that it may frequently be stirred, and raise a light for the rising generation to see by; if any one should turn in the dark, you must catch him by the hand, and lead him to the light, so that he can see that he was wrong. "I have made you a fire-light, I have stripped some white hickory bark and set it up against the tree, in order that when you wish to remove this fire, you can take it and put it on the bark; when you kindle this fire it will be seen rising up toward the heavens. I will see it and know it; I am your oldest brother. The messenger of peace further said, I have prepared white benches for you, and leaned the white pipe against them, and when you eat you shall have but one dish and one spoon. We have done everything that was good, but our warriors still hold their tomahawks in their hands, as if they wished to fight each other. We will now take their tomahawks from them and bury them; we must bury them deep under the earth where there is water; and there must be winds, which we wish to blow them so far that our warriors may never see them again. "The messenger further said, Where there is blood spilt I will wipe it up clean--wherever bones have been scattered, I have taken them and buried them, and covered them with white hickory bark and a white cloth--there must be no more blood spilt; our warriors must not recollect it any more. Our warriors said that the Cherokees were working for the rising generation by themselves; we must take hold and help them. "The messengers then said that you Cherokees are placed now under the centre of the sun; this talk I leave with you for the different tribes, and when you talk it, our voice shall be loud enough to be heard over this island. This is all I have to say." [549] Wampum--The celebrated wampum was a species of bead cut from the shell of the clam, conch, or other shell-bearing mollusk of the coast or the larger streams. The common name is derived from an Algonquian word signifying white, and was properly applied only to one variety, the generic term varying with the tribe. The beads were rather cylindrical than globular, and were of two colors, white and purple or dark. They were rated at definite values. The wampum was manufactured by the coast tribes, being traded by them to those of the interior, and was largely used everywhere east of the Mississippi for necklaces, collars, belts, and other purposes of personal adornment, as well as in connection with the noted wampum belts, by means of which the memory of treaties and tribal traditions was handed down. These belts were woven with various designs in wampum, either pictographic or symbolic, the meaning of which was preserved and explained on public occasions by an officer appointed to that duty. In ancient times no treaty or covenant was considered binding, and no tribal embassy was recognized as official, without the delivery of a wampum belt as a guaranty and memorial. The colonial documents are full of references to this custom. Up to the end of the last century the Cherokee still tendered such belts in their treaties with the Government, and one was delivered in the same manner so late as the treaty of Prairie des Chiens in 1825. The Iroquois still preserve several ancient belts, of which a good idea is afforded by the illustration and accompanying description (figure 2, page 354). On account of the high estimation in which these shell beads were held they were frequently used in the East as a standard of exchange, as eagle feathers were in the West, and among the Cherokee the same word, atela, is used alike for bead and for money. On the Pacific coast, shells were more generally shaped into pendants and gorgets. For a good eye-witness account of the manufacture and use of wampum and gorgets of shell among the South Atlantic tribes, see Lawson, History of Carolina, 315-316. 90. Hiadeoni, the Seneca (p. 356): Of this story Schoolcraft says: "The following incident in the verbal annals of Iroquois hardihood and heroism was related to me by the intelligent Seneca, Tetoyoah, William Jones of Cattaraugus, along with other reminiscences of the ancient Cherokee wars." Hewitt thinks the proper Seneca form of the name may be Haia'di'oñni, signifying "His body lies supine." 92. Escape of the Seneca boys (p. 359): The manuscript notes from which this and several following traditions are arranged are in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology, and were obtained in 1886-87 among the Seneca Indians of New York by Mr Jeremiah Curtin, since noted as the author of several standard collections of Indian and European myths and the translator of the works of the Polish novelist, Sienkiewicz. Gowe'!--This is along drawn halloo without significance except as a signal to arrest attention. It strikingly resembles the Australian "bush cry" Coowee'! used for the same purpose. 93. The Unseen Helpers (p. 359): The meaning of the Seneca name can not be given. Animal Protectors--The leading incident of this tale is closely paralleled by a Kiowa story, told by the old men as an actual occurrence of some fifty years ago, concerning a warrior who, having been desperately wounded in an engagement with Mexican troops in southern Texas, was abandoned to die by his retreating comrades. At night, while lying upon the ground awaiting death, and unable to move, he heard a long howl in the distance, which was repeated nearer and nearer, until at last he heard the patter of feet in the sand, and a wolf came up and licked the festering wounds of the warrior with such soothing effect that he fell asleep. This was repeated several times until the man was able to sit up, when the wolf left him, after telling him--not in the vision of a dream, but as a companion face to face--that he must keep up his courage, and that he would get back in safety to his tribe. Soon afterward the wounded warrior was found by a party of Comanche, who restored him to his people. At the next Sun dance he made public thanksgiving for his rescue (see the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual Report Bureau of American Ethnology, part 1, 1901). The story is not impossible. A wolf may easily have licked the wounded man's sores, as a dog might do, and through the relief thus afforded, if not by sympathy of companionship, have enabled him to hold out until rescued by friends. The rest is easy to the imagination of an Indian, who believes that there is no essential difference between himself and other animals. The War Woman--The women described as having power to decide the fate of captives, mentioned also in the next story (number 94), are evidently the female dignitaries among the ancient Cherokee known to early writers as "War Women" or "Pretty Women." Owing to the decay of Cherokee tradition and custom it is now impossible to gather anything positive on the subject from Indian informants, but from documentary references it is apparent that there existed among the Cherokee a custom analogous to that found among the Iroquois and probably other Eastern tribes, by which the decision of important questions relating to peace and war was left to a vote of the women. Among the Iroquois this privilege was exercised by a council of matrons, the mothers of the tribes. It may have been the same among the Cherokee, with the "Pretty Woman" to voice the decision of the council, or the final rendering may have been according to the will of the "Pretty Woman" herself. The institution served in a measure to mitigate the evils of war and had its origin in the clan system. Under this system a captive enemy was still an enemy until he had been adopted into the tribe, which could only be done through adoption into a clan and family. As clan descent was reckoned through the women it rested with them to decide the question of adoption. If they were favorable all was well, and the captive became at once a member of a family and clan and of the tribe at large. Otherwise, as a public enemy, only death remained to him, unless he was ransomed by friends. The proper Cherokee title of this female arbiter of life and death is unknown. The clan of the Ani'-Gilâ'hi, or "Long-hairs," is sometimes spoken of as the Pretty-woman clan, and the office may have been hereditary in that clan. The Seneca stories imply that there were two of these female officers, but from Haywood's account there would seem to have been but one. An upper tributary of Savannah river in Georgia bears the name War-woman creek. Timberlake says in 1765 (Memoirs, p. 70): "These chiefs or headmen likewise compose the assemblies of the nation, into which the war women are admitted, many of the Indian women being as famous in war as powerful in the council." At the Hopewell treaty conference in 1785 the principal chief of Echota, after an opening speech, said: "I have no more to say, but one of our beloved women has, who has borne and raised up warriors." After delivering a string of wampum to emphasize the importance of the occasion, "the war woman of Chota then addressed the commissioners." Having expressed her pleasure at the peace, she continued: "I have a pipe and a little tobacco to give to the commissioners to smoke in friendship. I look on you and the red people as my children. Your having determined on peace is most pleasing to me, for I have seen much trouble during the late war. I am old, but I hope yet to bear children, who will grow up and people our nation, as we are now to be under the protection of Congress and shall have no more disturbance. The talk I have given is from the young warriors I have raised in my town, as well as myself. They rejoice that we have peace, and we hope the chain of friendship will never more be broken." Two strings of wampum, a pipe, and some tobacco accompanied her words (American State Papers; Indian Affairs, I, p. 41, 1832). Haywood says in 1823: "The Cherokees had the law or custom of assigning to a certain woman the office of declaring what punishment should be inflicted on great offenders; whether, for instance, burning or other death, or whether they should be pardoned. This woman they called the pretty woman. Mrs Ward exercised this office when Mrs Bean, about the year 1776, was taken from the white settlements on the upper parts of Holston. Being bound and about to be burned on one of the mounds, the pretty woman interfered and pronounced her pardon" (Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 278). See also historical note 20, "Peace Towns and Towns of Refuge." Between two lines of people--This custom, known to colonial writers as "running the gauntlet," was very common among the eastern tribes, and was intended not so much to punish the captive as to test his courage and endurance, with a view to adoption if he proved worthy. It was practiced only upon warriors, never upon women or children, and although the blows were severe they were not intended to be fatal. The prisoner was usually unbound and made to run along a cleared space in the center of the village toward a certain goal, and was safe for the time being if he succeeded in reaching it. 94. Hatcinoñdoñ's escape from the Cherokee (p. 362): The Seneca name is not translatable. Canebrake--The tall cane reed (Arundinaria), called i'hya by the Cherokee, is common along the southern streams, as such names as Cany fork, Cut-cane creek, and Young-cane creek testify. It was greatly valued among the Indians for fishing rods, blowguns, and baskets, as well as for fodder for stock. The best canebrakes were famous far and wide, and were resorted to from long distances in the gathering season. Most of the cane now used by the East Cherokee for blowguns and baskets is procured by long journeys on foot to the streams of upper South Carolina, or to points on the French Broad above Knoxville, Tennessee. Sky vault--See notes to number 1, "How the World was Made." Haweñni'o--The Seneca name for the Thunder god is in the singular form. In the Cherokee language Thunder and the Thunder spirits are always spoken of in the plural. The messengers in the story may have been Thunder spirits. Thought reading--See notes to number 76, "The Bear Man." Woman arbiters--See the preceding story, number 93, and the note on "The War Woman." My grandson--Among all the eastern and plains tribes this is a term of affectionate address to a dependent or inferior, as "grandfather" is a respectful address to one occupying a superior station, or venerable by reason of age or dignity, both words being thus used without any reference to kinship. In tribal councils nearly all the eastern tribes except the Iroquois addressed the Delaware representatives as "grandfather," and in an Arapaho song of the Ghost dance the Whirlwind is thus addressed. 95. Hemp-carrier (p. 364): This story of the old wars was obtained from Colonel William H. Thomas, who says that Tâle'danigi'ski was a chief formerly living near Valleytown, in Cherokee county. The name is variously rendered "Hemp-carrier," "Nettle-carrier," or "Flax-toter," from tâle'ta, the richweed (Pilea pumila), a plant with a fibrous stalk from which the Indians wove thread and cordage. The trail along which the Seneca came ran from Valley river across the ridge to Cheowa (Robbinsville) and thence northwest to connect with the "great war path" in Tennessee (see historical note 19). Cairns--Stone cairns were formerly very common along the trails throughout the Cherokee country, but are now almost gone, having been demolished by treasure hunters after the occupation of the country by the whites. They were usually sepulchral monuments built of large stones piled loosely together above the body to a height of sometimes 6 feet or more, with a corresponding circumference. This method of interment was used only when there was a desire to commemorate the death, and every passer-by was accustomed to add a stone to the heap. The custom is ancient and world-wide, and is still kept up in Mexico and in many parts of Europe and Asia. Early references to it among the southern tribes occur in Lederer (1670), Travels, page 10, ed. 1891, and Lawson (1700), History of Carolina, pages 43 and 78, ed. 1860. The latter mentions meeting one day "seven heaps of stones, being the monuments of seven Indians that were slain in that place by the Sinnagers or Troquois [Iroquois]. Our Indian guide added a stone to each heap." The common name is the Gaelic term, meaning literally "a pile." Seven wives--Polygamy was common among the Cherokee, as among nearly all other tribes, although not often to such an exaggerated extent as in this instance. The noted chief Yânûgûñski, who died in 1839, had two wives. With the plains tribes, and perhaps with others, the man who marries the eldest of several daughters has prior claim upon her unmarried sisters. 96. The Seneca peacemakers (p. 365): This story was told to Schoolcraft by the Seneca more than fifty years ago. A somewhat similar story is related by Adair (Hist. American Indians, p. 392) of a young "Anantooeah" (i. e., Nûndawegi or Seneca) warrior taken by the Shawano. Death song--It seems to have been a chivalrous custom among the eastern tribes to give to the condemned prisoner who requested it a chance to recite his warlike deeds and to sing his death song before proceeding to the final torture. He was allowed the widest latitude of boasting, even at the expense of his captors and their tribe. The death song was a chant belonging to the warrior himself or to the war society of which he was a member, the burden being farewell to life and defiance to death. When the great Kiowa war chief, Set-ängya, burst his shackles at Fort Sill and sprang upon the soldiers surrounding him, with the deliberate purpose to sell his life rather than to remain a prisoner, he first sang the war song of his order, the Kâitseñ'ko, of which the refrain is: "O earth, you remain forever, but we Kâitseñ'ko must die" (see the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau American Ethnology, part 1, 1901). 97. Origin of the Yontoñwisas dance (p. 365): This is evidently the one called by Morgan (League of Iroquois, p. 290) the Untowesus. He describes both this and the Oaskanea as a "shuffle dance" for women only. The spelling of the Seneca names in the story is that given in the manuscript. Not to go after--Morgan, in his work quoted above, asserts that the Iroquois never made any effort to recover those of their people who have been captured by the enemy, choosing to consider them thenceforth as lost to their tribe and kindred. This, if true, is doubly remarkable, in view of the wholesale adoption of prisoners and subjugated tribes by the Iroquois. Blazing pine knots--Torches of seasoned pine knots are much in use among the Cherokee for lighting up the way on journeys along the difficult mountain trails by night. Owing to the accumulation of resin in the knots they burn with a bright and enduring flame, far surpassing the cloudy glow of a lantern. Wild potatoes--As is well known, the potato is indigenous to America, and our first knowledge of it came to us from the Indians. Many other native tubers were in use among the tribes, even those which practiced no agriculture, but depended almost entirely upon the chase. Favorites among the Cherokee are the Cynara scolymus or wild artichoke, and the Phaseolus or pig potato, the name of the latter, nuna, being now used to designate the cultivated potato. Sky people--These spirit messengers are mentioned also in the story of Hatcinoñdoñ (number 94), another Seneca tradition. Every tribe has its own spirit creation. Must do all this--Every sacred dance and religious rite, as well as almost every important detail of Indian ceremonial, is supposed to be in accordance with direct instruction from the spirit world as communicated in a vision. 98. Ga'na's adventures among the Cherokee (p. 367): This story, from Curtin's Seneca manuscript, is particularly rich in Indian allusion. The purificatory rite, the eagle capture, the peace ceremonial, the ballplay, the foot race, and the battle are all described in a way that gives us a vivid picture of the old tribal life. The name of the Seneca hero, Ga'na', signifies, according to Hewitt, "Arrow" (cf. Cherokee gûni, "arrow"), while the name of the great eagle, Shada'gea, may, according to the same authority, be rendered "Cloud-dweller." The Seoqgwageono, living east of the Cherokee and near the ocean, can not be identified. They could not have been the Catawba, who were known to the Iroquois as Toderigh-rono, but they may possibly have been the Congaree, Santee, or Sewee, farther down in South Carolina. In the Seneca form, as here given, ge (ge`) is a locative, and ono (oñnoñ) a tribal suffix qualifying the root of the word, the whole name signifying "people of, or at, Seoqgwa" (cf. Oyadageono, etc., i. e., Cherokee, p. 186). Go to water--This rite, as practiced among the Cherokee, has been already noted in the chapter on stories and story tellers. Ceremonial purification by water or the sweat bath, accompanied by prayer and fasting, is almost universal among the tribes as a preliminary to every important undertaking. With the Cherokee it precedes the ballplay and the Green-corn dance, and is a part of the ritual for obtaining long life, for winning the affections of a woman, for recovering from a wasting sickness, and for calling down prosperity upon the family at each return of the new moon. Get the eagle feathers--The Cherokee ritual for procuring eagle feathers for ceremonial and decorative purposes has been described in number 35, "The Bird Tribes." The Seneca method, as here described, is practically that in use among all the Indians of the plains, although the hunter is not usually satisfied with a single feather at a capture. Among certain western tribes the eagle was sometimes strangled before being stripped of its feathers, but it was essential that the body must not be mangled or any blood be drawn. The Pueblos were sometimes accustomed to take the young eagles from the nest and keep them in cages for their feathers. A full tail contains twelve large feathers of the kind used for war bonnets and on the wands of the Eagle dance. Stockade--Stockaded villages were common to the Iroquois and most of the tribes along the Atlantic coast. They are mentioned also among the Cherokee in some of the exaggerated narratives of the early Spanish period, but were entirely unknown within the later colonial period, and it is very doubtful if the nature of the country would permit such compact mode of settlement. Dancers went forward--The method of ceremonial approach here described was probably more or less general among the eastern tribes. On the plains the visitors usually dismount in sight of the other camp and advance on foot in slow procession, chanting the "visiting song," while the leader holds out the red stone pipe, which is the symbol of truce or friendship. For a good description of such a ceremonial, reproduced from Battey, see the author's Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, in the Seventeenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology. In this instance the visiting Pawnee carried a flag in lieu of a pipe. The Cherokee ceremonial is thus described by Timberlake as witnessed at Citico in 1762: 'About 100 yards from the town-house we were received by a body of between three and four hundred Indians, ten or twelve of which were entirely naked, except a piece of cloth about their middle, and painted all over in a hideous manner, six of them with eagles' tails in their hands, which they shook and flourished as they advanced, danced in a very uncommon figure, singing in concert with some drums of their own make, and those of the late unfortunate Capt. Damere; with several other instruments, uncouth beyond description. Cheulah, the headman of the town, led the procession, painted blood-red, except his face, which was half black, holding an old rusty broad-sword in his right hand, and an eagle's tail in his left. As they approached, Cheulah, singling himself out from the rest, cut two or three capers, as a signal to the other eagle-tails, who instantly followed his example. This violent exercise, accompanied by the band of musick, and a loud yell from the mob, lasted about a minute, when the headman, waving his sword over my head, struck it into the ground, about two inches from my left foot; then directing himself to me, made a short discourse (which my interpreter told me was only to bid me a hearty welcome) and presented me with a string of beads. We then proceeded to the door, where Cheulah, and one of the beloved men, taking me by each arm, led me in, and seated me in one of the first seats; it was so dark that nothing was perceptible till a fresh supply of canes were brought, which being burnt in the middle of the house answers both purposes of fuel and candle. I then discovered about five hundred faces; and Cheulah addressing me a second time, made a speech much to the same effect as the former, congratulating me on my safe arrival thro' the numerous parties of northern Indians, that generally haunt the way I came. He then made some professions of friendship, concluding with giving me another string of beads, as a token of it. He had scarce finished, when four of those who had exhibited at the procession made their second appearance, painted in milk-white, their eagle-tails in one hand, and small gourds with beads in them in the other, which they rattled in time to the musick. During this dance the peace-pipe was prepared."--Timberlake, Memoirs, pp. 36-39. Adair also makes brief mention of the ceremony among the Gulf tribes (Hist. Am. Indians, p. 260), but his account is too badly warped by theorizing to have much value. Adopt a relative--This seems to point to a custom which has escaped the notice of earlier writers on the eastern tribes, but which is well known in Africa and other parts of the world, and is closely analogous to a still existing ceremony among the plains Indians by which two young men of the same tribe formally agree to become brothers, and ratify the compact by a public exchange of names and gifts. White wampum--As is well known, white was universally typical of peace. The traditional peace-pipe of the Cherokee was of white stone and the word itself is symbolic of peace and happiness in their oratory and sacred formulas. Thus the speaker at the Green-corn dance invites the people to come along the white path and enter the white house of peace to partake of the new white food. Held up the belt--As already noted, every paragraph of an ambassador's speech was accompanied by the delivery of a string or belt of wampum to give authority to his words, and to accept the belt was to accept the condition or compact which it typified. On the plains the red stone pipe took the place of the wampum. Try a race--Public foot races were common among many tribes, more particularly in the West among the Pueblos, the Apache, and the Wichita, either as simple athletic contests or in connection with religious ceremonials. On the plains the horse race is more in favor and is always the occasion of almost unlimited betting. Throwing sumac darts--The throwing of darts and arrows, either at a mark or simply to see who can throw farthest, is a favorite amusement among the young men and boys. The arrows used for this purpose are usually longer and heavier than the ordinary ones, having carved wooden heads and being artistically painted. They are sometimes tipped with the end of a buffalo horn. 99. The Shawano wars (p. 370): The chief authority as to the expulsion of the Shawano from Tennessee is Haywood (Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, pp. 222-224). The Schoolcraft reference is from Notes on the Iroquois, p. 160, and the notice of the Cherokee-Delaware war from Loskiel, Mission of United Brethren, p. 128, and Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 88. The Tunâ'i story is from Wafford; the other incidents from Swimmer. Shawano--The Shawano or Shawnee were one of the most important of the Algonquian tribes. Their most noted chief was the great Tecumtha. The meaning of the name is doubtful. It is commonly interpreted "Southerners," from the Algonquian shawan, "the south," but may have come from another Algonquian word signifying "salt" (siutagan, sewetagan, etc., from sewan, "sweet, pungent"). Unlike the southern Indians generally, the Shawano were great salt users, and carried on an extensive salt manufacture by boiling at the salt springs of southwestern Virginia, furnishing the product in trade to other tribes. They have thirteen clans--Wolf, Loon, Bear, Buzzard, Panther, Owl, Turkey, Deer, Raccoon, Turtle, Snake, Horse, and Rabbit (Morgan), the clan of the individual being indicated by his name. They are organized also into four divisions or bands, perhaps originally independent allied tribes, viz, Piqua, Mequachake, Kiscopocoke, and Chilicothe. To the second of these belonged the hereditary priesthood, but the first was most prominent and apparently most numerous. The Shawano were of very wandering and warlike habit. Their earliest historical habitat appears to have been on the middle Savannah river, which takes its name from them, but before the end of the seventeenth century we find a portion of them, apparently the main body, occupying the basin of the Cumberland river in Tennessee and the adjacent region of Kentucky. About the year 1692 most of those remaining in South Carolina moved northward and settled upon the upper Delaware river, with their relatives and friends the Delaware and Mahican. These emigrants appear to have been of the Piqua division. Up to about the year 1730 the Shawano still had a town on Savannah river, near Augusta, from which they were finally driven by the Cherokee. From their former intimate association with the Uchee, living in the same neighborhood, some early writers have incorrectly supposed the two tribes to be the same. A part of the Shawano joined the Creek confederary, and up to the beginning of the last century, and probably until the final removal to the West, occupied a separate town and retained their distinct language. Those settled upon the Cumberland were afterward expelled by the Cherokee and Chickasaw, and retired to the upper waters of the Ohio under protection of the Delaware, who had given refuge to the original emigrants from South Carolina. With the advance of the white settlements the two tribes moved westward into Ohio, the Shawano fixing themselves in the vicinity of the present Piqua and Chillicothe about the year 1750. They took a leading part in the French and Indian war, Pontiac's war, the Revolution, and the war of 1812. In 1793 a considerable band settled in Missouri upon lands granted by the Spanish government. As a result of successive sales and removals all that remain of the tribe are now established in Indian Territory, about one-half being incorporated with the Cherokee Nation. In 1900 they numbered about 1,580, viz, in Cherokee Nation (in 1898), 790; Absentee Shawnee of Sac and Fox Agency, 509; Absentee Shawnee of Big Jim's band, special agency, 184; Eastern Shawnee of Quapaw Agency, 93. There are also a few scattered among other tribes. For detailed information consult Drake, Life of Tecumseh; Heckewelder, Indian Nations; Brinton, Lenâpé and Their Legends; American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I and II; Annual Reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. 100. The raid on Tikwali'tsi (p. 374): Swimmer, from whom this story was obtained, was of opinion that the event occurred when his mother was a little girl, say about 1795, but it must have been earlier. The locations are all in Swain county, North Carolina. Tikwali'tsi town was on Tuckasegee river, at the present Bryson City, immediately below and adjoining the more important town of Kituhwa. Deep creek enters the Tuckasegee from the north, about a mile above Bryson City. The place where the trail crossed is called Uniga'yata`ti'yi, "Where they made a fish trap," a name which may have suggested the simile used by the story teller. The place where the Cherokee crossed, above Deep creek, is called Uniyâ'hitûñ'yi, "Where they shot it." The cliff over which the prisoners were thrown is called Kala'asûñyi, "Where he fell off," near Cold Spring knob, west of Deep creek. The Cherokee halted for a night at Agitsta`ti'yi, "Where they staid up all night," a few miles beyond, on the western head fork of Deep creek. They passed Kûnstûtsi'yi, "Sassafras place," a gap about the head of Noland creek, near Clingman's dome, and finally gave up the pursuit where the trail crossed into Tennessee, at a gap on the main ridge, just below Clingman's dome, known as Duniya'`tâ`lûñ'yi, "Where there are shelves," so called from an exposure of flat rock on the top of the ridge (see the glossary). Magic arts--It is almost superfluous to state that no Indian war party ever started out without a vast deal of conjuring and "making medicine" to discover the whereabouts and strength of the enemy and to insure victory and safe return to the departing warriors. Wait for death--The Indian usually meets inevitable fate with equanimity, and more than once in our Indian wars an aged warrior or helpless woman, unable to escape, has sat down upon the ground, and, with blanket drawn over the head, calmly awaited the fatal bullet or hatchet stroke. 101. The last Shawano invasion (p. 374): This story also is from Swimmer, whose antiquarian interest in the history of these wars may have been heightened by the fact that he had a slight strain of Shawano blood himself. The descendants of the old chief Sawanu'gi and his brothers, originally of Shawano stock, as the name indicates, have been prominent in the affairs of the East Cherokee for more than half a century, and one of them, bearing the ancestral name, is now second chief of the band and starter of the game at every large ballplay. The cry of an owl--One of the commonest claims put forth by the medicine men is that of ability to understand the language of birds and to obtain supernatural knowledge from them, particularly from the owl, which is regarded with a species of fear by the laity, as the embodiment of a human ghost, on account of its nocturnal habit and generally uncanny appearance. A medicine man who died a few years ago among the Kiowa claimed to derive his powers from that bird. The body of an owl, wrapped in red cloth and decorated with various trinkets, was kept constantly suspended from a tall pole set up in front of his tipi, and whenever at night the warning cry sounded from the thicket he was accustomed to leave his place at the fire and go out, returning in a short while with a new revelation. Rafts--The Cherokee canoe is hewn from a poplar log and is too heavy to be carried about like the bark canoe of the northern tribes. As a temporary expedient they sometimes used a bear or buffalo skin, tying the legs together at each end to fashion a rude boat. Upon this the baggage was loaded, while the owner swam behind, pushing it forward through the water. 102. The false warriors of Chilhowee (p. 375): This story was given by Swimmer and corroborated by others as that of an actual incident of the old times. The middle Cherokee (Kituhwa) settlements, on the head-streams of the Little Tennessee, were separated from the upper settlements, about its junction with the main Tennessee, by many miles of extremely rough mountain country. Dialectic differences and local jealousies bred friction, which sometimes brought the two sections into collision and rendered possible such an occurrence as is here narrated. On account of this jealousy, according to Adair, the first Cherokee war, which began in 1760, concerned for some time only a part of the tribe. "According to the well-known temper of the Cheerake in similar cases it might either have remained so, or soon have been changed into a very hot civil war, had we been so wise as to have improved the favourable opportunity. There were seven northern towns, opposite to the middle parts of the Cheerake country, who from the beginning of the unhappy grievances, firmly dissented from the hostile intentions of their suffering and enraged countrymen, and for a considerable time before bore them little good will, on account of some family disputes which occasioned each party to be more favourable to itself than to the other. These would readily have gratified their vindictive disposition either by a neutrality or an offensive alliance with our colonists against them" (History of the American Indians, page 248). Chilhowee (properly Tsû`lûñ'we or Tsû`la'wi) was a noted settlement on the south bank of Little Tennessee river, opposite the present Chilhowee, in Monroe county, Tennessee. Cowee (properly Kawi'yi, abbreviated Kawi') was the name of two or more former settlements. The one here meant was at the junction of Cowee creek with Little Tennessee river, a short distance below the present Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. Neither name can be analyzed. The gunstocker's name, Gûlsadi'hi or Gûltsadi'hi, and that of the original owner of the gun, Gûñskali'ski, are both of doubtful etymology. Great war trail--See historical note 19. Scalp dance--This dance, common to every tribe east of the Rocky mountains, was held to celebrate the taking of fresh scalps from the enemy. The scalps, painted red on the fleshy side, decorated and stretched in small hoops attached to the ends of poles, were carried in the dance by the wives and sweethearts of the warriors, while in the pauses of the song each warrior in turn recited his exploits in minute detail. Among the Cherokee it was customary for the warrior as he stepped into the center of the circle to suggest to the drummer an improvised song which summed up in one or two words his own part in the encounter. A new "war name" was frequently assumed after the dance (see sketch of Tsunu'lahûñ'ski, page 164). Dances were held over the same scalps on consecutive nights or sometimes at short intervals for weeks together. Coming for water--The getting of water from the neighboring stream or spring was a daily duty of the women, and accordingly we find in Indian stories constant allusion to ambuscades or lovers' appointments at such places. To have a ballplay--See note under number 3, Kana'ti and Selu. 103. Cowee town: See the preceeding note. 104. The eastern tribes (p. 378): Delaware--The Delawares derive their popular name from the river upon which, in the earliest colonial period, they had their principal settlements. They call themselves Lena'pe or Leni-lena'pe, a term apparently signifying "real, or original men," or "men of our kind." To the cognate tribes of the Ohio valley and the lakes they were known as Wapanaq'ki, "easterners," the name being extended to include the closely related tribes, the Mahican, Wappinger (i. e. Wapanaq'ki), Nanticoke, and Conoy. By all the widespread tribes of kindred Algonquian stock, as well as by the Winnebago, Wyandot, and Cherokee, they were addressed under the respectful title of "grandfather," the domineering Iroquois alone refusing to them any higher designation than "nephew." Their various bands and subtribes seem originally to have occupied the whole basin of Delaware river, together with all of New Jersey, extending north to the watershed of the Hudson and west and southwest to the ridge separating the waters of the Delaware and Susquehanna. Immediately north of them, along the lower Hudson and extending into Massachusetts and Connecticut, were the closely affiliated Mahican and Wappinger, while to the south were their friends and kindred, the Nanticoke and Conoy, the former in Delaware and on the eastern shore of Maryland, the latter between Chesapeake bay and the lower Potomac. All of these, although speaking different languages of the common Algonquian stock, asserted their traditional origin from the Delawares, with whom, in their declining days, most of them were again merged. The Delawares proper were organized into three divisions, which, according to Brinton, were subtribes and not clans, although each of the three had a totemic animal by whose name it was commonly known. These three subtribes were: (1) The Minsi or Munsee (people of the "stony country"?), otherwise known as the Wolf tribe, occupying the hill country about the head of the Delaware; (2) the Unami (people "downstream"), or Turtle tribe, on the middle Delaware, and (3) the Unalachtgo (people "near the ocean"?), or Turkey tribe, in the southern part of the common territory. Of these the Turtle tribe assumed precedence in the council, while to the Wolf tribe belonged the leadership in war. Each of these three was divided into twelve families, or embryonic clans, bearing female names. In this connection it may be mentioned that the Delawares now residing with the Wichita, in Oklahoma, still use the figure of a turtle as their distinctive cattle brand. Of the history of the Delawares it is only possible to say a very few words here. Their earliest European relations were with the Dutch and Swedes. In 1682 they made the famous treaty with William Penn, which was faithfully observed on both sides for sixty years. Gradually forced backward by the whites, they retired first to the Susquehanna, then to the upper Ohio, where, on the breaking out of the French and Indian war in 1754, they ranged themselves on the side of the French. They fought against the Americans in the Revolution, and in the war of 1812, having by that time been driven as far west as Indiana. In 1818 they ceded all their lands in that State and were assigned to a reservation in Kansas, where they were joined by a considerable body that had emigrated to Missouri, in company with a band of Shawano, some years before, by permission of the Spanish government. About the close of the Revolution another portion of the tribe, including most of those who had been Christianized by Moravian missionaries, had fled from Ohio and taken up a permanent abode on Canadian soil. In 1867 the main body of those in Kansas removed to Indian Territory and became incorporated with the Cherokee Nation. A smaller band settled on the Wichita reservation in Oklahoma. The present number of Delawares is, approximately, 1,600, viz: "Moravians and Munsees of the Thames," Ontario, 475; incorporated in Cherokee Nation, 870 (in 1898); on Wichita reservation, 95; Munsee in Kansas and incorporated with Stockbridges in Wisconsin, perhaps 100; Delawares, etc., with Six Nations, in New York, 50. Of their former allies, the Wappinger and Conoy have long since disappeared through absorption into other tribes; the Mahican are represented by a band of about 530 Stockbridge Indians, including a number of Munsee, in Wisconsin, while about 70 mixed bloods still keep up the Nanticoke name in southern Delaware. Tuscarora--The Tuscarora, a southern tribe of the Iroquoian stock, formerly occupied an extensive territory upon Neuse river and its branches, in eastern North Carolina, and, like their northern cousins, seem to have assumed and exercised a certain degree of authority over all the smaller tribes about them. As early as 1670 Lederer described the Tuscarora "emperor" as the haughtiest Indian he had ever met. About the year 1700 Lawson estimated them at 1,200 warriors (6,000 souls?) in 15 towns. In 1711 they rose against the whites, one of their first acts of hostility being the killing of Lawson himself, who was engaged in surveying lands which they claimed as their own. In a struggle extending over about two years they were so terribly decimated that the greater portion fled from Carolina and took refuge with their kinsmen and friends, the Iroquois of New York, who were henceforth known as the Six Nations. The so-called "friendly" party, under Chief Blount, was settled upon a small reservation north of Roanoke river in what is now Bertie county, North Carolina. Here they gradually decreased by disease and emigration to the north, until the few who were left sold their last remaining lands in 1804. The history of the tribe after the removal to the north is a part of the history of the Iroquois or Six Nations. They number now about 750, of whom about 380 are on the Tuscarora reservation in New York, the others upon the Grand River reservation in Ontario. Xuala, Suwali, Sara or Cheraw--For the identification and earliest notices of the Sara see historical note 8, "De Soto's Route." Their later history is one of almost constant hostility to the whites until their final incorporation with the Catawba, with whom they were probably cognate, about the year 1720. In 1743 they still preserved their distinct language, and appear to be last mentioned in 1768, when they numbered about 50 souls living among the Catawba. See Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East, bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1894. Catawba--The origin and meaning of this name, which dates back at least two centuries, are unknown. It may possibly come from the Choctaw through the Mobilian trade jargon. They call themselves Nieye, which means simply "people" or "Indians." The Iroquois call them and other cognate tribes in their vicinity Toderigh-rono, whence Tutelo. In the seventeenth century they were often known as Esaw or Ushery, apparently from iswa', river, in their own language. The Cherokee name Ata'gwa, plural Ani'ta'gwa, is a corruption of the popular form. Their linguistic affinity with the Siouan stock was established by Gatschet in 1881. See Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East. 105. The southern and western tribes (p. 382): The Creek confederacy--Next in importance to the Cherokee, among the southern tribes, were the Indians of the Creek confederacy, occupying the greater portion of Georgia and Alabama, immediately south of the Cherokee. They are said to have been called Creeks by the early traders on account of the abundance of small streams in their country. Before the whites began to press upon them their tribes held nearly all the territory from the Atlantic westward to about the watershed between the Tombigby and the Pearl and Pascagoula rivers, being cut off from the Gulf coast by the Choctaw tribes, and from the Savannah, except near the mouth, by the Uchee, Shawano, and Cherokee. About the year 1800 the confederacy comprised 75 towns, the people of 47 of which were the Upper Creeks, centering about the upper waters of the Alabama, while those of the remaining 28 were the Lower Creeks, upon the lower Chattahoochee and its branches (Hawkins). Among them were represented a number of tribes formerly distinct and speaking distinct languages. The ruling tribe and language was the Muscogee (plural, Muscogûlgee), which frequently gave its name to the confederacy. Other languages were the Alabama, Koasati, Hichitee, Taskigi, Uchee, Natchee, and Sawanugi or Shawano. The Muscogee, Alabama, Koasati, Hichitee, and Taskigi (?) belonged to the Muskhogean stock, the Alabama and Koasati, however, being nearer linguistically to the Choctaw than to the Muscogee. The Hichitee represent the conquered or otherwise incorporated Muskhogean tribes of the Georgia coast region. The Apalachi on Appalachee bay in Florida, who were conquered by the English about 1705 and afterward incorporated with the Creeks, were dialectically closely akin to the Hichitee; the Seminole also were largely an offshoot from this tribe. Of the Taskigi all that is known has been told elsewhere (see number 105). The Uchee, Natchee, and Sawanugi were incorporated tribes, differing radically in language from each other and from the Muskhogean tribes. The territory of the Uchee included both banks of the middle Savannah, below the Cherokee, and extended into middle Georgia. They had a strong race pride, claiming to be older in the country than the Muscogee, and are probably identical with the people of Cofitachiqui, mentioned in the early Spanish narratives. According to Hawkins, their incorporation with the Creeks was brought about in consequence of intermarriages about the year 1729. The Natchee or Natchez were an important tribe residing in lower Mississippi, in the vicinity of the present town of that name, until driven out by the French about the year 1730, when most of them took refuge with the Creeks, while others joined the Chickasaw and Cherokee. The Sawanugi were Shawano who kept their town on Savannah river, near the present Augusta, after the main body of their tribe had removed to the north about 1692. They probably joined the Creeks about the same time as their friends, the Uchee. The Uchee still constitute a compact body of about 600 souls in the Creek Nation, keeping up their distinct language and tribal character. The Natchee are reduced to one or two old men, while the Sawanugi have probably lost their identity long ago. According to Morgan, the Muscogee proper, and perhaps also their incorporated tribes, have 22 clans. Of these the Wind appears to be the leading one, possessing privileges accorded to no other clan, including the hereditary guardianship of the ancient metal tablets which constitute the palladium of the tribe. By the treaty of Washington in 1832, the Creeks sold all of their remaining lands in their old country and agreed to remove west of the Mississippi to what is now the Creek Nation in the Indian Territory. The removal extended over a period of several years and was not finally accomplished until 1845. In 1898 the citizen population of the Creek Nation numbered 14,771, of whom 10,014 were of Indian blood and the remainder were negroes, their former slaves. It appears that the Indian population included about 700 from other tribes, chiefly Cherokee. There are also about 300 Alabama, "Cushatta" (Koasati), and Muscogee in Texas. See also Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Adair, History of the American Indians; Bartram, Travels; The Five Civilized Tribes, Bulletin of the Eleventh Census; Wyman, in Alabama Historical Society Collections. Chickasaw--This tribe, of Muskhogean stock, formerly occupied northern Mississippi and adjacent portions of Alabama and Tennessee, and at an early period had incorporated also several smaller tribes on Yazoo river in central Mississippi, chief among which were the cognate Chokchuma. The name occurs first in the De Soto narrative. The Chickasaw language was simply a dialect of Choctaw, although the two tribes were hereditary enemies and differed widely in character, the former being active and warlike, while the latter were notoriously sluggish. Throughout the colonial period the Chickasaw were the constant enemies of the French and friends of the English, but they remained neutral in the Revolution. By the treaty of Pontotoc in 1832 they sold their lands east of the Mississippi and agreed to remove to Indian Territory, where they are now organized as the Chickasaw Nation. According to Morgan they have 12 clans grouped into two phratries. In 1890, the citizen population of the Nation (under Chickasaw laws) consisted of 3,941 full-blood and mixed-blood Chickasaw, 681 adopted whites, 131 adopted negroes, and 946 adopted Indians from other tribes, chiefly Choctaws. Under the present law, by which citizenship claims are decided by a Government commission, "Chickasaw by blood" are reported in 1898 to number 4,230, while "white and negro" citizens are reported at 4,818. See also Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; The Five Civilized Tribes, Bulletin of Eleventh Census. The Choctaw confederacy--This was a loose alliance of tribes, chiefly of Muskhogean stock, occupying southern Alabama and Mississippi, with the adjacent Gulf coast of western Florida and eastern Louisiana. The Choctaw proper, of Muskhogean stock, occupying south central Mississippi, was the dominant tribe. Smaller tribes more or less closely affiliated were the Mobilian, Tohome, Mugulasha, Pascagoula, Biloxi, Acolapissa, Bayagoula, Houma, with others of less note. It had been assumed that all of these were of Muskhogean stock until Gatschet in 1886 established the fact that the Biloxi were of Siouan affinity, and it is quite probable that the Pascagoula also were of the same connection. All the smaller tribes excepting the Biloxi were practically extinct, or had entirely lost their identity, before the year 1800. The Choctaw were one of the largest of the eastern tribes, being exceeded in numbers, if at all, only by the Cherokee; but this apparent superiority was neutralized by their unwarlike character and lack of cohesion. According to Morgan, whose statement has, however, been challenged, they had eight clans grouped into two phratries. There was also a geographic division into "Long towns," "Potato-eating towns," and "Six towns," the last named differing considerably in dialect and custom from the others. By treaties in 1820 and 1830 the Choctaw sold all their lands east of the Mississippi and agreed to remove to Indian Territory, where they now constitute the Choctaw Nation. A considerable number of vagrant Choctaw who had drifted into Louisiana and Arkansas at an early period have since joined their kindred in Indian Territory, but from 1,000 to 2,000 are still scattered along the swampy Gulf coast of Mississippi. In 1890 those of pure or mixed Choctaw blood in the Choctaw Nation were officially reported to number 10,211. In 1899, under different conditions of citizenship, the "Choctaw by blood" were put at 14,256, while the adopted whites and negroes numbered 5,150. See also Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; The Five Civilized Tribes, Bulletin of Eleventh Census. The Osage--The popular name is a corruption of Ouasage, the French spelling of Wasash, the name used by themselves. The Osage were the principal southern Siouan tribe, claiming at one time nearly the whole territory from the Missouri to the Arkansas and from the Mississippi far out into the plains. Their geographic position brought them equally into contact with the agricultural and sedentary tribes of the eastern country and the roving hunters of the prairie, and in tribal habit and custom they formed a connecting link between the two. Whether or not they deserved the reputation, they were considered by all their neighbors as particularly predatory and faithless in character, and had consequently few friends, but were generally at war with all tribes alike. They made their first treaty with the Government in 1808. In 1825 they ceded all their claims in Missouri and Arkansas, together with considerable territory in what is now Kansas. They have decreased terribly from war and dissipation, and are now, to the number of about 1,780, gathered upon a reservation in Oklahoma just west of the Cherokee and south of the Kansas line. 106. The Giants from the west (p. 391): This may be an exaggerated account of a visit from some warriors of a taller tribe from the plains, where it is customary to pluck out the eyebrows and to wear the hair in two long side pendants, wrapped round with otter skin and reaching to the knees, thus giving a peculiar expression to the eyes and an appearance of tallness which is sometimes deceptive. The Osage warriors have, however, long been noted for their height. With the exception of Tsul`kalû' there seem to be no giants in the mythology of the Cherokee, although all their woods and waters are peopled by invisible fairy tribes. This appears to be characteristic of Indian mythologies generally, the giants being comparatively few in number while the "little people" are legion. The Iroquois have a story of an invasion by a race of stony-skinned cannibal giants from the west (Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 266). Giant races occur also in the mythologies of the Navaho (Matthews, Navaho Legends), Choctaw (Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend), and other tribes. According to the old Spanish chroniclers, Ayllon in 1520 met on the coast of South Carolina a tribe of Indians whose chiefs were of gigantic size, owing, as he was told, to a special course of dieting and massage to which they were subjected in infancy. 107. The lost Cherokee (p. 391): This tradition as here given is taken chiefly from the Wahnenauhi manuscript. There is a persistent belief among the Cherokee that a portion of their people once wandered far to the west or southwest, where they were sometimes heard of afterward, but were never again reunited with their tribe. It was the hope of verifying this tradition and restoring his lost kinsmen to their tribe that led Sequoya to undertake the journey on which he lost his life. These traditional lost Cherokee are entirely distinct from the historic emigrants who removed from the East shortly after the Revolution. Similar stories are common to nearly all the tribes. Thus the Kiowa tell of a chief who, many years ago, quarreled over a division of game and led his people far away across the Rocky mountains, where they are still living somewhere about the British border and still keeping their old Kiowa language. The Tonkawa tell of a band of their people who in some way were cut off from the tribe by a sudden inroad of the sea on the Texas coast, and, being unable to return, gradually worked their way far down into Mexico. The Tuscarora tell how, in their early wanderings, they came to the Mississippi and were crossing over to the west side by means of a grapevine, when the vine broke, leaving those on the farther side to wander off until in time they became enemies to those on the eastern bank. See Mooney, Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians, Seventeenth Annual Report Bureau of American Ethnology, part 1, and The Last of Our Cannibals, in Harper's Magazine, August, 1901; Cusick, quoted in Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 478. 108. The massacre of the Ani'-Kuta'ni (p. 392): Swimmer, Ta'gwadihi', Ayâsta, and Wafford all knew this name, which Ayâsta pronounced Ani'-Kwata'ni, but none of them could tell anything more definite than has been stated in the opening sentence. The hereditary transmission of priestly dignities in a certain clan or band is rather the rule than the exception Among the tribes, both east and west. 109. The war medicine (p. 393): The first two paragraphs are from Wafford, the rest from Swimmer. The stories are characteristic of Indian belief and might be paralleled in any tribe. The great Kiowa chief, Set-ängya, already mentioned, was--and still is--believed by his tribe to have possessed a magic knife, which he carried in his stomach and could produce from his mouth at will. The Kiowa assert that it was this knife, which of course the soldiers failed to find when disarming him, with which he attacked the guard in the encounter that resulted in his death. 110. Incidents of personal heroism (p. 394): The incident of the fight at Waya gap is on the authority of the late Maj. James Bryson, of Dillsboro, North Carolina, born in 1818, who had it from his great-uncle, Daniel Bryson, a member of Williamson's expedition. Speaking of the Cherokee "War Women," who were admitted to the tribal councils, Timberlake says (Memoirs, p. 70): "The reader will not be a little surprised to find the story of Amazons not so great a fable as we imagined, many of the Indian women being as famous in war as powerful in the Council." 111. The mounds and the constant fire: The old sacred things (p. 395): What is here said concerning the mounds, based chiefly upon Swimmer's recital, is given solely as a matter of popular belief, shaped by tribal custom and ritual. The question of fact is for the archeologist to decide. The Indian statement is of value, however, in showing the supposed requirements for the solemn consecration of an important work. A note by John Howard Payne upon the sacred square of the Creeks, as observed by him in 1835, just before his visit to the Cherokee, may throw further light on the problem: "In the center of this outer square was a very high circular mound. This, it seems, was formed from the earth accumulated yearly by removing the surface of the sacred square thither. At every Green-corn festival the sacred square is strewn with soil yet untrodden; the soil of the year preceding being taken away, but preserved as above explained. No stranger's foot is allowed to press the new earth of the sacred square until its consecration is complete" (Letter of 1835 in Continental Monthly, New York, 1862, p. 19). See note on the sacred fire. Conjured with disease--The practice of conjuring certain favorite spots in order to render them fatal to an invading enemy was common to many if not to all tribes. One of the most terrible battles of the Creek war was fought upon the "Holy ground," so called because it was believed by the Indians that in consequence of the mystic rites which had been performed there for that purpose by their prophets, no white troops could set foot upon it and live. The sacred fire--The method described for producing fire and keeping it constantly smoldering in the townhouse appears to have been that actually in use in ancient times, as indicated by the name given to the plant (atsil'-sûñti), and corroborated by the unanimous testimony of the old people. All the older East Cherokee believe that the ancient fire still burns within the mounds at Franklin and Bryson City, and those men who were stationed for a time near the latter place while in the Confederate service, during the Civil war, assert that they frequently saw the smoke rising from the adjacent mound. The missionary Buttrick, from old Cherokee authority, says: "They were obliged to make new fire for sacred purposes by rubbing two pieces of dry wood together, with a certain weed, called golden rod, dry, between them.... When their enemies destroyed the house in which this holy fire was kept, it was said the fire settled down into the earth, where it still lives, though unknown to the people. The place where they lost this holy fire is somewhere in one of the Carolinas" (Antiquities, p. 9). The general accuracy of Swimmer's account is strikingly confirmed by the description of the New-fire ceremony given more than half a century before by John Howard Payne, the poet, who had gone among the Cherokee to study their ethnology and was engaged in that work when arrested, together with John Ross, by the Georgia guard in 1835. He makes the kindling of the new fire a part of the annual spring festival. At that time, says Payne, "the altar in the center of the national heptagon [i.e. townhouse] was repaired. It was constructed of a conical shape, of fresh earth. A circle was drawn around the top to receive the fire of sacrifice. Upon this was laid, ready for use, the inner bark of seven different kinds of trees. This bark was carefully chosen from the east side of the trees, and was clear and free from blemish." After some days of preliminary purification, sacrifice, and other ceremonial performances, the day appointed for the kindling of the new fire arrived. "Early in the morning the seven persons who were commissioned to kindle the fire commenced their operations. One was the official fire-maker; the remaining six his assistants. A hearth was carefully cleared and prepared. A round hole being made in a block of wood, a small quantity of dry golden-rod weed was placed in it. A stick, the end of which just fitted the opening, was whirled rapidly until the weed took fire. The flame was then kindled on the hearth and thence taken to every house by the women, who collectively waited for that purpose. The old fires having been everywhere extinguished, and the hearths cleansed, new fires were lighted throughout the country, and a sacrifice was made in each one of them of the first meat killed afterwards by those to whom they respectively belonged."--Payne MS, quoted in Squier, Serpent Symbol, pp. 116-118. Similar ceremonies were common to many tribes, particularly the southern tribes and the Pueblos, in connection with the annual kindling of the sacred new fire. See Adair, History of the American Indians; Hawkins, Sketch of the Creek Country, quoted by Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend; Bartram, Travels; Fewkes, The New-fire Ceremony at Walpi, in American Anthropologist for January, 1900; Squier, Serpent Symbol. Going beyond our own boundaries it may be said briefly that fire worship was probably as ancient as ritual itself and well-nigh as universal. Wooden box--The sacred ark of the Cherokee is described by Adair (History of the American Indians, pp. 161-162), and its capture by the Delawares is mentioned by Washburn (Reminiscences, pp. 191, 221), who states that to its loss the old priests of the tribe ascribed the later degeneracy of their people. They refused to tell him the contents of the ark. On this subject Adair says: "A gentleman who was at the Ohio in the year 1756 assured me he saw a stranger there very importunate to view the inside of the Cheerake ark, which was covered with a drest deerskin and placed on a couple of short blocks. An Indian centinel watched it, armed with a hiccory bow and brass-pointed barbed arrows; and he was faithful to his trust, for finding the stranger obtruding to pollute the supposed sacred vehicle, he drew an arrow to the head, and would have shot him through the body had he not suddenly withdrawn. The interpreter, when asked by the gentleman what it contained, told him there was nothing in it but a bundle of conjuring traps. This shews what conjurers our common interpreters are, and how much the learned world have really profited by their informations." Such tribal palladiums or "medicines," upon which the existence and prosperity of the tribe are supposed to depend, are still preserved among the plains Indians, the sacred receptacle in each case being confided to the keeping of a priest appointed for the purpose, who alone is privileged to undo the wrappings or expose the contents. Among these tribal "medicines" may be mentioned the sacred arrows of the Cheyenne, the "flat pipe" of the Arapaho, the great shell of the Omaha, and the taime image of the Kiowa (see reference in the author's Ghost-dance Religion and Calendar History of the Kiowa Indians). White peace pipe--This statement concerning the ancient seven-stem peace pipe carved from white stone is given on the authority of Swimmer, who said that the stone was procured from a quarry near the present town of Knoxville, Tennessee. A certain district of western North Carolina has recently acquired an unenviable reputation for the manufacture of spurious "Indian pipes," ostensibly taken from the mounds, carved from soapstone and having from three to half a dozen stem-holes encircling the bowl. Turtle drum--This statement is on the authority of Wafford, who had talked with men who claimed to have known those who had seen the drum. He was not positive as to the town, but thought it was Keowee. It is believed that the drum was hidden by the Indians, in anticipation of their speedy return, when the country was invaded by Williamson in 1776, but as the country was never recovered by the Cherokee the drum was lost. 112-115. Short humorous stories (pp. 397, 399): These short stories are fairly representative of Cherokee humor. Each was heard repeatedly from several informants, both east and west. 116. The star feathers (p. 399): This story was obtained from John Ax, with additional details from Chief Smith and others, to whom it was equally familiar. It is told as an actual happening in the early days, before the Indian had much acquaintance with the whites, and is thoroughly characteristic of the methods of medicine-men. The deception was based upon the Cherokee belief that the stars are living creatures with feathers (see number 9, "What the Stars are Like"). The Indian has always been noted for his love of feather decorations, and more than any from his native birds he prized the beautiful feathers of the peacock whenever it was possible to procure them from the whites. So far back as 1670 Lederer noted of a South Carolina tribe: "The Ushery delight much in feather ornament, of which they have great variety; but peacocks in most esteem, because rare in these parts" (Travels, p. 32, ed. 1891). 117. The mother bear's song (p. 400): The first of these songs was obtained from Ayâsta, and was unknown to Swimmer. The second song was obtained also from Ayâsta, who knew only the verses, while Swimmer knew both the verses and the story which gives them their setting. The first has an exact parallel among the Creeks, which is thus given in the "Baby Songs" of the Tuggle manuscript: Ah tan Down the stream Ah yah chokese if you hear Mah kah cho kofe chase going Hoche yoke saw up the stream Lit kahts chars, run, Lit kahts chars. run.   A thle poo Up the stream Ahyohchokese if you hear Mah kah cho kofe the chase going Thorne yoke saw to the high mountain Lit karts chars, run, Lit karts chars. run. Translation If you hear the noise of the chase Going down the stream Then run up the stream. If you hear the noise of the chase Going up the stream Then run to the high mountain, Then run to the high mountain. 118. Baby song, to please the children (p. 401): This song is well known to the women and was sung by both Ayâsta and Swimmer. 119. When babies are born: The wren and the cricket (p. 401): These little bits of Indian folklore were obtained from Swimmer, but are common tribal property. 120. The Raven Mocker (p. 401): The grewsome belief in the "Raven Mocker" is universal among the Cherokee and has close parallels in other tribes. Very near to it is the Iroquois belief in the vampire or cannibal ghost, concerning which Schoolcraft relates some blood-curdling stories. He says: "It is believed that such doomed spirits creep into the lodges of men at night, and during sleep suck their blood and eat their flesh. They are invisible" (Notes on the Iroquois, p. 144). On one occasion, while the author was among the Cherokee, a sick man was allowed to die alone because his friends imagined they felt the presence of the Raven Mocker or other invisible witches about the house, and were consequently afraid to stay with him. The description of the flying terror appears to be that of a great meteor. It is a universal principle of folk belief that discovery or recognition while disguised in another form brings disaster to the witch. The "diving" of the raven while flying high in air is performed by folding one wing close to the body, when the bird falls to a lower plane, apparently turning a somersault in the descent. It seems to be done purely for amusement. 121. Herbert's spring (p. 403): The subject of this old trader's legend must have been one of the head-springs of Chattooga river, an upper branch of Savannah, having its rise in the southern part of Jackson county, North Carolina, on the eastern slope of the ridge from which other streams flow in the opposite direction to join the waters of the Tennessee. It was probably in the vicinity of the present highlands in Macon county, where the trail from Chattooga river and the settlements on Keowee crossed the Blue ridge, thence descending Cullasagee to the towns on Little Tennessee. 126. Plant lore (p. 420): For ceremonies, prayers, and precautions used by the doctors in connection with the gathering and preparation of medicinal roots, barks, and herbs, see the author's Sacred Formulas of the Cherokees, in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1891. Violet--The Onondaga name signifies "two heads entangled," referring, we are told, to "the way so often seen where the heads are interlocked and pulled apart by the stems" (W. M. Beauchamp, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, October, 1888). Cedar--For references to the sacred character of the cedar among the plains tribes, see the author's Ghost-dance Religion, in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, part 2, 1896. Linn and basswood--The ancient Tuscarora believed that no tree but black gum was immune from lightning, which, they declared, would run round the tree a great many times seeking in vain to effect an entrance. Lawson, who records the belief, adds: "Now, you must understand that sort of gum will not split or rive: therefore, I suppose the story might arise from thence" (Carolina, pp. 345-346, ed. 1860). The Pawnee claim the same immunity for the cedar, and throw sprigs of it as incense upon the fire during storms to turn aside the lightning stroke (Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories, p. 126). Ginseng--For more concerning this plant see the author's Sacred Formulas, above mentioned. GLOSSARY OF CHEROKEE WORDS The Cherokee language has the continental vowel sounds a, e, i, and u, but lacks o, which is replaced by a deep â. The obscure or short û is frequently nasalized, but the nasal sound is seldom heard at the end of a word. The only labial is m, which occurs in probably not more than half a dozen words in the Upper and Middle dialects, and is entirely absent from the Lower dialect, in which w takes its place. The characteristic l of the Upper and Middle dialects becomes r in the Lower, but no dialect has both sounds. There is also an aspirated l; k and t have the ordinary sounds of these letters, but g and d are medials, approximating the sounds of k and t, respectively. A frequent double consonant is ts, commonly rendered ch by the old traders (see p. 188, "Dialects"). a as in far. a as in what, or obscure as in showman. â as in law, all. d medial (semisonant), approximating t. e as in they. e as in net. g medial (semisonant), approximating k. h as in hat. i as in pique. i as in pick. k as in kick. l as in lull. `l surd l (sometimes written hl), nearly the Welsh ll. m as in man. n as in not. r takes place of l in Lower dialect. s as in sin. t as in top. u as in rule. û as in cut. ûñ û nasalized. w as in wit. y as in you. ` a slight aspirate, sometimes indicating the omission of a vowel. A number of English words, with cross references, have been introduced into the glossary, and these, together with corrupted Cherokee forms, are indicated by small capitals. adâ'lanûñ'sti--a staff or cane. adan'ta--soul. ada'wehi--a magician or supernatural being. ada'wehi'yu--a very great magician; intensive form of ada'wehi. â'gana--groundhog. Â'ganstâ'ta--"Groundhog-sausage," from â'gana, groundhog, and tsistâ'û, "I am pounding it," understood to refer to pounding meat, etc., in a mortar, after having first crisped it before the fire. A war chief noted in the Cherokee war of 1760, and prominent until about the close of the Revolution; known to the whites as Oconostota. Also the Cherokee name for Colonel Gideon Morgan of the war of 1812, for Washington Morgan, his son, of the Civil war, and now for a full-blood upon the reservation, known to the whites as Morgan Calhoun. Â'gan-uni'tsi--"Groundhogs'-mother," from â'gana and uni'tsi, their mother, plural of utsi', his mother (etsi', agiti', my mother). The Cherokee name of a Shawano captive, who, according to tradition, killed the great Uktena serpent and procured the Ulûñsû'ti. Agawe'la--"Old Woman," a formulistic name for corn or the spirit of corn. agayûñ'li--for agayûñ'lige, old, ancient. agidâ'ta--see edâ'ta. agidu'tu--see edu'tu. Agi`li--"He is rising," possibly a contraction of an old personal name, Agin'-agi`li, "Rising-fawn." Major George Lowrey, cousin of Sequoya, and assistant chief of the Cherokee Nation about 1840. Stanley incorrectly makes it "Keeth-la, or Dog" (for gi`li'.) agini'si--see eni'si. agi'si--female, applied usually to quadrupeds. Agis'-e'gwa--"Great Female," possibly "Great Doe." A being, probably an animal god, invoked in the sacred formulas. agitsi'--see etsi'. Agitsta`ti'yi--"Where they stayed up all night," from tsigitsûñ'tihû', "I stay up all night." A place in the Great Smoky range about the head of Noland creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. See notes to number 100. Aguaquiri--see Guaquili. Ahalu'na--"Ambush," Ahalunûñ'yi, "Ambush place," or Uni'halu'na, "Where they ambushed," from akalu'ga, "I am watching". Soco gap, at the head of Soco creek, on the line between Swain and Haywood counties, North Carolina (see number 122). The name is also applied to a lookout station for deer hunters. ahanu'lahi--"he is bearded," from ahanu'lahû, a beard. Ahu'lude'gi--"He throws away the drum" (habitual), from ahu'li, drum, and akwade'gû, "I am throwing it away" (round object). The Cherokee name of John Jolly, a noted chief and adopted father of Samuel Houston, about 1800. ahyeli'ski--a mocker or mimic. akta'--eye; plural, dikta'. akta'ti--a telescope or field glass. The name denotes something with which to examine or look into closely, from akta', eye. akwandu'li--a song form for akwidu'li(-hû, "I want it." Akwan`ki--see Anakwan`ki. Akwe`ti'yi--a location on Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina; the meaning of the name is lost. See number 122. Alarka--see Yalâgi. âliga'--the red-horse fish (Moxostoma). Alkini'--the last woman known to be of Natchez descent and peculiarity among the East Cherokee; died about 1890. The name has no apparent meaning. ama'--water; in the Lower dialect, awa'; cf. a'ma, salt. amaye'hi--"dwelling in the water," from ama' (ama'yi, "in the water") and ehû', "I dwell," "I live." Amaye`l-e'gwa--"Great island," from amaye`li, island (from ama', water, and aye`li, "in the middle") and e'gwa, great. A former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, at Big island, a short distance below the mouth of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee. Timberlake writes it Mialaquo, while Bartram spells it Nilaque. Not to be confounded with Long-island town below Chattanooga. Amaye`li-gûnahi'ta--"Long island," from amaye`li, island, and gûnahi'ta, long. A former Cherokee settlement, known to the whites as Long Island town, at the Long island in Tennessee river, on the Tennessee-Georgia line. It was one of the Chickamauga towns (see Tsikama'gi). ama'yine'hi--"dwellers in the water," plural of amaye'hi. Anada'dûñtaski--"Roasters," i. e., Cannibals; from gûñ'taskû', "I am putting it (round) into the fire to roast." The regular word for cannibals is Yûñ'wini'giski, q. v. See number 3. anagâhûñ'ûñskû'--the Green-corn dance; literally, "they are having a Green-corn dance"; anagâhûñ'ûñsgûñ'yi, "where they are having the Green-corn dance"; the popular name is not a translation of the Cherokee word, which has no reference either to corn or dancing. Anakwan`ki--the Delaware Indians; singular Akwan`ki, a Cherokee attempt at Wapanaqki, "Easterners," the Algonquian name by which, in various corrupted forms, the Delawares are commonly known to the western tribes. Anantooeah--see Ani'-Nûn'dawe'gi. a`ne'tsâ, or a`netsâ'gi--the ballplay. a`netsâ'ûñski--a ballplayer; literally, "a lover of the ballplay." ani'--a tribal and animate prefix. ani'da'wehi--plural of ada'wehi. a'niganti'ski--see dagan`tû. Ani'-Gatage'wi--one of the seven Cherokee clans; the name has now no meaning, but has been absurdly rendered "Blind savanna," from an incorrect idea that it is derived from igâ'ti, a swamp or savanna, and dige'wi, blind. Ani'-Gilâ'hi--"Long-haired people," one of the seven Cherokee clans; singular, Agilâ'hi. The word comes from agilâ'hi (perhaps connected with agi`lge-ni, "the back of (his) neck"), an archaic term denoting wearing the hair long or flowing loosely, and usually recognized as applying more particularly to a woman. Ani'-Gili'--a problematic tribe, possibly the Congaree. See page 381. The name is not connected with gi`li, dog. Ani'-Gusa--see Ani'-Ku'sa. a'nigwa--soon after; dine'tlana a'nigwa, "soon after the creation." Ani'-Hyûñ'tikwalâ'ski--"The Thunderers," i. e., thunder, which in Cherokee belief, is controlled and caused by a family of supernaturals. The word has reference to making a rolling sound; cf. tikwale'lu, a wheel, hence a wagon; ama'-tikwalelûñyi, "rolling water place," applied to a cascade where the water falls along the surface of the rock; ahyûñ'tikwalâ'stihû', "it is thundering," applied to the roar of a railroad train or waterfall. Ani'-Kawi'--"Deer people," one of the seven Cherokee clans; the regular form for deer is a`wi'. Ani'-Kawi'ta--The Lower Creeks, from Kawi'ta or Coweta, their former principal town on Chattahoochee river near the present Columbus, Georgia; the Upper Creeks on the head streams of Alabama river were distinguished as Ani'-Ku'sa (q. v.) A small creek of Little Tennessee river above Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina, is now known as Coweeta creek. Ani'-Kitu'hwagi--"Kitu'hwa people," from Kitu'hwa (q. v.), an ancient Cherokee settlement; for explanation see page 182. Ani'-Ku'sa or Ani'-Gu'sa,--The Creek Indians, particularly the Upper Creeks on the waters of Alabama river; singular, A-Ku'sa, from Kusa or Coosa (Spanish, Coça, Cossa) their principal ancient town. Ani'-Kuta'ni (also Ani'-Kwata'-ni, or, incorrectly, Nicotani)--a traditional Cherokee priestly society or clan, exterminated in a popular uprising. See number 108. aninâ'hilidâhi--"creatures that fly about," from tsinai'li, "I am flying," tsinâ'iladâ'hû, "I am flying about." The generic term for birds and flying insects. Ani'-Na`tsi--abbreviated Anintsi, singular A-Na`tsi. The Natchez Indians; from coincidence with na`tsi, pine, the name has been incorrectly rendered "Pine Indians," whereas it is really a Cherokee plural of the proper name of the Natchez. Anin'tsi--see Ani'-Na`tsi. Ani'-Nûn'dawe'gi--singular, Nûn'dawe'gi; the Iroquois, more particularly the Seneca, from Nûndawao, the name by which the Seneca call themselves. Adair spells it Anantooeah. The tribe was also known as Ani'-Se'nika. Ani'-Sahâ'ni--one of the seven Cherokee clans; possibly an archaic form for "Blue people," from sa`ka'ni, sa`ka'nige'i, blue. Ani'-Sa'ni, Ani'-Sawahâ'ni--see Ani'-Sawanu'gi. Ani'-Sawanu'gi (singular Sawanu'gi)--the Shawano Indians. Ani'-Sa'ni and Ani'-Sawahâ'ni (see page 380) may be the same. Ani'-Se'nika.--see Ani'-Nûndawe'gi. anisga'ya--plural of asga'ya, man. Anisga'ya Tsunsdi'(-ga)--"The Little Men"; the Thunder Boys in Cherokee mythology. See numbers 3 and 8. Ani'sgaya'yi--"Men town" (?), a traditional Cherokee settlement on Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. anisgi'na--plural of asgi'na, q. v. Ani'-Skalâ'li--the Tuscarora Indians; singular, Skalâ'li or A-Skalâ'i. Ani'skwa'ni--Spaniards; singular, Askwa'ni. Ani'-Suwa'li, or Ani-'Suwa'la--the Suala, Sara, or Cheraw Indians, formerly about the headwaters of Broad river, North Carolina, the Xuala province of the De Soto chronicle, and Joara or Juada of the later Pardo narrative. Ani'ta'gwa--the Catawba Indians; singular, Ata'gwa, or Tagwa. Ani'-Tsâ'gûhi--a traditional Cherokee clan, transformed to bears (see number 75). Swimmer's daughter bears the name Tsâgûhi, which is not recognized as distinctively belonging to either sex. Ani'-Tsa'lagi'--the Cherokee. See "Tribal Synonymy," page 182. Ani'-Tsa`ta--the Choctaw Indians; singular, Tsa`ta. Ani'-Tsi'ksû--the Chickasaw Indians; singular, Tsi'ksû. Ani'-Tsi'skwa--"Bird people;" one of the seven Cherokee clans. Ani'tsu'tsa--"The Boys," from atsu'tsa, boy; the Pleiades. See number 10. Ani'-Wâ'di--"Paint people"; one of the seven Cherokee clans. Ani'-Wâdihi'--"Place of the Paint people or clan"; Paint town, a Cherokee settlement on lower Soco creek, within the reservation in Jackson and Swain counties, North Carolina. It takes its name from the Ani'-Wâ'di or Paint clan. ani'wani'ski--the bugle weed, Lycopus virginicus; literally, "they talk" or "talkers," from tsiwa'nihû, "I am talking," awani'ski, "he talks habitually." See number 26. Ani'-Wasa'si--the Osage Indians; singular, Wasa'si. Ani'-Wa'`ya--"Wolf people"; the most important of the seven Cherokee clans. Ani'-Yu'tsi--the Yuchi or Uchee Indians; singular Yu'tsi. Ani'-Yûñ'wiya'--Indians, particularly Cherokee Indians; literally "principal or real people," from yûñwi, person, ya, a suffix implying principal or real, and ani', the tribal prefix. See pages 5 and 182. Annie Ax--see Sadayi'. Aquone--a post-office on Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina, site of the former Fort Scott. Probably a corruption of egwâni, river. Arch, John--see Atsi. asâ'gwalihû'--a pack or burden; asâ'gwal`lû' or asâ'gwi`li, "there is a pack on him." Cf sâ'gwali'. asehi'--surely. Ase'nika--singular of Ani'-Se'nika. See Ani'-Nûndawe'gi. asga'ya--man. Asga'ya Gi'gagei--the "Red Man"; the Lightning spirit. asgi'na--a ghost, either human or animal; from the fact that ghosts are commonly supposed to be malevolent, the name is frequently rendered "devil." Asheville--see Kâsdu'yi and Unta'kiyasti'yi. âsi--the sweat lodge and occasional winter sleeping apartment of the Cherokee and other southern tribes. It was a low-built structure of logs covered with earth, and from its closeness and the fire usually kept smoldering within was known to the old traders as the "hot house." â'siyu' (abbreviated siyu')--good; the common Cherokee salute; gâ'siyu', "I am good"; hâ'siyu', "thou art good"; â'siyu, "he (it) is good"; âstû, "very good" (intensive). Askwa'ni--a Spaniard. See Ani'skwa'ni. âstû'--very good; âstû tsiki', very good, best of all. Cf â'siyu'. Astu'gatâ'ga--A Cherokee lieutenant in the Confederate service, killed in 1862. See page 170. The name may be rendered, "Standing in the doorway" but implies that the man himself is the door or shutter; it has no first person; gatâ'ga, "he is standing"; stu`ti, a door or shutter; stuhû', a closed door or passage; stugi'sti, a key, i. e. something with which to open a door. asûñ'tli, asûñtlûñ'yi--a footlog or bridge; literally, "log lying across," from asi'ta, log. ata'--wood; ata'ya, "principal wood," i. e. oak; cf. Muscogee iti, wood. Atagâ'hi--"Gall place," from a'tagû', gall, and hi, locative; a mythic lake in the Great Smoky mountains. See number 69. The name is also applied to that part of the Great Smoky range centering about Thunderhead mountain and Miry ridge, near the boundary between Swain county, North Carolina, and Blount county, Tennessee. a'tagû'--gall. Ata'-gûl`kalû'--a noted Cherokee chief, recognized by the British government as the head chief or "emperor" of the Nation, about 1760 and later, and commonly known to the whites as the Little Carpenter (Little Cornplanter, by mistake, in Haywood). The name is frequently spelled Atta-kulla-kulla, Ata-kullakulla or Ata-culculla. It may be rendered "Leaning-wood," from ata', "wood" and gûl`kalû, a verb implying that something long is leaning, without sufficient support, against some other object; it has no first person form. Bartram describes him as "a man of remarkably small stature, slender and of a delicate frame, the only instance I saw in the Nation; but he is a man of superior abilities." Ata'gwa--a Catawba Indian. See Ani'la'gwa. A`tâhi'ta--abbreviated from A`tâhitûñ'yi, "Place where they shouted," from gatâ'hiû', "I shout," and yi, locative. Waya gap, on the ridge west of Franklin, Macon county, North. Carolina. See number 13. The map name is probably from the Cherokee wa`ya, wolf. Ata-kullakulla--see Ata'-gûl`kalû'. â'tali--mountain; in the Lower dialect â'tari, whence the "Ottare" or Upper Cherokee of Adair. The form â'tali is used only in composition; a mountain in situ is âtalûñyi or gatu'si. â'tali-gûli'--"it climbs the mountain," i. e., "mountain-climber"; the ginseng plant, Ginseng quinquefolium; from â'tali, mountain, and gûli', "it climbs" (habitually); tsilahi' or tsili', "I am climbing." Also called in the sacred formulas, Yûñ'wi Usdi', "Little Man." See number 126. a'talulû--unfinished, premature, unsuccessful; whence utalu'li, "it is not yet time." Ata'lûñti'ski--a chief of the Arkansas Cherokee about 1818, who had originally emigrated from Tennessee. The name, commonly spelled Tollunteeskee, Taluntiski, Tallotiskee, Tallotuskee, etc., denotes one who throws some living object from a place, as an enemy from a precipice. See number 100 for instance. â'tari--see â'tali. atasi' (or atasû', in a dialectic form)--a war club. atatsûñ'ski--stinging; literally, "he stings" (habitually). A`tla'nuwa'--"Tla'nuwa hole"; the Cherokee name of Chattanooga, Tennessee, (see Tsatanu'gi) originally applied to a bluff on the south side of the Tennessee river at the foot of the present Market street. See number 124. A'tsi--the Cherokee name of John Arch, one of the earliest native writers in the Sequoya characters. The word is simply an attempt at the English name Arch. atsi'la--fire; in the Lower dialect, atsi'ra. Atsil'-dihye'gi--"Fire Carrier"; apparently the Cherokee name for the will-of-the-wisp. See page 335. As is usually the case in Cherokee compounds, the verbal form is plural ("it carries fires"); the singular form is ahye'gi. atsil'-sûñ`ti (abbreviated tsil'-sûñ`ti)--fleabane (Erigeron canadense); the name signifies "material with which to make fire," from atsi'la, fire, and gasûñ`ti, (gatsûñ`ti or gatlûñ`ti), material with which to make something; from gasûñ'skû (or gatlûñ'skû), "I make it." The plant is also called ihyâ'ga. See number 126. Atsil'-tlûñtû'tsi--"Fire panther." A meteor or comet. See notes to number 9. Atsi'la-wa'i--"Fire ----"; a mountain, sometimes known as Rattlesnake knob, about two miles northeast of Cherokee, Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. a'tsina'--cedar; cf. Muscogee, achena or auchenau. A'tsina'-k`ta'ûñ--"Hanging cedar place"; from a'tsina', cedar, and k`taûñ, "where it (long) hangs down"; a Cherokee name for the old Taskigi town on Little Tennessee river in Monroe county, Tennessee. See number 105. atsi'ra--see atsi'la. Atsûñ'sta`ti'yi (abbreviated Atsûñ'sta`ti')--"Fire-light place," (cf. atsil-sûñ'`ti), referring to the "fire-hunting" method of killing deer in the river at night. The proper form for Chestatee river, near Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Georgia. Attakullakulla--see Ata-gûl`kalû'. awa'--see ama'. awâ'hili--eagle; particularly Aquila chrysætus, distinguished as the "pretty-feathered eagle." a`wi'--deer; also sometimes written and pronounced, ahawi'; the name is sometimes applied to the large horned beetle, the "flying stag" of early writers. a`wi'-ahanu'lahi--goat; literally, "bearded deer." a`wi'-akta'--"deer eye"; the Rudbeckia or black-eyed Susan. a`wi'-ahyeli'ski--"deer mocker"; the deer bleat, a sort of whistle used by hunters to call the doe by imitating the cry of the fawn. a`wi'-e'gwa (abbreviated a`w-e'gwa)--the elk, literally "great deer." a`wi'-unade'na--sheep; literally "woolly deer." A`wi' Usdi'--"Little Deer"; the mythic chief of the Deer tribe. See number 15. Ax, Annie--see Sadayi'. Ax, John--see Itagû'nahi. Ayâ'sta--"The Spoiler," from tsiyâ'stihû, "I spoil it"; cf. uyâ'i, bad. A prominent woman and informant on the East Cherokee reservation. aye`li--half, middle, in the middle. Ayrate--see e'ladi'. Ayuhwa'si--the proper form of the name commonly written Hiwassee. It signifies a savanna or meadow and was applied to two (or more) former Cherokee settlements. The more important, commonly distinguished as Ayuhwa'si Egwâ'hi or Great Hiwassee, was on the north bank of Hiwassee river at the present Savannah ford above Columbus, in Polk county, Tennessee. The other was farther up the same river, at the junction of Peachtree creek, above Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. Lanman writes it Owassa. A`yûñ'ini--"Swimmer"; literally, "he is swimming," from gayûñini', "I am swimming." A principal priest and informant of the East Cherokee, died in 1899. Ayûlsû'--see Dayûlsûñ'yi. Beaverdam--see Uy'gilâ'gi. Big-island--see Amaye`l-e'gwa. Big-cove--see Kâ'lanûñ'yi. Big-mush--see Gatûñ'wa`li. Big-witch--see Tskil-e'gwa. Bird-town--see Tsiskwâ'hi. Bloody-fellow--see Iskagua. Blythe--see Diskwa`ni. Black-fox--see Inâ'li. Boudinot, Elias--see Galagi'na. Bowl, The; Bowles, Colonel--see Diwa`li. Brass--see Ûñtsaiyi'. Brasstown--see Itse'yi. Breath, The--see Ûñli'ta. Briertown--see Kanu'ga`lâ'yi. Buffalo (creek)--see Yûnsâ'i. Bull-head--see Uskwale'na. Butler, John--see Tsan'uga'sita. Cade's Cove--see Tsiyâ'hi. Canacaught--"Canacaught, the great Conjurer," mentioned as a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; possibly kanegwâ'ti, the water-moccasin snake. See page 31. Canaly--see hi'gina'lii. Canasagua--see Gansâ'gi. Cannastion, Cannostee--see Kana'sta. Canuga--see Kanu'ga. Cartoogaja--see Gatu'gitse'yi. Cataluchee--see Gadalu'tsi. Cauchi--a place, apparently in the Cherokee country, visited by Pardo in 1567 (see page 29). The name may possibly have some connection with Nacoochee or Nagu`tsi', q. v. Caunasaita--given as the name of a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; possibly for Kanûñsi'ta, "dogwood" (Cornus florida). See page 31. Chalaque--see Tsa'lagi under "Tribal Synonymy," page 182. Chattanooga--see Tsatanu'gi. Chattooga, Chatuga--see Tsatu'gi. Cheeowhee--see Tsiyâ'hi. Cheerake--see Tsa'lagi, under "Tribal Synonymy," page 182. Cheowa--see Tsiyâ'hi. Cheowa Maximum--see Sehwate'yi. Cheraqui--see Tsa'lagi, under "Tribal Synonymy," page 182. Cheraw--see Ani'-Suwa'li. Cherokee--see Tsa'lagi, under "Tribal Synonymy," page 182; also Elawâ'diyi. Chestatee--see Atsûñ'sta`ti'yi. Chestua--see Tsistu'yi. Cheucunsene--see Tsi'yu-gûnsi'ni. Cheulah--mentioned by Timberlake as the chief of Settacoo (Si'tikû) in 1762. The name may be intended for Tsu`la, "Fox." Chickamauga--see Tsi'kama'gi. Chilhowee--see Tsû`lûñ'we. Chimney Tops--see Duni'skwa`lgûñ'i. Chisca--mentioned in the De Soto narratives as a mining region in the Cherokee country. The name may have a connection with Tsi'skwa, "bird," possibly Tsiskwâ'hi, "Bird place." Choastea--see Tsistu'yi. Chopped Oak--see Digalu'yatûñ'yi. Choquata--see Itsâ'ti. Chota, Chotte--see Itsâ'ti. Citico--see Si'tikû'. Clear-sky--see Iskagua. Clennuse--see Tlanusi'yi. Cleveland--see Tsistetsi'yi. Coça--see Ani'-Ku'sa. Coco--see Kukû'. Cohutta--see Gahû'ti. Colanneh, Colona--see Kâ'lanû. Conasauga--see Gansâ'gi. Conneross--see Kawân'-urâ'sûñyi. Cooweescoowee--see Gu'wisguwi'. Coosa--see Ani'-Ku'sa and Kusa'. Coosawatee--see Ku'saweti'yi. Corani--see Kâ'lanû. Cossa--see Ani'-Ku'sa, Kusa. Cowee'--see Kawi'yi. Coweeta, Coweta--see Ani'-Kawi'ta. Coyatee (variously spelled Cawatie, Coiatee, Coytee, Coytoy, Kai-a-tee)--A former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, some ten miles below the junction of Tellico, about the present Coytee post-office in Loudon county, Tennessee. The correct form and etymology are uncertain. Creek-path--see Ku'sa-nûñnâ'hi. Crow-town--see Kâgûñ'yi. Cuhtahlatah--a Cherokee woman noted in the Wahnenauhi manuscript as having distinguished herself by bravery in battle. The proper form may have some connection with gatûñ'lati, "wild hemp." Cullasagee--see Kûlse'tsi'yi. Cullowhee, Currahee--see Gûlâhi'yi. Cuttawa--see Kitu'hwa. dagan`tû--"he makes it rain"; from aga'ska, "it is raining," aga'na, "it has begun to rain"; a small variety of lizard whose cry is said to presage rain. It is also called a'niganti'ski, "they make it rain" (plural form), or "rain-maker." See number 59. dagûl`kû--the American white-fronted goose (Anser albifrons gambeli). The name may be an onomatope. See number 6. dagû'na--the fresh water mussel; also a variety of face pimples. Dagûnâ'hi--"Mussel place," from dagû'na, mussel, and hi, locative. The Muscle shoals on Tennessee river, in northwestern Alabama. It was sometimes called also simply Tsu`stanalûñ'yi, "Shoals place." Cf. U`stana'li. Dagû'nawe'lâhi--"Mussel-liver place," from dagû'na, mussel, uwe'la, liver, and hi, locative; the Cherokee name for the site of Nashville, Tennessee. No reason can now be given for the name. Dahlonega--A town in Lumpkin County, Georgia, near which the first gold was mined. A mint was established there in 1838. The name is from the Cherokee dala'nige'i, yellow, whence ate'la-dalâ'nige'i, "yellow money," i. e., gold. daksawa'ihû--"he is shedding tears." dakwa'--a mythic great fish; also the whale. See number 68. Dakwa'i--"Dakwa place," from a tradition of a dakwa' in the river at that point. A former Cherokee settlement, known to the traders as Toqua or Toco, on Little Tennessee river, about the mouth of Toco creek in Monroe county, Tennessee. See number 68. A similar name and tradition attaches to a spot on the French Broad river, about six miles above the Warm springs, in Buncombe county, North Carolina. See number 122. dakwa'nitlastesti--"I shall have them on my legs for garters"; from anitla'sti (plural dinitla'sti), garter; d-, initial plural; akwa, first person particle; and esti, future suffix. See number 77. da'liksta'--"vomiter," from dagik'stihû', "I am vomiting," daliksta', "he vomits" (habitually); the form is plural. The spreading adder (Heterodon), also sometimes called kwandaya'hû, a word of uncertain etymology. Da'`nagâsta--for Da'`nawa-gâsta'ya, "Sharp-war," i.e. "Eager-warrior"; a Cherokee woman's name. Da'`nawa-(a)sa`tsûñ'yi "War ford," from da'`nawa, war, and asa`tsûñ'yi, a crossing-place or ford. A ford on Cheowa river about three miles below Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. Danda'ganû'--"Two looking at each other," from detsi'ganû', "I am looking at him." A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Lookout Mountain town, on Lookout Mountain creek, near the present Trenton, Dade county, Georgia. One of the Chickamauga towns (see Tsi'kama'gi), so called on account of the appearance of the mountains facing each other across the Tennessee river at Chattanooga. Da'si`giya'gi--an old masculine personal name, of doubtful etymology, but commonly rendered by the traders "Shoe-boots," possibly referring to some peculiar style of moccasin or leggin. A chief known to the whites as Shoe-boots is mentioned in the Revolutionary records. Chief Lloyd Welch, of the eastern band, was known in the tribe as Da'si`giya'gi and the same name is now used by the East Cherokee as the equivalent of the name Lloyd. Da'skwitûñ'yi--"Rafters place," from daskwitûñ'i, "rafters," and yi, locative. A former settlement on Tusquittee creek, near Hayesville, in Clay county, North Carolina. dasûñ'tali--ant; dasûñ'tali atatsûñ'ski, "stinging ant," the large red cow-ant (Myrmica?), also called sometimes, on account of its hard body-case, nûñ'yunu'wi, "stone-clad," after the fabulous monster. See number 67. Datle'yasta'i--"Where they fell down," a point on Tuckasegee river, a short distance above Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina. For tradition see number 122. dâtsi--a traditional water monster. See number 122. Dâtsi'yi--"Dâtsi place"; a place on Little Tennessee river, near the junction of Eagle creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi--"where there are tracks or footprints," from ulâ'sinûñ'yi or ulâsgûñ'yi, footprint. Track Rock gap, near Blairsville, Georgia. Also sometimes called De'gayelûñ'ha, "place of branded marks"; (digaletanûñ'hi, branded, or printed). See number 125. dâ'yi--beaver. Dayûlsûñ'yi--"Place where they cried," a spot on the ridge at the head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina; so called from an old tradition. See number 80. dâ'yuni'si--"beaver's grandchild," from dâ'yi, beaver, and uni'si, son's child, of either sex (daughter's child, either sex, uli'si). The water beetle or mellow bug (Dineutes discolor). Degal`gûñ'yi--a cairn, literally "Where they are piled up"; a series of cairns on the south side of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. De'gatâ'ga--The Cherokee name of General Stand Watie and of a prominent early western chief known to the whites as Takatoka. The word is derived from tsitâ'ga, "I am standing," da`nitâ'ga, "they are standing together," and conveys the subtle meaning of two persons standing together and so closely united in sympathy as to form but one human body. De'gayelûñ'ha--see Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi. detsanûñ'li--an inclosure or piece of level ground cleared for ceremonial purposes; applied more particularly to the Green-corn dance ground. The word has a plural form, but can not be certainly analyzed. De'tsata--a Cherokee sprite. See number 78. detsinu'lahûñgû'--"I tried, but failed." Dida`lâski'yi--"Showering place." In the story (number 17) the name is understood to mean "The place where it rains fire." It signifies literally, however, the place where it showers, or comes down, and lodges upon something animate, and has no definite reference to fire (atsi'la) or rain (agaska, "it is raining"); dega`lâskû', "they are showering down and lodging upon him." Dida'skasti'yi--"Where they were afraid of each other." A spot on Little Tennessee river, near the mouth of Alarka creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. diga'gwani'--the mud-hen or didapper (Gallinula galeata). The name is a plural form and implies "lame," or "crippled in the legs" (cf. detsi'nigwa'na, "I am kneeling"), probably from the bouncing motion of the bird when in the water. It is also the name of a dance. Diga'kati'yi--see Gakati'yi. di'galûñgûñ'yi--"where it rises, or comes up"; the east. The sacred term is Nûñdâ'yi, q. v. digalûñ'latiyûñ--a height, one of a series, from galûn'lati, "above." See number 1. Digalu'yatûñ'yi--"Where it is gashed (with hatchets)"; from tsilu'yû, "I am cutting (with a chopping stroke)," di, plural prefix, and yi, locative. The Chopped Oak, formerly east of Clarkesville, Georgia. See number 125. Digane'ski--"He picks them up" (habitually), from tsine'û, "I am picking it up." A Cherokee Union soldier in the civil war. See page 171. digi'gage'i--the plural of gi'gage'i, red. digû'lanahi'ta--for digû'li-anahi'ta, "having long ears," "long-eared"; from gûle, "ear" and gûnahi'ta, "long." Dihyûñ'dula'--"Sheaths," or "Scabbards"; singular ahyûñ'dula', "a gun sheath," or other scabbard. The probable correct form of a name which appears in Revolutionary documents as "Untoola, or Gun Rod." dikta'--plural of akta', eye. dila'--skunk. dilsta'ya`ti--"scissors"; the water-spider (Dolomedes). dinda'skwate'ski--the violet; the name signifies, "they pull each other's heads off." dine'tlana--the creation. di`nûski--"the breeder"; a variety of smilax brier. See number 126. Disgâ'gisti'yi--"Where they gnaw"; a place on Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. diskwa`ni--"chestnut bread," i. e., a variety of bread having chestnuts mixed with it. The Cherokee name of James Blythe, interpreter and agency clerk. distai'yi--"they are strong," plural of astai'yi, "strong, or tough." The Tephrosia or devil's-shoestring. See number 126. dista'sti--a mill (generic). dita'stayeski--"a barber," literally "one who cuts things" (as with a scissors), from tsista'yû, "I cut," (as with a scissors). The cricket (tala'tu) is sometimes so called. See number 59. Diwa'`li--"Bowl," a prominent chief of the western Cherokee, known to the whites as The Bowl, or Colonel Bowles, killed by the Texans in 1839. The chief mentioned on page 100 may have been another of the same name. diyâ'hali (or duyâ'hali)--the alligator lizard (Sceloporue undulalus). See number 59. Diyâ'hali'yi--"Lizard place," from diyâ'hali, lizard, and yi, locative. Joanna bald, a mountain at the head of Valley river, on the line between Cherokee and Graham counties, North Carolina. For tradition see number 122; also number 59. Double-head--see Tal-tsu'ska'. Dragging-canoe--see Tsi'yu-gûnsi'ni. Dudûñ'leksûñ'yi--"Where its legs were broken off"; a place on Tuckasegee river, a few miles above Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina. See number 122. Dugilu'yi (abbreviated Dugilu', and commonly written Tugaloo, or sometimes Toogelah or Toogoola)--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, the best known being Tugaloo river, so called from a former Cherokee settlement of that name situated at the junction of Toccoa creek with the main stream, in Habersham county, Georgia. The word is of uncertain etymology, but seems to refer to a place at the forks of a stream. Dûksa'i, Dûkw`sa'i--The correct form of the name commonly written Toxaway, applied to a former Cherokee settlement in South Carolina, and the creek upon which it stood, an extreme head-stream of Keowee river having its source in Jackson county, North Carolina. The meaning of the name is lost, although it has been wrongly interpreted to mean "Place of shedding tears." See number 123. Dulastûñ'yi--"Potsherd place." A former Cherokee settlement on Nottely river in Cherokee county, North Carolina. See number 122. dule'tsi--"kernels," a goitrous swelling upon the throat. dulu'si--a variety of frog found upon the headwaters of Savannah river. See number 125. Duniya`ta`lûñ'yi--"Where there are shelves, or flat places," from aya`te'ni, flat, whence da'ya`tana`lûñ'i', a shelf, and yi', the locative. A gap on the Great Smoky range, near Clingman's dome, Swain county, North Carolina. See notes to number 100. Dunidû'lalûñ'yi--"Where they made arrows"; a place on Straight creek, a head-stream of Oconaluftee river, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Duni'skwa`lgûñ'i--the double peak known as the Chimney Tops, in the Great Smoky mountains about the head of Deep creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. On the north side is the pass known as Indian gap. The name signifies a "forked antler," from uskwa`lgû, antler, but indicates that the antler is attached in place, as though the deer itself were concealed below. Du'stayalûñ'yi--"Where it made a noise as of thunder or shooting," apparently referring to a lightning stroke (detsistaya'hihû, "I make a shooting, or thundering, noise," might be a first person form used by the personified Thunder-god); a spot on Hiwassee river, about the junction of Shooting creek, near Hayesville, in Clay county, North Carolina. A former settlement along the creek bore the same name. See number 79. du'stu'--a species of frog, appearing very early in spring; the name is intended for an onomatope. It is the correct form of the name of the chief noted by McKenney and Hall as "Tooantuh or Spring Frog." Dutch--see Tatsi'. duwe`ga--the spring lizard. See number 59. Eagle dance--see Tsugidû`li' Ûlsgi'sti. Eastinaulee--see U`stana'li. Echoee--see Itse'yi. Echota--see Itsâ'ti. Edâ'hi--"He goes about" (habitually); a masculine name. Echota, New--see Gansâ'gi. edâ'ta--my father (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agidâ'ta. edu'tu--my maternal grandfather (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agidu'tu; cf. eni'si. e'gwa--great; cf. u'tanû. egwâ'ni--river. Egwânul`ti--"By the river," from egwâ'ni, river, and nu'lati or nul`ti, near, beside. The proper form of Oconaluftee, the name of the river flowing through the East Cherokee reservation in Swain and Jackson counties, North Carolina. The Cherokee town, "Oconalufte," mentioned by Bartram as existing about 1775, was probably on the lower course of the river at the present Birdtown, on the reservation, where was formerly a considerable mound. ela--earth, ground. e'ladi'--low, below; in the Lower dialect e'radi', whence the Ayrate or Lower Cherokee of Adair as distinguished from the Ottare (â'tari, â'tali) or Upper Cherokee. elanti--a song form for e'ladi, q. v. Elatse'yi (abbreviated Elatse')--possibly "Green (Verdant) earth," from ela, earth, and itse'yi, green, from fresh-springing vegetation. The name of several former Cherokee settlements, commonly known to the whites as Ellijay, Elejoy or Allagae. One of these was upon the headwaters of Keowee river in South Carolina; another was on Ellijay creek of Little Tennessee river, near the present Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina; another was about the present Ellijay in Gilmer county, Georgia; and still another was on Ellejoy creek of Little river near the present Maryville, in Blount county, Tennessee. Elawâ'diyi (abbreviated Elawâ'di)--"Red-earth place" from ela, earth, wâdi, brown-red or red paint, and yi, the locative. 1. The Cherokee name of Yellow-hill settlement, now officially known as Cherokee, the postoffice and agency headquarters for the East Cherokee, on Oconaluftee river in Swain county, North Carolina. 2. A former council ground, known in history as Red Clay, at the site of the present village of that name in Whitfield county, Georgia, adjoining the Tennessee line. Ellijay--see Elatse'yi. eni'si--my paternal grandfather (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agini'si. Cf. edu'tu. Eskaqua--see Iskagua. Estanaula, Estinaula--see U`stana'li. Etawa'ha-tsistatla'ski--"Deadwood-lighter," a traditional Cherokee conjurer. See number 100. e`ti, or eti--old, long ago. Etowah--see I'tawa'. Etsaiyi'--see Ûñtsaiyi'. etsi'--my mother (Upper dialect); the Middle and Lower dialect form is agitsi'. Euharlee--see Yuha'li'. Feather dance--see Tsugidû`li, Ûlsgi'sti. Fighting-town--see Walâs'-unûlsli'yi. Flax-toter--see Tâle'danigi'ski. Flying-squirrel--see Kâ'lahû'. French Broad--see Unta'kiyasti'yi. Frogtown--see Walâsi'yi. Gadalu'lu--the proper name of the mountain known to the whites as Yonah (from yânû, "bear"), or upper Chattahoochee river, in White county, Georgia. The name has no connection with Tallulah (see Talulu'), and can not be translated. Gadalu'tsi--in the corrupted form of Cataluchee this appears on the map as the name of a peak, or rather a ridge, on the line between Swain and Haywood counties, in North Carolina, and of a creek running down on the Haywood side into Big Pigeon river. It is properly the name of the ridge only and seems to refer to a "fringe standing erect," apparently from the appearance of the timber growing in streaks along the side of the mountain; from wadalu'yata, fringe, gadû'ta, "standing up in a row or series." gahawi'sita--parched corn; improperly spelled wissactaw by Hawkins. See note under number 83. Gahûti (Gahû'ta and Gwahû'ti in dialectic forms)--Cohutta mountain, in Murray county, Georgia. The name comes from gahûtâ'yi, "a shed roof supported on poles," and refers to a fancied resemblance in the summit. Gakati'yi--"Place of setting free"; sometimes spoken in the plural form, Diga'kati'yi, "Place of setting them free." A point on Tuckasegee river about three miles above Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. gaktûñ'ta--an injunction, command or rule, more particularly a prohibition or ceremonial tabu. Tsiga`te'gû, "I am observing an injunction, or tabu"; adakte'gi, "he is under tabu regulations." Galagi'na--a male deer (buck) or turkey (gobbler); in the first sense the name is sometimes used also for the large horned beetle (Dynastes tityus?). The Indian name of Elias Boudinot, first Cherokee editor. See page 111. gali'sgisidâ'hû--I am dancing about; from gali'sgia', "I am dancing," and edâhû', "I am going about." galûñkw'ti'yu--honored, sacred; used in the bible to mean holy, hallowed. galûñ'lati--above, on high. gane'ga--skin. ganidawâ'ski--the campion, catchfly or "rattlesnake's master" (Silene stellata); the name signifies "it disjoints itself," from ganidawâskû', "it is unjointing itself," on account of the peculiar manner in which the dried stalk breaks off at the joints. Gansâ'gi (or Gansâgiyi)--the name of several former settlements in the old Cherokee country; it cannot be analyzed. One town of this name was upon Tuckasegee river, a short distance above the present Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina; another was on the lower part of Canasauga creek, in McMinn county, Tennessee; a third was at the junction of Conasauga and Coosawatee rivers, where afterward was located the Cherokee capital, New Echota, in Gordon county, Georgia; a fourth, mentioned in the De Soto narratives as Canasoga or Canasagua, was located in 1540 on the upper Chattahoochee river, possibly in the neighborhood of Kenesaw mountain, Georgia (see page 197). Gansa`ti'yi--"Robbing place," from tsina'sahûñskû', "I am robbing him." Vengeance creek of Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. The name Vengeance was originally a white man's nickname for an old Cherokee woman, of forbidding aspect, who lived there before the Removal. See number 122. Ganse`ti--a rattle; as the Cherokee dance rattle is made from a gourd the masculine name, Ganse`ti, is usually rendered by the whites, "Rattling-gourd." gatayûsti--the wheel and stick game of the southern tribes, incorrectly called nettecawaw by Timberlake. See note under number 3. Gâtegwâ'--for Gâtegwâ'hi, possibly a contraction of Igât(i)-egwâ'hi, "Great-swamp (-thicket) place." A high peak southeast from Franklin, Macon county, North Carolina, and perhaps identical with Fodderstack mountain. See number 75. ga'tsû--see hatlû'. Gatu'gitse'yi (abbreviated Gatu'gitse')--"New-settlement place," from gatu'gi or sgatu'gi, town, settlement, itse'hi, new, especially applied to new vegetation, and yi, the locative. A former settlement on Cartoogaja creek of Little Tennessee river, above Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. Gatuti'yi--"Town-building place," or "Settlement place," from gatu'gi, a settlement, and yi, locative. A place on Santeetla creek, near Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. Gatûñ'lti'yi--"Hemp place," from gatûñ'lati, "wild hemp" (Apocynum cannabinum), and yi, locative. A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Hemptown, on the creek of the same name, near Morganton, in Fannin county, Georgia. Gatûñ'wa`li--a noted western Cherokee about 1842, known to the whites as "Hard-mush" or "Big-mush." Gatûñ'wa`li, from ga'tu', "bread," and ûñwa'`li, "made into balls or lumps," is a sort of mush of parched corn meal, made very thick, so that it can be dipped out in lumps almost of the consistency of bread. ge'i--down stream, down the road, with the current; tsâ'gi, up stream. gese'i--was; a separate word which, when used after the verb in the present tense, makes it past tense without change of form; in the form hi'gese'i it usually accompanies an emphatic repetition. Ge`yagu'ga (for Age'hya-guga?)--a formulistic name for the moon (nûñ'da'); it cannot be analyzed, but seems to contain the word age'hya, "woman." See also nûñ'da'. giga--blood; cf. gi'gage'i, red. gi'ga-danegi'ski--"blood taker," from giga, blood, and ada'negi'ski, "one who takes liquids," from tsi'negia', "I am taking it" (liquid). Another name for the tsâne'ni or scorpion lizard. See number 59. gi'gage'i--red, bright red, scarlet; the brown-red of certain animals and clays is distinguished as wâ'dige'i. gi'ga-tsuha'`li--"bloody-mouth," literally, "having blood on the corners of his mouth"; from giga, blood, and tsuhanûñsi'yi, the corners of the mouth (aha'li, his mouth). A large lizard, probably the Pleistodon. See number 59. gi`li'--dog; in the Lower dialect, gi`ri'. Gi`li'-dinehûñ'yi--"Where the dogs live," from gi`li', dog, dinehû', "they dwell" (ehû, "I dwell"), and yi, locative. A place on Oconaluftee river, a short distance above Cherokee, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Gi`li'-utsûñ'stanuñ'yi--"Where the dog ran," from gi`li', dog, and utsûñ'stanûñ'yi, "footprints made by an animal running"; the Milky Way. See number 11. ginûnti--a song form for ginû'tii', "to lay him (animate object) upon the ground." See number 75. gi`ri'--see gi`li'. Gisehûñ'yi--"Where the female lives," from agi'si, female, and yi, the locative. A place on Tuckasegee river, a short distance above Bryson City, Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. gitlû'--hair (Upper dialect); in the Middle and Lower dialects, gitsû'. gitsû'--see gitlû'. Glass, The--see Ta'gwadihi'. Gohoma--A Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. See page 31. Going-snake--see I'nadûna'i. Gorhaleke--a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. See page 31. Great island--see Amaye`l-e'gwa. Gregory bald--see Tsistu'yi. Guachoule--see Guaxule. Guaquili (Wakili)--a town in the Cherokee country, visited by De Soto in 1540, and again in 1567 by Pardo, who calls it Aguaquiri (see pages 25 and 28). The name may have a connection with waguli', "whippoorwill," or with u-)wâ'gi`li, "foam." Guasula--see Guaxule. Guasili--see Guaxule. Guaxule--a town in the Cherokee country, visited by De Soto in 1540; variously spelled in the narratives, Guasili, Guachoule, Guasula, Guaxule, Quaxule, etc. It was probably about at Nacoochee mound, in White county, Georgia. It has been suggested that the Spaniards may have changed the Indian name to resemble that of a town in Spain. See pages 26 and 194. gû'daye'wû--"I have sewed myself together"; "I am sewing," tsiye'wia'; "I am sewing myself together," gûdayewiû. See number 31. gugwe' (or g`gwe')--the quail or partridge; the name is an onomatope. gugwe'-ulasu'la--"partridge moccasin," from gugwe' or g`gwe', partridge, and ulasula, moccasin or shoe; the ladyslipper (Cypripedium). Gûlâhi'yi (abbreviated Gûlâhi', or Gûrâhi', in the Lower dialect)--"Gûlâ'hi place," so called from an unidentified spring plant eaten as a salad by the Cherokee. The name of two or more places in the old Cherokee country; one about Currahee mountain in Habersham county, Georgia, the other on Cullowhee river, an upper branch of Tuckasegee, in Jackson county, North Carolina. Currahee Dick was a noted chief about the year 1820. Gû'lani'yi--a Cherokee and Natchez settlement formerly about the junction of Brasstown creek with Hiwassee river, a short distance above Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. The etymology of the word is doubtful. gule'--acorn. gûle'-diska`nihi'--the turtle-dove; literally, "it cries, or mourns, for acorns," from gule', acorn, and diska`nihi', "it cries for them" (di-, plural prefix, -hi, habitual suffix). The turtle-dove feeds upon acorns and its cry somewhat resembles the name, gule'. gûle'gi--"climber," from tsilahi', "I climb" (second person, hi'lahi'; third person, gûlahi'); the blacksnake (Bascanion constrictor). Gûl`kala'ski--An earlier name for Tsunu'lahûñ'ski, q. v. gûl`kwâ'gi--seven; also the mole-cricket (Gryllotalpa). See number 59. gûl`kwâ'gine(-i--seventh; from gûl`kwâgi, seven. Gûlsadihi' (or Gûltsadihi'?)--a masculine personal name, of uncertain etymology. Gumlog--see Tsilalu'hi. gûnahi'ta--long. Gû'nahitûñ'yi--"Long place" (i.e., Long valley), from gûnahita, long, and yi, locative. A former settlement, known to the whites as Valleytown, where now is the town of the same name, on Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. The various settlements on Valley river and the adjacent part of Hiwassee were known collectively as the "Valley towns." Gûn'-di'gaduhûñ'yi (abbreviated Gûn'-digadu'hûñ)--"Turkey settlement" (gû'na, turkey), so called from the chief, Turkey or Little Turkey. A former settlement, known to the whites as Turkeytown, upon the west bank of Coosa river, opposite the present Center, in Cherokee county, Alabama. gû'nî'--arrow. Cf. Seneca ga'na'. gûñ'nage'i (or gûñ'nage)--black. Gûñne'hi--see Nûñne'hi. Gûñskali'ski--a masculine personal name of uncertain etymology. Gunters landing, Guntersville--see Ku'sa-Nûñnâ'hi. Gûn-tsuskwa'`li--"Short arrows," from gûni', arrow, and tsuskwa'`li, plural of uskwa'`li, short; a traditional western tribe. See number 105. Gûnûñ'da`le'gi--see Nûñnâ'hi-dihi'. Gusti'--a traditional Cherokee settlement on Tennessee river, near Kingston, Roane county, Tennessee. See number 79. The name cannot be analyzed. Wafford thought it a Cherokee attempt at "Kingston," but it seems rather to be aboriginal. Gu'wisguwi'--The Cherokee name for the chief John Ross and for the district named in his honor, commonly spelled Cooweescoowee. Properly an onomatope for a large bird said to have been seen formerly at infrequent intervals in the old Cherokee country, accompanying the migratory wild geese, and described as resembling a large snipe, with yellow legs and unwebbed feet. In boyhood John Ross was known as Tsan'-usdi', "Little John." Gwal`gâ'hi--"Frog place," from gwal`gû, a variety of frog, and hi, locative. A place on Hiwassee river, just above the junction of Peachtree creek, near Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina; about 1755 the site of a village of refugee Natchez, and later of a Baptist mission. gwehe'!--a cricket's cry. See number 119. ha!--an introductory exclamation intended to attract attention or add emphasis; about equivalent to Here! Now! ha'-ma'ma'--a song term compounded of ha! an introductory exclamation, and mama', a word which has no analysis, but is used in speaking to young children to mean "let me carry you on my back." See number 117. Hanging-maw--see Uskwâ'li-gû'ta. ha'nia-lil'-lil'--an unmeaning dance refrain. See number 24. Hard-mush--see Gatûñ'wa`li. ha'suyak'--a song form for hasuya'gi', "(thou) pick it out" (imperative); "I pick it out, or select it," ga'suyagiû'; second person, ha'suyagiû'. See number 19. ha'tlû--dialectic form, ga'tsû, "where?" (interrogative). ha'wiye'ehi', ha'wiye'-hyuwe'--unmeaning dance refrains. See numbers 32 and 118. hayû'--an emphatic affirmative, about equivalent to "Yes, sir!" See number 115. hayuya'haniwa'--an unmeaning refrain in one of the bear songs. See number 75. he-e!--an unmeaning song introduction. Hemp-carrier--see Tâle'danigi'ski. Hemptown--see Gatûñlti'yi. hi!--unmeaning dance exclamation. hi'gina'lii--"(you are) my friend"; agina'lii, "(he is) my friend." In white man's jargon, canaly. Hickory-log--see Wane'-asûñ'tlûñyi. Hightower--see I'tawa'. hila'gû?--how many? how much? (Upper dialect); the Middle dialect form is hûñgû'. hilahi'yu--long ago; the final yu makes it more emphatic. hi'lûñnû--"(thou) go to sleep"; from tsi'lihû', "I am asleep." hi'ski--five; cf. Mohawk wisk. The Cherokee numerals including 10 are as follows: sâ'gwû, ta'li, tsâ'i, nûñ'gi, hi'ski, su'tali, gûl`kwâ'gi, tsune'la, sañne'la, askâ'hi. Hiwassee--see Ayuhwa'si. hi'yagu'we--an unmeaning dance refrain. See number 32. Houston, Samuel--see Ka'lanû. hûñgû--see hila'gû. huhu--the yellow-breasted chat, or yellow mocking bird (Icteria virens); the name is an onomatope. See number 45. hûñyahu'ska--"he will die." hwi'lahi--"thou (must) go." igagû'ti--daylight. The name is sometimes applied to the ulûñsû'ti (q. v.), and also to the clematis vine. i'hya--the cane reed (Arundinaria) of the Gulf states, used by the Indians for blowguns, fishing rods, and basketry. ihyâ'ga--see atsil'sûñ`ti. i'nadû'--snake. I'nadû-na'i--"Going-snake," a Cherokee chief prominent about eighty years ago. The name properly signifies that the person is "going along in company with a snake," the verbal part being from the irregular verb asta'i, "I am going along with him." The name has been given to a district of the present Cherokee Nation. i'nage'hi--dwelling in the wilderness, an inhabitant of the wilderness; from i'nage'i, "wilderness," and ehi, habitual present form of ehû, "he is dwelling"; ge'û, "I am dwelling." I'nage-utasûñ'hi--"He who grew up in the wilderness," i. e. "He who grew up wild"; from i'nage'i, "wilderness, unoccupied timber land," and utasûñ'hi, the third person perfect of the irregular verb, ga'tûñskû', "I am growing up." Inâ'li--Black-fox; the common red fox is tsu'la (in Muscogee, chula). Black-fox was principal chief of the Cherokee Nation in 1810. See page 86. Iskagua--"Iakagua or Clear Sky, formerly Nenetooyah or the Bloody-Fellow." The name appears thus in a document of 1791 as that of a Cherokee chief frequently mentioned about that period under the name of "the Bloody Fellow." In one treaty it is given as "Eskaqua or Bloody Fellow." Both forms and etymologies are doubtful, neither form seeming to have any reference either to "sky" (galûñ'lahi) or "blood" (gi'ga). The first may be intended for Ik-e'gwa, "Great-day." See page 69. Istanare--see U`stana'li. I`sû'nigû--an important Cherokee settlement, commonly known to the whites as Seneca, formerly on Keowee river, about the mouth of Conneross creek, in Oconee county, South Carolina. Hopewell, the country seat of General Pickens, where the famous treaty was made, was near it on the east side of the river. The word cannot be translated, but has no connection with the tribal name, Seneca. Itaba--see I'tawa'. Itagû'nahi--the Cherokee name of John Ax. I'tawa'--The name of one or more Cherokee settlements. One, which existed until the Removal in 1838, was upon Etowah river, about the present Hightower, in Forsyth county Georgia. Another may have been on Hightower creek of Hiwassee river in Towns county, Georgia. The name, commonly written Etowah and corrupted to Hightower, cannot be translated and seems not to be of Cherokee origin. A town called Itaba, Ytaua or Ytava in the De Soto chronicles existed in 1540 among the Creeks, apparently on Alabama river. Itsa'ti--commonly spelled Echota, Chota, Chote, Choquata (misprint), etc; a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country: the meaning is lost. The most important settlement of this name, frequently distinguished as Great Echota, was on the south side of Little Tennessee river a short distance below Citico creek in Monroe county, Tennessee. It was the ancient capital and sacred "peace town" of the Nation. Little Echota was on Sautee (i. e., Itsâ'ti) creek, a head stream of the Chattahoochee, west of Clarkesville, Georgia. New Echota, the capital of the Nation for some years before the Removal, was established at a spot originally known as Gansa'gi (q. v.) at the junction of the Oostanaula and Conasauga rivers, in Gordon county, Georgia. It was sometimes called Newtown. The old Macedonia mission on Soco creek, of the North Carolina reservation, is also known as Itsâ'ti to the Cherokee, as was also the great Nacoochee mound. See Nagu`tsi'. Itse'yi--"New green place" or "Place of fresh green," from itse'hi, "green or unripe vegetation," and yi, the locative; applied more particularly to a tract of ground made green by fresh-springing vegetation, after having been cleared of timber or burned over. A name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, variously written Echia, Echoee, Etchowee, and sometimes also falsely rendered "Brasstown," from a confusion of Itse'yi with ûñtsaiyi', "brass." One settlement of this name was upon Brasstown creek of Tugaloo river, in Oconee county, South Carolina; another was on Little Tennessee river near the present Franklin, Macon county, North Carolina, and probably about the junction of Cartoogaja (Gatug-itse'yi) creek; a third, known to the whites as Brasstown, was on upper Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Georgia. In Cherokee as in most other Indian languages no clear distinction is made between green and blue (sa`ka'nige'i). i'ya--pumpkin. iya'-iyu'sti--"like a pumpkin," from iya and iyu'sti, like. iya'-tawi'skage--"of pumpkin smoothness," from i'ya, pumpkin, and tawi'skage, smooth. Jackson--see Tsek'sini'. Jessan--see Tsesa'ni. Jesse Reid--see Tse'si-Ska'tsi. Joanna bald--see Diyâ'hali'yi. Joara, Juada--see Ani'-Suwa'li. John--see Tsa'ni. John Ax--see Itagû'nahi. Jolly, John--see Ahu'lude'gi. Junaluska--see Tsunu'lahûñ'ski. Jutaculla--see Tsul`kalû'. kâ'gû'--crow; the name is an onomatope. Kâgûñ'yi--"Crow place," from kâ'gû', crow and yi, locative. See number 63. ka'i--grease, oil. Kala'asûñ'yi--"Where he fell off," from tsila'askû', "I am falling off," and yi, locative. A cliff near Cold Spring knob, in Swain county, North Carolina. Kâ'lahû'--"All-bones," from kâ'lû, bone. A former chief of the East Cherokee, also known in the tribe as Sawanu'gi (Shawano), and to the whites as Sawnook or Flying-squirrel. Kâ'lanû--"The Raven"; the name was used as a war title in the tribe and appears in the old documents as Corani (Lower dialect, Kâ'ranû) Colanneh, Colona, etc. It is the Cherokee name for General Samuel Houston or for any person named Houston. Kâ'lanû Ahyeli'ski--the Raven Mocker. See number 120. Kâ'lanûñ'yi--"Raven place," from kâ'lanû, raven, and yi, the locative. The proper name of Big-cove settlement upon the East Cherokee reservation, Swain county, North Carolina, sometimes also called Raventown. kalâs'-gûnahi'ta--"long-hams" (gûnahi'ta), "long"); a variety of bear. See number 15. Kâl-detsi'yûñyi--"Where the bones are," from kâ'lû, bone, and detsi'yûñyi, "where (yi) they (de--plural prefix) are lying." A spot near the junction of East Buffalo creek with Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. kama'ma--butterfly. kama'ma u'tanû--elephant; literally "great butterfly," from the resemblance of the trunk and ears to the butterfly's proboscis and wings. See number 15. kanahe'na--a sour corn gruel, much in use among the Cherokee and other southern tribes; the tamfuli or "Tom Fuller" of the Creeks. kanane'ski--spider; also, from a fancied resemblance in appearance, a watch or clock; kanane'ski amaye'hi, the water spider. Kana'sta, Kanastûñ'yi--a traditional Cherokee settlement formerly on the headwaters of the French Broad river near the present Brevard, in Transylvania county, North Carolina. The meaning of the name is lost. A settlement called Cannostee or Cannastion is mentioned as existing on Hiwassee river in 1776. See number 82 and notes. kanâ'talu'hi--hominy cooked with walnut kernels. Kana'ti-- "Lucky Hunter"; a masculine name, sometimes abbreviated Kanat'. The word can not be analyzed, but is used as a third person habitual verbal form to mean "he is lucky, or successful, in hunting"; the opposite is u`kwa'legû, "unlucky, or unsuccessful, in hunting." See number 3. kanegwâ'ti--the water-moccasin snake. Kanu'ga--also written Canuga; a Lower Cherokee settlement, apparently on the waters of Keowee river in South Carolina, destroyed in 1761; also a traditional settlement on Pigeon river, probably near the present Waynesville, in Haywood county, North Carolina. See number 81 and notes. The name signifies "a scratcher," a sort of bone-toothed comb with which ball-players are scratched upon their naked skin preliminary to applying the conjured medicine; de'tsinuga'skû, "I am scratching it." kanugû'`la (abbreviated nugû'`la)--"scratcher," a generic term for the blackberry, raspberry, and other brier bushes. Cf. Kanu'ga. Kanu'gû`lâyi, or Kanu'gû`lûñ'yi--"Brier place," from kanu'gû'`lâ, brier (cf. Kanu'ga); a Cherokee settlement formerly on Nantahala river, about the mouth of Briertown creek, in Macon county, North Carolina. kanûñ'nawû'--pipe. Kâsdu'yi--"Ashes place," from kâsdu, ashes, and yi, the locative. A modern Cherokee name for the town of Asheville, in Buncombe county, North Carolina. The ancient name for the same site is Unta'kiyasti'yi, q.v. Katâl'sta--an East Cherokee woman potter, the daughter of the chief Yânagûñ'ski. The name conveys the idea of lending, from tsiyâtâl'sta, "I lend it"; agatâl'sta, "it is lent to him." Kawân'-urâ'sûnyi (abbreviated Kawân'-urâ'sûñ in the Lower dialect)--"Where the duck fell" from kawâ'na, duck, urâ'sa (ulâ'sa), "it fell," and yi, locative. A point on Conneross creek (from Kawân'-urâ'sûñ), near Seneca, in Oconee county, South Carolina. See number 123. Kawi'yi (abbreviated Kawi')--a former important Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Cowee, about the mouth of Cowee creek of Little Tennessee river, some 10 miles below Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. The name may possibly be a contraction of Ani'-Kawi'yi, "Place of the Deer clan." Keeowhee--see Keowee. Kenesaw--see Gansâ'gi. Keowee--the name of two or more former Cherokee settlements. One, sometimes distinguished as "Old Keowee," the principal of the Lower Cherokee towns, was on the river of the same name, near the present Fort George, in Oconee county, South Carolina. Another, distinguished as New Keowee, was on the headwaters of Twelve-mile creek, in Pickens county, South Carolina. According to Wafford the correct form is Kuwâhi'yi, abbreviated Kuwâhi', "Mulberry-grove place"; says Wafford, "The whites murdered the name, as they always do." Cf. Kuwâ'hi. Ke'si-ka'gamû--a woman's name, a Cherokee corruption of Cassie Cockram; ka'gamû is also the Cherokee corruption for "cucumber." Ketoowah--see Kitu'hwa. Kittuwa--see Kitu'hwa. Kitu'hwa--An important ancient Cherokee settlement formerly upon Tuckasegee river, and extending from above the junction of Oconaluftee down nearly to the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. The name, which appears also as Kettooah, Kittoa, Kittowa, etc., has lost its meaning. The people of this and the subordinate settlements on the waters of the Tuckasegee were known as Ani'-Kitu'hwagi and the name was frequently extended to include the whole tribe. For this reason it was adopted in later times as the name of the Cherokee secret organization, commonly known to the whites as the Ketoowah society, pledged to the defense of Cherokee autonomy. See also historical notes 1 and 47. kiyu`ga--ground-squirrel; te'wa, flying squirrel; salâ'li, gray squirrel. Klausuna--see Tlanusi'yi. Knoxville--see Kuwandâ'tâ`lûñ'yi. kû!--an introductory exclamation, to fix attention, about equivalent to "Now!" kukû'--"cymling"; also the "jigger weed," or "pleurisy root" (Asclepias tuberosa). Coco creek of Hiwassee river, and Coker postoffice, in Monroe county Tennessee, derive their name from this word. Kûlsetsi'yi (abbreviated Kûlse'tsi)--"Honey-locust place," from kûlse'tsi, honey-locust (Gleditschia) and yi locative; as the same word, kûlse'tsi, is also used for "sugar," the local name has commonly been rendered Sugartown by the traders. The name of several former settlement places in the old Cherokee country. One was upon Keowee river, near the present Fall creek, in Oconee county, South Carolina; another was on Sugartown or Cullasagee (Kûlse'tsi) creek, near the present Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina; a third was on Sugartown creek, near the present Morganton, in Fannin county, Georgia. Kunnesee--see Tsi'yu-gûnsi'ni. Kûnstûtsi'yi--"Sassafras place," from kûnstû'tsi, sassafras, and yi, locative. A gap in the Great Smoky range, about the head of Noland creek, on the line between North Carolina and Sevier county, Tennessee. kûnu'nu (abbreviated kûnun')--the bullfrog; the name is probably an onomatope; the common green frog is walâ'si and there are also names for several other varieties of frogs and toads. Kusa'--Coosa creek, an upper tributary of Nottely river, near Blairsville, Union county, Georgia. The change of accent from Ku'sa (Creek, see Ani'-Ku'sa) makes it locative. See page 383. Ku'sa-nûñnâ'hi--"Creek trail," from Ku'sa, Creek Indian, and nûñnâ'hi, path, trail; cf. Suwâ'li-nûñnâ'hi. A former important Cherokee settlement, including also a number of Creeks and Shawano, where the trail from the Ohio region to the Creek country crossed Tennessee river, at the present Guntersville, in Marshall county, Alabama. It was known to the traders as Creek-path, and later as Gunter's landing, from a Cherokee mixed-blood named Gunter. Ku'saweti'yi (abbreviated Ku'saweti')--"Old Creek place," from Ku'sa, a Creek Indian (plural Ani'-Ku'sa), uwe'ti, old, and yi, locative. Coosawatee, an important Cherokee settlement formerly on the lower part of Coosawatee river, in Gordon county, Georgia. In one document the name appears, by error, Tensawattee. See page 382. Kuwâ'hi--"Mulberry place," from ku'wa, mulberry tree, and hi, locative; Clingman's dome, about the head of Deep creek, on the Great Smoky range, between Swain county, North Carolina, and Sevier county, Tennessee. See also Keowee. Kuwandâ'ta`lûñ'yi (abbreviated Kuwandâ'ta`lûñ)--"Mulberry grove," from ku'wa, mulberry; the Cherokee name for the present site of Knoxville, in Knox county, Tennessee. Kwa'li, Kwalûñ'yi--Qualla or Quallatown, the former agency for the East Cherokee and now a postoffice station, just outside the reservation, on a branch of Soco creek, in Jackson county, North Carolina. It is the Cherokee form for "Polly," and the station was so called from an old woman of that name who formerly lived near by; Kwa'li, "Polly," Kwalûñ'yi, "Polly's place." The reservation is locally known as the Qualla boundary. kwandaya'hû--see da'liksta'. lâ'lû--the jar-fly (Cicada auletes). See number 59. Little Carpenter, Little Cornplanter--see Ata'-gûl`kalû. Lloyd--see Da'si`giya'gi. Long-hair--a Cherokee chief living with his band in Ohio in 1795. See page 79. The literal Cherokee translation of "Long-hair" is Gitlû'-gûnahi'ta, but it is not certain that the English name is a correct rendering of the Indian form. Cf. Ani'-Gilâ'hi. Long island--see Amaye`li-gûnahi'ta. Lookout Mountain town--see Danda'ganû'. Lowrey, Major George--see Agi`li. Mayes, J. B.--see Tsâ'wa Gak'ski. Memphis--see Tsudâ'talesûñ'yi. Mialaquo--see Amaye`l-e'gwa. Morgan--see Âganstâ'ta. Moses--see Wa'si. Moytoy--a Cherokee chief recognized by the English as "emperor" in 1730. Both the correct form and the meaning of the name are uncertain; the name occurs again as Moyatoy in a document of 1792; a boy upon the East Cherokee reservation a few years ago bore the name of Ma'tayi', for which no meaning can be given. Muscle shoals--see Dagû'nâhi. Nacoochee--see Na'gu`tsi'. Na'dû`li'--known to the whites as Nottely. A former Cherokee settlement on Nottely river, close to the Georgia line, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. The name cannot be translated and has no connection with na`tû`li, "spicewood." Nagu`tsi'--a former important settlement about the junction of Soquee and Santee rivers, in Nacoochee valley, at the head of Chattahoochee river, in Habersham county, Georgia. The meaning of the word is lost and it is doubtful if it be of Cherokee origin. It may have some connection with the name of the Uchee Indians. The great mound farther up Sautee river, in White county, was known to the Cherokee as Itsâ'ti, q. v. nakwisi' (abbreviated nakw`si)--star; also the meadow lark. nakwisi'usdi'--"little star"; the puff ball fungus (Lycoperdon?). Nâ'na-tlu`gûñ'yi (abbreviated Nâ'na-tlu`gûñ', or Nâ'na-tsu`gûñ')--"Spruce-tree place," from nâ'na, spruce, tlu`gûñ'i or tsu`gûñ'i, a tree (standing) and yi, locative. 1. A traditional ancient Cherokee settlement on the site of Jonesboro, Washington county, Tennessee. The name of Nolichucky river is probably a corruption of the same word. 2. Nâna-tsu`gûñ, a place on Nottely river, close to its junction with Hiwassee, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. Nanehi--see Nûñne'hi. Nantahala--see Nûñdaye'`li. Nashville--see Dagû'nawe'lâhi. Natchez--see Ani'-Na`tsi. Na`ts-asûñ'tlûñyi (abbreviated Na`ts-asûñ'tlûñ)--"Pine-footlog place," from na`tsi, pine, asûñ'tli or asûñtlûñ'i, footlog, bridge, and yi, locative. A former Cherokee settlement, commonly known as Pinelog, on the creek of the same name, in Bartow county, Georgia. na`tsi--pine. na'tsikû'--"I eat it" (tsi'kiû', "I am eating"). na`tû`li--spicewood (Lindera benzoin). Naye'hi--see Nûñne'hi. Nayunuwi--see Nûñyunu'wi. nehanduyanû'--a song form for nehadu'yanû', an irregular verbal form denoting "conceived in the womb." See number 75. Nellawgitehi--given as the name of a Lower Cherokee chief in 1684. See page 31. The correct form and meaning are both uncertain, but the final part seems to be the common suffix dihi'--, "killer," Cf. Ta'gwadihi'. Nenetooyah--see Iskagua. Nequassee--see Ni'kwasi'. Nettecawaw--see gatayû'sti. Nettle-carrier--see Tâle'danigi'ski. New Echota, Newtown--see Itsâ'ti. Nickajack--see Nikutse'gi. Nicotani--see Ani'-Kuta'ni. Nikwasi' (or Nikw'si')--an important ancient settlement on Little Tennessee river, where now is the town of Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. A large mound marks the site of the townhouse. The name appears in old documents as Nequassee, Nucassee, etc. Its meaning is lost. Nikutse'gi (also Nûkatse'gi, Nikwatse'gi, or abbreviated Nikutseg')--Nickajack, an important Cherokee settlement about 1790 on the south bank of Tennessee river at the entrance of Nickajack creek, in Marion county, Tennessee. One of the five Chickamauga towns (see Tsikama'gi). The meaning of the word is lost and it is probably not of Cherokee origin, although it occurs also in the tribe as a man's name. In the corrupted form of "Nigger Jack," it occurs also as the name of a creek of Cullasagee river above Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. Nilaque--see Amaye`l-e'gwa. Nolichucky--see Nâ'natlu`gûñ'yi. Notchy--a creek entering Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tennessee. The name evidently refers to Natchez Indian refugees, who formerly lived in the vicinity (see Ani'-Na`tsi). Nottely--see Na'dû`li'. nû--used as a suffix to denote "and," or "also"; û'le-`nû, "and also"; na'ski`-nû', "and that," "that also." Nucassee--see Nikwasi'. nu'dûñnelû'--he did so and so; an irregular form apparently connected with the archaic forms adûñni'ga, "it has just become so," and udûñnû', "it is matured, or finished." See number 118. nûñ'da'--the sun or moon, distinguished as nûñ'da' ige'hi, "nûñ'dã' dwelling in the day," and nûñ'da' sûñnâ'yehi, "nûñ'da' dwelling in the night." In the sacred formulas the moon is sometimes called Ge`yagu'ga, q. v., or Su'talidihi', "Six-killer," names apparently founded upon myths now lost. nûñ'da'-dika`ni--a rare bird formerly seen occasionally in the old Cherokee country, possibly the little blue heron (Floridus cerulea). The name seems to mean "it looks at the sun," i. e., "sun-gazer," from nûñ'da', sun, and da'ka`na' or detsi'ka`na, "I am looking at it." See number 35. Nûñ'dâgûñ'yi, Nûñdâ'yi--the Sun land, or east; from nûñda', sun, and yi, locative. Used in the sacred formulas instead of di'galûñgûñ'yi, "where it rises," the common word. Nûñ'daye`li--"Middle (i. e. Noonday) sun," from nûñda', sun and aye`li, middle; a former Cherokee settlement on Nantahala river, near the present Jarrett station, in Macon county, North Carolina, so called from the high cliffs which shut out the view of the sun until nearly noon. The name appears also as Nantahala, Nantiyallee, Nuntialla, etc. It appears to have been applied properly only to the point on the river where the cliffs are most perpendicular, while the settlement itself was known as Kanu'gû`lâ'yi, "Briertown," q. v. See number 122. Nugatsa'ni--a ridge sloping down to Oconaluftee river, below Cherokee, in Swain county, North Carolina. The word is an archaic form denoting a high ridge with a long gradual slope. See number 122. nûñ'gi'--four. See hi'ski. nugû`la--see kanugû`la. Nuhnayie--see Nûñne'hi. nu'na--potato; the name was originally applied to the wild "pig potato" (Phaseolus), now distinguished as nu'na igâtehi, "swamp-dwelling potato." Nûndawe'gi--see Ani'-Nûndawe'gi. nûñnâ'hi (abbreviated nûñnâ)--a path, trail or road. Nûñnâ'hi-dihi' (abbreviated Nûñ'nâ-dihi')--"Path-killer," literally, "He kills (habitually) in the path," from nûñ'nâhi, path, and ahihi, "he kills" (habitually); "I am killing," tsi'ihû'. A principal chief, about the year 1813. Major John Ridge was originally known by the same name, but afterward took the name, Gûnûñ'da`le'gi, "One who follows the ridge," which the whites made simply Ridge. Nûnnâ'hi-tsune'ga (abbreviated) Nûñnâ-tsune'ga--"White-path," from nûñnâ'hi, path, and tsune'ga, plural of une'ga, white; the form is in the plural, as is common in Indian names, and has probably a symbolic reference to the "white" or peaceful paths spoken of in the opening invocation at the Green corn dance. A noted chief who led the conservative party about 1828. See pages 113, 132. Nûñne'hi (also Gûñne'hi; singular Naye'hi)--a race of invisible spirit people. The name is derived from the verb e'hû', "I dwell, I live," e'hi', "I dwell habitually," and may be rendered "dwellers anywhere," or "those who live anywhere," but implies having always been there, i. e., "Immortals." It has been spelled Nanehi and Nuhnayie by different writers. The singular form Naye'hi occurs also as a personal name, about equivalent to Eda'hi, "One who goes about." See number 78. nuniyu'sti--"potato-like," from nu'na, potato, and iyu'sti, like. A flowering vine with tuberous root somewhat resembling the potato. See number 126. nûñyû'--rock, stone. Cf. nâyu, sand Nûñyû'-gûñwani'ski--"Rock that talks," from nûñyû', rock, and tsiwa'nihû, "I am talking." A rock from which Talking-rock creek of Coosawatee river in Georgia derives its name. See number 125. Nûñ'yunu'wi--contracted from Nûñyû-unu'wi. "Stone-clad," from nûñyû, rock, and agwanu'wû, "I am clothed or covered." A mythic monster, invulnerable by reason of his stony skin. See number 67. The name is also applied sometimes to the stinging ant, dasûñtâli atatsûñski, q. v. It has also been spelled Nayunuwi. Nûñyû'-tlu`gûñi (or Nûñyû-tsu`gûñ'i)--"Tree rock." A notable rock on Hiwassee river, just within the North Carolina line. See number 66 and notes. Nûñyû'-tawi'ska--"Slick rock," from nûñyû', rock, and tawiska, smooth, slick; the form remains unchanged for the locative. 1. Slick-rock creek, entering Little Tennessee river just within the west line of Graham county, North Carolina. 2. A place at the extreme head of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Georgia. Ocoee--see Uwagâ'hi. Oconaluftee--see Egwânul`ti. Oconee--see Ukwû'nû. Oconostota--see Âganstâ'ta. Old Tassel--see Utsi'dsata'. Ooltewah--see Ultiwâ'i. Oolunsade--see Ulûñsû'ti. Oostanaula--see U stana'li. Oostinaleh--see U stana'li. Oothcaloga--see Uy`gilâ'gi. Otacite, Otassite--see Outacity. Otari, Otariyatiqui--mentioned as a place, apparently on the Cherokee frontier, visited by Pardo in 1567. Otari seems to be the Cherokee âtari or âtali, mountain, but the rest of the word is doubtful. See page 28. Ottare--see â'tali. Owasta--given as the name of a Cherokee chief in 1684; the form cannot be identified. See page 31. Ougillogy--see Uy`gilâ'gi. Outacity--given in documents as the name or title of a prominent Cherokee chief about 1720. It appears also as Otacite, Otassite, Outassatah, Wootassite and Wrosetasatow (!), but the form cannot be identified, although it seems to contain the personal name suffix dihi', "killer." Timberlake says (page 71): "There are some other honorary titles among them, conferred in reward of great actions; the first of which is Outacity or Man-killer, and the second Colona or the Raven." Outassatah--see Outacity. Owassa--see Ayuhwa'si. Paint-town--see Ani'-Wâ'dihi'. Path-killer--see Nûñnâ'hi-dihi'. Phoenix, Cherokee--see Tsule'hisanûñ'hi. Pigeon River--see Wâyi. Pine Indians--see Ani'-Na`tsi. Pinelog--see Na`ts-asûñ'tlûñyi. Qualatchee--a former Cherokee settlement on the headwaters of the Chattahoochee river in Georgia; another of the same name was upon the waters of Keowee river in South Carolina. The correct form is unknown. Qualla--see Kwali. Quaxule--see Guaxule. Quinahaqui--a place, possibly in the Cherokee country, visited by Pardo in 1567. The form cannot be identified. See page 28. Quoneashee--see Tlanusi'yi. Rattlesnake springs--see Utsanatiyi. Rattling-gourd--see Ganse`ti. Raventown--see Kâlanûñ'yi. Red Clay--see Elawâ'diyi. Reid, Jesse--see Tse'si-Ska'tsi. Ridge, Major John--see Nûñnâ'hi-dihi. Ross, John--see Gu'wisguwi'. Ross' landing--see Tsatanu'gi. Sadayi'--a feminine name, the proper name of the woman known to the whites as Annie Ax; it cannot be translated. Sâgwâ'hi, or Sâgwûñ'yi--"One place," from sâ'gwû, one, and hi or yi, locative. Soco creek of Oconaluftee river, on the East Cherokee reservation, in Jackson county, North Carolina. No satisfactory reason is given for the name, which has its parallel in Tsâskâ'hi, "Thirty place," a local name in Cherokee county, in the same state. sâ'gwali', horse; from asâgwâlihû, a pack or burden, asâgwullû'; "there is a pack on him." sâ'gwali digû'lanahi'ta--mule; literally "long eared horse," from sâ'gwali, horse, and digû'lanahi'ta, q. v. Sâkwi'yi (or Suki'yi; abbreviated Sâkwi' or Suki')--a former settlement on Soquee river, a head-stream of Chattahoochee, near Clarkesville, Habersham county, Georgia. Also written Saukee and Sookee. The name has lost its meaning. salâ'li--squirrel; the common gray squirrel; other varieties are kiyu`ga, the ground squirrel, and tewa, the flying squirrel. Salâ'li was also the name of an East Cherokee inventor who died a few years ago; Salâ'lani'ta, "Young-squirrels," is a masculine personal name on the reservation. saligu'gi--turtle, the common water turtle; soft-shell turtle, u`lana'wa; land tortoise or terrapin, tûksi'. salikwâ'yi--bear-grass (Eryngium); also the greensnake, on account of a fancied resemblance; the name of a former Cherokee settlement on Sallacoa creek of Coosawatee river, in Gordon county, Georgia. Sa'nigilâ'gi (abbreviated San`gilâ'gi)--Whiteside mountain, a prominent peak of the Blue ridge, southeast from Franklin, Macon county, North Carolina. It is connected with the tradition of U`tlûñ'ta (see number 66 and notes). Santeetla--the present map name of a creek joining Cheowa river in Graham county, North Carolina, and of a smaller tributary (Little Santeetla). The name is not recognized or understood by the Cherokee, who insist that it was given by the whites. Little Santeetla is known to the Cherokee as Tsunda`nilti'yi, q. v.; the main Santeetla creek is commonly known as Nâgu'hi geyûñ'i, "Sand-place stream," from Nûyu'hii, "Sand place" (nâyu, sand), a former settlement just above the junction of the two creeks. Sara--see Ani'-Suwa'li. sa'sa'--goose; an onomatope. Sautee--see Itsâ'ti. Savannah--the popular name of this river is derived from that of the Shawano Indians, formerly living upon its middle course, and known to the Cherokee as Ani'-Sawanu'gi, q. v., to the Creeks as Savanuka, and to some of the coast tribes of Carolina as Savanna. In old documents the river is also called Isundiga, from I`sû'nigû or Seneca, q. v., an important former Cherokee settlement upon its upper waters. See number 99. Sawanu'gi--"Shawano" (Indian); a masculine personal name upon the East Cherokee reservation and prominent in the history of the band. See Ani'-Sawanu'gi and Kâ'lahû'. Sawnook--see Kâ'lahû'. Sehwate'yi--"Hornet place," from se'hwatû, hornet, and yi, locative. Cheowa Maximum and Swim bald, adjoining bald peaks at the head of Cheowa river, Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. selu--corn; sometimes called in the sacred formulas Agawe'la, "The Old Woman." See number 126. sel-utsi' (for selu-utsi')--"corn's mother," from selu, corn and utsi', his mother (etsi' or agitsi', my mother); the bead-corn or Job's-tears (Coix lacryma). See number 126. Seneca--see Ani'-Nûn'dawe'gi (Seneca tribe), and I`sû'nigû, (Seneca town). Sequatchee--see Si'gwetsi'. Sequoya--see Sikwâyi. Se`tsi--a mound and traditional Cherokee settlement on the south side of Valley river, about three miles below Valleytown, in Cherokee county, North Carolina; the name has lost its meaning. See number 79. A settlement called Tase`tsi (Tassetchie in some old documents) existed on the extreme head of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Georgia. Sevier--see Tsan'-usdi'. Shoe-boots--see Da'si`giya'gi. Shooting creek--see Du'staya`lûñy'yi. Si'gwetsi'--a traditional Cherokee settlement on the south bank of the French Broad river, not far from Knoxville, Knox county, Tennessee. Near by was the quarry from which it is said the stone for the white peace pipes was obtained. See number 111 and notes. Sequatchee, the name of the river below Chattanooga, in Tennessee, is probably a corruption of the same word. si'kwa--hog; originally the name of the opossum, now distinguished as si'kwa utset'sti, q. v. si'kwa utset'sti--opossum: literally "grinning hog," from si'kwa, hog, and utset'sti, "he grins (habitually)." Cf. sikwa. Sikwâ'yi--a masculine name, commonly written Sequoya, made famous as that of the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet. See page 108. The name, which can not be translated, is still in use upon the East Cherokee reservation. Sikwi'a--a masculine name, the Cherokee corruption for Sevier. See also Tsan-usdi'. sinnawah--see tla'nuwa. Si'tikû' (or sû'tagû', in dialectic form)--a former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river at the entrance of Citico creek, in Monroe county, Tennessee. The name, which can not be translated, is commonly spelled Citico, but appears also as Sattiquo, Settico, Settacoo, Sette, Sittiquo, etc. siyu'--see â'siyu'. skintâ'--for skin'tâgû', understood to mean "put a new tooth into my jaw." The word can not be analyzed, but is derived from gantka' (ganta`ga in a dialectic form) a tooth in place; a tooth detached is kayu`ga. See number 15. Skwan'-digû`gûñ'yî (for Askwan'-digû`gûñ'yi)--"Where the Spaniard is in the water [or other liquid]". A place on Upper Soco creek, on the reservation in Jackson county, North Carolina. See number 122. Slick rock--see Nûñyû'-tawi'ska. Smith, N. J.--see Tsaladihi'. Snowbird--see Tuti'yi. Soco creek--see Sâgwâ'hi. Soco gap--see Ahalu'na. Soquee--see Sâkwi'yi. Spray, H. W.--see Wilsini'. Spring-Frog--see Du'stu'. Standing Indian--see Yûñwi-tsulenûñ'yi. Stand Watie--see De'gatâga. Stekoa--see Stikâ'yi. ste'tsi--your daughter; literally, your offspring; agwe'tsi, "my offspring"; uwe'tsi, "his offspring"; to distinguish sex it is necessary to add asga'ya, "man" or age'hya, "woman." Stikâ'yi (variously spelled Stecoe, Steecoy, Stekoah, Stickoey, etc.)--the name of several former Cherokee settlements: 1. On Sticoa creek, near Clayton, Rabun county, Georgia; 2. on Tuckasegee river at the old Thomas homestead just above the present Whittier, in Swain county, North Carolina; 3. on Stekoa creek of Little Tennessee river, a few miles below the junction of Nantahala, in Graham county, North Carolina. The word has lost its meaning. Stringfield--see Tlâge'si. stugi'sti, stui'sti--a key; see page 187 and under Astu'gatâ'ga. Suck, The--see Ûñ'tiguhi'. Sugartown--see Kûlse'tsi'yi. sû'nawa'--see tla'nuwa. sûnestlâ'ta--"split noses"; see tsunû`liyû' sûnestlâ'ta. sûñgi--mink; also onion; the name seems to refer to a smell; the various mints are called generically, gaw`sûñ'gi. See number 29. Suki'yi--another form of Sâkwi'yi, q.v. su'li'--buzzard; the Creek name is the same. Sun land--see Nûñ'da'yi. su'-sa'-sai'--an unmeaning song refrain. See number 66. su'talidihi'--see nûñ'da'. Suwa'li--see Ani'-Suwa'li. Suwa'li-nûñnâ'hi (abbreviated Suwa'li-nûñnâ'hi)--"Suwali trail," the proper name for the gap at the head of Swannanoa (from Suwa'li-Nûñ'nâ) river, east of Asheville, in Buncombe county, North Carolina. Cf. Ku'sa-nûñnâ'hi. See pages 194 and 379, also Ani'-Suwa'li. Suwa`ni--a former Cherokee settlement on Chattahoochee river, about the present Suwanee, in Gwinnett county, Georgia. The name has no meaning in the Cherokee language and is said to be of Creek origin. See page 382. Suye'ta--"The Chosen One," from asuye'ta, "he is chosen," gasu'yeû, "I am choosing"; the same form, suye'ta, could also mean mixed, from gasu'yahû, "I am mixing it." A masculine name, at present borne by a prominent ex-chief and informant upon the East Cherokee reservation. Swannanoa--see Suwa'li-nûñnâ'hi. Swim bald--see Sehwate'yi. Swimmer--see A`yûñ'ini. tadeyâ'statakûhi'--"we shall see each other." See number 75. Tae-keo-ge--see Ta`ski'gi. ta'gû--the June-bug (Allorhina nitida), also called tu'ya-diskalaw'sti'ski, "one who keeps fire under the beans." See number 59. Ta'gwa--see Ani'ta'gwa. Ta'gwadihi' (abbreviated Ta'gwadi')--"Catawba-killer," from Ata'gwa or Ta'gwa, Catawba Indian, and dihihi, "he kills them" (habitually) from tsi'ihû', "I kill." An old masculine personal name, still in use upon the East Cherokee reservation. It was the proper name of the chief known to the whites about 1790 as "The Glass," from a confusion of this name with adake'`ti, glass, or mirror. Tagwâ'hi--"Catawba place," from Ata'gwa or Ta'gwa, Catawba Indian, and hi, locative. A name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country. A settlement of this name, known to the whites as Toccoa, was upon Toccoa creek, east of Clarkesville, in Habersham county, Georgia; another was upon Toccoa or Ocoee river, about the present Toccoa, in Fannin county, Georgia; a third may have been on Persimmon creek, which is known to the Cherokee as Tagwâ'hi, and enters Hiwassee river some distance below Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. Tahkeyostee--see Unta'kiyasti'yi. Tahlequah--see Talikwa'. Tahchee--see Tatsi'. Takatoka--see De'gatâ'ga. ta'ladu' (abbreviated taldu')--twelve, from ta'li, two. Cf. tala'tu, cricket. Ta`lasi'--a former Cherokee settlement on Little Tennessee river, about Talassee ford, in Blount county, Tennessee. The name has lost its meaning. Talassee--see Ta`lasi'. tala'tu--cricket; sometimes also called dita'staye'ski (q. v.), "the barber." Cf. ta'ladu', twelve. Tâle'danigi'ski (Utâle'danigi'si, in a dialectic form)--variously rendered by the whites "Hemp-carrier," "Nettle-carrier" or "Flax-toter," from tâle'ta or utâle'ta, flax (Linum) or rich weed (Pilea pumila), and danigi'ski, "he carries them (habitually)." A former prominent chief on Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. See number 95 and notes. Talihina--given as the name of the Cherokee wife of Samuel Houston; the form cannot be identified. See page 223. Talikwa' (commonly written Tellico, Telliquo or, in the Indian Territory, Tahlequah)--the name of several Cherokee settlements at different periods, viz: 1. Great Tellico, at Tellico Plains, on Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tennessee; 2. Little Tellico, on Tellico creek of Little Tennessee river, about ten miles below Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina; 3. a town on Valley river, about five miles above Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina; 4. Tahlequah, established as the capital of the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, in 1839. The meaning of the name is lost. Tali'wa--the site of a traditional battle between the Cherokee and Creeks about 1755, on Mountain (?) creek of Etowah river in upper Georgia. Probably not a Cherokee but a Creek name from the Creek ta'lua or ita'lua, town. See pages 38 and 384-385. Talking-rock--see Nûñyû'-gûñwani'ski. Tallulah--see Talulu'. Tal-tsu'ska'-- "Two-heads," from ta'li, two, and tsu'ska', plural of uska', (his) head. A Cherokee chief about the year 1800, known to the whites as Doublehead. taluli--pregnant; whence aluli', (she is) a mother, said of a woman. Talulu' (commonly written Tallulah, and appearing in old documents, from the Lower dialect, as Taruraw, Toruro, Turoree, etc.)--a name occurring in two or more places in the old Cherokee country, viz: 1. An ancient settlement on the upper part of Tallulah river, in Rabun county, Georgia; 2. a town on Tallulah creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. The word is of uncertain etymology. The dulu'si frog is said to cry talulu'. See number 125. The noted falls upon Tallulah river are known to the Cherokee as Ugûñ'yi, q. v. Taluntiski--see Ata'lûñti'ski. Tama`li--a name, commonly written Tomotley or Tomatola, occurring in at least two places in the old Cherokee country, viz: 1. On Valley river, a few miles above Murphy, about the present Tomatola, in Cherokee county, North Carolina; 2. on Little Tennessee river, about Tomotley ford, a few miles above Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tennessee. The name can not be translated, and may be of Creek origin, as that tribe had a town of the same name upon the lower Chattahoochee river. Tanasi'--a name which can not be analyzed, commonly spelt Tennessee, occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, viz: 1. On Little Tennessee river, about halfway between Citico and Toco creeks, in Monroe county, Tennessee; 2. "Old Tennessee town," on Hiwassee river, a short distance above the junction of Ocoee, in Polk county, Tennessee; 3. on Tennessee creek, a head-stream of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson county, North Carolina. Tanasqui, visited by Pardo in 1567 (see page 29), may have been another place of the same name. See number 124. Tanasqui--see Tanasi. Ta`ski'gi (abbreviated from Ta`skigi'yi or Da`skigi'yi, the locative yi being commonly omitted)--a name variously written Tae-keo-ge (misprint), Tasquiqui, Teeskege, Tuscagee, Tuskegee, etc. derived from that of a foreign tribe incorporated with the Cherokee, and occurring as a local name both in the Cherokee and in the Creek country. 1. The principal settlement of this name was on Little Tennessee river, just above the junction of Tellico, in Monroe county, Tennessee; 2. another was on the north bank of Tennessee river, just below Chattanooga, Tennessee; 3. another may have been on Tuskegee creek of Little Tennessee river, near Robbinsville, Graham county, North Carolina. See page 29 and number 105. Tasquiqui--see Ta`ski'gi. Tassel, Old--see Utsi'dsata'. Tatsi'--"Dutch," also written Tahchee, a western Cherokee chief about 1830. See page 141. tatsu'hwa--the redbird. tawa'li--punk. Tawa'li-ukwanûñ'ti--"Punk-plugged-in," from tawa'li, punk; the Cherokee name of a traditional Shawano chief. See number 100. tawi'ska, tawi'skage--smooth, slick. Tawi'skala--"Flint"; a Cherokee supernatural, the personification of the rock flint; tawi'skalûñ'i, tawi'skala, flint, from tawi'ska, smooth, slick; cf. Iroquois Tawiskaroñ. See number 25 and notes. Tayûnksi--a traditional western tribe; the name can not be analyzed. See number 105. Tellico--see Talikwa'. telûñ'lati--the summer grape (Vitis æstivalis). Tensawattee--see Ku'saweti'yi. Terrapin--see Tûksi'. tewa--flying squirrel; salâ'li, gray squirrel; kiyu`ga, ground squirrel. Thomas, W. H.--see Wil-usdi'. Tikwali'tsi--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, viz: 1. Tuckalegee creek, a tributary of War-woman creek, east of Clayton, in Rabun county, Georgia; 2. the Tikwali'tsi of the story, an important town on Tuckasegee river at the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina; 3. Tuckalechee cove, on Little river, in Blount county, Tennessee, which probably preserves the aboriginal local name. The name appears in old documents as Tuckarechee (Lower dialect) and Tuckalegee, and must not be confounded with Tsiksi'tsi or Tuckasegee. It can not be translated. See number 100 and notes. Timossy--see Tomassee. Tlâge'si--"Field"; the Cherokee name for Lieutenant-Colonel W. W. Stringfield of Waynesville, North Carolina, one of the officers of the Cherokee contingent in the Thomas Legion. It is an abbreviated rendering of his proper name. tlâge'sitûñ'--a song form for tlâge'si a-stûñ'i, "on the edge of the field," from tlâge'si, or tsâge'si, field, and astûñ'i, edge, border, etc; ama'yastûñ', "the bank of a stream." See number 24. tla'meha--bat (dialectic forms, tsa'meha, tsa'weha). See page 187. tlanu'si'--leech (dialectic form, tsanu'si'). See page 187. Tlanusi'yi (abbreviated Tlanusi')--"Leech place," a former important settlement at the junction of Hiwassee and Valley rivers, the present site of Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina; also a point on Nottely river, a few miles distant, in the same county. See number 77 and notes. The name appears also as Clennuse, Klausuna, Quoneashee, etc. tla'nuwa' (dialectic forms, tsanuwa', sû'nawa', "sinnawah"--Adair)--a mythic great hawk. See numbers 35, 64, 65, also page 187. tla'nuwa' usdi'--"little tla'nuwa'"; probably the goshawk (Astur atricapillus). See number 35. Tla'nuwa'-atsiyelûñ'isûñ'yi--"Where the Tla'nuwa cut it up," from tla'nuwa', q. v., and tsiyelûñ'iskû', an archaic form for tsigûñilûñ'iskû', "I am cutting it up." A place on Little Tennessee river, nearly opposite the entrance of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee. See number 64 and notes. Tla'nuwa'i--"Tla'nuwa place," a cave on the north side of Tennessee river a short distance below the entrance of Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee. See number 64 and notes. tlay'kû'--jay (dialectic form, tsay'kû'). See page 187. tlûñti'sti--the pheasant (Bonasa umbella), called locally grouse or partridge. tlutlu'--the martin bird (dialectic form, tsutsu'). See page 187. tsûñtû'tsi--panther (dialectic form, tsûñtû'tsi). See page 187. Tocax--a place, apparently in the Cherokee country, visited by Pardo in 1567 (see page 29). It may possibly have a connection with Toxaway (see Dûksa'i) or Toccoa (see Tagwâ'hi). Toccoa--see Tagwâ'hi. Toco--see Dakwâ'i. Tollunteeskee--see Ata'lûñti'ski. Tomassee (also written Timossy and Tymahse)--the name of two or more former Cherokee settlements, viz: 1. On Tomassee creek of Keowee river, in Oconee county, South Carolina; 2. on Little Tennessee river near the entrance of Burningtown creek, in Macon county, South Carolina. The correct form and interpretation are unknown. Tomatola, Tomotley--see Tama`li. Tooantuh--see Du'stu'. Toogelah--see Dugilu'yi. Toqua--see Dakwâ'i. Toxaway--see Dûksa'i. Track Rock gap--see Datsu'nalâsgûñ'yi. Tsaga'si--a Cherokee sprite. See number 78. tsâ'gi--upstream, up the road; the converse of ge'i. See number 117. Tsaiyi'--see Ûñtsaiyi'. Tsa'ladihi'--Chief N. J. Smith of the East Cherokee. The name might be rendered "Charley-killer," from Tsali, "Charley," and dihi', "killer" (in composition), but is really a Cherokee equivalent for Jarrett (Tsaladi), his middle name, by which he was frequently addressed. Cf. Tagwadihi. tsâl-agayûñ'li--"old tobacco," from tsâlû, tobacco, and agayûñ'li, or agâyûñ'lige, old, ancient; the Nicotiana rustica or wild tobacco. See number 126. Tsa'lagi' (Tsa'ragi' in Lower dialect)--the correct form of Cherokee. See page 182, "Tribal Synonymy." Tsa'li--Charley; a Cherokee shot for resisting the troops at the time of the Removal. See page 131. tsâliyu'sti--"tobacco-like," from tsâlû, tobacco, and iyu'sti, like; a generic name for the cardinal-flower, mullein and related species. See number 126. tsâlû or tsâlûñ (in the Lower dialect, tsârû)--tobacco; by comparison with kindred forms in other Iroquoian dialects the meaning "fire to hold in the mouth" seems to be indicated. Lanman spells it tso-lungh. See number 126 and page 187. tsa'meha--see tla'meha. tsa'nadiskâ'--for tsandiskâi, "they say." tsana'sehâ'i--so they say, they say about him. See number 118. tsâne'ni--the scorpion lizard; also called gi'ga-danegi'ski, q. v. See number 59. Tsani--John. Tsantawû'--a masculine name which can not be analyzed. Tsan-uga'sita--"Sour John"; John Butler, a halfbreed Cherokee ball captain, formerly living on Nottely river. See number 122. Tsan-usdi'--"Little John"; the Cherokee name for General John Sevier, and also the boy name of the chief John Ross, afterward known as Gu'wisguwi', q. v. Sikwi'a, a Cherokee attempt at "Sevier," is a masculine name upon the East Cherokee reservation. tsanu'si'--see tlanu'si'. tsa'nuwa'--see tla'nuwa'. Tsa'ragi'--Cherokee; see page 182, "Tribal Synonymy." tsârû--see tsâlû. Tsasta'wi--a noted hunter formerly living upon Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina; the meaning of the name is doubtful. See number 122. Tsatanu'gi (commonly spelled Chattanooga)--the Cherokee name for some point upon the creek entering Tennessee river at the city of Chattanooga, in Hamilton county, Tennessee. It has no meaning in the Cherokee language and appears to be of foreign origin. The ancient name for the site of the present city is A`tla'nuwa, q. v. See number 124. Before the establishment of the town the place was known to the whites as Ross' landing, from a store kept there by Lewis Ross, brother of the chief John Ross. Tsatu'gi (commonly written Chattooga or Chatuga)--a name occurring in two or more places in the old Cherokee country, but apparently of foreign origin (see page 382). Possible Cherokee derivations are from words signifying respectively "he drank by sips," from gatu'gia', "I sip," or "he has crossed the stream and come out upon the other side," from gatu'gi, "I have crossed" etc. An ancient settlement of this name was on Chattooga river, a head-stream of Savannah river, on the boundary between South Carolina and Georgia; another appears to have been on upper Tellico river, in Monroe county, Tennessee; another may have been on Chattooga river, a tributary of the Coosa, in northwestern Georgia. Tsâ'wa Gakski--Joe Smoker, from Tsâwa, "Joe," and gakski, "smoker," from ga'giskû, "I am smoking." The Cherokee name for Chief Joel B. Mayes, of the Cherokee Nation west. Tsawa'si--a Cherokee sprite. See number 78. tsa'weha--see tla'meha. tsay'kû'--see tlay'kû'. Tsek'sini'--the Cherokee form for the name of General Andrew Jackson. Tsesa'ni--Jessan, probably a derivative from Jesse; a masculine name upon the East Cherokee reservation. Tse'si-Ska'tsi--"Scotch Jesse"; Jesse Reid, present chief of the East Cherokee, so called because of mixed Scotch ancestry. tsetsani'li--"thy two elder brothers" (male speaking); my elder brother (male speaking), ûñgini'li. See note to number 63. Tsgâgûñ'yi--"Insect place," from tsgâya, insect, and yi, locative. A cave in the ridge eastward from Franklin, in Macon county, North Carolina. See number 13. tsgâya--insect, worm, etc. See page 308. Tsikama'gi--a name, commonly spelled Chickamauga, occurring in at least two places in the old Cherokee country, which has lost any meaning in Cherokee and appears to be of foreign origin. It is applied to a small creek at the head of Chattahoochee river, in White county, Georgia, and also to the district about the southern (not the northern) Chickamauga creek, coming into Tennessee river, a few miles above Chattanooga, in Hamilton county, Tennessee. In 1777 the more hostile portion of the Cherokee withdrew from the rest of the tribe and established here a large settlement, from which they removed about five years later to settle lower down the Tennessee in what were known as the Chickamauga towns or Five Lower towns. See page 54 and number 124. tsiki'--a word which renders emphatic that which it follows: as â'stû, "very good," âstû' tsiki, "best of all." See number 75. tsikiki'--the katydid; the name is an onomatope. tsi'kilili'--the Carolina chickadee (Parus carolinensis); the name is an onomatope. See number 35. Tsiksi'tsi (Tûksi'tsi in dialectic form; commonly written Tuckasegee)--1. a former Cherokee settlement about the junction of the two forks of Tuckasegee, above Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina (not to be confounded with Tikwali'tsi, q. v.). 2. A former settlement on a branch of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, in Towns county, Georgia. The word has lost its meaning. Tsi'nawi--a Cherokee wheelwright, perhaps the first in the Nation to make a spinning wheel and loom. The name can not be analyzed. See page 214. tsine'û--I am picking it (something long) up; in the Lower and Middle dialects, tsinigi'û. tsinigi'û--see tsine'û. tsiska'gili--the large red crawfish; the ordinary crawfish is called tsistû'na. See number 59. tsi'skwa--bird. tsiskwa'gwa--robin, from tsi'skwa, bird. Tsiskwâ'hi--"Bird place," from tsi'skwa, bird, and hi, locative. Birdtown settlement on the East Cherokee reservation, in Swain county, North Carolina. tsiskwâ'ya--sparrow, literally "principal bird" (i. e., most widely distributed), from tsi'skwa, bird, and yâ, a suffix denoting principal or real. Tsilalu'hi--"Sweet-gum place," from tsila'lu', sweet-gum (Liquidambar), and hi, locative. A former settlement on a small branch of Brasstown creek of Hiwassee river, just within the line of Towns county, Georgia. The name is incorrectly rendered Gumlog (creek). Tsiskwunsdi'-adsisti'yi--"Where they killed Little-bird," from Tsiskw-unsdi', "Little-birds" (plural form). A place near the head of West Buffalo creek, southeast of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. Tsistetsi'yi--"Mouse place," from tsistetsi, mouse, and yi, locative; a former settlement on South Mouse creek, of Hiwassee river, in Bradley county, Tennessee. The present town of Cleveland, upon the same creek, is known to the Cherokee under the same name. tsistu--rabbit. tsistû'na--crawfish; the large horned beetle is also so called. The large red crawfish is called tsiska'gili. tsist-uni'gisti--"rabbit foods" (plural), from tsi'stu, rabbit, and uni'gisti, plural of agi'sti, food, from tsiyi'giû "I am eating" (soft food). The wild rose. Tsistu'yi--"Rabbit place," from tsistu, rabbit, and yi, locative. 1. Gregory bald, high peak of the Great Smoky range, eastward from Little Tennessee river, on the boundary between Swain county, North Carolina and Blount county, Tennessee. See number 75 and notes. 2. A former settlement on the north bank of Hiwassee river at the, entrance of Chestua creek, in Polk county, Tennessee. The name of Choastea creek of Tugaloo river, in Oconee county, South Carolina, is probably also a corruption from the same word. Tsiyâ'hi--"Otter place," from tsiyû, otter, and yi, locative; variously spelled Cheowa, Cheeowhee, Chewohe, Chewe, etc. 1. A former settlement on a branch of Keowee river, near the present Cheohee, Oconee county, South Carolina. 2. A former and still existing Cherokee settlement on Cheowa river, about Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. 3. A former settlement in Cades cove, on Cove creek, in Blount county, Tennessee. Tsi'yu-gûnsi'ni--"He is dragging a canoe," from tsi'yu, canoe (cf. tsi'yû, otter) and gûnsi'ni, "he is dragging it." "Dragging-canoe," a prominent leader of the hostile Cherokee in the Revolution. The name appears in documents as Cheucunsene and Kunnesee. See page 54. Tskil-e'gwa--"Big-witch," from atskili', or tskili', witch, owl, and e'gwa, big; an old man of the East Cherokee, who died in 1896. See page 179. Although translated Big-witch by the whites, the name is understood by the Indians to mean Big-owl (see number 35), having been originally applied to a white man living on the same clearing, noted for his large staring eyes. tskili' (contracted from atskili')--1. witch; 2. the dusky horned owl (Bubo virginianus saturatus). See number 35. TSOLUNGH--see tsalû. tskwâ'yi--the great white heron or American egret (Herodias egretta). Tsudâ'talesûñ'yi--"Where pieces fall off," i.e. where the banks are caving in; from adâtale'û, "it is falling off," ts, distance prefix, "there," and yi, locative. The Cherokee name for the present site of Memphis, Tennessee, overlooking the Mississippi, and formerly known as the Chickasaw bluff. Tsuda'ye`lûñ'yi--"Isolated place"; an isolated peak near the head of Cheowa river, northeast of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 79 and notes. The root of the word signifies detached, or isolated, whence Uda'ye`lûñ'yi, the Cherokee outlet, in the Indian Territory. Tsu'dinûñti'yi--"Throwing-down place"; a former settlement on lower Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina. See number 122. Tsugidû`li ûlsgi'sti (from tsugidû`li, plural of ugidû`li, one of the long wing or tail feathers of a bird, and ûlsgi'sti or ûlsgi'ta, a dance)--the feather or eagle dance. See number 35. tsûñgili'si--plural of ûñgili'si, q.v. tsûñgini'si--plural of ûñgini'si, q.v. Tsukilûñnûñ'yi--"Where he alighted"; two bald spots on a mountain at the head of Little Snowbird creek, near Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. For tradition, see number 122. tsûñkina'tli--"my younger brothers" (male speaking). tsûñkita'--"my younger brothers" (female speaking). tsu`la--fox; cf. tsû`lû, kingfisher and tlutlu' or tsutsu', martin. The black fox is inâ'li. The Creek word for fox is chula. tsula'ski--alligator: the name is of uncertain etymology. Tsu`la'wi--see Tsû`lûñwe'i. Tsulâ'sinûñ'yi--"Footprint place." A place on Tuckasegee river, about a mile above Deep creek, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Tsul`kalû'--"Slanting-eyes," literally "He has them slanting" (or leaning up against something); the prefix ts makes it a plural form, and the name is understood to refer to the eyes, although the word eye (akta', plural dikta') is not a part of it. Cf. Ata'-gûl`kalû'. A mythic giant and ruler of the game. The name has been corrupted to Jutaculla and Tuli-cula. Jutaculla rock and Jutaculla old fields about the head of Tuckasegee river, in Jackson, North Carolina, take their name from him. See number 81 and notes. Tsule'hisanûñ'hi--"Resurrected One," from di'gwale'hisanûñ'hi, "I was resurrected," literally, "I was down and have risen." Tsa'lagi' Tsule'hisanuñhi, the Cherokee title of the newspaper known to the whites as the Cherokee Phoenix. The Cherokee title was devised by Worcester and Boudinot as suggesting the idea of the phoenix of classic fable. The Indian name of the recent "Cherokee Advocate" is Tsa'lagi Asdeli'ski. Tsul`kalû' tsunegûñ'yi--see Tsunegûñ'yi. tsulie'na--the nuthatch (Sitta carolinensis); the word signifies literally "deaf" (a plural form referring to the ear, gûle'), although no reason is given for such a name. tsû`lû--kingfisher. Cf. tsu`la. Tsû`lûñwe'i (abbreviated Tsû`lûñ'we or Tsûla'wi, possibly connected with tsû`lû, kingfisher)--Chilhowee creek, a north tributary of Little Tennessee river, in Blount county, Tennessee. Tsunda`nilti'yi--"Where they demanded the debt from him"; a place on Little Santeetla river, west of Robbinsville, in Graham county, North Carolina. The creek also is commonly known by the same name. See number 122. Tsundige'wi--"Closed anuses," literally "They have them closed," understood to refer to the anus; from dige'wi, plural of ge'wi, closed, stopped up, blind; cf. Tsul`kalû'; also Gûlisge'wi, "Blind, or closed, ears," an old personal name. See number 74. tsun'digwûn'tski (contracted from tsun'digwûntsu`gi, "they have them forked," referring to the peculiar forked tail; cf. Tsul`kalû')--a migratory bird which once appeared for a short time upon the East Cherokee reservation, apparently, from the description, the scissortail or swallow-tailed flycatcher (Milvulus forficatus). See number 35. Tsunegûñ'yi (sometimes called Tsul`kalû' Tsunegûñ'yi')--Tennessee bald, at the extreme head of Tuckasegee river, on the east line of Jackson county, North Carolina. The name seems to mean, "There where it is white," from ts, a prefix indicating distance, une'ga, white, and yi, locative. See number 81 and notes. Tsunil'`kalû--the plural form for Tsul`kalû, q. v.; a traditional giant tribe in the west. See number 106. tsunû'`liyû'sûnestlâ'ta--"they have split noses," from agwa`liyû', "I have it," and unestlâû', "it is cracked" (as a crack made by the sun's heat in a log or in the earth); the initial s makes it refer to the nose, kayasa'. See number 76 and notes. tsunis'tsahi'--"(those) having topknots or crests," from ustdahû', "having a topknot," ustsahi', "he has a topknot" (habitual). See number 76 and notes. Tsuniya'tiga--"Naked People"; literally "They are naked there," from uya'tiga, naked (singular), with the prefix ts, indicating distance. A traditional western tribe. See number 105. tsunsdi'--contracted from tsunsdi'ga, the plural of usdi'ga or usdi', small. Tsunu'lahûñ'ski-- "He tries, but fails" (habitually), from detsinu'lahûñ'gû' (q. v.), "I tried, but failed." A former noted chief among the East Cherokee, commonly known to the whites as Junaluska. In early life he was called Gûl`kala'ski, a name which denotes something habitually falling from a leaning position (cf. Ata-gûl`kalû' and Tsul`kalû'.) See page 164. tsûñ-ka'wi-ye', tsûñ-sikwa-ya', tsûñ-tsu'la-ya', tsûñ-wa'`ya-ya'--"I am (tsûñ or tsi, verbal prefix) a real (ya, ye, noun suffix) deer" (kawi', archaic for a`wi'); opossum, si'kwa; fox, tsu`la; wolf, wa`ya. Archaic song forms. See number 15. Tsûsginâ'i--"the Ghost country," from asgi'na, "ghost," i, locative, and ts, a prefix denoting distance. The land of the dead; it is situated in Usûñhi'yi, the Twilight land, in the west. See number 5. tsuakwa`li--plural of uskwa`li, short. Tsuskwanûñ'nawa'ta--"Worn-out blanket," from tsuskwanûñ'ni, blanket (the word refers to something having stripes), and uwa'ta, "worn out." James D. Wafford, a prominent Cherokee mixed-blood and informant in the Western nation, who died about 1896. See page 236. Tsûta'ga Uweyûñ'i--"Chicken creek," from tsûta'ga, chicken, and uweyûñ'i, stream. An extreme eastern head-stream of Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina. See number 122. Tsuta'tsinasûñ'yi--"Eddy place." A place on Cheowa river at the mouth of Cockram creek, in Graham county, North Carolina. For tradition see number 122. tsutsu'--see tlutlu'. tsûñtû'tsi--see tlûñtû'tsi. tsuwa'--the mud-puppy or water-dog (Menopoma or Protonopsis). See number 59. Tsuwa`tel'da--a contraction of Tsuwa`teldûñ'yi; the name has lost its meaning. Pilot knob, north from Brevard, in Transylvania county, North Carolina. See number 82 and notes. Tsuwa'-uniyetsûñ'yi--"Where the water-dogs laughed," from tsuwa' (q. v.), "water-dog," uniye'tsû, "they laughed" (agiyet'skû, "I am laughing"), and yi, locative; Tusquittee bald, near Hayesville, in Clay county, North Carolina. For story see number 122. Tsuwe'nahi--A traditional hunter, in communication with the invisible people. See number 83. The name seems to mean "He has them in abundance," an irregular or archaic form for Uwe'nai, "he has abundance," "he is rich," from agwe'nai', "I am rich." As a masculine name it is used as the equivalent of Richard. See number 83. Tuckalechee--see Tikwali'si. Tuckasegee--see Tsiksi'tai. Tugaloo--see Dugilu'yi. tugalu!--the cry of the dagûl`kû goose. tugalû'na--a variety of small fish, about four inches long, frequenting the larger streams (from galû'na, a gourd, on account of its long nose). See number 39 and notes. tûksi'--the terrapin or land tortoise; also the name of a Cherokee chief about the close of the Revolution. Saligu'gi, common turtle; soft-shell turtle, u`lana'wa. Tûksi'tsi--see Tsiksi'tsi. Tuli-cula--see Tsul`kalû'. tûlsku'wa--"he snaps with his head," from uska', head; the snapping beetle. Tunâ'i--a traditional warrior and medicine-man of old Itsâ'ti; the name can not be analyzed. See number 99. Turkeytown--see Gûn-di'gaduhûñ'yi. Turniptown--see U`lûñ'yi. Tuskegee--see Ta`ski'gi. Tusquittee bald--see Tsuwa'-uniyetsûñ'yi. Tusquittee creek--see Daskwitûñ'yi. tu'sti--for tusti'ga, a small bowl; larger jars are called diwa'`li and ûñti'ya. tûñ'tawû'--a small yellow night-moth. The name comes from ahûñ'tû, a word implying that something flits into and out of the blaze. See number 59. tu'ti--snowbird. Tuti'yi--"Snowbird place," from tu'ti, snowbird, and yi, locative. Little Snow-bird creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. tû'tsahyesi'--"he will marry you." tu'ya--bean. tu'ya-diskalaw`sti'ski--see ta'gû. tû'yahusi'--"she will die." Tymahse--see Tomassee. Uchee--see Ani'-Yu'tsi. udâ'hale'yi--"on the sunny side." udâ'i--the baneberry or cohosh vine (Actæa?). The name signifies that the plant has something long hanging from it. uda`li--"(it is) married"; the mistletoe, so called on account of its parasitic habit. U'dawagûñ'ta--"Bald." A bald mountain of the Great Smoky range, in Yancey county, North Carolina, not far from Mount Mitchell. See number 51. Udsi'skala--a masculine name. uga'sita--sour. ûñgida'--"thy two elder brothers" (male speaking). See notes to number 63. ûñgili'si (plural, tsûñgili'si)--"my daughter's child." See note to number 66, and cf. ûñgini'si. ûñgini'li--"my elder brother" (female speaking). See notes to number 63. ûñgini'si (plural tsûñgini'si)--"my son's child." See note to number 66, and cf. ûñgili'si. u'giska'--"he is swallowing it"; from tsikiû', "I am eating." See number 8 and notes. u'guku'--the hooting or barred owl (Syrnium nebulosum); the name is an onomatope. See also tskili' and wa'`huhu'. ugûñste'li (ugûñste'lû in dialectic form)--the hornyhead fish (Campostoma, stone roller). The name is said, on doubtful authority, to refer to its having horns. See number 59. Uguñ'yi--Tallulah falls, on the river of that name, northeast from Clarkesville, in Habersham county, Georgia; the meaning of the name is lost. See number 84. Uilata--See U`tlûñ'ta. uk-ku'sûñtsûteti'--"it will twist up one's arm." See number 115. Uk-ku'sûñtsûti--"Bent-bow-shape"; a comic masculine name. Cf. gûltsû'ti, bow. See number 115. uk-kwûnagi'sti--"it will draw down one's eye." See number 115. Uk-kwûnagi'ta--"Eye-drawn-down"; a comic masculine name. See number 115. uksu'hi--the mountain blacksnake or black racer (Coluber obsoletus); the name seems to refer to some peculiarity of the eye, akta'; uksuha', "he has something lodged in his eye." See number 53 and notes. Ukte'na--"Keen-eyed (?)" from akta', eye, akta'ti, to examine closely. A mythic great horned serpent, with a talismanic diadem. See number 50 and notes. Ukte'na-tsuganûñ'tatsûñ'yi--"Where the Uktena got fastened." A spot on Tuckasegee river, about two miles above Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Uktena-utansi'nastûñ'yi--"Where the Uktena crawled." A rock on the north bank of Tuckasegee river, about four miles above Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Ukwû'nû (or Ukwû'ni)--a former Cherokee settlement, commonly known to the whites as Oconee, on Seneca creek, near the present Walhalla, in Oconee county, South Carolina. Ula`gû'--the mythic original of the yellow-jacket tribe. See number 13. The word signifies "leader," "boss," or "principal one," and is applied to the first yellow-jacket (d`ska'i) seen in the spring, to a queen bee and to the leader of a working squad. u`lana'wa--the soft-shell turtle; the etymology of the word is uncertain. See also saligu'gi and tûksi'. ulasu'la--moccasin, shoe. ûle'--and; ûle-`nû', and also. Ûñli'ta--"(He is) long-winded," an archaic form for the regular word, gûñli'ta; an old masculine name. A chief about the year 1790, known to the whites as "The Breath." ûlskwûlte'gi--a "pound-mill," a self-acting water-mill used in the Cherokee mountains. The name signifies that "it butts with its head" (uska', head), in allusion to the way in which the pestle works in the mortar. The generic word for mill is dista'sti. ulstitlû'--literally, "it is on his head." The diamond crest on the head of the mythic Uktena serpent. When detached it becomes the Ulûñsû'ti. Ultiwâ'i--a former Cherokee settlement about the present Ooltewah, on the creek of the same name, in James county, Tennessee. The name has the locative form (i suffix), but cannot be translated. ulûñni'ta--domesticated, tame; may be used for persons as well as animals, but not for plants; for cultivated or domesticated plants the adjective is gûnutlûñ'i (or gûnusûñ'i). Ulûñsû'ti--"Transparent"; the great talismanic crystal of the Cherokee. Spelled Oolunsade by Hagar. See number 50 and notes. ulûñ'ta--"it has climbed," from tsilahi', "I am climbing"; the poison oak (Rhus radicans). See number 126. U`lûñ'yi--"Tuber place," from U`li', a variety of edible tuber, and yi, locative. A former settlement upon Turniptown (for U`lûñ'yi) creek, above Ellijay, in Gilmer county, Georgia. Unacala--see Une'gadihi'. U'nadanti'yi--"Place where they conjured," the name of a gap about three miles east of Webster, in Jackson county, North Carolina, and now transferred to the town itself. See number 122. unade'na--woolly, downy (in speaking of animals); uwa'nû, wool, down, fine fur (detached from the animal). u'nahu'--see unahwi'. unahwi'--heart; in Middle and Lower dialects, unahu'. See page 187. Unaka--see une'ga and Unicoi. unatlûñwe'hitû--"it has spirals"; a plant (unidentified) used in conjurations. See number 126. une'ga--white. une'guhi--"he is (was) mischievous or bad"; tsûne'guhi'yu, "you are very mischievous" (said to a child). See number 118. une'gutsatû'--"(he is) mischievous"; a'gine'gutsatû', "I am mischievous." Une`lanûñ'hi--"The Apportioner"; "I am apportioning," gane`laskû'; "I apportion" (habitually), gane`laski. In the sacred formulas a title of the Sun god; in the Bible the name of God. une'stalûñ--ice. Unicoi--the map name of the old Unicoi turnpike (see page 87), of a gap on the watershed between Chattahoochee and Hiwassee rivers, in Georgia, and of a county in eastern Tennessee. Probably a corruption of une'ga, white, whence comes also Unaka, the present map name of a part of the Great Smoky range. uni'gisti--foods; singular, agi'sti. Uniga'yata`ti'yi--"Where they made a fish trap," from uga'yatûñ'i, fish trap, and yi, locative; a place on Tuckasegee river, at the mouth of Deep creek, near Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 100 and notes. Uni'haluna--see Ahalu'na. Unika'wi--the "Townhouse dance," so called because danced inside the townhouse; the name does not refer to a townhouse (gati'yi) and can not be analyzed, but may have some connection with the archaic word for deer. Cf. Ani'-Kawi'. Une'ga-dihi'--"White-man-killer"; from une'ga, "white," for yûñ'wune'ga, "white person," and dihi', a noun suffix denoting "killer" ("he kills them" habitually). A Cherokee chief, whose name appears in documents about 1790 as White-man-killer, or, by misprint Unacala. It is an old masculine name, existing until recently upon the reservation. Cf. Ta'gwadihi'. u'niskwetu`gi--"they wear a hat"; ûlskwe'tawa', hat, from uska', head. The may-apple (Podophyllum). See number 126. unistilûñ'isti--"they stick on along their whole length"; the generic name for "stickers" and burs, including the Spanish needle, cockle bur, jimson weed, etc. See number 126. uni'tsi--her mother; agitsi', my mother. Uniyâ'hitûñ'yi--"Where they shot it," from tsiyâ'ihû, "I shoot," and yi, locative. A place on Tuckasegee river a short distance above Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 100. Untoola--see Dihyûñ'dula'. Unta'kiyasti'yi--"Where they race," from takiya'ta, a race, and yi, locative; locally corrupted to Tahkeyostee. The district on the French Broad river, around Asheville, in Buncombe county, North Carolina. The town itself is known to the Cherokee as Kâsdu'yi, "Ashes place," (from kâsdu, ashes, and yi, locative), which is intended as a translation of its proper name. See number 122. Untlasgâsti'yi--"Where they scratched"; a place at the head of Hyatt creek of Valley river, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. For tradition see number 122. Untoola--see Dihyûñ'dula'. unûñ'ti--milk. usdi'gâ (abbreviated usdi'), small; plural tsunsdi'ga, tsunsdi'. usga'se`ti'yu--very dangerous, very terrible; intensive of usga'se`ti. Uskwale'na--"Big-head," from uska', head; a masculine name, perhaps the original of the "Bull-head," given by Haywood as the name of a former noted Cherokee warrior. Uskwâ'li-gû'ta--"His stomach hangs down," from uskwâ'li, his stomach, and gû'ta, "it hangs down." A prominent chief of the Revolutionary period, known to the whites as Hanging-maw. U`stana'li (from u`stanalâ'hi or uni'stana'la (a plural form), denoting a natural barrier of rocks (plural) across a stream)--a name occurring in several places in the old Cherokee country, and variously spelled Eastinaulee, Eastanora, Estanaula, Eustenaree, Istanare, Oostanaula, Oostinawley, Ustenary, etc. One settlement of this name was on Keowee river, below the present Fort George, in Oconee county, South Carolina; another seems to have been somewhere on the waters of Tuckasegee river, in western North Carolina; a third, prominent during and after the Revolutionary period, was just above the junction of Coosawatee and Conasauga rivers to form the Oostanaula, in Gordon county, Georgia, and adjoining New Echota (see Gansâ'gi). Other settlements of the same name may have been on Eastanollee creek of Tugaloo river, in Franklin county, Georgia, and on Eastaunaula creek, flowing into Hiwassee river, in McMinn county, Tennessee. Cf. Tsu`stanalûñ'yi, under Dagunâ'hi. u'stûti--see utsu`gi. Ustû'tli--a traditional dangerous serpent. The name signifies having something on the calf of the leg or on the heel, from ustûtûñ'i, (his) calf of the leg (attached). It is applied also to the southern hoop-snake (Abastor erythrogrammus). See number 54. Usûñhi'yi--the "Darkening land," where it is always getting dark, as at twilight. The name used for the west in the myths and sacred formulas; the common word is wude'ligûñ'yi, "there where it (the sun) goes down." In number 63 the word used is wusûhihûñ'yi, "there where they stay over night." See also Tsûsginâ'i. u'tanû--great, fully developed. Cf. e'gwa. utawâ'hilû--"hand-breadth," from uwâ'yi, hand. A figurative term used in the myths and sacred formulas. U'tawagûn'ta--"Bald place." A high bald peak of the Great Smoky range on the Tennessee-North Carolina line, northeastward from Big Pigeon river. See number 51. Ûñ'tiguhi'--"Pot in the water," from ûñti'ya, or ûñti', pot, and guhi', "it is in the water" (or other liquid--habitually). The Suck, a dangerous rapid in Tennessee river, at the entrance of Suck creek, about eight miles below Chattanooga, Tennessee. See number 63 and notes. U`tlûñ'ta--"He (or she) has it sharp," i. e., has some sharp part or organ; it might be used of a tooth, finger-nail, or some other attached portion of the body, but in the story is understood to refer to the awl-like finger. Ten Kate spells it Uilata. A mythic half-human monster. See number 66 and notes. U`tlûñtûñ'yi--"U`tlûñ'ta place;" see U`tlûñ'ta. A place on little Tennessee river, nearly off Citico creek, in Blount county, Tennessee. See number 66 and notes and number 124. U'tsala--"Lichen"; another form of utsale'ta. A Cherokee chief of the Removal period. See page 157. utsale'ta--lichen, literally "pot scrapings," from a fancied resemblance. Ûñtsaiyi' (also Etsaiyi' or Tsaiyi', the first syllable being almost silent)--"Brass." A mythic gambler. See number 63 and notes. The present rendering, "brass," is probably a modern application of the old myth name, and is based upon the resemblance of the sound to that produced by striking a sheet of metal. utsa'nati'--rattlesnake; the name is of doubtful etymology, but is said to refer to the rattle. Utsa'nati'yi--"Rattlesnake place." Rattlesnake springs, about two miles south from Charleston, Bradley county, Tennessee. See page 132. utset'sti--"he grins" (habitually). See si'kwa utset'sti. utsi'--her (his) mother; etsi', agitsi', my mother. Utsi'dsata'--"Corn-tassel," "Thistle-head," etc. It is used as a masculine name and was probably the Cherokee name of the chief known during the Revolutionary period as "Old Tassel." utsu'`gi--the tufted titmouse (Parus bicolor); also called u'stûti, "topknot, or tip." on account of its crest. See numbers 35 and 66. û'tsûti'--fish. Cf. u'tsûti, many. ûñwadâ'li--store-house, provision house. See number 3 and notes. Uñ'wadâ-tsu`gilasûñ'--"Where the storehouse (ûñwâdâ'li) was taken off." Either Black rock or Jones knob, northeast of Webster, on the east line of Jackson county, in North Carolina. See number 122. Uwagâ'hi (commonly written Ocoee)--"Apricot place," from uwa'ga, the "apricot vine," or "maypop," (Passiflora incarnata), and hi, locative. A former important settlement on Ocoee river, near its junction with Hiwassee, about the present Benton, in Polk county, Tennessee. uwâ'yi--hand, paw; generally used with the possessive suffix, as uwâye'ni, "his hand." uwe'la--liver. uwe'nahi--rich; used also as a personal name as the equivalent of Richard. Cf. Tsuwe'nahi. Uw'tsûñ'ta,--"Bouncer" (habitual); from k`tsi, "it is bouncing." A traditional serpent described as moving by jerks like a measuring worm, to which also the name is applied. See number 55. Uyâhye'--a high peak in the Great Smoky range, probably on the line between Swain county, North Carolina, and Sevier or Blount county, Tennessee. See number 75 and notes. Uy'gilâ'gi--abbreviated from Tsuyu`gilâ'gi, "Where there are dams," i. e., beaver dams; from gu`gilû'ûñskû', "he is damming it." 1. A former settlement on Oothcaloga (Ougillogy) creek of Oostanaula river, near the present Calhoun, in Gordon county, Georgia; 2. Beaverdam creek, west of Clarkesville, in Habersham county, Georgia. Valleytown--see Gû'nahitûñ'yi. Vengeance creek--see Gansa`ti'yi. Wachesa--see Watsi'su. wadâñ'--thanks! wâ'di--paint, especially red paint. wâ'dige-askâ'li--"his head (is) brown," i. e., "brown-head," from wâdige'i, brown, brown-red, and askâ'li, possessive of uska', head; the copperhead snake. Wadi'yahi--A feminine name of doubtful etymology. An expert basket-making woman among the East Cherokee, who died in 1895. She was known to the whites as Mrs Bushyhead. See page 179. Wafford--see Tsuskwanûñ'nawa'ta. Wa'ginsi'--The name of an eddy at the junction of the Little Tennessee and main Tennessee rivers, at Lenoir, in Loudon county, Tennessee. The town is now known to the Cherokee by the same name, of which the meaning is lost. See number 124. waguli'--whippoorwill; the name is an onomatope; the Delaware name is wekolis (Heckewelder). Wahnenauhi--see Wani'nahi. wa`huhu'--the screech-owl (Megascops asio); see also tskili' and uguku'. wa`ka--cow; from the Spanish vaca, as is also the Creek waga and the Arapaho wakûch. walâ'si--the common green frog; there are different names for the bullfrog (kûnu'nu, q. v.) and for other varieties; warts are also called walâ'si. Walâsi'yi--"Frog place." 1. A former settlement, known to the whites as Frogtown, upon the creek of the same name, north of Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Georgia. 2. Le Conte and Bullhead mountains in the Great Smoky range on the North Carolina-Tennessee line, together with the ridge extending into Sevier county, Tennessee, between the Middle and West forks of Little Pigeon river. See number 51 and notes. walâs'-unûl'sti--"it fights frogs," from walâ'si, frog, and unûl'sti, "it fights" (habitually); gû`lihû', "I am fighting." The Prosartes lanuginosa plant. See number 126. Walâs'-unûlsti'yi--"Place of the plant walâs'-unûl'sti," commonly known to the whites as Fightingtown, from a translation of the latter part of the name; a former settlement on Fightingtown creek, near Morganton, in Fannin county, Georgia. See number 125. Walini'--a feminine name, compounded from Wali, another form of Kwali, "Polly," with a suffix added for euphony. Wane'-asûñ'tlûñyi--"Hickory footlog place," from wane'i, hickory, asûñtlûñ'i (q. v.), footlog, bridge, and yi, locative. A former settlement, known to the whites as Hickory-log, on Etowah river, a short distance above Canton, in Cherokee county, Georgia. Wani'nahi'--a feminine name of uncertain etymology; the Wahnenauhi of the Wahnenauhi manuscript. Washington--see Wa'sitû'na. Wâ'si--the Cherokee form for Moses. Wa'sitû'na, Wa'sûñtû'na (different dialectic forms)--a Cherokee known to the whites as Washington, the sole survivor of a Removal tragedy. See page 158. The name denotes a hollow log (or other cylindrical object) lying on the ground at a distance; the root of the word is asi'ta, log, and the w prefixed makes it at a distance. Wa'sulû'--a large red-brown moth which flies about the blossoming tobacco in the evening. Watâ'gi (commonly written Watauga, also Watoga, Wattoogee, Whatoga, etc.)--a name occurring in two or more towns in the old Cherokee country; one was an important settlement on Watauga creek of Little Tennessee river, a few miles below Franklin, in Macon county, Tennessee; another was traditionally located at Watauga Old Fields, about the present Elizabethton, on Watauga river, in Carter county, Tennessee. See page 21. The meaning of the name is lost. Watauga--see Watâ'gi. Watsi'sa--a prominent old Cherokee, known to the whites as Wachesa, a name which cannot be translated, who formerly lived on lower Beaverdam creek of Hiwassee river, below Murphy, in Cherokee county, North Carolina. From the fact that the Unicoi turnpike passed near his place it was locally known as the Wachesa trail. wa`ya--wolf; the name is an onomatope, intended as an imitation of the animal's howl; cf. the Creek name, yähä. Wa`yâ'hi--"Wolf place," i. e. place of the Wolf clan; the form Ani'-Wa`yâ'hi is not used. Wolftown settlement on upper Soco creek, on the East Cherokee reservation, in Jackson county, North Carolina. Waya gap--see A`tâhi'ta. Wayeh--see Wâyi. Wâyî--"Pigeon"; the modern Cherokee name for Big Pigeon river in western North Carolina; probably a translation of the English name. It appears also as Wayeh. Welch, Lloyd--see Da'si`giya'gi. wesa--cat; a corruption of "pussy." White-path--see Nûñnâ'hi-tsune'ga. Willstown--a former important settlement, so called from the halfbreed chief known to the whites as Red-headed Will, on Will's creek below Fort Payne, in Dekalb county, Alabama. The settlement was frequently called from him Wili'yi, "Will's place," but this was not the proper local name. Wilsini'--the Cherokee name for H. W. Spray, agent and superintendent for the East Cherokee reservation; an adaptation of his middle name, Wilson. Wil-usdi'--"Little Will," from Wili', Will and usdi'ga or usdi', little. The Cherokee name for Colonel W. H. Thomas, for many years the recognized chief of the eastern band. Wissactaw--see gahawi'sita. Wolftown--see Wa`yâ'hi. Wootassite, Wrosetasatow--see Outacity. Wude'ligûñ'yi--the west; literally "there where it (the sun) goes down" (w prefixed implies distance, yi, locative). See also Usûñhi'yi and wusûhihûñ'yi. Wuliga'natûtûñ--excelling all others, either in good or bad; it may be used as equivalent to wastûñ, "beyond the limit." See page 232. wusûhihûñ'yi--"there where they stay over night," i. e. "the west." An archaic term used by the narrator of the story of Ûñtsaiyi', number 63. The common word is wude'ligûñ'yi, q. v., while the term in the sacred formulas is Usûñhi'yi, q. v. Xuala--see Ani-Suwa'li. -ya--a suffix denoting principal or real, as tsiskwa'ya, "principal bird," the sparrow; Ani'-Yûñwiya', "principal or real people," Indians. Yahoola--see Yahulâ'i. Yahulâ'i--"Yahu'la place," from Yahu'la, a Cherokee trader said to have been taken by the spirit people; Yahu'la seems to be from the Creek yoho'lo, a name having reference to the song (yoholo), used in the "black drink" ceremony of the Creeks; thus a'si-yoho'lo, corrupted into Osceola, signified "the black drink song"; it may, however, be a true Cherokee word, yahu'lû, or yahu'li, the name for a variety of hickory, also for the "doodle-bug"; Ûñyahu'la is a feminine name, but can not be translated. Yahoola creek, near Dahlonega, in Lumpkin county, Georgia. See number 86 and notes. Yalâ'gi--Alarka creek of Little Tennessee river, above the junction of Tuckasegee, in Swain county, North Carolina; the meaning of the name is lost. yañdaska'ga--a faultfinder. See number 61. Yân-e'gwa--"Big-bear," from yânû, bear, and egwa, great, large. A prominent chief about the year 1800; the name occurs in treaties as Yonah, Yohanaqua and Yonahequah. See page 164. yâ'nû--bear. Yâ'nû-dinehûñ'yi--"Where the bears live," from yânû, bear, dinehû', "they dwell" (e'hû, "I dwell, I live"), and yi, locative. A place on Oconaluftee river, a short distance above the junction with Tuckasegee, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. Yânûgûñ'ski--"The bear drowns him" (habitually), from yânû, bear, and tsigûñ'iska', "I am drowning him." A noted East Cherokee chief, known to the whites as Yonaguska or Drowning-bear. See page 162. Yâ'nû-u'natawasti'yi--"Where the bears wash" (from yânû, bear, and yi, locative); a former pond in the Great Smoky mountains, about the extreme head of Raven fork, in Swain county, North Carolina. See number 122. yân'-utse'stû--"the bear lies on it"; the shield fern (Aspidium). See number 126. Yawâ'i--"Yawa place"; a place on Yellow creek of Cheowa river, in Graham county, North Carolina. See number 122. Yellow-hill--see Elawâ'diyi. Yohanaqua--see Yân-e'gwa. yoho-o!--an unmeaning song refrain. See number 75. Yonaguska--see Yâ'nûgûñ'ski. Yonah--1. (mountain) see Gadalu'lu. 2. An abbreviated treaty form for the name of the chief Yân-e'gwa. Yonahequah--see Yân-e'gwa. Ytaua, Ytava--see I'tawa'. Yu!--an unmeaning song refrain and interjection. Yuha'li--Euharlee creek, of lower Etowah river, in Bartow county, Georgia. The name is said by the Cherokee to be a corruption of Yufala (Eufaula), a well-known Creek local name. See number 105. yûnsû'--buffalo; cf. Creek yena'sa, Choctaw yanash, Hichitee ya'nasi. Yûnsâ'i--"Buffalo place"; West Buffalo creek of Cheowa river in Graham county, North Carolina; the site of a former Cherokee settlement. See number 122. yu'we-yuwehe'--an unmeaning song refrain. See number 118. yûñ'wi--person, man; cf. Mohawk oñgwe`. Yûñ'wi Ama'yine'hi--"Water-dwelling People," from yûñ'wi, person, and ama'yine'hi, plural of amaye'hi, q. v.; a race of water fairies. See number 78. Yûñ'wi-dikatâgûñ'yi--see Yûñ'wi-tsulenûñ'yi. Yûñ'wi Gûnahi'ta--"Long Man"; a formulistic name for the river, personified as a man with his head resting on the mountain and his feet stretching down to the lowlands, who is constantly speaking to those who can understand the message. Yûñ'wini'giski--"Man-eaters," literally, "They eat people" (habitually), from yûñ'wi, person, man, and uni'giski, "they eat" (habitually), from tsikiû', "I am eating"; the Cherokee name for a distant cannibal tribe, possibly the Atakapa or the Tonkawa. See number 105. Cf. Anada'dûñtaski. Yûñ'wi-tsulenûñ'yi--"Where the man stood," originally Yûñ'wi-dikatâgûñ'yi, "Where the man stands," from yûñ'wi, person, man, tsitâ'ga, "I am standing," and yi, locative; Standing Indian, a high bald mountain at the head of Nantahala river, in Macon county, North Carolina. See number 122. Yûñ'wi Tsunsdi'--"Little People," from yûñ'wi, person, people, and tsunsdi'ga or tsunsdi', plural of usdi'ga, or usdi', little; the Cherokee fairies. See number 78. Yûñ'wi Usdi'--"Little Man." A formulistic name for the ginseng, â'tali-gûli', q. v. Yûñ'wi-usga'se`ti--"Dangerous Man, Terrible Man"; a traditional leader in the westward migration of the Cherokee. See page 99. Yûñ'wiya'--"Indian," literally, "principal or real person," from yûñ'wi, person and ya, a suffix denoting principal or real. See pages 15 and 181. FOOTNOTES [1] See the notes to the historical sketch. [2] Barton, Benj. S., New Views on the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America, p. xlv, passim; Phila., 1797; Gallatin, Albert, Synopsis of Indian Tribes, Trans. American Antiquarian Society, ii, p. 91; Cambridge, 1836; Hewitt, J. N. B., The Cherokee an Iroquoian Language, Washington, 1887 (MS in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology). [3] Heckewelder, John, Indian Nations of Pennsylvania, pp. 47-49, ed. 1876. [4] Brinton, D. G., Walam Olum, p. 231; Phila., 1885. [5] Schoolcraft, H. R., Notes on the Iroquois, p. 162; Albany, 1847. [6] Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 47, ed. 1876. [7] Haywood, John, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, pp. 225-226; Nashville, 1823. [8] Jefferson, Thomas, Notes on Virginia, pp. 136-137; ed. Boston, 1802. [9] Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 163, 1847. [10] Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, pp. 233, 236, 269, 1823. [11] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, pp. 226, 234, 1823. [12] Bartram, Wm., Travels, p. 365; reprint, London, 1792. [13] Haywood, op. cit., pp. 234-237. [14] Barton, New Views, p. xliv, 1797. [15] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, pp. 166, 234-235, 287-289, 1823. [16] See story, "The Great Leech of Tlanusi'yi," p. 328. [17] Garcilaso de la Vega, La Florida del Inca, pp. 129, 133-134; Madrid, 1723. [18] Gentleman of Elvas, Publications of the Hakluyt Society, ix, pp. 52, 58, 64; London, 1851. [19] Ibid., p. 60. [20] Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca, p. 136, ed. 1723. [21] Ranjel, in Oviedo, Historia General y Natural de las Indias, i, p. 562; Madrid, 1851. [22] Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca, p.137, 1723. [23] See note 8, De Soto's route. [24] Ranjel, op. cit., I, p. 562. [25] Elvas, Hakluyt Society, IX, p. 61, 1851. [26] Garcilaso, op. cit., p. 139. [27] Ranjel, in Oviedo, Historia, I, p. 563, 1861. [28] Elvas, Biedma, and Ranjel all make special reference to the dogs given them at this place; they seem to have been of the same small breed ("perrillos") which Ranjel says the Indians used for food. [29] Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca, p. 139, 1723. [30] See note 8, De Soto's route. [31] See Elvas, Hakluyt Society, ix, p. 61, 1851; and Ranjel, op. cit., p. 563. [32] See note 8, De Soto's route. [33] Elvas, op. cit., p.64. [34] Elvas, Hakluyt Society, IX, p. 66, 1851. [35] Garcilaso, La Florida del Inca, p. 141, ed. 1723. [36] Shea, J. G., in Winsor, Justin, Narrative and Critical History of America, II, pp. 260, 278; Boston, 1886. [37] Narrative of Pardo's expedition by Martinez, about 1568, Brooks manuscripts. [38] Vandera narrative, 1569, in French, B. F., Hist. Colls. of La., new series, pp. 289-292; New York, 1875. [39] Shea, J. G., Catholic Missions, p. 72; New York, 1855. [40] See Brooks manuscripts, in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. [41] Burk, John, History of Virginia, II, pp. 104-107; Petersburg, 1805. [42] Ramsey, J. G. M., Annals of Tennessee, p. 37; Charleston, 1853 (quoting Martin, North Carolina, I, p. 115, 1853). [43] Lederer, John, Discoveries, pp. 15, 26, 27, 29, 33, and map; reprint, Charleston, 1891; Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (Bulletin of Bureau of Ethnology), pp. 53-54,1894. [44] Mooney, op. cit., pp. 34-35. [45] Document of 1699, quoted in South Carolina Hist. Soc. Colls., I, p. 209; Charleston, 1857. [46] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tennessee, p. 233, 1823. [47] Noted in Cherokee Advocate, Tahlequah, Indian Territory, January 30, 1845. [48] Document of 1691, South Carolina Hist. Soc. Colls., I, p. 126. [49] Hewat, South Carolina and Georgia, I, p. 127, 1778. [50] Documents of 1705, in North Carolina Colonial Records, II, p. 904; Raleigh, 1886. [51] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Tenn., p. 237, 1823; with the usual idea that Indians live to extreme old age, Haywood makes her 110 years old at her death, putting back the introduction of firearms to 1677. [52] Letter of 1708, in Rivers, South Carolina, p. 238, 1856. [53] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 140, 1888; Hewat, op. cit., p. 216 et passim. [54] Hewat, South Carolina and Georgia, I, p. 216 et passim, 1778. [55] See Journal of Colonel George Chicken, 1715-16, with notes, in Charleston Yearbook, pp. 313-354, 1894. [56] Journal of South Carolina Assembly, in North Carolina Colonial Records, II, pp. 225-227, 1886. [57] For notice, see the glossary. [58] Hewat, South Carolina and Georgia, I, pp. 297-298, 1778; Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 144 and map, 1888. [59] Royce, op. cit., p. 142. [60] Document of 1724, in Fernow, Berthold, Ohio Valley in Colonial Days, pp. 273-275; Albany, 1890. [61] Report of Board of Trade, 1721, in North Carolina Colonial Records, II, p. 422, 1886. [62] Adair, James, American Indians, p. 227; London, 1775. [63] Board of Trade report, 1721, North Carolina Colonial Records, II, p. 422, 1886. [64] Pickett, H. A., History of Alabama, pp. 234, 280, 288; reprint, Sheffield, 1896. [65] For notice, see the glossary. [66] Hewat, South Carolina and Georgia, II, pp. 3-11, 1779; treaty documents of 1730, North Carolina Colonial Records, III, pp. 128-133, 1886; Jenkinson, Collection of Treaties, II, pp. 315-318; Drake, S.G., Early History of Georgia: Cuming's Embassy; Boston, 1872; letter of Governor Johnson, December 27, 1730, noted in South Carolina Hist. Soc. Colls., I, p. 246, 1867. [67] Documents of 1731 and 1732, North Carolina Colonial Records, III, pp. 153, 202, 345, 369, 393, 1886. [68] Adair, American Indians, pp. 232-234, 1775. [69] Meadows(?), State of the Province of Georgia, p. 7, 1742, in Force Tracts, I, 1836. [70] Jones, C.C., History of Georgia, I, pp.327, 328; Boston, 1883. [71] Adair, American Indians, pp. 240-243, 1775; Stevens, W. B., History of Georgia, I, pp. 104-107; Phila., 1847. [72] Anonymous writer in Carroll, Hist. Colls. of South Carolina, II, pp. 97-98, 517, 1836. [73] Buckle, Journal, 1757, in Rivers, South Carolina, p. 57, 1856. [74] Barcia, A.G., Ensayo Chronologico para la Historia General de la Florida, pp. 335, 336. Madrid, 1723. [75] For more in regard to these intertribal wars see the historical traditions. [76] Walker, Thomas, Journal of an Exploration, etc., pp. 8, 35-37; Boston, 1888; Monette (Valley of the Miss. I, p. 317; New York, 1848) erroneously makes the second date 1758. [77] Letter of Governor Dobbs, 1755, in North Carolina Colonial Records, V, pp. 320, 321, 1887. [78] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 50-52, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethnology, p. 145, 1888. [79] Timberlake, Henry, Memoirs, pp. 73, 74; London, 1765. [80] Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 51, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Kept. Bur. of Ethnology, p. 145, 1888. [81] For notice see Ata'-gûl'`kalû', in the glossary. [82] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 50. [83] Letters of Major Andrew Lewis and Governor Dinwiddie, 1756, in North Carolina Colonial Records V, pp. 585, 612-614, 635, 637, 1887; Ramsey, op. cit, pp. 51, 52. [84] Letter of Governor Dobbs, 1756, in North Carolina Colonial Records, V, p. 604, 1887. [85] Dinwiddie letter, 1757, ibid., p. 765. [86] Adair, American Indians, 245-246, 1775; North Carolina Colonial Records, V, p. xlviii, 1887; Hewat, quoted in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 54, 1853. [87] For notices see the glossary. [88] Timberlake, Memoirs, p. 65, 1765. [89] Catawba reference from Milligan, 1763, in Carroll, South Carolina Historical Collections, II, p. 519, 1836. [90] Figures from Adair, American Indians, p. 227, 1775. When not otherwise noted this sketch of the Cherokee war of 1760-61 is compiled chiefly from the contemporary dispatches in the Gentleman's Magazine, supplemented from Hewat's Historical account of South Carolina and Georgia, 1778; with additional details from Adair, American Indians; Ramsey, Tennessee; Royce, Cherokee Nation; North Carolina Colonial Records, v, documents and introduction; etc. [91] Timberlake, Memoirs, p. 9 et passim, 1765. [92] Stevens, Georgia, II, pp. 26-29, 1859. [93] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 65-70, 1853. [94] Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bur. of Ethnology, pp. 146-149, 1888. [95] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 149; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 71, 1853. [96] Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 93-122; Royce, op. cit. pp. 146-149. [97] Ramsey, op. cit., pp, 109-122; Royce, op. cit. p. 146 et passim. [98] Bartram, Travels, pp. 366-372, 1792. [99] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 143-150, 1853; Monette, Valley of the Mississippi, I, pp. 400, 401, 431, 432, and II, pp. 33, 34, 1846; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 276-281, and II, pp. 1-6, 1889. [100] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 143. [101] Quoted from Stedman, in Ramsey, op. cit., p. 162. [102] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 162. [103] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 150-159, 1853. [104] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 293-297, 1889. [105] See no. 110, "Incidents of Personal Heroism." For Rutherford's expedition, see Moore, Rutherford's Expedition, in North Carolina University Magazine, February, 1888; Swain, Sketch of the Indian War in 1776, ibid., May, 1852, reprinted in Historical Magazine, November, 1867; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 164, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 294-302, 1889, etc. [106] For Williamson's expedition, see Ross Journal, with Rockwell's notes, in Historical Magazine, October, 1876; Swain, Sketch of the Indian War in 1776, in North Carolina University Magazine for May, 1852, reprinted in Historical Magazine, November, 1867; Jones, Georgia, II, p. 246 et passim, 1883; Ramsey, Tennessee, 163-164, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 296-303, 1889. [107] Jones, op. cit., p. 246; Ramsey, op. cit., p. 163; Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 295. [108] For the Virginia-Tennessee expedition see Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 303-305, 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 165-170, 1853. [109] Ross Journal, in Historical Magazine, October, 1867. [110] Swain, Sketch of the Indian War of 1776, in Historical Magazine, November, 1867. [111] Moore's narrative, in North Carolina University Magazine, February, 1888. [112] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, I, pp. 285, 290, 303, 1889. [113] About five hundred sought refuge with Stuart, the British Indian superintendent in Florida, where they were fed for some time at the expense of the British government (Jones, Georgia, II, p. 246, 1883). [114] Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 150 and map, 1888; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 172-174, 1853; Stevens, Georgia, II, p. 144, 1859; Roosevelt, "Winning of the West, I, p. 306, 1889. [115] Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 171-177, 185-186, 610 et passim; Royce, op. cit., p. 150; Campbell letter, 1782, and other documents in Virginia State Papers, III, pp. 271, 571, 599, 1883, and IV, pp. 118, 286, 1884; Blount letter, January 14, 1793, American State Papers; Indian Affairs, I, p. 431, 1832. Campbell says they abandoned their first location on account of the invasion from Tennessee. Governor Blount says they left on account of witches. [116] Hawkins, manuscript journal, 1796, with Georgia Historical Society. [117] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 174-178, 1853. [118] Campbell letter, 1782, Virginia State Papers, III, p. 271, 1883. [119] Ramsey, op. cit, pp. 186-188; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 236-238, 1889. Ramsey's statements, chiefly on Haywood's authority, of the strength of the expedition, the number of warriors killed, etc., are so evidently overdrawn that they are here omitted. [120] Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 827, reprint of 1876. [121] Donelson's Journal, etc., in Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 197-208, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 324-340, 1889. [122] Ibid., II, p. 337. [123] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 241-294, 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 208-249, 1853. [124] Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 256. [125] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 298-300, 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 261-264, 1853. There is great discrepancy in the various accounts of this fight, from the attempts of interested historians to magnify the size of the victory. One writer gives the Indians 1,000 warriors. Here, as elsewhere, Roosevelt is a more reliable guide, his statements being usually from official documents. [126] Roosevelt, op. cit., pp. 300-304; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 265-268; Campbell, report, January 15, 1781, in Virginia State Papers, I, p. 436. Haywood and others after him make the expedition go as far as Chickamauga and Coosa river, but Campbell's report expressly denies this. [127] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 266. [128] Roosevelt, op. cit, p. 302. [129] Campbell, letter, March 28, 1781, in Virginia State Papers, I, p. 602, 1875; Martin, letter, March 31, 1781, ibid., p. 613; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 268, 1853; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, pp. 305-307, 1889. [130] Campbell, letter, March 28, 1781, in Virginia State Papers, I, p. 602, 1875. [131] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 269. [132] Ibid.; Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 307. [133] Ibid.; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 267, 268. The latter authority seems to make it 1782, which is evidently a mistake. [134] Stevens, Georgia, II, pp. 282-285, 1859; Jones, Georgia, II, p. 503, 1883. [135] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, p. 811, 1889. [136] Old Tassel's talk, in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 271, 1853, and in Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 315. [137] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 272; Roosevelt, op. cit., p. 317 et passim. [138] Stevens, op. cit., pp. 411-415. [139] Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 151, 1888. [140] See documents in Virginia State Papers, III, pp. 234, 398, 527, 1883. [141] Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 280, 1853. [142] Ibid., p. 276. [143] See Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., pp. 151, 152; Ramsey, op. cit., p. 299 et passim. [144] Indian Treaties, p. 8 et passim, 1837. For a full discussion of the Hopewell treaty, from official documents, see Royce, Cherokee Nation, in Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 152-158, 1888, with map; Treaty Journal, etc., American State Papers; Indian Affairs, I, pp. 38-44, 1832; also Stevens, Georgia, II, pp. 417-429, 1859; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 336, 337, 1853; see also the map accompanying this work. [145] Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 459-461; Agent Martin and Hopewell commissioners, ibid., pp. 318-336; Bledsoe and Robertson letter, ibid., p. 465; Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, p. 368, 1899. [146] Roosevelt, Winning of the West, ii, p. 353, 1889. [147] Ibid., p. 355, 1889; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 452-454, 1853. [148] Ibid., pp. 358-366, 1889. [149] Ibid., p. 341, 1853. [150] Martin letter of May 11, 1786, ibid., p. 342. [151] Reports of Tennessee commissioners and replies by Cherokee chiefs, etc., 1786, in Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 343-346, 1853. [152] Martin (?) letter of March 25, 1787, ibid., p. 359. [153] Ibid., p. 370. [154] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 393-399, 1853. [155] Ibid., pp. 417-423, 1853. [156] Ibid., pp. 517-519, and Brown's narrative, ibid., p. 515. [157] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 515, 519. [158] Brown's narrative, etc., ibid., pp. 508-516. [159] Ibid., pp. 459, 489. [160] Bledsoe and Robertson letter of June 12, 1787, in Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 465, 1853. [161] Ibid., with Robertson letter, pp. 465-476. [162] Ibid., pp. 479-486. [163] Monette, Valley of the Mississippi, I, p. 505, 1846. [164] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 522, 541, 561, 1853. [165] Washington to the Senate, August 11, 1790, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 83, 1832. [166] Secretary Knox to President Washington, July 7, 1789, ibid., p. 53. [167] Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 550, 551. [168] Indian Treaties, pp. 34-38, 1837; Secretary of War, report, January 5, 1798, in American State Papers, I, pp. 628-631, 1832; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 554-560, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 158-170, with full discussion and map, 1888. [169] Indian Treaties, pp. 37, 38, 1837. [170] Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 557, 1853. [171] Abel deposition, April 16, 1792, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 274, 1832. [172] Henry Knox, Secretary of War, Instructions to Leonard Shaw, temporary agent to the Cherokee Nation of Indians, February 17, 1792, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, 247, 1832; also Knox, letters to Governor Blount, January 31 and February 16, 1792, ibid., pp. 245, 246. [173] Estanaula conference report, June 26, 1792, ibid., p. 271; Deraque, deposition, September 15, 1792, ibid., p. 292; Pickens, letter, September 12, 1792, ibid., p. 317. [174] See letters of Shaw, Casey, Pickens, and Blount, 1792-93, ibid., pp. 277, 278, 317, 436, 437, 440. [175] Knox, instructions to Shaw, February 17, 1792, ibid., p. 247; Blount, letter, March 20, 1792, ibid., p. 263; Knox, letters, October 9, 1792, ibid., pp. 261, 262. [176] Governor Telfair's letters of November 14 and December 5, with inclosure, 1792, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 332, 336, 337, 1832. [177] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 562-663, 598, 1853. [178] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 562-565, 1853. [179] Blount, letter, October 2, 1792, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 294, 1832; Blount, letter, etc., in Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 566, 567, 599-601; see also Brown's narrative, ibid., 511, 512; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 170, 1888. [180] Ramsey, op. cit., 569-571. [181] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 571-573, 1853. [182] Ibid., pp. 574-578, 1853. [183] Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 579. [184] Ibid., pp. 580-583, 1853; Smith, letter, September 27, 1793, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 468, 1832. Ramsey gives the Indian force 1,000 warriors; Smith says that in many places they marched in files of 28 abreast, each file being supposed to number 40 men. [185] Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 584-588. [186] Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 590, 602-605, 1853. [187] Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee, pp. 300-302; Knoxville, 1823. [188] Ibid., pp. 303-308, 1823; Ramsey, op. cit., pp. 591-594. Haywood's history of this period is little more than a continuous record of killings and petty encounters. [189] Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee, p. 308, 1823; Ramsey, Tennessee, p. 594, 1853; see also memorial in Putnam, Middle Tennessee, p. 502, 1859. Haywood calls the leader Unacala, which should be Une'ga-dihi', "White-man-killer." Compare Haywood's statement with that of Washburn, on page 100. [190] Indian Treaties, pp. 39, 40, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 171, 172, 1888; Documents of 1797-98, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 628-631, 1832. The treaty is not mentioned by the Tennessee historians. [191] Haywood, Civil and Political History of Tennessee, pp. 309-311, 1823; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 594, 595, 1853. [192] Haywood, op. cit., pp. 314-316; Ramsey, op. cit., p. 596. [193] Haywood, Political and Civil History of Tennessee, pp. 392-396, 1823; Ramsey, Tennessee (with Major Ore's report), pp. 608-618, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau Ethnology, p. 171, 1888; Ore, Robertson, and Blount, reports, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 632-634, 1832. [194] Ramsey, op. cit., p. 618. [195] Tellico conference, November 7-8, 1794, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 536-538, 1832, Royce, op. cit., p. 173; Ramsey, op. cit., p. 596. [196] Beaver's talk, 1784, Virginia State Papers, III, p. 571, 1883; McDowell, report, 1786, ibid., IV, p. 118, 1884; McDowell, report, 1787, ibid., p. 286; Todd, letter, 1787, ibid., p. 277; Tellico conference, November 7, 1794, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 538, 1832; Greenville treaty conference, August, 1795, ibid., pp. 582-583. [197] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 173, 1888. [198] Ibid., pp. 174, 175; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 679-685, 1853. [199] Indian Treaties, pp. 78-82, 1837; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 692-697, 1853; Royce, Cherokee Nation (with map and full discussion), Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 174-183, 1888. [200] See table in Royce, op. cit., p. 378. [201] Adair, American Indians, pp. 230, 231, 1775. [202] See Hawkins, MS journal from South Carolina to the Creeks, 1796, in library of Georgia Historical Society. [203] Hawkins, Treaty Commission, 1801, manuscript No. 5, in library of Georgia Historical Society. [204] Foote (?), in North Carolina Colonial Records, v, p. 1226, 1887. [205] North Carolina Colonial Records, v, p. x, 1887. [206] Reichel, E. H., Historical Sketch of the Church and Missions of the United Brethren, pp. 65-81; Bethlehem, Pa., 1848; Holmes, John, Sketches of the Missions of the United Brethren, pp. 124, 125, 209-212; Dublin, 1818; Thompson, A. C., Moravian Missions, p. 341; New York, 1890; De Schweinitz, Edmund, Life of Zeisberger, pp. 394, 663, 696; Phila., 1870. [207] Morse, American Geography, I, p. 577, 1819. [208] Indian treaties, pp. 108, 121, 125, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 183, 193, 1888 (map and full discussion). [209] McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, p. 92, 1858. [210] Indian Treaties, pp. 132-136, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 193-197, 1888. [211] Meigs, letter, September 28, 1807, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, p. 754, 1832; Royce, op. cit., p. 197. [212] See treaty, December 2, 1807, and Jefferson's message, with inclosures, March 10, 1808, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 752-754, 1832; Royce, op. cit., pp. 199-201. [213] Ibid., pp. 201, 202. [214] In American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, p. 283, 1834. [215] See contract appended to Washington treaty, 1819, Indian Treaties, pp. 269-271, 1837; Royce map, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1888. [216] Author's personal information. [217] Mooney, Ghost-dance Religion, Fourteenth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 670 et passim, 1896; contemporary documents in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, pp. 798-801, 845-850, 1832. [218] See Mooney, Ghost dance Religion, Fourteenth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 670-677, 1896; McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, pp. 93-95, 1858; see also contemporary letters (1813, etc.) by Hawkins, Cornells, and others in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, I, 1832. [219] Letters of Hawkins, Pinckney, and Cussetah King, July, 1813, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 847-849, 1832. [220] Meigs, letter, May 8, 1812, and Hawkins, letter, May 11, 1812, ibid., p. 809. [221] Author's information from James D. Wafford. [222] McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, pp. 96-97, 1858. [223] Drake, Indians, pp. 395-396, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, p. 556, reprint of 1896. [224] Coffee, report, etc., in Drake, Indians, p. 396, 1880; Lossing, Field Book of the War of 1812, pp. 762, 763 [n. d. (1869)]; Pickett, Alabama, p. 553, reprint of 1896. [225] Ibid., p. 556. [226] Drake, Indians, p. 396, 1880; Pickett, op. cit., pp. 554, 555. [227] White's report, etc., in Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 240, 241; Rutland, Vt., 1815; Low, John, Impartial History of the War, p. 199; New York, 1815; Drake, op. cit., p. 397; Pickett, op. cit., p. 557; Lossing, op. cit., p. 767. Low says White had about 1,100 mounted men, "including upward of 300 Cherokee Indians." Pickett gives White 400 Cherokee. [228] Drake, Indians, pp. 391, 398, 1880; Pickett, Alabama, pp. 557-559, 572-576, reprint of 1896. [229] Ibid., p. 579; Lossing, Field Book of the War of 1812, p. 773. [230] Pay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 247-250, 1815; Pickett, Alabama, pp. 579-584, reprint of 1896; Drake, Indians, pp. 398-400, 1880. Pickett says Jackson had "767 men, with 200 friendly Indians"; Drake says he started with 930 men and was joined at Talladega by 200 friendly Indians; Jackson himself, as quoted in Fay and Davison, says that he started with 930 men, excluding Indians, and was joined at Talladega "by between 200 and 300 friendly Indians," 65 being Cherokee, the rest Creeks. The inference is that he already had a number of Indians with him at the start--probably the Cherokee who had been doing garrison duty. [231] Pickett, op. cit., pp. 584-586. [232] Jackson's report to Governor Blount, March 31, 1814, in Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 253, 254, 1815. [233] General Coffee's report to General Jackson, April 1, 1814, ibid., p. 257. [234] Colonel Morgan's report to Governor Blount, in Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 258, 259, 1815. [235] Coffee's report to Jackson, ibid., pp. 257, 258. [236] Jackson's report to Governor Blount, ibid., pp. 255, 256. [237] Jackson's report and Colonel Morgan's report, in Fay and Davison, Sketches of the War, pp. 255, 256, 259, 1815. Pickett makes the loss of the white troops 32 killed and 99 wounded. The Houston reference is from Lossing. The battle is described also by Pickett, Alabama, pp. 588-591, reprint of 1896; Drake, Indians, pp. 391, 400, 1880; McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, II, pp. 98, 99, 1858. [238] McKenney and Hall, op. cit., p. 98. [239] Drake, Indians, p. 401, 1880. [240] Indian Treaties, p. 187, 1837; Meigs' letter to Secretary of War, August 19, 1816, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 113, 114, 1834. [241] Indian Treaties, pp. 185-187, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 197-209, 1888. [242] Indian Treaties, pp. 199, 200, 1837; Royce, op. cit., pp. 209-211. [243] Claiborne, letter to Jefferson, November 5, 1808, American State Papers, I, p. 755, 1832; Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, I, p. 88, 1884. [244] Hawkins, 1799, quoted in Gatschet, op. cit., p. 89. [245] See Treaty of St Louis, 1825, and of Castor hill, 1852, in Indian Treaties, pp. 388, 539, 1837. [246] See number 107, "The Lost Cherokee." [247] See letter of Governor Estevan Miro to Robertson, April 20, 1783, in Roosevelt, Winning of the West, II, p. 407, 1889. [248] See pp. 76-77. [249] Washburn, Reminiscences, pp. 76-79, 1869; see also Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 204, 1888. [250] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 202, 203, 1888. [251] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 202-204,1888; see also Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215,1837. The preamble to the treaty of 1817 says that the delegation of 1808 had desired a division of the tribal territory in order that the people of the Upper (northern) towns might "begin the establishment of fixed laws and a regular government," while those of the Lower (southern) towns desired to remove to the West. Nothing is said of severalty allotments or citizenship. [252] Indian Treaties, pp. 209-215, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 212-217, 1888; see also maps in Royce. [253] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 217-218, 1888. [254] Ibid., pp. 218-219. [255] Ibid., p. 219. [256] Morse, Geography, I, p. 577, 1819; and p. 185, 1822. [257] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 221-222, 1888. [258] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 222-228, 1888. [259] Indian Treaties, pp. 265-269, 1837; Royce, op. cit., pp. 219-221 and table, p. 378. [260] Laws of the Cherokee Nation (several documents), 1820, American State Papers; Indian Affairs, II, pp. 279-283, 1834; letter quoted by McKenney, 1825, ibid., pp. 651, 652; Drake, Indians, pp. 437, 438, ed. 1880. [261] List or missions and reports of missionaries, etc., American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 277-279, 459, 1834; personal information from James D. Wafford concerning Valley-towns mission. For notices of Worcester, Jones, and Wafford, see Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages 1888. [262] G. C., in Cherokee Phoenix; reprinted in Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, September 26, 1828. [263] McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, I, p. 35, et passim, 1858. [264] Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, pp. 542-548, September, 1870. [265] Manuscript letters by John Mason Brown, January 17, 18, 22, and February 4, 1889, in archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. [266] McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, I, p. 45, 1858. [267] See page 43. [268] See number 89, "The Iroquois wars." [269] McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, I, p. 46, 1858; Phillips, in Harper's Magazine, p. 547, September, 1870. [270] Indian Treaties, p. 425, 1837. [271] For details concerning the life and invention of Sequoya, see McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, i, 1858; Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September 1870; Foster, Sequoyah, 1885, and Story of the Cherokee Bible, 1899, based largely on Phillips' article; G. C., Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet, in Cherokee Phoenix, republished In Christian Advocate and Journal, New York, September 26, 1828: Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, 1888. [272] G. C., Invention of the Cherokee Alphabet, op. cit. [273] (Unsigned) letter of David Brown, September 2, 1825, quoted in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, p. 652, 1834. [274] Foster, Sequoyah, pp. 120, 121, 1885. [275] Pilling, Iroquoian Bibliography, p. 21, 1888. [276] Brown letter (unsigned), in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, p. 652, 1834. [277] For extended notice of Cherokee literature and authors see numerous references in Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages, 1888; also Foster, Sequoyah, 1885, and Story of the Cherokee Bible, 1899. The largest body of original Cherokee manuscript material in existence, including hundreds of ancient ritual formulas, was obtained by the writer among the East Cherokee, and is now in possession of the Bureau of American Ethnology, to be translated at some future time. [278] Brown letter (unsigned), September 2, 1825, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 651, 652, 1834. [279] See Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 241, 1888; Meredith, in The Five Civilized Tribes, Extra Census Bulletin, p. 41, 1894; Morse, American Geography, I, p. 577, 1819 (for Hicks). [280] Fort Pitt treaty, September 17, 1778, Indian Treaties, p. 3, 1837. [281] Cherokee Agency treaty, July 8, 1817, ibid., p. 209; Drake, Indians, p. 450, ed. 1880; Johnson in Senate Report on Territories; Cherokee Memorial, January 18, 1831; see laws of 1808, 1810, and later, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 279-283, 1834. The volume of Cherokee laws, compiled in the Cherokee language by the Nation, in 1850, begins with the year 1808. [282] Personal information from James D. Wafford. So far as is known this rebellion of the conservatives has never hitherto been noted in print. [283] See Resolutions of Honor, in Laws of the Cherokee Nation, pp. 187-140, 1868; Meredith, in The Five Civilized Tribes, Extra Census Bulletin, p. 41, 1894; Appleton, Cyclopedia of American Biography. [284] See fourth article of "Articles of agreement and cession," April 24, 1802, in American State Papers: class VIII, Public Lands, I, quoted also by Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 103, 1864. [285] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 231-233, 1888. [286] Cherokee correspondence, 1823 and 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 468-473, 1834; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 236-237, 1888. [287] Cherokee memorial, February 11, 1824, in American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 473, 494, 1834; Royce, op. cit., p. 237. [288] Letters of Governor Troup of Georgia, February 28, 1824, and of Georgia delegates, March 10, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 475, 477, 1834; Royce, op. cit., pp. 237, 238. [289] Monroe, message to the Senate, with Calhoun's report, March 30, 1824, American State Papers: Indian Affairs, II, pp. 460, 462, 1834. [290] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 241, 242, 1888. [291] Personal information from J. D. Wafford. [292] Nitze, H. B. C., in Twentieth Annual Report United States Geological Survey, part 6 (Mineral Resources), p. 112, 1899. [293] See Butler letter, quoted in Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 297, 1888; see also Everett, speech in the House of Representatives on May 31, 1838, pp. 16-17, 32-33, 1839. [294] For extracts and synopses of these acts see Royce, op. cit., pp. 259-264; Drake, Indians, pp. 438-456, 1880; Greeley, American Conflict, I, pp. 105, 106, 1864; Edward Everett, speech in the House of Representatives, February 14, 1831 (lottery law). The gold lottery is also noted incidentally by Lanman, Charles, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 10; New York, 1849, and by Nitze, in his report on the Georgia gold fields, in the Twentieth Annual Report of the United States Geological Survey, part 6 (Mineral Resources), p. 112, 1899. The author has himself seen in a mountain village in Georgia an old book titled "The Cherokee Land and Gold Lottery," containing maps and plats covering the whole Cherokee country of Georgia, with each lot numbered, and descriptions of the water courses, soil, and supposed mineral veins. [295] Speech of May 19, 1830, Washington; printed by Gales & Seaton, 1830. [296] Speech in the Senate of the United States, April 16, 1830; Washington, Peter Force, printer, 1830. [297] See Cherokee Memorial to Congress, January 18, 1831. [298] Personal information from Prof. Clinton Duncan, of Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, whose father's house was the one thus burned. [299] Cherokee Memorial to Congress January 18, 1831. [300] Ibid.; see also speech of Edward Everett in House of Representatives February 14, 1831; report of the select committee of the senate of Massachusetts upon the Georgia resolutions, Boston, 1831; Greeley, American Conflict, I, p. 106, 1864; Abbott, Cherokee Indians in Georgia; Atlanta Constitution, October 27, 1889. [301] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 261, 262, 1888. [302] Ibid., p. 262. [303] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 264-266, 1888; Drake, Indians, pp. 454-457,1880; Greeley, American Conflict, I, 106, 1864. [304] Drake, Indians, p. 458, 1880. [305] Royce, op. cit., pp. 262-264, 272, 273. [306] Ibid., pp.274, 275. [307] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Report Bureau of Ethnology, p. 276, 1888. [308] Commissioner Elbert Herring, November 25, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 240, 1834; author's personal information from Major R. C. Jackson and J. D. Wafford. [309] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 278-280, 1888; Everett speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838, pp. 28, 29, 1839, in which the Secretary's reply is given in full. [310] Royce, op. cit., pp. 280-281. [311] Ibid., p. 281. [312] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit. (Ross arrest), p. 281; Drake, Indians (Ross, Payne, Phoenix), p. 459, 1880; see also Everett speech of May 31, 1838, op. cit. [313] Royce, op. cit., pp. 281, 282; see also Everett speech, 1838. [314] See Fort Gibson treaty, 1833, p. 142. [315] See New Echota treaty, 1835, and Fort Gibson treaty, 1833, Indian Treaties, pp. 633-648 and 561-565, 1837; also, for full discussion of both treaties, Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 249-298. For a summary of all the measures of pressure brought to bear upon the Cherokee up to the final removal see also Everett, speech in the House of Representatives, May 31, 1838; the chapters on "Expatriation of the Cherokees," Drake, Indians, 1880; and the chapter on "State Rights--Nullification," in Greeley, American Conflict, I, 1864. The Georgia side of the controversy is presented in E. J. Harden's Life of (Governor) George M. Troup, 1849. [316] Royce, op. cit., p. 289. The Indian total is also given in the Report of the Indian Commissioner, p. 369, 1836. [317] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., pp. 283, 284; Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 285, 286, 1836. [318] Quoted by Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., pp. 284-285; quoted also, with some verbal differences, by Everett, speech in House of Representatives on May 31, 1838. [319] Quoted in Royce, op. cit., p. 286. [320] Letter of General Wool, September 10, 1836, in Everett, speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838. [321] Letter of June 30, 1836, to President Jackson, in Everett, speech in the House of Representatives, May 31, 1838. [322] Quoted by Everett, ibid.; also by Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 286. [323] Letter of J. M. Mason, jr., to Secretary of War, September 25, 1837, in Everett, speech in House of Representatives, May 31, 1838; also quoted in extract by Royce, op. cit., pp. 286-287. [324] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit. pp. 287, 289. [325] Ibid., pp. 289, 290. [326] Ibid., p. 291. The statement of the total number of troops employed is from the speech of Everett in the House of Representatives, May 31, 1838, covering the whole question of the treaty. [327] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 291. [328] Ibid, p. 291. [329] The notes on the Cherokee round-up and Removal are almost entirely from author's information as furnished by actors in the events, both Cherokee and white, among whom may be named the late Colonel W. H. Thomas; the late Colonel Z. A. Zile, of Atlanta, of the Georgia volunteers; the late James Bryson, of Dillsboro, North Carolina, also a volunteer; James D. Wafford, of the western Cherokee Nation, who commanded one of the emigrant detachments; and old Indians, both east and west, who remembered the Removal and had heard the story from their parents. Charley's story is a matter of common note among the East Cherokee, and was heard in full detail from Colonel Thomas and from Wasitûna ("Washington"), Charley's youngest son, who alone was spared by General Scott on account of his youth. The incident is also noted, with some slight inaccuracies, in Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains. See p. 157. [330] Author's personal information, as before cited. [331] As quoted in Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 292, 1888, the disbursing agent makes the number unaccounted for 1,428; the receiving agent, who took charge of them on their arrival, makes it 1,645. [332] Agent Stokes to Secretary of War, June 24, 1839, in Report Indian Commissioner, p. 355, 1839; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 293, 1888; Drake, Indians, pp. 459-460, 1880; author's personal information. The agent's report incorrectly makes the killings occur on three different days. [333] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., pp. 294, 295. [334] Council resolutions, August 23, 1839, in Report Indian Commissioner, p. 387, 1839; Royce, op. cit., p. 294. [335] See "Act of Union" and "Constitution" in Constitution and Laws of the Cherokee Nation, 1875; General Arbuckle's letter to the Secretary of War, June 28, 1840, in Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 46, 1840; also Royce, op. cit., pp. 294, 295. [336] See ante, pp. 105-106; Nuttall, who was on the ground, gives them only 1,500. [337] Washburn, Cephas, Reminiscences of the Indians, pp. 81, 103; Richmond, 1869. [338] Nuttall, Journal of Travels into the Arkansas Territory, etc., p. 129; Philadelphia, 1821. [339] Ibid., pp. 123-136. The battle mentioned seems to be the same noted somewhat differently by Washburn, Reminiscences, p. 120; 1869. [340] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 222. [341] Washburn, op. cit., p. 160, and personal information from J. D. Wafford. [342] Royce, op. cit., pp. 242, 243; Washburn, op. cit., pp. 112-122 et passim; see also sketches of Tahchee and Tooantuh or Spring-frog, in McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, I and II, 1858. [343] Washburn, Reminiscences, p. 178, 1869; see also ante p. 206. [344] Ibid, p. 138. [345] See Treaty of 1817, Indian Treaties, 1837. [346] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Report Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 243, 244, 1888. [347] Ibid, p. 243. [348] Author's personal information; see p. 143. [349] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 245. [350] Ibid., pp. 247, 248. [351] Treaty of Washington, May 6, 1828, Indian Treaties, pp. 423-428, 1837; treaty of Port Gibson, 1833, ibid., pp. 561-565; see also for synopsis, Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 229, 230, 1888. [352] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 248, 1888. [353] For a sketch of Tahchee, with portraits, see McKenney and Hall, I, pp. 251-260, 1858; Catlin, North American Indians, II, pp. 121, 122, 1844. Wash burn also mentions the emigration to Texas consequent upon the treaty of 1828 (Reminiscences, p. 217, 1869). [354] Treaties at Fort Gibson, February 14, 1833, with Creeks and Cherokee, in Indian Treaties, pp. 561-569, 1837. [355] Treaty of 1833, Indian Treaties, pp. 561-565, 1837; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 249-253, 1888; see also Treaty of New Echota, 1835, ante, pp. 123-125. [356] Author's personal information. In 1891 the author opened two Uchee graves on the grounds of Cornelius Boudinot, at Tahlequah, finding with one body a number of French, Spanish, and American silver coins wrapped in cloth and deposited in two packages on each side of the head. They are now in the National Museum at Washington. [357] Bonnell, Topographic Description of Texas, p. 141; Austin, 1840; Thrall, History of Texas, p. 58; New York, 1876. [358] Author's personal information from J. D. Wafford and other old Cherokee residents and from recent Cherokee delegates. Bancroft agrees with Bonnell and Thrall that no grant was formally issued, but states that the Cherokee chief established his people in Texas "confiding in promises made to him, and a conditional agreement in 1822" with the Spanish governor (History of the North Mexican States and Texas, II, p. 103, 1889). It is probable that the paper carried by Bowl was the later Houston treaty. See next page. [359] Thrall, op. cit., p. 58. [360] Thrall, Texas, p. 46, 1879. [361] Bonnell, Texas, pp. 142, 143, 1840. [362] Ibid., p. 143, 1840. [363] Bonnell, Texas, pp. 143, 144. [364] Ibid., pp. 144, 146. [365] Thrall, Texas, pp. 116-168, 1876. [366] Bonnell, op. cit., pp. 146-150; Thrall, op. cit., pp. 118-120. [367] Author's personal information from J. D. Wafford and other old western Cherokee, and recent Cherokee delegates; by some this is said to have been a Mexican patent, but it is probably the one given by Texas. See ante, p. 143. [368] Thrall, Texas, p. 120, 1876. [369] Author's personal information from Mexican and Cherokee sources. [370] W. A. Phillips, Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September, 1870; Foster, Sequoyah, 1885; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 302, 1888; letter of William P. Ross, former editor of Cherokee Advocate, March 11, 1889, in archives of Bureau of American Ethnology; Cherokee Advocate, October 19, 1844, November 2, 1844, and March 6, 1845; author's personal information. San Fernando seems to have been a small village in Chihuahua, but is not shown on the maps. [371] For full discussion see Royce, op. cit., pp. 298-312. [372] Pilling, Bibliography of the Iroquoian Languages (bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology), p. 174, 1888. [373] See treaties with Cherokee, October 7, 1861, and with other tribes, in Confederate States Statutes at Large, 1864; Royce, op. cit., pp. 324-328; Greeley, American Conflict, II, pp. 30-34, 1866; Reports of Indian Commissioner for 1860 to 1862. [374] In this battle the Confederates were assisted by from 4,000 to 5,000 Indians of the southern tribes, including the Cherokee, under command of General Albert Pike. [375] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 329, 330, 1888. [376] Ibid, p. 331. [377] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 376. [378] Ibid., p. 376. A census of 1807 gives them 13,566 (ibid., p. 351). [379] See synopsis and full discussion in Royce, op. cit., pp. 334-340. [380] Act of Citizenship, November 7, 1865, Laws of the Cherokee Nation, p. 119; St. Louis, 1868. [381] See Resolutions of Honor, ibid., pp. 137-140. [382] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 356-358, 1888; Constitution and Laws of the Cherokee Nation, pp. 277-284; St. Louis, 1875. [383] Royce, op. cit., p. 367. [384] Foster, Sequoyah, pp. 147, 148, 1885; Pilling, Iroquoian Bibliography, 1888, articles "Cherokee Advocate" and "John B. Jones." The schoolbook series seems to have ended with the arithmetic--cause, as the Cherokee national superintendent of schools explained to the author, "too much white man." [385] Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. lxv, 1881, and p. lxx, 1882; see also p. 175. [386] Report of Indian Commissioner, p. lxv, 1883. [387] Commissioner J. D. C. Atkins, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. xlv, 1886, and p. lxxvii, 1887. [388] Agent L. E. Bennett, in Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 93, 1890. [389] Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 22, 1889. [390] See proclamation by President Harrison and order from Indian Commissioner in Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxxii-lxxiii, 421-422, 1890. The lease figures are from personal information. [391] Commissioner T. J. Morgan, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 79-80, 1892. [392] Commissioner D. M. Browning, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 33-34, 1893. [393] Quotation from act, etc., Report of Indian Commissioner for 1894, p. 27, 1895. [394] Report of Agent D. M. Wisdom, ibid., p. 141. [395] Ibid., and statistical table, p. 570. [396] Report of Agent D. M. Wisdom, ibid., p. 145. [397] Agent D. M. Wisdom, in Report Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 155, 1896. [398] Commissioner D. M. Browning, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 81, 1896. [399] Report of Agent D. M. Wisdom, Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, pp. 159, 160, 1896. [400] Letter of A. E. Ivy, Secretary of the Board of Education, in Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 161, 1896. The author can add personal testimony as to the completeness of the seminary establishment. [401] Report of Agent Wisdom, ibid., p. 162. [402] Letter of Bird Harris, May 31, 1895, in Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 160, 1896. [403] Synopsis of Curtis act, pp. 75-79, and Curtis act in full, p. 425 et seq., in Report of Indian Commissioner for 1898; noted also in Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 84 et seq., 1899. [404] Commissioner W. A. Jones, ibid., pp. i, 84 et seq. (Curtis act and Dawes commission). [405] Report of Agent D. M. Wisdom, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 141-144, 1897. [406] Author's personal information; see also House bill No. 1165 "for the relief of certain Indians in Indian Territory," etc., Fifty-sixth Congress, first session, 1900. [407] Report of Agent D. M. Wisdom, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 159, 1898. [408] See page 131. [409] Charley's story as here given is from the author's personal information, derived chiefly from conversations with Colonel Thomas and with Wasitû'na and other old Indians. An ornate but somewhat inaccurate account is given also in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, written on the ground ten years after the events described. The leading facts are noted in General Scott's official dispatches. [410] See New Echota treaty, December 29, 1835, and supplementary articles, March 1, 1836, in Indian Treaties, pp. 633-648, 1837; also full discussion of same treaty in Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1888. [411] Royce, op. cit., p. 292. [412] Ibid., p. 314. [413] In the Cherokee language Tsiskwâ'hi, "Bird place," Ani'-Wâ'dihi, "Paint place," Wa`yâ'hi, "Wolf place," E'lawâ'di, "Red earth" (now Cherokee post-office and agency), and Kâlanûñ'yi, "Raven place." There was also, for a time, a "Pretty-woman town" (Ani'-Gilâ'hi?). [414] The facts concerning Colonel Thomas's career are derived chiefly from the author's conversations with Thomas himself, supplemented by information from his former assistant, Capt. James W. Terrell, and others who knew him, together with an admirable sketch in the North Carolina University Magazine for May 1899, by Mrs. A. C. Avery, his daughter. He is also frequently noticed, in connection with East Cherokee matters, in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; in the North Carolina Confederate Roster; in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains; and in Zeigler and Grosscup's Heart of the Alleghanies, etc. Some manuscript contributions to the library of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah--now unfortunately mislaid--show his interest in Cherokee linguistics. [415] The facts concerning Yonaguska are based on the author's personal information obtained from Colonel Thomas, supplemented from conversations with old Indians. The date of his death and his approximate age are taken from the Terrell roll. He is also noticed at length in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, 1848, and in Zeigler and Grosscup's Heart of the Alleghanies, 1883. The trance which, according to Thomas and Lanman, lasted about one day, is stretched by the last-named authors to fifteen days, with the whole 1,200 Indians marching and countermarching around the sleeping body! [416] The name in the treaties occurs as Yonahequah (1798), Yohanaqua (1805), and Yonah, (1819).--Indian Treaties, pp. 82, 123, 268; Washington, 1837. [417] The name refers to something habitually falling from a leaning position. [418] Act quoted in Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 636, 1896. [419] The facts concerning Junaluska are from the author's information obtained from Colonel Thomas, Captain James Terrell, and Cherokee informants. [420] Author's information from Colonel Thomas. [421] Commissioner Crawford, November 25, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 333, 1839. [422] Author's information from Colonel Thomas, Captain Terrell, and Indian sources; Commissioner W. Medill, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 399, 1848; Commissioner Orlando Brown, Report of Indian Commissioner for 1849, p. 14, 1850. [423] Synopsis of the treaty, etc., in Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 300-313, 1888; see also ante, p. 148. [424] Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, pp. 94-95, 1849. [425] Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, p. 111. [426] See act quoted in "The United States of America v. William H, Thomas et al."; also Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 313, 1888. In the earlier notices the terms "North Carolina Cherokee" and "Eastern Cherokee" are used synonymously, as the original fugitives were all in North Carolina. [427] See Royce, op. cit., pp. 313-314; Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. li, 1884; Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 495, 1898; also references by Commissioner W. Medill, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 399, 1848; and Report of Indian Commissioner for 1855, p. 255, 1856. [428] Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. cit., p. 313 and note. [429] Report of the Indian Commissioner, pp. 459-460, 1845. [430] Commissioner Crawford, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 3, 1842. [431] Royce, op. cit., p. 314. [432] The history of the events leading to the organization of the "Thomas Legion" is chiefly from the author's conversations with Colonel Thomas himself, corroborated and supplemented from other sources. In the words of Thomas, "If it had not been for the Indians I would not have been in the war." [433] This is believed to be a correct statement of the strength and make-up of the Thomas Legion. Owing to the imperfection of the records and the absence of reliable memoranda among the surviving officers, no two accounts exactly coincide. The roll given in the North Carolina Confederate Roster, handed in by Captain Terrell, assistant quartermaster, was compiled early in the war and contains no notice of the engineer company or of the second infantry regiment; which included two other Indian companies. The information therein contained is supplemented from conversations and personal letters of Captain Terrell, and from letters and newspaper articles by Lieutenant-Colonel Stringfield of the Sixty-ninth. Another statement is given in Mrs Avery's sketch of Colonel Thomas in the North Carolina University Magazine for May, 1899. [434] Personal Information from Colonel W. H. Thomas, Lieutenant-Colonel W. W. Stringfield, Captain James W. Terrell, Chief N. J. Smith (first sergeant Company B), and others, with other details from Moore's (Confederate) Roster of North Carolina Troops, IV; Raleigh, 1882; also list of survivors in 1890, by Carrington, in Eastern Band of Cherokees, Extra Bulletin of Eleventh Census, p. 21, 1892. [435] Thomas-Terrell manuscript East Cherokee roll, with accompanying letters, 1864 (Bur. Am. Eth. archives). [436] Personal information from Colonel W. H. Thomas, Captain J. W. Terrell, Chief N. J. Smith, and others; see also Carrington, Eastern Band of Cherokees, Extra Bulletin of Eleventh Census, p. 21, 1892. [437] Author's information from Colonel Thomas and others. Various informants have magnified the number of deaths to several hundred, but the estimate here given, obtained from Thomas, is probably more reliable. [438] Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 314, 1888. [439] Commissioner F. A. Walker, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 26, 1872. [440] Royce, op. cit., p. 353. [441] Constitution, etc., quoted in Carrington, Eastern Band of Cherokees, Extra Bulletin Eleventh Census, pp. 18-20, 1892; author's personal information. [442] See award of arbitrators, Rufus Barringer, John H. Dillard, and T. Ruffin, with full statement, in Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians against W. T. Thomas et al. H. R. Ex. Doc. 128, 53d Cong., 2d sess., 1894; summary in Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 315-318, 1888. [443] See Royce, op. cit., pp. 315-318; Commissioner T. J. Morgan, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. xxix, 1890. The final settlement, under the laws of North Carolina, was not completed until 1894. [444] Royce, op. cit., pp. 315-318; Carrington, Eastern Band of Cherokees, with map of Temple survey, Extra Bulletin of Eleventh Census, 1892. [445] Report of Agent W. C. McCarthy, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 343-344, 1875; and Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 118-119, 1876. [446] Author's personal information; see also Carrington, Eastern Band of Cherokees; Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 35-36, 1883. [447] Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxiv-lxv, 1881, and Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxix-lxx, 1882; see also ante, p. 151. [448] See Commissioner T. J. Morgan, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 141-145, 1892; author's personal information from B. C. Hobbs, Chief N. J. Smith, and others. For further notice of school growth see also Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 426-427, 1897. [449] Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 36-42, 1883. [450] Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxix-lxx, 1882. [451] Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. li-lii, 1884. [452] Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxix-lxxi, 1882, also "Indian legislation," ibid., p. 214; Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. lxv-lxvi, 1883. [453] Commissioner J. D. C. Atkins, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. lxx, 1885. [454] Same commissioner, Report of the Indian Commissioner, p. xlv, 1886; decision quoted by same commissioner, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. lxxvii, 1887. [455] Same commissioner, Report of the Indian Commissioner, p. li, 1886; reiterated by him in Report for 1887, p. lxxvii. [456] See act in full, Report of Indian Commissioner, vol. I, pp. 680-681, 1891. [457] From author's personal acquaintance; see also Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 38-39, 1883; Agent J. L. Holmes, in Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 160, 1885; Commissioner T. J. Morgan, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 142, 1892; Moore, Roster of the North Carolina Troops, IV, 1882. [458] Commissioner D. M. Browning, Report of Indian Commissioner for 1894, pp. 81-82, 1895; also Agent T. W. Potter, ibid., p. 398. [459] Agent T. W. Potter, Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 387, 1896. [460] Agent J. C. Hart, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 208, 1897. [461] Agent J. C. Hart, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 218-219, 1898. [462] At the recent election in November, 1900, they were debarred by the local polling officers from either registering or voting, and the matter is now being contested. [463] American Anthropologist, vol. XI, July, 1898. [464] See page 20. [465] Adair, American Indians, p. 81, 1775. [466] Lawson, Carolina, 67-68, reprint 1860. [467] Harris, J. C., Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, p. 29; New York, 1886. [468] For a presentation of the African and European argument see Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus, introduction, 1883; and Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings, introduction, 1886; Gerber, Uncle Remus Traced to the Old World, in Journal of American Folklore, VI, p. 23, October, 1893. In regard to tribal dissemination of myths see Boas, Dissemination of Tales among the Natives of North America, in Journal of American Folklore, IV, p. 12, January, 1891; The Growth of Indian Mythologies, in the same journal, IX, p. 32, January 1896; Northern Elements in the Mythology of the Navaho, in American Anthropologist, X, p. 11, November, 1897; introduction to Teit's Traditions of the Thompson River Indians, 1898. Dr Boas has probably devoted more study to the subject than any other anthropologist, and his personal observations include tribes from the Arctic regions to the Columbia. [469] See contemporary notice in the Historical Sketch. [470] See "The Daughter of the Sun." [471] See the next story. [472] "The Onondagas retain the custody of the wampums of the Five Nations, and the keeper of the wampums, Thomas Webster, of the Snipe tribe, a consistent, thorough pagan, is their interpreter. Notwithstanding the claims made that the wampums can be read as a governing code of law, it is evident that they are simply monumental reminders of preserved traditions, without any literal details whatever. "The first [of this] group from left to right, represents a convention of the Six Nations at the adoption of the Tuscaroras into the league; the second, the Five Nations, upon seven strands, illustrates a treaty with seven Canadian tribes before the year 1600; the third signifies the guarded approach of strangers to the councils of the Five Nations (a guarded gate, with a long, white path leading to the inner gate, where the Five Nations are grouped, with the Onondagas in the center and a safe council house behind all); the fourth represents a treaty when but four of the Six Nations were represented, and the fifth embodies the pledge of seven Canadian christianized nations to abandon their crooked ways and keep an honest peace (having a cross for each tribe, and with a zigzag line below, to indicate that their ways had been crooked but would ever after be as sacred as the cross). Above this group is another, claiming to bear date about 1608, when Champlain joined the Algonquins against the Iroquois."--Carrington, in Six Nations of New York, Extra Bulletin, Eleventh Census, pp. 33-34, 1892. [473] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. of Tennessee, pp. 222-224, 1823. [474] Ibid, p. 241. [475] Ibid, p. 222. [476] Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, p. 160, 1847. [477] Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 88, reprint of 1876. [478] Brinton, Lenape and Their Legends, p. 130 et passim, 1885; Schoolcraft, Notes on Iroquois, pp. 147, 305 et passim, 1847; Heckewelder, Indian Nations, pp. 47-50, ed. 1876. [479] Heckewelder, op. cit., p. 54. [480] Loskiel, History of the [Moravian] Mission, pp. 124-127; London, 1794. [481] Heckewelder, Indian Nations, pp. 88-89, 1876. [482] See Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. of Tennessee, pp. 220, 224, 237, 1823. [483] North Carolina Colonial Records, III, pp. 153, 202, 345, 369, 393, 1886. [484] Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology), pp. 56, 61, 1894. [485] Catawba MS from South Carolina official archives. Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes, III, pp. 293-4, 1853. [486] Ibid., p. 294, 1853. [487] Royce, The Cherokee Nation of Indians, in Fifth Report of Bureau of Ethnology. pp. 205-208, 266-272, 1887; also (for 1783) Bartram, Travels, p. 483, 1792. [488] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 241, 1823. Bullhead may be intended for Doublehead, an old Cherokee name. [489] Mooney, The Cherokee Ball Play, in The American Anthropologist, III, p. 107, April, 1890. [490] Bartram, Travels, p. 518, 1791. [491] Adair, History of American Indians, pp. 227, 247, 252-256, 270, 276-279, 1775. [492] Ramsey, Annals of Tennessee, pp. 81, 84, 1853. [493] Mooney, Siouan Tribes of the East (bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology), p. 83, 1894. [494] Bienville, quoted in Gayarré, Louisiana. [495] Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, pp. 105-107, 1823. For a sketch of the Natchez war and the subsequent history of the scattered fragments of the tribe, see the author's paper, The End of the Natchez, in the American Anthropologist for July, 1899. [496] Adair, History of American Indians, p. 257, 1775. The other statements concerning the Taskigi among the Creeks are taken from Gatschet's valuable study, A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians, I, pp. 122, 145, 228, 1884. [497] Haywood, Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, p. 24, 1823. From a contemporary reference in Rivers, South Carolina, page 57, it appears that this war was in full progress in 1757. [498] Margry, quoted in Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend, I, pp. 16, 87, 1884. [499] Wasash, French Ouasage, corrupted by the Americans into Osage. [500] Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 266. [501] MacGowan, Dr D. J., Indian Secret Societies, Historical Magazine, X, p. 139, 1866. Morrisania, N. Y. [502] Haywood, Nat. and Aborig. Hist. Tenn., p. 239. [503] Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, pages 41-42. [504] Gatschet, Some Mythic Stories of the Yuchi Indians, in American Anthropologist, VI, p. 281, July, 1893. [505] Asher & Co., Berlin, 1895. [506] Antiquities of the Cherokee Indians, compiled from the collection of Reverend Sabin Buttrick, their missionary from 1817 to 1847, as presented in the Indian Chieftain; Vinita, Indian Territory, 1884. [507] Buttrick, Antiquities of the Cherokee Indians, pp. 9-10. [508] Schoolcraft, Notes on the Iroquois, p. 359, 1847. [509] Buttrick, op. cit., p. 10. [510] Travels, pp. 449-450. [511] W. O. Tuggle, Myths of the Creeks, MS, 1887. Copy in archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. [512] A. S. Gatschet, Some Mythic Stories of the Yuchi Indians, in American Anthropologist, VI, p. 281, July, 1893. [513] Antiquities. [514] E. G. Squier, The Serpent Symbol and the Worship of the Reciprocal Principles of Nature in America (Am. Archæological Researches, 1); New York, 1851. [515] Rev. Wm. W. Gill, Myths and Songs from the South Pacific, with a preface by F. Max Müller; London, 1876, pp. 18, 21, 58, 71. [516] G. E. Foster, Sequoyah, the American Cadmus and Modern Moses; Philadelphia, Indian Rights Association, 1885. [517] Historical Sketches of the Cherokees, together with some of their Customs, Traditions, and Superstitions, by Wahnenauhi, a Cherokee Indian; MS in archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology. [518] Frank Russell, Myths of the Jicarilla Apaches, in Journal of Am. Folklore, October, 1898. [519] H. R. Schoolcraft, Algic Researches, Comprising Inquiries Respecting the Mental Characteristics of the North American Indians; first series, Indian Tales and Legends (two volumes); New York, 1839. [520] The Dhegiha Language, in Contributions to North American Ethnology, VI (Department of the Interior, U. S. Geographical and Geological Survey of the Rocky Mountain Region. J. W. Powell in charge), Washington, D. C. [521] League of the Iroquois, pp. 161, 102, and 199. [522] Hewitt, Cosmogonic Gods of the Iroquois, in Proc. Am. Ass. Adv. Sci., XLIV, 1895. [523] History of Carolina, ed. 1860, p. 35. [524] Traditions of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia, collected and annotated by James Teit, with introduction by Franz Boas (Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, VI); Boston and New York, 1898, p. 74. [525] Memoirs, p. 77. [526] History of the American Indians, p. 401. [527] Erminnie Smith, Myths of the Iroquois, in Second Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, p. 80. [528] Teit, Thompson River Traditions, p. 61. [529] Josiah Gregg, The Commerce of the Prairies, or The Journal of a Santa Fe Trader During Eight Expeditions across the Great Western Prairies and a Residence of Nearly Nine Years in Northern Mexico; vol. II, pp. 239-240; New York and London, 1844. [530] Francis Parkman, The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century, second edition, p. lxxxiii (quoting Le Clerc); Boston, 1867. [531] Teit, Thompson River Traditions, p. 85. [532] Alfred Wiedemann, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians; New York, 1897, p. 55. [533] Heli Chatelain, Folktales of Angola: Fifty Tales, with Ki-mbundu text, literal English translation, introduction, and notes (Memoirs of the American Folk-Lore Society, I); Boston and New York. 1894. [534] Memoirs of American Folk-Lore Society, V; Boston and New York, 1897. [535] J. W. Bouton, Bible Myths and their Parallels in Other Religions; 2d ed., New York, 1883; Bible Folklore, A Study in Comparative Mythology; New York, 1884. [536] The Myths of the New World, A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America; 3d ed., Philadelphia, 1896. [537] Heckewelder, Indian Nations, p. 254, ed. 1876. [538] Henry, Travels and Adventures in Canada, etc., pp. 212-213, New York, 1809. [539] G. B. Grinnell, Pawnee Hero Stories and Folktales, with Notes on the Origin, Customs, and Character of the Pawnee People; New York, 1889, pp. 358-359. [540] Joel C. Harris, Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings; New York, 1886. [541] J. C. Harris, Nights with Uncle Remus: Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation; Boston, 1883. [542] C. G. Leland, Algonquin Legends of New England, p. 212; Boston, 1884. [543] History of the American Indians, p. 30. [544] J. E. Holbrook, North American Herpetology, or a Description of the Reptiles inhabiting the United States, II, p. 119; Phila., 1842. [545] J. G. M. Ramsey, The Annals of Tennessee to the end of the Eighteenth Century, etc., Philadelphia, 1853. [546] Buckingham Smith, Letter of Hernando de Soto and Memoir of Hernando de Escalante, translated from the Spanish; Washington, 1854, p. 46. [547] Manuscript Journal, 1796, with Georgia Historical Society, Savannah. [548] Dr Elias Boudinot, A Star in the West, or a Humble Attempt to Discover the Long Lost Ten Tribes of Israel, Preparatory to Their Return to Their Beloved City, Jerusalem; Trenton, N. J., 1816. [549] J. M. Stanley, Portraits of North American Indians, with sketches of scenery, etc., painted by J. M. Stanley, deposited with the Smithsonian Institution. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, December, 1852; pp. 18-22. The Stanley account was not seen by the present author until after the Wafford tradition was in proofs.