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, sup plied 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. at that time occupied by the Creeks. But from Cofachiqui to the Mississippi, we have a continued series of names, which seems to leave no doubt respecting the several nations along De Soto's line of march, from the time he left Cofachiqui. In seven days' march due north from that place, he came to Chalaque, which cannot be mistaken, since it is the proper name of the Cherokees or Chelokees. From Xuala, his course was westwardly, bending to the south. In five days, crossing some bad mountains he arrived at Quaxule; in two days more at Canasaqua or Canasauga, and in five days more at Chiaha or Ichiaha, situated on the bank of a river, and opposite the upper end of an island. This was an abundant country, where the Spaniards rested thirty days in order to recruit their horses. Connesauga is, at this moment, the Cherokee name of a creek that empties into the Coosa at New Echota; and Echoy is that of a well-known Cherokee town, situated, not indeed on the same spot as Ichiaha, but in the fork of Tugaloo and Savannah rivers; whilst Ichiaha must have been on the Coosa, probably some distance below the site of New Echota. But we have repeated instances, such as Echota, Coweta, Tallisee, Piqua, &c., of the Indians having favorite names for towns, which they transfer successively to their several villages. There cannot, therefore, I think, be any doubt that the Cherokees occupied at that time the same territory south of the mountains, in which they were found one hundred and forty years later. And it is remarkable that the line, which then separated them from the Coosa country, is almost in the same place as that which till lately divided the Cherokees from the Creeks. After leaving Acoste a short distance west of Ichiaha, the Spaniards entered the territory of Coosa, through which they travelled from fifteen to twenty days,* passing through the populous village of Coosa, and arriving at Tallisee, another large, fortified, and apparently frontier town, subject to the Cacique of Coosa, and situated on a rapid river. The two names of Coosa and Tallisee afford a decisive proof that the country was then, as now, in the possession of the Muskhogees. It is equally clear, that, from the vicinity of the last-mentioned place, until he reached the Mississippi, De Soto was in the There is a disagreement here between the Portuguese and the Spanish relations. I have taken the medium. Choctaw or Chickasa country. We find the names of Tascaluca or Tuscalusa, "Black Warrior," a pure Choctaw name derived from Tushka, "warrior," and Lusa," black," and which is that of the eastern branch of the Tombigbee; that of the province of Pafalaya, the precise meaning of which I do not know, but which is clearly derived from the Choctaw word Falaya, "long"; that of the town of Maville or Mauvila, identical with that of Mobile, and given by Du Pratz to the Mobilians, a Choctaw tribe; that of the chief Nicalusa, probably "Black bear," from Nitah, bear, and Lusa, black; and finally that of Chicasa itself, given to a village situated within the territory now occupied by the Chicasas.* We may thence fairly, and as I think conclusively, infer that the Cherokees, Chicasas, and Choctaws occupied then nearly the same territories as at the present time; and that the Muskhogees were then, as now, seated on the Coosa, to the east of the Choctaws. But we have no proof of the extent of their progress toward the Atlantic. It is, indeed, probable that the seashores of Georgia, as well as of West Florida, were then occupied by different tribes now extinct. We know that the Indians of that peninsula were a distinct nation or nations from the Muskhogees; and that they were subsequently *I incline to the opinion, that De Soto left the Coosa river at Tallisee, and marched thence westward to the Tuscaloosa or Black-warrior river, which he descended a short distance to Maville. It would appear from the Portuguese relation, that the Spaniards, in about four days' march from Tallisee, arrived at the town of Piache, called by Garcilaso, Tuscaluza, situated upon a great river, which from that account must have been distinct from the Coosa, and across which Soto carried his army. The division line between the Creeks and the Choctaws now is, and probably was at that time, a river or a ridge, and therefore a north and south and not an east and west line. I think also that De Soto must have necessarily crossed the Mississippi at the northern extremity of that immense swamp, which extends northwardly one hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of the Yazoo River, and covers almost the whole ground between that river and the Mississippi. It is impossible that he should have penetrated, or attempted to penetrate through the heart of that swamp, so as to cross the Mississippi near the mouth of the Arkansas. It is equally clear from the details given, that, just before crossing the great river, he was on the northern edge of the swamp. This determines the position of the place where he crossed, between the 35th degree of north latitude and the mouth of St. Francis River. But whether mistaken or not on those points, it does not affect in the least the proofs of the actual place of residence at that time of the several Indian Nations. |