Woodward's Reminiscenses - Part 2



WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,
March 21, 1858.
To. J. J. HOOPER, Esq.
Dear Sir -- Some two weeks back I received the History of Alabama, sent me 
by my old friend "Horse Shoe Ned." It is a present made me by its 
Author -- whom I have known from his childhood, and of course prize it 
highly, not only as a present from its author, but for the many new things 
to me that it contains. I should have commenced this sooner, but my son 
who resides near Hot Springs, Arkansas, and the only one of my family that 
is left me, has been with me for the last three weeks and has just left 
for his home. That, with my inability to write at best, will make this not 
very interesting to you or your readers. What I write I dedicate to those 
that read it. You will see from what I write, and from what I may write 
hereafter, that I differ from Col. Pickett, and what I write is not 
intended, nor can it detract in the least from Col. Pickett, as an author, 
a gentleman, or a scholar. I am not vain enough to think that I could 
write anything like a history of any country (even if all I should write 
were true) that would be interesting, while Col. Pickett is very capable 
of doing it; he has not only the advantages of a classical education, but 
was raised by one of the most intelligent fathers in Alabama; and as to 
his mother, she has had her equals no doubt, but there is no one living 
that can boast of a mother that was her superior. As to my own parents, I 
can say nothing more than I recollect to have seen them and the only 
brother I ever had, laid in their last resting place, within six miles of 
where Savannah river takes its name. My father died in Franklin county, 
Georgia, near sixty years back; my brother about fifty-six years; my 
mother about fifty-three years back -- leaving an only sister and myself, 
upon the charity of the best world that I have seen, or any one else, if 
they will take it right. Now, sir, my whole history through life (though 
passing through some pretty rough scenes by-the-by) would not be as 
interesting as the lives of Washington and Marion, by Old Parson Weems; so 
I will close my own biography, and commence with De Soto's march through 
Florida.
Tampa Bay is the point, admitted by all, where Soto (as I shall call him) 
debarked his men. His army, composed of one thousand men, some on 
horseback and some on foot, greyhounds as fleet as the wind, bloodhounds 
large and ferocious, and in addition to all these, were lots of Catholic 
priests, clergymen and monks. This was certainly a very imposing show, and 
was a show very well calculated and no doubt did impose upon the 
unoffending natives, and the tons of iron, handcuffs, chains, neckcollars 
and the like, were things well calculated to inspire the natives with very 
exalted notions of the Christianity they were soon to be taught. No doubt 
but that portion of the narrative is in a great measure true; so far as 
regards the true motives of those that set the expedition on foot. The 
object was gold or other plunder, and to diffuse among the natives a 
religion (as then understood and practiced by those who were to propagate 
it) that even had more laudable means been used to establish it, would 
have benefited the Indians very little more, if as much, as the worst 
pagan idolatry. And it is equally as shameful as true, that other 
Christian nations have followed the example of Spain, with the natives of 
this and other countries; wherever the Bible (which was seldom applied 
right) failed, the musket and bayonet were resorted to. The hogs and 
cattle are next: the introduction of those animals was the only 
philanthropic movement during, or that attended, the expedition. These 
animals were landed as it appears, as early as May, 1539, and Soto died 
between the last of May, 1542 and the 2d July, 1543. No date given of 
their leader's death, unless we infer from the dates given in the 
narrative that he died between the last of May, 1542, at which time he 
commenced the building of the brigantine, and the 1st of June, 1542, which 
was the time his successor commenced his march again in the wilderness, 
which was one day only for commencing the work, for Soto to die, to be put 
in the water, and his successor to march with the remainder of the 
soldiers. The portion of the history I have just alluded to, you will find 
on pages 50 and 51, first volume. Now had Col. Pickett made a little 
blunder like this, I should not have noticed it, for I know him to be much 
clearer of committing such blunders than I can think myself to be, (I no 
doubt could prove that by you.) You will find the day and month given in 
many places; but the hero of the expedition dies, the day, month, or year 
is not named. I notice this to show that Portuguese and Spanish authors at 
all times are not to be relied on. Now sir, I have traveled through 
Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and am pretty well 
acquainted with most of the neighborhoods that the history says Soto 
traveled through. Now, the idea of marching an army of a thousand men, 
making the marches as the history describes, and raising hogs, feeding on 
them, dividing them with the Indians, many left to be killed and packed up 
by the successor of Soto, and his men to feed on while at seal Now, as 
this is a swine story, not written by St. Mark, I hope I may be at least 
permitted to doubt it, without sinning. There was the Christian Jean 
Ortez, who was a captive long enough to become so well acquainted with the 
language of the Florida Indians, which must have been the Yermacraws or 
flat-looted Yemassees, for they evidently were the first Indians that 
inhabited East Florida, the low parts of Georgia, and South Carolina, so 
far as we know; if not, then it must have been the Ucheys, or Sowanokees, 
or Shawnese, for they were then nearest neighbors; we find this man Ortez 
interpreting, making speeches in Spanish, and in all the Indian dialects 
where De Soto passed. As I have lived longer among Indians than Ortez, and 
learned to speak so little, and it was not Sampson that killed the 
panther, I cannot be bound to believe that story, to be saved. Now, these 
same Portuguese and Spanish give us a description of the country they 
passed in the upper parts of Georgia and Alabama, and down to the waters 
of the Coosa. Now, every person that has read the history, and now knows 
the country, knows the account to be a highly exaggerated one. As to the 
Indian temples, I have nothing to say; every one that has seen an Indian 
town, has seen an Indian temple. That mode of traveling in a chair, 
carried by four men, differs from any traveling among them that I have 
seen or heard of. Those large barns of corn never fell to their lots in my 
time, or any of those old ones that I have been acquainted with, so far as 
I could learn; besides, the country, a few little creek valleys excepted, 
is a very poor one -- that is, if you will examine the description given 
by those Portuguese and Spanish gentry, and then examine the country 
itself.

What I have written is to show that the great probability is, that these 
writers have not been faithful in their narrations. For I have traveled 
more or less in and among all the tribes south of latitude 36 north, and 
some north of that line, between Georgia and Rio del Norte, and I think I 
am somewhat acquainted with the Indian character, and I am as certain of 
this as any one thing I never witnessed, viz: that De Soto, no other man, 
nor any set of men, could have reduced the Indians to such abject slavery. 
There is not one Indian, male or female, in one hundred, but would have 
put an end to their existence, rather than submit to such treatment. Even 
as late as 18367 I knew several Indian women who, rather than risk their 
children under the control of the Emigrating Indian Agent, put them to 
death, some of them large enough to walk; and these women had long been 
acquainted with the whites. In fact, I knew two men to kill themselves in 
Montgomery, rather than move, when their whole town people were along, and 
they not in any danger whatever. As long as ours has been a government, 
with so many tribes whose names have passed from the earth, there is not 
the mark of a pen, heiroglyphic, or any vestige whatever to show that such 
people ever were warmed by God's sun, I have never seen the first North 
American Indian slave, unless it was in Barbour county, Alabama. At what 
was known as the Pea River Fight, there were some Indian children taken 
prisoners, and they were mostly girls. I was in Barbour county as late as 
1843. I there saw one or two of the children. If they have not been made 
slaves, I never have heard of any. The peons or foot soldiers in Mexico 
and the degraded Central American States are not looked upon, or at least 
by me, as North American Indians. I have no doubt but the tribes 
inhabiting the tropical regions are much more submissive and timid than 
the hardy tribes inhabiting north and south of those regions. Besides, 
such gangs of priests, clergymen and monks, grey-hounds, blood-hounds, 
hand-cuffs, chains, neck-collars, (and such other holy material as De Soto 
introduced among the native Floridians, Georgians and Alabamians,) were 
too freely used for the same purpose among the Mexicans and Central 
Americans; and the natives of those countries unfortunately lost their own 
language, and learned the language and embraced the religion of their 
oppressors, which has made them ten-fold worse than they were in their 
native state. You may take almost any other people that we read of and 
train them to be slaves, or at least make them perform those menial 
offices that slaves do; but such is never the case with an Indian. It is 
true, you may, by kind treatment, either in word or action, get them 
occasionally to perform some little offices; but harsh treatment, either 
in words or blows, never can control an Indian.

Now, after De Soto and his men had been rusticating in the country of the 
Coosas, they make their way to the Tallassees. They reach the town on the 
18th September, 1540. De Soto remained at Tallassee twenty days, crossed 
over to the east side in canoes and on rafts, and traveled down the 
eastern side. Now, to show you how those Portuguese and Spaniards mistake 
things, Tallassee was always on the east side of the Tallapoosa, and Col. 
Pickett in a note of his own admits the Tukabatchy was built on the 
opposite side, and all hands know that Tuckabatchy, Tookabatcha, was 
always on the west side. Now, there was no necessity for canoes and rafts 
after their stay of twenty days in Tallassee. Moreover, the river at this 
point is never past fording, only at a high stage of water. Besides, the 
season of the year in which DeSoto was there, those who know the place 
will say to you that an Indian pony could ford it from Tallassee to King's 
Ferry, which is full three miles by water. The Tallassees and Tuckabatchys 
were both original Musqua and Muscogees, and the oldest Indians and Indian 
countrymen that I have seen, say Tuckabatchy was settled years before 
Tallassee. I wrote you once before, that it was a long disputed point with 
old Cusetaw and Tuckabatchee, which was settled first, but that it was 
generally conceded that the Cusetaws were the Spoakogees, or 
Spoakookulgees; that is, the oldest settlers, or the mother of towns.

I know three men in Macon county who could have given Col. Pickett Indian 
information of modern times, (that is, for the last thirty years,) which 
is much more reliable than that he has had. I know something of the 
settlement of the Tallassee town, opposite Tuckabatchy. I will give you, 
some time before long, the history of the settlement of Tallassee, and how 
that error crept into Col. Pickett's History.

The three gentlemen alluded to above, in Macon county, are Nat and John 
Callens and L.B. Strange.

I will here remark, that Col Pickett's History has set me right about the 
death of Alex. McGillivray. I had thought he died as late as 1796, but 
find he died three years before. His daughter and his last wife, who lived 
by me for many years, could never tell; and if I ever heard from others I 
forgot it.

I will in my next give you something of the Nitches, Tallassees, and 
McGillivray's family.

T. S. W.



WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.,
March 25, 1858.
Eds. Mail: -- I see in your paper of March the 11th that "J. W. K." seems 
desirous to know if can give the origin of the belief among the Chippewa 
Indians -- and he presumes among others that there is a deep gulf to be 
passed after death, before they can get to their Paradise. I answer him 
candidly that I can not, and beg to be excused for my profound ignorance 
on the subject. In the first place, the Chippewas are a people that I am 
as unacquainted with as I am of the gulf he speaks of. I have heard of 
both, but have seen neither. I am satisfied that such a people as the 
Chippewas do exist, for I have seen those that were said to have travelled 
among them, and I have seen and have travelled among several tribes of 
Indians -- and for that reason I am satisfied that there is such a tribe 
as the Chippewas. As to the gulf, both the wicked that have fallen in and 
the good that have crossed it, are the same to us, as neither ever return 
to give us any information as to what is in the gulf or what there is 
beyond it. So, if these Indians have such a belief, they must have 
borrowed it from those that knew as little of such things as themselves. 
And even those that have instructed the Indians in their belief (if such 
there be) may have formed their religious notions either from fear, 
ignorance or interest -- for, such has often been the case with those that 
pretend to much more than the native Indian. I have never heard of any 
such belief among those that I have been acquainted with; and those that I 
have conversed with upon religious subjects appeared to have correct 
notions of Deity -- looked upon Him as an invisible being, who only made 
himself known to man through his works. J. W. K. says in this can be 
traced a likeness to the Christian belief. Whence came it? I answer, not 
from the Jews. Why, not believing the American Indian to be a descendant 
of the Jew proves nothing for or against the Christian religion. The 
gentleman says there is a marked resemblance in their laws with regard to 
marriages that the children of Israel were not allowed to take wives among 
other nations, and such was the law among Indians. Such may have been the 
case -- I will not dispute it. But, if such law ever existed, it was 
repealed long before my time; and if he will travel among them, and see 
the number of half-breeds of whites, negroes, and all others that have 
mixed, and will say that the law has not been repealed, I am certain that 
he will have the candor to admit that it has been grossly violated, at 
least. There may be something a little alike in the character of the 
Indian and the Jew. An Indian will sell the shirt off his back for 
whisky -- the Jew will his for money. The Indian, in their wars, often 
murdered men, women and children, and so did the Jews. By taking the 31st 
chap. Numbers, and perusing it closely, he will see that I am not mistaken 
as to the Jews. There was a custom in my time, among Indians, that there 
were many crimes punishable by their laws -- and could the perpetrators of 
those crimes escape and lay out until their green-corn dance, and then 
reach the dance-ground undiscovered, they would go unpunished -- but in no 
instance have I ever known murder to go unpunished, if the offender could 
be caught. The Wind family was allowed -- and it was law that they should 
punish a murder at any and all times -- but the other families were not 
allowed this privilege after a certain time.
As to the meeting of those versed in Indian history, I would like much to 
attend such a meeting; and if I am in possession of any information that 
others have not, I would most willingly impart it. Besides, nothing could 
afford me more pleasure than to meet at Montgomery. I should like to see 
it, now it is a city, as I knew it forty years ago a forest. But it is a 
pleasure, I fear, that my age and situation will deny me. Such a meeting, 
no doubt, would be interesting to many -- bring up much of the past that 
has probably been forgotten, and be the means of explaining and doing away 
with many conflicting notions that have and do exist among various 
persons, in relation to Indians and their history, particularly those 
tribes that inhabited Alabama.

T. S. W.



WHEELING, WINN PARISH, LA.
April 2, 1858.
F. A. RUTHERFORD, Esq.
Dear Sir: -- Your letter of the 8th ultimo, came to hand yesterday. You 
wish to know something of the early settlement and history of Macon and 
the adjoining counties. As to the history of the section of country you 
live in, I know much from 1813 to 1841, when I left Alabama. Many persons, 
who know what I do of the country and of the time I allude to, might write 
something that would interest you and some of your readers, but fear I 
shall not be able to do so. What I write, however, shall be facts, as well 
or better established than you generally get them, and perhaps some of 
them may be new to you and others.
From what I know of the Indians and their history, I think it as probable 
as anything that cannot be positively proven, that an occurrence in Macon 
county caused the Creek Indian war of 1813-'14. It was the murder of 
Arthur Lott, in 1812, by some Chetocchefaula Indians, a branch of the 
Tallasees. Lott was killed near what is known as the Warrior's Stand. He 
was moving to the then Mississippi Territory. His family moved on and 
settled at a bluff on Pearl River, which long went by the name of Lott's 
Bluff, but is now known as Columbia.

So soon as Col. Hawkins learned that Lott was murdered, he sent Christian 
Limbo, a German, to Cowetaw, to see Billy McIntosh, a half-breed chief. 
From Cowetaw, Limbo and McIntosh went to Thleacatska or Brokenarrow, to 
see Little Prince. The Prince was too old for active service, and sent a 
well known half-breed, George Lovet, who was also a chief. Lovet took with 
him some Cussetas and McIntosh some Cowetas, and accompanied Limbo to 
Tuckabatchy to see the Big Warrior. He placed some Tuckabatchys under a 
chief called Emutta and the celebrated John McQueen, a negro, and all 
under the control of McIntosh, went in pursuit of the murderers. They 
found them on the Notasulga creek, at a place known since as Williamson 
Ferrell's settlement: where they shot the leaders and returned to their 
respective towns. This act aroused the Tallassees, and James McQueen, who 
had controlled them for 95 years having died the year before, his 
influence was lost, and from talks made some time before by Tecumseh the 
Sowanaka or Shawnee, and Seekaboo, a Warpicanata chief and prophet, (who 
was afterwards at the destruction of Ft. Mimms,) a number of the young 
warriors and a few old ones had become restless. Not long after Lott was 
killed, an old gentleman named Merideth was killed at the crossing on 
Catoma Creek, in what is now Montgomery county. This was done by the 
Otisees in a drunken spree. The Big Warrior undertook to have them 
punished, but failed to do so, and in attempting to arrest them an Otisee 
was killed. A few days after this, the Otisees attacked a party of 
Tuckabachys, under the chief Emutta, at the Old Agency or Polecat Springs, 
which was then occupied by Nimrod Doyle. Doyle had been a soldier under 
Gen. St. Clair, was at his defeat and afterwards with Gen. Wayne.

About this time, or a little after, a chief, Tustanuggachee or Little 
Warrior, and a Coowersortda Indian, known as Capt. Isaacs, who had gone 
north-west with Tecumseh, were returning to the Creek nation, and learned 
from some Chickasaws that the Creeks had gone to war. Relying on this 
information, the Little Warrior's party did some mischief on the frontier 
of Tennessee as well as killed a few persons. On their return to the 
nation they found that war had not actually broken out, but only the few 
little depredations that I have mentioned, had been committed. The 
Coowersortda Indians, Capt. Sam. Isaacs, (a name that he borrowed from an 
old trader who died some years back in Lincoln county, Tenn., and who was 
one of the most cunning, artful scamps I ever saw among the Indians,) gave 
the Big Warrior information about the murders in Tennessee. Isaacs from 
his tricks and management and having Alexander McGillivray's daughter for 
a wife, was let out of the scrape; but the Little Warrior being a Hickory-
Ground Indian, set the Coosa Indians at variance with the Big Warrior. 
After this the Tuckabatchys, Ninny-pask-ulgees, or Road Indians, the 
Chunnanuggees and Conaligas all forted in, at Tuckabatchy, to defend 
themselves from those that had turned hostile.

I have often heard Sam Moniac say, that if Lott had not been killed at the 
time he was, it was his belief that the war could have been prevented. He 
and Billy Weatherford say, he (W.) was as much opposed to that war as any 
one living: but when it became necessary to take sides, he went with his 
countrymen, and gave me his reasons for so doing. He said, to join the 
whites was a thing he did not think right, and had it been so they would 
not have thanked him, and would have attributed it to cowardice. Besides, 
he said to remain with his people, he could prevent his misguided 
countrymen from committing many depredations that they might otherwise do. 




Woodward's Reminiscenses - End of Part 2








        
 
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