Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existingCatlin, George
History
Illustrations of the manners, customs, & condition of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 2): With letters and notes, written during eight years of travel and adventure among the wildest and most remarkable tribes now existing
Catlin, George
Indians of North America
Some twenty years or more since, becoming fatigued and incensed with
civilized encroachments, that were continually making on the borders of
the Cherokee country in Georgia, where he then resided, and probably,
foreseeing the disastrous results they were to lead to, he beat up
for volunteers to emigrate to the West, where he had designed to go,
and colonize in a wild country beyond the reach and contamination of
civilized innovations; and succeeded in getting several hundred men,
women, and children, whom he led over the banks of the Mississippi, and
settled upon the head waters of White River, where they lived until
the appearance of white faces, which began to peep through the forests
at them, when they made another move of 600 miles to the banks of the
Canadian, where they now reside; and where, by the system of desperate
warfare, which he has carried on against the Osages and the Camanchees,
he has successfully cleared away from a large tract of fine country,
all the enemies that could contend for it, and now holds it, with his
little band of myrmidons, as their own undisputed soil, where they are
living comfortably by raising from the soil fine crops of corn and
potatoes, and other necessaries of life; whilst they indulge whenever
they please, in the pleasures of the chase amongst the herds of
buffaloes, or in the natural propensity for ornamenting their dresses
and their war-clubs with the scalp-locks of their enemies.
+The CREEKS (or MUS-KO-GEES).+
Of 20,000 in numbers, have, until quite recently, occupied an immense
tract of country in the states of Mississippi and Alabama; but by a
similar arrangement (and for a similar purpose) with the Government,
have exchanged their possessions there for a country, adjoining to
the Cherokees, on the South side of the Arkansas, to which they have
already all removed, and on which, like the Cherokees, they are laying
out fine farms, and building good houses, in which they live; in many
instances, surrounded by immense fields of corn and wheat. There is
scarcely a finer country on earth than that now owned by the Creeks;
and in North America, certainly no Indian tribe more advanced in the
arts and agriculture than they are. It is no uncommon thing to see a
Creek with twenty or thirty slaves at work on his plantation, having
brought them from a slave-holding country, from which, in their long
journey, and exposure to white man’s ingenuity, I venture to say, that
most of them got rid of one-half of them, whilst on their long and
disastrous crusade.
The Creeks, as well as the Cherokees and Choctaws, have good schools
and churches established amongst them, conducted by excellent and pious
men, from whose example they are drawing great and lasting benefits.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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