...A history of Alabama, for use in schools; based as to its earlier parts on the work of Albert J. Pickett

Preface

Writers of history are not, as a rule, very conceited persons, yet one often finds tlie writer of a school history, one of the hardest forms of historical work, claiming beforehand complete success in his undertaking. For my own part, I am inclined rather to crave indulgence on the score of the difficulties that beset my enterprise. To be accurate in all specific statements, to select the really important facts out of a great number, to weave them into a story that young people will find interesting, to make the stoi-y neither too long nor too short, and to tell it in a style suited to children at the beginning of their teens — this has not been to me a simple and easy task. The scantiness of the material relating to certain periods, the undigested state of the material relating to other periods, the lack of formal histories with which to compare my own, were difficulties in my way. Other difficulties will occur to any one familiar with my subject.

If I have in any measure surmounted these obstacles, much of the credit must go, along with my sincere thanks, to those who have helped me. Albert S. Gatschet, master of the languages and history of the Southern tribes of Indians, has carefully examined and criticised for me the introductory matter on the Indians of Alabama, which is further enriched with his map. Professor W. S. Wyman has been so prodigally generous of his gleanings in that and other fields of Alabama history that I can hardly make with him the quarrel I meant to make for the inveterate modesty that keeps him from writing more himself. Hon. Hilary A. Herbert has aided me very materially in the treatment of later periods. Others who have helped with suggestions and criticisms are Judge Robert C. Brickell and Judge Thomas N. McClellan, former Governor Thomas G. Jones, Dr. J. L, M. Curry, Mr. Chappell Corey, Hon. Robert P. McDavid, and General Marcus A. Wright.

Professor Eugene A. Smith's admirable geological and physiographical stu^ly of Alabama in the Appendix speaks for itself. Mr. Peter J. Hamilton, besides the debt under which he placed me by the timely pul)lieation of his " Colonial Mobile," a work altogether creditable to the city which is its central subject, has rendered more direct and

6 PREFACE.

specific kindnesses. Mr. Owens's "Bibliography" is, of course, invaluable. Professor J. H. Phillips, of Biriningliam, and President James K. Powers, of the State University, have exerted themselves in my behalf. My good friends, Thomas H. Clark, of the Congressional Library, and Francis G. Caffey, of Montgomery, have placed at my disposal the results of their own studies. Other personal friends — among them two young Harvard men, Mr. Clarence R.. Wilson, of Washington, and Mr. Edward Harding, of iSTew York — have helped in various ways.

Mr. C. L. Patton, of the University Publishing Company, editor of the series, and himself at one time a resident of Alabama, has given me the full benefit of his experience in the making of school histories. He is responsible for the maps and illustrations.

Much as these gentlemen have contributed to give the book whatever merit it may have, none of them can be held responsible for any demerits and mistakes which may be charged against it.

Writing of my own people, I escaped the temptation to set down aught in malice. I have striven against the temptation to extenuate, for I have written also as an American, ardently attached to my whole country, and determined from the first that no word of mine should ever weaken in any child's mind that de^^otion to the great Republic w^hich in me is grown into a passion. Yet I have not thought it right or necessary to abate one jot of that reverence for the great captains of a long-lost cause, that love and respect for its devoted private soldiers, which I learned in my own childhood, when, with boys and girls like those who will perhaps read these pages, I marched on Memorial Day to lay flowers on Confederate graves.

Yet I also wish that children who study the book may be encouraged to have their own opinions about the course our fathers took at different times. Writing the text, I have felt it necessary to withhold the criticism or praise their acts suggested. Looking over the story once more, and writing now from the outside of it, I feel like saying at least this : These fathers of ours came of a strong race, and they lived under conditions peculiarly trying to strong men. They made mistakes, no doubt, for they were only human. Yet I rise from the study of them and the State they builded with increased pride in the heritage of political ideas and social usages, of honesty, of manhood, of strength of body and cleanness of mind, which they got from their fathers and left in turn to us.

W. G. B.

November 28, 1900.

Contents

Map of Alabama Frontispiece

PAGE

Preface

Introduction

THE INDIANS OF ALABAMA.

The Indxcins found in Alabama by the earliest European explorers were not unlike those of later times. They were of a reddish or cinnamonbrown complexion. The men were for the most part athletic and well proportioned, and many of the women were handsome. Both sexes wore mantles made of the inner bark of trees and of a species of flax, and they adorned themselves with ornaments of shells and^ pearls, sometimes arrang^ed in the form of bracelets. Many wore moccasins which were made of dressed deerskin. They usually painted their faces and bodies; some punctured themselves with needles of bone, and then rubbed in a sort of indelible ink. They dressed their heads with feathers of eagles and other birds.

The bow was the most formidable of their weapons. The string was of deer's sinews, and the arrows were made of hardened cane with heads of hard wood, fish-bone, or flint. There are probably few boys in Alabama, outside the cities, who have not seen an Indian arrow-head. Shields were made of wood, split canes, or hides. Tliere were wooden spears, with points of flint or fish-bone, and war clubs, bolli oval and edged. How well the natives could use such weapons, even the armored Spaniards were made to feel.

In their social customs the early Indians did not differ much from their successors and descendants two centuries later. They drank a sort of tea known to the colonists as the " black drink." Feasts, bow shooting, ball-playing, and dancing were among their amusements. Their houses and towns, though rude, were apparently somewhat better than those of the Indians of more recent years. It seems to have been a common practice to build the houses of the chiefs on mounds of considerable height. In Mauvila the houses fronted on a large public square, and the town was encompassed by a high wall, built of tree trunks, plastered with mud. Generally each family possessed a winter house, daubed inside and outside with clay, and another, more open, for tlie summer.

Introduction.

Besides the building of houses and the making of weapons, canoes, and clothing, the principal industries were hunting, fishing, and a simple form of agriculture. The fertile soil made quick returns. Peas, beans, squashes, pumpkins, and corn were grown. Persimmons were made into cakes. Corn was pounded in mortars. In digging they used rude hoes made of fish-bones or wood. The planting was done chiefly by women.

The sun w^as an object of worship, and the moon and certain stars were regarded with great reverence. In several places temples were found, filled with the bones of the dead. The religious ceremonies were curious and fantastic.

But for our purposes it will be best to study the Indians of Alabama, not at this early time, but some two hundred years later, when white men had begun to make settlements among them. For this later period we have sources of information more various and far more trustworthy than the narratives of the Spanish expedition. Ai the outset, however, we are confronted with the question whether the same races which De Soto found were still inhabiting the lands along the Alabama River in the eighteenth century. The two answers to this question can be considered more intelligently when we have taken a view of the various tribes as they existed at the later period.

The Indians who from the time of the first European settlements played a part in the history of the lands embraced in the present limits of Alabama may be treated as belonging to four geograpiiical groups. These were the Cherokees, the Chickasaws, the Choctaws, and the Creeks. Roughly speaking, these four divisions correspond to the four corners of the State. The Cherokees, whose principal seats were in northern Georgia, eastern Tennessee, and the western parts of the two Carolinas, occupied only the northeastern corner of Alabama. The extreme northwestern corner was occupied by the Chickasaws, who also possessed

THE INDIANS OF ALABAMA.

tlie northern portion of what is now Mississippi. The middle and southern parts of Mississippi and the western and southwestern parts of Alabama belonged to the Choctaws. The Creeks held the eastern half of

LOCATION OF INDIAN TRIBES. (Adapted fioiii Gatschet.)

the state, south of the Cherokee country, and their domains extended into Georgia.

It is impossible, however, to fix with accuracy the boundaries of these four " nations." Only the Creeks had their principal seats in Alabama, and they occupied a larger share of its territory than any of the others. The region south of the Tallapoosa and between the Alabama and the Chattahoochee was a waste hunting ground.

THE CHEROKEES.

Tsalagi is the correct form of the Indian name of the Cherokees. They had no kinship with the other Indians of Alabama, and spoke a different language. They were, however, brought into frequent contact with the Creeks, whose territory joined the lands of the Cherokees on the south from the Savannah River to the Black Warrior. The Cherokee territory lay on both sides of the lofty mountains of the Appalachian system. The towns of the upper or " overhill" branch lay on the head waters of the Tennessee. The lower Cherokee settlements were on the head waters of the Georgia rivers and along the Coosa and Tennessee Rivers in northeastern Alabama. Some of these towns were visited by De Soto; and there is no reason to doubt that the Cherokee Indians were inhabiting the region at that time.

In the eighteenth century the " nation" became involved in war with the English settlers on the Atlantic coast, but ordinarily the Cherokees were friendly to the English. The English traders visited their towns, and through them made journeys to the Indian settlements in Alabama.

The Cherokee warriors are described as fine specimens of manhood, surpassing most Indian races in height. In color they were, according to a traveller who visited tliem in 1778, somewhat lighter than the Creeks. They had a custom of slitting and stretching their ears by a process that must have been extremely painful ; and they shaved off all the liair of their heads except a small patch at the back. Their hands and feet were femall. Some of the women, we are told, were very attractive in appearance.

The Cherokees were extremely fond of dancing and of ball-playing. Their burial rites were peculiar. When it was apparent that a sick man could not recover, they prepared his grave, anointed his hair, and painted his face; and when he died they buried the body immediately. His guns, bows, and household utensils were buried with him. Sometimes a heap of stones was raised to commemorate one who had died away from home and whose bones could not be recovered. Each passer-by added a stone to the pile.

The Cherokees were a warlike race and they frequently made incursions upon neighboring tribes. Honor and praise were always given to the valorous, and high social station was gained by great achievements in war. In most of their customs, however, the Cherokees resembled their neighbors the Creeks, who will be described at greater length.

II. The Muscogee Family — Chickasaws And Choctaws

Passing from tlie Cherokees, we may say of the remaining Indians of Alabama that with the exception of a few tribes, which will be mentioned, they had one bond of connection. The great bulk of them belonged to a certain group of tribes, called the Ilaskoki or Muscogee family. The basis of this grouping is kinship of languages or dialects. In other respects the Indians of Alabama showed considerable diversity. The Clioctaws and Creeks were unlike in appearance and were frequently at war with each other. But there was an affinity of the several dialects, which may be illustrated by considering the forms a particular word assumes in each. For example, the word for chief in Choctaw is mingo ; in Chickasaw, minko; in Creek, miko; in Alabama, miko; in Coosawda, miku.

But the Muscogee tribes were not confined to Alabama. They held a commanding position in the Gulf States, extending from Florida and eastern Georgia to the Mississippi River and beyond it. The most important tribes, however, were represented in Alabama. The name Maskoki itself means an individual of the Creek nation, the most powerful tribe of the entire group. The plural form of the name is Maskokalgi, and the word is usually written Muscogulgee by English writers. For the purpose of clearness, scientists call the Muscogees proper Creeks, and give the name Maskoki to the whole language-family to which the Creeks belong.

The tribes of the Muscogee group were characterized by fine qualities of body and mind, and played a great part in. Indian history. In their wars with the whites they were formidable antagonists, but, like other Indian tribes, they never firmly combined against the foreign foe.

The best fighters of all the tribes were the Chickasaws. Their reputation for bravery was maintained in many wars. When the Spanish explorer De Soto was in their country they attacked his camp at midnight, terrified his army, destroyed his baggage, and burned the town in winch he was quartered. Two hundred years later the French fared no better at their hands. In their contests with the neighboring Indian tribes they were usually victorious. The Choctaws, the Cherokees, and even the powerful Creeks had reason to respect their prowess. They went on nuiny warlike expeditions to the north and west, and their liunting grounds extended us far northward as the Ohio.

They excelled also in the chase. So expert were they in tracking that they could follow the traces of a fleeing enemy at a gallop. The warriors were not fond of agriculture. This was left to the women. The men preferred to win a livelihood by plundering enemies or pursuing game.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century the Chickasaw Indians lived in the rolling prairie country of which the county of Pontotoc, Mississippi, is about the centre. Their houses were arranged in fouf towns or groups of towns. The whole number of their warriors or " gun men" was but a few hundred, though the stories of their exploits in earlier times would lead us to believe they had been much more numerous. There is some evidence that at one time they had a colony on the Savannah River, opposite Augusta, Ga., but it was short-lived. One fragment of the tribe was reduced by the Creeks, with whom they have since lived.

Both in language and in customs the Chickasaws and the Choctaws were much alike. It is practically true to say that they spoke the same tongue. Together they constituted the western half of the Muscogee family.

Next to the Creeks, the Choctaws were the most important of all the Indian peoples who appear in the early history of Alabama. The first permanent settlements of Europeans were made on lands subject to them ; and throughout the whole course of their dealings with the Europeans they proved themselves the white man's friends.

The limits of the Choctaw country for any particular period cannot be stated with certainty. It was bounded on the south by the Gulf ; on the west it extended to the Mississippi, and emigration beyond that river began with this tribe somewhat earlier than with their neighbors. On the north were the Chickasaws. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century the ridge separating the waters of the Tombigbee from those of the Alabama was the usual boundary between the Choctaws and the Creeks, whose lands lay to the eastward.

Cha'hta, the Indian name designating an individual of the Clioctaw tribe, is by some supposed to be the Indian way of pronouncing a Spanish word meaning flat. The Spaniards called the Indians of southern Mississippi and southern Alabama Chatas Cahegas, raeaning I' lat Heads, or simply Chatas. The French called them Tetes-Plattes, meaning the same thing. The name is due to their custom of flattening the heads of their male infants. The common English form of the name is Choctaw.

Tlieir flattened heads were not the only physical marks by which the Choctaws were distinguished. They were generally darker than the Creeks. This, however, has been attributed to the smoke of their light wood fires, and to their uncleanly habits. They were not fond of water;

The Indiaxs of Alabajma.

.15 as a rule, they could not swim. In other respects, however, the Choctaws living away from the coast are described as generally resembling the Muscogee tribes. The southern or coast Choctaws are said to have been lazy and cowardly.

In their customs the Choctaws were more domestic and thrifty than the Creeks, and they were further advanced in the art of tilling the soil. They were not in the habit of making long expeditions outside their own country, but fought bravely when it was necessary to resist invasion. The men were not too proud to help the women work. They were hospitable, cheerful, witty, and cunning, and they excelled in oratory. In general, it may be said that they exhibited less of savage wildness and better industrial qualities than either the Chickasaws or the Creeks. Among their greatest faults were gambling, intemperance, and the habit of begging. Among thoir virtues should be mentioned so much of mercy as led them to kill their prisoners at once instead of torturing them for hours.

Besides ball-playing, they were very fond of: a game called chunke. It was played on an alley two hundred feet long, with a hard clay surface. Down this alley one of the players would hurl a stone, shaped like a grindstone, two spans round and two inches thick at the edge. Another cast a pole at the running stone. If he succeeded in striking it, ho counted one. The first i)liiyer threw his pole at the pole thrown by the second, and scored one if he could strike it and divert it from its aim. If neither succeeded, there was no score. The game was eleven points.

Of all the customs of the Choctaws their funeral rites were the most remarkable. Like other Indians, they collected and cleaned the bones of the dead. But the details of this ceremony among

the Choctaws were so horrible that it is unpleasant to read of them. In other respects, also, they were accustomed to violate rules which among

MEDICINE MAN. (Catlill.)

civilized people are prescribed by decency. Their religious ideas were not clearly defined. They lived close to white settlements for many years, yet the Christian missionaries were not able to make much progress among them. That they were capable of faith, however, is evident from the implicit obedience they paid to their " medicine men." When one of these pronounced a sick person incurable, the kinsmen usually strangled the patient at once.

In the southern part of the Choctaw country there were several tribes, mostly of Choctaw origin, but having different names. One of them was the Biloxi (in Choctaw B'luksi), who were settled in the neighborhood of the present town of that name on the Mississippi Sound. Another was the Mobilians, who were probably descendants of the people who inhabited Mauvila in De Soto's day. In 1708 the surviving Indians of this tribe were settled on Mobile Bay, to which they gave their name. A third was the Tohome, Thomes, or Thoniez tribe, whose settlement was about twenty miles from the site of Mobile. Other tribes lay further west.

The Tensaw or Taensa Indians, who in early colonial times were established by the French on Mobile Bay, were not related to the Choctaws. They did not belong to the Muscogee family of tribes. They fled from their original habitations, in the present county of Tensas, in Louisiana, on account of a disastrous war with the Chickasaws. Apparently they occupied first the western and then the eastern side of the bay, and from them the Tensaw Kiver gets its name.

III. The Creeks And Their Confederates

Of all the Alabama Indians the Creeks are the most important. No other Indian race has played a more interesting part in American history. But when we speak of the Creeks it is necessary to keep in mind both the Creeks themselves — the Muscogees proper — and certain other tribes which inhabited portions of the Creek country and helped to make up what was called the Creek Confederacy.

The name Iluscoyee {MasTxoki) is not satisfactorily explained. The Creeks themselves cannot explain it from their own language. A good theory is that it was first applied to them by other tribes. The Cherokee name for a Creek Indian is Agusa. The English name CretVi's doubtless arose from the large number of small streams which the traders found in the Creek country. The principal seats of these Indians were on the rivers Coosa, Tallapoosa, and Chattahoochee. They had towns also on the River Flint, in Georgia. The dwellers on tlic Coosa and Tallapoosa were called the Upper Creeks; those in the Chattahoochee country in southeastern Alabama and southwestern Georgia were called the Lower Creeks. This latter term was held to include a part of the Seminoles also; for many of the Seminoles ( "separatists " or " runaways") were of pure Creek stock and spoke the Creek language. The limits of the Creek country cannot be fixed exactly for any period. For the greater part of the eighteenth century, however, the "nation" may be considered as extending from near the Tombigbee River on the west, somewhat beyond the Flint River on the east; and from the Cherokee country to the neighborhood of the Gulf.

What proportion of the inhabitants of this region were pure Creeks cannot be stated authoritatively. We know that some of them were not. Some toW'US, it is said, were occupied by Indians who had given up their own languages and customs, and adopted those of the dominant race. Others, however, retained their own dialects, and of them it is possible to speak with more assurance. Some of them spoke dialects belonging to the Muscogee group; but several were probably bound to the Confederacy by political ties only.

The Alabama Indians belonged to the Muscogee stock, but their language differed from the Creek, and they did not lavishly adopt the Creek customs. It is probable that they were closer akin to the Choctaws than to the Creeks. The name of the tribe is written in several ways: for example, Allibamou, Alibami, Albamou, Alabamons. What the name means is not known with certainty. The towns of the Alabama s were situated along the banks of the Alabama River, not far from the point where the Coosa and Tallapoosa mingle their waters to form that stream. From one of these towns, Atagi, the county of Autauga gets its name.

The Koassati or Coosada Indians lived on the northern side of the Alabama River, not far from the Alabama towns. They are represented as a separate tribe, l)ut their dialect, which can be studied at the present time, differs but slightly from the Alabama. In the country of the Lower Creeks lived the Apalachi and Ilitchiti tribes, whose dialects are Muscogee, but not Creek. Other tribes of the jMuscogee family, like the Seminoles, lived in Georgia and Florida, but have little to do with the history of Alabama, since they did not belong to the Creek Confederacy.

In the Chattahoochee region there were also settlements of Yuchi or Uchee Indians. Though united with the Creeks politically, their language and customs indicate that they were otherwise a separate and distinct people. They are not reckoned among the Muscogee tribes at all. Their original settlement was probably on the lower Savannah River, and there is reason to believe that one of the tribes De Soto found in that region was Uchee. Some of them removed to the Chattahoochee country about the year 1729. Here the principal Uchee town was established oi^ the west bank of the Chattahoochee. A traveller who saw it in 1775 says : "It is the largest, most compact, and best situated Indian town I ever saw." Other Uchee settlements were on the Flint River in Georgia.

It is also believed that Indian tribes, not of the Muscogee family, lived among the Upper Creeks. There are traces of a colony of Shawnees. Taskigi, in the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa Riv^ers, is said to have been a town of foreign origin, whose people gave up their own language and customs for those of the Creeks. A like account is given of Tukabatchi, a town of much importance, as we shall see. We shall see, too, that in historical times some Nachez (Xaktche) Indians, driven from their own country on the Mississippi, got a new home on the upper Coosa River.

Coming now to the genuine Creeks, we find that they were among the most remarkable of all the Indians of North America. Less numerous and less industrious than the Choctaws, probably less striking in personal appearance than the Cherokees, and not quite as warlike as the Chickasaws, they were yet of more importance in the history of the southern country than any of their neighbors.

The Creek warrior was, as a rule, taller than the average white man, well formed, erect, and graceful. He was apt to be proud and arrogant, ambitious of conquest, and fond of arms. Tlie women were usually small, but many of them had pleasant features and expressive eyes. Both sexes were fond of ornaments and adorned themselves with trinkets of various sorts. Earrings were commonly worn, and the heads of the warriors were often bedecked with feathers of the eagle and other birds. Their clothing was rather scanty, but when the white traders came among them those Indians who could afford it bought gaily colored garments, which they wore in fantastic ways. They also painted their faces and arms, sometimes puncturing their skin with gar's teeth and then rubbing in a dye made of the drippings of pine roots.

It is not exactly true to say that they lived in the woods. When not engaged in hunting or in war, their time was chiefly spent in their towns or villages. It is worth while for us to know what a Creek town was like.

The houses were cabins of very rude construction, the chief materials being wood and clay. They were arranged in groups or clusters, and each group of houses was inhabited by a group of kin-folk, belonging to the same clan or gens. This fact is worth remembering, because blood relationship was an all-important thing among the Indians, and we cannot understand tlicir life without some knowledge of their idea aljout the family. When a child was born, it belonged to the clan or gens of its mother. ^Yhen a young man wished to marry, he had to take a wife from some gens besides his own. When a man was killed in a quarrel, vengeance was taken by the gens to which he had belonged. Each gens had a name, usually that of an animal, a plant, or some other natural object. Thus we hear of the ))ear gens, the wolf gens, the hickory nut gens, the wind gens, and the like. The number of these clans in each town varied, and the towns varied considerably in size.

Each of the towns had a public square, and in this respect differed from the smaller settlements, which may be called villages. The square was usually enclosed by four houses or sheds, which opened upon it. Each of these houses w^as divided into three compartments, and in each compartment were three benches or platforms, covered witli mattiug, on Avhich the head men and warriors of the tribe were accustomed to sit or lounge, and smoke. The right to occupy certain seats in these public houses during performances was a mark of rank and standing. As the sheds were entirely open on the inner side, the occupants of the benches could see everything that occurred in the square.

IS ear the square, or " great house " as it was called by some writers, was the council house or ''hot house." This was shaped like a cone or pyramid, having a pole in the centre and a sloping roof of bark ; on the inside, next the wall, was a circular seat. The public play-ground was also near the square.

The head man of the town was the chief, or miko. Each town was accustomed to take its cliief from a particular family. When a miko died, his successor was usually the next of kin on his mother's side, in most cases a nephew. This was in accordance with the Indian notion of the family, for the father's kinsmen belonged to a different gens. The authority of the miko was by no means absolute; when an important question came before a tribe, such as the question of peace or w-ar, a council was held to decide it. Great respect was given to the opinions of old men and those experienced in war and in the service of the tribe. Councils were held in the square, or, if the weather was cold, in the council house.