Notes

Woodward’s Reminiscenses

Contributed by Jo Ann Cooper Killeen

Woodward's Reminiscenses;
A Personal Account of the Creek Nation in Georgia and Alabama,
by General Thomas S. Woodward,
edited by J. J. Hooper
Published: Montgomery, Ala.; Barrett & Wimbish, Book and General Job Printers, 1859
Note: Early history and pioneers of Alabama, and some Georgia, told in letters from May 1857 to December 1858.
Author born 1794-1797.

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WOODWARD'S REMINISCENSES

OF THE
CREEK, OR MUSCOGEE INDIANS,
CONTAINED IN LETTERS TO FRIENDS IN
GEORGIA AND ALABAMA.


BY THOMAS S. WOODWARD OF LOUISIANA
(FORMERLY OF ALABAMA.)


WITH AN APPENDIX,
CONTAINING INTERESTING MATTER RELATING TO THE GENERAL SUBJECT.


MONTGOMERY, ALA.
BARRETT & WIMBISH, BOOK AND GENERAL JOB PRINTERS
1859



ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS,
ON THE 9TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1859,

BY J. J. HOOPER, AS PROPRIETOR,
IN THE CLERK'S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE
MIDDLE DISTRICT OF ALABAMA

CONTENTS:

Introduction by J. J. Hooper

"...a brave, rough, warm-hearted man, of fine intellectual endowments, a most sagacious judge of character, extensive knowledge of Creek Indian history, manners and character -- with an indomitable will and a sturdy self-reliance, which spoke for itself in his tall, sinewy form and strongly-marked, expressive face."

PART 1

May 2, 1857

"I knew the spot where Montgomery stands before any white man ever thought of locating there."

December 9, 1857

"I was the founder of Tuskegee. I selected the place for the county site, or place for the court house, in 1833. I built the first house on that ridge..."

Dec. 24, 1857

"Col. Pickett is correct, as to the Alabama Town being just below Montgomery, for I was at it when they lived there, and it was called Esanchatty, from the red bluffs on which a portion of Montgomery is built."

Jan. 10, 1858

"Indians in almost every instance learn our language quicker than we learn theirs, particularly our pronunciation."

PART 2

March 21, 1858

"And it is equally as shameful as true, that other Christian nations have followed the example of Spain, with the natives of this and other countries; wherever the Bible (which was seldom applied right) failed, the musket and bayonet were resorted to."

March 25, 1858

"The gentleman says there is a marked resemblance in their laws with regard to marriages that the children of Israel were not allowed to take wives among other nations, and such was the law among Indians...But, if such law ever existed, it was repealed long before my time; and if he will travel among them, and see the number of half-breeds of whites, negroes, and all others that have mixed, and will say that the law has not been repealed, I am certain that he will have the candor to admit that it has been grossly violated, at least."

April 2, 1858

"So soon as Col. Hawkins learned that Lott was murdered, he sent Christian Limbo, a German, to Cowetaw, to see Billy McIntosh, a half-breed chief."

April 25th, 1858

"The Uchees contended as long as they lived in the country that they could, man to man, whip the Creeks. And in Gen. Floyd's night fight, their leader, Timpoochy Barnard, fought much better than the friendly Creeks. With equal numbers they could beat the Creeks at a ball play, for I have seen them do it often."

June 13, 1858

"While at this breastwork, one night, by a campfire, I listened to Elijah Moseley inquiring into his brother's motives for leaving a white family and making his home among a tribe of savages. Bob's reply was, as well as I now recollect, that there was no false swearing among Indians."

From the Columbus (Ga.) Sun

"An Indian, on foot, running, crying out, at the top of his voice, "Captain Jackson, Captain Jackson." As he passed us, we pointed to Old Hickory, who soon dispatched a company of Tennessee mounted men to aid Mcintosh. The battle was finished ere they reached him."

June 16, 1858

"Mrs. Stuart was taken almost lifeless as well as senseless, and was a captive until the day I carried her to your camp. After taking her from the boat, they (the Indians) differed among themselves as to whose slave or servant she should be. An Indian by the name of Yellow Hair said he had many years before been sick at or near St. Mary's, and that he felt it a duty to take the woman and treat her kindly, as he was treated so by a white woman when he was among the whites."

PART 3

June 21, 1858

"I see in your history, for the first time I ever heard of such a thing, that Alexander McGillivray was an educated man. That's new to me as it would have been to himself, could he have been shown it in his day. The letters purporting to have been written by him which appear in the History of Alabama, are well written, and show conclusively that they emanated from no ordinary man. But could the author of those letters and McGillivray to whom they are ascribed, look back, they could say that the world is yet as credulous as in their time."

July 8, 1858

"The entry of Gen. LaFayette into Alabama, was the most imposing show I witnessed while I lived in the State."

August 12, 1858

"Fable is fable, and history is history and those men thought it best to mix them as they were writing for a people not unlike many of the present day -- who never look into books unless it is for pictures and the marvelous yarns it contains."

September 16, 1858

"I received a letter the other day from my worthy friend, the Knight of the HorseShoe. I speak nothing but the truth when I say that I am truly glad to hear that he is still living and in good health. I hope he may live as long as suits his convenience. I don't know that I would care if he could live a thousand years, and die rich, so that I could be left to administer his estate.

October 20, 1858

"For what I am now going to write, I will no doubt be censured by some. But what need I care, for I am now old, and it will not be long before I appear at a place where a life time of truth will be worth more to me than all the good or bad opinions entertained of me by those I leave behind."

PART 4

October 31, 1858

"Some time in April 1814, on the West bank of the Pinchong, now in Montgomery county, Ala., and by a camp fire, I heard [William] Weatherford relate the following particulars about the Creek war..."

November 3, 1858

"Mrs. McGirth raised one son, called James, who was killed at Fort Mims, and she and her daughters were saved by Jim Boy. I lived long with them both; often have I heard them talk it over, when both were sure to get drunk, if whiskey could be had."

November 27, 1858

"The Captain gave a general invitation to the citizens of Claiborne to attend a party on board the boat. I, with many others, both male and female, attended the party. We danced on the hurricane deck. The fiddler was one Tom Paxton, who played for me when I taught the first dancing school that was ever taught in Montgomery county."

PART 5 APPENDIX

Feb 23, 1858

Letter to General Woodward from Alabama historian Albert J. Pickett.

Feb. 27, 1858

"A war of extermination was waged by the Creeks against the Yemasses, and finally, at Tallahassee, the last of the warriors were killed -- but about a thousand of the young Creek warriors took sweet-hearts among the Yemassee girls, and saved them from death."

Letter from J. W. K. published in The Montgomery Mail

Nov. 24, 1858

J. G. Klinck's first-hand account of the founding and naming of Montgomery.

Dec 8, 1858

"Jesse Evans was considered the best fist-fighter of his size, in his day. Organ Tatum and Ben Ward had the first fist-fight I ever heard of, in Montgomery county. Tatum bit off a piece of Ward's nose."

Dec 13, 1858

"I never saw the inside of a College but once, and that was but for a few minutes, as I only went in to help another boy carry out his trunk, which he was unable to carry himself."

PART 6

Dec. 20, 1858

"While in South Carolina, he became acquainted with my grandmother, who was his second wife. And it is the blood of that grandmother which courses through my veins, that in early life tempted me to quit what the world terms civilized and christian man."

Dec 25, 1858

"This is Christmas--a day in early life that I waited with impatience for its appearance; but it now seems to come and go so fast that it differs little from any other day with me, as all come in such quick succession as to admonish me that, live as long as I may, that I am to witness the return of but few more Christmases."

INTRODUCTION

Most of the letters which are contained in this little volume were written by Gen. Woodward, without any idea of their being presented to the public in this form. Indeed, the first two, addressed to his friend Mr. Hanrick, were not expected to be published, at all; but being casually shown to the writer of this introduction, he solicited and obtained them for insertion in the columns of the Montgomery Mail, believing that their contents would prove attractive to a large class of readers who feel much interest in all that concerns the early history of the State. Subsequently, Gen. Woodward was kind enough to contribute to the "Mail," (with which the undersigned is connected as senior editor), a number of letters containing much valuable matter relative to the history, customs, &c., of the Creek Confederacy of Indian tribes. About the same time, friends of his caused the publication, in the Columbus Sun and Union Springs Gazette, of several letters written by Gen. W. to them. All these letters, replete as they were with incidents and descriptions of a most interesting character, found favor with the public; and the undersigned was frequently applied to for copies of them, which it was impossible to supply. This suggested to him the idea of publishing the whole in a form convenient both for preservation and reference. He therefore immediately wrote to Gen. Woodward asking his consent to his having the letters collectively published. It was with some difficulty that this consent was obtained, as Gen. Woodward alleged that his want of early education and the inaccuracy of his style unfitted him to appear before the public as a writer of historical sketches. He only yielded, at length, to the argument that he alone, perhaps, of living men, possessed a knowledge of the many interesting facts and traditions he had acquired during an intercourse of nearly half a century with the Indian tribes of the South-west. These facts are stated in justice to Gen. Woodward and with the view of disarming the hypercritical, who might be disposed to be severe upon the homely but effective phraseology with which the General's interesting narrations are clothed.

One or two of the letters addressed to the late lamented Col. Albert J. Pickett, who did his State so much service and himself so much credit by his elaborate History of Alabama, were never seen by that gentleman. They were received for publication by the writer of this, about the time of Col. Pickett's last illness. In one of his letters in this volume, Gen. Woodward pays a sincere tribute to the memory of his old friend. In the same letter, he speaks his admiration of and regard for two other prominent Alabamians, lately deceased: ex-Gov. Arthur P. Bagby, and Col. Charles McLemore, of Chambers county.

It is more than twenty years since the writer first saw and knew Gen. Woodward. His personal acquaintance with him was but slight; yet he knew well his reputation in East Alabama, as a brave, rough, warm-hearted man, of fine intellectual endowments, a most sagacious judge of character, extensive knowledge of Creek Indian history, manners and character -- with an indomitable will and a sturdy self-reliance, which spoke for itself in his tall, sinewy form and strongly-marked, expressive face. A discriminating observer, at that time, would have selected him out of a thousand, as the man most fertile in resources, most indomitable in the execution of his plans, and possessing in the highest degree the physical qualities most needed in the emergencies and hardships of a semi-Indian life. His exterior was rough, his manners military and at times abrupt, but those who knew him best, were well aware that he had a heart large enough for any deed of real benevolence. The presuming or pretentious he mercilessly flayed with a biting sarcasm, of which he was master; and many anecdotes are told, illustrative of his powers of repartée. But to the weak and unprotected, he was and is invariably considerate and kind. In proof of this, it may be mentioned here, that when he learned thro' Col. Banks, of Columbus, Ga., that Mrs. Dill, (whom he and others rescued from the Indians in Florida, in 1818,) was still living at or near Fort Gaines, he immediately transmitted, thro' the writer of this, a sum of money to Col. Banks, for the relief of the old lady's necessities.

Few men have had better opportunities for studying the Indian character and investigating their customs, than Gen. Woodward. Very early in life, as appears from two autobiographical letters which were received at so late a day as to compel their insertion in the Appendix to this little volume, he was brought into contact with the Red Man; and, stirred by the Indian blood in his own veins, he studied his character and traditions lovingly and earnestly. His early appointment to the command of a body of friendly Indians, in time of war, proves that he was considered to know them and to have influence over them.

As to the consideration in which Gen. Woodward was held by his superiors, it is not improper to state that the writer of this has now in his possession an original letter from Gen. Jackson, speaking of Gen. W., as "a brave, intrepid and gallant soldier." It bears date, "Nashville, September 30, 1819."

It is a matter of great regret to the writer, that many errors have unavoidably crept into the publication. The difficulty of decyphering Indian and other proper names has been the chief cause.

In conclusion, the writer of this would remark, that he believes that the unpretending pages which follow contain a very great deal of matter of high historical value to the people of Alabama and Georgia. For that reason, he has taken the trouble to collect such of the Letters as had been published previously and to induce Gen. Woodward to write others. For the task of arranging, pruning, etc., he has had neither time nor health; but he trusts that even in their present crude form, they may effect much good, in the correction of several popular errors and in familiarising our people with the later history of those tribes that have recently departed from our borders.

Montgomery, Ala., Jan. 15, 1859.

J. J. HOOPER

Woodward's Reminiscenses - Part 1

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.

May 2, 1857

E. HANRICK, Esq. -- My Old Friend: The Montgomery Mail comes occasionally directed to me at this office; and, whether the paper is paid for or not, I am unable to say, though I requested a gentleman to do so, and he says the money was forwarded. If such is not the case, call on the Editor and pay what is due, and also pay for another year's subscription, and write to me at this office, and you shall have your money immediately. It is through the Mail I frequently hear you are living, which I hope will be the case for many years to come. My friend, how time and things have changed since first we met! I think it has been forty years, the last winter, since I first saw you, at Granville, Pitt County, N. C., rolling tar barrels. And your city, Montgomery, about that time, or shortly after, was started, or begun, by Andrew Dexter, and now, I suppose, is one of the most desirable spots in the Southwest. I knew the spot where Montgomery stands before any white man ever thought of locating there. When I look back on things as they were and what they are now, it makes me feel -- as I am -- old. You and I have lived in fast times, which our heads will show, my friend; so, let it rock on -- we will only sleep the sounder when it comes to our time to rest. I also see announced in the Mail the death of several old friends, among them Gen. Shackelford, whom I have known from my boyhood. I was with him in Florida, in 1812, in an expedition against the Seminoles. There are but few of that detachment of Georgians now living -- in fact, I know of none, unless it be Dr. Fort, of Macon, Ga., John H. Howard, of Columbus, Ga., Col. R. Broadnax, of Ala, and myself. If there are any more of them, it is very few, and I have lost the hang of them; but, should I live, I will be in Milledgeville, Ga., on the first day of July, 1862, which will be fifty years from the time we started on that expedition. If you are then living in Montgomery, I will give you a call. I also see that my old friend, Major Thomas M. Cowles, is no more. He was a good man -- I knew him before he was a man. He was fit to live in any country that God may think proper to occupy with honest men. He belonged to my staff, and accompanied me to Fort Mitchell, with an escort under the command of Gen. Wm. Taylor, to conduct Gen. LaFayette to Montgomery. I shall never forget a visit that Major Cowles and myself paid to Billy Weatherford, old Sam. Moniac, who, many years before, had accompanied Alex. McGillivray to New York, in General Washington's time. I have often thought that I would give you and friend Hooper, of the Mail, a little sketch of what I had learned from those men and others, in relation to Indian matters; but they are all dead, and what I have heard and know would, in many instances, contradict what has gone to the world as history, and I do not know that mankind would be better off, even if I could undeceive and give them what I do know in relation to Indian history, and so I will let it pass. But, still, there is one thing I want, if it can be got hold of, and, if George Stiggins is living in your country, he has it. It is a manuscript given to me by the widow of Col. Hawkins. It is in the hand-writing of Christian Limbo, who lived with Col. Hawkins many years. It was copied from Col. Hawkins' own manuscript, which was burned shortly after his death. I knew Col. Hawkins well. He knew more about Indians and Indian history, and early settlements and expeditions of the several European nations that undertook to settle colonies in the South and Southwest, than all the men that ever have or will make a scrape of a pen upon the subject. The loss of his papers was certainly a very great loss to those who would wish to know things as they really were, and not as they wished them. Stiggins, you know, had some learning, and was a half breed of the Netchis tribe, tho' raised among the Creeks. He spoke of writing a history of the Creeks and other Southern tribes, and I loaned him my papers. I presume he has done by this time what he contemplated, and please see him and get my papers, if you can, and take care of them until you have a chance to send them to me. You will also find among the papers some in my hand-writing, that I intended for a Mr. Daniel K. Whitaker, of Charleston, S. C., who was concerned in a Southern literary journal.

Yours, truly, old friend,

THOS. S. WOODWARD.

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,

December 9, 1857.

E. HANRICK, Esq.:

My Old Friend: -- Your letter came to hand safe, after taking its time, as I have, in going through the world, quite leisurely. You will find five dollars enclosed: pay yourself, and hand the other two and a half to the editor of the Mail: say to him, that after he has worked that out, and he learns that I have not worked out, he may continue to send his paper. I see my letter to you, of May last, in the Mail. The editor speaks in very flattering terms of my capability in giving sketches and making them accurate and interesting. I would be proud that I could do so, and prove to his readers that he was not mistaken. It is true, I have known Alabama a great while, and many of its earliest settlers -- particularly Indians and Indian countrymen. And I would most willingly, if I thought any facts that have come within my knowledge, or circumstances related to me by others in whom I could place the most implicit reliance, would be interesting to the readers of the Mail, give them. But as I write no better than in my younger days, but much worse; and as anything I might write would to most persons be of little interest, I must now abandon it. Besides, you know my capacity for embellishment (the only thing that suits too many readers,) is not such as would render my sketches very interesting to many. I have no doubt but that, if I could be with you, and many more old acquaintances that I left in Alabama, (and hope they still live,) and could get around a lightwood fire, I could interest you -- or, at least, spin over old times and bring many things to your recollection that you have forgotten. (I do not allude to old store accounts. Though you have lost many, I never heard of your forgetting one.) I often wish myself back in Alabama, and have as often regretted leaving Tuskegee. I was the founder of Tuskegee. I selected the place for the county site, or place for the court house, in 1833. I built the first house on that ridge, though James Dent built the first house on the court house square, after the lots were laid off. The day I made the selection, there was a great ball-play with the Tusgegees, Chunnanugges, Chehaws and Tallesees. A Col. Deas, a South Carolinian, was with me. Ned, those were good days, were they not? I can never recall them, nor many other things that were very cheering to me then. I wonder if my five cedar trees, that I planted at the McGarr place when I owned it, are living yet? Ned, I, in company with my family, old Aunt Betsy Kurnells, (or Connells,) Tuskeneha, and old John McQueen, dug up those cedars, when they were very small, from under a large cedar that shaded the birth-place of Ussa Yoholo, or, Black Drink, who, after the murder of General Thompson, in Florida, was known to the world as Oceola. This man was the great grand-son of James McQueen. You know his father -- the little Englishman, Powell. His mother was Polly Copinger. The rail road from Montgomery to West Point runs within five feet, it not over the place, where the cabin stood in which Billy Powell, or Ussa Yoholo, was born. The old cedar was destroyed by Gen. McIver's negroes, when grading the road. It was in an old field, between the Nufaupba (what is now called Ufaupee), and a little creek that the Indians called Catsa Bogah, which mouths just below where the rail road crosses Nufaupba; and on the Montgomery side of Nufaupba, and on a plantation owned by a Mr. Vaughn, when I left the country, rests the remains of old James McQueen, a Scotchman, who died in 1811, aged -- from what Col. Hawkins and many others said he was -- 128 years. He informed Col. Hawkins that he was born 1683, and came into the Creek nation in 1716, a deserter from an English vessel anchored at St. Augustine, East Florida, for striking a naval officer. When I planted those cedars, I had a wife and three children. I thought, then, to make at the foot of one of them a resting place. But more than twenty years have elapsed, and many changes have taken place with me and those that were with me then, and I care but little now when or where I may be picked up. But still, I would be glad to know that the cedars were spared; for, none who knew the hands of those that assisted me in planting them there, could think of molesting them -- unless, there should be one with a marring hand, like him that destroyed the old lettered beech at the old Federal crossing of the Persimmon creek, and the old Council Oak that once stood in front of Suckey Kurnells' or Connells' house, which you knew well. Yes, it was under that oak, where you and I have heard many a good yarn spun, both by our white as well as red friends -- many of whom have long since gone to that world of which we read and talk so much, and so much dreaded by many, (if not more,) and which never can be known to living man. Yes, friend, it was under that oak -- held as sacred by the Indians, and should have been as memorable among Alabamians, as the old Charter Oak of New England was, among the people of the North where you and I have aided in placing the brand of Molly Thompson upon many a black bottle. I rented out the plantation one year, while I owned it, and forbid the tree being touched. The man renting it complained so much about it shading his crops, I allowed either three or five dollars for it, I now forget which, and would now pay $100 to have it living, as it was when I left the place, were it possible to restore it. You have often heard of our mutual friend, old Capt. Billy Walker, tell about him and myself, camping there with Cols. Hawkins, Barnett and McDonald, of the army, and Gen. John Sevier, one of the heroes of King's Mountain. (Col. Barnett was the father of Tom. and Nat. Barnett.) On the side of the Indians there were Billy McIntosh, Big Warrior, Alex. Kurnells, and many others. Kurnells was the interpreter, wearing that Iroquois coat you have often seen in the possession of the big woman, his wife. On that occasion, Kurnells exhibited many Indian curiosities; among them was the buck's horn, resembling a mans' hand, which you have seen in my possession since. Some years ago I gave the horn to Bishop Soule, of Nashville. There is not an Indian in the Creek nation that ever visited Alex. Kurnell's, but would recognize the horn as quick as you would your horse shoe. Gen. Sevier lived but a few days after this, and his remains lie in the hill near old Fort Decatur; but not a stone or board marks the resting place of the patriot, which is the case with hundreds of others that lived in his day, and like himself, served their country for their country's good, and not their own.

This is becoming tedious to you, no doubt, and I must stop. But you can excuse it, as I live alone and have so little to employ my time about, that my mind is often led to contemplate things that have passed and would have been forgotten, but for my lonely situation. It affords me some satisfaction to think and talk, (when I meet an old friend,) of old times; and after commencing to write, these old things would appear, and I felt bound to give them some attention.

Yours,

T. S. W.

WINN PARISH, LA., Dec. 24, 1857

J. J. HOOPER, Esq.:

I wrote a letter to my old friend, E. Hanrick, of Montgomery, last May, in which I spoke of giving you some few sketches of Indians and their history. Why I alluded to these things, I had a short time before seen an extract in your paper taken, I think, from a Mobile paper, making some inquiry about the true meaning or the signification of Alabama. And from the article, I supposed the writer to think that the word Alabama was of the Jewish origin, by giving the name of Esau's wife, who spelt her name Al-i-ba-ma, (if she could spell.) Now whether she borrowed her name from Jedediah Morse, or he the name from her, it matters not, as both spell it alike. The word Alabama, and many other words among the Indians, as well as customs, have been seized upon by some to establish a fact that never existed: that is, to prove that the North American Indians descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. Now it would be as easy to prove that such tribes never existed, and much easier to prove that they dwindled away among those Eastern nations that frequently held them in bondage, than to prove that anything found in the native Indian is characteristic of the Jew. I have traveled among a great many tribes, and circumcision is unknown to them; and besides, an Indian in his native state is proverbial for his honesty, and from the records handed to us as authentic, the great Author of all nature was put to much trouble to keep the Jews and the property of their neighbors in their proper places. I will return to my letter. I see it published in an October number of your paper, and shortly after its appearance, I received a letter from a Mr. J. D. Driesbach, of Baldwin Co., Ala, requesting me to give him what information I could of the persons whose names were mentioned in my letters to Mr. Hanrick, and any thing I knew of Indians and their history that I thought would be interesting; also, informing me that he had seen in the possession of Joseph Stiggins, the son of Geo. Stiggins, a manuscript of George Stiggins, which had been loaned to Col. Pickett when he wrote the History of Alabama: and whether interesting or not, I scribbled off some twenty or thirty pages and sent to him, and among other things I gave him what I understood to be the origin of Alabama, as we have it from the Indians. I find in Col. Pickett's answer to Mr. Hobbs, that he agrees with me how Alabama took its name. I am satisfied that Col. Pickett is correct. I also stated to Mr. Driesbach, that I had heard Col. Hawkins say in his time, that he had made every inquiry in his power to ascertain if Alabama had any other meaning than the mere name of an Indian town, but never could, unless the name -- as it was possible -- might be the Indian corruption of the Spanish words for good water, though he doubted that.

Col. Pickett is correct, as to the Alabama Town being just below Montgomery, for I was at it when they lived there, and it was called Esanchatty, from the red bluffs on which a portion of Montgomery is built. The Tarwassaw Town was a little lower down the river than the Colonel has it, though it is a matter of no importance. The Autauga, or what the Indians called Autauga or Dumplin Town, was at the place where Washington is in Autauga county. The Alabamas, and those little towns connected with them, extended down the river as far as Beach creek, that mouths just above Selma, and up the river to where Coosawda is -- on the Autauga side. To spell it the way the Indians pronounced it, and the way Col. Hawkins spelt, is Coowarsartda. The Alabamas differed from the Musqua or Muscogees, as do the Choctaws from the Chickasaws; but were what the Indians call the "same fire-side" people. There was much of their dialect that differed from that of the common Creek or Musqua, as the Western Indians used to call them, and no doubt once they were a different tribe.

About the close of the American Revolution, a large portion of the Alabamas and Coowarsartdas returned to Texas on the Trinity, being under the control of a Chief called Red Shoes, or Stillapikachatta. I visited these Indians in 1816, in company with Mr. Angus Gilchrist and Mr. Edward McLauchlin. Mr. McLauchlin was the best Indian interpreter I ever knew, except Hamly, who was raised by Forbes and Panthom, in Florida. Red Shoes was then living, and lived for year after. I inquired much into his history and that of his people. He gave the same account of their being driven from their old homes in the West and their settlement in Alabama and a part of Georgia, as has been given me by the Creeks. And if Indian tradition and what I have heard from Col. Hawkins -- who, I think, was the most sensible man I ever was acquainted with, and whose opportunities were as good if not much better than any one else of his day possessed, to collect correct information in relation to the early settlements of the Creeks and their confederates in Alabama and Georgia -- are to be relied on, Col. Pickett must have been wrongly informed as to the fights with the Muscogees and Alabamas upon the sources of Red river, as well as to the Muscogees settling in Ohio, the Alabamas settling on the Yazoo, and the destruction of their fort by DeSoto, and the Alabamas being the first to settle in what is now known as the Creek country.

It has always been a contested point, with the Indians, whether Tuckabatchee, or old Cusetaw opposite Fort Mitchell on the Chattahochee river, was settled first; but it is generally conceded that Cusetaw was settled first. These two towns have, in almost every instance, furnished the head Chiefs of the nation: Tuckabatchee furnishing the upper town Chief -- Cusetaw, the lower town Chief. This fact is well known to all who have been well acquainted with the Creeks. Besides, John Ferdinand Soto, who by most persons has been called Hernando DeSoto, after landing his forces in Florida, passed through a portion of Georgia, and across the entire State of Alabama, before he could have reached the Yazoo in Mississippi. And in addition to this, one of the severest battles Soto had with the Indians, was fought with the Creeks at what is now known as Cuwally. It is either in Montgomery or Tallapoosa county; I do not now to give it the Indian pronunciation. To spell it as the Indians pronounced it, it would be Thleawalla, which signifies rolling bullet. Thlea, is an arrow or bullet; walla, is to roll. The Indians say it was there that a spent ball was seen rolling on the ground, and from that the place took its name. Besides, the Tuckabatchees have now in their possession a number of plates of copper in various shapes, which the Spaniards used as a kind of shield, to protect themselves from the arrows of the Indians. These plates were taken from the Spaniards at that fight. And from what Col. Pickett says of the fights upon the sources of Red River it would appear that the Indians were some years on their route going East. I have not seen nor heard any traditionary account of any thing of the sort in my intercourse with the various tribes that I have been among, and the sources of Red River must have been very imperfectly known in that day, by any of the Europeans that had visited this country, and are still very imperfectly known by many of our own people to this day; for Red river does not, as believed by many, head in the Rocky Mountains, but is a mere leak or drain from the prairies, except those little streams that head in the Ozark hills of Arkansas. Besides, it is not such a country as Indians would likely stop long in, particularly traveling on foot, as they were obliged to do; for the Southwestern Indians knew nothing of horses until they were introduced into the country by the Spaniards. And building forts with logs, by a people who knew nothing of the uses of the axe, nor had any, would, I think, be a tough undertaking. All that I have seen and heard satisfies me at least, that the Creeks, Alabamas and the other little bands connected with them, originally inhabited the skirts of timbered country between the Rio Grande or Del Norte and the Mississippi river, near the Gulf coast, which the names of the creeks, rivers, and many other things, will show. The Choctaws, Chickasaws, Nitches, Nacogdoches and Natchitoches Indians inhabited pretty much the same country.

It is true that Cortez found a much more civilized and much more timid race to contend with, than any of the tribes that I have mentioned. And that the Creeks, Alabamas and others that I have named, ever were or considered themselves subjects of the great Mexican Empire, I am very much inclined to doubt, from what I know of them. Even the present civilized and christianized rulers of Mexico, who are almost to a man of the old race, never exercise any control over the Indians within her borders, and this has been the case ever since she got from under the Spanish yoke.

I can neither read French nor Spanish; but the few translations in English that I have seen taken from the travels of the early visitors, both of the French and Spanish, to this country, are very contradictory, and for that reason I have been inclined to credit the Indian tradition. And, even if a history taken from European travelers, somewhat in the shape of a novel, is to be relied on, some man, in his account of the conquest of Florida, admits that the Creeks, Muscogees or Coosas disputed the passage of Soto through the country -- that is, Alabama and Georgia. It has been a long time since I read it, and then but little; but if I am not mistaken, it spoke of a war, or battle, with a Chief called Tuscaloosa. The Creeks themselves said that there was once among them a giant Chief, Tustanugga Lusta, or Black Warrior, who fought with Soto, and that his home was on the river of that name. I have seen no history of Louisiana except the Tax Collectors' Book -- and that I dislike to read -- and cannot say at what time Bienville and his brother, Iberville, came to the country. But one thing is certain, the French knew something of Mobile and its immediate vicinity at an early day; but they knew very little of the interior of Alabama, until after the defeat of Gen. Braddock, near Pittsburg, which was in 1755. The next year they come down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and drove the Nitches Indians from where the present city of Natchez, Miss., now is. The Nitches Indians immediately emigrated to join their old Western friends, the Creeks, and settle at the Talisee old fields, on Taliseehatchy or Talisee creek, now in Talladega county, Ala.; and the French very shortly after moved up the Alabama river, to the junction of Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers, and built a little village near to old Fort Jackson. I have seen Indians, as well as negroes, that traded with the French while there, though their stay was but a few years. James McQueen, a Scotchman -- the first white man I ever heard of being among the Creeks -- and a Polander, by the name of Monlar, with the Nitches Indians and Creeks, broke up the French settlement at the fork of the rivers. And it was on the return of the French down the Alabama river, that they threw up an entrenchment at Durand's or Durant's Bend, and another at the mouth of Cahawba -- and the Alabam Indians were said to be the most bitter enemies, except the Nitches, that the French had. We are to judge from Col. Pickett's version of the matter, that there were neither Alabamas nor Muscogees in what is known to the whites as the Creek country, before Soto passed through. The Chattahoochee Indians, who were Muscogees, would show, as long as they lived there, many places where DeSoto or Soto had camped. There is a place on the Apalachicola that is yet known as one of Soto's camps. The Indians call it Spanny Wakka -- that is, "the Spaniards lay there." The Indians could tell of the old Spanish fortification in Jones county, Ga., also the one on the Ocmulgee, above Fort Hawkins, and it is evident they must have been in the country before Soto passed through -- and, besides, I was in Florida in 1818, and had with me many of the Creeks, who could point out places where the Spaniards, under Soto, had camped, and the marks of old roads and causeways were then visible. And with the single exception of Soto himself, all the early explorers of that country, who were mostly Spanish and some French, would only ascend the navigable rivers a small distance, in water crafts constructed for the purpose, and could have known but little of the indians in the interior. And as to Red River, when Cortez conquered Mexico, it is a doubt with me if it was then a tributary of the Mississippi river, as the Atchafalaya evidently was once the channel of Red River, and made its way to the Gulf of Mexico through Berwick's Bay; and, even in Soto's time did it go into the Mississippi river, it could only have been navigated, with small crafts, as far up as Alexandria, for the river above the falls will show that it was once a raft, as far up as Long Prairie, in Arkansas, and that would have prevented early explorers from knowing much of the sources of the river or what Indians, if any, lived on it.

All these circumstances induce me to believe that Col. Pickett is mistaken, and the source from which he derived a part of his information is, or was, not very reliable; and, so far as Indian tradition is concerned, I think my chance to have obtained correct information in relation to Indian history equal, at least, to that of Col. Pickett's. The accounts that I have had from the Indians themselves, and from Col. Hawkins, whose opportunity must have been as good as any one of his time, or any one who has lived since, are, that Cortez's object was gold, and that the people he first encountered in Mexico were somewhat civilized and very timid; and, after subduing them and taking possession of the City of Mexico -- if it could be called a city -- he then commenced extending his conquests or robberies up the Gulf coast, in the direction of what is now Tampico and Tamaulipas, and even as far as what is now Texas, where he encountered the Musquas or Muscogees, Alabamas, and others that I have mentioned; but finding them to be a much more hardy, warlike race than the Mexicans, and in order to hold on to what he had taken and subdued of the timid ones, he found it necessary to kill or drive these war-like tribes from the country, which with the great advantage of firearms, he succeeded in doing. The Muscogees and their confederates crossed the Mississippi river and called a halt at Baton Rouge, which is known to this day as Red Stick or Club. The Nitches, from the river which bears their name in Texas, crossed the Mississippi river and settled where the city of Natchez is now. The Choctaws settled the country on Yazoo, Pearl, Leaf, Chickasawha, and as far as the Tombecba rivers. The Chickasaws settled at Chickasaw Bluff or Memphis. The Creeks, after a short stay at Baton Rouge, moved and settled on the Alabama and its tributaries, the Black Warrior and the Chattahoochee, and Flint rivers, and, in time, went as far east as the Oconee river, but never went farther in that direction, and did not make any settlement on the Oconee until after the whites began to encroach on the Indians of that country from the East. The Indians that originally inhabited from the middle parts of the Carolinas (particularly South Carolina,) and Georgia to the seaboard, were known as Yamacraws or Yamasees, Oconees, Ogeeches, and Sowanokees or Peoples of the Glades. The Sowanokees are known as the Shawnees -- the other Indians know them by no other name to this day but Sowanokee; and the Savannah river was known as Sowanokee Hatchee Thlocka, which signifies the Big River of the Glades, or what we call Savannah. And these Indians the Creek found to be their equals as warriors; but when the whites began to approach them from the east, and the Creeks already very close on the west, the Sowanokees or Shawnees fell back on the north and northwest. Tecumseh was of that stock. The other little tribes, with the Uchees, they being the "same fireside" Indians with the Shawnees, all dwindled away among the Creeks and lost their language, except the Uchees -- they still retain theirs.

One other circumstance that convinces me that the Creeks and Alabamas had become pretty much one people before they settled Alabama and Georgia, is that the tribes they incorporated into their nation after settling the Creek country never would come into the family arrangement, which arrangement I will try and explain to you. They were laid off in families -- that is, Bears, Wolves, Panthers, Foxes and many others -- also, what they termed the Wind Family, which was allowed more authority than any family in the nation. There was nothing in their laws to prevent blood cousins from marrying, but never to marry in the same family -- thus, a man of the Bear family could marry a woman of the Fox family, or any other family he pleased and the children would be called Fox. In all cases, the children took the mother's family name. Years ago, you could not find an Indian in the nation but could tell you his family. But whisky has destroyed many of their old customs as well as the Indians themselves.

There is too much of this to publish, even if it were worth publishing. Read it, show it to Col. Pickett, burn it and send me his History of Alabama.

Yours,

T. S. W.

WINN PARISH, LA.

Jan. 10, 1858.

TO J. J. HOOPER, Esq.:

I wrote to you some time back some sketches relative to the Creek Indians, which no doubt you found too long, too tedious, and too uninteresting to publish. In that I sent you I made mention of a family arrangement among the Creeks that differed from all other tribes that I know or have traveled among. The Creeks are laid off in families, viz: Bears, Tigers, Wolves, Foxes, Deers, and almost all the animals that were known to them. All these families had certain privileges, and every one of a family knew to what family he belonged and what privileges were allowed. There was also what they termed the Wind family, which was allowed more privileges than all the rest. For instance, when an offender escaped from justice, all the families were permitted to pursue a certain number of days, and no more, except the Wind family, which had the right to pursue and arrest at any time -- there was no limit to their privileges in bringing an offender to justice. There was nothing to prevent blood relations from marrying with each other, but a woman of the Bear family was at liberty to take a husband in any family except a Bear; so it was with all the other families, but none were permitted to marry in the same family; for instance, if a man of the Wolf family marry a woman of the Fox family, the children would all be Foxes. Such has been the custom among the Creeks from the earliest history I have had of them, though their intercourse with the whites has changed many of their old habits and customs even since my time. In fact, I know a number of words in their languages and names of things and places that are not spoken or pronounced as they were when I first knew them. This has been occasioned by whites not being able to give the Indian pronunciation, and the Indians in many cases have conformed to that of the whites. A horse, for instance, is now called Chelocko by the whites who speak Indian, and by most of the Indians; but originally it was Echo Tlocko, signifying a Big Deer -- Echo is a deer and Thlocko is something large. The first horses the Creeks ever saw were those introduced by the Spaniards, and they called them big deer, as they resembled that animal more than any other they knew -- this is their tradition, and I am satisfied that it is correct. There is the Indian town above Montgomery, Coowersartda, that is called by the whites Coosada; also the town Thleawalla, where Soto fought the Creeks, it is called by the whites Cuwally, and many of the Indians raised of late years call it as the whites do, and do not know what its original name was, nor what its meaning is. Thela is an arrow or bullet, and Walla is to roll; the proper name is Rolling Bullet; and many other such alterations have been made that have come within my knowledge. Indians in almost every instance learn our language quicker than we learn theirs, particularly our pronunciation. An Indian, if he speaks our language at all, almost invariably pronounces it as those do from whom he learns it. If he learns it from a white man that speaks it well, the Indian does the same; if he learns it from a negro he pronounces as the negro does. You may take the best educated European that lives, that does not speak our language, and an Indian that does not speak it; let both learn it; if the Indian does not learn so much, he will always speak what he does learn more distinctly than the European. This will no doubt be disputed by many, but I know it to be true from actual observation, and I do not pretend to account for why it is so, unless it is intended that at some time Americans shall all be Americans. I believe I mentioned the name of James McQueen before. This man came amongst the Creeks as early as 1716 and lived among them until 1811. He was said to be, by those who knew him well, very intelligent, and had taken great pains to make himself acquainted with the history of the Creeks. From the early day in which he came among them, and they knowing at that time but little of the whites, their traditions were, no doubt, much more reliable than anything that can now be obtained from them. From what I have learned from this man, or from those who learned it from him, the Muscogees, or as they were originally known to the other tribes, Musquas, and all the little towns or bands that composed the Creek Confederacy, was a Confederacy before they crossed to the east of Mississippi river. From what I have been able to learn, Musqua, or Muscogee, signified Independent. Besides I knew a Capt. John S. Porter, formerly of the U. S. Army, who, some thirty years ago, with a few Creeks of the McIntosh party in Arkansas, visited California and went up the Pacific coast to the Columbia river, and returned by the way of Salt Lake, and on his return to Arkansas he wrote to me, giving an account of his travels. The writing covered some three or four sheets of paper; a great deal of it was very interesting. I do not now recollect whether I loaned it to George Stiggins, or a Mr. Whitaker, of Charleston, S. C. But I recollect among the many accounts of his travels, that on the head waters, or at least the waters of the Colorado of the West, he found a small remnant of the original Musqua. They spoke mostly a broken Spanish dialect, but still retained much of their old language and old family customs. They gave pretty much the same account of being driven from their old homes that I have learned from the Creeks. These people informed Capt. Porter that their nation was once strong, and they had many languages; that they inhabited the country between the Rio del Norte and Mississippi river, or Owea Coafka, or river of cane. They also gave him the original Indian name of the Del Norte, but I forget it; but Owea Coafka is what the Creeks call the Mississippi river. They also stated to him that they lived near the Gulf, on what they called Owea Thlocko Marhe, signifying the largest water. They say they were driven off by the Echo Thlock Ulgees, or horsemen, or what the Creeks in our language would call the big deer men. Echothlock is a big deer, as I stated before, and the proper name of the horse Echothlock; Ulgee means horsemen. They also stated that long after they left their old homes, and horses had become plenty, that the Indians learned the use of them, and that a number of the little tribes that once lived on the rivers and Gulf had taken to the prairies. They also gave Capt. Porter an account of a long war with some tribes high up on the Rio del Norte, and that one of the most warlike tribes had gone east. They called them as the present Creeks do, Hopungieasaw, and what are now known to the whites as Pyankeshaws. I recollect two women that Tuskenea carried to the Creek nation, of the Pyankeshaws, as the whites called them, but the Creeks call them Hopungieasaw, or dancing Indians.

You see that I differ with Col. Pickett as to the early settlement of the Creek Indians in Alabama; and should I be correct, it need not matter with the Colonel, for you know most people believe a history whether it be correct or not. I have not seen his History of Alabama, and all I have seen or heard from him, was his answer to Mr. Hobbs' inquiry; and I have no idea that he has written anything but he felt authorized to do from the sources that he received his information. But authors sometimes may err, and others wilfully misrepresent. When that is the case, we have to judge from circumstances. The Colonel says that Soto passed Alabama before the Muscogees reached that country. The Indians say they were there and fought him: and from the number of copper shields, with a small brass swivel, (that an old man by the name of Tooley worked up into bells,) would go to show and to prove that the Indians were correct. I have often seen the copper plates or shields, and a piece of the swivel, and from the cuttings or carvings on it, it was evidently of Spanish make. And it was only some twenty years after Cortez conquered Mexico, that Soto commenced his march from Tampa Bay, and had too few men to sacrifice them in storming a strong work, when it could effect nothing, for an Indian Fort in a remote wilderness could have interfered but little with his march westward. And how could the Alabamas have known that he intended passing that way? It seems to me that a people so illy prepared to build forts; having no axes, spades nor any implement of the sort, would have found it much easier to have concealed themselves, had it been necessary, in some of those large swamps which abound in the Yazoo country; and from what I know of Indians, they would not give one swamp or cane brake for forty forts. And as to the Muscogees ever having been subjects of the great Mexican empire, it is very doubtful, for Mexico was the name of the City itself, and applied to the town only. It was the city or town where the principal chiefs or body of the Aztecs, Anahuacs, or as the other Indians called them, Auchinang resided.

The Creeks or Muscogees, the Iroquois or Six Nations, were all the Indians that I have known or heard of forming themselves into anything like a confederacy. The balance, as far as my information extends, have been separate tribes, with a separate language, with their own peculiar customs, except in a few instances where two or more tribes would unite in case of a war. The Creeks, as I mentioned before, originally inhabited the skirts of timbered country bordering on the Gulf of Mexico, and between the Del Norte and Mississippi rivers. When the Muscogees, Nitches, Choctaws and Chickasaws crossed to the east of the Mississippi river, a town of Indians yet among the Creeks, the Autisees or Itisees, has for ages been called Red Stick. They settled at Baton Rouge, and no doubt it was from that tribe or town that the early French settlers gave it its present name. Eto-chatty, signifies red tree or red wood; but ask an Indian that is acquainted with the original names and customs, what a Red Stick Warrior, is, and he will tell you it is an Autisee or Otisee. I have taken great pains, in times passed, to have these things explained to me by the oldest and most sensible Indians and Indian countrymen. The Muscogees, from their own account, made but a short stay on the Mississippi or its waters. They emigrated to Alabama and Georgia, and settled mostly on the large creeks and rivers and near the falls and shoals, for the purpose of fishing. The Indians who inhabited the Gulf coast, and that of the Atlantic as far east as Beaufort, S. C., and the rivers as far back as latitude 33¡ north, previous to the settlement of the Muscogees in the country, were known as Paspagolas, Baluxies, Movilas, Apilaches, Hichetas, Uchys, Yemacraws, Wimosas, Sowanokas or Shawneys. Sowanoka Hatchy is the original name of Savannah river; that is, the river of the glades.

The Seminoles is a mixed race of almost all the tribes I have mentioned, but mostly Hitchetas and Creeks. The Hitchetas have by the whites been looked upon as being originally Muscogees, but they were not. They had an entirely different language of their own, and were in the country when the Creeks first entered it. Seminole, in the Creek language, signifies wild, or runaway, or outlaw.

There have many conflicting accounts about John Ferdinand Soto -- when, where and how he died, and where buried. According to McQueen's account, and that of the oldest Indians in the nation when he came to it, Soto died in what is called Natchitoches parish, in this State, at the last fort he built, called the Azadyze; and the oldest Spanish settlers of this country have corroborated McQueen's account. There are yet to be found among the people of this country, some of the descendants of Soto's men, and some of his name. All the Indian traditions, and those of the early Spanish settlers, say he died and was buried at Azadyze. It is now 142 years since McQueen first came to the Creek country, and Indians that were then living even at the age of 75 years, could give a very correct tradition of things that had happened only 80 or 100 years before. Indians are very particular in their relations of circumstances and events, and not half so apt to embellish as the whites, and the march of Soto through their country, and his fights with them, were affairs not likely to be forgotten by them, and would be handed down for a generation or two at least, very correct, no doubt. Even in my time, I have heard the old Indians, in their conversations, allude to the white warrior, or Tustanugga Hatke, as they called Soto.

You see I write, spell and dictate badly, but have given you what I heard from others who were best calculated to inform me upon such subjects. If there is anything in this that you have not seen or heard before, and you think it worth publishing, do so; if not, let it pass: for I assure you that I am not desirous to become conspicuous as a writer in a newspaper, or anything else -- though I doubt much if the man lives that has seen as much of old Indian times, and heard as much of the early history of the Creeks, as I have. I would like to be where I could sit and tell it over to you; I could make you understand it much better.

May you live long and die rich.

T. S. W.

Woodward's Reminiscenses - Part 2

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,

March 21, 1858.

To. J. J. HOOPER, Esq.

Dear Sir -- Some two weeks back I received the History of Alabama, sent me by my old friend "Horse Shoe Ned." It is a present made me by its Author -- whom I have known from his childhood, and of course prize it highly, not only as a present from its author, but for the many new things to me that it contains. I should have commenced this sooner, but my son who resides near Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the only one of my family that is left me, has been with me for the last three weeks and has just left for his home. That, with my inability to write at best, will make this not very interesting to you or your readers. What I write I dedicate to those that read it. You will see from what I write, and from what I may write hereafter, that I differ from Col. Pickett, and what I write is not intended, nor can it detract in the least from Col. Pickett, as an author, a gentleman, or a scholar. I am not vain enough to think that I could write anything like a history of any country (even if all I should write were true) that would be interesting, while Col. Pickett is very capable of doing it; he has not only the advantages of a classical education, but was raised by one of the most intelligent fathers in Alabama; and as to his mother, she has had her equals no doubt, but there is no one living that can boast of a mother that was her superior. As to my own parents, I can say nothing more than I recollect to have seen them and the only brother I ever had, laid in their last resting place, within six miles of where Savannah river takes its name. My father died in Franklin county, Georgia, near sixty years back; my brother about fifty-six years; my mother about fifty-three years back -- leaving an only sister and myself, upon the charity of the best world that I have seen, or any one else, if they will take it right. Now, sir, my whole history through life (though passing through some pretty rough scenes by-the-by) would not be as interesting as the lives of Washington and Marion, by Old Parson Weems; so I will close my own biography, and commence with De Soto's march through Florida. Tampa Bay is the point, admitted by all, where Soto (as I shall call him) debarked his men. His army, composed of one thousand men, some on horseback and some on foot, greyhounds as fleet as the wind, bloodhounds large and ferocious, and in addition to all these, were lots of Catholic priests, clergymen and monks. This was certainly a very imposing show, and was a show very well calculated and no doubt did impose upon the unoffending natives, and the tons of iron, handcuffs, chains, neckcollars and the like, were things well calculated to inspire the natives with very exalted notions of the Christianity they were soon to be taught. No doubt but that portion of the narrative is in a great measure true; so far as regards the true motives of those that set the expedition on foot. The object was gold or other plunder, and to diffuse among the natives a religion (as then understood and practiced by those who were to propagate it) that even had more laudable means been used to establish it, would have benefited the Indians very little more, if as much, as the worst pagan idolatry. And it is equally as shameful as true, that other Christian nations have followed the example of Spain, with the natives of this and other countries; wherever the Bible (which was seldom applied right) failed, the musket and bayonet were resorted to. The hogs and cattle are next: the introduction of those animals was the only philanthropic movement during, or that attended, the expedition. These animals were landed as it appears, as early as May, 1539, and Soto died between the last of May, 1542 and the 2d July, 1543. No date given of their leader's death, unless we infer from the dates given in the narrative that he died between the last of May, 1542, at which time he commenced the building of the brigantine, and the 1st of June, 1542, which was the time his successor commenced his march again in the wilderness, which was one day only for commencing the work, for Soto to die, to be put in the water, and his successor to march with the remainder of the soldiers. The portion of the history I have just alluded to, you will find on pages 50 and 51, first volume. Now had Col. Pickett made a little blunder like this, I should not have noticed it, for I know him to be much clearer of committing such blunders than I can think myself to be, (I no doubt could prove that by you.) You will find the day and month given in many places; but the hero of the expedition dies, the day, month, or year is not named. I notice this to show that Portuguese and Spanish authors at all times are not to be relied on. Now sir, I have traveled through Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and am pretty well acquainted with most of the neighborhoods that the history says Soto traveled through. Now, the idea of marching an army of a thousand men, making the marches as the history describes, and raising hogs, feeding on them, dividing them with the Indians, many left to be killed and packed up by the successor of Soto, and his men to feed on while at seal Now, as this is a swine story, not written by St. Mark, I hope I may be at least permitted to doubt it, without sinning. There was the Christian Jean Ortez, who was a captive long enough to become so well acquainted with the language of the Florida Indians, which must have been the Yermacraws or flat-footed Yemassees, for they evidently were the first Indians that inhabited East Florida, the low parts of Georgia, and South Carolina, so far as we know; if not, then it must have been the Ucheys, or Sowanokees, or Shawnese, for they were then nearest neighbors; we find this man Ortez interpreting, making speeches in Spanish, and in all the Indian dialects where De Soto passed. As I have lived longer among Indians than Ortez, and learned to speak so little, and it was not Sampson that killed the panther, I cannot be bound to believe that story, to be saved. Now, these same Portuguese and Spanish give us a description of the country they passed in the upper parts of Georgia and Alabama, and down to the waters of the Coosa. Now, every person that has read the history, and now knows the country, knows the account to be a highly exaggerated one. As to the Indian temples, I have nothing to say; every one that has seen an Indian town, has seen an Indian temple. That mode of traveling in a chair, carried by four men, differs from any traveling among them that I have seen or heard of. Those large barns of corn never fell to their lots in my time, or any of those old ones that I have been acquainted with, so far as I could learn; besides, the country, a few little creek valleys excepted, is a very poor one -- that is, if you will examine the description given by those Portuguese and Spanish gentry, and then examine the country itself.

What I have written is to show that the great probability is, that these writers have not been faithful in their narrations. For I have traveled more or less in and among all the tribes south of latitude 36 north, and some north of that line, between Georgia and Rio am somewhat acquainted with the Indian character, and I am as certain of this as any one thing I never witnessed, viz: that De Soto, no other man, nor any set of men, could have reduced the Indians to such abject slavery. There is not one Indian, male or female, in one hundred, but would have put an end to their existence, rather than submit to such treatment. Even as late as 18367 I knew several Indian women who, rather than risk their children under the control of the Emigrating Indian Agent, put them to death, some of them large enough to walk; and these women had long been acquainted with the whites. In fact, I knew two men to kill themselves in Montgomery, rather than move, when their whole town people were along, and they not in any danger whatever. As long as ours has been a government, with so many tribes whose names have passed from the earth, there is not the mark of a pen, heiroglyphic, or any vestige whatever to show that such people ever were warmed by God's sun, I have never seen the first North American Indian slave, unless it was in Barbour county, Alabama. At what was known as the Pea River Fight, there were some Indian children taken prisoners, and they were mostly girls. I was in Barbour county as late as 1843. I there saw one or two of the children. If they have not been made slaves, I never have heard of any. The peons or foot soldiers in Mexico and the degraded Central American States are not looked upon, or at least by me, as North American Indians. I have no doubt but the tribes inhabiting the tropical regions are much more submissive and timid than the hardy tribes inhabiting north and south of those regions. Besides, such gangs of priests, clergymen and monks, grey-hounds, blood-hounds, hand-cuffs, chains, neck-collars, (and such other holy material as De Soto introduced among the native Floridians, Georgians and Alabamians,) were too freely used for the same purpose among the Mexicans and Central Americans; and the natives of those countries unfortunately lost their own language, and learned the language and embraced the religion of their oppressors, which has made them ten-fold worse than they were in their native state. You may take almost any other people that we read of and train them to be slaves, or at least make them perform those menial offices that slaves do; but such is never the case with an Indian. It is true, you may, by kind treatment, either in word or action, get them occasionally to perform some little offices; but harsh treatment, either in words or blows, never can control an Indian.

Now, after De Soto and his men had been rusticating in the country of the Coosas, they make their way to the Tallassees. They reach the town on the 18th September, 1540. De Soto remained at Tallassee twenty days, crossed over to the east side in canoes and on rafts, and traveled down the eastern side. Now, to show you how those Portuguese and Spaniards mistake things, Tallassee was always on the east side of the Tallapoosa, and Col. Pickett in a note of his own admits the Tukabatchy was built on the opposite side, and all hands know that Tuckabatchy, Tookabatcha, was always on the west side. Now, there was no necessity for canoes and rafts after their stay of twenty days in Tallassee. Moreover, the river at this point is never past fording, only at a high stage of water. Besides, the season of the year in which DeSoto was there, those who know the place will say to you that an Indian pony could ford it from Tallassee to King's Ferry, which is full three miles by water. The Tallassees and Tuckabatchys were both original Musqua and Muscogees, and the oldest Indians and Indian countrymen that I have seen, say Tuckabatchy was settled years before Tallassee. I wrote you once before, that it was a long disputed point with old Cusetaw and Tuckabatchee, which was settled first, but that it was generally conceded that the Cusetaws were the Spoakogees, or Spoakookulgees; that is, the oldest settlers, or the mother of towns.

I know three men in Macon county who could have given Col. Pickett Indian information of modern times, (that is, for the last thirty years,) which is much more reliable than that he has had. I know something of the settlement of the Tallassee town, opposite Tuckabatchy. I will give you, some time before long, the history of the settlement of Tallassee, and how that error crept into Col. Pickett's History.

The three gentlemen alluded to above, in Macon county, are Nat and John Callens and L.B. Strange.

I will here remark, that Col Pickett's History has set me right about the death of Alex. McGillivray. I had thought he died as late as 1796, but find he died three years before. His daughter and his last wife, who lived by me for many years, could never tell; and if I ever heard from others I forgot it.

I will in my next give you something of the Nitches, Tallassees, and McGillivray's family.

T. S. W.

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,

March 25, 1858.

Eds. Mail: -- I see in your paper of March the 11th that "J. W. K." seems desirous to know if can give the origin of the belief among the Chippewa Indians -- and he presumes among others that there is a deep gulf to be passed after death, before they can get to their Paradise. I answer him candidly that I can not, and beg to be excused for my profound ignorance on the subject. In the first place, the Chippewas are a people that I am as unacquainted with as I am of the gulf he speaks of. I have heard of both, but have seen neither. I am satisfied that such a people as the Chippewas do exist, for I have seen those that were said to have travelled among them, and I have seen and have travelled among several tribes of Indians -- and for that reason I am satisfied that there is such a tribe as the Chippewas. As to the gulf, both the wicked that have fallen in and the good that have crossed it, are the same to us, as neither ever return to give us any information as to what is in the gulf or what there is beyond it. So, if these Indians have such a belief, they must have borrowed it from those that knew as little of such things as themselves. And even those that have instructed the Indians in their belief (if such there be) may have formed their religious notions either from fear, ignorance or interest -- for, such has often been the case with those that pretend to much more than the native Indian. I have never heard of any such belief among those that I have been acquainted with; and those that I have conversed with upon religious subjects appeared to have correct notions of Deity -- looked upon Him as an invisible being, who only made himself known to man through his works. J. W. K. says in this can be traced a likeness to the Christian belief. Whence came it? I answer, not from the Jews. Why, not believing the American Indian to be a descendant of the Jew proves nothing for or against the Christian religion. The gentleman says there is a marked resemblance in their laws with regard to marriages that the children of Israel were not allowed to take wives among other nations, and such was the law among Indians. Such may have been the case -- I will not dispute it. But, if such law ever existed, it was repealed long before my time; and if he will travel among them, and see the number of half-breeds of whites, negroes, and all others that have mixed, and will say that the law has not been repealed, I am certain that he will have the candor to admit that it has been grossly violated, at least. There may be something a little alike in the character of the Indian and the Jew. An Indian will sell the shirt off his back for whisky -- the Jew will his for money. The Indian, in their wars, often murdered men, women and children, and so did the Jews. By taking the 31st chap. Numbers, and perusing it closely, he will see that I am not mistaken as to the Jews. There was a custom in my time, among Indians, that there were many crimes punishable by their laws -- and could the perpetrators of those crimes escape and lay out until their green-corn dance, and then reach the dance-ground undiscovered, they would go unpunished -- but in no instance have I ever known murder to go unpunished, if the offender could be caught. The Wind family was allowed -- and it was law that they should punish a murder at any and all times -- but the other families were not allowed this privilege after a certain time. As to the meeting of those versed in Indian history, I would like much to attend such a meeting; and if I am in possession of any information that others have not, I would most willingly impart it. Besides, nothing could afford me more pleasure than to meet at Montgomery. I should like to see it, now it is a city, as I knew it forty years ago a forest. But it is a pleasure, I fear, that my age and situation will deny me. Such a meeting, no doubt, would be interesting to many -- bring up much of the past that has probably been forgotten, and be the means of explaining and doing away with many conflicting notions that have and do exist among various persons, in relation to Indians and their history, particularly those tribes that inhabited Alabama.

T. S. W.

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.

April 2, 1858.

F. A. RUTHERFORD, Esq.

Dear Sir: -- Your letter of the 8th ultimo, came to hand yesterday. You wish to know something of the early settlement and history of Macon and the adjoining counties. As to the history of the section of country you live in, I know much from 1813 to 1841, when I left Alabama. Many persons, who know what I do of the country and of the time I allude to, might write something that would interest you and some of your readers, but fear I shall not be able to do so. What I write, however, shall be facts, as well or better established than you generally get them, and perhaps some of them may be new to you and others. From what I know of the Indians and their history, I think it as probable as anything that cannot be positively proven, that an occurrence in Macon county caused the Creek Indian war of 1813-'14. It was the murder of Arthur Lott, in 1812, by some Chetocchefaula Indians, a branch of the Tallasees. Lott was killed near what is known as the Warrior's Stand. He was moving to the then Mississippi Territory. His family moved on and settled at a bluff on Pearl River, which long went by the name of Lott's Bluff, but is now known as Columbia.

So soon as Col. Hawkins learned that Lott was murdered, he sent Christian Limbo, a German, to Cowetaw, to see Billy McIntosh, a half-breed chief. From Cowetaw, Limbo and McIntosh went to Thleacatska or Brokenarrow, to see Little Prince. The Prince was too old for active service, and sent a well known half-breed, George Lovet, who was also a chief. Lovet took with him some Cussetas and McIntosh some Cowetas, and accompanied Limbo to Tuckabatchy to see the Big Warrior. He placed some Tuckabatchys under a chief called Emutta and the celebrated John McQueen, a negro, and all under the control of McIntosh, went in pursuit of the murderers. They found them on the Notasulga creek, at a place known since as Williamson Ferrell's settlement: where they shot the leaders and returned to their respective towns. This act aroused the Tallassees, and James McQueen, who had controlled them for 95 years having died the year before, his influence was lost, and from talks made some time before by Tecumseh the Sowanaka or Shawnee, and Seekaboo, a Warpicanata chief and prophet, (who was afterwards at the destruction of Ft. Mimms,) a number of the young warriors and a few old ones had become restless. Not long after Lott was killed, an old gentleman named Merideth was killed at the crossing on Catoma Creek, in what is now Montgomery county. This was done by the Otisees in a drunken spree. The Big Warrior undertook to have them punished, but failed to do so, and in attempting to arrest them an Otisee was killed. A few days after this, the Otisees attacked a party of Tuckabachys, under the chief Emutta, at the Old Agency or Polecat Springs, which was then occupied by Nimrod Doyle. Doyle had been a soldier under Gen. St. Clair, was at his defeat and afterwards with Gen. Wayne.

About this time, or a little after, a chief, Tustanuggachee or Little Warrior, and a Coowersortda Indian, known as Capt. Isaacs, who had gone north-west with Tecumseh, were returning to the Creek nation, and learned from some Chickasaws that the Creeks had gone to war. Relying on this information, the Little Warrior's party did some mischief on the frontier of Tennessee as well as killed a few persons. On their return to the nation they found that war had not actually broken out, but only the few little depredations that I have mentioned, had been committed. The Coowersortda Indians, Capt. Sam. Isaacs, (a name that he borrowed from an old trader who died some years back in Lincoln county, Tenn., and who was one of the most cunning, artful scamps I ever saw among the Indians,) gave the Big Warrior information about the murders in Tennessee. Isaacs from his tricks and management and having Alexander McGillivray's daughter for a wife, was let out of the scrape; but the Little Warrior being a Hickory-Ground Indian, set the Coosa Indians at variance with the Big Warrior. After this the Tuckabatchys, Ninny-pask-ulgees, or Road Indians, the Chunnanuggees and Conaligas all forted in, at Tuckabatchy, to defend themselves from those that had turned hostile.

I have often heard Sam Moniac say, that if Lott had not been killed at the time he was, it was his belief that the war could have been prevented. He and Billy Weatherford say, he (W.) was as much opposed to that war as any one living: but when it became necessary to take sides, he went with his countrymen, and gave me his reasons for so doing. He said, to join the whites was a thing he did not think right, and had it been so they would not have thanked him, and would have attributed it to cowardice. Besides, he said to remain with his people, he could prevent his misguided countrymen from committing many depredations that they might otherwise do.

Woodward's Reminiscenses - Part 3

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.

June 21st, 1858.

COL. A.J. Pickett:

Dear Sir: -- I addressed to you, in April last, a letter through the Montgomery Mail. Some few days after I forwarded that, I wrote a second one, which I intended for you, but not knowing that my first was published, I declined sending the second. But a few days back I received the number of the Mail in which my letter was published. Whether you found that either instructive or interesting, I cannot say; but inasmuch as that has been published I shall risk another, and if our friend Hooper finds it too long and uninteresting, he can do with it as he has to do with other trash -- throw it aside, or commit it to the flames. In your letter to me of February last, you mentioned something of the inquiry I made in a private letter to my friend Hartrick, about a manuscript. Why that inquiry was made, I had learned that you had had, at one time, the manuscripts of George Stiggins, and possibly I might learn something of the manuscript I loaned him. I had no idea that anything I had written would be used by you, or any one else, in the history of a country; but the manuscript of Christian Limbo, taken from Col. Hawkins' writings, I would have been glad to have gotten hold of, as it contained much I think (if now published) that would be new to you and others, and entertaining to all who take an interest in Indian history. Besides, it contained the copies of two letters written as far back as 1735, by Sir James or Gen. Oglethorpe. They were written at different times, but both written at Frederica, on St. Simond's Island. The letters were directed to James McQueen, requesting him to use his influence with the Indians and prevent them, if possible, from taking sides with the Spaniards who were then threatening to attack the infant colony of Georgia. The letters were written in a style very different from letters written at the present day; and the bearer of those letters was a Scotchman named Malcolm McPherson. He was the natural father of Sehoya, or Schoy McPherson, and she was the mother of Davy Tate and Billy Weatherford was a sister to Alexander McGillivray. I will now tell you how you have been led into that error; I see you speak of the Wind tribe of Indians, and I also see that you give Barrent Deboys' versions of it; he never could tell the difference between clan as family and a tribe. I have before this, in one of my letters to Mr. Hooper, tried to explain this family arrangement. The Creek Indians were laid off in families or clans, as were the Scots with their Campbells, McPhersons, McGregers, and so on, with this difference: the Scotch clans had just as many privileges as their numbers and the strength of their arms would allow them. The privileges of the Indian clans were prescribed by their laws, but the Wind family or clan were always allowed more than the Bears, Panthers, Foxes and others; and any of these families in speaking of the family to which he or she belonged, claimed kin with the whole family as brother, sister, uncle, aunt, and at the same time be noways related by blood. And as to what family Tate and McGillivray's wives belonged, I do not pretend to say, though I am certain that's the way the relationship has come about. For I never heard of the mother of McGillivray being crossed upon the French until I saw it in your history. But always understood her to be a full Indian, and the mother of Tate and Weatherford to be a half-breed, and the most interesting woman in the nation of her time.

I see in your history, for the first time I ever heard of such a thing, that Alexander McGillivray was an educated man. That's new to me as it would have been to himself, could he have been shown it in his day. The letters purporting to have been written by him which appear in the History of Alabama, are well written, and show conclusively that they emanated from no ordinary man. But could the author of those letters and McGillivray to whom they are ascribed, look back, they could say that the world is yet as credulous as in their time. If there is any one living that can or could identify the hand writing of a Scotchman by the name of Alex F. Leslie, he could easily tell who wrote those letters. This man Leslie did McGillivray's writing and was worthy of (so far as intellect is concerned) the notice of his distinguished relative of our own country, General Alexander Hamilton.

Leslie was by birth a Scotchman. He came to the Island of Barbadoes when a young man; from thence to St. Augustine, Fla. He was engaged in business with Forbes, Panthon and others; spent much of his time among the Creek Indians; and was the father of the half-breed Alexander Leslie that the Fort of Talladega was called after. That was Fort Leslie and not Fort Lashly, as they have given it to you. This much, I knew the half-breed as well as any other in the Nation. The history of his father I have had from Hamby and Irish Doyle, (not Nimrod Doyle,) both well educated men, and in the service of Panthon, Forbes and Leslie for years; besides, I heard Gov. McIntosh, of Florida, many years ago, speaking of the many shrewd men that had at an early day come to Florida, say that this man Leslie was the most talented man of the whole. I knew Gov. Clark, of Ga., Gen. Adams, Col. Sam. Alexander and (not James Alexander) all Indian fighters and frontiermen -- knew McGillivray well and all spoke of him and admitted him to be a man of great natural sense, but never learned from any of them that he was an educated man.

I knew Gen. Newnan well -- served with him long in the army. He was an officer at Fort Wilkinson when the meeting you speak of took place between General Pickens and others with McGillivray, at the Rock Landing. Gen. Newnan knew both the men, and said Billy McIntosh was the greatest man of the two that is, McIntosh and McGillivray. Now, for a moment, if your history of that meeting be correct, and no doubt it is, it will prove that McGillivray was not the man of learning that you represent him to be. His quitting the Council, going off to Ocmulgee with his people, writing back that he left to get a good feeding ground for his horses -- I know every foot of ground and every branch he crossed, and through what is now Baldwin and Jones counties, was then one of the best range countries that ever existed in Georgia or Alabama. That portion of your history gives the true character of McGillivray, as it does the true character of the Indian when a talk don't suit them; break up and go off. But it was a subterfuge that so able and learned a man, so superior to those commissioners on the part of United States diplomacy, would not likely have resorted to. To detract or hide, willfully, from the world what the dead merited while living, would be unpardonable, but every thing that is said or written of those departed ones, (or even living ones,) to make them greater than they really were, that much the biographer does at his own expense. I never knew McGillivray, but I think I know his true character as well as any now living, and better than many that knew him when living, as I have mingled much with both whites and Indians that knew him well. As I once wrote to a gentleman before I ever saw your history, had Alexander McGillivray been living in the War of 1813 and '14, and could have united his people, the history of that war would have been a very different one to what it is. I know it was the opinion of Gen. Washington that McGillivray acted with duplicity towards our government, and you in your history give the reader to think that he was a treacherous man. But I differ with your history as I do with the best man that has left his name on record, as to McGillivray's true character. I know that McGillivray never liked our people or our government, but that he carried out every promise that he ever made, in good faith too, I have no doubt. I have learned this from those that knew him -- knew his feelings, and the awkward situation he was placed in, and what he had contended with. He had to deal more or less with the United States, England, and Spain, all three jealous of McGillivray, and all jealous of each other; it would have taken a man North of Mason and Dixon's line to wear a face to have suited all those that McGillivray had to deal with and make any thing of a fair show.

Another thing that satisfies me McGillivray was not the learned man, or man of letters, that you make him to be; you can find no letters from Gen. Washington to him, or from him to Gen. Washington; perhaps a letter or two to Gen. Knox, written by Leslie, with McGillivray's name attached to them, may be found, but no others. The idea of McGillivray, (with the learning you give him,) suffering himself dubbed General, in a government where the organic law of the land prohibited his being a citizen, is as absurd as any thing can be. And then trapsing the streets of cities with an American uniform on, is suited to the Indian character, but not that of a profound scholar. Besides, I am very much inclined to doubt if there is a record in existence to show or prove that he ever mastered the Latin and Greek languages, in any school either in South Carolina or Georgia, and am as much inclined to doubt their being a Masonic Lodge or Chapter that can show that he was ever a member of one or both. I was raised in Georgia, but have never read its history, nor have I ever heard before I saw it in your history, of those large confiscated estates of Lauchlan McGillivray. Though I have often heard that Malcom McPherson and George GaIpin lost much by the war and the British, but not by the Americans.

I knew Davy Tate well and spent near seven weeks with him at one time, many years ago; he was decidedly the most sensible and well informed man I have ever seen of the Indian blood, (that is the Creek;) he was not educated; a man of much truth, and like his half-brother, a man of great firmness. He has talked to me much; I never heard him say that McGillivray was a man of letters. But he has often said to me that McGillivray lived pretty much upon the property of his (Tate's) father, and that the man Daniel McDonald, that I have before spoken of who came to the country with Lauchlan McGillivray and John Tare, that after the disappearance of Lauchlan McGillivray from the country, he (Daniel McDonald) assumed the name of Daniel McGillivray, and fell heir to most of McGillivray's property that he left in the nation. This I have learned from others, as well as Davy Tate.

This man Daniel McDonald, or Daniel McGillivray, was the father of the chief known as Bit Nose Billy McGillivray. The Gen. Leclerk Milfort you frequently refer to as authority, I never heard of, though I have often heard of a little Frenchman by the name of Milfort Dusong, who had lived in the nation before I knew it; this man Milfort had an Indian wife and left one son, Alexander or Sandy Dusong. I knew him; he emigrated with the Creeks to Arkansas in '36 and '37. It is not unfrequently the case with Indians, as it is with the whites, to claim relationship with distinguished persons, particularly Virginians. I have not seen a little dark-skinned, swarthy man from Virginia, for the last thirty years, no matter what race he sprang from, but claimed kin with John Randolph, and the Powetan family.

I knew Alexander McGillivray's children well; his daughter Peggy was the wife of Charles Cornels, and died before Cornels hung himself. His daughter Lizzy lived by me for years; I purchased hers and her son's land. They were located on section 16, in township 16 and range 24; it lies in Macon county, near Tuskegee; I sold it to James Dent. I lived many years by Mrs. McGirth; she was McGillivray's last wife; spoke good English, -- from none of these did I ever learn that he was a scholar.

I could say much more upon this subject, but this is already too long. I will close this by saying to you, that as you and I both have had to rely upon the statements of others for what we write, and you much more than myself, we will remain as we always have been, friends, and let those that read what we write judge which is most likely to be right. When I have time I will write and point out many errors that you have been led into that I know of my own knowledge, and come within the knowledge of others that still live. It is our nature when we say or write a thing, to wish the world to believe us right, (and many wish it if they know they are wrong.) But there is nothing more noble and generous in a man, than when he finds he is in error to own and abandon it. And as there has been some little interest taken or felt in what I have written, if I can, I will spend a month or two in Montgomery next winter. I could tell you many things that have been forgotten, and could point out many places that would interest you and others that are living there.

Yours, &c..,

T.S.W.

WHEELING, WINN PARISH LA.

July 8, 1858.

J.J. HOOPER, Esq.:

Dear Sir: The entry of Gen. LaFayette into Alabama, was the most imposing show I witnessed while I lived in the State. In 1824, I think it was, LaFayette was looked for in Alabama. I was the first and oldest Brigadier General in Alabama, (after it became a State.) Gen. Wm. Taylor, I think, was the oldest Major General; and Israel Pickens was Governor. There may have been his equal, but there never has been his superior in that office since Alabama became a State. At the time LaFayette was expected, Gen. Taylor was absent, I think, in Mobile. The Indians were a little soured, from a treaty that had been, or was about being made with the Georgians. Gov. Pickens requested me to take an escort and conduct LaFayette through the nation. The Hon. James Abercrombie then commanded the Montgomery Troop, and Gen. Moore of Claiborne, commanded the Monroe Troop, both of whom volunteered their services. Before the escort left Alabama, (which then extended only to Line Creek,) Gen. Taylor arrived and took the command. That was before the day of platforms and conventions -- men lived on their own money. You must guess then there was some patriotic feeling along, for there were between two and three hundred persons, all bearing their own expenses. Some in going and coming had to travel four hundred miles, and none less than two hundred miles. Besides the military, there were a number of the most respectable citizens of Alabama -- among whom were Boling Hall, ex-member of Congress, ex-Gov. Murphy, John D. Bibb, John W. Freeman and Col. James Johnston, one of the best men that ever lived or died. If there are any such men these days, I have not had the pleasure of their acquaintance. Our trip to the Chattahoochee was pleasant indeed. We made our headquarters three miles from Fort Mitchell, on big Uchee Creek, at Haynes Crabtree's. Had that been a war, and if it had continued till the present day, all of that crowd that's now living would be soldiers. After some three or four day's stay at Crabtree's, we learned that Gen. LaFayette had passed White Water, and we knew at what time he would reach the river. The Indians seemed to take as much interest in the matter as the whites. All hands mustered on the west or Alabama side, where we could see the Georgia escort approach the east bank of the Chattahoochee, with their charge. On the east bank, Gen. LaFayette was met by Chilly McIntosh, son of the Indian Gen. McIntosh, with fifty Indian warriors, who were stripped naked and finely painted. They had a sulky prepared with drag-ropes, such as are commonly used in drawing cannon. The General was turned over by the Georgians to the Indians. That was the greatest show I ever saw at the crossing of any river. It beat all of Gen. Jessup's wind bridges across the Tallapoosa, and other places where there was never much more water than would swim a dog, only at a high rise. As the ferry-boat reached the Alabama side, the Indians, in two lines, seized the ropes, and the General seated in the sulky, was drawn to the top of the bank, some eighty yards, where stood the Alabama Delegation. At a proper distance from the Alabama Delegation, the Indians opened their lines, and the sulky halted.

Everything, from the time the General entered the ferry, till this time, had been conducted in the most profound silence. As the sulky halted, the Indians gave three loud whoops. The General then alighted, took off his hat, and was conducted by Chilly McIntosh, a few steps, to where stood Mr. Hall, with head uncovered, white with the frosts of age. I knew Mr. Hall from my boyhood. He always showed well in company; but never did I see him look so finely as on that occasion -- he looked like himself -- what he really was -- an American gentleman. As McIntosh approached Mr. Hall, he said, "Gen. LaFayette, the American friend" -- "Mr. Hall, of Alabama," pointing to each as he called his name. Mr. Hall, in a very impressive manner, welcomed LaFayette to the shores of Alabama, and introduced him to the other gentlemen. Dandridge Bibb then addressed the General at some length. I heard a number of persons address LaFayette on his route through Alabama -- none surpassed Dandridge Bibb, and none equalled him, unless it was Hitchcock and Dr. Hustis at Cahaba. I have always been looked upon as rather dry-faced; but gazing on the face of the most distinguished patriot that it had ever fallen to my lot to look upon, and the feeling remarks of Mr. Bibb on that occasion, caused me, as it did most others that were present, to shed tears like so many children.

After the address at the river, all marched to Fort Mitchell hill, where there was an immense crowd of Indians, the Little Prince at their head. He addressed the "French Captain," through Hamley, in true Indian style. I could understand much of his speech, but cannot begin to give it as Hamley could. The Prince said that he had often heard of the French Captain, "but now I see him, I take him by the hand, I know from what I see, he is the true one I have heard spoken of; I am not deceived -- too many men have come a long way to meet him. He is bound to be the very man the Americans were looking for." The Prince, after satisfying the General that he (the Prince) was satisfied that the General was the true man spoken of and looked for, then went on to say, that he had once warred against the Americans, and that the French Captain had warred for them, and of course they had once been enemies, but were now friends; that he (the Prince) was getting old, which his withered limbs would show -- making bare his arms at the same time -- that he could not live long; but he was glad to say, that his people and the whites were at peace and he hoped they would continue so.

But he had raised a set of young warriors, that he thought would prove worthy of their sires, if there should ever be a call to show themselves men; and that as a ball play was, outside of war, the most manly exercise that the Red Man could perform, he would, for the gratification of the General and his friends, make his young men play a game. The old man then turned to his people, and said to them -- they were in the presence of a great man and warrior; he had commanded armies on both sides of the Big Water; that he had seen many nations of people; that he had visited Six Nations, in Red Jacket's time, (the General told the Indians he had visited the Six Nations,) that every man must do his best -- show himself a man, and should one get hurt he must retire without complaining, and by no means show anything like ill humor. The speech ended, about two hundred stripped to the buff, paired themselves off and went at it. It was a ball play sure enough, and I would travel farther to see such a show than I would to see any other performed by man, and willingly pay high for it, at that. The play ended, and all hands went out to head quarters at Big Uchee, where we were kindly treated by our old friend Haynes Crabtree.

There was a man, then living among the Indians, Capt. Tom Anthony, who long since found a last resting place in the wilds of Arkansas. He was a man of fine sense and great humor. There was also an Indian known as Whiskey John. John was the greatest drunkard I ever saw; he would drink a quart of strong whiskey without taking the vessel that contained it from his lips, (this is Alabama history, and there are plenty now living that have seen him do it.) To see John drink was enough to have made the fabled Bacchus look out for a vacancy that frequently occurs among the Sons of Temperance. Capt. Anthony told John that all hands had addressed the French Chief, and that it was his duty to say something to him on behalf of those that loved whiskey. John could speak considerable English in a broken manner. It so happened that the General and others were walking across the Uchee Bridge when John met them. John made a low bow, as he had seen others do. The General immediately pulled off his hat, thinking he had met with another Chief. John straightening himself up to his full height, (and he was not very low,) commenced his speech in the manner that I will try to give it to you. "My friend, you French Chief! me Whiskey John," (calling over the names of several white persons and Indians;) "Col. Hawkins, Col. Crowell, Tom Crowell, Henry Crowell, Billy McIntosh, Big Warrior Indian, heap my friends, give me whiskey, drink, am good. White man my very good friend me, white man make whiskey, drink him heap, very good, I drink whiskey. You French Chief. Tom Anthony say me big Whiskey Chief. You me give one bottle full. I drink him good." The General informed John that he did not drink whiskey, but would have his bottle filled. John remarked "Tom Anthony you very good man, me you give bottle full. You no drink, me drink him all, chaw tobacco little bit, give me some you." Now the above is an Indian speech, and no doubt will appear silly to some who have not been accustomed to those people. Should it, however, fall under the eye of those who were along at the time, they will recognize John's speech, and call to mind our old friends, Capt. Anthony and Col. James Johnson, who was the life of our crowd.

We remained that night at Crabtree's and the next day reached Fort Bainbridge, where an Indian countryman lived, by the name of Kendall Lewis, as perfect a gentleman, in principle, as ever lived in or out of the nation, and had plenty, and it in fine style. The next day we started for Line Creek.

It fell to my lot to point out many Indians, as well as places, for we were stopped at almost every settlement to shake hands, and hear Indian speeches. Among many things and places that were pointed out to the General, was the place where Lot was killed, the old "Lettered Beech," at Persimmon swamp, the old Council Oak, Floyd's battle ground, the grave of James McGirth, the place where McGirth made peach brandy, many years before, and many other things. That night we reached Walter B. Lucas'. Every thing was "done up" better than it will ever be again; one thing only was lacking -- time -- we could not stay long enough. The next morning we started for Montgomery. Such a cavalcade never traveled that road before or since.

On Goat Hill, and near where Capt. John Carr fell in the well, stood Gov. Pickens, and the largest crowd I ever saw in Montgomery. Some hundred yards east of the Hill, was sand flat, where Gen. LaFayette and his attendants quit carriages and horses, formed a line and marched to the top of the hill. As we started, the band struck up the old Scottish air, "Hail to the Chief." As we approached the Governor, Mr. Hill introduced the General to him. The Governor tried to welcome him, but like the best man the books give account of, when it was announced that he was commander of the whole American forces, he was scarcely able to utter a word. So it was with Gov. Pickens. As I remarked before, Gov. P. had no superior in the State, but on that occasion he could not even make a speech. But that did not prevent Gen. LaFayette from discovering that he was a great man; it only goes to prove what is often said, that many who feel most can say least, and many who have no feeling say too much.

The people of Montgomery did their duty. Col. Arthur Hayne, who was a distinguished officer in the army in the war of 1813, and who was the politest gentleman I ever saw, was the principal manager. If the Earl of Chesterfield had happened there he would have felt as I did the first time I saw a fine carpet on a floor and was asked to walk in; I declined, saying, "I reckon I have got in the wrong place." Several steamboats were in waiting at the wharf, and the next morning all hands went aboard and started for Cahaba, at that time the Seat of Government.

At Cahaba, as in Montgomery, everything was "done up" as it should be. There the General met with Major Porter, whom he had known in the Revolution. There I shed more tears. The General examined the old ditch that had been cut by his countrymen many years before. An old cannon was shown him also, which was left by the French Army, when they quit the country. He remarked that those relics caused sad feelings, that there was still a pleasure, a kind of melancholy pleasure, which he could not describe.

About this time a gentleman was wounded from the firing a cannon on a trading boat. The General visited the wounded man, and took much interest in his welfare; he was told that the gentleman had many friends who would care for him; I told him that he was an old camp mate of mine; he replied, "one good soldier will always take care of another." I remained in Cahaba until the General embarked on board, and on bidding him farewell, said, "I have done what little I could to make your journey to this place as pleasant as possible, and I now have to leave you." He took me by the hand and said, "I thank you kindly; may God bless and prosper the young and thriving State you live in; I shall always cherish the kindest feelings for you and the other gentlemen that escorted me through the nation, as well as all others who have taken so much trouble to make me welcome among you." The last words I heard him utter were, "Farewell, my friend! Take care of that wounded man."

Yours,

T.S.W.

WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,

August 12th, 1858.

COL. ALBERT J. PICKETT.

Dear Sir: -- In my letter to you of the 21st June last, which was published in the Montgomery Mail of the 23d July, I see a mistake that I will here correct. In speaking of Davy Tate, it is said he was not an educated man. Mr. Tate was an educated man; and, if I am not mistaken, he informed me that he was educated near Abernethy, in Scotland, and was about ten years younger than Alexander McGillivray. As I may at some time after this, speak more of Mr. Tate and his brother, Weatherford, I will leave them here, and give you some of my reasons for having said to Mr. Hooper, in a letter some time back, that I was more inclined to credit the Indian tradition of DeSoto's expedition through the country, than those Spanish and Portuguese authors. Before I commence with the Indian account of DeSoto's travels through Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Louisiana, I will point out a few things, among the many, that those Spanish and Portuguese gentry have grossly erred in. They may appear to you and others as very trivial objections. But they are errors; and if a man willfully misrepresents one thing, he will another; and if he does it ignorantly once, he is liable to do it again. And as I alluded to the killing of a panther, the raising of hogs on the road, the building of brigantines, I will here speak more of these things.

The history says that the Spanish captive, Jean Ortez, one night, while guarding the Indian tombs or the dead Indians, killed a panther trying to carry off a dead child. This story does not only prove that they wrote falsely, but that they were poor zoologists; for the panther is an animal that never preys upon putrid flesh. This is a fact known to every hunter, from the days of the grand-son of Ham, down to the Englishman, Boone, the early hunter of Kentucky; Mike Shuck, of Missouri; Albert Pike and Kit Carson, of the plains of New Mexico; Winthrop Colbreath, of the Caddo Mountains of Arkansas: to John L. Winston, of Texas. Besides, the Indians that I have been acquainted with, all inhabited countries that were infested with wolves and other animals which prey upon their dead, if left exposed, and always guarded against such. And putting their dead in boxes, leaving them above the earth, is a thing I never heard of before. All that is necessary to refute the hog story, for sensible men -- who know anything of hog-raising, the time they go with their young, the time it requires for them to be fit for use, and this to be done on a farm where every necessary preparation is made for raising them -- is to read the narrative, notice the country they traveled through, the many rivers they had to cross -- and the Mississippi among them -- then the quantity of those animals left behind for the successor of DeSoto, and his men to kill and pack away, (and if packed at all, must have been without salt;) all I ask is, to examine the account given by those men, and then say if there is the slightest probability of its being true. Now, the building of seven brigantines, in the short space of seven months, fitting them out, rigging them up with sails made of Indian mantles, with the means they had for carrying on such work -- this, if not a palpable fiction, is a very improbable story, particularly when we take into consideration that these vessels were made sea-worthy, and had to descend the Mississippi river from some point in Arkansas to the Gulf, and then across to some point on the coast of Mexico. It is a tale that will do to tell to marines, but old sailors, old seamen and ship carpenters, will never believe it to be true. The stories of the fine specimens of pearls and martin skins being found in the country, are equally fabulous with the others. Pearls are not to be found at the present day, nor ever have been since I knew or heard of the country; and the martin is an animal that never inhabited the country. And there is very little probability of there being any trade at that day so advantageous, among the Southern Indians, as would induce the Northern Indians (in whose country a few martins might have been found) to trade at such a great distance from home, on martin skins alone -- for almost all the other animals that Indians hunted for their flesh and skins, were in as great, if not greater, abundance in the south and southwest, than in any other portion of what is now the United States. If you will notice in many of the minor occurrences of the expedition, they give the day and date, month and year; but no date is given when the hero of the expedition dies. Now if those that have made mention of DeSoto's dying at some point in Arkansas had known the time he did die, they would in all probability have given us the precise time, as well as the place of his decease. From the Indian tradition and from what those men wrote who returned to Europe, I think it more than probable they never knew what became of DeSoto and the few men that were with him when he did die. Fable is fable, and history is history and those men thought it best to mix them as they were writing for a people not unlike many of the present day -- who never look into books unless it is for pictures and the marvelous yarns it contains. I will now give you the Indian account of the expedition.

DeSoto commenced his march from Tampa Bay; and the first winter camped on the Apalachicola river, near Ocheese. Which place has been known in my time as Spanny-Wakee -- that is the Spanish camp, or the Spaniards lay there. Their object was gold. They there divided their force into several commands under various individuals, marching in a northerly direction, through portions of Georgia and Alabama. The Indians say that none of DeSoto's men ever crossed to the east of the Oconee river, unless it was some of its head branches. A portion of the Spaniards made their way up the Chattahoochee to Owe-Cowka, or the shoals of Columbus; there they called a halt, until they could correspond with the others that had gone farther east and north. Tallapoosa was then known as the river of towns; Tuckabatchee being the most important town in the nation, except Cusseta, was the point for the different commands to meet at. A portion of them had traveled the route through northern Georgia, as you describe, and then a south-westerly course, through a portion of Alabama, reaching the Tallassees who then occupied a portion of what is now Talladega. Their principal town was on a creek that bears their name to this day, by the Indians. In this time, the Spaniards had become obnoxious to the Indians; particularly those that had been quartered about where Columbus now is. This party left the Chattahoochee for Tuckabatchee and traveled pretty much the route that now leads from Columbus to Pole Cat Springs; their trail or trace passed through Tuskegee, and has been known as DeSoto's trace ever since. I knew the country long before, and many that are now living knew it, as DeSoto's trace. The party that took this route missed their way, and instead of going to Tuckabatchee they reached the Tallapoosa lower down, where the Indians disputed their passage, and a fight ensued. The place they fought at took its name from the fight, Thlea Walla or Rolling Bullet; it is sometimes called Cuwally, and at others Hothleawally, by many, but Thlea Walla is the proper name. And it was at this place, no doubt, that that greatly exaggerated Maubile fight took place; and I will give you many good reasons for believing it. In the first place, the Indians never gave an account of any other fight with Tustanugga Hatke or White Warrior, as they called DeSoto. Another reason is that the Tallassees or Tallaces, at that time evidently occupied a portion of Talladega; and from Talladega down to Thleawalla about suits the distance that they would have had to travel. It was in Talladega that the Tallassees lived; and it must have been at that point where the invitation from Tuscaloosa was received by DeSoto. I have remarked somewhere long before this that the Tuckabatchy town, on Tallapoosa, was settled at least two centuries before the TaIIasees settled the town that they left in 1836. I now say to you, without the fear of being contradicted by any one that knows, that the Tallasses never settled on the Tallapoosa river before 1756; they were moved to that place by James McQueen -- McQueen settling himself at the same time near where Walter Lucas once had a stand, at the crossing of Line Creek; and it was at that place on Line Creek where the celebrated negro interpreter, John McQueen, was born. The Tallasses quit their old settlements in the Talladega country, and it was immediately occupied by a band of Netches, under the control of a chief called Chenubby, and a Hollander by the name of Moniac. This man was the father of Sam Moniac, whom you in your History call McNae, thinking him to be of Scotch race. The chief Chennubby lived to be a very old man. I knew him as well as I did any Indian in the Nation. He was with Gen. Jackson in the Creek War; he was with me in Florida in 1818. I have often by a camp fire sat and listened to him tell over his troubles among the French, on the Mississippi, and how the French had drove them from their old homes; and how he had helped to drive the French from their trading house at the forks of Coosa and Tallapoosa. It was his son, young Chennubby or Sarlotta Fixico, who left Fort Leslie and went to Gen. Jackson's camp. The story of the hog-skin over the Indian, is all a hoax.

But to return to the Spaniards. You see they speak of Coosa and Tallase; those names are easy to pronounce; and they no doubt visited those towns; but you never hear Tuckabatchy named, for they were not at the place. It was at Thlea Walla that the Indians picked up those copper and brass plates that you have heard spoken of. The Indians say that after DeSoto failed to find gold in the mountain countries of Georgia and Alabama, he steered his course a little north of west for the Mississippi; that his people divided; some turned to the seaboard and were picked up by the coasting vessels; some starved, and many died with disease; that DeSoto himself, with a small portion of his men, some Creeks, some Maubile or Movilla Indians, some Choctaws and others, tried to reach Mexico. He promised the Indians that accompanied him that he could make a peace with them and Cortez, or those Spaniards that had driven them from their old homes. And not far from a small lake and west of Red River, he built a fort to protect himself from the Netches, Natchitoches and Nacogdaches Indians; that he there died. This is the account given by all the Indians, and those that were acquainted with their traditions relative to the march of DeSoto through the country. The fort is yet very visible, and is known as the Azadyze; it is in Natchitoches Parish, in this State. This was Col. Silas Dinsmore's account, obtained from the Choctaws and Chicasaws, who was their agent at an early day, and a man of great intelligence. It was also the account that old Mr. Peechland gave, who lived among them many years. The Creek Indians say they once had a giant chief called Tustanugga Lusta or Black Warrior. But Tusca Loosa is a mixed word of Creek and Choctaw. Tusca is Creek, and signifies a warrior -- Loosa is Choctaw, and-signifies black. But whether it was this man that fought DeSoto, I never heard; but have always understood that at Thlea Walla was the place they fought. The old French and Spanish settlers on Red River said that the descendants of DeSoto's men were among the natives when those nations (that is France and Spain) first commenced settling Louisiana. All this has satisfied me that the Indians were more reliable in their traditions of that expedition than men that have written so much, and in so few instances have given the true Indian character as well as their modes of living. And why I am better satisfied that the Maubile fight took its origin from the Thlea Walla fight, is that there were but few remains of Indian settlements on the Alabama river below the mouth of Cahawba, and they were very small. The Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee and their waters were very thickly settled with Indians at an early day. The Maubile or Movillas were once a western people, but visited and settled Alabama before the Creeks did. There is yet a language the Texas Indians call the Mobilian tongue, that has been the trading language of almost all the tribes that have inhabited the country. I know white men