to the trading-house. For
twenty years I frequently visited the Creek nation. Their green-corn
dances, ball plays, war ceremonies, and manners and customs, are all
fresh in my recollection. In my intercourse with them I was thrown into
the company of many old white men called "Indian country men," who had
for years conducted a commerce with them. Some of these men had come to
the Creek nation before the Revolutionary War, and others, being
tories, had fled to it during the war, and after it to escape from whig
persecution. They were unquestionably the shrewdest and most interesting
men with whom I ever conversed. Generally of Scotch descent, many of
them were men of some education. All of them were married to Indian
wives, and some of them had intelligent and handsome children.... I
often conversed with the chiefs while they were seated in the shades
of the spreading mulberry and walnut, upon the banks of the beautiful
Tallapoosa. As they leisurely smoked their pipes, some of them related
to me the traditions of their country. I occasionally saw Choctaw and
Cherokee traders, and learned much from them. I had no particular object
in view, at that time, except the gratification of a curiosity which
led me, for my own satisfaction alone, to learn something of the early
history of Alabama.

[Footnote 41: A native of North Carolina, who removed in early life to
Alabama. His "History" abounds in interesting matter.]

* * * * *

=_Charles Wentworth Upham, 1802_= (Manual, pp. 490, 532.)

From the "History of Witchcraft and Salem Village."

=_138._= DEFEAT OF THE INDIAN KING PHILIP.

The Indians were carrying all before them. Philip was spreading
conflagration, devastation, and slaughter around the borders, and
striking sudden and deadly blows into the heart of the country. It was
evident that he was consolidating the Indian power into irresistible
strength.... From other scouting parties it became evident that this
opinion was correct, and that the Indians were collecting stores and
assembling their warriors somewhere, to fall upon the colonies at the
first opening of spring. Further information made it certain that
their place of gathering was in the Narragansett country, in the
south-westerly part of the colony of Rhode Island. There was no
alternative but, as a last effort, to strike the enemy at that point
with the utmost available force.... It was between, one and two o'clock
in the