The Narrative of the Cherokee Nation. Charles C. Royce
Читать онлайн книгу.
which they kill with their bows and arrows, and are a very gentle people. All of them go naked and are very lean."
That this word "Chalaque" is identical with our modern Cherokee would appear to be almost an assured fact. The distance and route pursued by the expedition are both strongly corroborative of this assumption. The orthography of the name was probably taken by the Spaniards from the Muscogee pronunciation, heard by them among the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. It is asserted by William Bartram, in his travels through that region in the eighteenth century, that in the "Muscogulge" language the letter "r" is not sounded in a single word, but that on the contrary it occurs very frequently in the Cherokee tongue.3
Through this province of Chalaque De Soto passed, still pursuing his northward course for five days until he reached the province of "Xualla," a name much resembling the modern Cherokee word Qualla. The route from Cutifachiqui to Xualla lay, for the most part, through a hilly country. From the latter province the expedition changed its course to the west, trending a little to the south, and over "very rough and high hills," reaching at the end of five days a town or province which was called "Guaxule," and two days later a town called "Canasagua," an orthography almost identical with the modern Cherokee name of Canasauga, as applied to both a stream and a town within their Georgia limits.
Assuming that these people, whose territory De Soto thus traversed, were the ancestors of the modern Cherokees, it is the first mention made of them by European discoverers and more than a century anterior to the period when they first became known to the pioneers of permanent European occupation and settlement.
Earliest map.—The earliest map upon which I have found "Chalaqua" located is that of "Florida et Apalche" by Cornely Wytfliet, published in 1597.4 This location is based upon the narrative of De Soto's expedition, and is fixed a short distance east of the Savannah River and immediately south of the Appalachian Mountains. "Xualla" is placed to the west of and near the headwaters of the "Secco" or Savannah River.
Early Traditions
Haywood, in his Natural and Aboriginal History of Tennessee, records many of the traditions concerning the origin and the primal habitat of the Cherokees. He notes the fact that they were firmly established on the Tennessee or Hogohege River before the year 1650, and exercised dominion over all the country on the east side of the Alleghany Mountains, including the headwaters of the Yadkin, Catawba, Broad, and Savannah Rivers, and that from thence westward they claimed the country as far as the Ohio, and thence to the headwaters of the Chattahoochee and Alabama. One tradition which he alleges existed among them asserts their migration from the west to the upper waters of the Ohio, where they erected the mounds on Grave Creek, gradually working eastward across the Alleghany Mountains to the neighborhood of Monticello, Va., and along the Appomattox River.
From this point, it is alleged, they removed to the Tennessee country about 1623, when the Virginians suddenly and unexpectedly fell upon and massacred the Indians throughout the colony. After this massacre, the story goes, they came to New River and made a temporary settlement there as well as one on the head of the Holston; but, owing to the enmity of the northern Indians, they removed in a short time to the Little Tennessee and founded what were known as "Middle Settlements." Another tribe, he alleges, came from the neighborhood of Charleston, South Carolina, and settled lower down the Tennessee. This branch called themselves "Ketawanga," and came last into the country. The tradition as to those who came from Virginia seeks also to establish the idea that the Powhatan Indians were Cherokees. The whole story is of the vaguest character, and if the remainder has no stronger claims to credibility than their alleged identity with the Powhatans, it is scarcely worthy of record except as a matter of curiosity.
In fact the explorations of De Soto leave almost convincing proof that the Cherokees were occupying a large proportion of their more modern territory nearly a century prior to their supposed removal from the Appomattox.
Pickett, in his History of Alabama, improves upon the legend of Haywood by asserting as a well established fact what the latter only presumes to offer as a tradition.
However, as affording a possible confirmation of the legend related by Haywood concerning their early location in Eastern Virginia, it may be worth while to allude to a tradition preserved among the Mohican or Stockbridge tribe. It appears that in 1818 the Delawares, who were then residing on White River, in Indiana, ceded their claim to lands in that region to the United States. This land had been conditionally given by the Miamis many years before to the Delawares, in conjunction with the "Moheokunnuks" (or Stockbridges) and Munsees. Many of the latter two tribes or bands, including a remnant of the Nanticokes, had not yet removed to their western possessions, though they were preparing to remove. When they ascertained that the Delawares had ceded the lands to the United States without their consent, they objected and sought to have the cession annulled.
In connection with a petition presented to Congress by them on the subject in the year 1819, they set forth in detail the tradition alluded to. The story had been handed down to them from their ancestors that "many thousand moons ago" before the white men came over the "great water," the Delawares dwelt along the banks of the river that bears their name. They had enjoyed a long era of peace and prosperity when the Cherokees, Nanticokes, and some other nation whose name had been forgotten, envying their condition, came from the south with a great army and made war upon them. They vanquished the Delawares and drove them to an island in the river. The latter sent for assistance to the Mohicans, who promptly came to their relief, and the invaders were in turn defeated with great slaughter and put to flight. They sued for peace, and it was granted on condition that they should return home and never again make war on the Delawares or their allies. These terms were agreed to and the Cherokees and Nanticokes ever remained faithful to the conditions of the treaty.
The inference to be drawn from this legend, if it can be given any credit whatever, would lead to the belief that the Cherokees and the Nanticokes were at that time neighbors and allies. The original home of the Nanticokes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland is well known, and if the Cherokees (or at least this portion of them) were then resident beyond the Alleghanies, with sundry other powerful tribes occupying the territory between them and the Nanticokes, it is unlikely that any such alliance for offensive operations would have existed between them. Either the tradition is fabulous or at least a portion of the Cherokees were probably at one time residents of the Eastern slope of Virginia.
The Delawares also have a tradition that they came originally from the west, and found a tribe called by them Allegewi or Allegans occupying the eastern portion of the Ohio Valley. With the aid of the Iroquois, with whom they came in contact about the same time, the Delawares succeeded in driving the Allegans out of the Ohio Valley to the southward.
Schoolcraft suggests the identity of the Allegans with the Cherokees, an idea that would seem to be confirmatory of the tradition given by Haywood, in so far as it relates to an early Cherokee occupancy of Ohio.
Early Contact with Virginia Colonists
Whatever the degree of probability attending these legends, it would seem that the settlers of Virginia had an acquaintance with the Cherokees prior to that of the South Carolina immigrants, who for a number of years after their first occupation, confined their explorations to a narrow strip of country in the vicinity of the sea-coast, while the Virginians had been gradually extending their settlements far up toward the headwaters of the James River and had early perceived the profits to be derived from the Indian trade.
Sir William Berkeley, governor of Virginia, equipped an expedition, consisting of fourteen Englishmen and an equal number of Virginia Indians, for the exploration of the country to the west of the existing settlements. The party was under the command of Capt. Henry Batt, and in seven days' travel from their point of departure, at Appomattox, they reached the foot of the mountains. The first ridge they crossed is described