they never exalted their heroes or prophets above the sphere of humanity. They also adored an invisible, great Master of life, in different forms, which they called Manitou, and made it a sort of tutelar deity. They had vague ideas of the doctrine of atonement for sins, and made propitiatory sacrifices with great solemnity. All of them had dim traditions of the creation, and of a great deluge which covered the earth. Each nation, as we have observed, had crude notions, drawn from tradition, of their own distinct origin, and all agreed that their ancestors came from the North.

It can hardly be said that the Indians had any true government. It was a mixture of the patriarchal and despotic. Public opinion and common usage were the only laws of the Indian.' All political power was vested in a sachem or chief, who was sometimes an hereditary monarch, but frequently owed his elevation to his own merits as a warrior or orator. While in power, he was absolute in the execution of enterprises, if the tribe confided in his wisdom. Public opinion, alone, sustained him. It elevated him, and it might depose him. The office of chief was often hereditary, and its duties were sometimes exercised even by women. Unlike the system of lineal descent which prevails in the Old World, the heir to the Indian throne of power was not the chief's own son, but the son of his sister. This usage was found to be universal throughout the continent. Yet the accident of birth was of little moment. If the recipient of the honor was not worthy of it, the title might remain, but the influence passed into other hands. This rule might be followed, with benefit, by civilized communities. Every measure of importance was matured in council, which was composed of the elders, with the sachem as umpire. His decision was final, and wherever he led, the whole tribe followed. The utmost decorum prevailed in the public assemblies, and a speaker was always listened to with respectful silence.

We have thus briefly sketched the general character of the inhabitants of the territory of the United States, when discovered by Europeans. Although inferior in intellectual cultivation and approaches to the arts of civilization, to the native inhabitants of Mexico and South America, and to a race which evidently occupied the continent before them, they possessed greater personal manliness and vigor than the more southern ones discovered by the Spaniards. They were almost all wanderers, and roamed over the vast solitudes of a fertile continent, free as the air, and unmindful of the wealth in the soil under their feet. The great garden of the western world needed tillers, and white men came. They have thoroughly changed the condition of the land and the people. The light of civilization has revealed, and industry has developed, vast treasures in the soil, while before its radiance the Aboriginals are rapidly melting like snow in the sunbeams. A few generations will pass, and no representative of the North American Indian will remain upon the earth.

1 It was said of McGillivray, the half-breed emperor of the Creeks, who died in 1793, that, notwithstanding he called himself "King of kings," and was idolized by his people, "he could neither restrain the meanest fellow of his nation from the commission of a crime, nor punish him after he had committed it. He might persuade, or advise—all the good an Indian king or chief can do.” 2 Page 43.

CHAPTER II.

THE ALGONQUINS.

THE first tribes of Indians, discovered by the French in Canada,' were inhabitants of the vicinity of Quebec, and the adventurers called them Montagners, or Mountain Indians, from a range of high hills westward of that city. Ascending the St. Lawrence, they found a numerous tribe on the Ottawa River, who spoke an entirely different dialect, if not a distinct language. These they called ALGONQUINS, and this name was afterward applied to that great collection of tribes north and south of Lakes Erie and Ontario, who spoke dialects of the same language. They inhabited the territory now included in all of Canada, New England, a part of New York and Pennsylvania, the States of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia, eastern North Carolina above Cape Fear, a large portion of Kentucky and Tennessee, and all north and west of these States, eastward of the Mississippi.

The ALGONQUIN nation was composed of several powerful tribes, the most important of which were the Knisteneaux and Athapascas, in the far north, the Ottawas, Chippewas, Sacs and Foxes, Menomonees, Miamies, Piankeshaws, Pottowatomies, Kickapoos, Illinois, Shawnees, Powhatans, Corees, Nanticokes, Lenni-Lenapes, or Delawares, Mohegans, the New England Indians, and the Abenakes. There were smaller, independent tribes, the principal of which were the Susquehannocks, on the Susquehanna in Pennsylvania; the Mannahoacks, in the hill country between the York and Potomac Rivers, and the Monocans, on the head waters of the James River in Virginia. All of these tribes were divided into cantons or clans, sometimes so small as to afford only a war party of forty bowmen.

The KNISTENEAUX yet [1856] inhabit a domain extending across the continent from Labrador to the Rocky Mountains, and are the hereditary encmies of the ESQUIMAUX, their neighbors of the Polar Circle. The Athapascas inhabit a belt of country from Churchill's River and Hudson's Bay to within a hundred miles of the Pacific coast, and combine a large number of tribes who speak a similar language. They, too, are the enemies of the Esquimaux. The extensive domain occupied by these tribes and the Esquimaux, is claimed by the British, and is under the control of the Hudson's Bay Company. The orginal land of the OTTAWAS was on the west side of Lake Huron, but they were seated upon the river in Canada bearing their name, when the French discovered them. They claimed sovereignty over that region, and exacted tribute from those who passed to or from the domain of the Hurons. They assisted

1 Page 48.

2 Between the Ottawas and Hurons, was a tribe called Mississaguies, who appear to have left the ALGONQUINS, and joined the FIVE NATIONS, South of Lake Ontario. Remnants of this tribe are

still found in Canada.

the latter in a war with the FIVE NATIONS' in 1650, and suffered much. The Hurons were almost destroyed, and the OTTAWAS were much reduced in numbers. Some of them, with the Huron remnant, joined the Chippewas, and, finally, the whole tribe returned to their ancient seat [1680] in the northern part of the Michigan peninsula. Under their great chief, Pontiac, they were confederated with several other ALGONQUIN tribes of the north-west, in an attempt to exterminate the white people, in 1763. Within a fortnight, in the summer of that year, they took possession of all the English garrisons and trading posts in the West, except Detroit, Niagara,3 and Fort Pitt. Peace was restored in 1764-5, the confederation was dissolved, and Pontiac took up his abode with the Illinois, where he was murdered. "This murder," says Nicollet, "which roused the vengeance of all the Indian tribes friendly to Pontiac, brought about the successive wars, and almost extermination of the Illinois nation." His broken nation sought refuge with the French, and their descendants may yet [1856] be found in Canada.

Those two once powerful tribes, the CHIPPEWAS and POTTAWATOMIES, were closely allied by language and friendship. The former were on the southern shores of Lake Superior; the latter occupied the islands and main land on the western shores of Green Bay, when first discovered by the French in 1761. They afterward seated themselves on the southern shore of Lake Michigan [1701], where they remained until removed, by treaty, to lands upon the Little Osage River, westward of Missouri. They are now [1856] the most numerous of all the remnants of the ALGONQUIN tribes. The Chippewas and the Sioux, west of the Mississippi, are their deadly enemies.

6

The Sacs and Foxes are really one tribe. They were first discovered by the French at the southern extremity of Green Bay, in 1680. In 1712 the French garrison of twenty men at Detroit, was attacked by the Foxes. The French repulsed them, with the aid of the Ottawas, and almost destroyed the assailants. They joined the Kickapoos in 1722, in driving the Illinois from their lands on the river of that name. The Illinois took refuge with the French, and the Kickapoos remained on their lands until 1819, when they went to the west bank of the Missouri in the vicinity of Fort Leavenworth. The Sacs and Foxes sold their lands to the United States in 1830. Black Hawk, a Sac chief, who, with his people, joined the English in our second war with Great Britain, demurred, and commenced hostilities in 1832. The Indians were defeated, and Black Hawk,' with many of his warriors, were made prisoners. Among the very few Indian tribes who have remained upon their ancient

7

2

Page 205.

8

3 Page 200.

BLACK HAWK.

1 Chapter III., p 23. 4 Page 198. 5 He was buried on the site of the city of St. Louis, in Missouri. "Neither mound nor tablet," says Parkman, "marked the burial-place of Pontiac. For a mausoleum, a city has risen above the forest hero, and the race whom he hated with such burning rancor, trample with unceasing footsteps over his forgotten grave."

6 Page 180.

7 Page 409.

8 Page 463.

9 This picture is from a plaster-cast of the face of Black Hawk, taken when he was a prisoner in New York, in 1832. See page 463.

territory, during all the vicissitudes of their race, are the MENOMONEES, who were discovered by the French, upon the shores of Green Bay, in 1699. They yet [1856] occupy a portion of their ancient territory, while their southern neighbors and friends, the Winnebagoes, have gone westward of the Mississippi.'

The MIAMIES and PIANKESHAWS inhabited that portion of Ohio lying between the Maumee River of Lake Erie, and the ridge which separates the head waters of the Wabash from the Kaskaskias. They were called Twightwees by the FIVE NATIONS, and English. Of all the Western tribes, these have ever been the most active enemies of the United States. They have ceded their lands, and are now [1856] far beyond the Mississippi.

The ILLINOIS formed a numerous tribe, twelve thousand strong, when discovered by the French. They were seated upon the Illinois River, and consisted of a confederation of five families, namely, Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaronas, Michigamias, and Peorias. Weakened by internal feuds, the confederacy was reduced to a handful, by their hostile neighbors. They ceded their lands in 1818, when they numbered only three hundred souls. A yet smaller remnant are now [1856] upon lands west of the Mississippi. It can not properly be said that they have a tribal existence. They are among the many extinct communities of our continent.

The once powerful SHAWNEES Occupied a vast region west of the Alleghanies,3 and their great council-house was in the basin of the Cumberland River. At about the time when the English first landed at Jamestown [1607], they were driven from their country by more southern tribes. Some crossed the Ohio, and settled on the Sciota, near the present Chilicothe; others wandered eastward into Pennsylvania. The Ohio division joined the Eries and Andastes against the FIVE NATIONS in 1672. Suffering defeat, the Shawnees fled to the country of the Catawbas, but were soon driven out, and found shelter with the Creeks. They finally returned to Ohio, and being joined by their Pennsylvania brethren, they formed an alliance with the French against the English, and were among the most active allies with the former, during the long contest known in America as the French and Indian War. They continued hostilities, in connection with the Delawares, even after the conquest of the Canadas by the English. They were subdued by Boquet in 1763,7 and again by Virginians, at Point Pleasant, at the mouth of the Great Kenawha, in 1774.3 They aided the British during the Revolution, and continued to annoy the Americans until 1795, when permanent peace was established. They were the enemies of the Americans during their second war with Great Britain, a part of them fighting with the renowned Tecumseh. Now [1856] they are but

1 The Winnebagoes are the most dissolute of all the Indian remnants. In August, 1853, a treaty was made with them to occupy the beautiful country above St. Paul, westward of the Mississippi, between the Crow and Clear Water Rivers.

2 Page 408.

The Alleghany or Appalachian Mountains extend from the Catskills, in the State of New York, in a south-west direction, to Georgia and Alabama, and have been called "the backbone of the country." Some geographers extend them to the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

4 Page 64.

*Note 7, page 205.

a miserable remnant, and occupy lands south of the Kansas River. The road from Fort Independence' to Santa Fé passes through their territory.

The POWHATANS constituted a confederacy of more than twenty tribes, including the Accohannocks and Accomacs, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Powhatan (the father of Pocahontas3), was the chief sachem or emperor of the confederacy, when the English first appeared upon the James River, in 1607. He had arisen, by the force of his own genius, from the position of a petty chief to that of supreme ruler of a great confederacy. He governed despotically, for no man in his nation could approach him in genuine ability as a leader and counselor. His court exhibited much barbaric state. Through fear of the English, and a selfish policy, he and his people remained nominally friendly to the white intruders during his lifetime, but after his death, they made two attempts [1622, 1644] to exterminate the English. The Powhatans were subjugated in 1644, and from that time they gradually diminished in numbers and importance. Of all that great confederacy in Lower Virginia, it is believed that not one representative on earth remains, or that one tongue speaks their dialect.

1

On the Atlantic coast, south of the Powhatans, were the Corees, Cheraws, and other small tribes, occupying the land once inhabited by the powerful Hatteras Indians. They were allies of the Tuscaroras in 1711, in an attack upon the English, suffered defeat, and have now disappeared from the earth. Their dialect also is forgotten.

6

Upon the great peninsula between the Chesapeake and Delaware Bays, were the NANTICOKES. They were early made vassals, and finally allies, on compulsion, of the FIVE NATIONS. They left their ancient domain in 1710, occupied lands upon the Susquehanna, in Pennsylvania, until the Revolutionary War commenced, when they crossed the Alleghanics, and joined the British in the west. They are now [1856] scattered among many tribes.

The Original People, as the LENNI-LENAPES (who are frequently called Del

'United States fort on the Missouri. Santa Fé is in New Mexico, 765 miles south-west of Fort Independence.

2 One of the most eminent of the Shawnee chiefs, was Cornstalk, who was generally friendly to the Americans, and was always ready to assist in negotiating an honorable peace between them and his own people. But he cordially united with Logan, the Mingo chief, against the white people in 1774; and during the same battle at Point Pleasant, his voice, stentorian in volume, was frequently heard, calling to his men, "Be strong! be strong!" He made his warriors fight without wavering, and actually sunk his tomahawk deep into the head of one who endeavored to escape. He was murdered by some exasperated soldiers at Point Pleasant. When he perceived their intent, he calmly said to his son, who had just joined him, "My son, the Great Spirit has seen fit that we should die together, and has sent you hither for that purpose. It is His will; let us submit." Turning to the soldiers, he received the fatal bullets, and his son, who was sitting near him, was shot at the same time. The celebrated Tecumseh-meaning a tiger crouching for his prey-who endeavored to confederate all the Western tribes in opposition to the white people, was also a Shawnee chief. See page 408.

5 This tribe numbered about three thousand warriors when Raleigh's expedition landed on Roanoke Island in 1584; when the English made permanent settlements in that vicinity, eighty years later, they were reduced to about fifteen bowmen. 6 Page 168.

7 This name has been applied to the whole ALGONQUIN nation. The Lenni-Lenapes claimed to have come from beyond the Mississippi, conquering a more civilized people on the way, who inhabited the great valleys beyond the Alleghany Mountains.