Transcriber’s Note:

This volume is a reprint of Adair’s original text. The editor had preserved the page numbers in the form of bracketed numbers. Those page breaks frequently were interpolated in mid-word. In this rendering of the text, those page numbers are moved slightly to allow each word to complete without hyphenation.

The Adair’s fifty-six footnotes, originally employing ‘*’ and ‘†’, have been reindexed sequentially using Roman numerals. As the editor informs us in his Preface, some of these notes were extended by him. Adair’s portion is followed by ‘(A)’, for Adair, and his own extended remarks are followed by ‘(W)’, for ‘Williams.’

The editor’s own footnotes were already numbered sequentially from the first to the last page, beginning again at ‘1’ after the Introduction. This approach has been retained.

Adair’s footnotes have been moved to follow the paragraphs in which they are referenced. The editor’s notes are gathered at the end of the text, following the Index, and are linked for ease of reference.

Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s [note] at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation.

Any corrections are indicated using an underline highlight. Placing the cursor over the correction will produce the original text in a small popup.

Any corrections are indicated as hyperlinks, which will navigate the reader to the corresponding entry in the corrections table in the note at the end of the text.

Adair’s History of the

American Indians

OTHER WORKS OF THE EDITOR

William Tatham, Wataugan, 1923 (out of print)

History of the Lost State of Franklin, 1924 (out of print)

Memoirs of Lt. Henry Timberlake, ed., 1927

Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1928

The Beginnings of West Tennessee, 1929

Adair’s History

of the

American Indians

Edited under the auspices of the

National Society of the Colonial

Dames of America, in Tennessee

BY

SAMUEL COLE WILLIAMS, LL.D.

THE WATAUGA PRESS

JOHNSON CITY, TENNESSEE

1930

Copyright, 1930

By the National Society of Colonial

Dames of America, in Tennessee

Printed in an edition limited to

750 copies from type.

MANUFACTURED COMPLETE BY

KINGSPORT PRESS, Inc.

KINGSPORT, TENNESSEE

United States of America

EDITOR’S PREFACE

James Adair’s History of the American Indians, published in London in 1775, has always been regarded and treated by ethnologists and historians as reliable authority on the Southern Indians, as well as on Southern history in a period of no little obscurity. The book has long been rare, selling in 1930 at one hundred dollars a copy. Recognizing its value as source material on Southern history of the colonial period, the National Society of Colonial Dames of America, in Tennessee, determined to bring out a reprint, which should be annotated to supplement in some degree Adair’s own detailed and vivid description of life among the Indians of the South, east of the Mississippi River; of the Indian trade and traders, and of intrigues and wars that involved both the red and the white races, in the years of struggle for the possession of the Mississippi Valley by the French and English.

The writer was asked to undertake the editorial work. The task of annotation has proceeded on the basis of a reckoning that Adair’s book is not true to name—a history of the American Indians—but of its being an account of the principal tribes of the Indians of the Southeast and of their countries. His work is all the more unique and useful in that such is its real scope; and the editor’s notes, speaking generally, have been brought within the same limitation. The London edition carried no index—a lack that impaired its useability. One is supplied in this reprint.

In the Introduction it is purposed to give as full and accurate an account of Adair, the man, and of his book, as is feasible. In order to compass this a fairly wide investigation of archives was entered upon and a correspondence conducted. To Professor R. L. Meriwether, of the Department of History of the University of South Carolina, Emmett Starr, of St. Louis, historian of the Cherokee Indians, John R. Swanton, of the Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, D. C., W. J. Ghent, of the staff of the Dictionary of American Biography, Judge Samuel Martin Young, of Dixon Springs, Tennessee, Dr. P. M. Hamer, of the Department of History of the University of Tennessee, and Miss Mary U. Rothrock, librarian of the Lawson McGhee Library, Knoxville, Tennessee, the editor is under obligations for aid given in its preparation. An expression of gratitude cannot be withheld. The editor, also, has had the hearty coöperation at all times of the officers of the Society which has promoted the enterprise, not with a view to financial profit, but under patriotic prompting.

The notes of Adair are indicated by * and other reference marks; those of the editor by numerals. In cases where the editor has extended notes of the author the latter’s work is followed by (A) and the editor’s by (W).

The author’s punctuation, spelling and capitalization have been followed, but the old form of “s” has been changed to the modern. For the convenience of students in running references to pages of the original edition its page-numbers are carried into the body of the text between brackets.

Samuel Cole Williams.

“Aquone”

Johnson City

Tennessee

INTRODUCTION

James Adair, the Man

James Adair has been called by various writers an Englishman, a Scotchman and an Irishman—and with some basis of fact in each case. He derived from the historic Irish house of Fitzgerald. Indeed, Fitzgerald was his true name. That family descends from Walter, son of Other, who at the time of the Domesday Survey (1086) was castellan of Windsor and tenant-in-chief of five of the counties of England. His descendants took active parts in the conquest of Ireland, where one of them in 1346 came into the Earldom of Kildare. Another line of the Fitzgeralds was that of the Earls of Desmond, which also descended from Maurice, the founder of the family in Ireland. The Desmond branch, under the third earl, who was viceroy of Ireland in 1367-69, became embroiled in difficulties and suffered defeat, and was captured by a native king of Thomond.

Robert Fitzgerald, whose patrimonial estate was that of Adare, inclusive of the manor and abbey of that name, is said to have been the eldest son of Thomas Fitzgerald, sixth Earl of Desmond. In a dispute over the succession to the estate of his grandfather, Robert Fitzgerald killed his kinsman Gerald, the “White Knight,” a man of great distinction. A powerful combination being formed against him, he fled (1675) from Ireland to Galloway in Scotland. There he was hospitably received as guest at various baronial houses. He decided to change his name and took that of Robert Adare from his Irish estate in county Antrim.[^[1]]

“During his visit, Currie, who held the castle of Dunskey, was declared a rebel, as an incorrigible robber and pirate. A proclamation was made that whoever should produce Currie, dead or alive, should be rewarded by his lands. Robert Adare saw an opening by which to retrieve his fortunes, and watched the castle of Dunskey by day and night. At length the redoubtable robber issued one evening from his hold with few attendants, and was instantly followed by Adare, who, engaging him hand to hand, got the better of him, drove him slowly backwards and at last dispatched him outright by a blow from the hilt of his sword. Possessing himself of the robber’s head, Adare hastened to court with all convenient speed, and, presenting his trophy to the king, (as tradition says) on the point of his sword, his Majesty was pleased to order his enfestment[enfestment] in the lands and castle of the rebel. His family was known as the Adairs of Portree, and when a castle was built on the spot [in Dumfrieshire] where Currie was struck down, it was called Kilhilt, from which the Adairs took designation.”[^[2]]

Alexander Adair of Kilhilt held the barony, so obtained from Robert I of Scotland, during the reign of James V of Scotland, and the barony was in the possession of the family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A Sir Robert Adair was a member of the public committee of Wigtonshire during the factious period of 1642 to 1649.[^[3]]

Sir Robert Adair, perhaps son of the above, removed from Scotland to Ireland before the battle of the Boyne, which was fought in July, 1690, he having sold his Scottish estate to Lord Stair. It is inferable that he settled in county Antrim, where our author James Adair was born, about 1709.

James Adair is silent on the point of his parentage and birth-date; but it is probable that he was a younger son of this last mentioned Sir Robert Adair; and that, as has been the case with so many scions of noble and other houses of Great Britain, facing the vice-grip of the law primogeniture, he preferred the freedom and opportunities of distant climes.

Animated by something of the spirit of his distant ancestor, James Adair migrated and appeared in South Carolina in 1735, landing at Charles Town, in high probability.[^[4]]

Shortly after his arrival Adair engaged in the Indian trade, then a business more gainful than was the case in the later years of his career. In 1736 he was a trader to the Cherokees, and mentions an incident “in Kanootare, the most northern town of the Cherokee.”[^[5]] This town was probably identical with Connutre laid down on George Hunter’s Map of 1730, in the upper part of the territory occupied by the Middle Cherokees in the southwestern part of North Carolina. It seems probable that he formed a connection or traded in that section with George Haig,[^[6]] called by Adair “our worthy and much lamented friend.”[^[7]] At the Congaree Thomas Brown, also mentioned by Adair (T.B.), had (1735-1747) a large trading establishment from which the Cherokees and Catawbas were supplied. Haig was associated with Brown, and Adair in likelihood had his first transactions as a trader from that post, visiting both of the tribes mentioned.

Adair’s book gives evidence of the fact that he was among the Overhill (or Western) Cherokees in the Tennessee Country, whose towns were on the Tennessee (now Little Tennessee) River, and its branches. Our author, however, is tantalizingly sparing of dates in that regard. He, doubtless, came in contact with the enthusiast Priber while the latter was among the Overhill Cherokees engaged in the projection and establishment of his “red empire,” in the years 1737-1743.

The same thing is true of the Catawbas. He speaks of his “residence with them,” but his census of them, of the year 1743, is the only indication of the period of his stay.

In 1744 Adair transferred his residence and operations to the Chickasaw nation in what is now North Mississippi. An eastern band of that tribe had a considerable village across the Savannah River from Augusta, Georgia, in South Carolina. It is likely that Adair conducted a trade with the warriors of that village, either from the Congaree or Charles Town; and becoming measurably conversant with the Chickasaw language, sought a trade among the main branch of the tribe in the West, where competition was less keen.

It was among his “cheerful brave Chikkasah” that Adair brought his career as a trader and diplomat to peak. The innate independence and bravery of the Chickasaws appealed to him. The glorious history they had but recently made in two contests with the French and their numerous red allies under Bienville challenged his admiration. The Chickasaws reciprocated. They and Adair were well met. Theirs was a kinship of spirit. It is manifest that he, alongside their chiefs, was their leader on bloody forays against enemy Indians, particularly the Shawnees, then in the French interest. If that were possible, he instilled in the Chickasaws a stronger dislike of the French. That age-old hatred did more and very much more to save the Mississippi Valley to the English than histories of our country have so far recorded.

About a year or two after Adair entered upon his life among the Chickasaws, in the winter of 1745-46, he saw an opportunity to extend the influence of the Anglo-Americans of Carolina and win at least a portion of the populous Choctaw nation from the French at New Orleans. This chance lay in the fact that the goods supplied the Choctaws by French traders were inferior to goods of English make; and, usually, they were sold at higher prices. Added to this were the seeds of a schism among the Choctaws. The forceful but mercurial chief Red Shoes was leader of one faction. Adair sough to reach and win him, following the violation of Red Shoes’ favorite wife by a French trader from Fort Tombikbe (Tombigbee). Adair, in carrying out his plan, had the material aid of John Campbell, a Carolina trader who had been much longer among the Chickasaws and Choctaws than the prime mover himself. During the summer of 1746, with the authority and concurrence of Governor James Glen, of South Carolina, Adair made presents to the already deeply incensed Red Shoes and to his followers. The two leaders, white and red, planned a break with the French—called by the French “the Choctaw rebellion.” Internecine war was now flagrant among the Choctaws. The faction of Red Shoes attacked not only the tribesmen who remained true to the old alliance, but also settlements of the French on the Mississippi and their commerce on the river. In acknowledgement of his leadership scalps were brought to Adair.

As successful intriguer Adair naturally expected to be rewarded by the South Carolina government. He claimed that Governor Glen had committed himself to see to the grant to Adair and his friends of a monopoly of the Choctaw trade for a term of years.[^[8]] Instead, Glen, it was charged, formed a company—called by Adair the “Sphynx Company”—composed of his brother and two others to conduct the trade thus opened up. The sight of three hundred and sixty horse-loads of goods passing to the Choctaw Country must have enraged Adair. His bitterness towards Governor Glen was ever afterwards manifest, often in biting sarcasm and invective.[^[9]] Adair attributed to this breach of plighted faith his personal bankruptcy.

Charles McNaire was entrusted by the “Sphynx Company” with the above cargo of goods, but he proved inadequate to the task. Glen appealed to Adair to help McNaire out of his difficulties. This Adair says he did on a renewal of promises of a reward, which was never forthcoming. The conjuncture of the death of Red Shoes at the hands of an emissary of the French, and McNaire’s mismanagement brought the “Sphynx Company” to disaster, not to say retribution.

“Apparently Glen withdrew his patronage of the Sphynx Company. Adair seems to charge that he turned now to prevent ‘two other gentlemen’—presumably Matthew Roche and his partner—getting recompense for losses in the venture,[^[10]] whereupon a controversy arose between his Excellency and Matthew Roche, one of the partners, it seems, in the course of which the latter printed a pamphlet, ‘A Modest Reply to the Governor’s Answer to an Affidavit made by McNaire.’” (Meriwether)[^[11]] The pamphlet incorporated a letter written by Adair on some phase of the transactions. In umbrage, the Governor asked the Common’s House of the province to have its committee on Indian affairs investigate and report on the controversy. This was done. The report branded Roche’s pamphlet “a false and malicious paper, throwing unjust and slanderous aspersions on the governor’s honor and character,” and declared Adair’s letter to be so contradictory of a previous one he had written as to be unworthy of credit.

“Adair’s was not the only charge against Glen of his having investments in the Indian trade and of having his official acts influenced thereby. The fact of such investments is indicated by a suit brought by him which involved several dealers in the Indian trade, by his relations with Cherokee traders, such as Grant and Elliott, and by his failure to deny charges. The bad policy of this is, of course, beyond question, but of actual fraud there is no evidence.” (Meriwether)

Adair was far from being satiated. He was not content to allow the contest for his deserts to thus end. He now, for the first time, turned author and wrote his own brochure or book in vindication. This he announced by way of an advertisement in the South Carolina Gazette of April 9, 1750:

“Shortly will be published—A Treatise upon the Importance and Means of Securing—The Choctaw Nation of Indians—in the British Interest—In which are interpreted many curious remarks—Concerning the History, Policy and Interest of the Nation—with—Several incontestable Reasons, and chronological observations, to prove, that the Year of Our Lord 1738 was several Years antecedent to the year 1747—To which is added—A Genuine Account—of the most remarkable Occurences since that Period of Time—Concluding with—Some Scenes of a Farce, as the same was some time ago first rehearsed in private, and afterwards acted publickly; in which are contained some comical and instructive Dialogues between several modest Pretenders to the Merit of a certain Revolt, said by them to be lately projected and effected—The whole supported by Records, Original Letters, and Living Witnesses.”[^[12]]

This production was announced in title form or display, but is here given with dashes to indicate the several lines and divisions. While the name of no author is given, the prospectus is unmistakably Adair’s—in his style down to the peculiar punctuation, as well as in its satire. No one else had the knowledge of the Choctaw intrigue and revolt along with the literary skill requisite. The reference to “pretenders to the merit of a certain revolt” is explained by the fact that four different traders laid claims to the honor of and reward for the Choctaw defection.

Adair petitioned the legislative body of the province for reimbursement of expenses in bringing about the revolt; but his memorial was rejected during Governor Glen’s administration, May, 1750. “With a flow of contrary passions I took leave of our gallant Chikkasah friends,” whom he had accompanied down to Charles Town. Bankrupt in purse and deeply resentful in feeling, Adair now entered upon the most trying and morally perilous period of his career in America. He was off to the Cherokees, and, we may suspect, to strong drink in association with hardy but inferior men. He seems to have made head-quarters for a time at the home of James Francis, an Indian trader of Saluda Town, then to have left for the Overhill towns with a son-in-law of Francis, Henry Foster. Inquiries from Glen as to whereabouts and doings followed after him. James Francis must have pretended ignorance when he wrote (July 24, 1751) to the governor: “I made it my business to be diligent in my inquiry after him [Adair] but could no ways understand where he was to be found or I should have gone any distance of ground to have acquainted him with your Excellency’s pleasure. She [Mrs. Flood] said that he told her he was directly going to quit the country and gott a passage from norward to Jamaica.”

Adair says that at this time he was tempted by the French to enter into their service. His letter to Wm. Pinckney of Charles Town, commissioner for Indian affairs, sheds light upon this stage of his career and his distraught mental condition. It was written as he was near the Overhill towns on May 7, 1751. It is of value, too, as showing Adair’s raw composition—written in the saddle, so to speak:

“I last summer wrote to the Honble Council and you, each a letter, shewing the Force I lay under of going to the French; the Contents were very large and the why as uncommon, to which I refer you. Monsieur endeavored to Tempt me with Thirty two thousand Livers, which not taking they formed Bills of Capital Crimes against me, and retained me as close Prisoner for three weeks. In short, for all the consequences of the Choctaw war. The world thinks it strange that I should be Punished both by the English and French, for that in effect that I was some [time] for the one and against the other in time of a hot war. But so it happens in Iron-age; only that I behaved like a desperado against their garrison, I should have been Hang’d & Gibbetted, for they had the plainest proof and clearest circumstances against me. Besides I need not mention their policy, envy and Trachery.

“This spring I went to the Cherokees, and saw the most evident Tokens of war, for Capt. Francis’s son and I were in great danger of being cut off by a gang of nor’wd Indians down within Ten Miles of the Nation. The evening before I left the Nation a gang of the Cherokees returned from the southw’d who killed some white men in Georgia and were concluding that night to cut us off. All night we stood on our arms; and John Hatton (who was born there and a desperate man besides) persuaded us to break off with him to Carolina, but we deferred it and the Indians the execution of their designs, yet in the narrow all the headmen of Keeokee and Istanory came with Three Linguists and Persuaded me to write to his Excellency a most Cunning Remonstrance and Pet’n which they dictated; the First Extinuating their crimes and murdering the white men and the other requesting some Swivel Guns. Several of the Traders, as they were unacquainted with Letters, desired me to write to His Excellency & Council the unhappy & dangerous situation of affairs in the nation that they might use proper measures against the then desponding consequences, for they told me the Government disregarded their Reports; and indeed I have found the Gov’t very remiss in the like affairs, and being used Ill and my credit small after having served them in a continued chain of actions, I thought myself blamable to have writ because every Faulty character of Indian was rejected, yet to serve the Country I offered to Captn Francis to prove on oath all that I knew of the affair. If Carol’a designs [not] to stand on the defensive part and willing to give me that encouragement which I possibly might merit as well, in this, I should induce the Chickesaws at Augusta and many brave woods-men to engage in the Publick Service, and, if I’m not mistaken in myself, with such Brave Wanton fellows I should be somewhat remarkable. I thot I was bound to write so much on sev’l considerations.

“JAMES ADAIR.”[^[13]]

Adair now passed practically out of public view for several years. Was he among the Overhill Cherokees, as an irregular, unlicensed trader; or was he among the eastern band of the Chickasaws engaged in writing his book?

In 1753, Cornelius Doherty, the old trader, wrote Governor Glen that “a great many of the Cherokees were gone to Chickasaws to assist them against the French.” Under Adair’s prompting, in order to aid his well loved tribe in their dire straits?

On Governor Glen’s visit to Ninety-Six in May, 1756, Adair saw him and gives details in his book (p. 244). He also met Governor William Henry Lyttleton at Fort Moore two years later. Lyttleton seems to have made a favorable impression upon him—quite in contrast with Glen.

Adair was emboldened by the new Governor’s attitude again to petition for a reimbursement of losses incident to the Choctaw affair. In so doing he was not able to refrain from tart language. This the legislature of the province was glad enough to seize upon, with result:

“April 28, 1761. A memorial of James Adair was presented to the House and the same containing improper and indecent language was Rejected without being read thro’.”

Adair evidently thought that his former service followed by aid he had given to the province in its war with the Cherokees just terminated had justly earned for him better treatment. Into that struggle he had thrown himself whole-heartedly.

Due to unfortunate happenings in the western part of Virginia—the killing by frontiersmen of above a dozen Cherokee warriors, including some of prominence, as they were returning from an expedition in aid of Virginia against the hostile Shawnees, in 1756—and due, also, to subsequent mismanagement of affairs in South Carolina, war with the Cherokees was in prospect towards the middle of the year 1759, and flagrant in the winter and summer following.[^[14]] In June a force of about eleven hundred men under Colonel Archibald Montgomery (later Lord Eglington) started from Charles Town to reduce the Cherokee towns and relieve the province’s garrison at Fort Loudoun-on-Little Tennessee, which had been beseiged by the Cherokees, aided by Creeks.

Adair in his History says that “having been in a singular manner recommended to his Excellency [Lyttleton], the general, I was preëngaged for that campaign”—to lead a body of the Eastern Chickasaws. In the course of preparations Lieutenant-Governor Bull transmitted to the legislature the offer of Adair to lead without pay the eastern band of the Chickasaws settled on the Savannah River; these to act as a scouting party in advance of the troops. Of this small detachment at Saluda Old Town we get glimpses. Governor Lyttleton in his march up-country was “joined by 40 Chickasaws, 27 good gunmen, all likely young fellows. The Chickasaws were drawn up in line and received the Governor with rested arms. They were all dressed and painted in war attire. At night the Cherokees attempted to send a string of wampum to the Chickasaws.”[^[15]] “Last night [November 17, 1759] we arrived here in five days march from the Congaree. We met at this camp twenty-seven Chickasaws, the only allies we have yet seen; they are sprightly young fellows and hearty in our cause.”[^[16]]

The Chickasaws would have been valuable as scouts, but for some reason they were not so used. Montgomery’s campaign went well in the Lower Cherokee Country, but disaster overtook it in the Middle towns. The troops “fell into an ambuscade, by which many were wounded; and tho’ the enemy were everywhere driven off, yet the number of our wounded increased so fast that it was thought advisable to return as fast as possible. In these covers a handful of men may ruin an army.” Fort Loudoun was left to its sad fate.[^[17]]

South Carolina was in deep humiliation over the retreat of Montgomery to Fort Prince George. From that place (July 19, 1760) it was reported: “This morning about nine o’clock arrived here capt. John Brown, with 13 white men dressed and painted like Indians, and 43 Chickasaws, who came with intent to join Col. Montgomery, not having heard of his return. The declaration of capt. John Brown, who, with capt. Adair, heads the Chickasaws, that are come to join Col. Montgomery, imports that the day before he left the Breed Camp, the Chickasaws advised him, if he wanted to save his life to go immediately and leave his effects to their care ... for there was no trusting the Creeks any longer who had agreed to fall on the English.”[^[18]]

Letters from the expeditionary force, yet preserved in the archives at Columbia, show that Captain Adair and his party of Chickasaws were bold and active, doubtless serving as scouts.[^[19]] In July following, the sum of two hundred pounds, currency, was included in the appropriation bill as his compensation. Adair, in 1759, was for attacking and vigorously pressing the war, but his advice was not attended to. In the meantime aid had come to the Cherokees from the Creeks under Great Mortar.

Carolina’s prestige was in eclipse, and another campaign was planned for 1761, led by Colonel James Grant, Virginia troops advancing, though leisurely,[^[20]] under Colonel Wm. Byrd III, to assist in the subjugation of the Cherokees in the Overhill towns. Adair’s History indicates his connection with Grant’s expedition, but is barren of details and it has proven difficult to trace elsewhere the part he took.

To the far-away Chickasaws, the trader turned to recoup his fortunes after the termination of the Cherokee War and his repulse in the matter of his second memorial. There was real need for Adair’s services on the part of that gallant people. The French were attempting to make a breach between them and the Choctaws. They were “in great want of ammunition” and goods.[^[21]] Adair chose Mobile as mart for his peltry, after the surrender of the country by the French under the peace treaty of 1763.

Existing records testify to the fact that Adair aided the authorities in efforts to prevent the Chickasaws being debauched by rum and to hold unprincipled traders in leash. He supported the commissary of the government of West Florida, in February, 1766, in the arrest and prosecution of John Buckles and Alexander McIntosh, in a “Memorandum of some Material Heads,” in which his powers of invective did not fail to outcrop: McIntosh “debauched the Indians with rum to the uneasiness and disgust of orderly traders, the loss of their numerous outstanding debts and every chance of fair trade ... faithful to his black trust, in his Arabian-like method of plundering the Indians.... He would make a new Hell of this place, and it is hoped that he may go thru’ Purgatory properly.”[^[22]]

It was during this stay (1761-68) among them that the greater portion of his History of the American Indians was written. He left his oft-tried and true friends, the Chickasaws, in the early part of May, 1768,[^[23]] and went to the North—doubtless to interview Sir Wm. Johnson for materials with which to enlarge the scope of his work, his own experience and observations having been confined to the leading tribes of the South.

Of Adair in London in 1775 we have not a glimpse. Did he visit Scotland and Ireland among his kinsmen?

His closing years constitute for the researcher the most baffling period of his career. Dr. James B. Adair in his Adair History and Genealogy (1924) says that he settled and married in North Carolina after his return from London in 1775. The locality and name of the woman he is supposed to have married are not given. On the other hand, Emmett Starr, the Cherokee historian and genealogist, states in a letter to the writer that Adair never married. If an inference may be indulged, it seems that it was in the western part of North Carolina that he settled—the region west of the Alleghanies, now known as Lower East Tennessee, near the Tennessee-Georgia line. There a landing on Conesauga River bore the name “Adair,” a point of transit of shipments by way of the Hiwassee after portage from Hildebrand’s landing on the Hiwassee, in a somewhat later period. Just across the state line in Georgia is the village of Adair.

Another fact adds weight to the inference: the descendants of Adair related their nativity to that region. Without doubt Adair left his blood strain among the Cherokee and Chickasaws. As those of colonial days would express it, he was too “full-habited” to have made himself an exception to the custom of traders resident among the red tribes to form alliance with Indian maidens, with resultant offspring.

Emmett Starr, in his History of the Cherokee Indians, 403, gives:

“1¹———— Adair

1² John Adair m. Jennie Kilgore

2² Edward Adair m. Elizabeth Martin.”

The name of the mother of these two sons of “—— Adair” is not given. Starr’s genealogical table gives the descendants down to recent times, among them those of the Mayes family. The blank in the name of the father may be supplied from a sketch of Joel Bryan Mayes, a Cherokee chief, and chief justice of the court of last resort of the Cherokee Nation, in Appleton’s Encyclopedia of American Biography, IV, 275: Mayes “was born in the Cherokee reservation in Georgia, October 2, 1833. His mother was of mixed blood and descended on the paternal side from James Adair, an Indian agent [trader] under George III.”[^[24]]

Starr in a letter to the editor says: “John and Edward Adair, brothers, married Cherokees and have had a numerous progeny. Their descendants furnished the most brilliant strain in the old Cherokee Nation, especially when their blood was blended with the blood of descendants of General Joseph Martin,[^[25]] of Virginia-Tennessee, whose descendants have always been numerous in the Nation. Two of these, William Penn Adair and Lucian Burr Bell were the brainiest men that I ever met.” Elizabeth Martin, mentioned above, was in girlhood a resident of Lower East Tennessee, at Wachowee on a branch of Hiwassee River. Her mother, Betty, was the daughter of the great Nancy Ward, the Beloved Woman of the Overhill Cherokees and friend of the white race, and her father was General Joseph Martin, agent of Virginia among the Cherokees.[^[26]]

Miss Skinner in her Pioneers of the Old Southwest, seemingly fascinated by Adair, gives 15 of 285 pages to him and his book. She attributes the arrest of Briber to Adair. “As a Briton, Adair contributed to Priber’s fate.... Since the military had failed, other means must be employed; the trader provided them.” This is without justification in fact. She is fairer elsewhere in her estimate of Adair, whom she called “Tennessee’s first author”: “His voluminous work discloses a man not only of wide mental outlook but a practical man with a sense of commercial values.... The complete explanation of such a man as Adair we need not expect to find stated anywhere—not even in and between the lines of his book. The conventionalist would seek it in moral obliquity; the radical in a temperament that is irked by the superficialities that comprise so large a part of conventional standards. The reason for his being what he was is almost the only thing Adair did not analyze in his book. Perhaps, to him, it was self-evident.”

That Adair was a man of liberal education, for his period, seems clear. A self-disclosure is that of his applying himself to the mastery of the rudiments of the Hebrew language among the redmen whom he was studying. A curious picture that calls for an effort at visualization is that of Adair, the forest student, traversing the toilsome trail to Charles Town with peltry to trade for books. It is somewhat difficult to see him, again, at the head of a band of painted warriors faring forth along the Massac trace through the dense woods of what is now West Tennessee, or along the early Natchez trail, west of the Tennessee River and in the same region, bound for the North on a mission which was, in essence, one for the British Empire and against that Empire’s antagonist for the Great Valley of the Mississippi. Yet harder to see in the lover of erudition is the rollicking Adair, in near-abandon in a period of stress, finding “brave and cheerful companionship” with an illiterate and coarse-grained white man, the two riding carelessly along a dangerous path, singing as they went, each braced by “a hearty draught of punch,” and further companioned by a keg of rum. Wherever and however seen, his was an unusual figure, riding, we may be sure, a coveted Chickasaw steed through vast forest reaches, silhouetted against a background of forest-green. Whether knight errant or dare-devil, or a commingling of both, he rode into mundane immortality. He has broken into every book of comprehensive biography, in whatever language, which has any sort of pretension of thoroughness.

Adair was a good diplomat in dealing with his inferiors. He was not diplomatic in his attitude towards those who were officially his superiors. An acridity of speech, an unsmooth temper and not a little vanity brought him to breach with such when he deemed himself mistreated. In an audience with Governor Glen his own words “seemed to lie pretty sharply upon him.” Adair was a good hater: of Glen, the French and the Romanists, in particular. But, as is not unusual in such cases, he was ardent in his friendships—for the Chickasaws in particular. As “an English Chickasaw,” he recognized in that tribe all that was best in the Amerind: love of their land, constancy in hatred and friendship, sagacity, alertness and consummate intrepidity.

The Book

Adair purposed a publication of his book several years before the date of its actual London publication in 1775. In the South Carolina Gazette of September 7, 1769, it was said: “An account of the origin of the primitive inhabitants and a history of those numerous warlike tribes of Indians, situated to the westward of Charles Town are subjects hitherto unattempted by any pen.... Such an attempt has been made by Mr. James Adair, a gentleman who has been conversant among the Cherokees, Chickesaws, Choctaws, etc., for thirty-odd years past; and who, by the assistance of a liberal education, a long experience among them and a genius naturally formed for curious enquiries, has written essays on their origin, language, religion, customary methods of making war and peace, etc.” It was also announced that the author was “going over to England soon to prepare for publication.” The Savannah Georgia Gazette of October 11, 1769, carried a similar item, of date New York, February 27th.

In October both these newspapers published Adair’s prospectus of the book, proposed to be sold by subscription. In the “Proposals” the title was displayed in customary title-form—differing much in wording from the title page of the 1775 publication:

“Proposals for printing by Subscription: Essays on the Origin, History, Language, Religion, and religious Rites, Priests or Magi, Customs, Civil Policy, Methods of declaring and carrying on War, and of making Peace, Military Laws, Agriculture, Buildings, Exercise, Sports, Marriage and Funeral Ceremonies, Habits, Diet, Temper, Manners, etc., of the Indians on the Continent of North America, particularly of the several Nations or Tribes of the Catawbas, Cherokees, Creeks, Chickesaws, and Choctaws, inhabiting the Western Parts of the Colonies of Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia. Also some Account of the Countries, Description of Uncommon Animals, etc., interspersed with useful Observations relating to the Advantages arising to Britain from her Trade with those Indians; of the best Method of managing them, and of conciliating their Affections, and therefore extending the said Trade. Also several interesting Anecdotes Collected in a Residence of the great Part of 33 years among the Indians themselves,

By James Adair.

“Conditions: The Work will be Comprised in two Octavo Volumes, and be put to press in London, as soon as a sufficient number of Subscriptions are obtained, and will be printed on a good Paper, with Letter entirely new.

“The Price to Subscribers will be two Spanish Dollars, one of which will be paid at the Time of subscribing, and the other on the Delivery of the Books.

“Subscriptions are taken by the Printer of this Gazette.”

There is no evidence that Adair in pursuance of his purpose went to London at this time. He did go to New York in 1768 and there in the early part of the following year issued a prospectus, in like manner. While there he visited Sir William Johnson at Johnson Hall. This visit, with subsequent incidents, is shown in a correspondence between Johnson, Gage and Adair which appears in The Documentary History of New York, IV, 251-252, 259-262. The letters afford side-lights on our author and his book:

Johnson to General Gage:

Johnson hall Decr. 10th 1768

“Dear Sir: This letter is addressed to you at the intreaty of the Bearer Mr. Adair, who I am informed was for many years a Trader of first consequence amongst the Cherokees &c. I believe his present Circumstances are very indifferent but he conceives he has a prospect of some advantages in view from the Publication of a manuscript he has wrote on the Manners, Customs & History of the Southern Indians, tending to prove their descent from the Hebrews, which performance shews him a man well acquainted with the Languages, and very Curious in his Remarks. His design is to go for England and (if he may be allowed) to take some Chickasaws with him, & as none of that Nation were ever there he conceives it would be for the public advantage to Shew them the greatness and power of the English.

“I apprehend that your Patronage in whatever shape you may please to Countenance his design, is his principal object. If he is worthy of it in any degree my recommendation is needless—His appearance may not be much in his favor and his voluminous Work may rather be deemed Curious than entertaining, but he is certainly well acquainted with the Southern Indians, and a man of Learning tho Rusticated by 30 years residence in a Wild Country—He thinks that I could serve him by mentioning him to you, and I hope that his importunity in consequence of that opinion will apologize for the Liberty I have taken in Giving you this Trouble.”

Adair to Johnson, of March or April, 1769:

“Sire, About a month ago, I did myself ye pleasure of writing to you, both in complyance to yr kindly request, and my own ardent inclination. And, now, I re-assume it, returning you my most hearty thanks, for your civilities and favours of each kind.

“In a great measure, I ascribe to you, my Maecenas, that ye Revd. Messrs. Inglis and Ogilvie, ye Professors of ye College, and a good many of ye Learned, here, including, in a very particular manner, the good-humourd, the sensible, the gay, ye witty, & polite, Sir Henry Moore, have taken me into their patronage; Tho’ I’m sorry to say that Genrl Gage paid so little regard to yr friendly letter in my behalf, as not to order his Aid de Camp to introduce me when I called to wait on him. Indeed he subscribed for two Setts of my Indian Essays and History. And so do several other Gent on account of their reputed merit; for ye Learned applaud ye performance. In short, Sir, I look down, with a philosophic eye, on that, or any such, neglect as a most imaginary trifle. Especially, if what I said to a curious & inquisitive Son of Caledonia, concerning ye well-known mismanagement, & ill situation, of our Indian affairs, westwardly, should have occasioned it; For truth will prevail, when painted with its genuine honest colours.

“In ye historical part, I shall put myself under yr most friendly patronage, and yt of Sir Henry Moore, and do myself ye particular favour of writing to each of you, from ye southward, before I sett off to England, next summer. As His Excelly has not only induced ye Honble members of His Majestys Council to give a sanction to my performance, and engaged to perswade ye Commons House of Assembly to follow their Copy; But, likewise to continue to take in subscriptions, till ye Books are published, and remit me a Bill, on ye agent, at London, as soon as he has heard, by ye public accounts, of their being in the Press. I’m hopeful, you’ll be pleased to excuse my freedom of infolding, in this, a New-York printed Proposal; and that yr patriotic temper will incite You to shew it to such Lovers of letters, as frequent your Hall, in order to gain, at least, nominal subscriptions, and give a sanction to the Treatise in Europe. Likewise, yt when I do myself ye honour of writing to you, again, you’ll be so kind as to remit me their names, at London, according to request.

“I’ve room to be pretty certain, that four of yr learned friends here; viz, the Revd Doctor Acmody, the Revd Doctor Cooper, and ye Revd Messrs Inglis and Ogilvie, A.M. will, thro’ a true benevolence of heart, recommend me to the notice of ye President of ye Society for propogating ye Gospel, in order to obtain a missionary for our old friendly Chickosahs; and likewise, their patronage in ye publication of my Indian work. When you’re writing to my Lord Hillsborough, should yr own public spirit induce you to recommend me to his patronage it would prove a great advance towards obtaining satisfaction for what ye Governmt is indebted me. That, & ye like, I leave yr own kindness of heart, which always leads and directs you, in support of a generous cause.

“Please to give my most hearty respects to yr cheerful and most promising favourite son, Sir John, to ye gay, ye kindly, & ye witty Coll Johnson, to his discreet and most amiable Lady, & their pretty little Sheelah Grah, who is ye lovely and lively picture of them both. To all yours, One by one; To Coll Class & his Lady; To ye Gent with you, &c; and to accept ye same, from,

“Great Sir Yr very obliged & most Hble Servt

“James Adair.”

Adair to Johnson, New York, April 30th, 1769:

“Great Sire, Tho’ I’m just on ye point of returning southwardly, by ye way of Philadelphia; yet my gratitude & intense affection incite me to send you these lines in return for yr kindness to me at yr hospitable Hall; And for yr kindly patronage of my weak & honest productions, on ye Origin of ye Indian Americans. All ranks of ye learned, here, have subscribed to their being published in London, a half year, hence. And ye two volumes, Octavo, wh they consist of, I do myself ye particular honour, from an innate generous principle, to dedicate to you & Sir Henry Moore; For tho’ he has not seen ye manuscripts, yet, on ye strong recommendations of ye Learned, he has patronised me, both here, and in ye Islands, and every where else, that his good nature & philosophic temper you’d think of. My great Hybernian Maecenas, as yo’ve approved of my Indian performance, from yr own knowledge and accurate observations, I’m fully perswaded, that, upon my sollicitation, you’ll take some convenient opportunity to recommend me to ye notice of Lord Hillsborough, yr friends in Ireland, &c. For, you know, I came from ye Southward, on purpose to apply to yr friendly mediation, of which General Gage has taken notice, on the account, as I’m informed by the Clergy, of certain (supposed) Stuart’s principles. Opposition makes honest men, only, the more intent and ther’s a certain time for every thing. As ye two letters I did myself ye pleasure to write to you, from ys place, sufficiently indicate, according to my opinion.

“Please to excuse ys hurry’d-off scroll and to give my sincere and lasting respects to yr honb extensive family, one by one; and to accept the same, from

“Great Sire yr obliged, & very devoted Hble Servt

“James Adair.”

Johnson to Adair, May 10, 1769:

“Sir, I have received two of your Letters since your departure, a third which you speak of, never came to hands, but from the others I find with pleasure that you have met with the Countenance & patronage of the Gentlemen you mention & I sincerely wish they may prove of Service to you, tho’ I am concerned that you met with any neglect from the quarter you speak of however I am hopefull that the protection you have hitherto found will prove a good introduction to your Curious performance, & that its publication will tend to your reputation & Interest, to which I shall gladly Contribute as far as in me Lyes. I am obliged to you for your Intentions respecting the Dedication, which I should chuse to decline but that I would not disappoint your good intentions, tho’ I would check the flowings of a friendly pen which unrestrained might go farther than is consistent with my inclinations.

“I return you your printed proposals, Subscribed to by myself & family with Two or Three others, which are as many as I have hitherto had an opportunity of Laying them before, & the time you spent in these parts has enabled you I presume to know enough of its Inhabitants not to be Surprised that a Work of that Nature shod meet with such Small encouragement. Sir John, Col. Johnson &c thank you kindly for the manner in which you have remembered them, heartily wishing you success, & be assured that I shall be glad to serve you in your undertaking as well as to hear of your prosperity being Sir,

“Your real Well Wisher & very humble Servt

“Wm. Johnson.”

Was there a publication of his book in Boston in 1770? In that encyclopedic biographical work in French, Nouvelle Biographie Générall, I, 214, in an article on Adair, it is said that he published an interesting work, entitled History of the American Indians, “Boston, 1770, in—4^o; reimprime a Londres en 1775.” The editor, intrigued by this statement, has made assiduous search and corresponded widely to secure corroboration of the statement as to such Boston edition. The particulars as to the format of the edition, differing materially from that of the London publication, and Adair’s announced intention (1769-70) to publish shortly seemed to lend support; but from every source the reply of leading bibliographers has been: No such edition is known, and, it is believed, there was none. This statement as to an edition in 1770 and the prospectus of the book of 1750 have been, to the writer, bibliographical ghosts, gliding in and out, exciting curiosity, and leading to search and yet further search—only to end in the bog of thwart. The like uncertainty attaches to more than one phase of the career of Adair, the man.

It is clear that the manuscript of the book published at London in 1775 was revised after 1769-70. Events are narrated in the History which occurred in the period 1770-74.

Elias Boudinot, one time president of the Continental Congress and author of A Star in the West, in that work states:

“The writer of these sheets has made great use of Mr. Adair’s history of the Indians, which renders it necessary that something should be further said of him. Sometime about the year 1774, or 1775, Mr. Adair came to Elizabeth-Town, where the writer then lived, with his manuscript, and applied to Mr. [Wm.] Livingston, afterwards governor of the state of New-Jersey, a correct scholar, well known for his literary abilities and knowledge of the belle-lettres, requesting him (Livingston) to correct his manuscript for him. He brought ample recommendations, and gave a good account of himself.

“Our political troubles then increasing, Mr. Adair, who was on his way to Great-Britain, was advised not to risk being detained from his voyage, till the work could be critically examined, but to get off as soon as possible. He accordingly took passage in the first vessel that was bound to England.

“As soon as the war was over, the writer sent to London and obtained a copy of the work. After reading it with care, he strictly examined a gentleman, then a member with him in Congress, of excellent character, who had acted as our Indian agent to the southward, during the war, (without letting him know the design) and from him found all the leading facts mentioned herein, fully confirmed, by his own personal knowledge.”

The book upon its appearance in London in the early part of 1775 (doubtless after revision there by one competent to the task) was reviewed quite generally in the leading British periodicals—favorably in every instance but one. The Scots Magazine of June, 1775, carried a brief and unflattering review. The London Magazine of May, 1775, said that the book had long been needed, and that Adair was well qualified to be the historian of the American Indians. “His remarks on the different subjects he has discussed are sensible; and we think the work calculated to convey information, entertainment and solid instruction to the public in general.” This Magazine had in previous issues published two long extracts from the book, doubtless with the consent of the author.

Adair’s work has been cited widely as basic authority by the best ethnologists and historians of America. A few of very numerous favorable comments must suffice.

In Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America, V, 68: “A work of great value, showing the relations of the English traders to the Indians, and is of much importance to the student of Indian customs.”

Field’s Indian Bibliography, 3, gives a fair judgment, which, too, expresses the near-consensus of those capable of passing judgment: “Although it cannot be claimed for this author that he ranks first in priority of time, his name is first on our alphabetical register of a great number of writers whose imagination has been struck by the astonishing coincidences of many particulars of the customs and religious rites of some of the American Nations with those of the Jews. The relations of an intelligent observer (as this Indian trader seems to have been), for so long a period as forty years, of the peculiarities of the Southern Indians among whom he resided for that period, is not without great value; although we should have reason to hold it in still greater esteem had the author cherished no favorite dogma to establish, or detested any which he wished destroyed.”

McCrady, the South Carolina historian, speaks most favorably of Adair and his book. The comments of Logan in his History of Upper South Carolina, as one who lived in the region where Adair resided for a time, and of which he wrote, are peculiarly interesting, and of weight in any fair assize of the book:

“From Adair’s book the world has derived most that is known of the manners and customs of the Southern Indians.... Its style is exceedingly figurative and characteristic—partakes much of the idiom of the Indian dialects to which the author was so long accustomed; and this imparts to it a quaintness, which with the novelty of the subject, the remarkable life of the writer, the cogency of his reasoning, his ingenious philosophy, earnest truthfulness and stalwart vigor renders it one of the most interesting as well as valuable works relating to American history.”

In behalf of Adair, in his theory of the Jewish origin of the American aborigines, it should be pointed out that a long line of writers both before and after him held the same view. Soon after the discovery of America, the theory was advanced that the Indians derived from the Lost Tribes of Israel. Garcia, in his Origen de las Medianos (1607), declared that these tribes passed Behring Strait and made their way southward, and claimed to have found many Hebrew terms in the American languages. Las Casas was of the same opinion, and the first English writer on the subject, Thomas Thorowgood in his Jews in America (1650 and 1660) followed Las Casas and the Puritan Apostle to the Indians, John Eliot in his Conjectures.

Antonio Montesinos (1644) found like evidence in Peru, and the learned Jew Manasseh ben Israel visited among the Indians of the New World and reached the same conclusion. Cotton Mather, Roger Williams and William Penn shared the same view.

Charles Beatty in his Journal of Two Months Tour (1678) and S. Seawell (1697) advanced proofs in support of the argument.

A list of those who wrote after Adair’s period in attempts at corroboration of the theory of such origin would include, among others: The celebrated Jonathan Edwards; Elias Boudinot, in A Star of the West (1816) which book has long extracts from Adair; E. Howitt in his Selection from Letters (1820); Ethan Smith (1825); Israel Worsley in his View of the American Indians (1828); Calvin Colton in A Tour of the Lakes (1838); Josiah Priest, American Antiquities (1834); Mrs. Simons in The Ten Tribes (1836); Modecai M. Noah in Marryatt’s Diary in America (1837), and G. Jones in the History of Ancient America (1843)—not to mention later writers. It will be noted that Jewish writers and observers are in accord.[^[27]] “The theory has not entirely disappeared from ethnological literature.”

Lord Viscount Kingsborough produced by far the most elaborate argument that the ancients and Indians of America were of Jewish origin. He published (London, 1830-48) nine sumptuous volumes, imperial folio, in which many ancient Spanish, French and Mexican manuscripts were for the first time printed. This exhaustive work cost Lord Kingsborough, it is said, above 32,000 pounds, wrecked his fortune and lost him his life. He died a prisoner for debt. In this production Kingsborough reprinted the first part of Adair’s book—the “Arguments.” Kingsborough bestowed much research and care in the annotation of these “Arguments,” and the editor of the present reprint has availed freely of his notes. Kingsborough thus prefaces his notes: “The following illustrations of Adair’s History of the American Indians are chiefly extracted from the inedited works of French and Spanish authors, and afford the most satisfactory proof of Adair’s veracity in the minutest particular.”

Of the entire History of Adair there has never been a reprint in English. Kingsborough’s work is beyond the reach of the average reader or student; it has become excessively rare, bringing about $500 in the book market.

The book of Adair was translated into German by Schack Hermann Ewald and published in Germany: Geschichte der amerikanischen Indianer, besondere dem am Mississippi, am Ostund Westflorida, Georgien, Sud-und Nord-Karolina und[und] Virginien angrenzenden nationen, nebst einem anhange, von James Adair, Esquire. Aus dem englischen übers. Breslau, J. E. Myers, 1782.

The book of Adair was paid the unwanted compliment of being plagiarized by Jonathan Carver in his Travels through the Interior Parts. Carver appropriated portions of the work during Adair’s lifetime, and an edition of his book was brought out by Charles Dilly, “in the Poultry,” London, who had printed Adair’s History.

After the passage of more than a century and a half from the date of its original publication, the book comes to a sort of rebirth in this reprint, and in a style, so far as format is concerned, of which our maker and writer of history would not be ashamed.

A Map
of the
American Indian Nations
adjoining to the
Missisippi,
West & East Florida,
Georgia,
S. & N. Carolina,
Virginia, &c.

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

AMERICAN INDIANS,

PARTICULARLY

THOSE NATIONS ADJOINING TO THE MISSISSIPPI, EAST AND WEST FLORIDA,

GEORGIA, SOUTH AND NORTH CAROLINA, AND VIRGINIA.

CONTAINING

AN ACCOUNT OF THEIR ORIGIN, LANGUAGE, MANNERS, RELIGIOUS AND

CIVIL CUSTOMS, LAWS, FORM OF GOVERNMENT, PUNISHMENTS,

CONDUCT IN WAR AND DOMESTIC LIFE, THEIR HABITS,

DIET, AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, DISEASES

AND METHOD OF CURE, AND

OTHER PARTICULARS, SUFFICIENT

TO RENDER IT

A COMPLETE INDIAN SYSTEM,

WITH

OBSERVATIONS ON FORMER HISTORIANS, THE CONDUCT OF OUR COLONY

GOVERNORS, SUPERINTENDENTS, MISSIONARIES, &C.

ALSO

AN APPENDIX

CONTAINING

A DESCRIPTION OF THE FLORIDAS AND THE MISSISSIPPI LANDS, WITH

THEIR PRODUCTIONS; THE BENEFITS OF COLONIZING GEORGIANA

AND CIVILIZING THE INDIANS; AND THE WAY TO MAKE

ALL THE COLONIES MORE VALUABLE TO THE

MOTHER COUNTRY.

WITH A NEW MAP OF THE COUNTRY REFERRED TO IN THE HISTORY.

BY JAMES ADAIR, ESQUIRE.

A TRADER WITH THE INDIANS, AND RESIDENT IN THEIR COUNTRY FOR FORTY YEARS.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR EDWARD AND CHARLES DILLY, IN THE POULTRY.

MDCCLXXV.

To

Hon. Colonel George Craghan, George Galphin and Lachlan McGilwray, Esquires.[^[I]]

Gentlemen,

To you, with the greatest propriety the following sheets are addressed. Your distinguished abilities—your thorough acquaintance with the North American Indian languages, rites, and customs—your long application and services in the dangerous sphere of an Indian life, and your successful management of the savage natives, all well known over all the continent of America.

You often complained how the public had been imposed upon either by fictitious and fabulous, or very superficial and conjectural accounts of the Indian natives—and as often wished me to devote my leisure hours to drawing up an Indian system. You can witness, that what I now send into the world, was composed more from a regard to your request, than any forward desire of my own. The prospect of your patronage inspired me to write, and it is no small pleasure and honor to me, that such competent judges of the several particulars now presented to public view, expressed themselves with so much approbation of the contents.

You well know the uprightness of my intentions as to the information here given, and that truth hath been my grand standard. I may have erred in the application of the rites and ceremonies of the Indians to their origin and descent—and may have drawn some conclusions exceeding the given evidence—but candor will excuse the language of integrity: and when the genuine principles, customs, etc., of the Indians are known, it will be easier afterwards for persons of solid learning, and free from secular cares, to trace their origin, clear up the remaining difficulties, and produce a more perfect history.

[I]. The late Sir Wm. Johnson, Baronet, was another of the author’s friends, and stood at the head of the MS Dedication. (A) For sketches of Galphin and McGilwray, see n. 155 p. 288 post. Galphin’s copy of Adair’s book with his name and the year “1775” on the fly leaf was lodged in the Charleston Library. (W)

Should my performance be in the least degree instrumental to produce an accurate investigation and knowledge of the American Indians—their civilization—and the happy settlement of the fertile lands around them, I shall rejoice; and the public will be greatly obliged to you, as your request incited to it; and to you I am also indebted for many interesting particulars, and valuable observations.

I embrace this opportunity, of paying a public testimony of my gratitude, for your many favours to me. Permit me also to celebrate your public spirit—your zealous and faithful service of your country—your social and domestic virtues, etc., which have endeared you to your acquaintances, and to all who have heard your names, and make you more illustrious, than can any high sounding titles. All who know you, will readily acquit me of servility and flattery, in this address. Dedications founded on these motives, are the disgrace of literature, and an insult to common sense. There are too many instances of this prostitution in Great Britain for it to be suffered in America. Numbers of high seated patrons are praised for their divine wisdom and godlike virtues, and yet the whole empire is discontented, and America in strong convulsions.

May you long enjoy your usual calm and prosperity! that so the widow, the fatherless, and the stranger may always joyfully return (as in past years) from your hospitable houses—while this Dedication stands as a small proof of that sincere attachment with which I am,

Gentlemen

Your most obedient,

Humble Servant,

James Adair.

PREFACE

The following history, and observations, are the productions of one who hath been chiefly engaged in an Indian life ever since the year 1735: and most of the pages were written among our old friendly Chikkasah, with whom I first traded in the year 1744. The subjects are interesting, as well as amusing; but never was a literary work begun and carried on with greater disadvantages. The author was separated by his situation, from the conversation of the learned, and from any libraries—Frequently interrupted also by business, and obliged to conceal his papers, through the natural jealousy of the natives; the traders letters of correspondence always excited their suspicions, and often gave offence.—Another difficulty I had to encounter, was the secrecy and closeness of the Indians as to their own affairs, and their prying disposition into those of others—so that there is no possibility of retirement among them.

A view of the disadvantages of my situation, made me reluctant to comply with the earnest and repeated solicitation of many worthy friends, to give the public an account of the Indian nations with whom I had long resided, was so intimately connected, and of whom scarcely anything had yet been published but romance and a mass of fiction. My friends at last prevailed, and on perusing the sheets, they were pleased to approve the contents, as conveying true information, and general entertainment. Having no ambition to appear in the world as an author, and knowing that my history differed essentially from all former publications of the kind, I first resolved to suppress my name; but my friends advised me to own the work, and thus it is tendered to the public in the present form.

The performance, hath doubtless imperfection, humanum est errate. Some readers may think, there is too much of what relates to myself, and to the adventures of small parties among the Indians and traders. But minute circumstances are often of great consequence, especially in discovering the descent and genius of a people—describing their manners and customs—and giving proper information to rulers at a distance. I thought it better to be esteemed prolix, than to omit any thing that might be useful on these points. Some repetitions, which occur, were necessary—The history of the several Indian nations being so much intermixed with each other, and their customs so nearly alike.

One great advantage my readers will here have; I sat down to draw the Indians on the spot—had them many years standing before me,—and lived with them as a friend and brother. My intentions were pure when I wrote, truth hath been my standard, and I have no sinister or mercenary views in publishing. With inexpressible concern I read the several imperfect and fabulous accounts of the Indians, already given to the world—Fiction and conjecture have no place in the following pages. The public may depend on the fidelity of the author, and that his descriptions are genuine, though perhaps not so polished and romantic as other Indian histories and accounts, they may have seen.

My grand objects, were to give the Literati proper and good materials tracing the origin of the American Indians—and to incite the higher powers zealously to promote the best interests of the British colonies, and the mother country. For whose greatness and happiness, I have the most ardent desire.

The whole work is respectfully submitted to the candor and judgment of the impartial Public.

CONTENTS

A
HISTORY
OF THE
NORTH-AMERICAN INDIANS,
THEIR CUSTOMS, &c.

Observations on the colour, shape, temper, and dress of the Indians of America.

The Indians are of a copper or red-clay colour—and they delight in every thing, which they imagine may promote and increase it: accordingly, they paint their faces with vermilion, as the best and most beautiful ingredient. If we consider the common laws of nature and providence, we shall not be surprized at this custom; for every thing loves best its own likeness and place in the creation, and is disposed to ridicule its opposite. If a deformed son of burning Africa, was to paint the devil, he would not do it in black colours, nor delineate him with a shagged coarse woolly head, nor with thick lips, a short flat nose, or clumsy feet, like those of a bear: his devil would represent one of a different nation or people. But was he to draw an agreeable picture,—according to the African taste, he would daub it all over with sooty black. All the Indians are so strongly attached to, and prejudiced in favour of, their own colour, that they think as meanly of the whites, as we possibly can do of them. The English traders among them, experience much of it, and are often very glad to be allowed to pass muster with the Indian chieftains, as fellow-brethren {1} of the human species. One instance will sufficiently shew in what flattering glasses they view themselves.

Some time past, a large body of the English Indian traders, on their way to the Choktah country, were escorted by a body of Creek and Choktah warriors. The Creeks having a particular friendship for some of the traders, who had treated them pretty liberally, took this opportunity to chide the Choktahs, before the traders, in a smart though friendly way, for not allowing to the English the name of human creatures:—for the general name they give us in their most favourable war-speeches, resembles that of a contemptible, heterogeneous animal.

The hotter, or colder the climate is, where the Indians have long resided, the greater proportion have they either of the red, or white, colour. I took particular notice of the Shawano Indians,[^[1]] as they were passing from the northward, within fifty miles of the Chikkasah country, to that of the Creeks; and, by comparing them with the Indians which I accompanied to their camp, I observed the Shawano to be much fairer than the Chikkasah[^[II]]; though I am satisfied, their endeavours to cultivate the copper colour, were alike. Many incidents and observations lead me to believe, that the Indian colour is not natural; but that the external difference between them and the whites, proceeds entirely from their customs and method of living, and not from any inherent spring of nature; which will entirely overturn Lord Kames’s whole system of colour, and separate races of men.

[II]. S is not a note of plurality with the Indians; when I mention therefore either their national, or proper names, that common error is avoided, which writers ignorant of their language constantly commit.

That the Indian colour is merely accidental, or artificial, appears pretty evident. Their own traditions record them to have come to their present lands by the way of the west, from a far distant country, and where there was no variegation of colour in human beings; and they are entirely ignorant which was the first or primitive colour. Besides, their rites, customs, &c. as we shall presently see, prove them to be orientalists: and, as the difference of colour among the human species, is one of the principal causes of separation, strife, and bloodshed, would it not greatly reflect on the goodness and justice of the Divine Being, ignominiously to brand numerous tribes and their posterity, with a colour odious and hateful in the sight and opinion of those of a different colour. Some writers have contended, from {2} the diversity of colour, that America was not peopled from any part of Asia, or of the old world, but that the natives were a separate creation. Of this opinion, is Lord Kames, and which he labours to establish in his late publication, entitled, Sketches of the History of Man. But his reasoning on this point, for a local creation, is contrary both to revelation, and facts. His chief argument, that “there is not a single hair on the body of any American, nor the least appearance of a beard,” is utterly destitute of foundation, as can be attested by all who have had any communication with them—of this more presently.[^[2]]—Moreover, to form one creation of whites, a second creation for the yellows, and a third for the blacks, is a weakness, of which infinite wisdom is incapable. Its operations are plain, easy, constant, and perfect. The variegation therefore of colours among the human race, depends upon a second cause. Lord Kames himself acknowledges, that “the Spanish inhabitants of Carthagena in South-America lose their vigour and colour in a few months.”

We are informed by the anatomical observations of our American physicians, concerning the Indians, that they have discerned a certain fine cowl, or web, of a red gluey substance, close under the outer skin, to which it reflects the colour; as the epidermis, or outer skin, is alike clear in every different creature. And experience, which is the best medium to discover truth, gives the true cause why this corpus mucosum, or gluish web, is red in the Indians, and white in us; the parching winds, and hot sun-beams, beating upon their naked bodies, in their various gradations of life, necessarily tarnish their skins with the tawny red colour. Add to this, their constant anointing themselves with bear’s oil, or grease, mixt with a certain red root, which, by a peculiar property, is able alone, in a few years time, to produce the Indian colour in those who are white born, and who have even advanced to maturity. These metamorphoses I have often seen.

At the Shawano main camp[^[III]], I saw a Pensylvanian, a white man by birth, and in profession a christian, who, by the inclemency of the sun, {3} and his endeavours of improving the red colour, was tarnished with as deep an Indian hue, as any of the camp, though they had been in the woods only the space of four years.

[III]. In the year 1747, I headed a company of the cheerful, brave Chikkasah, with the eagles tails, to the camp of the Shawano Indians, to apprehend one Peter Shartee, (a Frenchman) who, by his artful paintings, and the supine conduct of the Pensylvanian government, had decoyed a large body of the Shawano[Shawano] from the English, to the French, interest. But fearing the consequences, he went around an hundred miles, toward the Cheerake nation, with his family, and the head warriors, and thereby evaded the danger.

We may easily conclude then, what a fixt change of colour, such a constant method of life would produce: for the colour being once thoroughly established, nature would, as it were, forget herself, not to beget her own likeness.[^[3]] Besides, may we not suppose, that the imagination can impress the animalculæ, in the time of copulation, by its strong subtile power, with at least such an external similitude, as we speak of?—The sacred oracles, and christian registers, as well as Indian traditions, support the sentiment;—the colour of Jacob’s cattle resembled that of the peeled rods he placed before them, in the time of conception. We have good authority of a Spanish lady, who conceived, and was delivered of a negro child, by means of a black picture that hung on the wall, opposite to the bed where she lay. There is a record among the Chikkasah Indians, that tells us of a white child with flaxen hair, born in their country, long before any white people appeared in that part of the world; which they ascribed to the immediate power of the Deity impressing her imagination in a dream. And the Philosophical Transactions assure us of two white children having been born of black parents. But waving all other arguments, the different method of living, connected with the difference of climates, and extraordinary anointings and paintings, will effect both outward and inward changes in the human race, all round the globe: or, a different colour may be conveyed to the fœtus by the parents, through the channel of the fluids, without the least variation of the original stamina. For, though the laws of nature cannot be traced far, where there are various circumstances, and combinations of things, yet her works are exquisitely constant and regular, being thereto impelled by unerring divine Wisdom.

As the American Indians are of a reddish or copper colour,—so in general they are strong, well proportioned in body and limbs, surprisingly active and nimble, and hardy in their own way of living.

They are ingenious, witty, cunning, and deceitful; very faithful indeed to their own tribes, but privately dishonest, and mischievous to the Europeans and christians. Their being honest and harmless to each other, may be through fear of resentment and reprisal—which is unavoidable in case of any injury. {4} They are very close, and retentive of their secrets; never forget injuries; revengeful of blood, to a degree of distraction. They are timorous, and, consequently, cautious; very jealous of encroachments from their christian neighbours[neighbours]; and, likewise, content with freedom, in every turn of fortune. They are possessed of a strong comprehensive judgment,—can form surprisingly crafty schemes, and conduct them with equal caution, silence, and address; they admit none but distinguished warriors, and old beloved men, into their councils. They are slow, but very persevering in their undertakings—commonly temperate in eating, but excessively immoderate in drinking.—They often transform themselves by liquor into the likeness of mad foaming bears. The women, in general, are of a mild, amiable, soft disposition: exceedingly modest in their behaviour, and very seldom noisy, either in the single, or married state.

The men are expert in the use of fire-arms,—in shooting the bow,—and throwing the feathered dart, and tomohawk, into the flying enemy. They resemble the lynx, with their sharp penetrating black eyes, and are exceedingly swift of foot; especially in a long chase: they will stretch away, through the rough woods, by the bare track, for two or three hundred miles, in pursuit of a flying enemy, with the continued speed, and eagerness, of a stanch pack of blood hounds, till they shed blood.[^[4]] When they have allayed this their burning thirst, they return home, at their leisure, unless they chance to be pursued, as is sometimes the case; whence the traders say, “that an Indian is never in a hurry, but when the devil is at his heels.”

It is remarkable, that there are no deformed Indians—however, they are generally weaker, and smaller bodied, between the tropics, than in the higher latitudes; but not in an equal proportion: for, though the Chikkasah and Choktah countries have not been long divided from each other, as appears by the similarity of their language, as well as other things, yet the Chikkasah are exceedingly taller, and stronger bodied than the latter, though their country is only two degrees farther north. Such a small difference of latitude, in so healthy a region, could not make so wide a difference in the constitution of their bodies. The former are a comely, pleasant looking people; their faces are tolerably round, contrary to the visage of the others, which inclines much to flatness, as is the case of most of the other Indian Americans. The lips of the Indians, in general, are thin. {5}

Their eyes are small, sharp, and black; and their hair is lank, coarse, and darkish.[^[5]] I never saw any with curled hair, but one in the Choktah country, where was also another with red hair; probably, they were a mixture of the French and Indians. Romancing travellers, and their credulous copyists, report them to be imbarbes, and as persons impuberes, and they appear so to strangers. But both sexes pluck all the hair off their bodies, with a kind of tweezers, made formerly of clam-shells, now of middle-sized wire, in the shape of a gun-worm; which, being twisted round a small stick, and the ends fastened therein, after being properly tempered, keeps its form: holding this Indian razor between their fore-finger and thumb, they deplume themselves,[^[6]] after the manner of the Jewish novitiate priests, and proselytes.—As the former could not otherwise be purified for the function of his sacerdotal office; or the latter, be admitted to the benefit of religious communion.

Their chief dress is very simple, like that of the patriarchal age; of choice, many of their old head-men wear a long wide frock, made of the skins of wild beasts, in honour of that antient custom: It must be necessity that forces them to the pinching sandals for their feet. They seem quite easy, and indifferent, in every various scene of life, as if they were utterly divested of passions, and the sense of feeling. Martial virtue, and not riches, is their invariable standard for preferment; for they neither esteem, nor despise any of their people one jot more or less, on account of riches or dress. They compare both these, to paint on a warrior’s face; because it incites others to a spirit of martial benevolence for their country, and pleases his own fancy, and the eyes of spectators, for a little time, but is sweated off, while he is performing his war-dances; or is defaced, by the change of weather.

They formerly wore shirts, made of drest deer-skins, for their summer visiting dress: but their winter-hunting clothes were long and shaggy, made of the skins of panthers, bucks, bears, beavers, and otters; the fleshy sides outward, sometimes doubled, and always softened like velvet-cloth, though they retained their fur and hair. The needles and thread they used formerly, (and now at times) were fish-bones, or the horns and bones of deer, rubbed sharp, and deer’s sinews, and a sort of hemp, that grows among them spontaneously, in rich open lands. The women’s dress consists only in a {6} broad softened skin, or several small skins sewed together, which they wrap and tye round their waist, reaching a little below their knees: in cold weather, they wrap themselves in the softened skins of buffalo calves, with the wintery shagged wool inward, never forgetting to anoint, and tie up their hair, except in their time of mourning. The men wear, for ornament, and the conveniencies of hunting, thin deer-skin boots, well smoked, that reach so high up their thighs, as with their jackets to secure them from the brambles and braky thickets. They sew them about five inches from the edges, which are formed into tossels, to which they fasten fawns trotters, and small pieces of tinkling metal, or wild turkey-cockspurs. The beaus used to fasten the like to their war-pipes, with the addition of a piece of an enemy’s scalp with a tuft of long hair hanging down from the middle of the stem, each of them painted red: and they still observe that old custom, only they choose bell-buttons, to give a greater sound.

The young Indian men and women,[^[7]] through a fondness of their ancient dress, wrap a piece of cloth round them, that has a near resemblance to the old Roman toga, or prætexta. ’Tis about a fathom square, bordered seven or eight quarters deep, to make a shining cavalier of the beau monde, and to keep out both the heat and cold. With this frantic apparel, the red heroes swaddle themselves, when they are waddling, whooping, and prancing it away, in their sweltery town-houses, or supposed synhedria, around the reputed holy fire. In a sweating condition, they will thus incommode themselves, frequently, for a whole night, on the same principle of pride, that the grave Spaniard’s winter cloak must sweat him in summer.

They have a great aversion to the wearing of breeches; for to that custom, they affix the idea of helplessness, and effeminacy. I know a German of thirty years standing, chiefly among the Chikkasah Indians, who because he kept up his breeches with a narrow piece of cloth that reached across his shoulders, is distinguished by them, as are all his countrymen, by the despicable appellative, Kish-Kish Tarākshe, or Tied Arse.—They esteem the English much more than the Germans, because our limbs, they say, are less restrained by our apparel from manly exercise, than theirs. The Indian women also discreetly observe, that, as all their men sit down to make {7} water, the ugly breeches would exceedingly incommode them; and that, if they were allowed to wear breeches, it would portend no good to their country: however, they add, should they ever be so unlucky, as to have that pinching custom introduced among them, the English breeches would best suit their own female posture on that occasion; but that it would be exceedingly troublesome either way. The men wear a slip of cloth, about a quarter of an ell wide, and an ell and an half long, in the lieu of breeches; which they put between their legs, and tye round their haunches, with a convenient broad bandage. The women, since the time we first traded with them, wrap a fathom of the half breadth of Stroud cloth[^[8]] round their waist, and tie it with a leathern belt, which is commonly covered with brass runners or buckles: but this sort of loose petticoat, reaches only to their hams, in order to shew their exquisitely fine proportioned limbs.

They make their shoes for common use, out of the skins of the bear and elk, well dressed and smoked, to prevent hardening; and those for ornament, out of deer-skins, done in the like manner: but they chiefly go bare-footed, and always bare-headed. The men fasten several different sorts of beautiful feathers, frequently in tufts; or the wing of a red bird, or the skin of a small hawk, to a lock of hair on the crown of their heads. And every different Indian nation when at war, trim their hair, after a different manner, through contempt of each other; thus we can distinguish an enemy in the woods, so far off as we can see him.

The Indians flatten their heads, in divers forms: but it is chiefly the crown of the head they depress, in order to beautify themselves, as their wild fancy terms it; for they call us long heads, by way of contempt. The Choktah Indians flatten their fore-heads, from the top of the head to the eye-brows with a small bag of sand; which gives them a hideous appearance; as the forehead naturally shoots upward, according as it is flattened: thus, the rising of the nose, instead of being equidistant from the beginning of the chin, to that of the hair, is, by their wild mechanism, placed a great deal nearer to the one, and farther from the other.[^[9]] The Indian nations, round South-Carolina, and all the way to New Mexico, (properly called Mechiko) to effect this, fix the tender infant on a kind of cradle, where his feet are tilted, above a foot higher than a horizontal position, {8} —his head bends back into a hole, made on purpose to receive it, where he bears the chief part of his weight on the crown of the head, upon a small bag of sand, without being in the least able to move himself. The skull resembling a fine cartilaginous substance, in its infant state, is capable of taking any impression. By this pressure, and their thus flattening the crown of the head, they consequently make their heads thick, and their faces broad: for, when the smooth channel of nature is stopped in one place, if a destruction of the whole system doth not thereby ensue, it breaks out in a proportional redundancy, in another. May we not to this custom, and as a necessary effect of this cause, attribute their fickle, wild, and cruel tempers? especially, when we connect therewith, both a false education, and great exercise to agitate their animal spirits. When the brain, in cooler people, is disturbed, it neither reasons, nor determines, with proper judgment? The Indians thus look on every thing around them, through their own false medium; and vilify our heads, because they have given a wrong turn to their own. {9}

Observations on the origin and descent of the Indians.

The very remote history of all nations, is disfigured with fable, and gives but little encouragement to distant enquiry, and laborious researches. Much of the early history and antiquities of nations is lost, and some people have no records at all, and to this day are rude and uncivilized. Yet a knowledge of them is highly interesting, and would afford amusement, and even instruction in the most polished times, to the most polite. Every science has certain principles, as its basis, from which it reasons and concludes. Mathematical theorems, and logical propositions, give clear demonstrations, and necessary conclusions: and thus other sciences. But, history, and the origin of tribes and nations, have hitherto been covered with a great deal of obscurity. Some antient historians were ignorant; others prejudiced. Some searchers into antiquities adopted the traditional tales of their predecessors: and others looking with contempt on the origin of tribes and societies, altogether exploded them, without investigation. My design is, to examine, and if possible, ascertain the genealogy and descent of the Indians, and to omit nothing that may in the least contribute to furnish the public with a full Indian System.

In tracing the origin of a people, where there are no records of any kind, either written, or engraved, who rely solely on oral tradition for the support of their antient usages, and have lost great part of them—though the undertaking be difficult, yet where several particulars, and circumstances, strong and clear, correspond, they not only make room for conjecture, but cherish probability, and till better can be offered, must be deemed conclusive.

All the various nations of Indians, seem to be of one descent; they call a buffalo, in their various dialects, by one and the same name, “Yanasa.” And there is a strong similarity of religious rites, and of civil and martial customs, among all the various American nations of Indians we {10} have any knowledge of, on the extensive continent; as will soon be shewn.

Their language is copious, and very expressive, for their narrow orbit of ideas, and full of rhetorical tropes and figures, like the orientalists. In early times, when languages were not so copious, rhetoric was invented to supply that defect: and, what barrenness then forced them to, custom now continues as an ornament.

Formerly, at a public meeting of the head-men, and chief orators, of the Choktah nation, I heard one of their eloquent speakers[^[10]] deliver a very pathetic, elaborate, allegorical, tragic oration, in the high praise, and for the great loss, of their great, judicious war-chieftain, Shu-las-kum-másh-tà-be, our daring, brave friend, red shoes.[^[11]] The orator compared him to the sun, that enlightens and enlivens the whole system of created beings: and having carried the metaphor to a considerable length, he expatiated on the variety of evils, that necessarily result from the disappearance and absence of the sun; and, with a great deal of judgment, and propriety of expression, he concluded his oration with the same trope, with which he began.

They often change the sense of words into a different signification from the natural, exactly after the manner also of the orientalists. Even, their common speech is full of it; like the prophetic writings, and the book of Job, their orations are concise, strong, and full of fire; which sufficiently confutes the wild notion which some have espoused of the North American Indians being Præ-Adamites, or a separate race of men, created for that continent. What stronger circumstantial proofs can be expected, than that they, being disjoined from the rest of the world, time immemorial, and destitute also of the use of letters, should have, and still retain the ancient standard of speech, conveyed down by oral tradition from father to son, to the present generation? Besides, their persons, customs, &c. are not singular from the rest of the world; which, probably, they would, were they not descended from one and the same common head. Their notions of things are like ours, and their organical structure is the same. In them, the soul governs the body, according to the common laws of God in the creation of Adam. God employed six days, in creating the heavens, this earth, and the innumerable species {11} of creatures, wherewith it is so amply furnished. The works of a being, infinitely perfect, must entirely answer the design of them: hence there could be no necessity for a second creation; or God’s creating many pairs of the human race differing from each other, and fitted for different climates: because, that implies imperfection, in the grand scheme, or a want of power, in the execution of it—Had there been a prior, or later formation of any new class of creatures, they must materially differ from those of the six days work; for it is inconsistent with divine wisdom to make a vain, or unnecessary repetition of the same act. But the American Indians neither vary from the rest of mankind, in their internal construction, nor external appearance, except in colour; which, as hath been shewn, is either entirely accidental, or artificial. As the Mosaic account declares a completion of the manifestations of God’s infinite wisdom and power in creation, within that space of time; it follows, that the Indians have lineally descended from Adam, the first, and the great parent of all the human species.

Both the Chikkasah and Choktah Indians, call a deceitful person, Seente, a snake: and they frequently say, they have not Seente Soolish, the snake’s tongue; the meaning of which, is very analogous to דפי, a name the Hebrews gave to a deceitful person; which probably proceeded from a traditional knowledge of Eve’s being beguiled by the tempter, in that shape; for the Indians never affix any bad idea to the present reptile fraternity, except that of poisonous teeth: and they never use any such metaphor, as that of a snake’s teeth.

Some have supposed the Americans to be descended from the Chinese: but neither their religion, laws, customs, &c., agree in the least with those of the Chinese: which sufficiently proves, they are not of that line. Besides, as our best ships now are almost half a year in sailing to China, or from thence to Europe; it is very unlikely they should attempt such dangerous discoveries, in early time, with their (supposed) small vessels, against rapid currents, and in dark and sickly monsoons, especially, as it is very probable they were unacquainted with the use of the load-stone to direct their course. China is above eight thousand miles distant from the American continent, which is twice as far as across the Atlantic ocean.—And, we are not informed by any antient writer, of their maritime skill, or so much as any inclination that way, besides {12} small coasting voyages.—The winds blow likewise, with little variation, from east to west, within the latitudes of thirty and odd, north and south, and therefore they could not drive them on the American coast, it lying directly contrary to such a course.

Neither could persons sail to America, from the north, by the way of Tartary, or ancient Scythia; that, from its situation, never was, or can be, a maritime power, and it is utterly impracticable for any to come to America, by sea, from that quarter. Besides, the remaining traces of their religious ceremonies, and civil and martial customs, are quite opposite to the like vestiges of the old Scythians.

Nor, even in the moderate northern climates, is to be seen the least vestige of any ancient stately buildings, or of any thick settlements, as are said to remain in the less healthy regions of Peru and Mexico. Several of the Indian nations assure us they crossed the Missisippi, before they made their present northern settlements; which, connected with the former arguments, will sufficiently explode that weak opinion, of the American Aborigines being lineally descended from the Tartars, or ancient Scythians.

It is a very difficult thing to divest ourselves, not to say, other persons, of prejudices and favourite opinions; and I expect to be censured by some, for opposing commonly received sentiments, or for meddling with a dispute agitated among the learned ever since the first discovery of America. But, Truth is my object: and I hope to offer some things, which, if they do not fully solve the problem, may lead the way, and enable others, possessing stronger judgment, more learning, and more leisure, to accomplish it. As I before suggested, where we have not the light of history, or records, to guide us through the dark maze of antiquity, we must endeavour to find it out by probable arguments; and in such subjects of enquiry, where no material objections can be raised against probability, it is strongly conclusive of the truth, and nearly gives the thing sought for.

From the most exact observations I could make in the long time I traded among the Indian Americans, I was forced to believe them lineally descended from the Israelites, either while they were a maritime power, {13} or soon after the general captivity; the latter however is the most probable. This descent, I shall endeavour to prove from their religious rites, civil and martial customs, their marriages, funeral ceremonies, manners, language, traditions, and a variety of particulars.—Which will at the same time make the reader thoroughly acquainted with nations, of which it may be said to this day, very little have been known. {14}

Observations, and arguments, in proof of the American Indians being descended from the Jews.

A number of particulars present themselves in favour of a Jewish descent. But to form a true judgment, and draw a solid conclusion, the following arguments must not be partially separated. Let them be distinctly considered—then unite them together, and view their force collectively.

Argument I.

As the Israelites were divided into Tribes, and had chiefs over them, so the Indians divide themselves: each tribe forms a little community within the nation—And as the nation hath its particular symbol, so hath each tribe the badge from which it is denominated. The sachem of each tribe, is a necessary party in conveyances and treaties, to which he affixes the mark of his tribe, as a corporation with us doth their public seal[^[IV]].—If we go from nation to nation among them, we shall not find one, who doth not lineally distinguish himself by his respective family. The genealogical names which they assume, are derived, either from the names of those animals, whereof the cherubim are said in revelation, to be compounded; or from such creatures as are most familiar to them. They have the families of the eagle, panther, tyger, and buffalo; the family of the bear, deer, racoon, tortoise, snake, fish; and, likewise, of the wind. The last, if not derived from the appearance of the divine glory, as expressed by the prophet Ezekiel, may {15} be of Tyrian extraction. We are told in the fragment of Sanchoniathon, that the Tyrians worshipped fire and the ærial wind, as gods; and that Usous, the son of Hyposouranias, built a sacred pillar to each of them: so that, if it is not of Israelitish extraction, it may be derived from the Tyrians their neighbours—as may, likewise, the appellative name of fish; especially, as the Indians, sometimes, invoke the eagle, and the fish, when they are curing their sick. The Tyrians were the people, in early times, who, above all others, enriched themselves in the natural element of the fish.

[IV]. Many of the ancient heathens followed the Jewish custom of dividing themselves into tribes, or families. The city of Athens was divided into ten parts, or tribes, and which the Greeks called Phule, a tribe. They named each of the heads that presided over them, Archegos, Archiphulogos, &c. And writers inform us, that the East-Indian pagans have to this day tribes, or casts; and that each cast chuses a head to maintain its privileges, to promote a strict observance of their laws, and to take care that every thing be managed with proper order. The ancient heathens mimicked a great deal of the Jewish ceremonial law.

The Indians, however, bear no religious respect to the animals from which they derive the names of their tribes, but will kill any of the species, when opportunity serves. The wolf indeed, several of them do not care to meddle with, believing it unlucky to kill them; which is the sole reason that few of the Indians shoot at that creature, through a notion of spoiling their guns.[^[12]] Considering the proximity of Tyre to Egypt, probably this might be a custom of Egyptian extraction; though, at the same time, they are so far from esteeming it a deity, they reckon it the most abominable quadruped of the whole creation.

There is no tribe, or individual, among them, however, called by the name opossum[^[V]], which is with the Cheerake stiled seequa; and with the Chikkasah and Choktah Indians, shookka, synonymous with that of a hog. This may be more material than at first appears, as our natural histories tell us, that the opossum is common in other parts of the world. Several of the old Indians assure us, they formerly reckoned it as filthy uneatable an animal, as a hog; although they confess, and we know by long observation, that, from the time our traders settled among them, they are every year more corrupt in their morals; not only in this instance of eating an impure animal, but in many other religious customs of their forefathers.

[V]. A creature that hath a head like a hog, and a tail like a rat.

When we consider the various revolutions these unlettered savages are likely to have undergone, among themselves, through a long-forgotten measure of time; and that, probably, they have been above twenty centuries, without the use of letters to convey down their traditions, it cannot be reasonably expected they should still retain the identical names of {16} their primo-genial tribes. Their main customs corresponding with those of the Israelites, sufficiently clears the subject. Besides, as hath been hinted, they call some of their tribes by the names of the cherubimical figures, that were carried on the four principal standards of Israel.

I have observed with much inward satisfaction, the community of goods that prevailed among them, after the patriarchal manner, and that of the primitive Christians; especially with those of their own tribe. Though they are become exceedingly corrupt, in most of their ancient commendable qualities, yet they are so hospitable, kind-hearted, and free, that they would share with those of their own tribe, the last part of their provisions even to a single ear of corn; and to others, if they called when they were eating; for they have no stated meal-time. An open generous temper is a standing virtue among them; to be narrow-hearted, especially to those in want, or to any of their own family, is accounted a great crime, and to reflect scandal on the rest of the tribe. Such wretched misers they brand with bad characters, and wish them the fate of Prometheus, to have an eagle or vulture fastened to their liver: or of Tantalus, starving in the midst of plenty, without being able to use it. The Cheerake Indians have a pointed proverbial expression, to the same effect—Sinnawah nà wóra; “The great hawk is at home.”[^[13]] However, it is a very rare thing to find any of them of a narrow temper: and though they do not keep one promiscuous common stock, yet it is to the very same effect; for every one has his own family, or tribe: and, when one of them is speaking, either of the individuals, or habitations, of any of his tribe, he says, “He is of my house;” or, “It is my house.” Thus, when King David prayed that the divine wrath might only fall on his house, he might mean the tribe of Judah, as well as his own particular family, exclusive of the aggregate body of Israel.

When the Indians are travelling in their own country, they enquire for a house of their own tribe; and if there be any, they go to it, and are kindly received, though they never saw the persons before—they eat, drink, and regale themselves, with as much freedom, as at their own tables; which is the solid ground covered with a bear-skin. It is their usual custom to carry nothing along with them in the journies but a looking-glass, and red paint, hung to their back—their gun and shot pouch—or bow and quiver {17} full of barbed arrows; and, frequently, both gun and bow: for as they are generally in a state of war against each other, they are obliged, as soon as able, to carry those arms of defence. Every town has a state-house, or synedrion, as the Jewish sanhedrim, where, almost every night, the head men convene about public business; or the town’s-people to feast, sing, dance, and rejoice, in the divine presence, as will fully be described hereafter. And if a stranger calls there, he is treated with the greatest civility and hearty kindness—he is sure to find plenty of their simple home fare, and a large cane-bed covered with the softened skins of bears, or buffaloes, to sleep on.[^[14]] But, when his lineage is known to the people, (by a stated custom, they are slow in greeting one another) his relation, if he has any there, addresses him in a familiar way, invites him home, and treats him as his kinsman.

When a warrior dies a natural death, (which seldom happens) the war-drums, musical instruments, and all other kinds of diversion, are laid aside for the space of three days and nights. In this time of mourning for the dead, I have known some of the frolicksome young sparks to ask the name of the deceased person’s tribe; and once, being told it was a racoon, (the genealogical name of the family) one of them scoffingly replied, “then let us away to another town, and cheer ourselves with those who have no reason to weep; for why should we make our hearts weigh heavy for an ugly, dead racoon?”

But notwithstanding they are commonly negligent of any other tribe but their own, they regard their own particular lineal descent, in as strict a manner as did the Hebrew nation.

Argument II.

By a strict, permanent, divine precept, the Hebrew nation were ordered to worship at Jerusalem, Jehovah the true and living God, and who by the Indians is stiled Yohewah; which the seventy-two interpreters, either from ignorance or superstition, have translated Adonai; and is the very same as the Greek Kurios, signifying Sir, Lord, or Master; which is commonly applied to earthly potentates, without the least signification of, or relation to, that most great and awful name, which describes the divine essence, who naturally {18} and necessarily exists of himself, without beginning or end. The ancient heathens, it is well known, worshipped a plurality of gods—Gods which they formed to themselves, according to their own liking, as various as the countries they inhabited, and as numerous, with some, as the days of the year. But these Indian Americans pay their religious devoir to Loak-Ishtōhoollo-Aba, “the great, beneficent, supreme, holy spirit of fire,” who resides (as they think) above the clouds, and on earth also with unpolluted people. He is with them the sole author of warmth, light, and of all animal and vegetable life. They do not pay the least perceivable adoration to any images, or to dead persons; neither to the celestial luminaries, nor evil spirits, nor any created being whatsoever. They are utter strangers to all the gestures practised by the pagans in their religious rites. They kiss no idols;[^[15]] nor, if they were placed out of their reach, would they kiss their hands, in token of reverence and a willing obedience.

The ceremonies of the Indians in their religious worship, are more after the Mosaic institution, than of pagan imitation: which could not be, if the majority of the old natives were of heathenish descent; for all bigots and enthusiasts will fight to death for the very shadow of their superstitious worship, when they have even lost all the substance. There yet remain so many marks, as to enable us to trace the Hebrew extraction and rites, through all the various nations of Indians; and we may with a great deal of probability conclude, that, if any heathens accompanied them to the American world, or were settled in it before them, they became proselytes of justice, and their pagan rites and customs were swallowed up in the Jewish.

To illustrate the general subject, I shall give the Indian opinion of some of the heathen gods, contrasted with that of the pagan.

The American Indians do not believe the Sun to be any bigger than it appears to the naked eye. Conversing with the Chikkàsah archi-magus, or high-priest, about that luminary, he told me, “it might possibly be as broad and round as his winter-house; but he thought it could not well exceed it.” We cannot be surprised at the stupidity of the Americans in this respect, when we consider the gross ignorance which now prevails among the general part of the Jews, not only of the whole system of nature, but of the essential meaning of their own religious ceremonies, received from the Divine Majesty. {19} —And also when we reflect, that the very learned, and most polite of the ancient Romans, believed (not by any new-invented mythology of their own) that the sun was drawn round the earth in a chariot. Their philosophic system was not very dissimilar to that of the wild Americans; for Cicero tells us, Epicurus thought the sun to be less than it appeared to the eye. And Lucretius says, Tantillus ille sol, “a diminutive thing.” And, if the Israelites had not at one time thought the sun a portable god, they would not have thought of a chariot for it. This they derived from the neighbouring heathen; for we are told, that they had an house of the sun, where they danced in honour of him, in circuits, and had consecrated spherical figures; and that they, likewise, built a temple to it; for “they purified and sanctified themselves in the gardens, behind the house, or temple of Achad.” In Isa. xvii. 8, we find they had sun-images, which the Hebrews called chummanim, made to represent the sun, or for the honour and worship of it: and the Egyptians met yearly to worship in the temple of Beth-Shemesh, a house dedicated to the sun. Most part of the old heathens adored all the celestial orbs, especially the sun; probably they first imagined its enlivening rays immediately issued from the holy fire, light, and spirit, who either resided in, or was the identical sun. That idolatrous ceremony of the Jews, Josiah utterly abolished about 640 years before our Christian æra. The sacred text says, “He took away the horses, which the kings of Judah had given to the sun, and he burned the chariots of the sun with fire.” At Rhodes, a neighbouring island to Judæa, they consecrated chariots to the sun, on account of his glorious splendour and benign qualities. Macrobius tells us, that the Assyrians worshipped Adad, or Achad, an idol of the sun; and Strabo acquaints us, the Arabians paid divine homage to the sun, &c. But the Indian Americans pay only a civil regard to the sun: and the more intelligent sort of them believe, that all the luminaries of the heavens are moved by the strong fixt laws of the great Author of nature.

In 2 Kings xvii. 30, we read that the men of Babylon built Succoth-Benoth, “tents for young women;” having consecrated a temple to Venus, they fixed tents round it, where young women prostituted themselves in honour of the goddess. Herodotus, and other authors, are also sufficient witnesses on this point. Now, were the Americans originally heathens, or not of Israel, when they wandered there from captivity, in quest of {20} liberty, or on any other accidental account, that vicious precedent was so well calculated for America, where every place was a thick arbour, it is very improbable they should have discontinued it: But they are the very reverse. To commit such acts of pollution, while they are performing any of their religious ceremonies, is deemed so provoking an impiety, as to occasion even the supposed sinner to be excluded from all religious communion with the rest of the people. Or even was a man known to have gone in to his own wife, during the time of their fastings, purifications, &c. he would also be separated from them. There is this wide difference between the impure and obscene religious ceremonies of the ancient heathens, and the yet penal, and strict purity of the natives of America.

The heathens chose such gods, as were most suitable to their inclinations, and the situation of their country. The warlike Greeks and Romans worshipped Mars the god of war; and the savage and more bloody Scythians deified the Sword. The neighbouring heathens round Judæa, each built a temple to the supposed god that presided over their land. Rimmon, was the Syrian god of pomegranates: and the Philistines, likewise, erected a temple to Dagon, who had first taught them the use of wheat; which the Greeks and Romans changed into Ceres, the goddess of corn, from the Hebrew, Geres, which signifies grain. But the red Americans firmly believe, that their war-captains, and their reputed prophets, gain success over their enemies, and bring on seasonable rains, by the immediate reflection of the divine fire, co-operating with them.

We are informed by Cicero, that the maritime Sidonians adored fishes: and by the fragment of Sanchoniathon, that the Tyrians worshipped the element of fire, and the ærial wind, as gods:—probably having forgotten that the first and last names of the three celestial cherubic emblems, only typified the deity. Ancient history informs us, that Zoroaster, who lived An. M. 3480, made light the emblem of good, and darkness the symbol of evil—he taught an abhorrence of images, and instructed his pupils to worship God, under the figurative likeness of fire: but he asserted two contrary original principles; the one of good, and the other of evil. He allowed no temples, but enjoined sacrificing in the open air, and on the top of an hill. The ancient Persians kept up their reputed holy fire, without suffering it to be extinguished; which their pretended successors observe with the {21} strictest devotion, and affirm it has been burning, without the least intermission, several thousand years. But the Indian Americans are so far from the idolatry of the Sidonians, that they esteem fish only as they are useful to the support of human life; though one of their tribes is called the fish:—they are so far from paying any religious worship to the aerial wind, like the Tyrians, that they often call the bleak northwind, explicatively, very evil, and accursed; which they probably, would not say, if they derived the great esteem they now have for the divine fire, from the aforesaid idolatrous nations: neither would they wilfully extinguish their old fire, before the annual sacrifice is offered up, if, like the former heathens, they paid religious worship to the elementary fire; for no society of people would kill their own gods, unless the papists, who go farther, even to eat him. The Indians esteem the old year’s fire, as a most dangerous pollution, regarding only the supposed holy fire, which the archi-magus annually renews for the people.

They pay no religious worship to stocks, or stones, after the manner of the old eastern pagans; neither do they worship any kind of images whatsoever.[^[16]] And it deserves our notice, in a very particular manner, to invalidate the idle dreams of the jesuitical fry of South-America, that none of all the various nations, from Hudson’s Bay to the Missisippi, has ever been known, by our trading people, to attempt to make any image of the great Divine Being, whom they worship. This is consonant to the Jewish observance of the second commandment, and directly contrary to the usage of all the ancient heathen world, who made corporeal representations of their deities—and their conduct, is a reproach to many reputed Christian temples, which are littered round with a crowd of ridiculous figures to represent God, spurious angels, pretended saints, and notable villains.

The sacred penmen, and prophane writers, assure us that the ancient heathens had lascivious gods, particularly מפלצת, 2 Chron. xv. 16, which was the abominable Priapus. But I never heard that any of our North-American Indians had images of any kind. There is a carved human statue of wood, to which, however, they pay no religious homage: It belongs to the head war-town of the upper Muskohge country, and seems to have been originally designed to perpetuate the memory of some distinguished hero, who deserved well of his country; for, when their cusseena, or bitter, black drink[^[17]] is about to {22} be drank in the synedrion, they frequently, on common occasions, will bring it there, and honour it with the first conch-shell-full, by the hand of the chief religious attendant: and then they return it to its former place. It is observable, that the same beloved waiter, or holy attendant, and his co-adjutant, equally observe the same ceremony to every person of reputed merit, in that quadrangular place. When I past[past] that way, circumstances did not allow me to view this singular figure; but I am assured by several of the traders, who have frequently seen it, that the carving is modest, and very neatly finished, not unworthy of a modern civilized artist. As no body of people we are acquainted with, have, in general, so great a share of strong natural parts as those savages, we may with a great deal of probability suppose, that their tradition of the second commandment, prevented them from having one, not to say the same plentiful variety of images, or idols, as have the popish countries.

Notwithstanding they are all degenerating apace, on account of their great intercourse with foreigners, and other concurring causes; I well remember, that, in the year 1746, one of the upper towns of the aforesaid Muskohge, was so exceedingly exasperated against some of our Chikkasah traders, for having, when in their cups, forcibly viewed the nakedness of one of their women, (who was reputed to be an hermaphrodite) that they were on the point of putting them to death, according to one of their old laws against crimes of that kind.—But several of us, assisted by some of the Koosah town, rescued them from their just demerit. Connecting together these particulars, we can scarcely desire a stronger proof, that they have not been idolaters, since they first came to America; much less, that they erected, and worshipped any such lascivious and obscene idols, as the heathens above recited.

The Sidonians and Philistines worshipped Ashtaroth, in the figure of the celestial luminaries; or, according to others, in the form of a sheep: but the Americans pay the former, only, a civil regard, because of the beneficial influence with which the deity hath impressed them. And they reckon sheep as despicable and helpless, and apply the name to persons in that predicament, although a ram was the animal emblem of power, with the ancient eastern heathens. The Indians sometimes call a nasty fellow, Chookphe {23} kussooma, “a stinking sheep,” and “a goat.” And yet a goat was one of the Egyptian deities; as likewise were all the creatures that bore wool; on which account, the sacred writers frequently term idols, “the hairy.” The despicable idea which the Indians affix to the species, shews they neither use it as a divine symbol, nor have a desire of being named Dorcas, which, with the Hebrews, is a proper name, expressive of a wild she goat. I shall subjoin here, with regard to Ashtaroth, or Astarte, that though the ancients believed their deities to be immortal, yet they made to themselves both male and female gods, and, by that means, Astarte, and others, are of the fæminine gender. Trismegistus too, and the Platonics, affirmed there was deus masculo-fæmineus; though different sexes were needful for the procreation of human beings.

Instead of consulting such as the heathen oracles—or the Teraphim—the Dii Penates—or Dii Lares, of the ancients, concerning future contingencies, the Indians only pretend to divine from their dreams; which may proceed from the tradition they still retain of the knowledge their ancestors obtained from heaven, in visions of the night, Job xxxiii. “God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed, then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.” When we consider how well stocked with gods, all the neighbouring nations of Judæa were; especially the maritime powers, such as Tyre and Sidon, Carthage and Egypt, which continually brought home foreign gods, and entered them into their own Palladia; and that these Americans are utterly ignorant both of the gods and their worship, it proves, with sufficient evidence, that the gentlemen, who trace them from either of those states, only perplex themselves in wild theory, without entering into the merits of the question.

As the bull was the first terrestrial cherubic emblem, denoting fire, the ancient Egyptians, in length of time, worshipped Apis, Serapis, or Osiris, under the form of an ox; but, when he grew old, they drowned him, and lamented his death in a mourning habit; which occasioned a philosopher thus to jest them, Si Dii sunt, cur plangitis? Si mortui, cur adoratis? “If they be gods, why do you weep for them? And, if they are dead, why do you worship them?” A bull, ox, cow, or calf, was the favourite deity of {24} the ancient idolaters. Even when Yohewah was conducting Israel in the wilderness, Aaron was forced to allow them a golden calf, according to the usage of the Egyptians: and at the defection of the ten tribes, they worshipped before the emblematical images of two calves, through the policy of Jeroboam. The Troglodites used to strangle their aged, with a cow’s tail: and some of the East-Indians are said to fancy they shall be happy, by holding a cow’s tail in their hand when dying: others imagine the Ganges to wash away all their crimes and pollution. The Indian Americans, on the contrary, though they derive the name of cattle from part of the divine essential name, (as shall be elsewhere observed) and use the name of a buffalo as a war appellative, and the name of a tribe; yet their regard to them, centres only in their usefulness for the support of human life: and they believe they can perform their religious ablutions and purifications, in any deep clean water.

The superstitious heathens, whom the Hebrews called, Yedonim, pretended that the bones of those they worshipped as gods when alive, revealed both present and future things, that were otherwise concealed: and the hieroglyphics, the priestly legible images, which the Egyptians inscribed on the tombs of the deceased, to praise their living virtue, and incite youth to imitate them, proved a great means of inducing them in process of time to worship their dead. But the Americans praise only the virtues of their dead, as fit copies of imitation for the living. They firmly believe that the hand of God cuts off the days of their dead friend, by his pre-determined purpose. They are so far from deifying fellow-creatures, that they prefer none of their own people, only according to the general standard of reputed merit.

The Chinese, likewise, though they call God by the appellative, Cham Ti, and have their temples of a quadrangular form, yet they are gross idolaters; like the ancient Egyptians, instead of offering up religious oblations to the great Creator and Preserver of the universe, they pay them to the pictures of their deceased ancestors, and erect temples to them, in solitary places without their cities—likewise to the sun, moon, planets, spirits, and inventors of arts; especially to the great Confucius, notwithstanding he strictly prohibited the like idolatrous rites. And the religious modes of the ancient inhabitants {25} of Niphon, or the Japanese, are nearly the same; which are diametrically opposite to the religious tenets of the wild Americans.

The diviners among the Philistines pretended to foretel things, by the flying, chirping, and feeding of wild fowls. The Greeks and Romans called fowls, Nuncii Deorum. And Calchas is said to have foretold to Agamemnon, by the number of sparrows which flew before him, how many years the Trojan war should last. The Assyrians worshipped pigeons, and bore the figure of them on their standards, as the sacred oracles shew us, where the anger of the pigeon, and the sword of the pigeon, points at the destroying sword of the Assyrians. But, though the American woods swarm with a surprizing variety of beautiful wild fowl, yet the natives do not make the least pretension to auguries. They know it is by a certain gift or instinct, inferior to human reason, that the birds have a sufficient knowledge of the seasons of the year. I once indeed observed them to be intimidated at the voice of a small uncommon bird, when it pitched, and chirped on a tree over their war camp. But that is the only trace of such superstition, as I can recollect among them. Instead of calling birds the messengers of the gods, they call the great eagle, Ooōle; which seems to be an imitation of Eloha.—This may be accounted for, from the eagle being one of the cherubic emblems, denoting the air, or spirit. They esteem pigeons only as they are salutary food, and they kill the turtledove, though they apply it as a proper name to their female children.

The Babylonians were much addicted to auguries: and they believed them to be unerring oracles, and able to direct them in doubtful and arduous things, Ezek. xxi. 21. Those auguries always directed their conduct, in every material thing they undertook; such as the beginning and carrying on war, going a journey, marriage, and the like. But, as we shall soon see, the Americans, when they go to war, prepare and sanctify themselves, only by fasting and ablutions, that they may not defile their supposed holy ark, and thereby incur the resentment of the Deity. And many of them firmly believe, that marriages are made above. If the Indian Americans were descended from any of the states or people above mentioned, they could not well have forgotten, much less could they have so essentially departed from their idolatrous worship. It is hence probable, they came here, {26} soon after the captivity, when the religion of the Hebrew nation, respecting the worship of Deity, was in its purity. And if any of the ancient heathens came with them, they became proselytes of habitation, or justice—hereby, their heathenish rites and ceremonies were, in process of time, intirely absorbed in the religious ceremonies of the Jews.

Had the nine tribes and half of Israel which were carried off by Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, and settled in Media, continued there long, it is very probable, that by intermarrying with the natives, and from their natural fickleness and proneness to idolatry, and the force of example, they would have adopted, and bowed before the gods of the Medes and the Assyrians, and carried them along with them. But there is not a trace of this idolatry among the Indians. The severe afflictions they underwent in captivity, doubtless humbled their hearts, and reclaimed them from the service of the calves, and of Baalam, to the true divine worship—a glimpse of which they still retain. And that the first settlers came to America before the destruction of the first temple, may be inferred, as it is certain both from Philo and Josephus, that the second temple had no cherubim. To reflect yet greater light on the subject, I shall here add a few observations on the Indians supposed religious cherubic emblems, the cherubimical names of their tribes, and from whence they, and the early heathens, may be supposed to have derived them.

When the goodness of Deity induced him to promise a saviour to fallen man, in paradise, he stationed flaming cherubim in the garden. The type I shall leave; but when mankind became intirely corrupt, God renewed his promise to the Israelites, and to convey to posterity the true divine worship, ordered them to fix in the tabernacle, and in Solomon’s temple, cherubim, over the mercy-seat,—the very curtains which lined the walls, and the veil of the temple, likewise, were to have those figures. The cherubim are said to represent the names and offices of Yehowah Elohim, in redeeming lost mankind. The word כרבים, is drawn from כ, a note of resemblance, and רב, a great or mighty one; i. e. the “similitude of the great and mighty One,” whose emblems were the bull, the lion, the man, and the eagle. The prophet Ezekiel has given us two draughts of the cherubim (certainly not without an instructive design) in his two visions, described in the first {27} and tenth chapters. In chap. x. ver. 20, he assures us that “he knew they were the cherubim.” They were uniform, and had those four compounded animal emblems; “Every one had four faces—פגים,” appearances, habits, or forms; which passage is illustrated by the similar divine emblems on the four principal standards of Israel. The standard of Judah bore the image of a lion; Ephraim’s had the likeness of a bull; Reuben’s had the figure of a man’s head; and Dan’s carried the picture of an eagle, with a serpent in his talons[^[VI]]: Each of the cherubim, according to the prophet, had the head and face of a man—the likeness of an eagle, about the shoulders, with expanded wings; their necks, manes, and breasts, resembled those of a lion; and their feet those of a bull, or calf. “The sole of their feet was like the sole of a calf’s foot.” One would conclude, from Ezekiel’s visions, and Psal. xviii. 10.—Ps. xcix. 1. “He rode upon a cherub, and did fly:”—“The Lord reigneth, let the people tremble: he sitteth between the cherubim, let the earth be moved,”—that Elohim chose the cherubic emblems, in condescension to man, to display his transcendent glorious title of King of kings. We view him seated in his triumphal chariot, and as in the midst of a formidable war camp, drawn by those four creatures, the bull, the lion, the man, and the eagle; strong and descriptive emblems of the divine essence. What animal is equal to the bull, or ox, for strength, indefatigable service, and also for food? In eastern countries, they were always used to plough, and beat out the grain, besides other services omitted in modern times; the lion excels every other animal in courage, force, and prowess: man far surpasses all other creatures, in understanding, judgment, and wisdom; and there is no bird so sagacious, or can fly so swift, or soar so high as the eagle, or that bears so intense a love to its young ones.

[VI]. The Man, which the lion on the standard of Judah, and the head on Reuben’s, typified, was, in the fulness of time, united to the divine essence.

These are the emblems of the terrestrial cherubim: and the Psalmist calls them Merabha Hashekina, “The chariot of Divine Majesty:” “God sitteth between, and rideth upon, the cherubim,” or divine chariot. The celestial cherubim were fire, light, and air, or spirit, which were typified by the bull, the lion, and the eagle. Those divine emblems, in a long revolution of time, {28} induced the ancients by degrees, to divide them, and make images of the divine persons, powers, and actions, which they typified, and to esteem them gods. They consecrated the bull’s head to the fire, the lion’s to light, and the eagle’s to the air, which they worshipped as gods. And, in proportion as they lost the knowledge of the emblems, they multiplied and compounded their heads with those of different creatures. The Egyptians commonly put the head of a lion, hawk, or eagle, and sometimes that of a ram, or bull, to their images; some of which resembled the human body. Their Apis, or Osiris, gave rise to Aaron’s, and apostate Israel’s, golden calf: and their sphynx had three heads. Diana of Ephesus was triformis; Janus of Rome, biformis, and, sometimes, quadriformis; and Jupiter, Sol, Mercury, Proserpine, and Cerberus, were triple-headed.

Hesiod tells us, the ancient heathens had no less than thirty thousand gods. It is well known that the ancient heathens, especially the Greeks and Romans, abounded with male and female deities; and commonly in human effigy. As they imagined they could not safely trust themselves to the care of any one god, they therefore chose a multiplicity. They multiplied and changed them from childhood to old age. The Romans proceeded so far, as to make Cloacina the guardian goddess of each house-of-office. The heathens in general, appointed one god to preside over the land, and another over the water; one for the mountains, and another for the valleys. And they were so diffident of the power of their gods, that they chose a god, or goddess, for each part of the body; contrary to the religious system of their best poets and philosophers, and that of the present savage Americans: the former affirmed, sapiens dominabitur astris, &c.; “A wife, good man, will always be ruled by divine reason; and not pretend to be drawn to this or that, by an over-bearing power of the stars, or fortune:” and the latter assert, “that temporal good or evil is the necessary effect of their own conduct; and that the Deity presides over life and death.”

If this first institution of the cherubic emblems was not religious, nor derived from the compounded figures of the scripture cherubim, how is it that so many various nations of antiquity, and far remote from each other, should have chosen them as gods, and so exactly alike? Is it not most reasonable to suppose, that as they lost the meaning of those symbolical figures, and {29} their archetypes, fire, light, and air, or spirit, which represented the attributes, names, and offices of Yohewah Elohim, they divided them into so many various gods, and paid them divine worship. Yet, though the Indian Americans have the supposed cherubimical figures, in their synhedria, and, through a strong religious principle, dance there, perhaps every winter’s night, always in a bowing posture, and frequently sing Halelu-Yah Yo He Wah, I could never perceive, nor be informed, that they substituted them, or the similitude of any thing whatsoever, as objects of divine adoration, in the room of the great invisible divine essence. They use the feathers of the eagle’s tail[^[18]], in certain friendly and religious dances, but the whole town will contribute, to the value of 200 deer-skins, for killing a large eagle; (the bald eagle they do not esteem); and the man also gets an honourable title for the exploit, as if he had brought in the scalp of an enemy. Now, if they reckoned the eagle a god, they would not only refuse personal profits, and honours, to him who killed it, but assuredly inflict on him the severest punishment, for committing so atrocious and sacrilegious an act.

I have seen in several of the Indian synhedria, two white painted eagles carved out of poplar wood, with their wings stretched out, and raised five feet off the ground, standing at the corner, close to their red and white imperial seats: and, on the inner side of each of the deep-notched pieces of wood, where the eagles stand, the Indians frequently paint, with a chalky clay, the figure of a man, with buffalo horns—and that of a panther, with the same colour; from which I conjecture, especially, connected with their other rites and customs soon to be mentioned, that the former emblem was designed to describe the divine attributes, as that bird excels the rest of the feathered kind, in various superior qualities; and that the latter symbol is a contraction of the cherubimical figures, the man, the bull, and the lion. And this opinion is corroborated by an established custom, both religious and martial, among them, which obliges them to paint those sacred emblems anew, at the first fruit-offering, or the annual expiation of sins. Every one of their war-leaders must also make three successful wolfish campaigns, with their reputed holy ark, before he is admitted to wear a pair of a young buffalo-bull’s horns on his forehead, or to sing the triumphal war song, and to dance with the same animal’s tail sticking up behind him, while he sings Yo Yo, &c. {30}

Now we know it was an usual custom with the eastern nations, to affix horns to their gods. The Sidonian goddess Ashtaroth was horned: and Herodotus says, the Egyptians painted their Venus, or Isis, after the same manner: and the Greek Jo, (which probably was Yo) had horns, in illusion to the bull’s head, the chief emblem of the celestial cherubic fire, representing Yo (He Wah) as its name plainly indicates. A horn was, likewise, a Persian emblem of power[^[VII]].

[VII]. The metaphorical expressions, and emblematical representations, of the law and the prophets, are generally suited to the usages of the eastern countries. And this metaphor, of a horn, is commonly so used, through all the divine registers, multiplying the number of horns of the object they are describing, to denote its various, great, and perfect power; unless where seven is mentioned as a number of perfection, as in St. John’s figurative, magnificent, and sublime description of Christ.

That the Indians derived those symbolical representations from the compounded figures of the cherubim, seems yet more clear, from the present cherubic names of their tribes, and the preeminence they formerly bore over the rest. At present, indeed, the most numerous tribe commonly bears the highest command; yet their old warriors assure us, it was not so even within their own remembrance. The title of the old beloved men, or archimagi, is still hereditary in the panther, or tyger family: As North-America breeds no lions, the panther, or any animal it contains, is the nearest emblem of it. The Indian name of each cherub, both terrestrial and celestial, reflects great light on the present subject; for they call the buffalo (bull) Yanasa; the panther, or supposed lion, Koè-Ishto, or Koè-O, “the cat of God;” the man, or human creature, Ya-we; and the eagle, Ooóle; fire is Loak; the solar light, Ashtahále; and air, Màhàle, in allusion to מי, water, and אל, the omnipotent; the note of aspiration is inserted, to give the word a fuller and more vehement sound. Their eagle and buffalo tribes resemble two other cherubic names or emblems. They have one they call Spháne, the meaning of which they have lost; perhaps it might have signified the man.

Near to the red and white imperial seats, they have the representation of a full moon, and either a half moon, or a breastplate, raised five or six feet high at the front of the broad seats, and painted with chalky clay; sometimes black paintings are intermixed. But, let it be noticed, that in the {31} time of their most religious exercises, or their other friendly rejoicings there, they do not pay the least adoration to any of those expressive emblems; nor seem to take any notice of them: which is the very reverse to the usage of all the ancient heathen world. Hence one would conclude, that they not only brought with them the letter, but the meaning of those reputed cherubimical figures, which were designed to represent the inseparable attributes of Yohewah.

It is universally agreed, by the Christian world, that every religious observance of the ancient heathens, which the Mosaic law approved of, was at first derived from divine appointment; and as we are assured in the first pages of the sacred oracles, concerning Cain, Gen. iv. 16. “that he went out from the presence of the Lord,” we learn, that God, in that early state of the world, chose a place for his more immediate presence,—פגים, his faces, appearances, or forms residing in, or between, the cherubim. We may, therefore, reasonably conclude, from the various gods, and religious worship of the ancient heathens, and from the remaining divine emblems, and family names of the Indian Americans, that the former deduced those emblems they deifyed, from the compounded cherubim in paradise: and that the Indians derived their cherubic figures, and names of tribes, from the cherubim that covered the mercy-seat, in the tabernacle, and in Solomon’s temple, alluded to and delineated in several parts of the sacred oracles.

Argument III.

Agreeable to the THEOCRACY, or divine government of Israel, the Indians think the Deity to be the immediate head of their state.

All the nations of Indians are exceedingly intoxicated with religious pride, and have an inexpressible contempt of the white people, unless we except those half-savage Europeans, who are become their proselytes. Nothings is the most favourable name they give us, in set speeches: even the Indians who were formerly bred in amity with us, and in enmity to the French, used to call us, in their war orations, hottuk ookproose, “The accursed people.” But they flatter themselves with the name hottuk oretoopah, “The beloved people,” because their supposed ancestors, as they affirm, were under the immediate government of the Deity, who was present with them, in a {32} very particular manner, and directed them by prophets; while the rest of the world were aliens and out-laws to the covenant.

When the archi-magus, or any one of their magi, is persuading the people, at their religious solemnities to a strict observance of the old beloved, or divine speech, he always calls them, “The beloved,” or holy people, agreeable to the Hebrew epithet, Ammi, during the theocracy of Israel: he urges them, with the greatest energy of expression he is capable of, a strong voice, and very expressive gestures, to imitate the noble actions of their great and virtuous forefathers, which they performed, in a surprizing manner, by their holy things, and a strict observance of the old, beloved speech. Then, he flourishes on their beloved land that flowed with milk and honey, telling them they had good, and the best things in the greatest plenty: and speaks largely of their present martial customs, and religious rites, which they derived from their illustrious predecessors,—strictly charging them not to deviate, in the least, out of that old, beloved, beaten path, and they will surely meet with all the success that attended their beloved forefathers.