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by Major Ridge himself had killed Doublehead years before on suspicion of accepting a bribe for his part in a treaty. On hearing of the death of the Ridges and Boudinot several other signers of the repudiated treaty, among whom were John Bell, Archilla Smith, and James Starr, tied for safety to the protection of the garrison at Fort Gibson. Boudinot's brother, Stand Wade, vowed vengeance against Ross, who was urged to flee, but refused. declaring his entire innocence. His friends rallied to his support, stationing a guard around his house until the first excitement had sub- sided. About three weeks afterward the national council passed decrees declaring that the men killed and their principal confederates i Agent Stokes to Secretary of War, June 24, 1839, in Report Indian Commissioner, p. 365, 1839; Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau ofEthnology, p. 293, 1888; Drake, Indians, pp. 159-460, 1880; author's personal information. The agent's report incorrectly makes the killings occur on three different days. mooney] REUNION OF NATION— 1839 135 had rendered themselves outlaws by their own conduct, extending amnesty on certain stringent conditions to their confederates, and declaring the slayers guiltless of murder and fully restored to the con- fidence and favor of the community. This was followed in August by another council decree declaring the New Echota treaty void and reas- serting the title of the Cherokee to their old country, and three weeks later another decree summoned the signers of the treaty to appear and answer for their conduct under penalty of outlawry. At this point the United States interfered by threatening to arrest Ross as acces- sory to the killing of the Ridges. 1 In the meant

convention of the eastern and western Cherokee, held at the Illinois camp ground, Indian territory, passed an act of union, by which the two were declared '"one body politic. under the style and title of the Cherokee Nation." On behalf id' the eastern Cherokee the instrument bears the signature of John Ross, principal chief. George Lowrey, president of the council, and Going snake (I'nadu-na'I), speaker of the council, with thirteen others. For the western ('herokee it was signed by John Looney, acting principal chief , George Guess (Sequoya), president of the council, and fifteen others. On September r>. L839, a convention composed chiefry of eastern ('herokee assembled at Tahlequah, Indian territory -then first officially adopted as the national capital —adopted a new constitution, which was accepted by a convention of the Old Settlers at Fort Gib- son, Indian Territory, on JuneCherokee, by the treaty of L817, have been already noted. The great majority of those thus voluntarily remov- ing belonged to the conservative hunter element, who desired to rees- tablish in the western wilderness the old Indian life from which, through the influence of schools and intelligent leadership, the body of the Cherokee was rapidly drifting away. As the lands upon which the emigrants had settled belonged to the Osage, whose claim had not yet been extinguished by the United States, the latter objected to their presence, and the Cherokee were compelled to fight to maintain their own position, so that for the first twenty years or more the his- tory of the western band is a mere petty chronicle of Osage raids and Cherokee retaliations, emphasized from time to time by a massacre on a larger scale. By the

treaty of 1*17 the western Cherokee acquired title to a definite territory and official standing under Government pro- tection and supervision, the lands assigned them Inning been acquired by treaty from the Osage. The great body of the Cherokee in the East were strongly opposed to any recognition of the western hand, seeing in such action only the beginning of an effort looking toward the ultimate removal of the whole tribe. The Government lent sup- port to the scheme, however, and a steady emigration set in until, in lM'.t. the emigrant^ were said to number several thousands. Unsuc- cessful endeavors were made to increase the number by inducing the Shawano and Delaware* of Missouri and the Oneida of New York to join them.' In L818 Tollunteeskee (Ata'lunti'ski), principal chief of the Arkan- sas Cherokee, while on a visit to old friendsin the East, had become acquainted with one of the officers of the American Board of Commis- sioners for Foreign Missions, and had asked for the establishment of a mission among his people in the West. In response to the invitation the Reverend Cephas Washburn and his assistant. Reverend Alfred Finney, with their families, set out the next year from the old Nation. and after a long and exhausting journey reached the Arkansas country, where, in the spring of 1820, they established Dwight mission, adjoin- ing the agency at the mouth of Illinois creek, on the northern bank of the Arkansas, in what is now Pope county, Arkansas. The name was bestowed in remembrance of Timothy Dwight. a Yale president and pioneer organizer of the American Hoard. Tollunteeskee having died in the meantime was succeeded as principal chief by his

brother. John Jolly, 8 the friend and adopted father of Samuel Houston. Jolly 1 See ante, pp. 105-106; Nuttall. who was oil the ground, gives them only L.500. 2 Washburn, Cephas, Reminiscences "i* the Indians, pp. 81,103; Richmond, 1869. moosey] TROUBLES WITH OSAGE- 1 S I7-^' 137 had removed from bis old borne at the mouth of Hiwassee, in Ten- nessee, in 1 81 v . In the spring of L819 Tl as Nuttall, the naturalist, ascended the Arkansas, ami he gives an interesting accounl of the western Cherokee as he found theinal the time, [n going up the stream, "both banks of the river, as we proceeded, were lined with the houses and farms of the Cherokee, and though their die-- was a mixture of indigenous and European taste, yel in their houses, which are decently furnished, and in theirfarms, which were well fenced and stocked with cattle, we perceive a happy approach toward civilization. Their numerous fami- lies, also, well fed and clothed, argue a propitious progress in their population. Their superior industry either as hunters or farmers proves the value of property among them, and they are no longer strangers to avarice and the distinctions created by wraith. Some of them are possessed of property to the amount of many thousands of dollars, ha\ e houses handsomely and conveniently furnished, and their tables spread with our dainties and luxuries." He mentions an engage- ment some time before between them and the Osage, in which the Cherokee had killed nearly one hundred of the Osage, besides taking a number of prisoners. He estimates them at about fifteen hundred, being about half the number estimated by the eastern Nation

as hav- ing emigrated to the West, and only one-fourth of the official estimate. A few Delawares wen' living with them. 2 The Osage troubles continued in spite of a treaty of peace between the two tribes made at a council held under the direction of < rovernor Clark at St. Louis, in October, L818. 3 Warriors from the eastern Cherokee were accustomed to make the long journey to the Arkansas to assist their western brethren, and returned with scalps and captives.' In the summer of L820 a second effort for peace was made by Gov- ernor Miller of Arkansas territory. In reply to his talk the I (sage complained that the Cherokee had failed to deliver their Osage cap fives as stipulated in the previous agreement at St. Louis. This, it appears, was due in part to the factor Spring-frog, in McKenney and Hall, Indian Tribes, i and ii, 185S. 138 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ass.19 to them the knowledge of his great invention, which was at once taken up through the influence of Takatoka (IVgata'ga). a prominent chief who had hitherto opposed every effort of the missionaries to intro- duce their own schools and religion. In consequence perhaps of this encouragement Sequoya removed permanently to the West in the fol- lowing year and became henceforth a member of the western Nation. 1 Like other Indians, the western ( iherokee held a firm belief in witch- craft, which led to frequent tragedies of punishment or retaliation. In L824 a step forward was marked by the enactment of a law making it murder to kill any one for witchcraft, and an offense punishable with whipping to accuse another of

witchcraft. 8 This law may have been the result of the silent working of missionary influence, sup- ported by such enlightened men as Sequoya. The treaty which assigned the Arkansas lands to the western Cher- okee had stipulated that a census should be made of the eastern and western divisions of the Nation, separately, and an apportionment of the national annuity forthwith made on that basis. The western line of the Arkansas tract had also been left open, until according to another stipulation of the same treaty, the whole amount of land ceded through it to the United States by the Cherokee Nation in the East could be ascer- tained in order that an equal quantity might be included within the boundaries of the western tract. 3 These promises had not yet been fulfilled, partly because of the efforts ofthe Government to bring about a larger emigration or a further cession, partly on account of delay in the state surveys, and partly also because the Osage objected to the running of a line which should make the Cherokee their next door neighbors. 4 With their boundaries unadjusted and their annui- ties withheld, distress and dissatisfaction overcame the western Cher- okee, many of whom, feeling themselves absolved from territorial restrictions, spread over the country on the southern side of Arkansas river,"' while others, under the lead of a chief named The Bowl (Diwa'di). crossed Red river into Texas — then a portion of Mexico — in a vain attempt to escape American jurisdiction." A provisional western boundary having been run, which proved unsatisfactory both to the western Cherokee and to the people of Arkansas, an effort was made to settle the

obtained to an exchange of the Arkansas tract for another piece of seven million acres lying farther west, together with "a per- petual outlet west" of the trad thus assigned, as fat- west a- the sovereignty of the United States migh< extend. 4 The boundaries given for this seven-million-acre tract and the adjoining western outlet were modified by treat \ at Fort Gibson five years later so as to he practically equivalent to the present territory of the Cherokee Nation in Indian Territory, with the Cherokee strip recently ceded. The preamble of the Washington treaty of May 6, L828, recites that " Whereas, it being the anxious desire of thet rovernment of the United States to secure to the Cherokee nati f Indians. ;l s well those now living within the limits of the territory of Arkansas as thoseof their friends and brothers who reside in state- east of the Mississippi, and who may wish to join their brothers of the West, a permanent //"///-.and which shall, under the mosl solemn guarantee of the United States, he and remain theirs forever a home that shall never, in all future time, he eml larrassed by having extended around it the lines or placed over it the jurisdiction of a territory or state, nor he pressed upon by the extension in any way of any of the limits of any existing territory or state; and whereas the present location of the Cherokees in Arkansas being unfavorable to their present repose, and tending, a- the past demonstrates, to their future degradation and misery, and the ( 'herokees being anxious to avoid such consequences," etc. there- fore, they vfd>' everything confirmed to

lay off their lands and own them individually, a surveyor shall be sent to make the surveys at the cost of the United States." This article was annulled in 1833 by request of the Cherokee. Article 9 provides. for the Fort Gibson military reservation within the new tract, while article 7 hinds the Cherokee to surrender and remove from all their lands in Arkansas within fourteeiijnonths. Article 8 shows that all this was intended to he only preliminary to the removal of the whole Cherokee Nation from the east of the Missis- sippi, a consummation toward which the Jackson administration and the state of Georgia immediately began t<> bend every effort. It is as follows: Article S. The Cherokee nation, west of tin- Mississippi, having bythis agreement freed themselves from the harassing and ruinous effects consequent upon a location amidst a whitepopulation, ami secured to themselves and their posterity, under the solemn sanction of the guarantee of the United States as contained in this agreement, a large extent of unembarrassed country; and that their brothers yet remaining in the states may he induced to join them and enjoy the repose and blessings of such a state in the future, it i.- further agreed mi the part of the United States that to each h, ul of a ( herokee fannh now reoi ling within the chartered limits cf 1 eorgi i, or of either of the states oast of the Mississippi, who may desire to remove west, shall he given, mi enrolling himself for emigration, a g 1 rifle, a blanket, a kettle, and five pounds of tobacco; (and to each member of his family one blanket),

also a just compensation fur the property lie may abandon, to he assessed by persons to he app anted by the President .if the United states. The cost of the emigration of all such shall also he borne by the United states, ami good and suitable ways opened ami procured for their comfort, accomi latioh, and support by the way. and pro- visions fur twelve months after their arrival at the agency; and to each person, or head of a family, if he take along with him four persons, shall ho paid immediately on his arriving at the agency and reporting himself and his family or followers as emigrants or permanent settlers, in addition to the above, provided he and they shall have , migrated from within the chartered limits of the st.it, of Georgia, the sumof fifty dollars, and this sum in proportion to any greater or less number that may accompany him from within the aforesaid chartered limits of the State of Georgia. A Senate amendment, defining the limits of the western outlet, was afterward found to he impracticable in its restrictions and was can- celed by the treaty made at Fort Gibson in is:;:;. 1 Tin" Washington treaty was signed by several delegates, including Sequoya, four of them signing in Cherokee characters. As the laws iTreatj of Washington, May 6, 1828, Indian Treaties, pp 123-428,1837; treaty of Fort Gibson, 1-:;:;, ibid., pp.56] 65 see also for synopsis, Eoyce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp 229,230,1888. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINLTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VI TAHCHEE ITATSh OR DUTCH From Catlin's painting of 183-1 t nkv] EMIGRATION TO TEXAS 1828 111 of the western Cherokee

the meantime, however, the treaty had been ratified within three weeks of its conclusion, and thus, hardly ten years after they had cleared their fields on the Arkansas, the western Cherokee were forced to abandon their cabins and plantations and move once more into the wilderness. A considerable number, refusing to submit to the treaty or to trust longer to guarantees and promises, crossed Red river into Texas and joined the Cherokee colony already located there by The Bowl, under Mexican jurisdiction. Among those thus removing was the noted chief Tahchee (Tatsi') or •■Dutch," who had been one of the earliest emigrants to the Arkansas country. After several years in Texas, during which he led war parties against the wilder tribes, he recrossed Red river and soon made himself so conspicuous in raids upon the Osage that a reward of fivehundred dollars was ottered by General Arbuckle for his capture. To show his defiance of the proclamation, he deliberately journeyed to Fori Gibson, attacked a party of Osage at a trading- post near by, and scalped one of them within hearing of the drums of the fort. With rifle in one hand and the bleeding scalp in the other, he leaped a precipice and made his escape, although a bullet grazed his cheek. On promise of amnesty and the withdrawal id' the reward, he afterward returned and settled, with his followers, on the Canadian, southwest of Fort Gibson, establishing a reputation among army officers as a valuable scout and guide. 8 By treaties made in L826 and L827 the Creeks had ceded all their remaining lands in Georgia and agreed to remove to Lndian Territory. Some of these emigrants had

settled alone- the northern bank of the Arkansas and on Verdigris river, on lands later found to he within the limits of the territory assigned to the western Cherokee by the treaty of L828. This led to jealousies and collisions between ■ Royce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Aim. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, !■. 248, 1888. 2 For a sketch of Tahchee, with portraits, see McKenney and Hall, i, pp. American Indians ii, pp. 121,122, 1844. Washburn also mentions the emigration to Texas upon the treaty of 1828 i Reminiscences, p. -ii'. 1869). 142 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 the two tribes, and in order to settle the difficulty the United States convened a joint council of ("recks and Cherokee at Fort Gibson, with the result that separate treaties were concluded with each on February 14. 1833, defining- their respective bounds tothe satisfaction of all concerned. By this arrangement the upper Verdigris was confirmed t<> the Cherokee, and the Creeks who had settled along that portion of the stream agreed to remove to Creek territory immediately adjoining on the south.' By the treaty made on this occasion with the Cherokee the bound- aries of the tract of seven million acres granted by the treaty of L828 are denned so as to correspond with the present boundaries of the Cherokee country in Indian territory, together with a strip two miles wide along the northern border, which was afterward annexed to the state ot' Kansas liy the treaty of 1866. A tract in the northeastern corner, between Neosho or Grand river and the Missouri line, was set apart for the use of the Seneca and several other remnants of tribes removed from their original

territories. The western outlet estab- lished by the treaty of 1828 was reestablished as a western extension from the seven-million-acre tract thus bounded, being what was after- ward known as the Cherokee strip or outlet plus the two-mile strip extending westward along the south line of Kansas. After describing the boundaries of the main residence tract, the first article continues: In addition to the seven millions of acres of land thus provided for and bounded the United States further guarantee to the Cherokee nation a perpetual outlet west and a tree and unmolested use of all the country lying west of the western boundary of said seven millions of acres, as far west as the sovereignty <>f the United States and their right ef soil extend — provided, however, that if the saline or salt plain on the great westernprairie shall fall within said limits prescribed for said outlet the right is reserved to the United States to permit other tribes of red men to get salt on said plain in common with the Cherokees — and letters patent shall be issued by the United staters as soon as iiractieable for the lands hereby guaranteed. The third article cancels, at the particular request of the Cherokee, that article of the treaty of 1838 by which the government was to give to the Cherokee a set of laws and a surveyor to survey lands for indi- viduals, when so desired by the Cherokee. 2 Their differences with the Creeks having been thus adjusted, the Arkansas Cherokee proceeded to occupy the territory guaranteed to them, where they were joined a few years later by their expatriated kinsmen from the east.

By tacit agreement some of the Creeks who had settled within the Cherokee bounds were permitted to remain. Among these were several families of Uchee — an incorporated tribe i Treaties at Fort Gibson. February 14. 1833, with Creeks and Cherokee, in Indian Treaties, pp. 56] "■'.'. 1837. s Treaty of 1833, Indian Treaties, pp. 561-665,1837; Etoyce, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 249-253. 1888; see also Treaty of New Eehota, 1835, ante, pp. 123-125. BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. VII SPRING-FROG OR TOOANTUH DU'TSU'i i From McKcnney and Ball's copy of the original painting ol aboul L830) THE SPANISH GKAN1 143 of the Creek confederacy who had fixed their residence al the spot where the town of Tahlequah \\:i- aftei'ward established- They remained here until swept off by smallpox some sixty years ago. ' THE TEXASBAND L817 1900 As already stated, a band of western Cheixikee under Chief Bowl, dissatisfied \\ itli the delay in fulfilling the terms of the treaty of L817, bad Left Arkansas and crossed Red river into Texas, then under Mexican jurisdiction, where the} were joined a few years later by Tahchee and other- of the western band who were opposed to the treat} of L828. Here they united with other refugee Indians from the United States, forming together a loose confederacy known after- ward as "the Cherokee and their associated bands," < sisting of Cherokee, Shawano, Delaware, Kickapoo, Quapaw, Choctaw, Biloxi, "Iawanie" (Heyowani, Yowani), "Unataqua" (Nada'ko or Ana- darko, another Caddo subtribe), "Tahookatookie" (?), Alabama (a (reek subtribe), and "Cooshatta" (Koasa'ti, another Creek subtribe). The Cherokee being the largest and most important band, their child'. Bowl — known to the whites as

Colonel Bowles— was regarded as the chief and principal man of them all. The refugees settled chiefly alone- Angelina, Neches, and Trinity rivers in eastern Texas, where Bowl endeavored to obtain a grant of land for their use from the Mexican government. According to the Texan historians they were tacitly permitted to occupy the country and hope- were held out that a grant would lie issued, hut the papers had not been perfected when the Texas revolution began. 2 According to the Cherokee statement the grant was actually issued and the Span- ish document inclosed in a tin box was on the person of Bowl when he was killed. 3 On complaint of some of the American colonists in Texas President Jackson issued a proclamation forbidding any Indian- to cross the Sabine river from the United States. 4 In L826-27 adissatisfied American colony in eastern Texas, under the leader-hip of Hayden Edward-, organized what was known a- the "Fredonia rebellion" against the Mexican government. To secure the alliance of the Cherokee and their confederates the Americans entered into a treaty by which the Indians were guaranteed the lands ■ Author's personal information. In 189] the author opened two Uehee graves on the grounds of Cornelius Boudinot, at Tahlequah, finding with one body a number of French, Spanish, and Imeri can silver coins wrapped in cloth and deposited in two packages on each sidi of the head They are now in the National Museum at Washington, - Bonnell, Topographic Description of Texas, p, ill; Austin, 1840; Thrall, History of Texas, p. 58; New York, 1876. 'Author's personal information from J. D. Wafford and other old Cherokee residents and fr recenl Cherokee

General Samuel Houston, a leading member of the revolutionary body, was an old friend of the Cherokee, and set forth so strongly the claims of them and their confederates that an act was passed by the convention pledg- ing to these tribes all the lands which they had held under the Mexican government. In accordance with this act General Houston and John Forbes were appointed to hold a treaty with the Cherokee and their associated bands. They met the chiefs, including Bowl and Big-mush (( .atun'wa'll. "Hard-mush"), of the Cherokee, at Bowl's village on Feb- ruary 23, L836, and concluded a formal trinity by which the Cherokee and their allies received a fee simple title to all the land lying " west of the San Antonio road and beginning on the west at a point where the said road crossesthe river Angelina, and running up said river until it reaches the mouth of the first large creek below the great Shawnee village, emptying into the said river from the northeast, thence run- ning with said creek to its main source and from thence a due north line to the Sabine and with .said river west. Then starting where the San Antonio road crosses the Angelina and with said road to where it crosses the Nechesand thence running up the east side of said river in a northwest direction." The historian remarks that the description is somewhat vague, but is a literal transcription from the treaty. 2 The territory thus assigned was about equivalent to the present Cherokee county. Texas. The treaty provoked such general dissatisfaction among the Texans that it was not presented to the convention for ratification. General Houston

became President of Texas in November. 1836, but notwith- standing all his efforts in behalf of the Cherokee, the treaty was rejected by the Texas senate in secret session on December It',. 1837 Texas having in the meantime achieved victorious independence was now in position to repudiate her engagements with the Indians, which she did. not only with the Cherokee, but with the Comanche and other wild tribes, wdiich had been induced to remain neutral during the struggle on assurance of being secured in possession of their lands. In the meantime President Houston was unremitting in his effort to secure the ratification of the Cherokee treaty, but without success. On the other hand the Cherokee were accused of various depreda- tions, and it was asserted that they had entered into an agreement with i Thrall, Texas, p. 46, 1879. ; Ibid.,eastern Texas, including the ( Iherokee and their twelve confederated bands and some others, were estimated at L,800 warriors, or perhaps 8,1 persons/' A small force of troops sent to take possession of the salt springs in the Indian country at the head of the Neches was notified by Bowl that such action would be resisted. The Indians were then informed that they musl prepare to leave the country in the fall, bul thai they would be paid for the impi-ovements abandoned. In the meantime the neighboring Mexicans made an effort to free themselves from Texan rule and sent overtures to the Indians to make common cause with them. This being discovered, the crisis was prei ipitated, and a commission consisting of General Albert Sidney Johnston (secretary of war of the republic), Vice-President Burnet, and some other officials, backed up by

several regiments of troops, was sent to the Cherokee village on Angelina river- to demand of the Indians that they remove at once across the border. The Indians refused and were attacked and defeated on July L5, L839, by the Texan troops under command of General Douglas. They were pursued and a second engagement took place the next morning, resulting in the death of Bowl himself and his assistant chief < iatfuYwa'li. "Hard-mush," and the dispersion of the Indian forces, with a loss in the two engagements of about 55 killed and 80 wounded, the Texan loss being comparatively trifling. The first fight took place al a hill close to the main Cherokee village on the Angelina, where the Indian- made a stand and defended their position well for some time. The second occurred at a ravine near Neches river,hands along the western Texas frontier, where they were occasionally heard from afterward. On Christmas day of the same year a fight occurred on Cherokee creek. San Saba count}', in which several Indians were killed and a number of women and children captured, including the wife and family of the dead chief Bowl. 2 Those of the Cherokee w T ho did not return to Indian territory gradually drifted down into Mexico, where some hundreds of them are now permanently and prosperously domiciled far south in the neighborhood of Guadalajara and LakeChapala, communication being still kept up through occasional visits from their kinsmen in the terri- tory. 3 THE CHEROKKE NATION IN THE WEST — 1840-1900 With the final removal of the Cherokee from their native country and their reunion and reorganization under new conditions in Indian Territory in L840 their aboriginal

period properly comes to a close and the rest may be dismissed in a few paragraphs as of concern rather to the local historian than to the ethnologist. Having traced for three full centuries their gradual evolution from a savage tribe to a civilized Christian nation, with a national constitution and national press printed in their own national alphabet, we can afford to leave the rest to others, the principal materials being readily accessible in the Cherokee national archives at Tahlequah, in the tiles of the Gheroket Advocate and other newspapers published in the Nation, and in the annual reports and other documents of the Indian office. For many years the hunter and warrior had been giving place to the farmer and mechanic, ami the forced expatriation made the change complete and final. Torn from their native streams and mountains, theirfathers. Here, as in other lands, the conservative element has taken refuge in the mountain districts, while the mixed- bloods and the adopted whites are chiefly on the richer low grounds and in the railr I towns. On the reorganization of the united Nation the council ground at Tahlequah was designated as the seat of government, and the present town was soon afterward laid out upon the spot, taking its name from the old Cherokee town of Talikwa,', or Tellico, in Tennessee. The missions were reestablished, the Acfrvocatt was revived, and the work of civilization was again taken up, though under great difficulties, as continued removals and persecutions, with the awful suffering and mortality of the last great emigration, had impoverished and more than decimated the Nation and worn out the courage even of the bravest. The bitterness engendered by the

New Echota treaty led to a series of murders and assassinations and other acts of outlawry. amounting almost to civil war between the Ross and Ridge factions, until the Government was at last obliged to interfere. The Old Set- tler- also had their grievances and complaints against the newcomer-. so that the history of the Cherokee Nation for the next twenty years i- largely a chronicle of factional quarrels, through which civilization and every good work actually retrograded behind the condition of a generation earlier. Sequoya, who had occupied a prominent position in the affairs of the Old Settlers and assisted much in the reorganization of the Nati had become seized with a desire to make linguistic investigations among the remote tribes, very probably with a view of devising a universal Indian alphabet. His mind dwelt also on the old traditionof a lost band of Cherokee living somewhere toward the western mountains. In 1841 and L842, with a few Cherokee companions and with hi- pro- visions and papers loaded in an ox cart, he made several journey- into the West, received everywhere with kindness by even the wildest t ribes. Disappointed in his philologic results, he started out in L843 in quest of the lost Cherokee, who were believed to be somewhere in northern Mexico, but. being now an old man and worn out by hardship, he sank under the effort and died alone and unattended, it i< said — near the 148 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 village of San Fernando, Mexico, in August of that year. Rumors having come of his helpless condition, a party had been sent out from the Nation to bring him back, but arrived

too late to find him alive. A pension of three hundred dollars, previously voted to him by the Nation, was continued to his widow — the only literary pension in the United States. Besides a wife he left two sons and a daughter. 1 Sequoyah district of the Cherokee Nation was named in his honor, and the great trees of California (Sequoia gigantea) also preserve his memory. In L846 a treaty was concluded at Washington by which the con- flicting claims of the Old Settlers and later emigrants were adjusted, reimbursement was promised for sums unjustly deducted from the five-million-dollar payment guaranteed under the treaty of 1835, and a general amnesty was proclaimed for all past offenses within the Nation." Final settlement of the treaty claims has not yet been made, and the matter is still a subject of litigation, includingall the treaties and agreements up to the present date. In 1859 the devoted missionary Samuel Worcester, author of numerous translations and first organizer of the Advocate, died at Park Hill mission, in the Cherokee Nation, after thirty-five years spent in the service of the Cherokee, having suffered chains, impris- onment, and exile for their sake. 3 The breaking out of the civil war in 1861 found the Cherokee divided in sentiment. Being slave owners, like the other Indians removed from the southern states, and surrounded by southern influ- ences, the agents in charge being themselves southern sympathizers, a considerable party in each of the tribes was disposed to take active part with the Confederacy. The old Ridge part}', headed by Stand Watie and supported by the secret secession organization known as the Knights of the Golden Circle, declared for the Confederacy.

The National party, headed by John Ross and supported by the patriotic organization known as the Kitoowah society — whose members were afterward known as Pin Indians — declared for strict neutrality. At last, however, the pressure became too strong to be resisted, and on October T, L'861, a treaty was concluded at Tahlequah, with General Albert Pike, commissioner for the Confederate states, by which the Cherokee Nation cast its lot with the Confederacy, as the Creeks, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Osage, Comanche, and several smaller tribes had already done. 4 iW. A. Phillips. Sequoyah, in Harper's Magazine, September, 1*70; Foster. Sequoyah, 1885; Royc.e, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Hep. Bureau of Ethnology, p. 302, 1888; letter of William P. Ross, former editor of Cherokee Advocate, March 11, 18S9, in archives of Bureau of American Ethnology; Cherokee Advocate, October 19, 1844, November J,following summer the Union forces entered the Cherokee country and senl a proposition i<> Ross, urging him to repudiate the treaty with the Confederate states, but the offer was indignantlj declined. Shortly afterward, however, the men of Drew's regiment, finding themselves unpaid and generally neglected by their allies, went over almost in a body to the Union side, thus compelling Ross to make an arrangement with the Union commander, Colonel Weir. Leaving the Cherokee country, Ross retired to Philadelphia, from which be did not return until the close of the war. In the meantime Indian Territory was ravaged alter- nately by contending factions and armed bodies, and thousands of loyal fugitives were obliged to lake refuge in Kansas, where they were eared for by the government. Among these, at the close of 1862, were two thousand Cherokee. In the following spring

thej were sent hack to their homes under an 1 escort to give them an opportunity to put in a crop, seeds and tools being furnished for the purpose, hut had hardly begun work when they were forced to retire by the approach of Stand Watie and his regiment of Confederate Cherokee, estimated at seven hundred men. Stand Watie and his men. with the ( !onfederate ( Ireeks and others, scoured the country at will, destroying or carrying off everything belonging to the loyal Cherokee, who had now. to the number of nearly seven thousand, taken refuge at Fort Gibson. Refusing to lake sides againsl a government which was still unable to protect them, they were forced to see all the prosperous accumulations of twenty years of industry swept off in this guerrilla warfare. In stock alone their losses were5,000 Indians of the southern ■ i erokee, under command of General Albert Pike. - l:, >yce • in, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnolog; i p.331. 150 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 had been occupied by their settlements was distinguishable from the virgin prairie only by the scorched and blackened chimneys and the plowed but now neglected fields." 1 After rive years of desolation the Cherokee emerged from the war with their numbers reduced from 21,000 to 14,000, a and their whole country in ashes. On July 19, 1866, by a treaty concluded at Tahle- quah. the nation was received back into the protection of the United States, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and all confiscations on account of the war prohibited; slavery was abolished without compen- sation to former owners, and all negroes residing within the Nation were admitted to full

Cherokee citizenship. By articles L5 and 16 permission was given tin 1 United States to settle friendly Indians within the Cherokee home country or the Cherokee strip by consent and purchase from the Nation. By article 17 the Cherokee sold the 800,000-acre tract in Kansas secured by the treaty of 1835, together with a two-mile strip running along the southern border of Kansas, and thereafter to be included within the limits of that state, thus leav- ing the Cherokee country as it was before the recent cession of the Cherokee strip. Payment was promised for spoliations by United States troops during the war; and $3,000 were to be paid out of the Cherokee funds to the Reverend Evan Jones, then disabled and in poverty, as a reward for forty years of faithful missionary labors. By article 26 ""the United Statesguarantee to the Cherokees the quiet and peaceable possession of their country and protection against domestic feuds and insurrection as well as hostilities of other tribes. They shall also be protected from intrusion by all unauthorized citi- zens of the United States attempting to settle on their lands or reside in their territory." 3 The missionary, Reverend Evan Jones, who had followed the Cher- okee into exile, and his son, John B. Jones, had been admitted to Cherokee citizenship the year before by vote of the Nation. The act conferring this recognition recites that "we do bear witness that they have done their work well."* John Ross, now an old man, had been unable to attend this treaty, being present at the time in Washington on business for his people. Before its ratification he died in that city on August 1,

of il riginal painting ol aboul 183 i mooney] FIRST RAILROAD — LITERAR'X REVIVAL L870 151 and be died, as be bad lived for nearly forty years, the official!; recog nixed chief of the Nation. With repeated opportunities to enrich himself at the expense of his tribe, he died a poor man. His bodj was brought back and interred in the territorj of the Nation. In remembrance of the great chief one of the nine districts of the Chero- kee Nation has been called by his Indian name. Cooweescoowee I t6). Under the provisions of the late treaty the 1 >ela wares in Kansas, to the number of 985, removed t<> Indian territory in 1867 and became incorporated as citizens <d' the Chei-okee Nation. They were followed in 1870 by the Shawano, chiefly also from Kansas, to the numberof 770. 1 These immigrants settled chiefly along the Verdigris, in the northwestern part of the Nation. Under the same treaty the Osage, Kaw, Paw nee. Ponca, < )to and Missouri, and Tonkawa were afterward settled (in the western extension known then as the Cherokee strip. The captive Nez Perces of Joseph's hand werealso temporarily located there, but have since been removed to the states of Washington and Idaho. In 1870 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas railway, a branch of the Union Pacific system, was constructed through the lands of the Chero- kee Nation under an agreement ratified by the Government, it being the first railroad to enter that country.-' Several others have since been constructed or projected. The same year saw a Cherokee literary revival. The publication of the Advocate, which had been suspended since some years before the war, was resumed,

and by authority of the Nation John B. Jones began the preparation of a series of schoolbooks in the Cherokee language and alphabet for the benefit of those children who knew no English. 3 In the spring of L881 a delegation from the Cherokee Nation visited tin East Cherokee still remaining in the mountains of North Carolina and extended to them a cordial and urgent imitation to remove and incorporate upon equal terms with the Cherokee Nation in the Indian territory, [n consequence several parties of East Cherokee, number- ing in all 161 persons, removed during the year to the western Nation. the expense being paid by the Federal government. < >thers afterwards applied for assistance to remove, but as no further appropriation was made for the purpose nothing more was done.* iii 1883 the East Cherokee brought suit for asome years before at a cost of $90,000. The Cherokee Nation was now appropriating annually over $80,000 for school pur- poses, including the support of the two seminaries, an orphan asylum, and over one hundred primary schools, besides which there were a number of mission schools. 2 For a number of years the pressure for the opening of Indian terri- tory to white settlement had been growing in strength. Thousands of intruders had settled themselves upon the lands of each of the five civilized tribes, where they remained upon various pretexts in spite of urgent and repeated appeals to the government by the Indians for their removal. Under treaties with the five civilized tribe-, the right to decide citizenship or residence claims belonged to the tribes concerned, but the intruders had at last become so numerous and strong that they had

formed an organization among themselves to pass upon their own claims, and others that might lie submitted to them, with attorneys and ample funds to defend each claim in outside courts against the decision of the tribe. At the same time the Gov- ernment policy was steadily toward the reduction or complete breaking up of Indian reservations and the allotment of lands to the Indians in severalty, with a view to their final citizenship, and the opening of the surplus lands to white settlement. As a part of the same policy the jurisdiction of the United States courts was gradually being extended over the Indian country, taking cognizance of many things hitherto considered by the Indian courts under former treaties with the United States. Against all this the Cherokee and other civilized tribes protested, but without avail. To add tothe irritation, com- panies of armed " boomers " were organized for the express purpose of invading and seizing the Cherokee outlet and other unoccupied portions of the Indian territory — reserved by treaty for future Indian settlement — in defiance of the civil and military power of the Gov- ernment. We come now to what seems the beginning of the end of Indian autonomy. In 1889 a commission, afterward known as the Cherokee Commission, was appointed, under act of Congress, to '•negotiate with the Cherokee Indians, and with all other Indians owning or claiming lands lying west of the ninety-sixth degree of longitude in the Indian territory, for the cession to the United States of all their title, claim, or interest of every kind or character in and to said lands." In August of that year the commission made a

kind- without permission of the Government. At this time the Cherokee were deriving an annual income of $150,000 from the lease of grazing privileges upon the strip, hut by a proclamation of President Harrison on February 17. 1890, ordering the cattlemen to vacate before the end of the year. this income was cut oil and the strip was rendered practically value- less to them. 8 The Cherokee were now forced to come to terms, and a second proposition for the cession of the Cherokee strip was finally accepted by the national council on January 1. 1892. "It was known to the Cherokees that for some time would-be settlers on the land- of the outlet had been encamped in the southern end of Kansas, and by every influence at their command had been urging the Government to open the country tosettlement and to negotiate with the Cherokees afterwards, and that a bill for that purpose had been introduced in Congress." The consideration was nearly $8,600,000, or about $1.25 per acre, for something over 6,000,000 acres of land. One article of the agreement stipulates for ■"the reaffirmation to the Cherokee Nation of the right of local self-government." 8 The agreement having been ratified by Congress, the Cherokee strip was opened h\ Presidential proclamation on September 16, I s '.':;.' The movement for the abolition of the Indian governments and the allotment and opening of the Indian country had now gained such force thai by act of Congress approved March 3, 1893, the President was authorized to appoint a commission of three -known later as the Dawes Commission, from its distinguished chairman. Senator Henry L. Dawes of Massachusetts to negotiate with the five

the same, or by such other method as may be agreed upon . . . to enable the ultimate creation of a state or states of the Union, which shall embrace the land within the said Indian territory." 1 The commission appointed arrived in the Indian territory in January, 1894, and at once began negotiations. 2 At this time the noncitizen element in Indian Territory was officially reported to number at least 200,000 souls, while those having rights as citizens of the five civilized tribes, including full-blood and mixed- blood Indians, adopted whites, and negroes, numbered but 70, 500. s Not all of the noncitizens were intruders, many being there by per- mission of the Indian governments or on official or other legitimate business, but the great body of them were illegal squatters or unrecog- nized claimants to Indian rights,fraternal feeling which must be cultivated and secured before allotment is prac- ticable and statehood desirable."' The removal of the intruders was still delayed, and in 1896 the decision of citizenship claims was taken from the Indian government and relegated to the Dawes Commission. 6 In 1895 the commission was increased to rive members, with enlarged jiowers. In the meantime a survey of Indian Territory had been ordered and begun. In September the agent wrote: "The Indians now know that a survey of their lands is being made, and whether with or without their consent, the survey is going on. The meaning of such survey is too plain to be disregarded, and it is justly con- sidered as the initial step, solemn and authoritative, toward the oxer- throw of their present communal holdings. At this writing surveying corps are at work

report of the secretary of the < !her- okee national board of education to |A.gen1 Wisdom. He reports 1,800 children attending two seminaries, male and female, two high schools, and one hundred primary schools, teachers being paid from |35 to $100 per month for nine months in the year. Fourteen primary schools were for the use of the negro citizens of the Nation, besides which they had a fine high school, kept up, like all the others, at the expense of the Cherokee goverment. Besides the national schools there were twelve mission schools helping to do splendid work for children of both citizens and noncitizens. Children of noncitizens were not allowed to attend the Cherokee national schools, but had their o\\ n subscription schools. The orphan asylum ranked as a high school, in which L50 orphans were hoarded and educated,\\ ith gradu- ates every year. It was a large brick building of three stories. 80 by 240 feet. The male seminary, accommodating 200 pupils, and the female seminary, accommodating 225 pupils, were also large brick structures, three stories in height and L50 by 240 feet on the ground. Three members, all Cherokee by blood, constituted a board of educa- tion. The secretary adds that the Cherokee are proud of their scl Is and educational institutions, and that no other country under the sun is so Messed with etlucat ional advantages at large. 1 At this time the Cherokee Nation numbered something over 25,000 Indian, white, and negro citizens; the total citizen population of the three races in the five civilized tribes numbered about 70,000, while the noncitizens had increased to 250,000 and their number was being rapidly augmented. 2 Realizing

that the swift, inevitable end must be the destruction of their national governments, the Cherokee began once more to consider the question of removal from the United States. Thescheme is outlined in a letter written by a brother of the principal chief of the Cherokee Nation under date of May 31. 1895, from which we quote. After prefacing that the government of the United State- seems determined to break up the tribal autonomy of the five civilized tribes and to divide their lands, thus bringing about conditions under which the Cherokee could not exist, he continues: Then for a remedy that will lead us nut of it, away from it. and one that pr isea niir preservation as a distinct race of people in the enjoyment of customs, social ami political, that have been handed down to us from remoteIndians and vested in a Government commission; the lands of the five tribes have been surveyed and seetionized by Government surveyors: and by the sweeping provisions of the Curtis act of June 28, L898, "for the protection of the people of the Indian Territory." the entire control of tribal revenues is taken from the five Indian tribes and vested with a resident supervising inspector, the tribal courts are abolished, allotments are made compulsory, and authority is given to incorporate white men's towns in the Indian tribes. 8 By this act the five civilized tribes are reduced to the condition of ordinary reservation tribes under government agents with white communities planted in their midst. In the meantime the Dawes commission, continued up to the present, has by unremitting effort broken down the opposition of the Choctaw and Chickasaw, who have consented to

Here they were joined by others who had managed to break through the guard at Calhoun and other collecting stations, until the whole number of fugitives in hiding amounted to a thousand or more, principally of the mountain Cherokee of North Carolina, the purest-blooded and mosl conservative of the Nation. About one-half the refugee warriors had put themselves under command of a noted Leader named U'tsala, '"Lichen."' who made his headquarters amid the lofty peaks at the head of Oconaluftee, from which secure hiding place, although reduced to extremity of suffering from starvation and exposure, they defied every effort to effect their capture. The work of running down these fugitives proved to be so difficult an undertaking and so well-nigh barren, of result that when Charley and his sons made their bold stroke for freedom 5 General Scott eagerly seized theincident as an opportunity for compromise. To this end he engaged the services of William 11. Thomas, a trader who for more than twenty years had been closely identified with the mountain Cher- okee and possessed their full confidence, and authorized him to submit to U'tsala a proposition that if the latter would seize Charley and the others who had been concerned in the attack upon the soldiers and surrender them for punishment, the pursuit would be called off and the fugitives allowed to stay unmolested until an effort could be made to secure permission from the general government for them to remain. Thomas accepted the commission, and taking with him one or two Indian- made his way over secret paths to U'tsala's hiding place. He presented Scott's proposition and represented to the chief that by aiding in bringing Charley's

party to punishment according to the rule- of war he could secure respite tor his sorely pressed followers, with the ultimate hope that they might he allowed to remain in their 1 Report of Agent I). M. Wisdom, Report "i [ndian Commissioner, p. 159, 189S. ge 131. 158 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 own country, whereas if he rejected the offer the whole force of the seven thousand troops which hud now completed the work of gather- ing up and deporting the rest of the tribe would be set loose upon his own small hand until the last refugee had been either taken or killed. U'tsala turned the proposition in his mind long and seriously. His heart was hitter, for his wife and little son had starved to death on the mountain side, but he thought of the thousands who werealready on their Long march into exile and then he looked round upon his little band of followers. If only they might stay, even though a few must lie sacrificed, it was better than that all should die — for they had sworn never to leave their country. He consented and Thomas returned to report to General Scott. Now occurred a remarkable incident which shows the character of Thomas and the masterly influence which he already had over the Indians, although as yet he was hardly more than thirty years old. It was known that Charley and his party were in hiding in a cave of the Great Smokies, at the head of Deep creek, but it was not thought likely that he could be taken without hloodshed and a further delay which might prejudice the whole undertaking. Thomas determined

arrangement for their permanent settlement. Under the treaty of New Echota, in 1835, the Cherokee were entitled, besides the lump sum of five million dollars for the lands ceded, to an additional compensation for the improve- ments which they were forced to abandon and for spoliations by white citizens, together with a per capita allowance to cover the cost of removal and subsistence for one year in the new country. The twelfth article had also provided that such Indians as chose to remain in the East and become citizens there might do so under certain conditions. i Charley's story as here given is from the author's personal information, derived chiefly from con- versations with Colonel Thomas and with Wasitu'na and other old Indians. An ornate but some u hat inaccurate account is given also in Lanman's Letters from theAlleghany Mountains, written on the ground ten years after the events deseribed. The leading lactsare noted in General Scott's official dispatches. PURCHASE OF Ql AM. A KI--I IM \TI<>.\- 1842 L59 cadi head of a family thus remaining to be confirmed in a preemption right i" L60 acres. In consequence of the settled purpose of President Jackson to deport e\ cry Indian, this permission was canceled and sup plementary articles substituted by which some additional compensation was allowed in lieu of the promised preemptions and all individual reservations granted under previous treaties. 1 Every Cherokee was thus made a landless alien in his original country. The last party of emigrant Cherokee had started for the West in December, L838. Nine months afterwards the refugees still scattered about in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee were reported to number L,046. ! By

persistent effort at Washington from L836 to L842, including one continuous stay of three years at the capital city, Thomas finally obtained governmental permission for these to remain, and their share of the moneys due for improvements and reservations confiscated was placed at his disposal, as their agent and trustee, for the purpose of buying lands upon which they could be permanently settled. Under this authority he bought for them, at various times up to the year L861, a number of contiguous tracts of land upon Oconaluftee river and Soco creek, within the present Swain and Jackson counties of North Carolina, together with several detached tracts in the more western counties of the same state. The main body, upon the waters of Oconaluftee, which was chiefly within the limits of the cession of L819, came afterward to he known asthe Qualla boundary, or Qualla reservation, taking the name from Thomas' principal trading store and agency headquarters. The detached western tracts were within the final cession of 1835, hut all alike were bought by Thomas from \\ hite owners. As North ( Jarolina refused to recognize Indians a- land- owners within the state, and persisted in this refusal until L866, 3 Thomas, as their authorized agent under the Government, held the deeds in his own name. Before it was legally possible under the state laws to transfer the title to the Indians, his own affairs had become involved and his health impaired by age and the hardships of military service so that his mind gave way. thus leaving the whole question of the Indian title a subject of litigation until its adjudication by the United States in 1875, supplemented by

Sam Houston. Thomas was born in the year 1805 on Raccoon creek, about two miles from Waynesville in North Carolina. His father, who was related to President Zachary Taylor, came of a Welsh family which had immi- grated to Virginia at an early period, while on his mother's side he was descended from a Maryland family of Revolutionary stock. He was an only and posthumous child, his father having been accidentally drowned a short time before the boy was born. Being unusually bright for his age, he was engaged when only twelve years old to tend an Indian trading store on Soco creek, in the present Jackson county, owned by Felix Walker, son of the Congressman of the same name who made a national reputation by "talking for Buncombe." The store was on the south side of the creek, abouta mile above the now abandoned Macedonia mission, within the present reservation, and was a branch of a larger establishment which Walker himself kept at Waynesville. The trade was chiefly in skins and ginseng, or "sang," the latter for shipment to China, where it was said to be worth its weight in silver. This trade was very pi'ofitable. as the price to the Indians was but ten cents per pound in merchandise for the green root, whereas it now brings seventy-five cents in cash upon the reservation, the supply steadily diminishing with every year. The contract was for three years' service for a total compensation of one. hundred dollars and expenses, but Walker devoted so much of his attention to law studies that the Waynesville store was finally closed for debt, and at the end of his contract term young

Thomas was obliged to accept a lot of second-hand law books in lieu of other payment. How well he made use of them is evident from his subsequent service in the state senate and in other official capacities. * Soon after entering upon his duties he attracted the notice of Yon- aguska. or Drowning-bear (Ya'na-giin'ski, "Bear-drowning-him"), the acknowledged chief of all the, Cherokee then living on the waters of Tin kasegee and Oconaluftee — the old Kituhwa country. On learning that the boy had neither father nor brother, the old chief formally adopted him as his son. and as such he was thenceforth recognized in the tribe under the name of Wil-Usdi', or "Little Will." he being of small stature even in mature age. From his Indian friends, particu- larly a boy of the same age who was his companionin' the -tore, he learned the language as well as a white man has ever learned it. so that in his dec lining years it dwelt in memory more strongly than his mother tongue. After the invention of the Cherokee alphabet, he learned also to read and write the language,, In L819 the lands on Tuckasegee and its branches were sold by the BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY NINETEENTH ANNUAL REPORT PL. IX COL. W. H. THOMAS WIL-USDI'i Ft photogra 1 1858 kindly loaned by Capt. James \v. Terrell) WILLIAM II. THOMAS L61 Indian-, and Thomas's mother soon after removed from Waj nes^ ille to a farm which she purchased on the west bank of Oconaluf tee, opposite the month of Soco, where her son went to live with her, having now --ft up in business lor himself at Qualla. Ybnaguska and

his immedi- ate connection continued to reside on a -mall reservation in the same neighborhood, while the rest of the Cherokee retired to the west of the Nantahala mountains, though still visiting and trading on Soco. After several shiftings Thomas finally, soon after the removal in l s ".s. bought a farm on the northern hank of Tuckasegee, just above the present town of Whittier in Swain county, and built there a home- stead which he called Stekoa, after an Indian town destroyed by Rutherford which had occupied the same site. At the time of the removal he was the proprietor of five trading stores in or adjoining the Cherokee country, viz. at Qualla town, near the mouth of Soco creek; on Scott's creek, near Webster; on Cheowa, near the present Robbins ville; at the junction of Valley river andHiwassee, now Murphy; and at the Cherokee agency at Calhoun (now Charleston). Tennessee. Besides carrying on a successful trading business he was also studying law and taking an active interest in local politics. In his capacity as agent for the eastern Cherokee he laid off the. lands purchased for them into five districts or "towns," which he named Bird town. Paint town. Wolf town, Yellow hill, and Big cove, the name- which they -till retain, the first three beingthose of Chero- kee clans. 1 He also drew up for them a simple form of government, the execution of which was in his own and Ybnaguska's hands until the death of the latter, after which the hand knew no other chief than Thomas until his retirement from active life. In 1848 he was elected to the state senate and continued to

serve in that capacity until the outbreak of the civil war. As state senator he inaugurated a system of road improvements for western North Carolina and was also the father of the Western North Carolina Railroad (now a part of the Southern -\ stem), originally projected to develop the copper mines of Ducktown, Tennessee. With his colleagues in the state senate he voted for secession in 1861, and at once resigned to recruit troops for the Confederacy, to which, until the close of the war. he gave his whole time, thought, and effort. In 1862 he organized the Thomas Legion, consisting of two regiments of infantry, a battalion of cavalry, a company of engineers, and a field battery, he himself commanding as colonel, although then nearly sixty years of age. Four companies were made up principally of his own Cherokee. TheThomas Legion operated chiefly as a frontier guard i In the Cherokee language rsiskwa'hl, --Bird place," Ani'-Wa'dihl, "Paint place, (Va'ya'hl, "Wolf place," E'lawa'di, "Red earth" (now Cherokee post-office and tanufi'yl "Raven place." There was also, for a tune, a " Pretty-woman town" Ani'-Gila'hl?). 19 KTH— Ul 11 162 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ans.19 for the Confederacy along the mountain region southward from Cum- berland gap. After tlic close of the conflict he returned to his home at Stekoa and again took charge, unofficially, of the affairs of the Cherokee, whom lie attended during the smallpox epidemic of 1866 and assisted through the unsettled conditions of the reconstruction period. His own resources had been swept away by the war. and all his hopes had gone down with the lost cause. This, added to the effects of three years of hardship and anxiety in

the field when already almost past the age limit, soon after brought about a physical and mental eollapse, from which lie never afterward rallied except at intervals, when for a short time the old spirit would Hash out in all its brightness. He died in 1893 at the advanced age of nearly ninety, retaining to the last the courteous manner of a gentleman by nature and training, with an exact memory and the clear-cut statement of a lawyer and man of affairs. To his work in the state senate the people of western North Carolina owe more than to that of any other man, while among the older Cherokee the name of Wil-Csdi' is still revered as that of a father and a great chief. 1 Yonaguska. properly Ya'iui-giifi'ski, the adopted father of Thomas, is the most prominent chief inthe history of the East Cherokee, although, singularly enough, his name does not occur in connection with any of the early wars or treaties. This is due partly to the fact that he was a peace chief and counselor rather than a war leader, and in part to the fact that the isolated position of the mountain Cherokee kept them aloof in a gnat measure from the tribal councils of those living to the west anil south. In person he was strikingly handsome, being six feet three inches in height and strongly built, with a faint tinge of red. due to a slight strain of white blood on his father's side. relieving the brown of his cheek. In power of oratory he is said to have surpassed any other chief of his day. When the Cherokee lands on Tuckasegee

were sold by the treaty of 1819, Yonaguska continued to reside on a reservation of 640 acres in a bend of the river a short dis- tance above the present Bryson City, on the site of the ancient Kituhwa. 1 le afterward moved over to Oconaluftee, and finally, after the Removal, gathered his people about him and settled with them on Soco creek on lands purchased for them by Thomas. 'The fact? concerning Colonel Thorna-- '* < :nvi t uiv .1' -rived chiefly from the author's conversations with Thomas himself, supplemented by information from his former assistant, Capt. James W. Terrell, and others who knew him. together with an admirable sketch in the North Carolina Univer- sity Magazine for May 1899, by Mrs. A. c. Avery, his daughter. He is also frequently noticed, in con- nection with EastCherokee matters, in the annual reports of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs; in the North Carolina Confederate Roster; in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains; and in Zeiglerand Grosscup's Heart of the Alleghanies, etc. Some manuscript contributions to the library of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah— now unfortunately mislaid— show his interest in Cherokee linguistics. > sey] YONAGUSKA L63 Ilr was a prophel and reformer as well a~ a chief. When about sixty years of age be had a severe sickness, terminating in a trance, dui'ing which his people mourned him as dead. At the end of twent} four hours, however, he awoke to consciousness and announced thai he hail been to the spirit world, where he had talked with friends who had gone before, and with God, who had sent him hark witli a message to the Indians,

promising to call him again at a later time. From that day until his death his words were Listened to as those of our inspired. He had been somewhat addicted to liquor, but now. on the recommendation of Thomas, not only quit drinking himself. hut organ ized his tribe into a temperance society. To accomplish this he called his people together in council, and. after clearly pointing out to them the serious effect of intemperance, in an eloquent speech that moved some of his audience to tears, he declared that God had permitted him to return to earth especially that he might thus warn his people and banish whisky from among them. He then had Thomas write out a pledge, which was signed first by the chief and then by each one of the council, and from that timeuntil after his death whisky was unknown among the East Cherokee. Although frequent pressure was brought to bear to induce him and bis people to remove to the West, he firmly resisted every persuasion, declaring that the Indians were safer from aggression among their locks and mountains than they could ever be in a land which the while man could find profitable, and that the Cherokee could he happy only in the country w here nature had planted him. While counseling peace and friendship with the white man, he held always to his Indian faith and was extremely suspicious of missionaries. On one occasion, after the first Bible translation into the Cherokee language and alphabet, some one brought a copy of Matthew from New Echota, hut Yona- guska would not allow it to he read to his people until it

had first been read to himself. After listening to one or two chapters the old chief dryly remarked: "Well, it seems to be a good book — strange that the white people are not better, after having had it so long." He died, aged about eighty, in April. 1839, within a year after the Removal. Shortly before the end he had himself carried into the townhouse on Soeo. of which he had supervised the building, where, extended on a couch, he made a last talk to his people, commend- ing Thomas to them as their chief and again warning them earnestly against ever leaving their own country. Then wrapping his blanket around him. he quietly lay hack and died. He was buried beside Soco. about a mile below the old Macedonia mission, with a rude mound of stones to markthe spot. He left two wives and consid- erable property, including an old negro slave named Cudjo, who was devotedly attached to him. One of his daughters. Kata'Ista. still sur- 104 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE vives, and is the last conservator of the potter's art among the East Cherokee. 1 Yonaguska had succeeded in authority to Yane'gwa, "Big-bear," w ho appears to have been of considerable local prominence in his time, but wlio.se name, even with the oldest of the band, is now but a mem- ory. He was among the signers of the treaties of 1798 and 1805, and by the treaty of L819 was confirmed in a reservation of 640 acres as one of those living within the ceded territory who were "believed to be persons of industry and callable of managing their property with discretion," and who had

made considerable improvements on the tracts reserved. This reservation, still known as the Big-bear farm, was on the western bank of Oconaluftee, a few miles above its mouth, and appears to have been the same afterward occupied by Yonaguska. 2 Another of the old notables among the East Cherokee was Tsunu'la- hufi'ski, corrupted by the whites to Junaluska, a great w T arrior, from whom the ridge west of YVayncsville takes its name. In early life he was known as (Ifir'kala'skiV 1 On the outbreak of the Creek war in 1813 he raised a party of warriors to go down, as he boasted, "to exterminate the Creeks.'" Not meeting with complete success, he announced the result, according to the Cherokee custom, at the next dance after his return in a single word, (htxiiiu'lilhilngiji', "I tried, but could not," given outas a cue to the song leader, who at once took it as the burden of his song. Thenceforth the disappointed warrior was known as Tsunu'lahufi'ski, "'One who tries, but fails." He distinguished himself at the Horseshoe bend, where the action of the Cherokee decided the battle in favor of Jackson's army, and was often heard to say after the removal: "If I had known that Jackson would drive us from our homes, I would have killed him that day at the Horseshoe." He accompanied the exiles of 1838, but afterward returned to his old home; he was allowed to remain, and in recognition of his serv- ices the state legislature, by special act, in 1847 conferred upon him the right of citizenship and granted to him a tract of land in fee simple, but without power of alienation.

4 This reservation was in the Cheowa Indian settlement, near the present Robbinsville, in Graham county, where he died about the year 185S. His grave is still to be seen just outside of Robbinsville. 1 The facts concerning Yonaguska are based on the author's personal information obtained from Colonel Thomas, supplemented from conversations with old Indians. The date of his death ami his approximate age are taken from the Terrell roll. He is also noticed at length in Lanman's Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, 1848, and in Zeigler and Grosseup's Heart of the Alleghanies, 1883. The trance which, according to Thomas and Lanman, lasted about one day, is stretched by the last-named authors to fifteen .lays, with the whole 1,200 Indians marching and countermarching around the sleeping b< dy '. ° The name in the treaties occurs as Yonahequah(1798), Yohanaqua (1805), and Yonah (1819).— Indian Treaties, pp. 82, 123, 268; Washington, 1837. ; The name refers to something habitually falling from a leaning position. * Act quoted in Report of Indian Commissioner for 1895, p. 636, 1896. TEMPORARY INCORPORATION OF CATAWBA L65 As illustrative of his shrewdne&s it is t < > 1 < I thai he once tracked a little Indian girl to Charleston, South Carolina, where she had been carried by kidnappers and sold as a slave, and regained her freedom by proving, from experl microscopic examination, that her hair had none of the negro characteristics. 1 Christianity was introduced among the Kituhwa Cherokee shortly before the Removal through Worcester and Boudinot's translation of Matthew, first published at New Echota in L829. In the absenceof missionaries the book was read by the Indians from house to house. After

the Removal a Methodist minister. Reverend Ulrich Keener, began to make visits for preaching at irregular intervals, and was fol- lowed several years later by Baptist workers. 2 In the fall of 1839 the C lissioner of Indian Affairs reported that the East Cherokee had recently expressed a desire to join their brethren in the West, but had been deterred from so doing by the unsettled condition of affairs in the Territory. He states that " thej' have a right to remain or to go," hut that as the interests of others are involved in their decision they should decide without delay/' In L840 about one hundred Catawba, nearly all that were left of the tribe, being dissatisfied with their condition in South Carolina, moved up in a body and took up their residence with the Cherokee. Latent tribal jealousiesbroke out. however, and at their own request nego- tiations were begun in 1848, through Thomas and others, for their removal to Indian Territory. The effort being without result, they .soon after began to drift back to their own homes, until, in 1852, there were only about a dozen remaining among the Cherokee. In 1890 only one was left, an old woman, the widow of a Cherokee husband. She and her daughter, both of whom spoke the language, were expert potters according to the Catawba method, which differs markedly from that of the Cherokee. There are now two Catawba women, both mar- ried to Cherokee husbands, living with the tribe, and practicing their native potter's art. While residing among the ( Jherokee, the ( 'atawba acquired a reputation as doctors and leaders of the dance. 1 On August 6, 1846,

a treaty was concluded at Washington with the representatives of the Cherokee Nation west by which the rights of the East Cherokee to a participation in the benefits of the New Echota treaty of L835 were distinctly recognized, and provision was made for a final adjustment of all unpaid and pending claims due under that treaty. The right claimed by the Hast Cherokee to participate in the The facta concerning Junaluska are from the author's information obtained from i tolonel Tl m*. i 'aptain James Terrell, and Cherokee informants. - Author's information from Colonel rh as. 'Commissioner Crawford, November25, Report <>( Indian Commission! i •Author's informiitic.n from Colonel Thomas, Captain Terrell, and Indian sources; Commissi rW. Medill, Report of Indian Commissioner, p. 399, 1848; i lommissioner Orlando Broun. Report of Indian Commissioner for 1849, p. 14, 1850. 166 MYTHS OF THECHEROKEE benefits of the New Echota treaty, although not denied by the gov- ernment, had been held to be conditional upon their removal to the West. 1 In the spring of L848 the author. Lanman, visited the East Chero- kee and has left an interesting account of their condition at the time, together with a description of their ballplays, dances, and customs generally, having been the guest of Colonel Thomas, of whom he speaks as the guide, counselor, and friend of the Indians, as well as their business agent and chief, so that the connection was like that existing between a father and his children. He puts the number of Indians at about sou Cherokee and 100 Catawba on the "Quallatown" reservation — the name being in use thus early — with '200 more Indians residing in the more westerly portion

of the state. Of their general condition he says: About three-fourths of the entire population can read in their own language, ami, though the majority of them understand English, a very few can speak the language. They practice, to a considerable extent, the science of agriculture, ami have acquired such a knowledge of the mechanic arts as answers them for all ordinary purposes, for they manufacture their own clothing, their own ploughs, and other farming uten- sils, their own axes, and even their own guns. Their women are no longer treated as slaves, hut as equals; the men labor in the fields and their wives are devoted entirely to household employments. They keep the same domestic animals that are kept by their white neighbors, and cultivate all the common grains of the country. They are probably as temperate asthe manner of the white man, but far more picturesquely. They live in small log houses of their own construction, ami have everything they need or desire in the way of food. They are, in fact, the happiest community that I have yet met with in this southern country. - Among the other notables Lanman speaks thus of Sala'li, "Squirrel," a born mechanic of the band, who died only a few years since: He is quite a young man and has a remarkably thoughtful face. He is the black- smith of his nation, and with some assistance supplies the whole of Quallatown with all their axes and plows; but what is more, he has manufactured a number of very superior rifles and pistols, including stock, barrel, and lock, ami he isalso the builder of grist mills, which grind

all the corn which his people eat. A specimen of his workmanship in the way of a rifle may be seen at the Patent Office in Washington, where it was deposited by Mr. Thomas; and I believe Salola is the first Indian who ' Syllepsis of the treaty, etc., in Royee, Cherokee Nation, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 300-313,1888; see also ante, ].. lis. : Lanman, Letters from the Alleghany Mountains, pp. 94-95, 1849. EAST CHEROKEE CENSUS — 1848 167 ever manufactured an entire gun. But when it is remembered thai he nevei a particle of education in any of the mechanic arts but is entirely self taught, his attainments must be considered truly remarkable.' On July 29, 1848, Congress approved an art for taking a census of all those Cherokee who bad remained in North Carolinaafter the Removal, and who still resided east of the Mississippi, in order that their share of the "removal and subsistence fund' 1 under the New Echota treaty might !><■ set aside for them. A sum equivalent to s.v:. :',:'.' «^ at the same time appropriated for each one. or his repre sentative, to be available for defraying the expenses of bis remoi a] to the Cherokee Nation west and subsistence there for one year whenever he should elect so to remove. Any surplus over such expense was tc be paid to him in cash after his arrival in the west. The whole amount thus expended was to be reimbursed to the Government from the gen- eral fund to the credit of the Cherokee Nation under the terms of the treaty of New Echota. In the meantime it was

number residing in North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia was officially esti- mated at from l.ooo to L,200. 3 It is not the only time a per capita payment has resulted in a sudden increase of the census population. In L852 (Capt.) James \V. Terrell was engaged by Thomas, then in the state senate, to take charge of his store at Qualla, and remained associated with him and inclose contact with the Indians from then until after the close of the war. assisting, as special United States agent, in the disbursement of the interest payments, and afterward as a Con- federate officer in the organization of the Indian companies, holding a commission as captain of Company A, Sixty-ninth North Carolina Confederate infantry. Being of an investigating bent. Captain Terrell was led to give attention to the customs and mythology ofthe Cher- okee, and to accumulate a fund of information on the subject seldom possessed by a white man. He still resides at Webster, a few miles from the reservation, and is now seventy -one years of age. In 1855 Congress directed the per capita payment to the East Cher- okee of the removal fund established for them in 1848, provided that North Carolina should first give assurance that they would be allowed to remain permanently in that state. This assurance, however, was not given until 1S66, a^nd the money was therefore not distributed, but remained in the treasury until 1875, when it was made applicable to the purchase of lands and the quieting of titles for the benefit of the Indians. 4 From 1855 until after the civil war we find no official notice of the East Cherokee, and our

information must be obtained from other sources. It was, however, a most momentous period in their history. At the outbreak of the war Thomas was serving his seventh consec- utive term in the state senate. Being an ardent Confederate sym- pathizer, he was elected a delegate to the convention which passed the secession ordinance, and immediately after voting in favor of that measure resigned from the senate in order to work for the southern canst". As he was already well advanced in years it is doubtful if his effort would have gone beyond the raising of funds and other supplies but for the fact that at this juncture an effort was made by the Con federate General Kirby Smith to enlist the East Cherokee for active service. The agent sent for this purpose was Washington Morgan, known to the Indians asA'ganst&'ta, son of that Colonel Gideon Morgan who i Royce, Cherokee Nation, op. eit., p. 313 and note. - Report of tin- Indian Commissioner, pp. 459-460, ,1845. 3 Commissioner Crawford, Report of Indian Co 4 Royce, op. cit.. p. 314, THE THOM \- LEGION 1 69 had commanded the Cherokee at the Horseshoe bend. By virtue of his Indian blood and historic ancestry he was deemed the most fitting emissary for the purpose. Early in 1862 be arrived among the Cherokee, and by appealing to old-time memories so aroused the war spirit among them that a large number declared themselves ready to follow wherever he led. Conceiving the question at issue in the war to be one that did not concern the Indians, Thomas had discouraged their participation in it and advised them to remain at home in quiet neutrality. Now. however,

knowing Morgan's reputation for reckless daring, he became alarmed at the possible result to them of such leadership. Forced either to see them go from his own protection or to lead them himself, he chose the latter alternative and proposed to them to enlist in the Confederate legion which he was about to organize. His object, as he himself has stated, was to keep them out of danger so far as possible by utilizing them as scouts and home guards through the mountains, away from the path of the large armies. Nothing of this was said to the Indians, who might not have Keen satisfied with such an arrangement. Morgan went back alone and the Cherokee enrolled under the command of their white chief. ' The "Thomas Legion," recruited in 1862 by William H. Thomas for the Confederate service andcommanded by him as colonel, consisted originally of one infantry regiment of ten companies (Sixty-ninth North Carolina Infantry), one infantry battalion of six companies, one cavalry battalion of eight companies (First North Carolina Cavalry Battalion), one field battery (Light Battery) of 103 officers and men. and one company of engineers; in all about 2.800 men. The infantry battalion was recruited toward the close of the war to a full regiment of ten companies. Companies A and B of the Sixty ninth regiment and two other companies of the infantry regiment recruited later were composed almost entirely of East Cherokee Indians, most of the commissioned officers being white men. The whole number of Chero- kee thus enlisted was nearly four hundred, or about every able-bodied man in the tribe. 8 In accordance with Thomas's plan the Indians were employed chiefly as scouts and

home guards in the mountain region along the Tennessee- Carolina border, where, according to the testimony of Colonel String- 1 Tin- history of the events leading to the organization of the "Thomas Legion " is chiefly man the author's conversations with Colonel Thomas himself, corroborated and supplemented from other sources. In the words of Thomas, " If it had nol been for the Indians I would not have been in the war." -This is believed i" be i correct statement of the strength and make-up of tin- Thomas Legion, Owing !■■ i in- Imperfection of the records and the absence of reliable memoranda among the surviv- ing officers, no two accounts exactly coincide. The mil given in the North Carolina Confederate Roster, handed in by captain Terrell, assistant quartermaster, was compiled early in the war and - itice "f tlu' engineer company "i "i the second Infantry regiment, which Included tun [ndian companies, The information therein contained is supplemented Er :onversations and personal letter laptain Terrell, and from letters and newspaper articles by Lieutenant Colonel Stringfleld of the Sixty-ninth. Another statement isgivenin Mrs Avery's sketch of Colonel n as in thi Sorth Carolina University Magazine for May, 1899. 170 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ass.1S field, "they did good work and service for the South." The most important engagement in which they were concerned occurred at Baptist yap, Tennessee, September 15, 1862, where Lieutenant Astu'- gata'ga, "a splendid specimen of Indian manhood," was killed in a charge. The Indians were furious at his death, and before they could he restrained they scalped one or two of the Federal dead. For this action ample apologies were afterward given by

their superior officers. The war. in fact, brought out all the latent Indian in their nature. Before starting to the front every man consulted an oracle stone to learn whether or not he might hope to return in safety. The start was celebrated with a grand old-time war dance at the townhouse on Soco, and the same dance was repeated at frequent intervals there- after, the Indians being "painted and feathered in good old style,"' Thomas himself frequently assisting as master of ceremonies. The ballplay, too, was not forgotten, and on one occasion a detachment of Cherokee, left to guard a bridge, became so engrossed in the excite- ment of the game as to narrowly escape capture by a sudden dash of the Federals. Owing to Thomas's care for their welfare, they suffered but slightly in actual battle, although anumber died of hardship and disease. When the Confederates evacuated eastern Tennessee, in the winter of 1863-64, some of the white troops of the legion, with one or two of the Cherokee companies, were shifted to western Virginia, and by assignment to other regiments a few of the Cherokee were present at the final siege and surrender of Richmond. The main body of the Indians, with the rest of the Thomas Legion, crossed over into North Carolina and did service protecting the western border until the close of the war, when they surrendered on parole at Waynesville, North Carolina, in May, 1865, all those of the command being allowed to keep their guns. It is claimed by their officers that they were the last of the Confederate forces to surrender. About fifty of the Cher- okee veterans still survive, nearly

half of whom, under conduct of Colonel Stringfield, attended the Confederate reunion at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1900, where they attracted much attention. 1 In 1863, by resolution of February lii, the Confederate House of Representatives called for information as to the number and condition of the Fast Cherokee, and their pending relations with the Federal government at the beginning of the war, with a view to continuing these relations under Confederate auspices. In response to this inquiry a report was submitted by the Confederate commissioner of Indian affairs, S. S. Scott, based on information furnished by Colonel Thomas and Captain James W. Terrell, their former disbursing agent, showing that interest upon the " removal and subsistence fund " estab- i Personal Information from Colonel W. H. Thomas, LieutenanW3olonel W. W. Stringfield Captain James W. Terrell, Chief N. J. Smith (first sergeantand carried to Knoxville, where, having become dissatisfied with their experience in the Confederate service, they were easily persuaded to go over to the Union side. Through the influence of their principal man. Digane'skl, several other- were induced to desert to the Union army, making about thirty in all. As a part of the Third North Carolina Mounted Volunteer Infantry, they served with the Union forces in the same region until the (dose of the war. when they returned to their homes to find their tribesmen so bitterly incensed against them that for some time their lives were in danger. Eight of these are -till alive in 1900. 2 One of these Union Cherokee had brought back with him the small- 1 Thomas-Terrell manuscript East Cherokee roll, with accompanying letters, 1864 (Bur.Am.Eth. archives I. 'Personal information from Colonel VV H.Thomas, Captain

J.W.Terrell, Chief S J.Smith, and others; see also Carrington Eastern Band of Cherokees, Extra Bulletin of Eleventh Census, p 21 1892, 172 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ass.19 pox from sin infected camp near Knoxville. Shortly after his return he became sick and soon died. As the characteristic pustules had not appeared, the disease seeming to work inwardly, the nature of his sickness was not at first suspected- smallpox having been an unknown disease among the Cherokee for nearly a century — and his funeral was largely attended. A week later a number of those who had been pres- ent became sick, and the disease was recognized by Colonel Thomas as smallpox in all its virulence. It spread throughout the tribe, this being in the early spring of 1866, and in spite of all the efforts of Thomas, who brought adoctor from Tennessee to wait upon them, more than one hundred of the small community died in consequence. The fatal result was largely due to the ignorance of the Indians, who. finding their own remedies of no avail, used the heroic aboriginal treatment of the plunge bath in the river and the cold-water douche, which resulted in death in almost every case. Thus did the war bring its harvest of death, misery, and civil feud to the East Cherokee. 1 Shortly after this event Colonel Thomas was compelled by physical and mental infirmity to retire from further active participation in the affairs of the East Cherokee, after more than half a century spent in intimate connection with them, during the greater portion of which time he had been their most trusted friend and adviser. Their affairs at once became the

prey of confusion and factional strife, which con- tinued until the United States stepped in as arbiter. In 1868 Congress ordered another census of the East Cherokee, to serve as a guide in future payments, the roll to include only those persons whose names had appeared upon the Mullay roll of 1848 and their legal heirs and representatives. The work was completed in the following year by S. H. Sweatland, and a payment of interest then due under former enactment was made by him on this basis. 8 '"In accordance with their earnestly expressed desire to be brought under the immediate charge of the government as its wards." the Congress which ordered this last census directed that the Commissioner of Indian Affairs should assume the same charge over the East Cherokee as over other tribes, but as no extra fundseit., p. 353. ADJUSTMENT OF TITLES 1873-76 17.". governmental supervision, need was felt of some central authority. ( )n December 9, L86S, a general council of the East ( !herokee assembled a i ( !heowa, in Graham county, North Carolina. took preliminary steps toward the adoption of a regular form of tribal government under a constitution. N. J. Smith, afterward principal chief, \\a> clerk of the council. The new government was formally inaugurated on December 1. L870. It provided for a first and a second chid' to serve for a term of two years, minor officers to serve one year, and an annual council representing each Cherokee settlement within the stateof North Carolina. Ka'lahu', "All-bones," commonly known to the whites as Flying-squirrel or Sawnook (Sawanu'gi), was elected chief. A new constitution was adopted five years later, by which the chief's term of

office was tixed at four years.' The status of the lands held by the Indians had now become a matter of serious concern. As has been stated, the deeds had been made out by Thomas in his own name, as the state laws at that time forbade Indian ownership of real estate. In consequence of his losses during the war and his subsequent disability, the Thomas properties, of which the Cherokee lands were technically a part, had become involved, so that the entire estate had passed into the hands of creditors, the most important of whom. William Johnston, had obtained sheriff's deeds in 1869 for all of these Indian lands under three several judgments against Thomas, aggregating $33,887. 1 1. To adjust the matter so as to secure title and possession to the Indians. Congress in 1870 authorized suitto he brought in their name for the recovery of their interest. This suit was begun in May. Isj:;. in the United States circuit court for western North Carolina. A year later the matters in dispute were submitted by agreement to a board of arbitrators, whose award was continued by the court in November. 1S74. The award finds that Thomas had purchased with Indian funds a tract estimated to contain 50,000 acres on Oconaluftee river and Soco creek, and known as the Qualla boundary, together with a number of individual tracts outside the boundary; that the Indians were Mill indebted to Thomas toward the purchase of the Qualla boundary lands for the sum of $18,250, from which should be deducted $6,500 paid by them to Johnston to release titles, with interest to date of award, making an aggregate of $8,486, toe-ether

per cent from the date of the award, the Indians should be entitled to a clear conveyance from him of the legal title to all the lands embraced within the Qualla boundary. 1 To enable the Indians to clear off this lien on their lands and for other purposes, Congress in LsT'> directed that as much as remained of the •■ removal and subsistence fund" set apart for their benefit in 1848 should be used •"in perfecting the titles to the lands awarded to them, and to pay the costs, expenses, and liabilities attending their recent litigations, also to purchase and extinguish the titles of any white persons to lands within the general boundaries allotted to them by the court, and for the education, improvement, and civilization of their people." In accordance with this authority the unpaid balance and interestdue Johnston, amounting to $7,212.76, was paid him in the same year, and shortly afterward there was purchased on behalf of the Indians some fifteen thousand acres additional, the Commissioner of Indian Affairs being constituted trustee for the Indians. For the better protection of the Indians the lands were made inalienable except by assent of the council and upon approval of the President of the United States. The deeds for the Qualla boundary and the 15.UO0 acre purchase were executed respectively on October 9, 1876, and August 11, 1880. 2 As the boundaries of the different purchases were but vaguely defined, a new survey of the whole Qualla boundary and adjoining tracts was authorized. The work was intrusted to M. S. Temple, deputy United States surveyor, who completed it in 1876, his survey maps of the reservation being accepted as

the official standard. 3 The titles and boundaries having been adjusted, the Indian Office assumed regular supervision of East Cherokee affairs, and in June. 1875, the first agent since the retirement of Thomas was sent out in the person of W. C. McCarthy. He found the Indians, according to his report, destitute and discouraged, almost without stock or farming tools. There were no schools, and very few full-bloods could speak English, although to their credit nearly all could read and write their own language, the parents teaching the children. Under his authority a distribution was made of stock animals, seed wheat, and farming tools, and several schools were started. In the next year, however, iSee award of arbitrators. Rufus Barringer, John H. Dillard, and T. Ruffln, with ftdl statement, in Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians against W. T. Thomas eta second term (48). He made a good record by his work in reconciling the various faction- which had sprung up after the withdrawal of the guiding influ- ence of Thomas, and in defeating the intrigues of fraudulent while claimants and mischief makers. Shortly before his death the ( rovern- ment, through Special Agent John A. Sibbald, recognized his authority as principal chief, together with the constitution which had been adopteil by the band under his auspices in 1ST5. N. J. Smith (Tsa'- ladihi'). who had previously served as clerk of the council, was elected to his unexpired term and continued to serve until the fall of L890. 8 We find no further official notice of the East Cherokee until L881, when Commissioner Price reported that they were still without agent or superintendent, and that so far as the Indian

Office was concerned their affairs were in an anomalous and unsatisfactory condition, while factional feuds were adding to the difficulties and retarding the prog- ress of the band. In thespringof that year a visiting delegation from the Cherokee Nation west had extended to them an urgent imitation to remove to Indian Territory and the Indian Office had encouraged the project, with the result that lt',1 persons of the band removed dur- ing the year to Indian Territory, the expense being borne by the Government. Others were represented as being desirous to remove, and the Commissioner recommended an appropriation for the purpose, but as Congress failed to act the matter was dropped. 3 The neglected condition of the Ea.st Cherokee having been brought to the attention of those old-time friends of the Indian, the Quakers, through an appeal made in their behalfby members of that society residing in North Carolina, the Western Yearly Meeting, of Indiana, volunteered to undertake the work of civilization and education. On May 31, L881, representatives of the Friends entered into a contract with the Indians, subject to approval by the Government, to establish and continue among them for ten years an industrial school and other common schools, to lie supported in part from the annual interest of the trust fund held by the Government to the credit of the East Chero- kee and in part by funds furnished by the Friends themselves. Through the efforts of Barnabas C. Hobbs, of the Western Yearly Meeting, a yearly contract to the same effect was entered into with the Commis- ! Report of Agent W. C. McCarthy, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. 343-344, 1875; and Report of Indian Commissione,

pp. 118-119, 1876. 'Author's personal information: sue also Carrington, Eastern Band of Cherokees; Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart .,i the AUeghanies, pp. 35-36, 1883. 'Commissioner H.Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. Ixiv-lxv, 1881, and Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. Ixix-lxx, 1882; see also ante, p. 151. 17o MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE sioner of Indian Affairs later in the same year, and was renewed by successive commissioners to cover the period of ten years ending June 30, 1892, when the contract system was terminated and the Govern- ment assumed direct control. Under the joint arrangement, with some aid at the outset from the North Carolina Meeting, work was begun in 1881 by Thomas Brown with several teachers sent out by the Indiana Friends, who established a small training school at the agency head- quarters at Cherokee, and several day schools in the outlyingsettle- ments. He was succeeded three years later by H. W. Spray, an expe- rienced educator, who, with a corps of efficient assistants and greatly enlarged facilities, continued to do good work for the elevation of the Indians until the close of the contract system eight years later. 1 After an interregnum, during which the schools suffered from frequent changes, he was reappointed as government agent and superintendent in 1898, a position which he still holds in 1901. To the work con- ducted under his auspices the East Cherokee owe much of what they have to-day of civilization and enlightenment. From some travelers who visited the reservation about this time we have a pleasant account of a trip along Soco and a day with Chief Smith at Yellow Hill. They describe the Indians as being so nearly like the whites in

their manner of living that a stranger could rarely distinguish an Indian's cabin or little cove farm from that of a white man. Their principal crop was corn, which they ground for them- selves, and they had also an abundance of apples, peaches, and plums, and a few small herds of ponies and cattle. Their wants were so few that they had but little use for money. Their primitive costume had long been obsolete, and their dress was like that of the whites, except- ing that moccasins took the place of shoes, and they manufactured their own clothing by the aid of spinning-wheels and looms. Finely cut pipes and well-made baskets were also produced, and the good influence of the schools recently established was already manifest in the children. 8 In 1882 the agency was reestablished and provision was madeHeart of the Alleghanies, pp. 36-42, 1883. •^Commissioner H. Price, Report of Indian Commissioner, pp. Ixix-lxx, 1882. * Kvport of Indian Commissioner, pp. li-lii, ls.s4. SUIT AGAINST WESTERN CHEROKEE 1883 8G 177 The East Cherokee had never ceased to contend for a participation in the rights and privileges accruing to the western Nation under treaties with the Government. In L882 a special agenf hud been ap- pointed to investigate their claims, and in the following year, under authority of Congress, the eastern hand of Cherokee brought suit in the ( lourt of Claims against the Tinted States and the Cherokee Nation west to determine its rights in the permanent annuity fund and other trust funds held by the United States for the Cherokee Indians. 1 The case was decided adversely t<> the eastern hand, first bj the Court of Claim- in

1885, ! and finally, on appeal, by the Supreme Court on March 1, lssti. that court holding in its decision that the Cherokee in North Carolina had dissolved their connection with the Cherokee Nation and ceased to he a part of it when they refused to accompany the main body at the Removal, and that if Indians in North Carolina or in any state east of the Mississippi wished to enjoy the benefits of the common property of the Cherokee Nation in any form whatever they must he readmitted to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation and comply with its constitution and laws. In accordance with this decision the agent in the Indian territory was instructed to issue no more resi- dence permits to claimants tor Cherokee citizenship, and it was officially announced that all persons thereafter entering that country withoutconsent of the Cherokee authorities would he treated as intruders. 3 This decision, cutting off the East Cherokee from all hope of sharing in any of the treaty benefits enjoyed by their western kinsmen, was a sore disappointment to them all. especially to Chief Smith, who had worked unceasingly in their behalf from the institu- tion of the proceedings. In view of the result. Commissioner Atkins strongly recommended, as the best method of settling them in perma- nent home-, secure from white intrusion and from anxiety on account of their uncertain tenure and legal status in North Carolina, that negotiations be opened through government channels for their readmission to citizenship in the Cherokee Nation, to he followed, if successful, by the sale of their lands in North Carolina and their removal to Indian Territory. 4 In order to acquire a more

Report "i the Indian Commissioner, p. li, 1886; reiterated by him in Report lxxvii. [9 Kin — oi 12 17tS MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 created and constituted a body politic and corporate under the name, style, and title of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, with all the rights, franchises, privileges and powers incident and belonging to corporations under the laws of the state of North Carolina. 1 On August 2, 1893, ex-Chief Smith died at Cherokee, in the fifty- seventh year of his life, more than twenty of which had been given to the service of his people. Nimrod Jarrett Smith, known to the Cherokee as Tsa'ladihi", was the son of a halfbreed father by an Indian mother, and was born near the present Murphj 1 , Cherokee county. North Carolina, on January 3. 1S3T. His earliest recollections were thusof the miseries that attended the flight of the refugees to the mountains during the Removal period. His mother spoke very little English, but his father was a man of considerable intelligence, having acted as interpreter and translator for Reverend Evan Jones at the old Valleytown mission. As the hoy grew to manhood he acquired a fair education, which, aided by a commanding presence, made him a per- son of influence among his fellows. At twenty -five years of age he enlisted in the Thomas Legion as first sergeant of Company B, Sixty- ninth North Carolina (Confederate) Infantry, and served in that capacity till the close of the war. He was clerk of the council that drafted the first East Cherokee constitution in 186S, and on the death of Principal Chief Lloyd Welch in 1880 was elected to fill

the unexpired term, continuing in office by successive reelections until the close of 1891, a period of about twelve years, the longest term yet filled by an incum- bent. As principal chief he signed the contract under which the school work was inaugurated in 1881. For several years thereafter his duties, particularly in connection with the suit against the western Cherokee, required his presence much of the time at ATashington, while at home his time was almost as constantly occupied in attending to the wants of a dependent people. Although he was entitled under the constitution of the band to a salary of five hundred dollars per year, no part of this salary was ever paid, because of the limited resources of his people, and only partial reimbursement was made to him, shortly before his death, for expenses incurred inofficial visits to Washington. With frequent opportunities to enrich himself at the expense of his people, he maintained his honor and died a poor man. In person Chief Smith was a splendid specimen of physical man- hood, being six feet four inches in height and built in proportion, erect in figure, with flowing black hair curling down over his shoulders. a deep musical voice, and a kindly spirit and natural dignity that never failed to impress the stranger. His widow — a white woman — and several children survive him. 2 ■See act in full, Report of Indian Commissioner, vol. I, pp. 680-681, 1891. • From author's personal acquaintance; see also Zeigler and Grosscup, Heart of the Alleghanies, pp. 38-39, Issb; iVgent .1. L. Holmes, in Repiort of Indian Commissioner, p. 160, 1S85; Commissioner T. .1. Morgan, Report of Indian

t<> all the lands claimed by the Indians, with the exception of a few outlying tracts of comparative. unimportance. 1 In 1895 the Cherokee residing- in North Carolina upon the reserva tion and in the outlying settlements were officially reported to number 1.47'.'. ' A vear later an epidemic of grippe spread through the band, with the result that the census of L897 shows but 1,312, s among those who died at this time being Big-witch (Tskil-e'gwa), the oldest man of the band, who distinctly remembered the Creek war. and Wadi'yahi, the last old woman who preserved the art of making double-walled baskets. In the next year the population had recovered to 1,351. The description of the mode of living' then common to most of the Indians will apply nearly as well to-day: While they are industrious, these people are notadjoining states and some hundreds of unrecognized claim- ants. Those enumerated own approximately 100,000 acres of land, of which 83,000 are included within the Qualla reservation and a contiguous tract in Jackson and Swain counties. They receive no rations or annuities and are entirely self-supporting, the annual interest on their trust fund established in 1848, which has dwindled to about $23,000, being applied to the payment of taxes upon their unoc- cupied common lands. From time to time they have made leases of timber, gold-washing, and grazing privileges, but without any great profit to themselves. By special appropriation the government sup- ports an industrial training school at Cherokee, the agency head- quarters, in which 170 pupils are now being boarded, clothed, and educated in the practical duties of life. This school, which in its work- ings is a model of its

kind, owes much of its usefulness and high standing to the efficient management of Prof. H. W. Spray (Wilsini'), already mentioned, who combines the duties of superintendent and agent for the band. His chief clerk, Mr James Blythe (Diskwa''m, "Chestnut-bread"), a Cherokee by blood, at one time tilled the posi- tion of agent, being perhaps the only Indian who has ever served in such capacity. The exact legal status of the East Cherokee is still a matter of dis- pute, they being at once wards of the government, citizens of the United States, and (in North Carolina) a corporate body under state laws. They pay real estate taxes and road service, exercise the voting privilege, 1 and are amenable to the local courts, but do not pay poll tax or receive any pauper assistance from the counties; neither can they makefree contracts or alienate their lands (19). Under their tribal constitution they are governed by a principal and an assistant chief, elected for a term of four years, with an executive council appointed by the chief, and sixteen councilors elected by the various settlements for a term of two years. The annual council is held in October at Cherokee, on the reservation, the proceedings being in the Cherokee language and recorded by their clerk in the Cherokee alphabet, as well as in English. The present chief is Jesse Keid (Tse'si-Ska'tsi, '-Scotch Jesse"), an intelligent mixed-blood, who tills the office with dignity and ability. As a people they are peaceable and law-abiding, kind and hospitable, providing for their simple wants by their own industry without asking or expecting outside assistance. Their fields, orchards, and fish traps, with some few domestic animals and

occasional hunting, supply them with food, while by the sale of i At the recent election in November, 1900, they were debarred by the local polling officers from either registering or voting, and the matter is now being contested. hooneyJ PRESENT CONDITION 1S1 ginseng and other medicinal plants gathered in the mountains, with fruit and honey of their own raising, they procure what additional supplies they need from the traders. The majority are fairly com- fortable, far above the condition of most Indian tribes, and hut little, if any. behind their white neighbors. In literary ability they may even be -aid to surpass them, as in addition to the result of nearly twenty years of school work among the younger people, nearly all the men and some of the women can read and write their own language. All wear civilizedcostumes, though an occasional pair of moccasins is seen, while the women find means to gratify the racial love of color in the wearing of red bandanna kerchiefs in place of bonnets. The older people still cling to their ancient rites and sacred traditions, hut the dance and the ballplay wither and the Indian day is nearly spent. Ill— NOTES TO THE HISTORICAL SKETCH (1) Tribal synonymy (page 15): Very few Indian tribes are known to us under the names by which they call themselves. One reason for this is the fact that the whites have usually heard of a tribe from its neighbors, speaking other languages, before coming upon the tribe itself. Many of the popular tribal names were origi- nally nicknames bestowed by. neigh boring tribes, frequently referring to some peculiar custom, and in a large number

of cases would be strongly repudiated by the people designated by them. As a rule each tribe had a different name in every surrounding Indian language, besides those given by Spanish, French, Dutch, or English settlers. YCm'uiyii' — This word is compounded from yunirl (person) and yd (real or prin- cipal). The assumption of superiority is much in evidence in Indian tribal names; thus, the Iroquois, Delawares, and Pawnee call themselves, respectively, Ofiwe- honwe, Leni-lenape', and Tsariksi-tsa'riks, all of which maybe rendered "men of men," "men surpassing other men," or "real men." KUu'hwagl — This word, which can not be analyzed, is derived from Kitu'hwa, the name of an ancient Cherokee settlement formerly on Tuckasegee river, just above the present Bryson City, in Swain county, North Carolina. It is noted in 1730 as one of the "seven mother towns"of the tribe. Its inhabitants were called Ani'- Kltu'hwagl (people of Kituhwa), and seem to have exercised a controlling influence over those of all the towns on the waters of Tuckasegee and the upper part of Little Tennessee, the whole body being frequently classed together as Ani'-KItu'hwagl. The dialect of these towns held a middle place linguistically between those spoken to the east, on the heads of Savannah, and to the west, on Hiwassee, Cheowah, and the lower course of Little Tennessee. In various forms the word was adopted by the Delawares, Shawano, and other northern Algonquian tribes as a synonym for Cherokee, probably from the fact that the Kituhwa people guarded the Cherokee northern frontier. In the form Cuttawa it appears on the French map of Vaugondy in 1755. From a similarity of spelling, Schoolcraft incorrectly makes

it a synonym for Catawba, while Brinton incorrectly asserts that it is an Algonquian term, fanci- fully rendered, ' ' inhabitants of the great wilderness. ' ' Among the western Cherokee it is now the name of a powerful secret society, which had its origin shortly before the War of the Rebellion. Cherokee — This name occurs in fully fifty different spellings. In the standard recog- nized form, which dates back at least to 1708, it has given name to counties in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama, within the ancient territory of the tribe, and to as many as twenty other geographic locations within the United States. In the Eastern or Lower dialect, with which the English settlers first became famil- iar, the form is Tsa'ragl', whence we get Cherokee. In the other dialects the form isalso in the Iroquois name for the opossum, which is a burrowing animal. As is well known, the Allegheny region is peculiarly a cave coun- try, the caves having been used by the Indians for burial and shelter purposes, as is proved by numerous remains found in them. It is probable that the Iroquois simply translated the name (Chalaque) current in the South, as we find is the case in the West, where the principal plains tribes are known under translations of the same names in all the different languages. The Wyandot name for the Cherokee, Wataiyo-ronon', and their Catawba name, ManteraiV. both seem to refer to coming out of the ground, and may have been originally intended to convey the same idea of cave ] pie. Rickahockan — This name is used by the German explorer. Lederer,

in 1670, as the name of the people inhabiting the i noun tains to the southwest of the Virginia settle- ments. On his map he puts them in the mountains on the southern head streams of Roanoke river, in western North Carolina. He states that, according to his Indian informants, the Rickahockan lived beyond the mountains in a land of great waves, which he interpreted to mean the sea shore i ! I, but it is more likely that the Indians were trying to convey, by means of the sign language, the idea of a succession of mountain ridges. The name was probably of Powhatan origin, and is evidently identical with Rechahecrian of the Virginia chronicles of about the same period, the /• in the latter form being perhaps a misprint. It may he connected with Righka- hauk,On Oolden's map in his "History of the Five Nations," 1727, we find the "Alleghens" indicated upon Allegheny river. Heckewel- der, who recorded the Delaware tradition in 1819, says: "Those people, as I was told, calledthemselvesTalligeu or Talligewi. Colonel John Gibson, however, agentleman who has a thorough knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is of the opinion that they were not called Talligewi, but Alligevvi; and it would seem that he is right from the traces of their name which still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former Alligewi Sipu (the river of the Alligewi)" — Indian Nations, p. 48, ed. 1876. Loskiel, writing on the authority of Zeisberger, says that the Delawares knew the whole country drained by the

Ohio under the name of Alligewinengk, meaning "the land in which they arrived from distant places, " basing his interpretation upon an etymology compounded from talli or alii, there, icku, to that place, and ewak, they go, with a locative final. Ettwein, another Moravian writer, says the Delawares called "the western country" Alligewenork, meaning a warpath, and called the river Alligewi Sipo. This definition would make the word come from palliton or attiton, to fight, to make war, ewak, they go, and a locative, i. e., "they go there to fight." Trumbull, an authority on Algonquian languages, derives the river name from v<ulik, good, best, hanne, rapid stream, and sipu, river, of which rendering its Iroquois name, Ohio, is nearly an equivalent. Rafinesque renders Tal- ligewi as "there found," from talli, there, and some other root, not givenDelaware dic- tionary, however, we find wuloh or walok, signifying a cave or hole, while in the "Walam Olum" we have oligonunk rendered "at the place of caves," the region being further described as a buffalo land on a pleasant plain, where the Lenape', advancing seaward from a less abundant northern region, at last found food (Walam Olum, pp. 194-195). Unfortunately, like other aboriginal productions of its kind among the northern tribes, the Lenape chronicle is suggestive rather than complete and connected. With more light it may be that seeming discrepancies would disap- pear and we should find at last that the Cherokee, in ancient times as in the historic period, were always the southern vanguard of the Iroquoian race, always primarily a mountain people, but with their flank resting upon the Ohio and its great tribu- taries, following

Report. The Mobilian trade jargon was not unique of its kind. In America, as in other parts Of the world, the common necessities of intercommunication have resulted in the format] f several such mongrel dialects, prevailing sometimes over wide area-. In some cases, also, the language of a predominant tribe serves as the com- mon medium for all the tribes of a particular region. In South America we find the lingoa geral, based upon the Tupi' language, understood tor everyday purposes by all the tribes of the immense central region from Guiana to Paraguay, including almost the w hole Amazon basin. On the northwest coast w> find the well-known "Chinook jargon," which take> it- name from a -mall tribe formerly residing at the mouth of the Columbia, in common use among all tie- tribes iron. California far up MYTHSOF THE CHEKOKEE [ETH. ANN. 19 into Alaska, and eastward to the great divide of the Rocky mountains. In the southwest the Navaho-Apache language is understood by nearly all the Indians of Arizona and New Mexico, whil i the plains the Sioux language in the north and the Comanche in the south hold almost the same position. In addition to these we have also the noted "sign language," a gesture system used and perfectly understood as a fluent means of communication among all the hunting tribes of the plains from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande. (3) Dialects (page 17): The linguistic affinity of the Cherokee and northern lroquoian dialects, although now well established, is not usually obvious on the surface, but requires a close analysis of words, with a knowledge of the laws of pho- netic changes, to make

it appear. The superficial agreement is perhaps most apparent between the Mohawk and the Eastern (Lower) Cherokee dialects, as both of these lack the labials entirely and use r instead of /. In the short table given below the Iroquois words are taken, with slight changes in the alphabet used, from Hewitt's manuscripts, the Cherokee from those of the author: Mohawk Cherokee (East- ern) person ongwe' yufiwl fire otsi'ra' atsi'ra (atsi'la) water awen' awa' (ami') stone onefiya' nimviV arrow ka'non' kiuil' pipe kanonnawefi' kanun'nawu hand (arm) owe'ya" uwa'yl milk unefi'ta" unuii'tl five wlsk hlskl tobacco [tcarhu - , Tuscarora] tsarfl (tsalu) fish otcofi'ta' u'tsutl' ghost o'skefma' asgi'na snake ennatuii i'nadu' Comparison of Cherokee dialects Eastern (Lower) Middle Western 1 Upper) fire atsi'ra atsi'la atsi'la water awa' ama' ama' dog gi'rl' gi'll' gi'll' hair gitsu' gitsft' gitlu' hawk tsa'nuwa' IsVnmvn' tlft'nuwa' leech tsanu'sl' tsanu'sl' tlanu'sl' bat tsa'weha' tsa'meha' tla'meha' panther tsuntu'tsl tsuntu'tsl ttuntu'tsl jay tsay'ku' tsay'ku' tlay'ku' martin (bird) tsutsu' tsutsn' tlutlti' war-club atasu' atasu' atasl' heart unahu' unahu' unahwl' where? ga'tsu ga'tsfl ha'tlu how much? hufigu' hufigu' hila'gu key stugi'stl stugi'stl stui'stl I pick it up (long) tslnigi'il tslnigi'u tsine'ii my father agida'ta agida'ta eda'ta my mother a'gitsl' a'gitsl' etsl' my father's father agini'sl agini'sl eni'sl my mother's father agidu'tti agidu'td edu'tO mooney] IROQUOIAN MIGRATIONS 189 It will be noted that the Eastern and Middle dialects arc aboul the same, except- ing for the change of I to r, and the entire absence of the labial m from the Eastern dialect, while the Western differs considerably fr the others, particularly in the greater frequency ofor Huron. ~\ Tionontati, or Tobacco nation. Attiwan'daron, or Neutral nation. \ Ontario, ( lanada. Tohotaenrat. Wenrorono. Mohawk. | Oneida. Onondaga. > Iroquois, or Five Nations, New York. ( layuga. Seneca. J Erie. Northern t Mhio, etc. Conestoga, or Susquehanna. Southern Pennsylvania and Maryland. Nottoway. "I Meherrim'.J S "»""'>'" Virginia. Tnscarora. Eastern North Carolina. Cherokee. Western Carolina, etc. Tradition and history alike point to the St. Lawrence region as the early home of this stock. Upon this point all authorities concur. Says Hale, in his paper on Indian Migrations (p.4): "The constant tradition of the Iroquois represents their ancestors a- emigrants from the region north of the Oreat lakes, where they dwelt in early times with their Huron brethren. This tradition is recorded with much par- ticularity by Cadwallader Colden, surveyor-general of New York, who in the early part of the last century composed his well known 'History of the

Five Nations.' It is told in a somewhat different form by David { 'tisick. the Tnscarora historian, in his 'Sketchesof Ancient History of the Six .Nations,' and it is repeated by Mr. L. H. Morgan in his now classical work. 'The League of the Iroquois,' for which he- pro- cured his information chiefly among the Senecas. Finally, as we learn from the narrative of the Wyandot Indian, Peter Clarke, in his 1 k entitled 'Origin ami Tra- ditional History of the Wyandotts." the belief of the Hurons accords in this respect with that of the Iroquois. Both point alike to the country immediately north of the St. Lawrence, and especially to that portion of it lying east of Lake Ontario, as the early home of the Huron-Iroquois nations." Nothing is known of the tradition- oi the ( lonestogaor the Nottoway, hut the trail it inn of the Tnscarora. as given by Cusick and other authorities, makes them a direct offsl ( from the northern [roquois, with whom they afterward reunited. The traditions of the Cherokee also, as we have seen, bring them from the north, thus npleting the cycle. "The striking fact has become evident that the course of migration of the Huron-Cherokee family has been from the northeast to the southwest — that is. from eastern Canada, on the Lower St. Lawrence, to the mountains of northern Alabama. " — Hale, Indian Migrations, p. 11. The retirement of the northern Iroquoian tribes from the St. Lawrence region was 190 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [cth.ann.19 due to the hostility of their Algonquian neighbors, by whom the Huronsand their allies were forced to take refuge about

Georgian hay and the head of Lake Ontario, while the Iroquois proper retreated to central New York. In 1535 (artier found the shores of the river from Quebec to Montreal occupied by anlroquoian people, but on the settlement of the country seventy years later the same region was found in pos- session of Algonquian tribes. The confederation of the five Iroquois nation-, probably about the year 1540, enabled them to check the Algonquian invasion and to assume the offensive. Linguistic and other evidence shows that the separation of the Chero- kee from the parent stock must have far antedated this period. (5) Waaam Ohm (p. 18): The name signifies "red score," from the Delaware walam, "painted," more particularly "painted red." and <,hi,u. "a score, tally- mark." The Walam Olum was first published in 1836 in a work entitled"The American Nations." by Constantine Samuel Rafinesque, a versatile and voluminous, but very erratic, French scholar, who spent the latter half of his life in this country, dying in Philadelphia in 1840. He asserted that it was a translation of a manuscript hi the Delaware language, which was an interpretation of an ancient sacred metrical legend of the Delawares, recorded in pictographa cut upon wood, obtained in 1820 by a medical friend of his among the Delawares then living in central Indiana. He says himself: "These actual olum were first obtained in 1820 as a reward for a medical cure, deemed a curiosity, and were unexplicable. In 1822 were obtained from another individual the soul's annexed thereto in the original language, hut no one could be found by me able to translate them. I had therefore to learn

the language since, by the help of Zeisberger, Heckewelder, and a manuscript diction- ary, on purpose to translate them, which I only accomplished in 1833." On account of the unique character of the alleged Indian record and Rafinesque's own lack of standing among his scientific contemporaries, hut little attention was paid to the discovery until Brinton took up the subject a few years ago. After a critical sifting of the evidence from every point of view he arrived at the conclusion that the work is a genuine native production, although the manuscript rendering is faulty. partly from the white scribe's ignorance of the language and partly from the Indian narrator's ignorance of the meaning of the archaic forms. Brinton's edition (q. v. ), published from Rafinesque's manuscript, gives the legend in triplicate form — picto- graph, Delaware, and Englishauthor lias chosen to assume, with Brinton and Rati- nesque, that the Walam Olum reference is to the .settlement of the Dutch at New York and the English in Virginia sunn after 1600. (8) 1 > i Soto's route (p. 26): On May 30, 1539, Hernando de Soto, of Spain, with 600 armed men and 213 horses, landed at Tampa hay, on the west coast of Florida, in search of gold. Alter more than four year- of hardship and disappointed wandering from Florida to the great plains of the West and back again to the Mississippi, where De Soto died and his body was consigned to the great river, 311 men, all that were left of the expedition, arrived finally at Pdnuco, in Mexico, on September in. 1543. For the history of this expedition, the most important

ever undertaken by Spain within eastern United State.-, v.e have four original authorities. First is the brief, hut evidently truthful (Spanish) report of Biedma, an officer of tin' expedi- tion, presented to the King in 1544. immediately after the return to Spain. Next in order, hut of first importance for detail and general appearance of reliability, is the narrative of an anonymous Portuguese cavalier of the expedition, commonly known as the i lentleman of Elvas, originally published in the Portuguese language in 1557. Xext comes the (Spanish) narrative of Garcilaso, written, hut not pub- lished, in 1587. t'nlike the others, the author was not an eyewitness of what lie describes, hut made up his account chiefly from the oral recollections of an old soldier of the expedition more than forty years after the event, this information being supplemented frompapers written by two other soldiers of De Soto. Is might he expected, the ( iarcilaso narrative, although written in flowery style, abounds in exaggeration and trivial incident, and com]. ares unfavorably with the other accounts, while probably giving more of the minor happenings. The fourth original account is an unfinished (Spanish) report by Ranjel, secretary of tin- expedition, written -o ,ii after reaching Mexico, and afterward incorporated with considerable change by Oviedo, in his "Historia natural j general de las Indias." As this fourth narrative remained unpublished until 1851 and has never been translated, it has hitherto been entirely overlooked by the commentators, excepting Winsor, who notes it inciden- tally. In general it agrees well with the Klvas narrative and throws valuable light upon the history of the expedition. The principal authorities, while preserving a general unity of

as great discrepancy. Thus Biedma makes the distance from ( luaxule to Chiaha four days, Garcilaso has it six days, and Elvas seven days. As to the length of an average day's march we find it 192 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [bth.ash.19 estimated all the way from "four leagues, more or less" (< rarcilaso | to " every day seven or eight leagues" (Elvas). In another place the Elvas chronicler state- thai they usually made five or six leagues a day through inhabited territories, but that in crossing uninhabited regions — as that between Canasagua and Chiaha, they marched every day as far as possible for fear of running out of provisions. One of the most glaring discrepancies appears in regard to the distance between Chiaha and Coste. Both the Portuguese writer and Garcilaso put Chiaha upon anisland — a statement which in itself is at variance with any present conditions, — but while the former makes the island a fraction over a league in length the latter says that it was five leagues long. The next town was Coste, which Garcilaso puts immediately at the lower end of the same island while the Portuguese Gentleman represents it as seven days distant, although he himself has given the island the shorter length. Notwithstanding a deceptive appearance of exactness, especially in the Elvas and Banjel narratives, which have the form of a daily journal, the conclusion is irresist- ible that much of the record was made after dates had been forgotten, and the sequence of events had become confused. Considering all the difficulties, dangers, and uncertainties that constantly beset the expedition, it would be too much

to expect the regularity of a ledger, and it is more probable that the entries were made, not from day to day, but at irregular intervals as opportunity presented at the several resting places. The story must be interpreted in the light of our later knowledge of the geography and ethnology of the country traversed. Each of the three principal narratives has passed through translations and later editions of more or less doubtful fidelity to the original, the English edition in some cases being itself a translation from an earlier French or Dutch translation. English speaking historians of the expedition have usually drawn their material from one or the other of these translations, without knowledge of the original language, of the etymologies of the Indian names or the relations of the various tribes mentioned, or of the general systemof Indian geographic nomenclature. One of the greatest errors has been the attempl to give in every case a fixed local habitation to a name which in some instances is not a proper name at all, ami in others is merely a descriptive term or a duplicate name occurring at several places in the same tribal territory. Thus Tali is simply the Creek word talua, town, and not a definite place name as represented by a mistake natural in dealing through interpreters with an unknown Indian language. Tallise and Tallimuchase are respectively "Old town" and "New town" in Creek, and there can lie no certainty that the same names were applied to the same places a century later. Canasagua is a corruption of a Cherokee name which occurs in at least three other places in the old

Cherokee country in addition to the one mentioned in the narrative, and almost every old Indian local name was thus repeated several times, as in the case of such common names as Short creek, Whitewater, Richmond, or Lexington among ourselves. The fact that only one name of the set has been retained on the map does not prove its identity with the town of the old chronicle. Again such loose terms as "a large river," "a beautiful valley," have been assumed to mean something more definitely localized than the wording warrants. The most common error in translation has been the rendering of the Spanish "despoblado" as "desert." There are no deserts in the Gulf states, and the word means simply an uninhabited region, usually the debatable strip between two tribes. There have been many attempts to trace lie Soto'scenturies after the event it is unnecessary to say. Both these writers have brought De Soto down the Coosa river, in which they have been followed without investigation by Irvine. Shea and others, but none of these was awan- of the existence of a Suwali tribe or correctly acquainted with the Indian nomenclature of the upper country, or of the Creek country as so well summarized bj Gatschet in his Creek Migration Legend. They are also mistaken in assuming that only De Soto passed through thi untry, whereas we now know thai several Spanish explorers ami numerous French adventurers traversed the same territory, the latest expeditions of course being freshest in Indian memory. Jones in his "De Soto's March Through Georgia" simply dresses up the- earlier statements in more literary style, sometimes changing surmises to positive assertions, without mentioning

his authorities. Maps of the supposed route, all bringing De Soto down the ( loosa instead of the ( lhattahoochee, have been published in [rving's ( ionquest of Florida, the Hakluyt Society's edition of the Gentleman of El va's account, and in Buckingham Smith's translation of the same narrative, as well as in several other works. For the eastern portion, with which we have to deal, all of these arc prac- tically duplicates of one another. On several old Spanish and French maps the names mentioned in the narrative seem to have been set down merely to till space, without much reference to the text of the chronicle. For a list and notices of prin- cipal writers who have touched upon this subject see the appendix to Shea's chapter on "Ancient Florida" in Winsor's Narrative and CriticalHistory of America, n; Bos- ton, 1886. We shall speak only of that part of the route which lav near the < Iherokee mountains. The first location which concerns us in the narrative is: Cofitaehiqui, the town from which De Soto set out for the Cherokee country. The name appears variously as Cofitachequi (Ranjel), Cofitachique (Biedma), Cofachiqui (Garcilaso), Cutifa- Chiqui (by transposition, Elvas), Cofetacque (Vandera), Catafachique (Williams) and Cosatachiqui (misprint, Brooks MSS), and the Spaniards first heard of the region as Yupaha from a tribe farther to the south. The correct form appeals to lie that first given, which Gatschet, from later information than that quoted in his (feck Migration Legend, makes a Hitchitee word about equivalent to "Dogwood town," fromco/i, "dogw 1," coftta, "dogwood thicket," zndchiki, "house," orcol- lectively "town." McCulloch puts the town upon the headwaters of the

Ocmulgee; Williams locates it on the Chattah dice; Gallatin on the Oconc r the Savannah; Meek and Monette, following him, probably in the fork of the Savannah and the Broad; 1'ickett. with Jones and others following him. at Silver bluff on the east i north) hank of the Savannah, in Barnwell county, South Carolina, about 25 mile- by water below the present Augusta. It will thus be seen that at the very outset of our inquiry the commentators differ by a distance equal to more than half the width of the stat i -of ( Jeorgia. It will suffice here to say, without going into the argument, that, the author is inclined to believe that the Indian town was on or near Silver bluff, which was noted for its extensive ancient remains as far back as Bartram'stime (Travels. 313), and where the noted George Galphin established a trading post in 1736. The original site has since been almost entirely worn away by the river. According to the Indians of Cofitaehiqui, the town, which was on the farther i north) bank of the stream, was tw o day's journey from the sea, probably by canoe, and the sailors « ith the expedition believed tin- river to be the same one that entered al St. Helena, which was a very close guess. The Spaniards were shown here European articles which they were told had been obtained from white men who had entered the river's mouth many years before. These they conjectured to have been the men with Ayllon, who had landed on that coast in 1520 and again in 1524. The town was probably the ancient

capital of the I'.hee Indians, who, before their absorption by !'.» F.TH- 111 13 194 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 the Creeks, held or claimed most of the territory on both banks of Savannah river from the Cherokee border t" within about forty miles of Savannah ami westward to the* >geeeheeand Cannouchee rivers (see Gatschet, ( Ireek Migration Legend, i, 17-34). The country was already on the decline in 1540 from a recent fatal epidemic, but was yet populous ami wealthy, and was ruled by a woman chief whose authority extended for a considerable distance. The town was visited also by Pardoin 1567 and again by Torres in HiL's, w hen it was still a principal settlement, as rich in pearls as in De Soto's time i Brooks MSS, in the archives of the Bureau of American Ethnology). Somewherein southern Georgia De Soto had been told of a rich province called Coca (Coosa, the Creek country) toward the northwest. At Cofltachiqui he again heard of it and of one of its principal towns called ( 'hiaha (( heliaw ) as being twelve da\ s inland. Although on first hearing of it lie had kept on in the other direction in order to reach Cofltachiqui, he now determined to go there, and made the queen a prisoner to compel her to accompany him a part of the way as guide. ( 'oca province was. though he did not know it, almost due west, and he was in haste to reach it in order to obtain corn, as his men and horses were almost worn out from hunger. It is apparent, however, that the unwilling queen,

afraid of being carried beyond her own territories, led the Spaniards by a roundabout route in the hope of making her escape, as she finally did, or perhaps of leaving them to starve and die in the mountains, precisely the trick attempted by the Indians upon another Spanish adventurer, Coronado, entering the great plains from the Pacific coast in search of golden treasure in the .same year. Instead therefore of recrossing the river to the westward, the Spaniards, guided by the captive queen, took the direction of the north ("la vuelta del norte" — Biedma), and, after passing through several towns subject to the queen, came in seven days to "the province of Chalaque" (Elvas). Elvas, Garcilaso, and Ranjel agree upon the spelling, but the last named makes the distance only two days from Cofltachiqui. Biedma does not mentionthe country at all. . The trifling difference in statement of live days in seven need not trouble us, as Biedma makes the whole distance from Cofltachiqui to Xuala eight days, and from Guaxuleto Chiaha four days, where Elvas makes it, respectively, twelve and seven days. Chalaque is, of course, Cherokee, as all writers agree, and De Soto was now probably on the waters of Keowee river, the eastern head stream of Savannah river, where the Lower Chero- kee had their towns. Finding the country bare of corn, he made no stay. Proceeding six days farther they came next to Guaquili, where they were kindly received. This name occurs only in the Ranjel narrative, the other three being entirely silent in regard to such a halting place. The name has a Cherokee sound (Wakili), but if we allow

for a dialectic substitution of / for r it may be connected with such Catawba names as Congaree, Wateree, and Sugeree. It was probably a village of minor importance. They came next to the province of Xuala, or Xualla, as the Divas narrative more often has it. In a French edition it appears as Chouala. Ranjel makes it three days from Guaquili or five from Chalaque. Elvas also makes it live days from Chalaque, while Biedma makes it eight days from Cofltachiqui, a total discrepancy of four days from the last-named place. Biedma describes it as a rough mountain country, thinly populated, but with a few Indian houses, and thinks that in these mountains the great river of Fspiritu Santo (the Mississippi) had its birth. Ranjel describes the town as situated in a plain in the vicinity ofrivers and in a country with greater appearance of gold mines than any they had yet seen. The Portuguese gentleman describes it as having very little corn, and says that they reached it from Cofltachiqui over a hilly country. In his final chapter he states that the course from Cofltachiqui to this place was from south to north, thus agreeing with Biedma. According to Garcilaso (pp. 136-137) it was fifty leagues by the road along which the Spaniards had come from Cofltachiqui to the first valley of the province of Xuala, moosey] . dk SOTO'S ROUTE I ". r > with but few mountains on the way, ami the town itself was situated close under a mi mil tain ( " a la tali la de una sierra " beside a small bul rapid stream which formed the

as Cheraw, who lived in early times in the piedmont country about the head of Broad river in North Carolina, adjoining the Cherokee, who still remember them under the name of Ani'-Suwa'li. A principal trail to their country from the west led up Swannanoa river ami across the gap which, fur this reason, was kmiwn to the ( Jherokee as Suwa'li-nunna, " Suwali trail," corrupted by the whites to Swannanoa. Leilerer. who found them in the same general region in 1670, calls this gap the "Suala pass" ami the neighboring mountains the Sara mountains, "which," lie says, "The Spaniards make Simla." They afterward shifted to the mirth and finally returned ami were incorporated with the Catawba (see Mooney, Simian Tribes • if the East, bulletin of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1894). Up to this point the Spaniards had followedreaching this place the Indian queen had managed to make her escape. All the chroniclers tell of the kind recep- 196 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ann.19 tion which the Spaniards met here, hut th<' only description of the town itself is from Garcilaso, who says that it was situated in the midst of many small streams which came down from the mountains round about, that it consisted of three hundred houses, which is probably an exaggeration, though it goes to show that the village was of considerable size, and that the chief's house, in which the principal officers were lodged, was upon a high hill ( "un cerro alto" ), around which was a roadway ( " paseadero' ' ) wide enough for six men to walk abreast. By the "chief's house" we are to understand the town-house,

while from various similar references in other parts of the narrative there can be no doubt that the "hill" upon which it stood was an artificial mound. In modern Spanish writing such artificial elevations are more often called lomas, but these early adventurers may be excused for not noting the distinction. Issuing from the mountains round about the town were numerous small streams, which united to form the river which the Spaniards henceforth followed from here down to Chiaha, where it was as large as the Guadalquivir at Sevilla ( ( larcilaso). Deceived by the occurrence, in the Portuguese narrative, of the name Canasagua, which they assumed could belong in but one place, earlier commentators have identified this river with the Coosa, Pickett putting Guaxule somewhere upon its upper waters, while Jones improves upon this by making the site"identical, or very nearly so, with Coosawattee Old town, in the southeastern corner of Murray county," Georgia. As we shall show, however, the name in question was duplicated in several states, and a careful study of the narratives, in the light of present knowledge of the country, makes it evident that the river was not the Coosa, but the Chattahoochee. Turning our attention once more to Xuala, the most northern point reached by De Soto, we have seen that this was the territory of the Suwala or Sara Indians, in the eastern foothills of the Alleghenies, about the head waters of Broad and Catawha rivers, in North Carolina. As the Spaniards turned here to the west they probably did not penetrate far beyond the present South Carolina boundary. The "very high mountain ridge" which they crossed immediately after

leaving the town was in all probability the main chain of the Blue ridge, while the river which they found after descending to the savanna on the other side, and which they guessed to be a branch of the Mississippi, was almost as certainly the upper part of the French Broad, the first stream flowing in an opposite direction from those which they had previously encountered. They may have struck it in the neighborhood of Hendersonville or Brevard, there being two gaps, passable for vehicles, in the main ridge eastward from the first-named town. The uninhabited mountains through which they strug- gled for several days on their way to Chiaha and Coca (the Creek country) in the southwest were the broken ridges in which the Savannah and the Little Tennessee have their sources, and if they followed anIndian trail they may have passed through the Rabun gap, near the present Clayton, Georgia. Guaxule, and hot Xuala, as Jones supposes, was in Nacoochee valley, in the present White county, Georgia, and the small streams which united to form the river down which the Spaniards proceeded to Chiaha were the headwaters of the Chattahoochee. The hill upon which the townhouse was built must have been the great Nacoochee mound, the most promi- nent landmark in the valley, on the east bank of Sautee creek, in White county, about twelve miles northwest of Clarkesville. This is the largest mound in upper Georgia, with the exception of the noted Etowah mound near Cartersville, and is the 'only one which can fill the requirements of the case. There are but two consider- able mounds in western North Carolina, that at

Franklin and a smaller one on Oeona- luftee river, on the present East Cherokee reservation, and as both of these are on streams flowing away from the Creek country, this fact alone would bar them from consideration. The only large mounds in upper Georgia are this one at Nacoochee and the group on the Etowah river, near Cartersville. The largest of the Etowah group is some fifty feet in height and is ascended on one side by means of a roadway MOONKY] DE SOTO'S EOUTE 197 about fifty feet wide at the base and narrowing gradually to the top. Had this been the mound of the narrative it is hardly possible that the chronicler would have failed to notice also the two other mounds of the group or the other one on the opposite side of the river, eachthe most fertile spots in Georgia and numerous ancient remains give evidence that it was a favorite center of settlement in early days. At the beginning of the modern historic period it was held by the Cherokee, who had there a town called Nacoochee, but their claim was disputed by the Creeks. The Gentleman of Elvas states that Guaxule was subject to the queen of Cofitachiqui, but this may mean only that the people of the two towns or trihes were in friendly alliance. The modern name is pronounced Nagutil' by the < Ihero- kee, who say. however, that it is not of their language. The terminal may Ik- the Creek udshi, "small." or it may have a connection with the name of the Tehee Indians. From Guaxule the Spaniards advanced toCanasoga (Ranjel) orCanasagua I Elvas I, one or

two days' march from Guaxule, according to one or the other authority. Garcilaso and Biedma do not mention the name. As Garcilaso states that from Guaxule to Chiaha the march was down the bank of the same river, which we identify with the Chattahoochee, the town may have been in the neighborhood of the present Gainesville. As we have seen, however, it is unsafe to trust the estimates of distance. Arguing from the name, Meek infers that the town was about Cona- sauga river in Murray county, and that the river down which they inarched to reach it was "no doubt the Etowah," although to reach the first named river from the Etowah it would be necessary to make another sharp turn to the north. From the same coincidence Pickett puts it on the Conasauga, "in themodern county of Mur- rav. Georgia," while Jones, on the same theory, locates it " at or near the junction of the Connasauga and Coosawattee rivers, in originally Cass, now Gordon county." Here his modern geography as well as his ancient is at fault, as the original Cass county is now Bartow, the name having been changed in consequence of a local dis- like for General Cass. The whole theory of a march down the Coosa river rests upon this coincidence of the name. The same name however, pronounced G&nsd'ffl by the Cherokee, was applied by them to at least three different locations within their old territory, while the one mentioned in the narrative would make the fourth. The others were (1) on Oostanaula river, opposite the mouth of the Conasauga. where afterward was New Echota, in Cordon

county, Georgia; (2) on Canasauga creek, m McMinn county, Tennessee; (3) on Tuckasegee river, about two miles above Web- ster, in Jackson county, North Carolina. At each of these places are remains of ancient settlement. It is possible that the name of Kenesaw mountain, near .Mari- etta, in Cobb county, < reorgia, may be a corruption of GansagI, and if so, theCanasagua of the narrative may have been somewhere in this vicinity on the Chattahoochee. The meaning of the name is lost. On leaving Canasagua they continued down the same river which they had fol- lowed from Cuaxule (Garcilaso I, and after traveling several days through an unin- habited ( "despoblado" ,) country I HI vast arrived at Chiaha. which was subject to the great chief of Coca (Elvasj . The name is spelled Chiaha by Ranjel anddiscrepancy in the statements of the distance from ( lofitachiqui to this point. All four authorities agree that the town was on an island in the river, along which they had been marchingfor some time (Garcilaso, Ranjel), but while the Elvas narrative makes the island "two crossbow shot" in length above the town and one league in length below it, Garcilaso calls it a "great island more than five leagues long." On both sides of the island the stream was very broad and easily waded (Elvas). Finding welcome and food for men and horses the Spaniards rested here nearly a month (June 5-28, Ranjel; twenty-six or twenty-seven days, Biedma; thirty days, Elvas). In spite of the danger from attack De Soto allowed his men to sleep under trees in the open air, "because it was very hot and

the people should have suffered great extremity if it had not been so" ( Elvas). This in itself is evidence that the place was pretty far to the south, as it was yet only the first week in June. The, town was subject to the chief of the great province of Coca, farther to the west. From here onward they began to meet palisaded towns. On the theory that the march was down Coosa river, every commentator hitherto has located Chiaha at some point upon this stream, either in Alabama or Georgia. Gallatin (1836) says that it "must have been on the Coosa, probably some distance below tin- site of New Echota." He notesa similarity of sound between Ichiaha and "Echoy." (Itseyl), a Cherokee town name. Williams (1837) says that it was on Mobile (i. e., the Alabamaor lower Coosa river). Meek (1839) says "there can be little doubt that Chiaha was situated but a short distance above the junction of the Coosa and Chattooga rivers," i. e., not far within the Alabama line. He notes the occurrence of a "Chiaha" (Chehawhaw) creek near Talladega, Alabama. In regard to the island upon which the town was said to have been situated he says: "There is no such island now in the Coosa. It is probable that the Spaniards either mistook the peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers, the Coosa and Chattooga, for an island, or that those two rivers were originally united so as to form an island near their present confluence. We have heard this latter supposition asserted by per- sons well acquainted with the country." — Romantic Passages, p. 222,

1857. Monette (1846) puts it on Etowah branch of the Coosa, probably in Floyd county, Georgia. Pickett (1851), followed in turn by Irving, Jones, and Shea, locates it at "the site of the modern Rome." The "island" is interpreted to mean the space between the two streams above the continence. Pickett, as has been stated, bases his statements chiefly or entirely upon Indian traditions as obtained from halfbreeds or traders. How much information can be gathered from such sources in regard to events that transpired three centuries before may lie estimated by considering how much an illiterate mountaineer of the same region might lie able to tell concerning the founding of the Georgia colony. Pickett himself seems to have been entirely unaware of the later Spanish expeditions of Pardo and De Luna through the same country, as he makesno mention of them in his history of Alabama, but ascribes everything to De Soto. Concerning Chiaha he says: "The most ancient Cherokee Indians, whose tradition has been handed down to us through old Indian trailers, disagree as to the precise place [!] where De Soto crossed the Oostanaula to get over into the town of Chiaha— some asserting that he ]>K SOTO'S ROUTE 199 passed over that river seven miles above its junction with tin- Etowah, and that he marched from thence down t" Chiaha, which, all contend, lay immediately ;it the confluence of the two rivers; while other ancient Indians asserted thai lie crossed, with his army, immediately opposite i In- town. Bu( this is no( verj important. Coupling the Indian traditions with theaccounl by < larcellasso and thai by the Por- tuguese rvi'H itness, we are inclined

that the march was down the Chattal thee from its extreme head springs in the mountains, and that the Chiaha of the narrative was the Lower Creek town of the same name, more pommonly known as Chehaw, for- merly on this river in the neighborh I of the modern city of Columbus, Georgia, while Coste, in the narrative the next adjacent town, was Kasi'ta, "r Cusseta, of the same group of villages. The falls at this point mark the geologic break line where the river changes from a clear, swift current to a broad, slow-moving stream ol the lower country. Attracted by the fisheries and the fertile bottom lands the Lower Creeks established here their settlement nucleus, and here, up to the ln-ginning of the present century, they had within easy distance of each other on bothsides of the river some fifteen towns, among which were Chiaha (Chehaw . I hiahudshi (Little Chehaw), and Kasi'ta (Cusseta). Most of these settlements were within what are now Muscogee and Chattahoochee counties, Georgia, and Lee and Russell counties, Alabama (see town list and map in Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend). Large mounds and other earthworks on both sides of the river in the vicinity of Columbus attest the importance of tin- site in ancient days, while the general appear- ance indicates that at times the adjacent low grounds were submerged or cut off by Overflows from the main stream. A principal trail crossed here from the I Icniulgee, pa — in- I iy Tuskegee to the Upper Creek towns about the junction of the Coosa and Talla] sa in Alabama. \t the beginning of the present century this

trail was know n to the trailers a- " De Soto's trace " (W Iward, Reminiscences, p. 76). As the Indian towns frequently shift their position within a limited range on account of epidemics, freshets, or impoverishment of the soil, it is not neeessarj to assume that they occupied exactly the same sites in 1540 as in 1800, 1 mt only that as a group they were in the same general vicinity. Thus Kasi'ta itself was at one period above the falls and at a later period some eight miles belowthem. Both Kasi'ta and Chiaha were principal towns, with several branch villages. The time given as occupied on the march from Canasagua to Chiaha would seem too little for the actual distance, but as we have seen, the chroniclers do no1 agree among themselves. We can easily believethat the Spaniards, buoyed up by the certainty of finding f 1 and rest at their next halting place, made better progress along the smooth rivertrail than while blundering helplessly through the mountains at the direction of a most unwilling* guide. If Canasagua was any w here in the neigh- borhood of Kenesaw, in Cobb county, the time mentioned in the Elvas or ( larcilaso narrative would probably have been sufficient for reaching < Ihiaha at the falls. The uninhabited country between the two towns was the neutral ground between the two hostile tribes, the Cherokee and the ( 'reeks, and it is worth noting that Kene saw mountain was made a point on the boundary line afterward established betwe< n the two tribes through the mediation of the United States government. 200 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.anx.

1 There is no large island in either the Coosa or the Chattahoochee, and we are forced to the conclusion that what the chronicle describes as an island was really a portion of the bottom land temporarily cut off by back water from a freshet. In a similar way "The Slue," east of Flint river in Mitchell county, may have been formed by a shifting of the river channel. Two months later, in Alabama, the Spaniards reached a river so swollen by rains that they were obliged to wait six days before they could cross (Elvas). Lederer, while crossing South Carolina in 1670, found his farther progress barred by a "great lake," which he puts on his map as "Ushery lake," although there is no such lake in the state; but the mystery is explained by Lawson, who,farther down, there is still to be seen another of nearly equal size. "At extreme freshets both of these mounds were partly submerged. To the east of the former, known as the Indian mound, the flood plain is a mile or two wide, and along the eastern side of the plain stretches a series of swamps or wooded sloughs, indicating an old river bed. All the plain between the present river and the sloughs is river-made land. The river bluff along by the mound on the Georgia side is from twenty to thirty feet above tlie present low-water surface of the stream. About a mile above the mound arc the remains of what was known as Jennies island. At ordinary stages of the river no island is there. The eastern channel was blocked by government works some years

ago, and the whole is filled up and now used as a cornfield. The island remains can be traced now, I think, for a length of half a mile, with a possible extreme width of 300 feet. . . . This whole country, on both sides of the river, is full of Indian lore. I have mentioned both mounds simply to indicate that this portion of the river was an Indian locality, and have also stated the facts about the remains of Jennies island in order to give a possible clew to a professional who might study the ground." — Letter, April 22, 1900. Chiaha was the first town of the " province of Coca," the territory of the Coosa or Creek Indians. The next town mentioned, Coste (Elvas and Ranjel), Costehe (Bieilma) or A coste (Garcilaso),was Kasi'ta, or Cusseta, as it was afterward known to the whites. While Garcilaso puts it at the lower end of the same island upon which Chiaha was situated, the Elvas narrative makes it seven days distant! The modern towns of Chehaw and Cusseta were within a few miles of each other on the Chattahoochee, the former being on the western or Alabama side, while Cusseta, in 1799, was on the east or Georgia side about eight miles below the falls at Columbus, and in Chattahoochee county, which has given its capital the same name, Cusseta. From the general tone of the narrative it is evident that the two towns were near together in De Soto's time, and it may be that the Elvas chronicle confounded Kasi'ta with Koasati, a principal Upper Creek town, a short distance

below the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. At Coste they crossed the river ami continued westward "through many towns subject to the cacique of Coca" (Elvas) until they came to the great town of Coca itself. This was Kusa or Coosa, the ancient capital of the Upper Creeks. There were two towns of this name at different periods. One, described by Adair in 1775 as "the great and old beloved town of refuge, Koosah," was on the east bank of Coosa river, a few miles southwest of the present Talladega, Alabama. The muonf.vJ DK SOTO'S ROUTE 201 other, known as "Old < toosa," and probablj of more ancient origin, was on the west side oi Alabama river, near the present site of Montgomery (see Gatschet, Creek Migration Legend I. It was probablj the latter \\ bich wasthe Elvas nar- rative summarizes that portion from the landing at Tampa bay toapoint insouthern Alabama as follows: " From the Tort de Spirit.. Santo to Apalache, which is about an hundred leagues, the governor went from east to west; an. 1 from Apalache to ( lutifa- chiqui, which are 430 leagues, from the southwest to the northeast; ami from Cutifa- chiqui to Xualla, which are about L'">0 leagues, from the south to the north; anil from Xuallato Tascaluea, which are 250 leagues more, an hundred and ninety of them he traveled from east to west, to wit. to the province of Coca; and the other 60, from Coca to Tascaluca, from the north to the south." Chisca (Elvas and Ranjel), the mountainous northern region in search of which men were sent from Chiaha to look for copper

and gold, was somewhere in the Cherokee country of upper Georgia or Alabama. The precise location is not material, as it i- now known that native copper, in such condition as to have been easily work- able by the Indians, occurs throughout the whole southern Allegheny region from about Anniston, Alabama, into Virginia. Notable timls of native copper have been maileon the upper Tallapoosa, in Cleburne county, Alabama; about Ducktown, in Polk county, Tennessee, and in southwestern Virginia, one. nugget from Virginia weighing several pounds. From the appearance of ancient soapstone vessels which have been found in the same region there is even a possibility that the Indians had some knowledge of smelting, as the Spanish explorers surmised (oral information from Mr \V. II. Weed, I'. S. Geological Survey). We hear again of this "province" after De Soto hadattempt was abandoned the next year. In the course of his wanderings he traversed the country of the CI taw, Chickasaw, and Upper Creeks, as is shown by the names and other data in the narrative, but returned without entering the mountains or doing any digging (see Barcia, Ensayo Cronologico, pp. 32-41, 1723; Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, n, pp. 257 259) . In 1569 the Jesuit Rogel — called Father John Roger by shea— began mission work among the South Carolina tribes inland from Santa Elena I about Port Royal). The mission, which at first promised well, was abandoned next year, owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to give up their old habits and beliefs. Shea, in Ins '•Catholic Mission.-," supposes that these Indians were probably a pari of the 202 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth. Cherokee,