Theodore Roosevelt - The Winning of the West, Volume 1

This is one of the main reasons why the estimates of their numbers vary so hopelessly. As a specimen case, among many others, compare the estimate of Professor Benj. Smith Barton ("Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America," Phila., 1798) with the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1827. Barton estimated that in 1793 the Appalachian nations numbered in all 13,000 warriors; considering these as one fifth of the total population, makes it 65,000. In 1837 the Commissioner reports their numbers at 65,304—almost exactly the same. Probably both statements are nearly correct, the natural rate of increase having just about offset the loss in consequence of a partial change of home, and of Jackson's slaughtering wars against the Creeks and Seminoles. But where they agree in the total, they vary hopelessly in the details. By Barton's estimate, the Cherokees numbered but 7,500, the Chocktaws 30,000; by the Commissioner's census the Cherokees numbered 21,911, the Choctaws 15,000. It is of course out of the question to believe that while in 44 years the Cherokees had increased threefold, the Choctaws had diminished one half. The terms themselves must have altered their significance or else there was extensive inter-tribal migration. Similarly, according to the reports, the Creeks had increased by 4,000—the Seminoles and Choctaws had diminished by 3,000.

"Am. Archives," 4th Series, III., 790. Drayton's account, Sept. 23, '75. This was a carefully taken census, made by the Indian traders. Apart from the outside communities, such as the Chickamaugas at a later date, there were:

737 gun-men in the 10 overhill towns 908 " " 23 middle " 356 " " 9 lower "

a total of 2,021 warriors. The outlying towns, who had cast off their allegiance for the time being, would increase the amount by three or four hundred more.

"History of the American Indians, Particularly Those Nations Adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia." By James Adair (an Indian trader and resident in the country for forty years), London, 1775. A very valuable book, but a good deal marred by the author's irrepressible desire to twist every Indian utterance, habit, and ceremony into a proof that they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes. He gives the number of Cherokee warriors at 2,300.

Hawkins, Pickens, Martin, and McIntosh, in their letter, give them 800 warriors: most other estimates make the number smaller.

Almost all the early writers make them more numerous. Adair gives them 4,500 warriors, Hawkins 6,000. But much less seems to have been known about them than about the Creeks, Cherokees, and Chickasaws; and most early estimates of Indians were largest when made of the least-known tribes. Adair's statement is probably the most trustworthy. The first accurate census showed the Creeks to be more numerous.

Hawkins, Pickens, etc., make them "at least" 27,000 in 1789, the Indian report for 1837 make them 26,844. During the half century they had suffered from devastating wars and forced removals, and had probably slightly decreased in number. In Adair's time their population was increasing.

"Am. Archives," 5th Series, I., 95. Letter of Charles Lee.

Adair, 227. Bartram, 390.

Bartram, 365.

Adair, Bartram.

Bartram.

"A Sketch of the Creek Country," Benjamin Hawkins. In Coll. Ga. Hist. Soc. Written in 1798, but not published till fifty years afterwards.

Do , p. 33.

The use of the word "beloved" by the Creeks was quite peculiar. It is evidently correctly translated, for Milfort likewise gives it as "bien aimé." It was the title used for any thing held in especial regard, whether for economic or supernatural reasons; and sometimes it was used as western tribes use the word "medicine" at the present day. The old chiefs and conjurers were called the "beloved old men"; what in the west we would now call the "medicine squaws," were named "the beloved old women." It was often conferred upon the chief dignitaries of the whites in writing to them.

Hawkins, 37.

Bartram, 386. The Uchee town contained at least 1,500 people.

Do .

Hawkins, 30.

Hawkins 39; Adair, 408.

Bartram, 184.

Milfort, 212.

Hawkins, 67. Milfort, 203. Bartram, 386. Adair, 418.

Hawkins and Adair, passim .

Do . Also vide Bartram.

Hawkins, 29, 70. Adair, 428.

"History of Alabama," by Albert James Pickett, Charleston, 1851, II., 30. A valuable work.

Milfort, 23, 326. Milfort's book is very interesting, but as the man himself was evidently a hopeless liar and braggart, it can only be trusted where it was not for his interest to tell a falsehood. His book was written after McGillivray's death, the object being to claim for himself the glory belonging to the half-breed chief. He insisted that he was the war-chief, the arm, and McGillivray merely the head, and boasts of his numerous successful war enterprises. But the fact is, that during this whole time the Creeks performed no important stroke in war; the successful resistance to American encroachments was due to the diplomacy of the son of Sehoy. Moreover, Milfort's accounts of his own war deeds are mainly sheer romancing. He appears simply to have been one of a score of war chiefs, and there were certainly a dozen other Creek chiefs, both half-breeds and natives, who were far more formidable to the frontier than he was; all their names were dreaded by the settlers, but his was hardly known.

Adair, 279.

See papers by Stephen D. Peet, on the northwestern tribes, read before the state Archaeological Society of Ohio, 1878.

Barton, xxv.

General W. H. Harrison, "Aborigines of the Ohio Valley." Old "Tippecanoe" was the best possible authority for their courage.

"Remarkable Occurrences in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith," etc., written by himself, Lexington, Ky., 1799. Smith is our best contemporary authority on Indian warfare; he lived with them for several years, and fought them in many campaigns. Besides several editions of the above, he also published in 1812, at Paris, Ky., a "Treatise" on Indian warfare, which holds much the same matter.

See Parkman's "Oregon Trail." In 1884 I myself met two Delawares hunting alone, just north of the Black Hills. They were returning from a trip to the Rocky Mountains. I could not but admire their strong, manly forms, and the disdainful resolution with which they had hunted and travelled for so many hundred miles, in defiance of the white frontiersmen and of the wild native tribes as well. I think they were in more danger from the latter than the former, but they seemed perfectly confident of their ability to hold their own against both.