A view of the soil and climate of the United States of America : with supplementary remarks upon Florida; on the French colonies on the Mississippi and Ohio, and in Canada; and on the aboriginal tribes of America

Front matter

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A o V

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Preface

THE following work is the fruit of a residence of three years in the United States, which took place in circumstances widely different from those of my residence, twenty years ago, in Turkey. In the year 1783, I embarked at Marseilles, with all the gaiety of heart, all the cheerful and aspiring hopes natural to youth. I exchanged, without regret, a land of plenty and peace for a region of anarchy and desolation, actuated merely by a thirst of useful knowledge, and a desire to employ the restless and inquisitive period of youth, in making provision for the consolation and embellishment of age. In the year 1795, I embarked at Havre for America, with all the dreary feelings that flow from the observation and experience of persecution and injustice. Saddened by the past^

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anxious for the future, I set out for a land of freedom, to discover whether hberty, which was banished from Europe, had really found a place of refuge in any other part of the world.

In this frame of mind, I visited almost every part of the United States, studying the climate, the laws, the people, and their manners, chiefly in the relations of social and domestic life ; and such was the contrast which the scene before me bore to that which I had left, that I resolved to make it my future residence. France, and indeed Europe in general, presented to my view nothing but a gloomy and tempestuous prospect ; a series of endless and obstinate wars, between expiring prejudices and new-born knowledge, between anticjuated privileges and popular claims. Here I beheld nothing but a splendid prospect of future peace and happiness, flowing from the wide extent of improveable territory ; from the facility of procuring property in land ; from the necessity and the profits of labour; from the liberty of action and industry ; and from the equity of the government, a virtue which it owes to its very weakness. Here, therefore, I resolved to remain, when, in the spring of 1798, there broke out so violent an animosity against vu

France, and a war seemed so inevitable, that I Was obliged to withdraw from the scene.

I might here complain of the violent and pub-, lie attacks made upon my character, with the connivance, or at the instigation of a certain eminent personage, during the last days of my residence in America ; but the election of 1801 has reversed the scene that took place in 1797, and is to m.e an ample atonement for all that I have suffered. I cannot, however, forbear dwelling on the folly of the suspicions with which 1 was loaded. I was stigmatized as the emissary of a government, whose axe was continually falling on the necks of those whose conduct and opinions resembled mine. They fancied that I was Engaged in a conspiracy (me, a single solitary Frenchman) to throw Louisiana into tlie hands of the directory, which, at that time, had scarcely an existence, in defiance of the testimony of a thousand witnesses, the most respectable in Kentucky, as well as in Pennsylvania and Virginia, who knew my sentiments to be entirely hostile to such a transfer of territory. They knew that I regarded the scheme as visionary and delusive, and dreaded it as tending to embroil us with the United States, and to strengthen their bias tovia

wards England. It was well known to be my opinion, that its settlement would be expensive and precarious, its defence difficult, on account of our languishing marine, and the instability of our government ; and that it could not fail^ sooner or later, of blending itself with the nation contiguous to it, and which alone possesses the adequate means of governing, peopling, and defending it. These notions, so contrary to those of most of our ministers and statesmen, exposed me to their hatred, and almost to their persecution. Nevertheless I continued to maintain them when there was no small danger in doing so ; for which I may now take some credit to myself, since these principles have since been sanctioned and adopted by the highest authority.

My readers will doubtless be surprised when they are informed that the ill-will of the first magistrate, at a time when the great Washington gave me many public proofs of his esteem and confidence, arose entirely from the vanity o{ author ship ^ made sore by my objections to his book on the constitutions of America. As a man of reading and a stranger, often questioned on the subject in a land of perfect liberty, I had

'wf oceasion to speak my sentiments before the author had been elevated to the highest office in the government. Unluckily I concurred with one of the best English critics, who condemned the book as a crude and inaccurate compilation, and insinuated that it was written with some secret purpose, which the course of future events only could unfold. I ventured to suspect that this purpose was the g-^iining, by this national flattery, the popular favour and suffrages: when the prophecy was fulfilled, the prophet was not forgotten.

On my return to France, I conceived the design of a work as advantageous to my countrymen, as it would be useful to myself; which was that of comparing my own observations and reflections with those already scattered through various publications, in order to detect and remove some errors adopted in moments of enthusiasm. After laying a suitable foundation in an examination of the climate and soil, I proposed, agreeably to the most natural and instructive method, to consider the numbers of the people, their difl'usion over the surface of their territory, their distribution into classes and professions, their manners as influenced by their actual situ-

b ation, and by the habits and prejudices derived from their ancestors. By simply tracing their history, laws, and hmgunge, I proposed to detect the error of tliose wlio represent, as a sort of new-born race, as an infa)it nation^ a mere medley of adventurers from all parts of Europe, but more especially from the three British kingdoms. The composition of these worn out and motley elements, into one political body, would have led me to explain briefly the formation of each colony, to pouriray their founders, to analize those early principles, which have run through ail their institutions and which exemplify the common observation, that early habits and impressions modify tlie whole existence of collective bodies, as well as of individuals. We should thus have discovered the sources of that diversity, which grows daily more conspicuous in the character and conduct of the different parts of the union.

In a brief review of the circumstances attending the claim of independence, many new remarks would have been suggested as to its real nature and consequences. Many striking resemblances would have presented themselves between the American and French revolutions, which have

XI hitherto escaped superficial observers. In the motives and conduct of parties, and the mcrins they used, we discover a manifest resemblance. There v/ill appear the same fluctuation of views and interests, the same ultimate decline of public spirit. Even in the character of the three successive national assemblies, both nations present the same picture ; the first of these having outstripped, and the last having fallen short of the knowledge and improvements of a whole generation. We shaU one day learn that the great national commotions called revolutions, are not so much the creatures of prudence and design, as mechanical cltects produced by the impulse and collision of the passions.

In discussing the events, so little known, of the period tiiat elapsed from the revolution to the establishment of the federal government, I should have shown in what manner the national character was influenced by that season of disorder; the changes in public opinion, wrought by an inundation of returning royalists, and of mercantile adventurers from Europe ; the depravity of manners and corruption of principles, flowing from the creation of paper-money; the weakness of the laws ; and from the transient

Xll wealth and permanent luxury which the wars in Europe poured into a neutral country. 1 should have explained the influence of European wars on the prosperity of these states ; the benefits they iiave visibly acquired, in spite of their feeble and disjointed government, from the last war; the obvious advancement of their power and ambition towards the West Indian isles and the neigiibouring continent ; and their probable aggrandizement in future, notwithstanding their internal factions and divisions. I should have explained that disjunction of interests and views, and contrariety of habits, which already separate the eastern from the southern, the Atlantic from the Mississippi states; the preponderance of the mercantile interest in the one, and the agricultural in the other; the weakness of the soutb^ from the prevalence of slavery ; and the strength of the east^ the fruit of private freedom and industry. I should have dwelt upon the grand source of their divisions, in their jarring political systems, which have split the nation into federalists and republicans; the former maintaining the superiority of monarchical, or rather of despotic principles of government, over all others; the necessity, in all governments, of " absolute

XIU and irresistible power, created by the headstrong passions and incurable ignorance of the multitude, and sanctioned by the example or experience of ail nations ; a power raised upon a politico-religious foundation, like that claimed by the Stuarts of England : the latter asserting that absolute power is the primary source of national vice and misery; that those who exercise it are exempt from none of the errors and passions of their fellow mortals, but, on the contrary, that it manifestly tends to produce, diffuse, and perpetuate these errors and these passions, both in the master and the slave. Unlimited authority always runs into tyranny and frenzy, and is the parent of that popular corrtiption for which it is tiie boasted antidote. If men are by nature degenerate and vicious, these evils can only be corrected by reason and justice, and create a stronger necessity for a wise and equitable government, and this is attainable only by ardent and general discussion and enquiry, by the utmost freedom of consultation and opinion among all who partake the same common nature. In short, the doctrines of this party are contained in the declaration of rights, on which the constitution of the United States is built.

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I should have enquired into the consequences to be dreaded from these dissentions : whether the dismemberment of this vast body into a few powerful parts would be as dangerous to the general peace and safety as is commonly imagined ; whether liberty and energy be not impaired by a combination so very compact and entire ; whether a youthful nation may not be corrupted by sucii profound security, such unvarying prosperity ; whetiier that yoiithy which they are so prone to attribute to their nation, be not more strongly indicated by their lively and ambitious hopes, than by their actual weakness; and whether it does not chiefly appear in that insolence and inexperience with which they greedily devour the goods of fortune, and hearken to the blandishments of flattery,

I should then have considered the conduct of this people and their government, from 1783 to 1798, in a moral view, and should have proved, by the plainest facts, that this conduct has not been suitable to the magnitude of their numbers and territory, to the importance of their situation and their duties; that they have shown less frugality and order in their expences, less integrity in their transactions with strangers, less

XV public decency, less moderation and forbearance in iheir factions, less discipline in their seminaries of education, than most of the old nations of Europe. That what they are able to show of meritorious and useful, wliat portion they have of public or private security and liberty, they principally owe to popular and individual habits, to a casual equality of conditions, to the necessity of diligence, and the high price given for labour. That the character and principles of their leaders have deplorably degenerated; that, in 1798, very little more was v/anting to one of the parties, but a suitable occasion and favourable means, in order to subvert the whole structure built up by their revolution. That they are indebted, for their public and private prosperity, more to their remote and disconnected situation, to their distance from powerful neighbours and the theatre of war, to a lucky and fortuitous concurrence of events, than to the wholesome vigour of their laws, or the wisdom and discretion of their governors.

These will doubtless be thought very daring assertions, after all the eulogies lavished on this people by their own v/riters, and by those of Europe, and after the motion made in congress, to decree that tbeir imtion is the wisest and most eiiligbtifHtd upon eartb^; but as censure does not always flow from envy or malice, as undeserved blame is less hurtful tnan unmerited praise, and since I cannot now be suspected of resentful or sinister motives, I might have ventured to utter truths, which, though harsh, would not have been denied by im.partial readers ; particularly as, in thus performing the office of a monitor, I sliould have given my warmest applause to that by which the United States is most gloriously distinguished, the liberty of opinions and of the press.

In viewing this country, as a refuge for Frenclimen, I should have delivered the dictates of my own experience and that of many of my countrymen, as to the resources and amusements which our merchants and our wealthy idlers would meet with in the cities, and what enjoyments the country would afford them. It might appear absurd, but I should not hesitate, to dissuade my countrymen from following my own example. The truth is, that, in this country, as many facilities and benefits attend the settlement of the

* Where is the record of this motion to be found? — Trans.

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English, Scots, Germans, and even Hollanders, from the resemblance that prevails between their manners and habits and those of America, as there are disadvantages and obstacles, flowing from a contrariety m these respects, attending natives of France. I have observed, with much regret, none of that friendly and brotherly goodwill, in this people, towards us, with which some writers have flattered us. On the contrary, they appear to me to be strongly tinctured with the old English prejudice and animosity against us; a spirit exasperated by the ancient wars of Canada; impel fectly suspended by their alliance with us, during their rebellion ; and revived, of late years, with uncommon force, by the declamations of their orators, by the addresses of their towns and corporations to president Adams, on occasion of the pillage suffered by their com.merce from our privateers, and even by public exercises and oratorical invectives in their colleges. There is nothing in the social forms and habits of the two nations that can make them coalesce. They tax us with levity, loquacity, and folly ; while we reproach them vv^ith coldness, reserve, and haughty taciturnity ; with despising those engaging and sedulous civilities, which v/e so

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XVill highly value, and the want of which are construed by us into proofs of impoliteness in the individual, or of barbarism in the whole society. Yet the latter charges must have some foundation, since they are often made by German and English travellers, as well as by ourselves. I, who had been already, by my residence among the Turks, in a great measure delivered from slavery to forms, was more disposed to scrutinize the cause, than to repine at the effect, and to me this national incivility appears to flow, less from a proud or unsocial temper, than from the mutual independence of each other, and the general equality, as to fortune and condition, in which individuals m America are, for the most part, placed.

Such was my plan: some branches of which I have been able to accomplish, but my recent engagements, both of a public and private nature, will not permit me to complete the whole. I have therefore resolved to publish at present only that part of my work which m.ay be detached, without injury or mutilation, from the entire performance.

In sending this work abroad, I am far from indulging those sanguine hopes, which many

XIX readers may ascribe to rae. The splendid success of my Travels in Egypt^ so far from inspiring me with confidence, in the issue of similar undertakings, contributes rather to a contrary effect ; my present theme being much less diversified and entertaining ; more grave, abstruse, and scientific ; and there always being an abundance of readers who feel and act like the Athenian, whose voice was for punishment, merely because he was tired of hearing Aristides called the jiisC.

I have sometimes even thought it most prudent to write no more ; but I likewise refiected, that to have once done vv^ell, affords no excuse for doing nothing the rest of our lives; that I owe all the consolations I possessed in adversity to books and study j and all the benefits of my present situation to literature and the good opinion of the liberal and ingenious. I offer them, therefore, this last tribute of my gratitude, this final testimony of my zeal for the advancement of knowledge.

I have prepared myself, in what I have written and published, to meet a great deal of obloq^uy from the Americans themselves, whom their own cause w^ill inspire with zeal, and who make it

XX their favourite business to combat European writers. Tiiey act as if they were the advocates and avengers of their predecessors, the Indians. Their zeal Ukewise is inflamed, by all those antigallican prejudices, which are industrious in decrying every thing that comes from a nation of atheists and jacobins : but time, which changes every thing, will do justice to detraction as well as flattery; and since I never pretended to be infallible, I shall content myself with having directed some attention, and cast some new light, upon many subjects that have been hithert® wholly overlooked.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

THE author of the folloAving work first acquired distinction, in the reading world, by publishing Travels in Syria and Egypt. In many respects this work far exceeded, in accuracy and comprehensiveness, every former work on the same subject. It was, however, secretly pervaded by a bias against the natives of these countries, by a disposition to view them in the worst light, and by a general persuasion that these countries ought to be possessed by France. With this view he was led to dwell more upon the misery of the people, whom a revolution might benefit, and more particularly on the folly and depravity of their government, which would render them an easy prey to invasion, than former travellers, who had none of these prepossessions, had done. With all the science and method, therefore, which that work displays, are combined a great deal of error and mis-

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take, and thev tliat wish to be acquainted with these celebrated provinces, ought indeed by no means to overlook, but still less ought they wholly to confine their attention to Volney's account of them.

After a lapse often or fifteen years, Volney conceived the design of visiting another hemisphere. The rising states of America offered him not only an object wortliy of his curiosity, but a place of secure asylum in a time of danger and distress. America vras, to him, pretty much in the same situation as Syria and Egypt had been. Former French travellers had brought back the most flattering pictures of the people, their climate, and their government, and the splendid success (as he himself styles it) of his former work inspired him with new zeal to apply the test of his wonderful sagacity to their fond delusions, and reduce their exaggerated dreams and glowing fancies to the standard of truth and good sense.

Fortunately for Volney, circumstances have prevented him from publishing his observations on the government and manners of the people. These are topics, on which his prejudices as a Frenchman, and as a vain and captious mortal, would have abundant opportunity to show themselves, and in which he would have been in perpetual danger of shocking the prejudices of the people he described. He has merely

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confined himself to a review of the physical condition, as to surface and climate, of the United States, and to some remarks on the character and situation of the aboriginal tribes.

Considered as a picture of the physical condition of the country, as far as respects its surface and climate, it would by no means be its due praise to say that it is the best and most complete that has hitherto appeared, because there has hitherto been no general description of the country in these points of view ; particular provinces have been described with a philosophical accuracy, which is highly honourable to the genius of our country, but the whole, and especially that portion of it Avhich lies upon the Mississippi and the lakes, had not been before subjected to the same analysis.

There is, perhaps, no part of this work which will be thought to be more inaccurately and superficially executed, than that which relates to yellow fever and the other diseases of America. By stepping into a circle foreign to his own, and in which his education and experience, notwithstanding his own opinion to the contrary, by no means qualified him to walk, he has exposed himself to much critical censure from professional men. On this subject, indeed, he would, for obvious reasons, have found it impossible to

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please all : but, as it is, it is much to be suspected that he has failed to please any.

The merit of a work ought to he estimated, not onl}' by comparison with what has been already done, but by considering the means and situation of the author ; and surely uncommon praise is due to Volney, for having produced a work so accurate and scientifical, almost wholly from the funds of his own observation, with so little assistance from former publications, in relation to a country of such vast extent, and so much in the state of wilderness, and during so short a residence. Instead of reproaching him for the mistakes committed, w'e should grant him liberal applause for the truths he has attained.

But, while we pardon his errors, and deem them amply atoned for by his merits, it is a duty which we owe to the enlightened world, to our country, and even to the writer himself, to point out his mistakes. The present translator has not only done this, as far as his limited knowledge would permit, but he has obtained, from one or two learned and ingenious , friends, some additional remarks upon the text. On i this head he is particularly indebted to Dr. B. S, Barton, who has made the natural history of this part of America, and the manners and dialects of the aborjo-incs, the objects of great and successful study.

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This gentleman's remarks are given in the form of additional notes <>

He has taken the liberty of somewhat extending the quotations of his author from the work of Bernard Romans upon Florida, because this writer may be deemed almost unknown to the present age, because his remarks are extremely judicious, and because the country he speaks of is rapidly growing into an object of extraordinary interest and curiosity to the people of the United States.

As to the manner in Avhich this translation has been conducted, the writer has endeavoured to give the meaning of his author, in the clearest, most faithful, and most distinct manner. For this purpose he has not thought it necessary to transfer the remarkable verbosities of his original into his own performance. In two instances only he has more materially deviated from the text of his original. In detailing the history of Swedish and Norwegian winds, he has omitted the parade and incumbrance of a private letter, with which M. Volney thought proper to connect his observations on that subject, and in all thermometrical statements, he has turned the calculations of Reaumur into the corresponding ones of Fahrenheit, the latter being the only current and intelligible

system in Great Britain and America.

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Contents

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P. I. Extent and divisions of the United States 1

II. Face of the country - - 6

CHAPTER I. Extent and Geographical Divisions of the U?iited States

We may, in loose terms, describe the United States as the region which occupies that part of North America, which is bounded on the east by the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea and Mexican Gulph, on the west by the great rher of Louisiana, and on the north by the river of Canada, and the five great lakes which supply its stream. At a time, when the advantages of natural barriers and definite boundaries are so justly prized, we cannot doubt that the above outline, so strong and distinct,

A will, sooner or later, be filled up*. At present, however, this outline is encroached upon, southward, by the peninsula of East, and the maritime district of West Florida, and on the north-east by the English provinces of Lower Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, which take off a large portion of the country contained between the river and the sea.

Its extent, from north to south, is equal to sixteen degrees, it lying between the 31st and 47th degrees of north latitude. It stretches, east and west, upwards of twenty-five degrees of longitude. The immense square which these dimensions exhibit is considerably curtailed, by the direction of the sea coast, which moves diagonally from north-east to south-west, and by the five lakes, which dip seven or eight degrees within these limits to the north. The real surface is thus diminished by more than a third.

Hutchins is the first geographer who, after the peace of 1783, attempted to calculate the area of this territory. He makes it amount to about a million of English square miles. Agreeably to this statement, its extent is nearly fourfold that of France, before the

* The I'ecent addition of Louisiana has carried the western limit far beyond the Mississippi, and embroiled it in a world of iinexplored deserts and thickets. This circumstance has aided the imagination in its excursions into futurity ; and instead of anticipating the extension of this empire merely to the sea on the south, and to the great river on the north, we may be sure that, in no long time, it will stretch east and west from sea to sea, and from the north pole to the Isthmus of Panama. — Trans.

revolution, or that of the great peninsula comprising Spain and Portugal, and nearly seven times greater than that of Great Britain and Ireland.

The Americans delight in comparisons of this nature ; and their vanity, suggesting golden dreams of the future, is very apt to measure the importance of foreign nations by this scale : but if we recollect that this space contains scarcely ^=y^ millions of inhabitants, of which number eight hundred thousand^ or one sixth, are black slaves, and that even this number is, for the most part, very widely and thinly scattered, we shall discover, in this extent of territory, nothing but a prolific source of present weakness and future disunion. Besides, Hutchins, who was unacquainted with the sources of the Mississippi, and knew little of the regions north of the Ohio, appears to have computed too largely, and his estimate, though sufficiently correct for my purpose, does not deserve that implicit credit with which it has since been generally received*.

If we compare the United States with the countries of the eastern hemisphere, under parallel latitudes, we shall find that the southern districts of the former, Georgia and the Carolinas, correspond with the kingdom of Morocco, and the whole northern coast of Africa : and it is somewhat remarkable, that the Mis-

* I have seen, in Mr. Jefferson's hands, a letter from Hutchins, dated February 11th, 1784, which acknowledges considerable errors in his calculations respecting the North-west territory.

I slssippi and the Nile enter the sea under nearly the same parallel of latitude, one at 29 and the other at 31 degrees ; the one flowing from the north, and the other from the south, and bearing a striking resemblance to each other, in the riches and abundance produced by their periodical inundations. The same lines traverse Syria, the central provinces of Persia, Thibet, and the heart of China ; and nearly the same parallel strikes Savannah, Tripoli, Alexandria, Gaza^ Bosra, Ispahan, Labor, and Nankin. The northern states, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, correspond with southern France, middle Italy, European Turkey, the Euxine and Caspian Seas, and the plains of Tartary. The same line very nearly touches Boston, Barcelona, Ajaccio, Rome, Constantinople, and Derbend. Such extensive limits indicate a great variety of climate, and, in truth, the United States displays all the extremes of the countries just enumerated. We observe a gradation corresponding with the latitude, and proportioned particularly to the elevation of the surface. In this view, the four following distinguishing characters may be clearly traced :

In the first place, the coldest climate extends over the eastern states, or New England. Its limits will be found in the southern coasts of Rhode Island and Connecticut, and in an inland chain of mountains, which divides the waters of the Delaware and Susquehannah from the streams flov/ing eastward.'

The second division may be termed the temperate climate. It comprehends those called the middle states, tind extends through Pennsylvania and Maryland to the banks of the Potowmack, or, more accurately, to those of the Patapsco.