Indians in the Province of Louisiana in 1803

At the time of the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803 the knowledge of the province and its Indian tribes was very limited. The Louisiana purchase of 1803 embraced almost all the area of What now comprises seventeen states and two territories, with gross areas as follows: part of the state of Alabama, west of the Perdido and on the Gulf, below latitude 31° north, estimated to contain 2,300 square miles; part of the state of Mississippi, west of Alabama, adjoining Louisiana on the Gulf, and south of 31° north latitude, estimated at 3,600 square miles; the state of Louisiana, 48,720 square miles; the state of Arkansas, 53,850 square miles; the state of Missouri, 60,415 square miles; the state of Kansas; all but southwest corner (estimated), 73,542 square miles; the state of Iowa, 50,025 square miles; the state of Minnesota, west of the Mississippi River, 57,531 square miles; the state of Nebraska, 77,510 square miles; the state of Colorado, east of the Rocky Mountains and north of Arkansas River, 57,000 square miles; the state of Oregon (nominally and by discovery), 96,030 square miles; the state of North Dakota, 70,705 square miles; the state of South. Dakota, 77,650 square miles; the state of Montana, 146,080 square miles the state of Idaho, 81,800 square miles; the state of Washington, 60,180 square miles; the state of Wyoming, all but the zone in the middle, south, and southwest part, 83,503 square miles; the Indian territory, 31,400 square miles; Oklahoma territory, 30,030 square miles; making a total area of 1,108,021 square miles, or 766,733,140 acres.

The Department of State, by direction of President Jefferson, prepared a descriptive statement of the Indians and tribes in this province. It contained all the information then possessed by the government as to the several tribes, as follows:

The Indian nations within the limits of Louisiana as far as known are as follows, and consist of the number specified:

On the eastern bank of the Mississippi, about 25 leagues from Orleans, are the remains of the nation of Houmas, or Red Men, which do not exceed 60 persons. There are no other Indians settled on this side of the river either in Louisiana or west Florida, though they are at times frequented by parties of wandering Choctaws.

On the West side of the Mississippi are the remains of the Tounicas, settled near and above Point Coupee, on the river, consisting of 50 or 60 persons.

In the Atacapas--On the lower parts of the Bayou Teche, at about 11 or 12 leagues from the sea, are two villages of Chitamachas, consisting of about 100 souls.

The Atacapas, properly so called, dispersed throughout the district, and chiefly on the bayou or creek of Vermillion, about 100 souls. Wanderers of the tribes of Biloxes and Choctaws, on Bayou Crocodile, which empties into the Teche, about 50 souls.

In the Opelousas to the northwest of Atacapas. Two villages of Alibamas in the center of the district near the church, consisting of 100 persons.

Conchates, dispersed through the country all far west as the river Sabinus and its neighborhood, about 350 persons.

On the River Rouge. At Avoyelles, 19 leagues from the Mississippi, is a village of the Biloxi nation, and another on the lake of the Avoyelles, the whole about 100 souls.

At the Rapide, 21 leagues from the Mississippi, is a village of the Choctaws of 100 souls, and another of Biloxes, about 2 leagues from it, of about 100 more. About 8 or 9 leagues higher up the Red River is a village of about 50 souls, All these are occasionally employed by the settlers in their neighborhood as boatmen.

About 80 leagues above Natchitoches, on the Red River, is the nation of the Cadoquies, called by abbreviation Cados; they can raise from 800 to 400 warriors, are the friends of the whites, and are esteemed the bravest and most generous of all the nations in this vast country; they are rapidly decreasing, owing to intemperance and the numbers annually destroyed by the Osages and Choctaws.

There are, besides the foregoing, at least 400 to 500 families of Choctaws, who are dispersed on the west, side of the Mississippi, on the Ouacheta and Red Rivers, as far west as Natchitoches, and the whole nation would have emigrated across the Mississippi had it not been for the opposition of the Spaniards and the Indians on that side who had suffered by their aggressions.

On the River Arkansas. Between the Red River and the Arkansas there are but a few Indians, .111O reach i as of tribes almost extinct, On this last river is the nation of the same name, consisting of about 200 warriors, They are bravo yet peaceable and, well disposed, and have always been attached to the French and espoused their cause in their wars with the Chickasaws, whom they have always resisted with success. They live in three villages; the first is 18 leagues from the Mississippi, on the Arkansas River, and the others are 3 and 6 leagues from the first. A scarcity of game on the eastern side of the Mississippi has lately induced a number of the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, etc., to frequent the neighborhood of Arkansas, where game is still in abundance; they have contracted marriages with the Arkansas, and seem inclined to make a permanent settlement and incorporate themselves with that nation. The number is unknown, but is considerable tool is every day increasing.

On the river St. Francis, in the neighborhood of New Madrid, Cape Girardeau, Reviere a la Pomme, and the environs, are settled, a number of vagabonds, emigrants from the Delawares, Shawnese, Miamis, Chickasaws, Cherokees, Piorias, and supposed to consist in all of 500 families. They are at times troublesome to the boats descending the river, and have even plundered some of them and committed a few murders. They are attached to liquor; seldom remain long in any place. Many of them speak English; and understand it, and there are some who even read and write it.

At St. Genevieve, in the settlement among the whites, are about 30 Piorias, Kaskaskias, and Illinois, who seldom hunt for fear of the other Indians; they are the remains of a nation which 50 years ago could bring into the field 1,200 warriors.

On the Missouri. On the Missouri and its waters are many and numerous nations, the best known of which are the Osages, situated on the river of the same name on the right bank of the Missouri, at about 80 leagues from its confluence with it; they consist of 1,000 warriors, who live in two settlements at no great distance from each other. They are of a gigantic stature and well proportioned, are enemies of the whites and of all other Indian nations, and commit depredations from the Illinois to the Arkansas. The trade of this nation is said to be under an exclusive grant. They are a cruel and ferocious race, and are hated and feared by all the other Indians. The continence of the Osage River with the Missouri is about 80 leagues from the Mississippi.

Sixty leagues higher up the Missouri, and on the same bank, is the river Kanzas and on it the nation of the same name, but at about 70 or 80 leagues from its mouth, It consists of about 210 warriors, who are as fierce and cruel as the Osages, and often molest and ill treat those who go to trade among them.

Sixty leagues above the river Kanzas, and at about 200 leagues from the mouth of the Missouri, still on the right bank, is the Riviere Platte, or Shallow river, remarkable for its quicksand and bad navigation; and near its confluence with the Missouri dwells the nation of Octolactos, commonly called Otos, consisting of about 200 warriors, among whom are 25 or 80 of the nation of Missouri, who took refuge among them about 25 years since.

Forty leagues up the river Platte you come to the nation of the Penis, composed of about 700 warriors in four neighboring villages; they hunt but little, and are ill provided with firearms; they often make war on the Spaniards in the neighborhood of Santa Fe from which they are not far distant.

At 300 leagues from the Mississippi and 100 from the river Platte, on the same bank, are situated the villages of the Maims. They consisted in 1799 of 500 warriors, but tire said to have been almost out of last year by the smallpox.

At 50 leagues above the Maims, and on the left bank of the Missouri, dwell the Poneas to the number of 250 warriors, possessing in common with the Maims their language, society, and. vices, Their trade has never been of much value, and those engaged in it are exposed to pillage and ill treatment.

At the distance of 450 leagues from the Mississippi, and on the right bank of the Missouri, dwell the Arlearas to the number of 700 warriors, and 60 leagues above, the Mandane nation, consisting of above 700 warriors likewise. Those two last nations are well disposed to the whites, but have been the victims of the Sioux, or Mandowessies, who, being themselves well provided with firearms, have taken, advantage of the defenseless situation of the others, and. have on all occasions murdered them without mercy.

No discoveries on the Missouri beyond the Mandane nation have been accurately detailed,, though the traders have been informed that many large navigable rivers discharge their waters into it far above it, and that there are many numerous nations settled upon them.

The Sioux, or Mandowessies, who frequent the country between the north bank of the Missouri and Mississippi, are it great impediment to trade and navigation. They endeavor to prevent all communication with the nations dwelling high up the Missouri to deprive them of ammunition and arms, and thus keep them subservient to themselves. In the winter they are chiefly on the banks of the Missouri and massacre all who fall into their hands.

There are a number of nations at a distance from the banks of the Missouri to the north and south, concerning whom but little information has been received.

Returning to the Mississippi and ascending it from the Missouri, about 75 leagues above the mouth of the latter, the river Moingona, or Riviere de Moine, enters the Mississippi on the west side, and on it are situated the Ayons, a nation originally from the Missouri, speaking the language of the Otatachas. It consisted of 200 warriors before the smallpox lately raged among them.

The Sacs and Renards dwell on the Mississippi about 300 leagues shove St, Louis, and frequently trade with it; they live together and consist of 500 warriors; their chief trade is with Michilimakinae, and they have always been peaceable and friendly.

The other nations on the Mississippi higher up are but little known to man. The nations of the Missouri, though cruel, treacherous, and insolent, may doubtless be kept in order by the United States if proper regulations are adopted with respect; to them.

It is said that no treaties have been entered into by Spain with the Indian nations westward of the Mississippi, and that its treaties with the Creeks, Choctaws, etc., are in effect superseded by our treaty with that power of the 27th October, 1795.

Indians in the United States in 1836

Albert Gallatin, in 1836, wrote of the Indians, in the United States and their languages as follows:

The uniformity of character in the grammatical forms and structure of all the Indian languages of North America which have been sufficiently investigated indicates as common origin. The numerous distinct languages, if we attend only to the vocabularies between which every trace of affinity has disappeared, attest the antiquity of the American population. From the Arctic sea to 52° of north latitude, across the continent of America from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific, we have not found more than two great families of languages, the Esquimaux and the Athapasca. South of these, as far as 35° or 36° of latitude, two other families, the Algonkin-Lenape and Iroquois, filled the whole space between the Atlantic and the Mississippi or the meridian which passes by its sources, Another great family, that of the Sioux, extends equally far front north to south, on the west side of the Mississippi. With the exception of a doubtful tribe (the Loueheux), there is not to be found in the extensive territory occupied by those five families a single tribe or remnant of a tribe that speaks a dialect which does not belong to one or another of those five families.

On the contrary, in the comparatively small territory south of the Lenape and Iroquois tribes, and including that portion of the state of Louisiana which lies west of the Mississippi, we find allowing even the Muskhogee and Choctaw to be but one, three extensive languages, the Catawba, the Cherokee, and. the Choctaw Muskhogee, and six well ascertained of small tribes or remnants of tribes, to wit, the Uchee, the Notches, and the four above mentioned west of the Mississippi; and there is a strong probability that, independently of the several small extinct tribes of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which still existed when those countries were first settled, several of those still existing west of the Mississippi will be found to have distinct languages. It also appears by the statements of their respective population, communicated by Dr. Sibley, and which is indeed notorious, that those small tribes preserve their language to the last moment of their existence.

The following notes, also by Mr. Gallatin, 1836, embrace all the Indians in the United Stales at that time except those west of the Rocky Mountains:

Under this head will be included the New England Indians, meaning thereby those between the Abenakis and Hudson River, the Long Island Indians, the Delaware and Minsi of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the Nanticockes of the eastern shore of Maryland, the Susquehannocks, the Powhatans of Virginia, and the Pamlicos of North Carolina.

There may have been some exaggeration in the accounts of the Indian population of New England. In proportion as they are separated from us by time or distance, the Indians are uniformly represented as more numerous than they appear when better known, Gookin, who wrote in 1674, states that the Pequods were said to have been able in former times to raise 4,000 warriors, reduced in his time to 300 men. These had indeed been conquered and partly destroyed or dispersed in the war of 1637; but according to the accounts of that war, the number of their warriors could not at that time have amounted to 1,000.

The Narragansetts, who were reckoned in former times, as ancient Indians said, to amount to 5,000 warriors, did not in his time amount to 1,000. As the only wars in which they had been engaged before the year 1674, from the first European settlement in New England, were the usual ones with other Indians, such a great diminution within that period appears highly improbable. With respect to the other three great nations, to wit, the Wampanoags, the Massachusetts, and the Pawtuckets, Gookin estimates their former number to have been in the aggregate 9,000 warriors. He states the population of the two last in his own time at 550 men, besides women and children. This great diminution he and all the other ancient writers ascribed to a most fatal epidemic sickness, which a few years before the first arrival or the English had made dreadful ravages among those two nations and the Wampanoags. But, after making every reasonable allowance for exaggerations derived from Indian reports, there can be no doubt, from the concurrent accounts of contemporary writers, that the Indian population principally along the seacoast between the old Plymouth colony and the Hudson River was much greater in. proportion to the extent of territory than was found anywhere else on the shores of the Atlantic, or with the exception perhaps of the Hurons in the interior parts of the United States. This opinion is corroborated by the enumerations subsequent to Philip's war, after the greater part of the hostile Indians had removed to Canada or its vicinity. In an account laid before the assembly of Connecticut in 1680 the warriors of the several tribes in the state are reckoned at 500. In 1698 the converted Indians in Massachusetts were computed to amount to nearly 3,000 souls. In 1774, by an actual census, there were still 1,363 Indians in Connecticut and 1,482 in Rhode Island. Those several numbers greatly exceed those found elsewhere, under similar circumstances, so long after the date of the first European settlements, I think that the Indian population within the present boundaries of the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut must have been from 30,000 to 40,000 souls before the epidemic disease which preceded the landing of the pilgrims.

For this greater accumulated population two causes may be assigned. A greater and more uniform supply of food is afforded by fisheries than by hunting, and we find accordingly that the Narragansetts of Rhode Island were, in proportion to their territory, the most populous tribe of New England. It appears also probable that the Indians along the seacoast had been driven away from the interior and compelled to concentrate themselves in order to be able to resist the attacks of the more warlike Indians of the Five Nations, Even near the seashore, from the Piscataqua to the vicinity of the Hudson, the New England Indians were perpetually harassed by the attacks of the Magmas. They were, Gookin says, in time of war so great a terror to all the Indians before named that the appearance of four or live Maquas in the woods would frighten them from their habitations, and induced many of them to get together in forts, Wood and other contemporary writers confirm this account, and the Mohawks were wont in Connecticut to pursue the native Indians and kill them even in the houses of the English settlers. We and accordingly the population to have been chiefly concentrated along the seashore and the banks of the Connecticut River below its falls. That of the Nipmuck, and generally of the inland country north of the state of Connecticut, was much less in proportion to the territory, and there do not appear to have been any tribes of any consequence in the northern parts of New Hampshire or in the state of Vermont.

It appears from the researches of Hon, Silas Wood that there wore not less than 13 distinct tribes on Long island over which the Montauks, who inhabited the outer most part of the island, exercised some kind of authority, though they had been themselves tributaries of the Pequods before the subjugation of these by the English. The two extremities of the island were settled about the same tine, the eastern by the English and the western by the Dutch.

The Delaware and Minsi occupied the country bounded eastwardly and. southwardly by Hudson River and the Atlantic. On the west they appear to have been divided from the Nanticockes and the Susquehannocks by the height of land which separates the waters falling into the Delaware from those that empty into the Susquehanna and Chesapeake. They probably extended southwardly along the Delaware as far as Sandy Hook, which seems to have belonged to another tribe. On the north they were in possession of the country watered by the Schuylkill to its sources. The line thence to the Hudson is more uncertain. They may originally have extended to the sources of the Delaware, and it was perhaps owing to the conquests of a comparatively recent date that at the treaty of Easton, of 1758, the Delaware chief, Tedynscung, who had at first assorted the claim of his nation to that extent, restricted it to one of the intervening ranges of hills, and acknowledged that the lands higher up tho river belonged to his uncles, of the Five Nations. East of the Delaware the Lenape tribes were separated by the Catskill Mountains from the Mohawks; but it has already been stated that the Wappings intervened and extended even below the Highlands. The division line between those Wappings and the Minsi is not known with Certainty.

At the time when William Penn landed in Pennsylvania the Delawares had been subjugated and "made women" by the Five Nations. It is well known that, according to that Indian mode of expression, the Delawares were henceforth prohibited from making war and planed ender the sovereignty of the conquerors, who did not even allow sales of land in the actual possession of the Delawares to be valid without their approbation. William Penn, his descendants, and the state of Pennsylvania accordingly always purchased the right of possession from the Delawares and that of sovereignty from the Five Nations. The tale suggested by the vanity of the Delawares, and in which the venerable Heckewelder placed implicit faith, that this treaty was a voluntary act on the port of the Delawares, is too incredible to require serious discussion. It can not be admitted that; they were guilty of such an egregious act of folly as to assent voluntarily to an agreement which left their deadly enemies at liberty to destroy their own kindred, friends, and, allies, with no other remedy but the title of mediators, a character in which they never once appeared; and it is really absurd to suppose that any Indian tribe victorious, as the Delawares are stated to have been at that time should have voluntarily submitted to that which, according to their universal and most deeply rooted habits and opinion, is the utmost degradation and ignominy; but it is difficult to ascertain when that event took place, and it seems probable, as asserted by the Indians, that it was subsequent to the arrival of the Europeans. Under those circumstances many of the Delawares determined to remove west of the Allegheny Mountains, and about the years 1740-1750 obtained from their ancient allies and uncles, the Wyandots, the grant of a derelict tract of land lying principally on the Muskingum. The great body of the nation was still attached to Pennsylvania; but the grounds of complaint increased, Delawares wore encouraged by western tribes and by the French to shake off the yoke of the Six Nations and to join in the war against their allies, the British. Tho frontier settlements of Pennsylvania were accordingly attacked both by the Delawares and Shawnees, and although peace was made with them at Easton in 1758 and the conquest of Canada put an end to the general war, both the Shawnees and Delawares removed altogether in 1708 beyond the Allegheny Mountains. This resolution had not been taken without much reluctance. At a preparatory conference held at Easton in 1757 the Delaware chief, Tedynscung, said "We intend to settle at Wyoming; we want to have certain boundaries fixed between you and us, and a certain tract of land fixed which it shall not be lawful for us or our children to sell nor for you or any of your children ever to buy, that we may be not pushed on every side, but have a certain country fixed for our own use and that of our children forever". And at the treaty of Easton in 1758 he accordingly applied to the Six Nations for a permanent grant of land at Shamokin not Wyoming, on the Susquehanna. The Megan chiefs answered that they were not authorized to sell any lands; that they refer the demand to their great council at Onondaga, which alone had a right to make sales. "In the meanwhile'', they added, "you may make use of these lands in conjunction with our own people and all the rest of our relations, the Indians of the different nations in our alliance". It is proper to add that the Delawares did not lay any claim to the lands on the Susquehanna, which they acknowledged to 'belong altogether to the Six Nations.

The removal of the Delawares, Minsi, and Shawnoes to the Ohio at once extricated them from the yoke of the Six Nations and cut the intercourse between these and the Miamis and other western Indians who had been inclined to enter into their alliance. The years 1765-1795 are the true period of the power and importance of the Delawares. United with the Shawnees, who were settled on the Seioto, they sustained during the 7 years war the declining power of France and arrested for some years the progress of the British and American arms. Although a portion of the nation adhered to the Americans during the war of Independence, the main body, together with all the western nations, made common cause with the British; and, after the short truce which followed the treaty of 1783, they were again at the head of the western confederacy in their last struggle for independence. Placed by their geographical situation in the front of battle, they were during those three wars time aggressors, and to the last moment the most active and formidable enemies of America. The decisive victory of General Wayne (1794) dissolved the confederacy, and the Delawares were the greatest sufferers by time treaty of Greenville of 1795.

The greater part of the lands allotted them by the Wyandots was ceded by that treaty, and they then obtained from the Miamis a tract of land on the White River of Wabash, which, by the treaty of Vincennes of 1804, was granted to them by the United States; but the Miamis having contended the ensuing, year, at the treaty of Gronseland, that they had only permitted them to occupy the territory, but had not conveyed the soil to them, the Delawares released the United, States from that guarantee. They did not take part with the British in the last war, and together with some Mohicans and Nanticockes, remained on White River till the year 1819, when they finally ceded their claim to the United States. Those residing there were then reduced to about 800 souls. A number, including the Moravian converted Indians, had previously removed, to Canada, and it is difficult to ascertain the situation or numbers or the residue at this time. Those who have lately removed west of the Mississippi are in an estimate of the War Department, computed at 400 souls. Former emigrations to that quarter had, however, taken place, and several small dispersed bands are, it is believed, united with the Senecas and some other tribes.

The Illinois consisted of 5 tribes, to wit, the Kaskaskias, Cahokias, Tamaronas, Peorias, and Mitchigamias. This last was a foreign tribe admitted into their confederacy, and which originally came from the west side of the Mississippi, where they lived on a small river that bore their name.

It is also well known that, when the Shawnoes of Pennsylvania began, in the year 1740, to migrate to the Ohio, they were obliged to obtain a grant or permission to that effect from the Wyandots; and, in a memorandum annexed to the treaty of Fort Harmar with the Wyandots, of January, 1789, they declare that the country north of the Ohio, then occupied by the Shawnees, is theirs (the Wyandots) of right, and that the Shawnees are only living upon it by their permission.

From these scattered notices it may be conjectured that, as stated by the Sauks and Foxes, the Shawnees separated at an early date from the other Lollop tribes, and established themselves south of the Ohio in whet is now the state of Kentucky; that, having been driven away from that territory, probably by the Chicasas and Cherokees, some portion of them found their way during the first half of the seventeenth century as far east as the country of the Susquehannocks, a kindred Lenape tribe; that the main body of the nation, invited by the Miamis and the Audnstes, crossed the Ohio, occupied the country on and adjacent to the Scioto, and joined in the war against the Five Nations, and that, after their dual defeat and that of their allies in time year 1672, the dispersion alluded to by Evans took place. A considerable portion made about that time a forcible settlement on the headwaters of the rivers of Carolina; and these, after having been driven away by the Catawbas, found, as others had already done, an asylum in different parts of the Creek county; another portion joined their brethren in Pennsylvania, and some may have remained in the vicinity of the Scioto and Sandusky. Those in Pennsylvania, who seem to have been the most considerable part of the nation, were not entirely subjugated and reduced to the humiliating state of women by the Six Nations; but they held their lands on the Susquehanna only as tenants at will, and were always obliged to acknowledge a kind of sovereignty or superiority in their landlords, They appear to have been more early and more unanimous then the Delawares in their determination to return to the country north of the Ohio. This they effected under tine auspices of the Wyandots, and on the invitation of the French during the years 1740-1755. They occupied there the Scioto country, extending to Sandusky, and westwardly toward the Great Miami, and they have also left there the names of two of their tribes, to wit, Chillicothe and Piqua. Those who were settled among the Creeks joined them, and the nation was once more united.

The destruction of tho greater part of the Hurons (Wyandots) took place in 1649; the dispersion of the residue and of the Algonkins of the Ottawa River in the ensuing year. It is probable that the general terror inspired by those events was the immediate cause of the final submission of the Delawares, already hard pressed; and that, being no longer in need of the fort near Christina for the purpose of keeping them in check, the Five Nations evacuated it in 1651 and sold the adjacent land to the Dutch, The capture of the principal village of the neutral nation, the incorporation of a portion of that tribe, and the dispersion of the rest, are stated an having also happened in 1651.

The territory of the Cherokees, Cholakecs, or more properly, Tsalakies, extended north and south of the southwesterly continuation of the Appalachian Mountains, embracing on the north the country on Tennessee or Cherokee River and its tributary streams, from their source down to the vicinity of the Muscle shoals, where they were bounded on the west by the Chicasas. The Cumberland Mountain may be considered as having been their boundary on the north; but since the country has been known to as no other Indian nation but some small bands of Shawnees had any settlement between that mountain and the Ohio. On the west side of the Savannah they were bounded on the south by the Creeks, the division that being Broad River, and generally along the thirty-fourth parallel of north latitude. On the east of the Savannah their original soats embraced the upper waters of that river, of the Santee and probably of the Yadkin, but could not have extended as far south as 34° of north latitude. They were bounded on the south in that quarter probably by Muskhogee tribes in the vicinity of the Savannah, and farther east by the Catawbas. The Cherokees, like other Indian nations, were almost always at war with some of the adjacent tribes, They hail probably contributed to the expulsion of the Shawnees from the country south of the Ohio, and appear to have been perpetually at war with some branch or other of that erratic nation. (a)

They had also long continued hostilities with the Six Nations, which do not seem to have been conducted with much vigor on either side, and were terminated about the years 1744-1750 through the interference of the British government. It appears by an answer sent by them at the conferences of Carlisle of 1753, to a previous message of the Delawares, that they had at a former paled entertained amicable relations with that tribe. They expressed in it friendly dispositions, said that they had not heard from the Delawares for a long time, and called them nephews.

Tito country of the Cherokees was strong; they formed but one nation, and they do appear to have been materially injured by their Indian wars. It would seem that since they came in contact with the Europeans, and not with standing successive cessions of part of their territory, their number at least during the last forty years has been increased. Their warriors were established at 2,300 in the year 1762 by Adair, who adds that he was informed that forty years before they had 6,000. According to a late estimate of the Indian department they now amount to15,000 souls, including those who have already removed beyond the Mississippi, and exclusively of about 1,200 Negroes in their possession.

The four great southern nations, according to the estimates of the War Department, which have been quoted and are in that quarter very correct, consists now or 67,000 souls, viz: Cherokees, 15,000; Choctaws, 18,500, Chicasns, 5,500, 24,000; Muskhogee Seminoles, and Hitchittoes, 26,000; Uchees, Alibamons, Cousadas, and. Natehes, 2,000. The territory west of the Mississippi, in exchange for their lands east of that river, contains 40,000,000 acres, exclusively of what may be allotted to the Chiensus, Government defrays the expenses of the removal, pays the value of their improvements, and allows thine considerable annuities.

Indians in the United States in 1890 (Alaska Excepted)

Many Indian tribes of the same stock speak different languages, there being some 64 languages for the 32 existing stocks, Some tribes have the stock or family name. In illustration, the Shoshone Indians at Shoshone agency, Wyoming, and at Fort Hall agency, Idaho, are of Shoshonean stock; so to designate a family from a tribe "an" or "ian" is affixed to stock names in the table. A stock or family is presumed to be a tribe or tribes of an ancestral or original language. Frequently a single language is a stock or family. Indian tribal languages which have descended from it common or ancestral tongue are considered of the same stock or family.

Within the territory of the United States the Indian tribes are found to have belonged to 53 stocks. By this is meant that 53 families of languages have bean discovered or defined up to 1890. The investigation of the problem began years ago, being greatly aided by the research of Albert Gallatin, and it was only by the cooperation of linguistic: scholars in mere recent times that the task was brought to completion. It was largely through the efforts of the Smithsonian institution, or aided by it, that time various tribes and bands were relegated to their proper connections. The linguistic stocks, although built upon the same typical foundation, are so different in vocabulary and grammar that the ability to speak a language belonging to one of them does not argue an acquaintance with a language belonging to another stock, Within the linguistic families are innumerable languages akin in vocabulary and grammar, but as different in their style as the members of the Aryan group. Some of these. stocks, as the Athapascan, Algonkian, Iroquoian, Muskhogean, Siouan, Salishan, Shoshonean, and others, covered an enormous territory and embraced a great diversity of languages. Other stocks, such as the Timuquana of Florida, have altogether disappeared, and are only known in the literature that has been left concerning them; still others of these stocks are at present represented by a single language spoken by a meager remnant of their tribes. The linguistic chart published in the Seventh Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, J. W. Powell, director, and the map of Daniel G. Brinton, both given elsewhere, will enable the scholar to familiarize himself with the approximate location of the stocks as first seen by the white man. The table of stocks corrected by Prof. Otis T. Mason, of the Smithsonian institution, is designed, on the other hand, to show where the militants of these aboriginal tribes, who once roamed over the present territory of the United States, are now located.

Many of the, tribes or hands in Arizona, notably the Hualapai, Maricopa, Tonto, Yuma, and Yuma Apache, given as Yuman stock, claim to be Apaches (Athapascan), and have been popularly so known.

The Pimas and Papagos of Arizona, given as Pimans, have heretofore been commonly known as Apaches (Athapascan), These tribes or bands learned to speak Apache so long ago that the present members believe they are Apaches.

Indians in the 11th (1890) Census of the United States

(a) The last settlement of the Shawnees south of the Ohio was at Bull's Town on the Little Kenawha. They were obliged to abandon it about the year 1770 on account of the repeated attacks of small Cherokee parties.

Notes About the Book:

Source: Source: Report on Indians Taxed and Indians not Taxed in the United States, Except Alaska at the Eleventh Census: 1890, Department of the Interior, Government Printing Office, Washington DC., 1894

Online Publication: The manuscript was scanned and then ocr'd. Minimal editing has been done, and readers can and should expect some errors in the textual output. Several spellings have been used for the same tribe of Indians.

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