It has been ascertained that two other small tribes intimately connected together, to wit, the Alibamons and the Coosadas or Quesadas, who reside near the river Talapoosa, also speak a language or a dialect distinct from that of the Muskhogees; but its vocabulary has not been obtained. The Talapoosa and the Coosa form by their junction Alabama River; and the Alibamons must certainly be the residue of the nation of that name, mentioned by the French writers as living in the vicinity. of the old French fort on the Alabama. These five languages, the Muskhogee and the Hitchittee, the Uchee, the Natches, and the Alibamon or Coosada are, it is believed, the only ones spoken by the different tribes of the Creek confederacy. The Appalachicolas, with whom a separate treaty has recently been made by the United States, are a portion of the Seminoles, residing west of St. Mark's near the mouth of the Appalachicola or Chatahoochee River. It may be here observed, that, although we have no vocabulary of the Piankishaws and of the Kickapoo, it is fully ascertained that they respectively speak dialects of the Miami and of the Saukee. The Alibamons are the only existing tribe, east of the Mississippi, of whose language we have no positive knowledge, and cannot say whether it is peculiar to them, or belongs to the same stock as some of the other tribes. I incline to the opinion that it is a dialect of the Choctaw, or Muskhogee.

Although partial and transient collisions with the Creeks occurred subsequent to the settlement of Georgia, no actual war with them took place for near fifty years. They took an active part in that of the Revolution against the Americans, and continued their hostilities till the treaty concluded at Philadelphia, in 1795. They then remained at peace eighteen years; but, at the beginning of the last war with Great Britain, a considerable portion of the nation, excited, it is said, by Tecumseh, and probably receiving encouragement from other quarters, took arms without the slightest provocation, and at first committed great ravages in the vicinity of their western frontier. They received a severe chastisement; and the decisive victories of General Jackson at that time, and some years later over the Seminoles, who had renewed the war, have not only secured a permanent peace with the Southern Indians, but, together with the progress of the settlements, have placed them all under the absolute control of the United States. The Creeks and Seminoles after some struggles

amongst themselves have ceded the whole of their territory, and accepted in exchange other lands beyond the Mississippi. Their number is estimated at twenty-eight thousand; of whom about twenty-three thousand are Muskhogees proper, two thousand four hundred Seminoles, twelve hundred Uchees, six hundred Hitchittees, five hundred Alibamons and Quesadas, and three hundred Natches.

We have copious vocabularies of the Muskhogee; one obtained by the late Mr. Hawkins, and transmitted by Mr. Jefferson to the American Philosophical Society; two others taken at my request in 1825-6, by Mr. Ridge, Colonel Hambly, and Mr. Denny, from two distinct Muskhogee delegations then at Washington; a fourth since transmitted by the Rev. L. Compere, a Methodist missionary to that nation. The comparative vocabulary is extracted from those several sources. Its form did not permit me to give the several variations, which are more numerous than in the different vocabularies of any other tribe; and it is not improbable that they arise from actual varieties of dialects, rather than from errors of the persons who collected the vocabularies. Those words have been selected which had the greatest number of authorities in their favor. As Hawkins's vocabulary differed most from the other, a separate specimen taken exclusively from that has been appended. The small specimen of the Hitchittee was obtained at the same time from a chief of that tribe by Mr. Ridge.

The Uchee language is the most guttural, uncouth, and difficult to express with our alphabet and orthography of any of the Indian languages within our knowledge. The vocabulary here given is extracted from one taken by Dr. Ware, in Mr. Duponceau's collection, and from another obtained by Mr. Ridge from an Uchee chief at Washington. Mr. Ridge had probably the best Indian ear, but was not so correct in his English orthography. The Natches vocabulary I took myself from Is-ah-laktih, an intelligent chief of the remnant of that nation.*

*The vowels a, e, i, o, and the diphthong ie, are, in that vocabulary and in the Muskhogee words marked G., to be pronounced as in French; the u is the short one of but, nut; the zh is the French j; the oo, y, and all the consonants as in English; the g, always hard. The Uchee and Hitchittee words taken by Mr. Ridge are, as well as Mr. Hawkins's and Mr. Compere's Muskhogee words, written in conformity with the English orthography.

De Soto was the first European who discovered the Mississippi. He crossed it in the year 1541, near the thirty-fifth degree of north latitude, and after his death the remnant of his companions, reduced to about three hundred, descended it to its mouth, and with their frail barks were fortunate enough to reach Panuco on the Mexican coast. Although the Spaniards became thus early acquainted with that large river, and their ships must have passed annually in sight of its mouth, it remained unknown for one hundred and fifty years after De Soto's expedition; and the river was on that account designated by the name of "Rio Escondido." Father Marquette and M. Joliette, in the year 1673, reached it by the way of the Fox River of Michigan and of the Wisconsin. Ten years later La Salle descended it to its entrance into the sea.* But, having sailed from France with the intention of forming a settlement on its banks, he passed by its mouth in 1685, without recognising it, and landed in the Bay of St. Bernard at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. In his attempt to reach thence the Mississippi by land, he was murdered by his own people; it was only in March, 1699, that D'Iberville entered the river from the seat; and the French, who had first established themselves at the mouth of the Mobile and at Biloxi, did not lay the foundation of New Orleans till the year 1717.

The seashore from the Mobile to the Mississippi, and the banks of that river, were then inhabited by several small tribes, of which the Natches were the principal. All the rest of the country from the Gulf of Mexico to Cumberland River, if not to the Ohio, bounded on the west by the Mississippi and on the east by the Creeks and the Cherokees, was inhabited by the Choctaws and the Chicasas, two distinct nations, but of the same

* He reached the sea on the 7th of April, 1683. See Tonti's relation in the fifth volume of "Voyages au Nord." Tonti was the friend and companion of La Salle, and his relation of the inland expeditions of that enterprising traveller is the most authentic we have, though disfigured by embellishments in very bad taste, introduced by the Paris publisher. The only good relation of La Salle's last voyage is that of Joutel.

A British ship, probably that mentioned by Dr. Cox in his "Carolana," entered the river in September of the same year, and ascended it to the place thence called English Town. (Charlevoix). There is no evidence that supports the assertion, that the river had formerly been visited by English vessels.

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 Muskogees, 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.

B. Romans, Nat. Hist. Florida. (New York, 1776.) pp. 71, 83. Ibid,