the Keyauwees, three small tribes amounting together to seven hundred and fifty souls, which had but lately been driven away from the west into that quarter. He was shown, near the Sapona town, the graves of seven Indians "lately killed by the Sinnegars or Jennitos," (Senecas or Oneidas,) and the three tribes had determined to unite in one town for their better security.* East of them and west of the Tuscaroras, he mentions the Sissipahaus on the waters of Cape Fear River, and the Enoes on a branch of the Neuse. With the exception of the Catawbas, we have not the least knowledge of the language of any of those tribes.

Lawson has also given an enumeration of the tribes inhabiting the eastern part of North Carolina, extending westwardly but a short distance beyond Neuse River. He estimates the warriors of the Iroquois tribes at one thousand three hundred, of the Lenape at less than one hundred, of the Woccons at one hundred and twenty, of all the other tribes, including the Machapunga (or Maramiskeet+), the Bear River, Connamox, and Neuse, at only one hundred and twenty. This last number appears to be underrated; and neither the Enoes nor the Coramines are included. But it shows the insignificance of the small tribes which have disappeared.

The records of North Carolina would probably throw some. light on that subject. We learn from Williamson that the Saponas and the Chowans, about the year 1720, obtained leave to join the Tuscaroras. The Wyanokes, whom he mentions as having lived on the river Nottoway and formerly emigrated from the Susquehanna, were probably a tribe connected with the Nottoways and Chowans. To the names already mentioned may be added the upper and lower Sawara towns, laid down, south of the Dan River, in all the early maps of North Caroli na. In Jeffrey's map, a tribe called Saluda, is also laid down, south of that river, near the present site of Columbia in South Carolina, with a note, that it had removed to Conestogo in Pennsylvania.

Some detached observations of Lawson may deserve notice. Buffaloes (bisons) were found in his time on the hilly country on the head waters of Cape Fear River; and it is not known that they were ever seen north of that place, east of the Alle

* Lawson's New Voyage to Carolina, pp. 44 – 47. + Williamson.

ghany Mountains. He asserts positively, that the wolf of the woods is the Indian dog, that the Indians have no other dogs than domesticated wolves.* But his most remarkable assertion is, that the "Indian women never plant corn amongst us, as they do amongst the Iroquois, who are always at war and hunting." The reason he alleges for the Iroquois usage was equally applicable to all the other Indians, without excepting those of North Carolina.

The difference between the languages of those several tribes struck Lawson forcibly. He observes that he could find but one word common to the Tuscaroras and the Woccons, who lived but two leagues apart. In the absence of vocabularies, it is now impossible to ascertain, whether most of those several communities spoke languages radically different from each other, or dialects of the same. But we are indebted to Lawson for those of the Tuscaroras, of the Pamlicos, and of the Woccons; and they certainly belong to three distinct languages. He did not suspect that of the Tuscaroras to be an Iroquois dialect, and that his short specimen of that of the Pamlicos would enable us to ascertain how far the Lenape tribes extended towards the south. On comparing the vocabularies of the Woccons and the Catawbas, out of fifty-one words found in both, sixteen. appear to have more or less remote affinities; and the Woccons have accordingly been designated as belonging to the same family of languages.†

The Catawbas, according to Adair and Ramsay, could muster one thousand five hundred warriors at the first settlement of South Carolina. Lawson estimates them, under the name of Esaws, at several thousand souls. Mr. Miller says, that they were originally called Flatheads, and were a terror to the surrounding tribes. They were able, at no very remote time, to drive away the Shawnoes from their temporary settlement,

* It is mentioned in Captain Franklin's first Expedition, that some Coppermine River Indians, having caught a litter of young wolves, kept several in order to improve the breed of their dogs. The following are the most remarkable.

on the head waters probably of the Santee and Pedee, and, according to Adair, could still muster four hundred warriors in 1743. Yet they are mentioned by the historians of South Carolina, only in 1712, as auxiliaries against the Tuscaroras; in 1715, as having joined the other northern tribes in the confederacy against the colony; in 1756, as requesting that a fort might be built upon their lands; for the last time in 1760, as auxiliaries against the Cherokees. It must thence be inferred that, excepting the short war of 1715, they were always at peace with Carolina. Their perpetual wars with the Shawnoes, with the Cherokees, and, finally, with the Six Nations, may have kept them sufficiently occupied, and compelled them to remain on friendly terms with the only people, by whom they could be supplied with arms and ammunition. Another cause for their peaceable disposition towards the English, may be found in the slow progress of the settlements in that quarter. "In 1736, settlements had extended partially about eighty or ninety miles from the seacoast. Between 1750 and 1760, settlements were commenced two hundred miles from Charleston by emigrants from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Between the seacoast settlements and those to the westward, a considerable tract of country was for several years left in the undisturbed possession of the aborigines."*

The boundaries and extent of the territory occupied by the Catawbas, cannot be ascertained, and may not always have been the same. It is probable that the Cherokees were originally in possession of the country on the upper waters of the Savannah, the Santee and the Pedee. If, as has been suggested, the Woccons, who bordered on the Tuscaroras, spoke a dialect of the Catawba language, it must have had a considerable extent, and may have been that of the Congarees, of the Cheraws, and of some other of the small tribes. It is altogether distinct from the Cherokee, but has some affinities

Ramsay's History of South Carolina, Vol. I. Chap. vi.

The Cheraws are said to have joined the Catawbas, and to have been living amongst them in 1768. (Rev. E. Potter's letter to Dr. Stiles in the tenth volume of 1 Mass Hist. Coll.) Adair mentions the Cheraws, Waterees, Congarees, Enoes, &c., as having joined the Catawbas; but I believe him mistaken when he says that they spoke different dialects. The words collected forty years ago by B. Smith Barton are, all but one, identical with those of Mr. Miller's vocabulary taken this year. (1835.) Barton's New Views, &c. (Philad. 1797.)

with the Muskhogee and even the Choctaw. These did not however appear sufficient to make it considered as belonging to the same family.

The Catawbas, enfeebled by their disastrous wars and principally by that with the Six Nations, greatly diminished by the smallpox and the use of ardent spirits, and surrounded by the progressive settlements of the white inhabitants, have ultimately ceded all their lands, reserving only a tract of fifteen miles square, on each side of the Santee or Catawba River, on the borders of North Carolina, which, now reduced to ninety-eight souls, they still occupy. Their vocabulary has been obtained, within this year, through the care of Mr. John L. Miller, President of the Ebenezer Academy.

De Soto appears to have passed, in 1540, through part of the Cherokee country. But the Europeans since that time had not come in contact with the Cherokees, before the settlement of South Carolina; and they are for the first time mentioned in 1693, when they complained that the Savannahs, Esaws, and Congarees took prisoners from them, and sold them as slaves in Charleston.* It appears that the Yamassees used to make incursions into Florida for the same purpose. Governor Archdale, who acted towards the Indians with equal good sense and humanity, put an end to that practice in 1695.† The Cherokees sent more than two hundred warriors, in 1712, to assist the English in the war against the Tuscaroras. Although their name is mentioned, in 1715, amongst the Northern Indians of the confederacy against Carolina, as the whole number of those who took arms in that quarter were estimated at only six hundred, it is not probable that they took a very active part in that conflict. Governor Nicholson established friendly relations with them, which were confirmed by the solemn treaty of 1730, negotiated by Alexander Cummings, and which secured peace for thirty years.‡

In the beginning of the seven years' war, they acted as auxiliaries to the British, and assisted at the capture of Fort Duquesne. On their return home, they committed some depredations in Virginia, which were not tamely submitted to; and

* Hewatt.

VOL. II.

† Ibid.

12

Hewatt and Ramsay.

several of their warriors were killed. The proper steps to pacify them were not taken; and a war ensued equally calamitous to both parties. It became necessary to bring British troops from the north; two expeditions were made into their country, and peace was restored in 1761. They took arms on the British side during the war of Independence, and, although some prior treaties intervened, partial hostilities continued several years after 1783; and peace was not secured till the treaty of Holston in 1791. By this treaty a territory on which white settlers had encroached, was restored to them. From that time they have ever been at peace with the United States; and, during the last war with Great Britain, they assisted America, as auxiliaries, against the Creeks.

The territory of the Cherokees, Chelakees, or more properly Tsalakies, extended north and south of the southwesterly continuation of the Appalachian mountains, embracing on the north the country on Tennessee or Cherokee River and its tributary streams, from their sources down to the vicinity of the Muscle Shoals, where they were bounded on the west by the Chicasas. The Cumberland mountain may be considered as having been their boundary on the north; but since the country has been known to us, no other Indian nation but some small bands of Shawnoes, had any settlement between that mountain and the Ohio. On the west side of the Savannah they were bounded on the south by the Creeks, the division line being Broad River and generally along the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude. On the east of the Savannah, their original seats embraced the upper waters of that river, of the Santee and probably of the Yadkin, but could not have extended as far south as the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude. They were bounded on the south, in that quarter, probably by Muskhogee tribes in the vicinity of the Savannah, and farther east by the Catawbas.

The Cherokees, like other Indian nations, were almost always at war with some of the adjacent tribes. They had probably contributed to the expulsion of the Shawnoes from the country south of the Ohio, and appear to have been perpetually at war with some branch or other of that erratic nation.* They

*The last settlement of the Shawnoes south of the Ohio was at Bull's Town on the Little Kenhawa. They were obliged to abandon it about the year 1770, on account of the repeated attacks of small Cherokee parties.