380 ANTIQUITIES. 



tion, of equal workmanship but inferior in size, was found, after a heavy rain, in 

 a garden in the city of Belleville. The fastening to a handle was facilitated by 

 the two notches in the upper part, and, in order to constitute a hoe, the handle 

 was doubtless attached in such a manner as to form a right or even an acute 

 angle with the stone plate. 



If the shape of the described implements did not indicate their original use, 

 the peculiar traces of wear Avhich they exhibit would furnish almost conclusive 

 evidence of the manner in which they have been employed ; for that part with 

 which the digging was done, appears, notwithstanding the hardness of the mate- 

 rial, perfectly smooth, as if glazed, and slightly striati-d in the direction in which 

 the implement penetrated the ground. This peculiar feature is common to all 

 specimens of my collection, and also to the few which I have seen in the pos- 

 session of others. They seem to be rather scarce, and merely confined to the 

 States bordering on the Mississippi river. Dr. E. II. Davis, of New York, has 

 none of them in his excellent and comprehensive collection of Indian relics, and, 

 consequently, does not describe or represent them in his work on the " Ancient 

 Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," forming the first volume of the Smith- 

 sonian publications ; nor am I aware that Mr. Schoolcraft has mentioned them 

 in his large work on the North American races, 



A passage in the " History of Louisiana," by Du Pratz, refers, doubtless, to 

 the implements described by me as hoes. In speaking of the agricultural pur- 

 suits of the Indians of Louisiana, that author observes, they had invented a hoe, 

 (pioche.) with the aid of which they prepared the soil for the culture of maize. 

 " These Jioes," he says, " are shaped like a capital L ; they cut tcith the edge 

 of the lower part, ivhich is entirely fiaty* It is true, he does not mention of 

 what material this "lower part" consisted, but we may safely infer that it was 

 stone, the substance from which the aborigines of North America manufactured 

 nearly all their implements of peace and war. They had no iron, and the 

 scanty supplies of native copper, derived from the region of Lake Superior,were 

 almost exclusively used for ornamental purposes. 



The fact itself that simple agricultural utensils of Indian origin are occasion- 

 ally met Avith is by no means surprising, for we know from the accounts of the 

 early writers that many ot the North American tribes raised maize and a few 

 other nutritious plants before the arrival of the Europeans on this continent. 

 Maize was, however, their principal produce, and that on which they mainly 

 depended. In dpscribing the ill-fated Mississippi expedition of De Soto, Gar- 

 cilaso de la Vega speaks repeatedly of the extensive maize fields of those Indian 

 tribes through whose territories that band of hardy adventurers passed. During 

 an invasion of the country of the Senecas, made as early as 1687 under the 

 Marquis de Nonville, all their Indian corn was burned or otherwise spoiled, and 

 the quantity ^^hus destroyed is said to have amounted to 400,000 minots, or 

 1,200,000 bushels. t It is even asserted by Adair, that the colonists obtained 

 from the Indians " diff"erent sorts of beaus and peas with which they were before 

 entirely unacquainted." | 



From these and other facts, which need not be cited in this place, we learn 

 that the. North American Indians generally, though warriors' by disposition and 

 hunters by necessity, had, nevertheless, already made some steps towards an 

 agricul'-ural state. But the events that happened after the arrival of the whites, 

 instead of adding to their improvement, served only to lower their condition, and 

 reduced them, finally, to the position of strangers in their own land. 



* Ccs pioches sont faites commo une L capitate ; elles tranchent par les cotes du boul; bas 

 qui est tout plat. — Histoire dc la Loulsiane, par M. Le Page du Pratz, (Paris, 1758,) vol. ii, 

 p. 176. 



t Documentary Histoiy of New York, vol. i, p. 238. This estimate may be somewhat 

 exaggerated. 



t The History of the American Indians, by James Adair, (London, 1775,) p. 408. 



