whites had so far encroached upon the Upper
towns that the capital and council tire of the nation had been removed
from the ancient peace town of Echota to Ustanali, in Georgia. The
i Indian Treaties, pp. 78-82. 1837; Ramsey, Tennessee, pp. 692-697. ls.">:;; Royce, Cherokei
(with map and full discussion i, Fifth Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, pp. 174-lw, 1888.
-See table in Royce, op.cit., p. 378.
19 ETH— 01 6
82 MYTHS OF THE CHEROKEE [eth.ank.19
towns on Coosa river and in Alabama were almost all of recent estab-
lishment, peopled by refugees from the east and north. The Middle
towns, in North Carolina, were still surrounded by Indian country.
Firearms had been introduced into the tribe about one hundred
years before, and the Cherokee had learned well their use. Such
civilized goods as hatchets, knives, clothes, and trinketshad become
so common before the first Cherokee war that the Indians had declared
that they could no longer live without the trader-. Horses and other
domestic animals had been introduced early in the century, and at the
opening of the war of L760, according to Adair, the Cherokee had "a
prodigious number of excellent horses." and although hunger had
compelled them t<> eat a great many of these during that period, they
still had, in 1775. from two to a dozen each, and bid fair soon to have
plenty of the best sort, as, according to the same authority, they were
skilful jockeys and nice in their choice. Some of them had grown
fond of cattle, and they had also an abundance of hoes and poultry,
the Indian pork being esteemed better than that raised in the white
settlements