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had also long-continued hostilities with the Six Nations, which do not seem to have been conducted with much vigor on either side, and were terminated about the years 1744-1750, through the interference of the British government. It appears by an answer sent by them at the conferences of Carlisle of 1753, to a previous message of the Delawares, that they had at a former period entertained amicable relations with that tribe. They express in it friendly dispositions, say that they had not heard from the Delawares for a long time, and call them nephews.*

The country of the Cherokees was strong; they formed but one nation, and they do not appear to have been materially injured by their Indian wars. It would seem, that since they came in contact with the Europeans, and notwithstanding successive cessions of part of their territory, their number, at least during the last forty years, has been increased. Their warriors were estimated at two thousand three hundred in the year 1762, by Adair, who adds, that he was informed that forty years before they had six thousand. According to a late estimate of the Indian Department, they now amount to fifteen thousand souls, including those who have already removed beyond the Mississippi, and exclusively of about twelve hundred negroes in their possession. The progress of civilization amongst them will be hereafter adverted to. We abstain from any observation on recent transactions connected with the intended removal of the whole tribe beyond the Mississippi, this being the subject of pending negotiations, which, it is hoped, may be attended with a result satisfactory to all parties.

The vocabularies of their language are amongst the most authentic we have of any Indian nation. The appended comparative vocabulary was entirely written by Mr. Boudinot, or Mr. Ridge, Jun., both native Cherokees, who speak English as if it were their mother tongue. The Rev. Mr. Worcester has also aided our enquiries in that quarter.

Dr. Barton thought that the Cherokee language belonged to the Iroquois family; and, on this point, I am inclined to the same opinion. The affinities are few and remote; but there

* MS. papers of the late John Montgomery of Carlisle, given to me, with sundry other interesting Indian documents, by his son, the late John Montgomery, of Baltimore.

is a similarity in the general termination of syllables, in the pronunciation and accent, which has struck some of the native Cherokees. We have not a sufficient knowledge of the grammar, and generally of the language of the Five Nations, or of the Wyandots, to decide that question. But a particular character of the Cherokee has been disclosed by Guess's syllabic alphabet.

Sequoyah, or Guess, as he is commonly called, is a native Cherokee, unacquainted with the English language. He saw books in the missionary schools, and was informed that the characters represented the words of the spoken language. Not understanding how this was done, he undertook to make characters of his own for the Cherokee, and at first attempted to have a distinct one for each word. He soon saw that the number would be such as to render that plan impracticable; and discovering that, although the Cherokee is eminently polysyllabic, the same syllables variously combined perpetually recurred in different words, he concluded to have a character for each syllable. This he did by listening, with a view to his object, to every discourse held in his hearing, and noting in his own way every new syllable. In a short time he produced his syllabic alphabet consisting of only eighty-five characters, through which he was enabled to teach within three weeks every Cherokee, old or young, who desired it, how to write his own language. That alphabet has superseded ours. Several books and a newspaper called the "Phoenix," edited by Mr. Boudinot, have been published with those characters; and the Cherokees universally use them when writing in their own tongue. When the first imperfect copy of that alphabet was received at the War Department, it appeared incredible that a language, known to be copious, should have but eighty-five syllables. The examination of a Cherokee spelling-book, published in our characters by the Missionaries, explained what seemed to be a mystery.

It was found that every Cherokee syllable ended in a vocal or nasal sound, and that there were no other double consonants but tl or dl, and ts, and combinations of s with four or five different consonants. The language has twelve. consonants including h, viz. g or k, h, l, m, n, qu, d or t, dl or tl, ts, w, y, s; five vowels, viz. a, e, i, o, u; and a nasal ung. It is obvious, that, multiplying the number of consonants (including the tl), by the six vowels (including the nasal), and adding to the product the said six vowels, each of

which is occasionally a syllable, you have the whole number of possible syllables in the language, those excepted which result from the combinations of s united to another following consonant, with the six vowels. It would have required about thirty additional characters, if Guess, adhering to his principle, had made a new one for each such combination, (sta, ste, &c., spa, spe, &c.) He gave a strong proof of talent, in discovering that he might dispense with those thirty, by making for the s a distinct character.* It wanted but one step more, and to have also given a distinct character to each consonant, to reduce the whole number to sixteen, and to have had an alphabet similar to ours. In practice, however, and as applied to his own language, the superiority of Guess's alphabet is manifest, and has been fully proved by experience. You must indeed learn and remember eighty-five characters instead of twenty-five. But this once accomplished, the education of the pupil is completed, he can read, and he is perfect in his orthography without making it the subject of a distinct study. The boy learns in a few weeks that which occupies two years of the time of ours. It is that peculiarity in the vocal or nasal termination of syllables and that absence of double consonants, more discernible to the ear than to the eye, which were alluded to, when speaking of some affinity in that respect between the Cherokee and the Iroquois languages.

It is true that the original idea of expressing sounds by characters was suggested to Guess by our books; it must be admitted that his plan would have failed if applied to perhaps any other language than the Cherokee; and it is doubtful whether, in such case, he would have ascended to the discovery of one character for each analyzed sound. But it cannot be denied that this untaught Indian, in what he has performed, has exhibited a striking instance of the native intelligence of his race.t

* When Guess subsequently explained the process of his invention, he said that what had cost him most labor was the hissing sound. Guess's characters amount to eighty-five, viz. seventy-seven as above stated, less one, the syllable mung not appearing in the language. Finding that occasionally k was pronounced g; d like t; and two distinct aspirations connected with na, he has added eight characters representing the sounds s, ka, hna, nah, ta, te, ti, tla.

Although this syllabic alphabet has been published several times, it has been thought consistent with the object of this essay to annex a correct copy of it. See Appendix.

In the year 1732, when Georgia was first settled, the territory of the Creek confederacy, including at that time the Seminoles, was bounded on the west by Mobile River, and by the ridge that separates the waters of the Tombigbee from those of the Alabama, the ordinary though contested boundary between them and the Choctaws*; on the north by the Cherokees; on the northeast by the Savannah; on every other quarter by the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. It is believed that at the end of the seventeenth century, the Creeks occupied, south of the thirty-fourth degree of north latitude, the eastern as well as the western banks of the Savannah.

It is not possible to ascertain when the confederacy was consolidated to that extent. During the forty preceding years, we find the Indians between Savannah River and St. Augustine, on various occasions, divided amongst themselves and taking adverse parts in the conflicts between the Spaniards of Florida and the English settlers of South Carolina. It may be, that, as has been seen recently, the contending European powers drew to their respective sides different portions of the confederacy. But we cannot ascertain whether, by the names of Appalachians and Creeks, both of which occur in Hewatt and other early writers, distinct tribes are designated. It is probable that the appellation of Appalachians was geographical and applied to the Indians living on the Appalachicola, or Chatahoochee River, as the name of Creeks seems to have been given from an early time to those inhabiting generally the country adjacent to the river Savannah.

The Creek confederacy now consists of several tribes speaking different languages. The Muskhogees are the prevailing nation, amounting to more than seven eighths of the whole. The Hitchittees who reside on the Chatahoochee and Flint rivers, though a distinct tribe, speak a dialect of the Muskhogee. The Seminoles or Isty-semole, ("wild men,") who inhabit the peninsula of Florida, are pure Muskhogees, who have gradually detached themselves from the confederacy, but who were still considered as members of it, till the United States treated with them as with an independent nation. The name of Seminoles was given to them, on account of their being principally hunters and attending but little to agriculture. A

* According to Adair, the river Coosa was the boundary in his time.

Vocabulary is wanted in order to prove conclusively the entire identity of their language with the Muskhogee.

There is some diversity in the accounts given by the Muskhogees of their origin. The chiefs of the delegation, who attended at Washington in the year 1826, agreed that the prevailing tradition amongst them was, that the nation had issued out of a cave near Alabama River. The Hitchittees said that their ancestors had fallen from the sky. These modes of speaking, common to several of the tribes, only show that they have lost the recollection of any ancient migration, and that they consider themselves as aborigines. Independent of the ancient division into families or clans, which will be hereafter adverted to, Mr. Mitchell, a former Indian agent, said that there was, at no distant time, a political division of the nation into four principal towns or tribes, viz. the Cussetah, the Cowetah, the Tukawbatchie, and the Oscoochee, to which the Creeks, though now dispersed throughout the whole of their country, still respectively belong. This division, however, whether geographical or political, has no connexion with the distinction of languages.

The Uchees and the Natches, who are both incorporated in the confederacy, speak two distinct languages altogether different from the Muskhogee. The Natches, a residue of the well-known nation of that name, came from the banks of the Mississippi, and joined the Creeks less than one hundred years ago. The original seats of the Uchees were east of the Coosa and probably of the Chatahoochee; and they consider themselves as the most ancient inhabitants of the country. They may have been the same nation which is called Apalaches in the accounts of De Soto's expedition, and their towns were till lately principally on Flint River. It appears, however, certain that, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, they were, at least in part, seated on the western banks of the Savannah. It has already been seen that, in 1736, they claimed the country below and above Augusta. In Jeffrey's Map they are laid down in the same manner, but with a note that those settlements had been deserted in 1715. This was the year of the signal defeat of the Yamassees, who were assisted by the Creeks. The Yamassees were driven across the river; and it is probable that the Uchees were amongst their auxiliaries, and that, weakened by this defeat, they found it safer to remove to a greater distance from the English settlements, towards Flint River.

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