their numbers. It is still astonishing, that they could, in 1756, have been reduced to twelve hundred warriors, as they are estimated in Smith's "History of New York." Whatever may have been the fact in that respect, with the expulsion of the French from Canada their importance ceased; it became the interest of Great Britain to preserve peace with the other Indian nations, and the thirst for war of the Six Nations had no longer any aliment.

With the exception of the Oneidas, they took arms against America during the war of Independence. But the Mohawks were obliged (1780) to abandon their seats and to take refuge in Canada. Those who remained in the United States have been perfectly peaceable since the treaty of peace of 1783. They were estimated in 1796 at three thousand three hundred souls; * and those in Canada, at about seven hundred. But according to the late estimate of the War Department, those in the State of New York amount to four thousand seven hundred and sixteen, at Green Bay to seven hundred and twenty-five, beyond the Mississippi to four hundred and sixtyfive, in all about five thousand nine hundred; which, deducting the Nanticokes, Mohicans, and Shawnoes mixed with them, would leave five thousand. If to these we add the Wyandots and those in Canada, the remnant of all the Iroquois tribes cannot much exceed seven thousand souls. They amounted in the beginning of the seventeenth century to forty thousand. Their destruction has been almost exclusively the result of wars among themselves, or against other Indian nations. With the

single exception of the Mohawks, no encroachment had been made on the native possessions of the Five Nations before the year 1783; and their number has not been diminished since that time.

The history of the Five Nations is calculated to give a favorable opinion of the intelligence of the Red Man. But they may be ranked amongst the worst of conquerors. They conquered only in order to destroy, and, it would seem, solely for the purpose of gratifying their thirst for blood. Towards the south and the west, they made a perfect desert of the whole country within five hundred miles of their seats. A much greater number of those Indians, who, since the commencement

*Report of Commissioners of the Missionary Society, 1 Mass. Hist. Coll. Vol. V.

of the seventeenth century have perished by the sword in Canada and the United States, have been destroyed by that single nation, than in all their wars with the Europeans.

But, instead of exerting their influence in assuaging the passions of the Indians and in promoting peace amongst them, the European governments, intent only on the acquisition of territory and power, encouraged their natural propensities. Both France and England courted a disgraceful alliance with savages; and both, under the usual pleas of self-defence and retaliation, armed them against the defenceless inhabitants of the other party. The sack of Schenectady, the desolation of the island of Montreal, the murdering expeditions on the frontiers of New England, are related by the respective historians with indifference, if not with exultation. No scruple was felt in inducing all the Indian tribes to carry on against America their usual warfare, and to desolate, without discrimination of age or sex, the whole extent of a frontier of twelve hundred miles during the seven years of the war of Independence.

The United States are at least free from that reproach. If their population has pressed too fast on the natives, if occasionally they have too forcibly urged purchases of land, their government, ever since they were an independent nation, has not only used every endeavour to be at peace with the Indians, but has succeeded in preventing war amongst them to a degree heretofore unknown in America. And, at Ghent, they proposed an article in the treaty of peace, by which both nations should engage, if unfortunately they were again at war, never to employ the savages as auxiliaries. We trust that under any contingency, the two nations will act as if the article had been made a condition of the treaty.

The vocabulary of the Onondagas was extracted by Mr. Duponceau from Zeisberger's Manuscript Dictionary. That of the Mohawks was taken by Mr. S. E. Dwight, of New Haven, assisted by Mr. J. Parish. That of the Senecas was received through the War Department. Mr. Jefferson's mutilated vocabulary has supplied part of the words in the vocabulary of the Oneidas. The others, and all those in the Cayuga dialect, were taken from Smith Barton..

The southern Iroquois tribes occupied Chowan River and its tributary streams. They were bounded, on the east, by the

most southerly Lenape tribes, who were in possession of the low country along the seashores, and those of Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds. Towards the south and the west they extended beyond the river Neuse. They appear to have been known in Virginia, in early times, under the name of Monacans, as far north as James River.

A powerful chief of the Chowans is mentioned in the accounts of the first attempts to establish a colony on Roanoke Island and its vicinity. Lawson, in his account of the North Carolina Indians, enumerates the Chowans, the Meherrins, and the Nottoways, as having together ninety-five warriors in the year 1708. But the Meherrins or Tuteloes and the Nottoways inhabited respectively the two rivers of that name, and were principally seated in Virginia. We have but indistinct notices of the Tuteloes. It has been seen that they had migrated to the north and joined the Six Nations, who brought them forward, in 1758, as one of the younger members of the confederacy. Evans, in the Analysis of his Map, says that the Six Nations had allotted lands on the Susquehanna to several tribes, amongst which he enumerates the Tuteloes from Meherrin River in Virginia; and he further states, that they (the Six Nations) laid no claim to the country of the Tuscaroras who had been driven away, but were not so well satisfied as to the lands of the Tuteloes and Meherrins, whom they had received under their protection. We have no vocabulary of that tribe, and no knowledge that they still exist under that

name.

It appears by Beverly, that the Nottoways had preserved their independence and their numbers later than the Powhatans, and that, at the end of the seventeenth century, they had still one hundred and thirty warriors. They do not appear to have migrated from their original seats in a body. In the year 1820, they are said to have been reduced to twenty-seven souls, and were still in possession of seven thousand acres in Southampton county, Virginia, which had been, at an early date, reserved to them. J. Wood obtained in that year a vocabulary of their language from Edie Turner, who was called their Queen. It was transmitted by Mr. Jefferson to Mr. Duponceau, who immediately recognised it as an Iroquois dialect. They had till then been supposed to be one of the Powhatan tribes of the Lenape stock. Another vocabulary has been obtained by the Hon. James Tresevant, which corresponds with that of

Wood, and from which we learn that the true name of that tribe is Cherohakah.

on the

The Tuscaroras were by far the most powerful nation in North Carolina, and occupied all the residue of the territory in that colony, which has been described as inhabited by Iroquois tribes. Their principal seats in 1708, were Neuse and the Taw or Tar rivers, and, according to Lawson, they had twelve hundred warriors in fifteen towns. The Albemarle district in North Carolina had at that time been settled more than fifty years; and, although some collisions had occurred, no serious conflict had till then taken place between the white emigrants and the weaker Indian tribes, bordering on the sounds and seated near the mouths of the rivers. The settlements did not extend far inland towards the Tuscaroras; and an accession of German emigrants seems to have been the immediate cause of what that nation considered as an encroachment. Lawson, who was Surveyor General of the Colony, was the first victim of their resentment. Having taken and murdered him, they thought they had proceeded too far to retreat, and, falling unexpectedly on the inhabitants, massacred one hundred and thirty in one day. (September, 1711.) They were joined by several small adjacent tribes, which appear to have inhabited the low country between the Neuse and Cape Fear rivers, the principal of which is called Corees or Coramines. The colony was still very weak and was thrown into great alarm. The government of South Carolina sent to their assistance Colonel Barnwell with six hundred militia and about six hundred friendly Indians.* He killed or took near three hundred hostile Indians, principally of the smaller tribes, surrounded six hundred Tuscaroras, and made with them a peace which they soon broke. In the autumn of 1712, all the inhabitants south and southwest of Chowan River were obliged to live in forts; and the Tuscaroras expected assistance from the Five Nations. This could not have been given, without involving the confederacy in a war with Great Britain; and the Tuscaroras were left to their own resources. A force,

* Two hundred and eighteen Cherokees, seventy-nine Creeks, fortyone Catawbas, twenty-eight Yamassees. Hewatt's Account of South Carolina. The Indians sent the following year, under Colonel Moore, are called Ashley Indians by Dr. Williamson.

Letter of Governor Pollock to the Proprietors, of September, 1712. Williamson's History of North Carolina.

consisting chiefly of southern Indians under the command of Colonel Moore, was again sent by the government of South Carolina to assist the northern colony. He besieged and took a fort of the Tuscaroras, called Narahuke, near the Cotechney, between the Taw and Neuse rivers, (March, 1713.) Of eight hundred prisoners, six hundred were given up to the Southern Indians, who carried them to South Carolina to sell them as slaves. The eastern Tuscaroras, whose principal town was on the Taw, twenty miles above Washington, immediately made peace, and a portion was settled a few years after north of the Roanoke, near Windsor, where they continued till the year 1803. But the great body of the nation removed in 1714-15, to the Five Nations, was received as the sixth, and has since shared their fate.*

The Tuscarora vocabulary prepared by Nich. and Jas, Cassick, native Indians, was received through the War Depart

ment.

SECTION III.

SOUTHERN INDIANS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI,

THE nations still found east of the Mississippi, and south of the territory formerly occupied by the Lenape and Iroquois tribes, are the remnant of the Catawbas, the Cherokees, the Creek confederacy and the Seminoles, the Choctaws and the Chickasas. Of the other numerous tribes, which appear to have formerly inhabited the lower country of Carolina, the eastern part of Georgia, and West Florida, we have but partial and very imperfect accounts.

In the year 1670, when English emigrants first settled in South Carolina, four tribes are mentioned near the seashore between the rivers Ashley and Savannah: - the Stonoes, Edistoes, Westoes, and Savannahs. As the Westoes are said to have occupied the country between the Ashley and the Edisto rivers, it seems probable that the first three tribes were but one nation. They are represented as cruel and hostile, and a war between them and the white settlers began in or before the

*The account of this war is derived from Hewatt and Williamson compared. Ramsay and Hewatt,