III. The Southern Indians occupied the country between the Tennessee River and the Gulf, the Appalachian ranges and the Mississippi. They were divided into five lax confederacies,--the Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks, and Seminoles. Of a milder disposition than their Northern cousins, they were rather in a barbarous than a savage state. The Creeks, in particular, had good intellects, were fair agriculturists, and quickly adopted many mechanic and rural arts from their white neighbors; so that by the time of the Revolution they were not far behind the small white proprietors in industrial or domestic methods. In the Indian Territory of to-day the descendants of some of these Southern Indians are good farmers and herdsmen, with a capacity for self-government and shrewd business dealing. It is not thought that the Southern tribes ever numbered above fifty thousand persons. Sidenote: The Dakotahs. IV. The Dakotah, or Sioux, family occupied for the most part the country beyond the Mississippi. They were and are a fierce, high-strung people, are genuine nomads, and war appears to have been their chief occupation. Before the advent of the Spaniards they were foot-wanderers; but runaway horses came to them from Mexico and from the exploring expeditions of Narvaez, Coronado, and De Soto, and very early in the historic period the Indians of the far western plains became expert horsemen, attaining a degree of equestrian skill equal to that of the desert-dwelling Arabs. Outlying bands of the Dakotahs once occupied the greater part of Wisconsin and northern Illinois, and were, it is believed by competent investigators, one of the various tribes of mound-builders. Upon withdrawing to the west of the Mississippi, they left behind them one of their tribes,--the Winnebagoes,--whom Nicolet found (1634) resident on and about Green Bay of Lake Michigan, at peace and in confederacy with the Algonquians, who hedged them about. Other trans-Mississippi nations there are, but they are neither as large nor of such historical importance as the Dakotahs. Sidenote: Other tribes.