“Such was the form of political order established among the greater part of the American tribes. In this State were almost all the tribes spread over the provinces extending eastward of the Mississippi, from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the confines of Florida. In a similar condition were the people of Brazil, the inhabitants of Chili, several tribes in Paraguay and Guiana, and in the countries which stretch from the mouth of the Orinoco to the Peninsula of Yucatan. Among such an infinite number of petty associations, there may be peculiarities which constitute a distinction, and mark the various degrees of their civilization and improvement. But an attempt to trace and ennumerate these would be in vain, as they have not been observed by persons capable of discerning the minute and delicate circumstances, which serve to discriminate nations resembling one another in their general character and features. The description which I have given of the political institutions that took place among those rude tribes in America, concerning which we have received most complete information, will apply, with little variation, to every people, both in its Northern and Southern division, who have advanced no farther in civilization than to add some slender degree of agriculture to fishing and hunting.[26] “But these political institutions, however defective, did not exist among all the American tribes. The system of government adopted by some of them approximated more closely the system which prevails in civilized communities. Thus, “among the Natchez, a powerful tribe, (now extinct,) formerly situated on the banks of the Mississippi, a difference of rank took place with which the Northern tribes were altogether unacquainted. Some families were reputed noble, and enjoyed hereditary dignity. The body of the people was considered as vile, and formed only for subjection. This distinction was marked by appellations which intimated the high elevation of the one state, and the ignominious depression of the other. The former were called _respectable_; the latter the _stinkards_. The great chief, in whom the supreme authority was vested, was reputed to be a being of a superior nature—the brother of the sun, the sole object of their worship. They approached this great chief with religious veneration, and honoured him as the representative of their deity. His will was law, to which all submitted with implicit obedience. The lives of his subjects were so absolutely at his disposal, that if any one had incurred his displeasure, the offender came with profound humility and offered him his head. Nor did the dominion of the Chiefs end with their lives: their principal officers, their favourite wives, together with many domestics of inferior rank, were sacrificed at their tombs, that they might be attended in the next world by the same persons who served them in this; and such was the reverence in which they were