USA > Georgia > A history of Georgia : from its first discovery by Europeans to the adoption of the present constitution in MDCCXCVIII. Vol. I > Part 5
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2 Called also Savannahs by Gov. name of the river on which they lived. -Gallatin's Synopsis of Indian Tribes, Archæol. Amer., ii. p. 84. Archdale in his " New Description of that fertile and pleasant province of Carolina," &c., London, 1707. They 3 Lawson's New Voyage to Caro- were probably called thus from the lina, &c., Lond. 1709, small 4to., p. 4.
47
TREACHERY OF THE YAMASSEES.
and their frequent capture and butchery of the strag- glers from the fort of St. Augustine, assured them of the sincerity of their hatred. Through the presents and machinations of the Spanish Governor, their fidelity to the English was gradually shaken, and they were finally prepared to strike a blow upon their unsuspect- ing friends, which shook the colony to its centre, and threatened its extinction.4
They began by slaying the Indian traders in their chief town of Pocotaligo, on the 12th of April, 1715; and then swept down in fury upon the unprotected settlements, murdering the people, laying waste their fields, burning their dwellings, until over four hundred inhabitants had been made the victims of their bar- barity. The entire colony was roused; an embargo was laid on the ships in port; martial law was pro- claimed on land ; the forts were refurnished with means of defence; bills of credit were stamped for the expenses of the war; agents were despatched to the northern colonies for help ; and the country popu- lation, abandoning their homes, fled to the stronger set- tlements, or hurried on to the city. Governor Craven put himself at the head of the forces raised to repel this invasion, consisting of between fifteen hundred and two thousand militia; and after a cautious march, he met them in battle at the Salt-ketchers, and, not satisfied with conquering them on that well-fought field, drove them across the Savannah; nor did the Yamassees find rest until within the walls of St. Augustine, where they were received with joy and
4 An Account of the Yamassee 1719 : Lond., printed in 1726. Hew- War, Boston News Letter, June 13th, itt's Hist. of South Carolina and Geor- gia, vol. i. chap. iv. London, 1779. 1715. Narrative of the Proceedings of the People of South Carolina in
48
THE CHEROKEES IN GEORGIA.
triumph. Henceforth the Yamassees took up their residence in Florida, as the scouts and allies of the Spaniards ; atoning for their defeat, by years of merci- less revenge upon the outer settlements of Carolina.
The Cherokees were settlers in Georgia in the time of De Soto, who travelled through a part of their country in 1540. They derive their name from cheera -- fire,5 which, in their mythology, constitutes the lower heaven; and their medicine men, or prophets, are hence called chee-ra-tahge, men of divine fire. They dwelt principally in the northern and north- western parts of the State ; among the ridges and val- leys of the Alleghany Mountains, and the head-waters of the Savannah and other rivers, which empty into the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico. Their first intercourse with the English was in 1693, when twenty chiefs of that nation went to Charleston and craved the assistance of Governor Smith and the Car- olinians, against the Etaws and Congarees, who had burnt some of their towns, and taken several of their nation captive.6 In 1712 they assisted the Carolinians in their attack upon the Tuscaroras, by furnishing two hundred warriors ; and in various ways exhibited their attachment and fidelity, and maintained the relations which had been established among them by Governors Smith and Nicholson.
On the purchase of Carolina from the proprietary grantees by Parliament, in 1729, and the erecting of it into two royal provinces, under the names of North and South Carolina, it was deemed essential, by the government, to secure the alliance of this large and warlike tribe, computed at this time to number twenty
5 Bartram, p. 44. Adair's Hist. Am.
Indians, p. 226, 4to, London, 1775.
6 Hewitt, vol. i. chap. iii.
1
49
TREATY WITH THE CHEROKEES.
thousand, distributed in sixty-four towns and villages, affording at least six thousand warriors.
To effect this, Sir Alexander Cumming was sent over by Great Britain, in 1730, as a commissioner to nego- ciate the requisite treaty; an object of vast conse- quence to the colony, as well as to the mother country.7
As soon as the spring opened, Sir Alexander left Charleston to meet the chiefs of the nation.
The congress assembled at Nequassee, on the 3d of April, 1730; and by the nomination of the commis- sioner, Moytoy was proclaimed emperor. The proffered alliance of the English was readily embraced; the treaty was drawn up and confirmed; and the assem- bled chiefs and Indians acknowledged themselves duti- ful subjects of King George II., and on their knees called down on themselves terrible judgments should they fail of their duty. To confirm their loyalty, the crown of the nations, five eagles' tails, and four scalps of their enemies, were presented to Sir Alexander, with the request that he would lay them at their great father's feet. But the commissioner, though he took the crown, preferred to have several of the chiefs go to England with him, and there make their fealty to the king. Seven chiefs accompanied him to London, where they arrived in June, and were presented at court. They were received by the king and nobles with great kind- ness; saw, and were astonished at, the magnificence and strangeness of everything around them, so differ- ent from their own simplicity; and at a formal intro- duction to George II., repeated their professions of amity and peace. Having spent a few months there,
.
7 Salmon's Modern Hist., &c., iii. Hist. of South Carolina, i. 99. Old- 569. Hewitt, ii. chap. vii. Ramsay's mixon, i. 498 : London, 1741.
4
50
THE UCHEE INDIANS.
they returned to their mountain home; trod again the war-path against their enemies; but remained for many years the firm friends of the English.
Thus, to use the figurative language of the preamble of this treaty, " the king had fastened one end of the chain of friendship to his breast, and linked the other to the breast of Moytoy of Telliquo, and to the breasts of all their old wise men, their captains, and their peo- ple."
During the French and Indian war, the Cherokees fought on the side of the English ; but on their return home from the capture of Fort Duquesne, they gave such offence by their misconduct in Virginia, that sev- eral of their warriors were killed ; which circumstance lighted a flame of war against the English, that was not extinguished until two expeditions of British troops reduced them to the royal power. Before they were corrupted by the white men, the Cherokees were frank, sincere, industrious; living in the most beautiful region of the southern States, the "Hill Country" of Carolina and Georgia, secure in their mountain homes, rich in their valley lands, and strong in the arms and prowess of their death-defying warriors.
The Uchees were a smaller band of Indians than the former, and inhabited the country on both sides of the Savannah, above and below Augusta, and as far down as the Ogeechee. Their original seat is supposed to have been near the Coosa and Chattahoochee rivers, of which they considered themselves the most ancient inhabitants; and were, perhaps, the nation described in De Soto's travels as the Appalachees.8 They had ' again abandoned the Savannah, and gone southward, to the right bank of the Chattahoochee, and shortly after
' Gallatin's Synopsis, 95.
51
-
MUSCOGEES. THE CREEK CONFEDERACY.
were incorporated into the Creek confederacy, though they retained all their ancient customs, and adopted none of those of the Muscogees. Their language was peculiarly harsh and guttural ; and is less expressible by our letters and spelling than any known Indian tongue. They were more civil, orderly, and indus- trious than those around them; their women more chaste; their men more constant in their attachment to them, assisting them in their labours, when not en- gaged in the hunt or in war.
Muscogee is the name of an Indian nation bordering on the Savannah river, the Atlantic, and Gulf of Mexico, the Cherokee lands on the north, and the Choctaws and Chickasaws on the west. They came from the west. There is a tradition among them, that there are in the forks of the Red river, west of the Missis- sippi, two mounds of earth, where they first found themselves; but being distressed by wars, they jour- neyed eastward, towards the place where the sun rose; and settling below the Falls of the Chattahoo- chee, spread out from thence to the Ocmulgee, Oco- nee, Savannah, and along the sea-board. Another tra- dition assigns their origin to a cave near Alabama river; while yet another traces their descent from the sky. Originally a small people, they increased in size and strength by incorporating into themselves the broken remnants of other tribes and nations; until a union of several people was formed by them, called, from the small streams with which their country abounds, the Creek confederacy.9
Of this confederacy the Muscogees constituted seven- eighths; the remaining portion being made up of Uchees, Natches, Hilchitees, Alibamous, and Seminoles. These
9 Bartram, 47. Adair, 257. Gallatin, 95.
52
THE CREEK CONFEDERACY.
last, called also Semole or Wildmen, are pure Musco- gees, as well as the Appalachians, residing at the head of the Appalache bay. The Seminoles are called " wild," because they left their old towns, and made irregular settlements to the south and south-east. They were induced to go thither by the game, the climate, the soil, and the rich pasturage for cattle.10
The confederacy at one time was divided into four principal towns : the Corretal, Oscoochee, Cussetah, and Tukawbatchie.11 Besides this political division, there was also a geographical one : those living up towards the mountains being called upper Creeks; those to- wards the sea-board, lower Creeks. A hundred years ago, the nation had fifty towns or villages, and could send three thousand five hundred warriors into the field. Uniting with themselves the remnants of so many other tribes, they became the most powerful nation in the south; and their early successes so whetted their appetite for war, that it became a necessary element of their existence. They defeated the Cherokees, though the latter were the more nu- merous ; they humbled the Choctaws, the most artful of Indian strategists ; and, bordering as they did on the territories of three European nations-the English in Carolina, the Spanish in Florida, and the French at Mobile-they were made to vacillate in their fidelity to each, and changed their allies at the bidding of profit or revenge.
Artful in all their designs, far-reaching in their polit- ical views, judicious in their internal arrangements, attentive to the necessities of culture, loving the strife
10 Manuscript Journal of Colonel Benj. Hawkins, written in the Creek Country in 1798-9, while U. S. Agent of Indian Affairs, p. 17.
11 Gallatin's Synopsis, 95.
53
INDIAN WARS AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS.
of war and the high-sounding titles of the warrior, they heeded not distance, and contemned suffering, and braved danger, in seeking out their enemy; and sel- dom met their foes but to subdue them.
Each tribe of the above nation had its chief, and each body of chiefs its head chief, or great warrior ; and the hereditary descent was always in the female line. These chiefs and beloved men, as their counsel- lors were called, ruled the nation, holding frequent councils, hearing complaints, adjusting differences, re- ceiving European agents, making replies to their friend- ly talk, declaring war, leading out to battle, announc- ing cessation of hostilities, and gathering all around the council fire, to smoke the calumet of peace.
Their wars were seldom fair-fought fields, where each met each in full array; but a series of ambus- cades, stratagems, massacres, and surprises, wasting and fretting each other by harassing blows, until one party retired from the contest. The prowess of the warrior was reckoned by the number of his war-scalps ; and the death of a warrior was lamented and avenged. Their prisoners they treated with cruelty, turning them over to the women and children, whose joy it was to inflict upon them horrid tortures, and make their deaths as lingering and painful as the ingenuity of merciless savages could devise.
Their social institutions were necessarily imperfect. They were united by the affinities of tribes. Marriage with any of a kindred blood, though far remote, was forbidden. The wife was sought by the females of both parties, and bargained for as merchantable wares. The rites of marriage were simple, its duties stringent, its liberties none. Infidelity was punished with death, though before marriage great looseness of virtue pre-
54
OCCUPATIONS, LANGUAGES, AMUSEMENTS.
vailed. Divorce could be easily obtained, and poly- gamy was permitted to all who could afford the addi- tional expense. The children remained with the mother, and the property she brought with her could not be used by the husband.
The occupation of the Indians was mostly hunting, fishing, and war; their weapons were the bow and arrow, and the scalping-knife. Their warlike character was graduated by the number of their scalps; and when conquered, they exulted in that fortitude which en- abled them to bear the severest tortures with the un- flinching spirit of a true Brave. The women were generally made to bear the burden of labour, though among the Creeks the men gave some assistance. Their dress was simple, consisting mostly of skins, variously painted, and decorated with tawdry orna- ments, according to their fancy or ability. Their wig- wams were rude and temporary, and the conveniences of life few and unrefined. The languages of the tribes inhabiting Georgia were diverse in their character, the Muscogee being the most prevalent; though there were tribes which formed a part of this confederacy which did not use the Creek tongue. All the Indian lan- guages were susceptible of strong expressions and forcible appeals-of abrupt sentences and bold meta- phors-which gave a vigour and strength to their elo- quence, at times approaching to the sublime.
The Indians loved the dance, of which they had many kinds, and especially did they rejoice in the " war- dance," and the "war-song," on the eve of battle, in which they recounted the deeds of their ancestors, and expressed their contempt of death. They all be- lieved in a Great Spirit ; in a future world, where the brave men would live in a glorious hunting-ground,
55
THEIR VIEW OF DEATH. THEIR DESTINY.
accompanied with beautiful women; and that they should pass their eternity in a round of perpetual pleas- ures. When death came to the Indian, he looked boldly in his face, and quaked not at his terrors. He called indeed upon the Spirit he had worshipped, and invoked the aid of the "medicine men ;" but believ- ing that when he departed this life he should enter upon another and perhaps similar scene, he bowed his head, and was laid in the grave, with his pipe and tomahawk, his bow and arrows, his bowl of corn and venison, that he might hunt and be refreshed in his journey to the land of spirits.
Thus lived and died the Indian. The light of their council-fires has been removed from the sea-board to the mountains; from the mountains to the great valley of the Father of Waters. Eastward of the Alleghany range, scarcely an Indian can now be found. They have vanished before the march of the pale man- journeying towards the setting sun-hastened onwards by the advancing waves of civilization ; and will either be swept away by that civilization, or become parta- kers of its benefits. " Passing away" is the destiny of the red men; their memorials are fast displaced by the structures of civilized society ; and soon the In- dian will live but in the traditions and history of the past. The prophecy uttered over four thousand years ago, " God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem,"12 is daily fulfilling; and ere long its full accomplishment shall be recorded in the book of time, and in the great volume of our future history.
12 Genesis ix. 27.
٠
BOOK SECOND.
CHAPTER I.
THE COLONIZATION OF GEORGIA.
THE story of our colonial birth and infancy, is ever interesting and attractive. We love to trace back our political lineage, and run up the civil genealogy of our forefathers. The same spirit which caused the earlier Athenians to call themselves Autochthones, and wear golden grasshoppers in their hair, in proof of their indigenous origin,1 and which led the Romans to link their genealogy to the gods,? still lives and animates the human bosom. Ours, however, is a more rational feeling. We seek not our origin among the fictions of mythology ; nor boast a descent from grovel- ing insects or fabled divinities. Satisfied at finding our infant colony born of philanthropy, cradled by benevo- lence, and guarded by valour, we seek no higher source, and say to mercy, Thou art our mother; and to charity, Thou hast nurtured us.
By the first charter of Charles II. to the Lords Pro-
1 Thucydides, i. 6.
2 Niebuhr's Rome.
58
SETTLEMENT OF SOUTH CAROLINA.
prietors of Carolina,3 (March 24th, 1663,) that body was put in possession of all the lands lying between 31 and 36 degrees north latitude, and thence westward to the ocean.
This domain was, two years after, (June 30th, 1665,) enlarged by another charter, which granted to them all the province situated between 29 deg. and 36 deg. 30 min. north latitude.
The first settlement under these proprietors, at the head of whom was the Earl of Clarendon, the Lord High Chancellor of England, was made in 1670, by Governor William Sayle, at Port Royal, which the little party left next year for the " first highlands of the Ashley river," a few miles above the present site of Charleston. Eight years after they again removed to Oyster Point; and in 1680 the foundations of the present city of Charleston were laid.4
They attempted, however, no settlement south of the Savannah river, though their jurisdiction extended over all its present territory. It was not until 1717 that any effort was made to improve the lands between the Savannah and the Altamaha. In that year Sir Robert Montgomery, Bart., whose father was joined with Lord Cardross in his measures for establishing a Scots colony in Port Royal, published " A Discourse con- cerning the designed Establishment of a new Colony to
3 See both charters in Cooper's. " Statutes at large of South Carolina," 22-40.
4 Carolina ; or a Description of the Present State of that Country, by T. A., (Thos. Ash,) published in 1682. Wil- son's Account of the Province of Caro- lina in America, also printed in 1682. Both these rare tracts are republished
by Carroll in his valuable work, en- titled, " Historical Collections of South Carolina," N. Y., 1836, 2 vols. 8vo. In an interesting note, (vol. i. 49,) Car- roll corrects, with much plainness and patience, the error into which Hewitt had fallen respecting the first landing of Governor Sayle.
59
A NEW EDEN.
the south of Carolina," in what he termed "the most delightful country in the universe." This pamphlet was accompanied by a beautiful but fanciful plan rep- resenting the form of settling the districts or county divisions in his province, which he styled " the Mar- gravate of Azilia." In his description of the country he writes, " that Nature has not blessed the world with any tract which can be preferable to it; that Paradise, with all her virgin beauties, may be mod- estly supposed, at most, but equal to its native excel- lencies." Having obtained, from the Lords Proprie- tors of Carolina, a grant of the lands between Savan- nah and Altamaha, he issued his proposals for settling this " future Eden ;" but, though garnished with the most glowing descriptions, and set forth under the most captivating attractions, they were issued in vain ; and the three years having expired, within which he was to make the settlement, or forfeit the land, the territory reverted to Carolina, and his scheme of colo- nization came to an end. The Margravate of Azilia was magnificent upon the map, but was impracticable in reality.
The Lords Proprietors of Carolina having failed in their scheme of government, and their authority being crushed by the provincial revolution of 1719, they sold their titles and interest in that province to Parliament in 1729; reserving to Lord John Cartaret the remain- ing eighth share of the country, as he refused to join the others in disposing of the colony. After the pur- chase of the territory of Carolina, which then extended from the St. John's to Albemarle Sound, it was deemed too large for one government, and was therefore
5 The above is the title to the tract " Tracts and other Papers," i., Wash- which he published in 1717. Force's ington, 1836.
60
COMMITTEE FOR THE INSPECTION OF GAOLS.
divided into two provinces, under the respective titles of North and South Carolina. The territorial bound- ary of South Carolina, however, on the south, was the Savannah river; the remaining portion being then held in reserve by the British crown. The same year that the House of Commons resolved on an address to the King to purchase the rights of the Lords Proprietors to this territory, a committee was appointed by Parlia- ment,6 " to enquire into the state of the gaols of the kingdom, and to report the same and their opinion thereupon to the House." This committee, raised on the motion of James Oglethorpe, Esq., in consequence of the barbarities which had fallen under his own ob- servation while visiting some debtors in the Fleet and Marshalsea prisons, consisted of ninety-six persons, and Oglethorpe was made its chairman. A more honour- able or effective committee could scarcely have been appointed. It embraced some of the first men in Eng- land ; among them thirty-eight noblemen, the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer, the Master of Rolls, Admiral Vernon, and Field-Marshal Wade. They entered upon their labours with zeal and diligence, and not only made inquiries through the Fleet prison, but also into the Marshalsea, the prison of the King's Bench, and the gaol for the county of Surrey. It was this committee which Thomson eulogised, in his poem of Winter, as
" The generous band,
Who, touched with human woe, redressive searched Into the horrors of the gloomy gaol."
For in these abodes of crime and misfortune, they be- held all that the poet had depicted : " The freeborn Briton
6 Journal of House of Commons, 1728.
61
THE PHILANTHROPY OF OGLETHORPE.
to the dungeon chained," marked "with inglorious stripes ;" the " lean morsel snatched from the starving mouth ;" " the tattered weed torn from cold wintry limbs ;" and " lives crushed out by secret, barbarous ways, that for their country would have toiled and bled." Nor in this instance did the poetry exceed the fact ; for one of her own authors has well said, " No modern nation has ever enacted or inflicted greater legal severities upon insolvent debtors than England."7 "For the encour- agement of that ready credit by which commercial en- terprise is promoted, they armed the creditor of insol- vent debtors with vindictive powers, by the exercise of which freeborn Englishmen, unconvicted of crime, were frequently subjected, in the metropolis of Britain, to a thraldom as vile and afflicting as the bondage of negro slaves in the West Indies." This committee, besides redressing the grievances connected with prison discipline, also reported a bill for the relief of insolvent debtors; thus, not only remedying present abuses, but preventing their recurrence, by legislative enactment.
The philanthropy of Oglethorpe, whose feelings were easily enlisted in the cause of misery, rested not with the discharge of his parliamentary duty, nor yet in the further benefit of relaxing the rigorous laws which thrust the honest debtor into prisons which seemed to garner up disease in its most loathsome forms-crime in its most fiend-like works-humanity in its most shameless and degraded aspect ; but it prompted still further efforts-efforts to combine present relief with permanent benefits, by which honest but unfortunate industry could be protected, and the labouring poor be
7 Grahame, History of the U. S., iii. 179, Lond. 4 vols. 18mo, 1836.
62
N
CHARTER GRANTED FOR A COLONY IN GEORGIA.
enabled to reap some gladdening fruit from toils, which now wrung out their lives with bitter and unrequited labours. To devise and carry out such efforts, himself, Lord Percival, and a few other noblemen and gentle- men, addressed a memorial to the Privy Council, stating, " that the cities of London, Westminster, and parts ad- jacent, do abound with great numbers of indigent per- sons, who are reduced to such necessity as to become burthensome to the public, and who would be willing to seek a livelihood in any of his majesty's plantations in America, if they were provided with a passage, and means of settling there." The memorialists promised to take upon themselves the entire charge of this affair, to erect a province into a proprietary government, provided the crown would grant them a portion of the land bought in 1729 by Parliament from the lords proprietors of South Carolina, lying south of the Savan- nah river; together with such powers as shall enable them to receive the charitable contributions and bene- factions of all such persons as are willing to encourage so good a design.
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