USA > Tennessee > The Annals of Tennessee to the End of the Eighteenth Century: Comprising Its Settlement, as the. > Part 4
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* Irving.
30
INDIAN COUNCIL.
dared to enter his domains without permission. With all these brava- does, the cacique, besides being infirm and very old, was pitiful in his dimensions ; the most miserable little Indian that the Spaniards had seen in all their marchings. He was animated, however, by the deeds and exploits of his youth, for he had been a doughty warrior and ruled over a vast province.
" The women and attendants of the cacique surrounded him, and, with tears and entreaties, prevailed upon him not to descend ; at the same time, those who came up from the village informed him that the enemy were men such as they had never before beheld or heard of, and that they came upon strange animals of great size and wonderful agility. If you desire to battle with them, said they, to avenge this injury, it will be better to summon together the warriors of the neighbourhood, and await a. more fitting opportunity. In the meantime, let us put on the semblance of friendship, and not, by any inconsiderate rashness, provoke our destruction. With these and similar arguments, the women and attendants of the cacique prevented his sallying forth to battle. He continued, however, in great wrath, and when the governor sent him a message, offering peace, he returned an answer, refusing all amity, and breathing fiery vengeance.
" De Soto and his followers, wearied out with the harassing warfare of the past winter, were very desirous of peace. Having pillaged the village and offended the cacique, they were in something of a dilemma ; accordingly, they sent him many gentle and most soothing messages. Added to their disinclination for war, they observed, that during the three hours they had halted in the village, nearly four thousand well armed warriors had rallied around the cacique, and they feared that if such a multitude could assemble in such a short time, there must be large reinforcements in reserve. They perceived, moreover, that the situation of the village was very advantageous for the Indians, and very unfavourable to them; for the plains around were covered with trees and intersected by numerous streams, which would impede the move- ments of the cavalry. But more than all this, they had learned from sad experience, that these incessant conflicts did not in the least profit them ; day after day, man and horse were slain, and, in the midst of a hostile country, and far from home and hope of succour, their number was gradually dwindling away.
"The Indians held a council, to discuss the messages of the strangers. Many were for war; they were enraged with the imprisonment of their wives and children, and the pillage of their property-to recover which, according to their fierce notions, the only recourse was arms. Others, who had not lost any thing, yet desired hostilities, from a natural incli- nation for fighting. They wished to exhibit their valour and prowess, and to try what kind of men these were, who carried such strange arms. The more pacific savages, however, advised that the proffered peace should be accepted, as the surest means of recovering their wives, and children, and effects. They added, that the enemy might burn their vil- lages and lay waste their fields, at a time when their grain was almost ripening, and thus add to their calamities. The valour of these stran-
31
DE SOTO AND HIS ARMY CROSS THE MISSISSIPPI.
gers, said they, is sufficiently evident ; for men who have passed through so many enemies, cannot be otherwise than brave.
" This latter counsel prevailed. The cacique, dissembling his anger, replied to the envoy, that since the Spaniards entreated for peace, he would grant it, and allow them to halt in the village, and give them food, on condition that they would immediately free his subjects and restore their effects, not keeping a single article. He also stipulated that they should not mount to see him. If these terms were accepted, he said he would be friendly ; if not, he defied them to the combat.
"The Spaniards readily agreed to these conditions; the prisoners and plunder were restored, and the Indians departed from the village, leaving food in the dwellings for the Spaniards, who sojourned here six days to tend the sick. On the last day, with the permission of the cacique, De Boto visited him, and thanked him for his friendship and hospitality, and, on the subsequent day, they resumed their march. Departing from Chisca, the army travelled by slow journeys of three leagues a day, on account of the wounded and sick. They followed up the windings of the river until the fourth day, when they came to an opening in the thickets. Heretofore, they had been threading a vast and dense forest, bordering the stream, whose banks were so high, on both sides, that they could neither descend nor clamber up them. De Soto found it necessary to halt in this place twenty days, to build boats or piraquas to cross the river; for, on the opposite bank, a great multitude of Indian warriors were assembled, well armed, and with a fleet of canoes to defend the passage.
"The morning after the governor had encamped, some of the natives visited him. Advancing without speaking a word, and turning their faces to the east, they made a profound genuflexion to the sun ; then facing to the west, they made the same obeisance to the moon, and con- duded with a similar, but less humble, reverence to De Soto. They said that they came in the name of the cacique of the province, and in the name of all his subjects, to bid them welcome, and to offer their friendship and services; and added, that they were desirous of seeing what kind of men these strangers were, as there was a tradition handed down from their ancestors, that a white people would come and conquer their country. The adelantado said many kind things in reply, and dismissed them well pleased with their courteous reception."
At the end of twenty days, four piraquas were built and launched. About three hours before the dawn of day, De Soto ordered them to be manned, and four troopers of tried courage to go in each. The rowers pulled strongly, and when they were within a stone's throw of the shore, the troopers dashed into the water, and, meeting with no opposi- tion from the enemy, they easily effected a landing and made themselves masters of the pass. Two hours before the sun went down, the whole army had passed over the
32
THE FRENCH ASCEND THE ST. LAWRENCE.
1541 Mississippi. The river in this place, says the Por- tuguese historian, was a half league from one shore to the other, so that a man standing still could scarce be discerned from the opposite bank. The stream was of great depth, very muddy, and was filled with trees and timber carried along by the rapidity of the current.
It is deemed not necessary to the purpose of these annala, to follow the route of De Soto further. The object of his expedition had been conquest and colonization. He had thus far succeeded in neither. The generous mind sympa- thizes in his reverses of fortune. The captor of Atahualpa entreated a peace with the superannuated cacique of Chisca ; a leader at the storming of Cusco, asked leave to bivouac in the wigwam of his subjects; and the Governor of Cuba begs for the hospitalities of the chieftain of an interior pro- vince on the banks of the Mississippi. It is painful to wan- der with him a year longer in the wild and boundless soli- tudes west of that stream, or to trace his return to it, to die S in the secluded forest upon its shore. It will be suffi- 1549
( cient to remark, that the death of the enterprising commander of the expedition, the vast amount of money (100,000 ducats) expended, the loss of more than two-thirds of his army, his failure to find gold or to achieve any of the objects of the undertaking, discouraged further attempts by Europeans to penetrate this part of the country ; and it was not till 1673 that another adventurer from the Old World again visited what is now known as Tennessee.
Maritime discoveries were, however, still prosecuted ; and at the very time De Soto was carrying on his abortive invasion by land, the interior of North America was sought in another direction, and under the auspices of another nation. In 1542, Cartier and Roberval had sailed up the St. Lawrence, built a fort, and made a feeble effort to explore and settle Canada. The colony was soon abandoned, and for half a century the French took no measures to establish settlements there. England, also, partook of the spirit of exploration and adventure that was still active and engross- ing. That power, in consequence of the discoveries by the Cabots, had taken formal possession, under Sir Humphrey
.
RALEIGH LANDS IN NORTH-CAROLINA.
Gilbert, in 1583, of Newfoundland. The next year, Queen Elizabeth, by royal patent, authorized Sir Walter Raleigh to discover and occupy such remote, heathen and barbarous lands, not possessed or inhabited by Christian people, as to him should seem good." Under this patent, Raleigh sent two experienced commanders, Amadas and Barlow, to ex- plore the country then called Florida. They arrived on the American coast, July 4, 1584, and sailed along the shore one hundred and twenty miles, before they could find an entrance, by any river, issuing into the sea. Comhing to one at length, they entered it, and having manned their boats and viewed the adjoining lands, they took formal possession of the coun- try for the Queen of England.t They had landed upon the Island of Wocoken, the southernmost of the islands forming Ocracock Inlet, upon the coast of our parent state, North- Carolina. The adventurers explored Roanoke Island and Albemarle Sound, and, after a short stay, returned to Eng- land, " accompanied by Manteo and Wanchese, two natives of the wilderness ; and the returning voyagers gave such glowing descriptions of their discoveries as might be ex- pected from men who had done no more than sail over the smooth waters of a summer's sea, among 'the hundred is- lands' of North-Carolina. Elizabeth, as she heard their reports, esteemed her reign signalized by the discovery of the enchanting regions, and, as a memorial of her state of life, named them Virginia." Raleigh, determined to carry into effect his scheme of colonization, found little difficulty in collecting together a large company of emigrants, and, in April ,of 1585, fitted out a new expedition of seven vessels and one hundred and eight colonists, with which to form the first settlement upon the soil of Carolina. The fleet reached Wocoken the 26th of June, and having left the colony under the direction of Ralf Lane as its governor, Sir Richard
. Thus Queen Elizabeth executed the first patent from an English sovereign, for any lands within the territory of the United States, to. Sir Walter Raleigh Its date is March 25, 1584. The present State of Tennessee is within its boun- daries, but nearly two centuries elapsed before that part of the queen's grant was settled.
+ Holmes. " # Bancroft.
8
84
JAMES TOWN LAID OFF.
Grenville, in command of the ships, returned to Plymouth. The colony, however, was destined to be short-lived. Its members became discontented, their supplies were exhausted, they sighed "for the luxuries of the cities of their native land," and an opportune arrival of Sir Francis Drake fur- nished the means of their return to England ..
Sir Walter Raleigh, not to be driven from his purpose of 1587 § colonization by past failures, collected another body of emigrants, with wives and families and implements of husbandry ; intending to form an agricultural community, in which the endearments of home and the means of pro- curing a certain subsistence, might ensure stability and per- manence. This new and more promising colony, with John White for its governor, was sent out in April, and arrived July 23, at Roanoke, where the foundations of the " citie of Raleigh" were laid.
Eleanor Dare, wife of one of the assistants, and the daugh- ter of Governor White, gave birth to a female child, the first offspring of English parents on the soil of the United States .* It was called, from the place of its birth, Virginia Dare.
But the wise policy and liberal provision of Raleigh .were lost upon this his last colony. In 1590 not a vestige of its existence could be found.
In 1607, a more successful effort secured the formation of a permanent English colony in America. Captain Newport commanded a fleet of three ships, with one hundred emi- grants, to Virginia. He had intended to land at Roanoke, and make further attempts to form a settlement there ; but being driven by a storm to the northward of that place, the fleet entered Chesapeake Bay, and, on the 13th of May, the adventurers took possession of a peninsula upon the north side of the river Powhatan. Here they laid off a town, which, in honour of the king, they called James Town. The charter under which this first English colony in America was planted, reserved supreme legislative authority to the king ; and while a general superintendence of the colony was.con- fided to a council in England, appointed by him, its local ad- ministration was entrusted to a council residing within its
· Bancroft. .
35
FIRST REPRESENTATIVE BODY IN AMERICA.
limits. "To the emigrants themselves it conceded not one elective franchise ; not one of the rights of self-government."*
A second charter, in 1609, invested the company with the election of the council and the exercise of legislative power, independent of the crown.
In 1612, a third patent gave to the company a more demo- cratic form; power was transferred from the council to the stockholders, and " their sessions became the theatre of bold and independent discussions." In 1619, the colonists them- selves were allowed to share in legislation ; and in June of that year, the governor, the council, and two representatives from each of the boroughs, constituted the first popular repre- sentative body of the western hemisphere.t In 1621, a writ- ten constitution was brought out by Sir Francis Wyat, gov- ernor of the colony, extending still further the representative principle. Under its provisions two burgesses were to be chosen for the assembly by every town, hundred or particu- lar plantation. All matters were to be decided by a majority in the assembly, reserving to the governor the veto power, and requiring the sanction of the general court of the com- pany in England. On the other hand, no order of the gene- ral court was to bind the colony until assented to by the as- sembly ; each colonist thus became a freeman and a citizen, and ceased to be a servant of a commercial company, and dependent on the will and orders of his superior.# The colony flourished, and its frontier extended to the Potomac in the interior, and coastwise expanded to Albemarle Sound, upon which the first permanent settlers in North-Carolina pitched their tent, having been attracted by the report of an adven- turer from Virginia, who, on his return from it, "celebrated the kindness of the native people, the fertility of the country, and the happy climate, that yielded two harvests in each year."§ These representations of the advantages of the country, and the prosperous condition of its pioneer emigrants, awakened the cupidity and excited the ambition of English courtiers. On the 24th of March, 1663, Charles II. granted to Edward, Earl of Clarendon, Monk, Lord Craven, Lord Ashley Cooper, Sir John Colleton, Lord John Berkeley, Sir . Bancroft. t. Holmes. # Idem. & Smith's Virginia.
-
36
SELF-GOVERNMENT PROVIDED FOR.
William Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret, all the country from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, included between the thirty-first and thirty-sixth parallels of latitude, and consti- tuted them its proprietors and immediate sovereigns. Exten- sive as was this grant, the proprietaries in June, 1665, secured by a second patent, an enlargement of their powers, and such further extent of their boundaries, as to include all the country between the parallels of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes and twenty-nine degrees north latitude, embracing all the territory of North and South-Carolina, Georgia, Ten- nessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, a part of Florida and Missouri, and much of Texas, New Mexico and California. That part of its northern boundary extending from the top of the Alleghany mountain to the eastern bank of the Tennessee river, is the line of separation between Vir- ginia and Tennessee, and Kentucky and Tennessee: .
"Among other powers conferred upon the lord proprietors was that of enacting laws and constitutions for the people of that province, by and with the advice, assent und approbation of the freemen thereof, or of the greuter part of them, or of their delegates or deputies, who were to be assembled from time to time for that purpose."" So early and so deeply was the germ of self-government planted in Carolina. In 1667, the first constitution was given by the proprietary government. It directed that the governor should act with the advice of a council of twelve, one half to be appointed by himself, the other half by the assembly, and this was to be composed of the governor, the council, and twelve delegates chosen by the freeholders .*
Historians do not agree as to the precise year in which the first legislative body in North-Carolina convened. It was certainly, however, in 1666 or 1667. This legislature was called the "Grand Assembly of the County of Albemarle." Its principal acts were such as were believed to be required by the peculiar situation of the country, and were prompted by an anxious desire to increase its population.t
While the colonists of Virginia and Carolina were slowly extending their settlements in the direction of Tennessee, * Preface of Revised Statutes of North-Carolina. + Idem.
37
ALLEGHANIES FIRST CROSSED.
they remained entirely ignorant of the great interior of the continent. It was the policy of the proprietors to know some- thing more of the vast domains within the limits of their grants, and explorations were projected to ascertain and oc- cupy them. In their hunting excursions, the highlands of Virginia had been seen, but adventure had not discovered the distant sources of its rivers, and the country beyond the Blue Ridge was yet unknown. Its original inhabitants still roamed through the ancient woods, free, independent and secure, in happy ignorance of the approaches of civilized man. Its flora, scattered in magnificent profusion over hill and dale, mountain and prairie, still " wasted its fragrance on the desert air." La Belle Reviere, in quietude and silence, winded along its placid current through the " dark and bloody land " to the Father of Rivers, which itself, in turbid violence, rolled its angry floods in solitary grandeur to the sea. It was not till 1655, that "Colonel Woods, who dwelt at the falls of James river, sent suitable persons on a journey of discovery to the westward ; they crossed the Alleghany mountains, and reached the banks of the Ohio and other rivers emptying into the Mississippi."* The route pursued is not distinctly known. It is scarcely probable that, ascending the James river, Colonel Woods fell into the beautiful valley of Vir- ginia, and, following its course, passed through the upper part of East Tennessee and Cumberland Gap to the Ohio. With the limited knowledge then had of the geography of the West, the Holston would be considered as an immediate tri- butary of the Mississippi. If such was indeed the route pur- sued, Colonel Woods was the pioneer in that great channel of emigration that more than a century afterwards began to pour its immense flood of emigrants from the Atlantic to the West.
In the meantime, religious enthusiasm and French loyalty were extending discoveries to the westward in another chan- nel. The feeble settlements of the French planted upon the 1665 ( St. Lawrence, were strengthened and extended along ( the great lakes. In 1665, Father Claude Allouez em- barked on a mission to the Far West by way of the Ottawa. . Martin's North-Carolina, vol. 1, p. 115.
.
38
CHICKASAW BLUFF.
During his voyages along the lakes, and his sojourn in the immense wilds around them, "he. lighted the torch of faith for more than twenty different nations." His curiosity was roused by hearing from the Illinois "the tale of the noble river on which they dwelt, and which flowed towards the south." Allouez reported its name to be Messipi.
In 1673, Marquette, another missionary, and Joliet, pene- trated beyond the lakes. Talon, the intendant of New France, wished to signalize his administration by " ascertain- ing if the French, descending the great river of the central west, could bear the banner of France to the Pacific, or plant it, side by side with that of Spain, on the Gulf of Mexico.". Under his patronage, Marquette and Joliet, with five French companions and two Algonquins as guides, entered upon the enterprise. Their canoes were carried across the narrow portage between the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, and on the 10th of June, in the beautiful language of Bancroft, France ( and Christianity stood in the valley of the Mississippi. 1678 ( Descending the Wisconsin in seven days, they entered the great river. They were peaceably received by the Illi- nois and other Indian tribes along its banks. The Missouri was then known by its Algonquin name, Pekitanoni. The Ohio was then, and long after, called the Wabash. In the map published with Marquette's Journal, in 1681, numerous villages are laid down upon its banks as inhabited by the (Chauvanon) Shawnees, and east of them, in the interior, are represented dense Indian settlements or villages of different tribes, and all situated between the thirty-fifth and thirty- sixth degrees. Highlands corresponding to the first, second and third Chickasaw Bluffs, as now known, are delineated with considerable accuracy ; as is also a large island in the Mississippi nearly opposite to the lower bluff, now known as President's Island. The Ohio has a tributary running into it from the south-east, and the Shawnee villages occupy & place.upon the map between that tributary and the Missis- sippi. The latter stream is spelled Mitchisipi.' In the land of the Chickasaws, the Indians had guns, obtained probably by traffic or warfare with the Spaniards. Lower down the
* Bancroft.
.
39
FIRST CABIN AND FORT IN TENNESSEE.
river axes were also seen, acquired probably in the same way.
The adventurers descended as low as the mouth of the Arkansas, and on the 17th of July ascended the Mississippi on their return. The account of their voyage and discove- ries excited among their countrymen brilliant schemes of colonization in the south-west,-a spirit of territorial aggran- dizement for the crown of France, and of commerce between Europe and the Mississippi-and La Salle was commissioned to perfect the discovery of the great river. In 1682, he de- scended that stream to the sea, planted the arms of France near the Gulf of Mexico, claimed the territory for that power, and in honour of his monarch, Louis XIV., gave it the name of Louisiana. As he passed down the river he framed a cabin and built a fort," called Prud'homme, on the first Chickasaw Bluff. The first work, except probably the pira- quas of De Soto, ever executed by the hand of civilization within the boundaries of Tennessee. A cabin and a fort ! Fit emblem and presage of the future in Tennessee. The axe and the rifle, occupancy and defence, settlement and con- quest !
While at the Bluff, La Salle entered into amicable arrange- ments for opening a trade with the Chickasaws, and esta- blished there a trading post that should be a point of ren- dezvous for traders passing from the Illinois country to the posts that should be established below. The commercial acumen of La Salle in founding a trading post at this point, is now made most manifest. Near the same ground has since arisen a city, whose commerce already exceeds that of any other in Tennessee, and whose facilities for trade, foreign and domestic, by land or water, portend a commercial destiny scarcely inferior to that of the ancient Memphis ; and, after the accomplishment of the public improvements contemplated and projected, not surpassed by any point upon the Missis- sippi above New-Orleans.
Thus one hundred and eighty years after the discovery of America, and one hundred and thirty years after De Soto had crossed our western limit, did Marquette and Joliet coast . Martin's North-Carolina, vol. 1, p. 176.
40
CHARLES TOWN LAID OUT.
nlong and discover the western boundary of Tennessee. thus, one hundred years after Queen Elizabeth had : the patent to Sir Walter Raleigh, did La Salle claim monarch, Louis XIV., the rich domain, with the illin and magnificent resources of the great Mississippi In proof of the uncertain tenure of all earthly monai may be remarked, that the claims of both these riva' doms have long since passed into the hands of other that American sovereignties and American freemer possess and control the rich heritage which. in its I territorial acquisition, European royalty had, with mun prodigality, appropriated for trans-atlantic subjects.
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