USA > Alabama > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 12
USA > Georgia > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 12
USA > Mississippi > History of Alabama, and incidentally of Georgia and Mississippi, from the earliest period, v. 1 > Part 12
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that they, too, were used for sacrifices. They are thirty feet CHAPTER high. III.
" No. 3. A wall of earth enclosing these mounds.
"No. 4, 4, 4, 4. Mounds outside of the enclosure, twenty feet high, and probably used as watch towers.
" No. 5. Entrance to the enclosure.
" In the rear of these mounds is a creek, No. 6, and from the large mound there has been constructed an arched pas- sage, three hundred yards in length, leading to the creek, and probably intended to procure water for religious purposes."
1847
The smaller mounds, to be found in almost every field upon the rivers Tennessee, Coosa, Tallapoosa, Alabama, Cahaba, Warrior and Tombigby, will next be considered.
Many of these elevations are cultivated in cotton and corn, the plough ascending and descending from year to year, with more ease, as they gradually wear away. They are usually from five to ten feet high, from fifteen to sixty feet in cir- cumference at the base, and of conical forms, resembling hay- stacks. Where they have been excavated, they have, inva- riably, been found to contain human bones, various stone ornaments, weapons, pieces of pottery, and sometimes orna- ments of copper and silver, but of a rude manufacture, clearly indicating Indian origin. Layers of ashes and charcoal are, also, found in these mounds.
It will be recollected that the Spaniards, during the inva- sion of De Soto, discovered temples in all the chief towns, in which the dead were deposited in baskets and wooden boxes. At a late day, this custom was found to exist only among the
1533
15-10
1541
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CHAPTER III.
1735
1777 1759
1782
Choctaws, Natchez, and a few other tribes. The Muscogees and Alabamas, who came into the country after it had been overrun by De Soto, had, as we have seen, simple modes of burial, and hence knew nothing about the construction of these mounds. The bone-houses of the Choctaws were mi- niature temples of the Indians of 1540. We have seen in what manner the Choctaws placed their dead upon scaffolds, and afterwards picked off all the flesh and fragments from the bones, and deposited the latter in bone-houses. It is posi- tively asserted by Bartram that every few years, when these houses became full of bones, the latter were carried out upon a plain, buried in a common grave, and a mound raised over them .* According to Charlevoix, another conscientious au- thor, the Six Nations and the Wyandots, every eight or ten years, disinterred their dead, who had been deposited where they had died, and carried all the bones to a certain place, where they dug a pit, thirty feet in diameter and ten in depth, which was paved at the bottom with stones. In this the various skeletons, with the property which the deceased possessed, were thrown. Over the heap a mound was raised, by throwing in the earth they had dug out, together with rubbish of every kind. Much later authority will be adduced. Lewis and Clarke, whom, as we have said, Jefferson sent to explore Oregon, saw a mound twelve feet in diameter at the base, and six feet high, which had just been erected over the body of a Maha Chief. It appears to have always been the
* Bartram's Travels, p. 516. See also Bossu's Travels, vol. 1, p. 299
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custom to erect a mound over a Chief or person of distinction, CHAPTER and no other bodies were interred with him. Indeed, no prac- III. tice has been more universal than that of erecting a mound or tumulus over the dead, not only in America, but over the world. Adair asserts that it was the practice of the Chero- kees to collect the skeletons of those who had died far from home, and erect over them stone mounds, and every person 1735 who passed by was required to add a stone to the heap .* This, then, accounts for the heaps of stone to be found in the northern parts of Georgia and North-eastern Alabama, resem- bling mounds in form. In North Alabama and Tennessee, skeletons have been found in eaves. In mountainons coun- tries this may have been one of the modes of disposing of the dead, or, which is more probable, persons died there suddenly, and their bones were not afterwards gathered together, buried in a common grave, and a mound erected over them, as was the general custom of ancient times.
The small mounds in Alabama, which have been excavated, contain different stratas. Beginning to dig at the top, the operators first pass through a strata of earth about two feet thick, then they come to a bed of ashes and charcoal, and then a bed of human bones mixed with pieces of pottery, pipes, arrow-heads and various Indian ornaments. Muscle shells are often mixed with these. Continuing to dig downwards, the excavators pass through a strata of earth, which is suc- ceeded by stratas of bones, charcoal, pottery, Indian orna-
Adair's American Indians."
Mike
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CHAPTER ments and arrow-points. Now, from all we have read and
III. 1735 1777 1759
1782
heard of the Choctaws, we are satisfied that it was their cus- tom to take from the bone-houses the skeletons, with which they repaired in funeral procession to the suburbs of the town, where they placed them on the ground in one heap, together with the property of the dead, such as pots, bows, arrows, ornaments, curious shaped stones for dressing deer- skins, and a variety of other things. Over this heap they first threw charcoal and ashes, probably to preserve the bones, and the next operation was to cover all with earth. This left a mound several feet high. In the course of eight or ten years, when the bone-house again became full of skeletons, the latter were carried in the same manner to the mound, placed upon top of it, and covered with ashes and earth. When the mound became high enough to excite a kind of veneration for it, by depositing upon it heaps of bones, from time to time, another was made not far from it, and then another, as time rolled on. This accounts for the different stratas of bones to be found in the same mound, and for the erection of several mounds, often found near each other.
As for the ancient ditches at Cahaba, and in other portions of Alabama, in which are now growing the largest trees of the forest, indicating the works to have been of very remote date, we have been unable, in our investigations, to ascribe them to European origin, as they are generally supposed to be. De Soto erected no forts, in passing through this country, and had no occasion to do so, for his army was com- petent to subdue the natives without such means of defence.
1775 1735 1759 1782
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
It is true, he cut some temporary ditches upon the Warrior, CHAPTER near Erie, to repel the savages, who were charging him con- III. stantly from the other side of the river. These were soon abandoned, and his journalists mention no other works of the kind which he made .* The French and Spaniards, who afterwards occupied Alabama, erected no forts, except those at Mobile, upon the Tensaw River, at St. Stephens, at Jones' Bluff upon the Tombigby, and four miles above the confluence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, upon the east bank of the former.
The English, at an early period, constructed a fort at Ocfuskee upon the Tallapoosa. If any other forts or entrenchments were made by the Europeans who first established themselves upon our soil, we have not been so fortunate as to trace them. The conclusion, then, seems to us to be apparent, that these ancient entrenchments or fortifications were the works of the aborigines of the country. It will be recollected that De Soto, and the French authors who succeeded him, nearly two centu- ries afterwards, discovered towns which were well fortified with immense breastworks of timber, around which were ent large ditches. It was easy,-within a short space of time,-for a few hundred Indians to have ent an immense ditch, or to have thrown up a great mound. The same tools employed in the
*"Had Hernando De Soto erected one-tenth of the works which have been ascribed to him, in the States bordering on the Gulf, in Tennessee, and even in Kentucky, he must have found ample demands on his time and exertions."-" Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," by E. G. Squier, A.M., p. 112.
1540 1700 1792
元
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
CHAPTER erection of the latter, certainly the work of the ancient Indians, III. could well have been used in the cutting of these old en- trenchments or ditches. Hence, we contend, that at the town of Cahaba there once existed a large Indian establishment, which was fortified with palisades, and that the ditch, which has produced so much modern speculation, among the good peo- ple of that place, was cut around these palisades, or rather around the town, having the Alabama river open on one side. There is a ditch near the Talladega Springs, which formerly had trees growing in it, and which surrounds an elevation, embracing a few acres and taking in a beautiful spring, which gushes out of the rocks at the side of the hill .* No doubt, this, and all other works like it, now frequently seen over the territories of Alabama and Mississippi, are the works of our ancients Indians, for they invariably erected their defences at those places which admitted of the encompassment of running water; while, on the other hand, the Europeans who came to this country at an early period, always dug wells within the fortifications which they made.
In the month of October, 1850, we visited a remarkable place at the Falls of Little River, situated in the north-eastern corner of Cherokee county, Alabama, and very near the line of De Kalb county, in the same State. [ See picture at the beginning of volume II.] What is rather singular, Little River has its source on the top of Lookout Mountain, and runs for many miles on the most elevated parts of it. In the winter
1850 October
* Formerly the property of Henry G. Woodward.
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
and spring it is a stream of considerable size, affording a rapid CHAPTER and dangerous current of water ; but when it was seen upon the III. present occasion, a very protracted drought had nearly dried it up. The river flows along the top of the mountain with very inconsiderable banks, until it reaches a precipice of solid rock, in the form of a half circle, over which it falls seventy feet, perpendicularly, into a basin. After being received in this rock basin, the river flows off without much interruption, and, in winding about, forins a peninsula about two or three hundred yards below the falls. The banks of the river bordering on this peninsula are the same unbroken rock walls which form the falls, and are equally high and bold. Across the neck of the 1850 October peninsula are yet to be traced two ancient ditches, nearly par- allel with each other, and about thirty feet apart in the middle of the curve which they form, though they commence within ten feet of each other upon the upper precipice, and when they have reached the lower precipice, are found to run into each other. These ditches have been almost filled up by the ef- fects of time. On their inner sides are rocks piled up and mixed with the dirt which was thrown up in making these entrenchments, indicating them to be of the simplest and rudest Indian origin. The author has seen many such entrench- ments in his travels over Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, and hesitates not to say that they are the works of the abo- rigines of the country.
On one side of the bend of the peninsula, and about ten feet below the top of the rock precipice, are four or five small caves, large enough, if square, to form rooms twelve by fourteen feet.
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CHAPTER
III. 1850
October
They are separated from each other by strata of rock, two of which resemble pillars, roughly hewn out. Three of them communicate with each other by means of holes which can be crawled through. These caves open immediately upon the precipice, and from their floors it is at least seventy feet down to the surface of the river. Many persons who have visited this singular place, call these " De Soto's Rock Houses," and they have stretched their imaginations to such an extent, as to assert that they have distinctly traced his pickaxes in the face of the rocks. There can be no question, however, but that these caves have been improved, to a slight extent, in size and shape, by human labor. But it was the labor of the Red people. Occasionally we could see where they smoothed off a point, and leveled the floors by knocking off the uneven places. It was, doubtless, a strong Indian fortifi- cation, and long used as a safe retreat when the valleys be- low were overrun by a victorious enemy. The walls are black with smoke, and everything about them bears evidence of con- stant occupation for years. These caves or rock houses consti- tuted a most admirable defence, especially with the assistance of the walls at the head of the peninsula. In order to get into the first cave, a person has to pass along a rock passage, wide enough for only one man. Below him, on his right, is the awful preci- pice, and on his left, the rock wall reaching ten feet above his head. A few persons in the first rock house, with swords or spears, could keep off an army of one thousand men ; for, only one assailant being able to approach the cave at a time, could be instantly despatched and hurled down the abyss be-
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
low. In regard to the inner walls of the ditches, the author CHAPTER saw no cement among the rocks, although he had heard that III. 1850 October" that ingredient (never used by Indians) was to be found there.
Upon creeks and rivers in Alabama, where they meander through mountainous regions, are occasionally seen cuttings upon rocks, which have also been improperly attributed to European discoverers. In the county of Tallapoosa, not far below the mouth of the Sougohatchie, and a few miles east from the Tallapcosa river, are cliffs of a singular kind of gray rock, rather soft, and having the appearance of of containing silver ore. The face of these cliffs is literally cut in pieces, by having round pieces taken out of them. The ancient Indians used to resort to this place to obtain materials for manufacturing pipes, of large and small sizes, and, more particularly, for bowls and other household vessels. They cut out the pieces with flint rocks fixed in wooden handles. After working around as deep as they desired, the piece was prized out of the rock. Then they formed it into whatever vessel, toy or implement, they pleased. Hence, bowls, small mor- tars, immense pipes, and various pieces resembling wedges* in shape, are often ploughed up in the fields in Macon, Tal- lapoosa and Montgomery, and other counties in Alabama, of precisely the same kind of rock of which these cliffs are com-
* These wedges, in appearance, were used by the Indians in dress- ing their deer-skins. They were also used as clubs in war, having han- dles fixed to them.
1847 April
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
7 CHAPTER posed. The author is also sustained in this position by un- III. questionable Indian testimony, which has been procured by him.
A few miles from Elyton, in the county of Jefferson, the author is informed that there stands a large quadrangular mound, about fifty feet high, and flat on the top ; that, near its base, are to be seen cuttings in the rock something like . mortars, some of which would hold over a gallon. These were done by the Indians, for the limestone rock could easily be worked into any shape by means of flint picks.
1777
The reader has observed that we have often mentioned the published works of Bartram, the botanist, who was in our country just before the Revolutionary War. We now quote from his M.S., never published entire, but occasionally intro- dnced by Squier in his "Ancient Monuments of the Mississip- pi Valley." Squier embodies in his work the following ac- count, from Bartram's MS., of the " CHUNK YARDS" of the Creeks or Muscogees : "They are rectangular areas, gene- rally occupying the centre of the town. The public square and rotunda, or great winter council-house, stood at the two opposite corners of them. They are generally very extensive, especially in the large old towns. Some of them are from six hundred to nine hundred feet in length, and of proportion- ate breadth. The area is exactly level, and sunk two, and some- times three, feet below the banks of terraces surrounding it, which are occasionally two in number, one behind and above the other, and composed of the earth taken from the area at the time of its formation. These banks or terraces serve the
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MOUNDS AND FORTIFICATIONS IN ALABAMA.
purpose of seats for spectators. In the centre of this yard or CHAPTER area there is a low circular mound or eminence, in the mid- III. 1777 dle of which stands the Chunk Pole, which is a high obelisk, or four-square pillar, declining upwards to an obtuse point. This is of wood, the heart of a sound pitch-pine, which is very durable. It is generally from thirty to forty feet in height, and to the top is fastened some object which serves as a mark to shoot at with arrows, or the rifle, at certain appoint- ed times."
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- THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER IV.
AFTER the Spanish invasion of De Soto, to which allusion has so often been made, our soil remained untrodden by Eu- ropean fect for nearly a century and a half. At the end of that long and dark period, it became connected with the history of the distant French possessions of Canada, which were contemporaneous with the oldest English colonies in America. For more than fifty years, the French fur traders of Canada, associated with the enterprising Jesuit Fathers, had continued to advance south-westward upon the great lakes, discovering new regions, different races of Indians, more abundant game, and wider and brighter waters. At length, from the tribes upon the southern shore of Lake Superior, Father Allonez heard some vague reports of a great western river. Subsequently, Father Marquette was despatched from Quebec, with Joliet, a trader of that place, five other French- men, and a large number of Indian guides, to seek the Mis- sissippi, and thus add new regions to the dominion of France, and new missions to the empire of the Jesuits. Ascending Fox river to the head of navigation, and crossing the portage to the banks of the Wisconsin, with birch bark canoes,
THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
181
the adventurers again launched their tiny boats and floated down to the Mississippi river. Descending it to the mouth of the Arkansas, and encountering decided evidences of a southern climate, Marquette finally found himself among the Chickasaws, whose reports that hostile tribes thronged the banks from thence to the sea, served to arrest his progress. Reluctantly commencing his return up the stiff and turbid tide, he found the mouth of the Illinois river, ascended to its head, crossed the portage to Chicago, launched his canoes upon Lake Michi- gan, and paddled to Green Bay, where he resumed his mis- sionary labors. Joliet proceeded to Quebec with the news of the discovery.
The young and gifted La Salle, a native of Rouen, in France, educated as a Jesuit, went to Canada to acquire fortune and fame by finding an overland passage to China. Becoming fired at the discovery which Marquette had made, he returned to France and obtained a royal commission for perfecting the exploration of the Mississippi, for which he was granted a mo- nopoly in the trade of the skins of the buffalo. Sailing back to Canada, with men and stores, and accompanied by the Chevalier Tonti, an Italian soldier, who acted as his lieu- tenant, La Salle proceeded, by way of the lakes, upon his important enterprise. Consuming over two years in exploring those vast sheets of water, in building forts and collecting furs, he at length rigged a small barge, in which he descended the Mississippi to its mouth. Here, upon a small marshy eleva- tion, in full view of the sea, he took formal and ceremonious possession in the name of the King of France. The country
CHAPTER IV. 1673 June 17 .
1678
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1883 April 9
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THE FRENCH IN ALABAMA AND MISSISSIPPI.
CHAPTER received the name of Louisiana, in honor of Louis XIV., who IV. then occupied the French throne ; but the attempt to give the river the name of Colbert, in honor of his Minister of Finance, did not succeed, and it retained that by which the aborigines had designated it. Leaving the Chevalier Tonti in command of Fort St. Louis, which La Salle had established in the country of the Illinois, the latter returned to France, where the report of his discoveries had already given rise to much excitement and joy. The goverment immediately furnished him with a frigate and three other ships, upon which embark- ed two hundred and eighty persons, consisting of priests, gentlemen, soldiers, hired mechanics and agricultural emi- grants, for the purpose of forming a colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. But the fearless adventurer, having crossed the Atlantic, and being unable to find, from the Gulf, the en- 1685 February trance to that river, was forced to disembark upon the coast of Texas. Here, erecting Fort St. Louis, and leaving the larger portion of the colonists, he explored the surrounding country, with the hope of finding the Mississippi, but return- ed unsuccessful. Death had hovered over the colony, which was now reduced to thirty-six persons ; and with sixteen of these, La Salle again departed, with the determination to cut his way to Canada by land. After three months' wanderings, 1687 March 19 he was murdered, by two of his companions, in the prairies of Texas, near the western branch of the Trinity fiver. In the meantime the Chevalier Tonti, .with twenty Canadians and thirty Indians, descended from the Illinois to meet his old commander ; but, disappointed in not finding the French
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fleet at the Balize, he returned to the mouth of the Arkansas, CHAPTER where he established a little post. The few colonists left IV. upon the coast of Texas all perished obscurely, except the brother of La Salle and six others, who made their way to Canada. Such was the melancholy termination of the first attempt to colonize Louisiana .*
Louis XIV. of France, the most splendid sovereign whom Europe had yet seen, had long been engaged in a war with William III. of England, which had extended to their re- spective colonies in North America. In consequence of these troubles, further efforts to colonize the Mississippi were not attempted, until after the peace of Ryswick. By the terms of the treaty, each party was to enjoy the territories in America which they possessed before the war. The attention of the French monarch was now once more turned to the new country which La Salle had discovered. A number of Canadians had been left upon the shores of France, upon the conclusion of the war, and among them was a distinguished naval officer, named Iberville, who had acquired great mili-
* Hildreth's History of the United States. New-York : 1849. Vol. 2, pp. 81-99. Historie de la Louisiane, par Charles Gayarre ; vol. 1, pp. 23-61. Journal Historique du Dernier Voyage que feu M. de la Sale, fit dans le Galfe de Mexique, pour trouver l'embouchure, et le cours de la Riviere de Saint Louis, qui traverse la Louisiana. A Paris: 1713-386 pages. The History of Louisiana from the earliest period, 1 by Francois Xavier Martin, vol. 1, pp. 59-121. New-Orleans: 1827. Also many other authorities.
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CHAPTER tary renown by his exploits against the English, on the shores
IV. of Hudson Bay and Newfoundland, and by the capture of Pemaquid. He was one of seven sons, all natives of Quebec, all men of ability and merit, and all engaged in the King's service.
1698
September 24
To Iberville was confided the project of peopling Louisiana. He sailed from Rochelle with the Badine, of thirty guns, of which he had the immediate command, and with the Marir, commanded by Count Sugeres, together with two harbor boats, each of forty tons. On board these vessels were his two young but gallant brothers, Bienville and Sauvolle, and two hundred colonists, mostly Canadians, who had gone to France to assist in her defence. Among them were 'some women and children. Arriving at Cape Francois, in the Island of St. Domingo, he was joined by the Marquis Chateau Morant, with a fifty-two gun ship. There he received on board a famous buccaneer named De Grace, who had pillaged Vera Cruz some years before. Leaving St. Domingo, Iber- ville sailed for the coast of Florida, and after a prosperous voyage, stood before the Island of St. Rosa, from which point he discovered two men-of-war, at anchor in the harbor of Pensacola, at whose mast-heads floated the colors of Spain. One month previous to this, Don Roalli, with three hundred Spaniards, from Vera Cruz, had established a battery upon the site of the present town of Pensacola.
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