CHAPTER XLIV
Visit from Indian warriours--Our apprehensions--Indian manners and customs not generally known--First, Second and Third Chickasaw Bluffs, and several islands.
May 26.--We drifted forty-three miles, between five o’clock, A. M. and five o’clock P. M.--passing several islands and sand-bars, and had got between island No. 31 and Flour island, when an Indian canoe from the left shore boarded us with a chief and three warriours of the Shawanee nation.[186] They had their rifles in the boat, and their knives {259} and tomahawks in their belts, and it is my opinion that their intentions were hostile had they seen any thing worth plundering, or found us intimidated--but by receiving them with a confident familiarity, and treating them cautiously with a little whiskey, they behaved tolerably well, and bartered a wild turkey which one of them had shot for some flour, though it might have been supposed that they would have made a compliment of it to us in return for our civility to them, as besides giving them whiskey to drink, we had given them good wheat loaf bread to eat, and had filled a bottle they had in their canoe with whiskey for their squaws at the camp. It is remarked, that the Indians are not in habits of generous acts, either through the niggardliness of nature, or selfish mode of bringing up; or it may be owing to their intercourse with the white hunters and traders, who take every advantage of them in their dealings, and so set them an example of selfishness and knavery, which they attempt to follow. Our skiff which had been absent with some of the passengers now coming on board, encreased our numbers so as to render us more respectable in the eyes of our troublesome visitors, and being abreast of their camp, where the party appeared pretty numerous, they shook hands with, and left us, to our great joy, as we were not without apprehension that they would have received a reinforcement of their companions from the shore, which in our defenceless state would have been a most disagreeable circumstance.
They were well formed men, with fine countenances, and their chief was well drest, having good leggins and mockasins, and large tin ear-rings, and his foretop of hair turned up, and ornamented with a quantity of beads.
Evening approaching, we plied our oars diligently, to remove ourselves as far as possible from the Indian camp before we should stop for the night, and by six {260} o’clock we had the upper end of Flour island on our right, three miles below where the Indians had left us. The river making a sudden bend here from east to south, we lost sight of the smoke of the camp, and of our apprehensions also, and about a mile farther, seeing a South Carolina and a Pittsburgh boat moored at the left bank, we rowed in and joined them. Near the landing was a newly abandoned Indian camp, the trees having been barked only within a day or two. To explain this it may be proper to observe, that the Indians, who are wanderers, continually shifting their hunting ground, form their temporary huts with two forked stakes, stuck in the ground, at from six to twelve feet apart, and from four to six feet high. A ridge pole is laid from fork to fork, and long pieces of bark stripped from the neighbouring trees, are placed on their ends at a sufficient distance below, while the other ends overlap each other where they meet at the ridge pole, the whole forming a hut shaped like the roof of a common house, in which they make a fire, and the men, when not hunting, lounge at full length wrapped in their blankets, or sit cross legged, while the women do the domestick drudgery, or make baskets of various shapes with split cane, which they do with great neatness, and a certain degree of ingenuity. If any of the men die while on an excursion, they erect a scaffold about five feet high, on which they place the corpse covered with the skin of a deer, a bear, or some other animal they have killed in hunting. The dead man’s rifle, tomahawk, bow and arrows are placed along side of him on the scaffold, to which the whole is bound with strings cut from some hide. It is then surrounded with stout poles or stakes, ten or twelve feet long, drove firmly into the ground and so close to each other as not to admit the entry of a small bird. Some of the female relations, are left in the hut close to the scaffold, until the excursion is {261} finished; when, ere they return home to their nation, they bury the corpse with much privacy.--I had been informed that some priest or privileged person, who was called the bone picker, was always sent for to the nation to come and cleanse the bones from the flesh even in the most loathsome state of putrefaction, that the bones might be carried home and interred in the general cemetery, but I had frequent opportunities of proving the error of this opinion. As to the women, when they die, (which is very rare, except from old age) they are buried at once on the spot, with little or no ceremony. While on the subject of Indians, it may not be amiss to mention a trait in their character, of courage and submission to their laws, of which numberless instances have happened, particularly amongst the Chocktaws on the frontier of the Mississippi Territory, and I believe common to all the Indian nations, which I do not recollect being noticed by any writer on the subject of their manners and customs. If any one maims or mutilates another, in a drunken or private fray, he must forfeit his life. A few days (or if necessary) even a few months, are allowed the offender to go where he pleases and settle his affairs, at the expiration of which it has rarely if ever happened, that he does not surrender himself at the place appointed, to submit himself to the rifle of the injured party, or one of his nearest relatives, who never fails to exact the full penalty, by shooting the criminal. This is a very common circumstance, and is an instance of national intrepidity and obedience to the laws, not excelled in the purest times of the Roman republick.[187]
We were now dreadfully tormented by musquitoes and gnats, particularly at night, when moored {262} to the bank. By day, while floating in the middle of the river, they were less troublesome. I would recommend it to travellers about to descend the Ohio and Mississippi, to provide themselves, previous to setting off, with musquitoe curtains, otherwise they never can reckon on one night’s undisturbed repose, while on their journey, during the spring, summer or autumn.
May 27th.--We proceeded this morning early with the other two boats in company, and passing Flour island (so named from the number of flour loaded boats which formerly were thrown on it by the current and lost) the first two miles brought us abreast of the first Chickasaw Bluffs, on the left. It is a cliff of pale orange coloured clay, rising from a base of rocks on the bank of the river, and surmounted by trees.--Half a mile below, another similar cliff rises suddenly from the water’s edge, the two being connected by a semicircular range of smaller ones receding from the bank, having a small willow bottom in front of them.
The river retaining its southerly course, floated us in another half league, past the beginning of island No. 34 of Cramer’s Navigator, which is four miles and a half long, at the end of which, another large island (not mentioned in the Navigator, but probably included in No. 34, from which only a narrow channel separates it) begins. Two miles from hence a handsome little creek or river, about forty yards wide, joins the Mississippi from the N. E. and nearly a mile lower is another small creek from the eastward with willows at its mouth.
The second Chickasaw Bluff, which we had seen in a long reach down the river ever since we passed Flour island, commences at a mile below the last creek, on the left hand. The cliff, of a yellowish brown colour, has fallen in from the top of the bluff, which is about one hundred and fifty feet high, and immediately after is a cleft or deep fissure, through {263} which, a small creek or run enters the river. Half a mile lower down, the foundation of the cliff, formed apparently of potter’s blue clay, assumes the appearance of the buttresses of an ancient fortification, projecting to support the huge impending yellowish red cliff above, the base of the whole next the water being a heap of ruins in fantastick and various forms, perpetually tumbling from the cliff, which is beautifully streaked with horizontal lines, separating the different strata of sand and clay of which it is composed.
The second bluffs are about two miles long, and form the interior of a great bend of the river, which curves from S. W. by S. to N. W. where being narrowed to a quarter of a mile wide between the bluff and the island, (on which the passengers had bestowed the name of Cuming’s island) the current is so rapid and sets so strongly into the bend as to require the greatest exertion of the oars to keep the boat in the channel. The river then turns a little to the left, and keeping a W. by N. course for three or four miles, then resumes its general direction, meandering to the southward.
A mile and a half below the bluffs, island No. 35 commences, doubling over Cuming’s island, whose lower point is not in sight, being concealed by No. 35. The view of the river and islands from the top of the bluff must be very fine.
No. 35 is three miles long. From the lower end of this island we saw the Third Chickasaw Bluffs bearing east about six or seven miles distant, at the end of a vista formed by the left hand channel of island No. 36, and appearing to be a little higher than the First or Second Bluffs, but without any marked particularity at that distance.[188]
FOOTNOTES:
[186] On the Shawnee Indians, see Weiser’s _Journal_, vol. i of this series, p. 23, note 13.--ED.
[187] The Choctaws lived in what is now Mississippi, south of the more important Chickasaw tribe. Their position between the Creeks, Cherokee, Chickasaw, Spaniards, and English led to much intriguing for their alliance. The custom which Cuming here notes is verified by Mississippi historians, and was utilized by the early justices of the country. See Claiborne, _Mississippi_, p. 505.--ED.
[188] The third Chickasaw Bluff is the place where De Soto is said to have crossed the Mississippi River. Here also it is supposed that La Salle built Fort Prud’homme on his exploration of the river in 1682. The later historic significance was overshadowed by that of Fourth Chickasaw Bluff.--ED.
{264} CHAPTER XLV
The Devil’s Race-ground--The Devil’s Elbow--Swans--Observations on game--Remarkable situation--Enormous tree--Join other boats--First settlements after the wilderness--Chickasaw Bluffs--Fort Pike--Chickasaw Indians--Fort Pickering.
Rowing into the right hand channel of No. 36, we entered the Devil’s Race-ground, as the sound is called between the island and the main, from the number of snags and sawyers in it, and the current setting strongly on the island, which renders it necessary to use the oars with continued exertion, by dint of which we got safely through this dangerous passage of three miles, leaving several newly deserted Indian camps on the right. At the end of the Devil’s Race-ground the river turns from S. W. by W. to N. N. W. and here opposite a small outlet of twenty yards wide on the left, we met a barge under sail, bound up the river.
After three miles on the last reach the river turns gradually with a bend, to its general southerly direction, the bend being encircled by a low bank covered with tall cypresses, which keep the traveller in constant dread of falling on his boat, which in spite of his utmost exertion is forced by an irresistible current close into the bend. The two other boats stopped here among some willows on account of a breaking short sea raised by a fresh southerly wind.
Nine miles from the Devil’s Race-ground, we came to the Devil’s Elbow, which is a low point on the left, round which the river turns suddenly, from S. W. to S. and from that to E. an island being in front to the southward, which intercepts the drifts, and fills the river above half channel over with snags and sawyers. There was a very large flock of swans {265} on the low sandy point of the Elbow. These were the first swans we had seen on the river, although they are said to abound throughout this long tract which is destitute of inhabitants. We had been long accustomed to see numbers of bitterns and cranes, mostly white as snow, and a few grey ones, and some duck and teal sometimes shewed themselves, but took care to keep out of gun shot. Travellers descending the river have but little chance of obtaining any game, as its having become so great a thoroughfare, has rendered both the four footed, and feathered tribes fit for the table so wild, that it is rare that any of them, even when seen can be shot, and if one lands for the purpose of hunting, the boat must stop, or else he is in danger of being left behind, as the current runs never or in no place slower than three miles an hour, and mostly four or five.
The easterly bend is six miles long, and about a mile wide, gradually inclining to the south, and on the right are eight creeks or outlets of the river, five of them divided from each other by narrow slips of land about fifty paces wide each, and the other three by slips of one hundred and fifty paces. Their general direction from the river is S. S. W. and a point rounds the whole way from E. to S. E.--This is one of the most remarkable situations on the river.
Two miles lower we stopped at island No. 40, for the night, and moored by some willows at a sand beach, near a drift tree, the trunk of which was one hundred and twenty-five feet long, and from its thickness where broken towards the top, it must have been at least fifty feet more to the extremity of the branches, making in the whole the astonishing length of one hundred and seventy-five feet. Capt. Wells with two boats from Steubenville, passed and stopped a little below us.
The Musquitoes as usual plagued us all night, and hastened our departure at four o’clock in the morning. {266} Wells’s boats were in company, and after floating six miles, we overtook two other boats from Steubenville under the direction of captain Bell.--The four boats had twelve hundred barrels of flour for the New Orleans market.
This accession to our company served to enliven a little the remainder of this dreary and solitary part of the river, the sameness of which had began to be irksome.
In a league more Bell’s boats took the right hand channel round an archipelago of islands, while we kept to the left through Mansfield’s channel, which is very narrow and meanders among several small islands and willow bars.
This archipelago which is designated by No. 41 in the Navigator, is three miles long. At the end of it we rejoined Bell’s boats, and passed a settlement pleasantly situated on the right, which was the first habitation since Little Prairie (one hundred and thirty-two miles.) Here we observed a fine stock of horses, cows, and oxen, and half a mile farther we landed in the skiff at Mr. Foy’s handsome settlement and good frame house. Foy was the first settler fourteen years ago on the Fourth Chickasaw Bluffs, which are opposite his present residence, to which he removed eleven years ago; since when five families more have settled near him, and about half a dozen on the Chickasaw side, just below Wolf river. Soon after Foy’s first settlement, and very near it, the Americans erected a small stoccado fort, named Fort Pike, from the major commandant. After the purchase of Louisiana by the United States from the Spaniards, Fort Pickering was erected two miles lower down at the end of the bluffs, and Fort Pike was abandoned. There are two stores on each side the river, one of which is kept by Mr. Foy, who owns a small barge which he sends occasionally for goods to New Orleans, from whence she returns {267} generally in forty days, and did so once in thirty. Mrs. Foy was very friendly, amongst other civilities, sparing us some butter, for which she would accept no payment. This was the first instance of disinterestedness we had experienced on the banks of the rivers.[189]
Wolf river is the boundary between the state of Tennessee and the Mississippi territory. It is not more than about forty yards wide. The bank of the Ohio and the Mississippi, the whole way from Tennessee river is still owned by the Chickasaw nation, who have not yet sold the territorial right.[190]
On the point immediately below Mr. Foy’s (whose negro quarter gives his pleasantly situated settlement the appearance of a village or hamlet) was formerly a Spanish fort no vestige of which now remains.[191]
Rowing across the river and falling down with the current, we landed under Fort Pickering, having passed the Fourth Chickasaw Bluffs, which are two miles long, and sixty feet perpendicular height. They are cleared at the top to some little distance back, and the houses of the settlers are very pleasantly situated near the edge of the cliff.
An Indian was at the landing observing us. He was painted in such a manner as to leave us in doubt as to his sex until we noticed a bow and arrow in his hand. His natural colour was entirely concealed under the bright vermillion, the white, and the blue grey, with which he was covered, not frightfully, but in such a manner as to mark more strongly, a fine set of features on a fine countenance. He was drest very fantastically in an old fashioned, large figured, high coloured calico shirt--deer skin leggins and mockesons, ornamented with beads, and a plume of beautiful heron’s feathers nodding over his forehead from the back of his head.
We ascended to Fort Pickering[192] by a stair of one hundred and twenty square logs, similar to that at {268} Jeffersonville. There was a trace of fresh blood the whole way up the stair, and on arriving at the top, we saw seated or lazily reclining on a green in front of the entrance of the stoccado, about fifty Chickasaw warriours, drest each according to his notion of finery, and most of them painted in a grotesque but not a terrifick manner. Many of them had long feathers in the back part of their hair, and several wore breast plates formed of tin in the shape of a crescent, and had large tin rings in their ears.
On seeing so many Indians and the trace of blood before mentioned, an idea started in my imagination that they had massacred the garrison, but on advancing a little farther, I was agreeably undeceived by seeing a good looking young white centinel in the American uniform, with his musquet and fixed bayonet, parading before the gate of the fort. He stopped us until permission was obtained from the commanding officer for our entrance, and in the interim he informed me that he was a Frenchman, a native of Paris, that he had been a marine under Jerome Bonaparte, when the latter commanded a frigate, and that he had deserted from him on his arrival in the Chesapeak. We were ushered by a soldier to the officers’ quarters where we were received by lieut. Taylor the commandant, with civility not unmixed with a small degree of the pompous stiffness of office.[193] He however answered politely enough a few interrogatories we made respecting the Indians. He said they were friendly, and made frequent visits to the garrison, but except a few of the chiefs on business, none of them were ever admitted within the stoccado, and that this was a jubilee or gala day, on account of their having just received presents from the United States’ government. They have a large settlement about five miles directly inland from the river, but the most populous part of the Chickasaw nation is one hundred miles distant to the south eastward.
{269} When we were returning to the boat, one of the Indians offered to sell us for a mere trifle, a pair of very handsome beaded mockesons, which we were obliged to decline, from having neglected to bring any money with us.
Fort Pickering is a small stoccado, commanding from its elevated situation not only the river, but also the surrounding country, which however is not yet sufficiently cleared of wood to make it tenable against an active enemy. There are some small cannon mounted, and several pyramids of shot evince its being well supplied with that article.
FOOTNOTES:
[189] The first fort known to have been erected on the site of Memphis (Fourth Chickasaw Bluff) was that built by Bienville, governor of Louisiana, during his campaigns against the Chickasaws (1735-40) and called by him Fort Assumption. After the expedition of 1740, however, this was abandoned, the place not being fortified until the Spanish commandant Gayoso, in defiance of the authority of the United States, crossed (1794) to the Chickasaw territory and built Fort San Fernando. Two years later, after Pinckney’s treaty was signed, the Spaniards reluctantly surrendered this outpost, whereupon the American Fort Pike was built (1796).
Judge Benjamin Foy, of the Arkansas town of Foy’s Point, was a pioneer of German descent, whose settlement is said to have been the most healthful, moral, and intelligent community between the Ohio and Natchez--due to the influence of its first settler, and his magisterial powers. Volney, the French traveller, spent the winter of 1805 with Foy in his Arkansas home.--ED.
[190] The Chickasaws maintained their right to the territory between the Mississippi and the Tennessee until 1818, when commissioners for the Federal Government bought the tract for $300,000. The town of Memphis was laid out in the same year.--ED.
[191] This was the fort called Esperanza, where the village of Hopefield, Arkansas, now stands.--ED.
[192] Fort Pickering (at first called Fort Adams) was erected by Captain Guion on the orders of Wilkinson. Meriwether Lewis was for a brief time (1797) in command of this post.--ED.
[193] This was Lieutenant Zachary Taylor, later the twelfth president of the United States. His military commission dated from May 8, 1808, so that his manner was doubtless due to his youth and the unaccustomed novelty of his position.--ED.