A brief history of the united states

with them, and men would sit with their hats, greatcoats, and mittens on.
[15] Read Fiske's _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, Vol. II, pp. 248-257.

CHAPTER VIII

Wherever the early explorers and settlers touched our coast, they found

the country sparsely inhabited by a race of men they called Indians. These

people, like their descendants now living in the West, were a race with

copper-colored skins, straight, jet-black hair, black eyes, beardless

faces, and high cheek bones.

came from, how they reached our continent, nobody knows. Long before the

Europeans came, the country was inhabited by a people, probably the same

as the Indians, known as mound builders. Their mounds, of many sizes and

shapes and intended for many purposes, are scattered over the Ohio and

Mississippi valleys in great numbers. Some are in the shape of animals, as

the famous serpent mound in Ohio. Some were for defense, some were village

sites, and others were for burial purposes.

the cliff dwellers. In hollow places in the rocky cliffs which form the

walls of these rivers, in Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico, are found to-

day the remains of these cliff homes. They are high above the river and

difficult to reach, and could easily be defended. [1]
[Illustration: TOTEM POLE IN ALASKA.]
TRIBES AND CLANS.--The Indians were divided into hundreds of tribes, each

with its own language or dialect and generally living by itself. Each

tribe was subdivided into clans. Members of a clan were those who traced

descent from some imaginary ancestor, usually an animal, as the wolf, the

fox, the bear, the eagle. [2] An Indian inherited his right to be a wolf

or a bear from his mother. Whatever clan she belonged to, that was his

also, and no man could marry a woman of his own clan. The civil head of a

clan was a "sachem"; the military heads were "chiefs." The sachem and the

chiefs were elected or deposed, and the affairs of the clan regulated, by

a council of all the men and women. The affairs of a tribe were regulated

by a council of the sachems and chiefs of the clans. [3]
CONFEDERACIES.--As a few clans were united in each tribe, so some tribes

united to form confederacies. The greatest and most powerful of these was

the league of the Iroquois, or Five Nations, in central New York. [4] It

was composed of the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida (o-ni'da), and Mohawk

tribes. Each managed its own tribal affairs, but a council of sachems

elected from the clans had charge of the affairs of the confederacy. So

great was the power of the league that it practically ruled all the tribes

from Hudson Bay to North Carolina, and westward as far as Lake Michigan.

Other confederacies of less power were: the Dakota and Blackfeet, west of

the Mississippi; the Powhatan, in Virginia; and the Creek, the Chickasaw,

and the Cherokee, in the South.
[Illustration: INDIAN HATCHET AND ARROWHEAD, MADE OF STONE.]
HUNTING.--One of the chief occupations of an Indian man was hunting. He

devised traps with great skill. His weapons were bows and arrows with

stone heads, stone hatchets or tomahawks, flint spears, and knives and

clubs. To use such weapons he had to get close to the animal, and to do

this disguises of animal heads and skins were generally adopted. The

Indians hunted and trapped nearly all kinds of American animals.

Europeans the Indians had never seen horses or cows, sheep, hogs, or

poultry. The dog was their only domesticated animal, and in many cases the

so-called dog was really a domesticated wolf. Neither had the Indians ever

seen firearms, or gunpowder, or swords, nails, or steel knives, or metal

pots or kettles, glass, wheat, flour, or many other articles in common use

among the whites.
[Illustration: INDIANS IN FULL DRESS.]
CLOTHING.--Their clothing was of the simplest kind, and varied, of course,

with the climate. The men usually wore a strip of deerskin around the

waist, a hunting shirt, leggings, moccasins on the feet, and sometimes a

deerskin over the shoulders. Very often they wore nothing but the strip

about the waist and the moccasins. These garments of deerskin were cut

with much care, sewed with fish-bone needles and sinew thread, and

ornamented with shells and quills.
Painting the face and body was a universal custom. For this purpose red

and yellow ocher, colored earths, juices of plants, and charcoal were

used. What may be called Indian jewelry consisted of necklaces of teeth

and claws of bears, claws of eagles and hawks, and strings of sea shells,

colored feathers, and wampum. Wampum consisted of strings of beads made

from sea shells, and was highly prized and used not only for ornament, but

as Indian money.
[Illustration: WAMPUM.]
HOUSES.--The dwelling of many Eastern Indians was a wigwam, or tent-shaped

lodge. It was formed of saplings set upright in the ground in the form of

a circle and bent together at their tops. Branches wound and twisted among

the saplings completed the frame, which was covered with brush, bark, and

leaves. A group of such wigwams made a village, which was often surrounded

with a stockade of tree trunks put upright in the ground and touching one

another.
On the Western plains the buffalo-hunting Indian lived during the summer

in tepees, or circular lodges made of poles tied together at the small

ends and covered with buffalo skins laced together. The upper end of the

tepee was left open to let out the smoke of a fire built inside. In winter

these plains Indians lived in earth lodges.
FOOD.--For food the Eastern Indians had fish from river, lake, or sea,

wild turkeys, wild pigeons, deer and bear meat, corn, squashes, pumpkins,

beans, berries, fruits, and maple sugar (which they taught the whites to

make). In the West the Indians killed buffaloes, antelopes, and mountain

sheep, cut their flesh into strips, and dried it in the sun. [5]
[Illustration: INDIAN JAR, OF BAKED CLAY.]
Fish and meat were cooked by laying the fish on a framework of sticks

built over a fire, and hanging the meat on sticks before the fire. Corn

and squashes were roasted in the ashes. Dried corn was also ground between

stones, mixed with water, and baked in the ashes. Such as knew how to make

clay pots could boil meat and vegetables. [6]
CANOES.--In moving from place to place the Indians of the East traveled on

foot or used canoes. In the northern parts where birch trees were

plentiful, the canoe was of birch bark stretched over a light wooden

frame, sewed with strips of deerskin, and smeared at the joints with

spruce gum to make it watertight. In the South tree trunks hollowed out by

fire and called dugouts were used. In the West there were "bull boats"

made of skins stretched over wooden frames. For winter travel the Northern

and Western Indians used snowshoes.

roamed the southwestern plains, and in later times gave the plains Indians

a means of travel the Eastern Indians did not have.
INDIAN TRAILS.--The Eastern Indians nevertheless often made long journeys

for purposes of war or trade, and had many well-defined trails which

answered as roads. Thus one great trail led from the site of Boston by way

of what is now the city of Springfield to the site of Albany. Another in

Pennsylvania led from where Philadelphia stands to the Susquehanna, then

up the Juniata, over the mountains, and to the Allegheny River. There were

thousands of such trails scattered over the country. As the Indians always

traveled in single file, these trails were narrow paths; they were worn to

the depth of a foot or more, and wound in and out among the trees and

around great rocks. As they followed watercourses and natural grades, many

of them became in after times routes used by the white man for roads and

railroads.

little. Hunting and war parties traveled great distances, but each tribe

had its home. On the great plains the Indians wandered long distances with

their women, children, and belongings.

the wood, planted the corn, dressed the skins, made the clothing, and when

the band traveled, carried the household goods. The brave made bows and

arrows, built the canoe, hunted, fished, and fought.

in skins and tied to a framework of wicker which could be carried on the

mother's back, or hung on the branch of a tree out of harm's way. When

able to go about, the boys were taught to shoot, fish, and make arrows and

stone implements, and the girls to weave or make baskets, and do all the

things they would have to do as squaws.

lacrosse, held corn huskings, and had dances for all sorts of occasions,

some of them religious in character. Some dances occurred once a year, as

the corn dance, the thanksgiving of the Eastern tribes; the sun dance of

the plains Indians; and the fish dance by the Indians of the Columbia

River country at the opening of the salmon-fishing season. The departure

of a war party, the return of such a party, the end of a successful hunt,

were always occasions for dances. [8]

every thing had a soul, or spirit, or manitou. The ceremonies used to get

the good will of certain manitous formed the religious rites. On the

plains it was the buffalo manitou, in the East the manitou of corn, or

sun, or rain, that was most feared. Everywhere there was a mythology, or

collection of tales of heroes who did wonderful things for the Indians.

Hiawatha was such a hero, who gave them fire, corn, the canoe, and other

things. [9]

warrior of renown. Such a chief, standing beside the war post in his

village, would publicly announce the raid and call for volunteers. No one

was forced to go; but those who were willing would step forward and strike

the post with their tomahawks. Among the plains Indians a pipe was passed

around, and all who smoked it stood pledged to go.

Indians were brave they delighted to fight from behind trees, to creep

through the tall grass and fall upon their enemy unawares, or to wait for

him in ambush. The dead and wounded were scalped. Captive men were

generally put to death with torture; but captive women and children were

usually adopted into the tribe.

looked on by the Indians as superior beings, as men from the clouds. But

before the settlers arrived this veneration was dispelled, and hostility

took its place. Thus the founders of Jamestown had scarcely touched land

when they were attacked. But Smith brought about an alliance with the

Powhatan, and till after his death there was peace.

whole line of settlements in Virginia, and in one day more than three

hundred whites were massacred, their houses burned, and much property

destroyed. The blow was a terrible one; but the colonists rallied and

waged such a war against the enemy that for more than twenty years there

was no great uprising.

his tribes, and in two days killed several hundred whites. Once more the

settlers rallied, swept the Indian country, captured Opekankano, and drew

a boundary across which no Indian could come without permission. If he

did, he might be shot on sight. [10]
EARLY INDIAN WARS IN NEW ENGLAND.--In New England the experience of the

early settlers was much the same. Murders by the Pequot Indians having

become unendurable, a little fleet was sent (1686) against them. Block

Island was ravaged, and Pequots on the mainland were killed and their corn

destroyed. Sassacus, sachem of the Pequots, thereupon sought to join the

Narragansetts with him in an attempt to drive the English from the

country; but Roger Williams persuaded the Narragansetts to form an

alliance with the English, and the Pequots began the war alone. In the

winter (1636-37) the Connecticut River settlements were attacked, several

men killed, and two girls carried off.

colonists from Connecticut and Massachusetts, led by John Mason and John

Underhill, marched to the Pequot village in what is now the southeast

corner of Connecticut. Some Mohicans and Narragansetts went along; but

when they came in sight of the village, they refused to join in the

attack. The village was a cluster of wigwams surrounded by a stockade,

with two narrow openings for entrance. While some of the English guarded

them, the rest attacked the stockade, flung torches over it, and set the

wigwams on fire. Of the four hundred or more Indians in the village, but

five escaped.

of the Pequots kept peace in New England. Then Philip, a chief of the

Wampanoags, took the warpath (1675) and, joined by the Nipmucks and

Narragansetts, sought to drive the white men from New England. The war

began in Rhode Island, but spread into Massachusetts, where town after

town was attacked, and men, women, and children massacred. Roused to fury

by these deeds, a little band of men from Massachusetts, Plymouth, and

Connecticut in the dead of winter stormed the great swamp fortress of the

Narragansetts, destroyed a thousand Indians, and burned the wigwams and

winter supply of corn. The power of the Narragansetts was broken; but the

war went on, and before midsummer (1676) twenty villages had been attacked

by the Nipmucks. But they, too, were doomed; their fighting strength was

destroyed in two victories by the colonists. In August Philip was shot in

a swamp. These victories ended the war in the south, but it broke out

almost immediately in the northeast, and raged till the summer of 1678.
During these three years of war New England suffered terribly. Twelve

towns had been utterly destroyed, forty had been partly burned, and a

thousand men, besides scores of women and children, had perished. As for

the New England Indians, their power was gone forever. [11]

friendly terms with the Iroquois, to whom they sold fire-arms; but the

Tappans, Raritans, and other Algonquin tribes round about New Amsterdam

were enemies of the Iroquois, and with these the Dutch had several wars.

One (1641) was brought on by Governor Kieft's attempt to tax the Indians;

another (1643-45) by the slaughter, one night, of more than a hundred

Indians who had asked the Dutch for shelter from their Mohawk enemies.

Many Dutch farmers were murdered, and a great Indian stronghold in

Connecticut was stormed one winter night and seven hundred Indians killed.

[12] After ten years of peace the Indians rose again, killed men in the

streets of New Amsterdam, and harried Staten Island; and again, after an

outbreak at Esopus, there were several years of war (1658-64).

of Iroquois to drive the white men from the country, and began horrid

massacres (1711). Help came from South Carolina, and the Tuscaroras were

badly beaten. But the war was renewed next year, and then another force of

white men and Indians from South Carolina stormed the Tuscaroras' fort and

broke their power. The Tuscaroras migrated to New York and were admitted

to the great Iroquois confederacy of the Five Nations, which thenceforth

was known as the Six Nations. [13]

Carolina were men of the Yam'assee tribe. That they should turn against

the people of South Carolina was not to be expected. But the Spaniards at

St. Augustine bought them with gifts, and, joined by Creeks, Cherokees,

and others, they began (in 1715) a war which lasted nearly a year and cost

the lives of four hundred white men. They, too, in the end were beaten,

and the Yamassees fled to Florida.
The story of these Indian wars has been told not because they were wars,

but because they were the beginnings of that long and desperate struggle

of the Indian with the white man which continued down almost to our own

time. The march of the white man across the continent has been contested

by the Indian at every step, and to-day there is not a state in the Union

whose soil has not at some time been reddened by the blood of both.

influenced our language, literature, and customs. Five and twenty of our

states, and hundreds of counties, cities, mountains, rivers, lakes, and

bays, bear names derived from Indian languages. Chipmunk and coyote,

moose, opossum, raccoon, skunk, woodchuck, tarpon, are all of Indian

origin. We still use such expressions as Indian summer, Indian file,

Indian corn; bury the hatchet, smoke the pipe of peace. To the Indians we

owe the canoe, the snowshoe, the toboggan, lacrosse. Squanto taught the

Pilgrims how to plant corn in hills, just as it is planted to-day, and

long before the white man came, the Indians ate hominy, mush, and

succotash, planted pumpkins and squashes, and made maple sugar.

SUMMARY
1. The Indians were divided into tribes, and the tribes into clans.

itself.
3. Members of a clan traced descent from some common imaginary ancestor,

usually an animal. The civil head of a clan was the sachem; the military

heads were the chiefs.

joined in confederacies.

lived: as in the wooded regions of the East or on the great plains of the

West; in the cold country of the North or in the warmer South.
7. The growth of white settlements, crowding back the Indians, led to

several notable wars in early colonial times, in all of which the Indians

were beaten:--

In Virginia: uprisings in 1622 and in 1644; border war in 1676.

In New England: Pequot War, 1636-37; King Philip's War, 1675-78.

In New Netherland: several wars with Algonquin tribes.

In North Carolina: Algonquin-Tuscarora uprising, 1711-13.

In South Carolina: Yamassee uprising, 1715-16.

FOOTNOTES
[1] Read Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I, pp. 85-94, 141-146.
[2] The sign or emblem of this ancestor, called the totem, was often

painted on the clothing, or tattooed on the body. On the northwest coast,

it was carved on a tall pole, made of a tree trunk, which was set up

before the dwelling.

distinct families or groups, each consisting of tribes whose languages

were probably developed from a common tongue. East of the Mississippi most

of the land was occupied by three groups: (1) Between the Tennessee River

and the Gulf of Mexico lived the Muskho'gees (or Maskoki), including the

Creek, Choctaw, and Chickasaw tribes. (2) The Iroquois (ir-o-kwoi'),

Cherokee', and related tribes occupied a large area surrounding Lakes Erie

and Ontario, and smaller areas in the southern Appalachians and south of

the lower James River. (3) The Algonquins and related tribes occupied most

of the country around Lakes Superior and Michigan, most of the Ohio

valley, and the Atlantic seaboard north of the James River, besides much

of Canada.

months and was cooked as needed. Sometimes it was pounded between stones

and mixed with fat, and was then called pemmican.
[6] Fire for cooking and warming was started by pressing a pointed stick

against a piece of wood and turning the stick around rapidly. Sometimes

this was done by twirling it between the palms of the hands, sometimes by

wrapping the string of a little bow around the stick and moving the bow

back and forth as if fiddling. The revolving stick would form a fine dust

which the heat caused by friction would set on fire.

of football, in which they only forcibly encounter with the foot to carry

the ball the one from the other, and spurn it to the goal with a kind of

dexterity and swift footmanship which is the honor of it. But they never

strike up one another's heels, as we do, not accounting that praiseworthy

to purchase a goal by such an advantage."

took place when the Powhatan was crowned (p. 42): "In a fair plain field

they made a fire before which (we were) sitting upon a mat (when) suddenly

amongst the woods was heard ... a hideous noise and shouting. Then

presently ... thirty young women came out of the woods ... their bodies

painted some white, some red, some black, some particolor, but all

differing. Their leader had a fair pair of buck's horns on her head, and

an otter's skin at her girdle, and another at her arm, a quiver of arrows

at her back, a bow and arrows in her hand. The next had in her hand a

sword, another a club ... all horned alike.... These fiends with most

hellish shouts and cries, rushing from among the trees, cast themselves in

a ring about the fire, singing and dancing.... Having spent near one hour