stock, and speaking, with but few varieties, the same language. The Chicasas occupied the northern, and the Choctaws the southern part of that territory. The Chicasas were warlike and in a state of hostility with the Cherokees, the Illinois, the Arkansas, and occasionally even with the Choctaws. The Arkansas and especially the Illinois were the steadfast allies of the French. Enterprising British traders from South Carolina reached at an early date the Chicasa country. And owing to those two causes, they became the firm allies of the English, and the inveterate enemies of the French. It was in vain that these invaded their territory, in 1736, by the Tombigbee, and in 1740, from the Mississippi. The Chicasas repelled the invaders and granted at last only a precarious peace. They adhered to the British during the war of Independence; but they have never committed any hostilities against the Americans since the year 1783. Their continued wars had considerably lessened their numbers. Tonti, the first European who met with them, but who had no opportunity of ascertaining their number, estimated their warriors, in 1682, at two thousand. Adair, who resided many years amongst them, says, that in 1763, they were reduced to four hundred and fifty; which would give at most a population of eighteen hundred souls. According to the late War Department estimate they now amount to five thousand four hundred and twenty-nine. There is no doubt of the increase of the southern Indians during the last forty years; but it is probable that Adair had underrated their number. An arrangement is in train for a cession of their territory in exchange for lands west of the Mississippi. The vocabulary of their language was written in my presence by an intelligent boy of their nation, who was living with Colonel McKinney, then at the head of the Indian bureau of the War Department, and who spoke and wrote English with great facility. His orthography may in some respects be defective; but it is, on the whole, one of the most authentic vocabularies we possess. Although the separation of the Chicasas from the Choctaws must have taken place long ago, the language is still almost the same, and differs more in the pronunciation than in the words. They understand each other without interpreters. The tradition of the Chicasas is that they came from the west. The Choctaws have lost the recollection of a former migration, and, like the Muskhogees, say that they came from under the ground.* The Choctaws, properly Chahtas, called also " Flat Heads," on account of the practice, common to several other tribes, of flattening the head in infancy by artificial means, are a much more numerous but less warlike people. Adair, whose estimate of the character of the Indians depends on their political connexions with the English or French, represents the Choctaws as the most worthless of any of the southern tribes. The early French writers complain of their fickleness, and that they could not place confidence in their fidelity. According to Bernard Romans, they were farther advanced in civilization than any of their neighbours, less cruel towards their prisoners, and applying more to agriculture than to the chase. "The Choctaws may more properly be called a nation of farmers than any savages I have met with.” They help their wives in the labor of the fields and many other works." "Their way of life in general may be called industrious; they will do what no other uncompelled savage will do, that is, work in the field to raise grain." It is certain that the Europeans have no right to complain of them. They have had successively for neighbours the French, the Spanish, the English, and the Americans; and they have never been at war with any of them. Their principal wars have been with the Creeks, always defensive and not very sanguinary. In a conflict of six years (1765 1771), they lost about three hundred people.‡ B. Romans estimated their warriors, in 1772, at less than three thousand, which does not differ materially from Adair's account. cording to the enumeration by the War Department, they now amount to eighteen thousand five hundred souls. They have agreed to take lands west of the Mississippi in exchange for their ancient territory; and about fifteen thousand have already removed to that new country. Ac The Choctaw or Chicasa language is by Du Pratz called the Molilian, a common language (langue vulgaire); and the intercourse of the French with other tribes was generally carried on by the means of Choctaw interpreters. A grammar of the language has been prepared by our missionaries and will *Bernard Romans and Du Pratz. The latter writer (Hist. de Louisiane) explains the tradition by supposing that they invaded the country in great numbers. ,83. Ibid. +B, Romans, Nat. Hist. Florida. (New York, 1776.) pp. 71, 8 shortly be published. In the mean while, some of its principal features have been disclosed in their spelling-book, or may be deduced from the appended verbal forms and annotations, supplied by Mr. Alfred Wright, but in which he was (I believe) assisted by the Missionaries. Similar in its general structure to the other Indian languages which have been examined, its system of inflexions is more simple and uniform than any other; and the mode of compounding words in many respects more similar to that used in our own languages. It appears therefore to be the least difficult to be acquired by an European; which accounts for its having been adopted by the French as a general medium of intercourse with all the other adjacent Indian tribes. The annexed vocabularies were extracted partly from the Missionaries' spelling-book,* chiefly from the copious one transmitted by Mr. Wright. The affinities between the Choctaw and the Muskhogee were such as to make it a matter of doubt, whether they should not be considered as belonging to the same family. The appended vocabularies of both are copious, yet not perhaps sufficient to decide the question. The short comparative one of the two languages shows in one view the most striking of those affinities. I think them sufficient to prove a common origin; but, in compliance with received opinions, they have been arranged in the vocabulary as forming two families. The four great southern nations, according to the estimates of the War Department which have been quoted and are in that quarter very correct, consist now of sixty-seven thousand souls viz. the Cherokees the Choctaws the Chicasas 18,500 the Muskhogees, Seminoles, and Hitchittees the Uchees, Alibamons, Coosadas, and Natches 15,000 24,000 26,000 2,000 The territory west of the Mississippi, given or offered to them by the United States, in exchange for their lands east of that river, contains forty millions of acres, exclusively of what * First edition. A copy of the second improved edition could not be obtained. may be allotted to the Chicasas. Government defrays the expenses of the removal, pays the value of their improvements, and allows them considerable annuities. Our knowledge of those nations, derived from English and French writers, does not ascend higher than the end of the seventeenth century; and doubts have been entertained respecting their population in former times, and the date both of their first settlement west of the Mississippi, and of the subsequent progress of the Muskhogees towards the Atlantic. We have attempted to discover, amongst the Indian names of places or persons mentioned in the relations of De Soto's Expedition, some traces of the tribes, which at that time inhabited the country along his line of march. The first of those relations was published in 1557,* by a Portuguese volunteer (of Elvas), an eyewitness, who has not given his name; the other in 1603, by Garcilaso de la Vega, on the oral testimony of a Spanish cavalier, and on written documents from two other soldiers, who were also engaged in the expedition. It is extremely difficult to reconcile in all their details either of the two relations, with respect to distances and courses, with the now well-known geography of the country. There is however a portion of the journey which is sufficiently clear to throw light on the object of our inquiry. Ferdinand de Soto landed in the year 1539, on the western coast of East Florida, in the Bay of Espiritu Santo, now called Tampa Bay, having with him six hundred men according to the Portuguese narrator, and twelve hundred according to Garcilaso. He thence proceeded in the direction of the seacoast to a village called Anhayca, in the Province of Appalachee. This was situated in the vicinity of a port into which he ordered his vessels, and which, from the position designated, must necessarily have been somewhere in Apalachee Bay. We cannot therefore err much in placing Anhayca, in the vicinity of the Ockockona River. East, and not far from it, the names of Uzachil and Anille are mentioned, and there is a river precisely in the same position, which to this day is Catalogue of Mr. Rich, who has a copy of the original edition. The title is "Relacam verdadeira dos trabalhos que ho Governador don Fernando de Souto y certos fidalgos Portugueses passarom no descobrimento da Provincia la Frodida. Agora novamente feita per hum fidalgo d'Elvas." Printed at Evora, 1557. Hakluyt translated and published this work; Voyages, &c. Vol. V. (1609.) called Oscilla. But I have not been able to ascertain whether this is, either an Uchee or Muskhogee name, or whether it may not have been subsequently given to the river by the Spaniards in commemoration of De Soto's expedition. I have been equally unfortunate in my inquiries respecting the etymology of the name Apalachee; whether it belongs to the language of any of the existing nations, or whether it has been perpetuated from De Soto's time. It is certain that the river Appalachicola is known to the Muskhogees by no other name than that of Chatta Hatchee, or Rock River. The only name mentioned in that vicinity, having any known affinity with an Indian language, is that of a village near the sea-port, which in the Spanish relation is called Aute. In the Muskhogee language autti or oty, means an island. De Soto's officers discovered in the course of the winter another and better port, sixty computed leagues west of Aute. This was called Ochuse, and must have been either Pensacola, or the entrance of the Mobile. Instead, however, of proceeding in that direction, De Soto, on the information of an Indian boy, determined to march northwardly in search of a gold region. He left Anhayca in March, 1540, and, in about forty days of actual march, reached a district called Cofachiqui or Cutifachiqui. Twelve days' march more in the same direction brought him to Xuala in the mountains; and this was the termination of his travels northwardly. The distance from the vicinity of St. Mark's to the sources of the French Broad or of the Hiwassee, both tributary streams of the Tennessee, is about three hundred and fifty miles in a direct line. This determines the position of Cofachiqui, which was certainly on a river emptying into the Atlantic, not far south of the 34th degree of north latitude, on the Oconee, or on the Savannah River. The statement, therefore, that, according to Indian information, it was but two days' journey to the sea, is erroneous. Between Anhayca and Cofachiqui, we find the two names of Achese, on a river which the Spaniards ascended some days, and of Ocute, a fruitful country. Ochis is the Muskhogee name of the Okmulgee river.* Oketa in the same language means woman; and Cohwita in Uchee means man, and is the wellknown name of a Creek town. These detached names afford but a slight indication of that part of the country having been * Ochis hatchee, Hickory-leaf river. Rev. L. Compere's information. |