SCHOOLCRAFT'S NATIONAL WORK. 131 



mounds and fortifications of the West as the works of the southern and western 

 tribes — which, " after long and bloody wars, that are conjectured to have lasted for 

 centuries," were overcome by the Algonco-Iroquois confederacy — although remarking 

 that the chronology and dynastic terms of Cusic's pamphlet are believed to be 

 conjectural or faulty, he says : " That the ancestors of the Iroquois had been 

 parties in this ancient war against the southern intruders, or Allegans, may be 

 inferred. . . The epoch of these old and general wars, so obscurely yet certainly 

 pointed to, is deducible chiefly from the state of the archaeological vestiges." (Vol. 

 IV. p. 137, and Vol. V. p. C3.) 1 



Again, alluding to western earthworks, he remarks, " The fullest consideration 

 of the Indian history and character denotes these works to have been built by 

 aboriginal hands. That these beginnings of an Appalachian Indian empire were 

 finally frustrated by the surrounding barbarous tribes, is denoted by the few 

 traditions recorded. It foil, we may affirm, by division, anarchy, and mutual 

 distrust, &c." (Vol. IV. p. 148.) 



Again : " We may, on the most enlarged view which can be taken on the 

 subject, recognize in the mounds, earthworks, and mural monuments of the Mis- 

 sissippi valley, the results, and final extinguishment of that impulse towards 

 civilization which was commenced by the Toltecs of Mexico. It cannot be 

 inferred, from our present survey of the languages, that large numbers of the 

 Toltecs mingled in this exodus of tribes from the interior of Mexico into the 

 northern hemisphere ; but the movement which led to their downfall in the 

 twelfth century, and gave the sovereignty to the Aztecs, appears, from monu- 

 mental indicia, to have impelled them northward and eastward, disturbing other 

 tribes impinged on in their progress towards Florida and the Mississippi valley, 

 and across the Appalachian range into the Atlantic slopes. The traditions of the 

 tribes, even of central New England, point to such a migration. They came from 

 the southwest. Their traditions place in the southwestern tropical regions the 

 residence of the benevolent god, from whom they affirmed that they had derived 

 the gift of the zea maize. The Leno Lenapes had also a distinct tradition of their 

 origin in the south and west, and of their crossing the Mississippi river. The 

 Shawnees trace themselves to Florida. The Winnebagoes have a tradition that 

 they came from Mexico. The whole Algonkin family, till the mass of continually 

 dividing tribes reached the confines of New England, trace their origin south and 

 west. The Muscogees assert that they came from the Red river valley, west of 



' Considering the limited period to which Indian traditions, when fairly tested, have generally been 

 found to extend, these legends of Cusic might not unreasonably be accounted for without referring 

 their origin to a distant date. The English title to a large portion of the eastern valley of the 

 Mississippi, was founded on a purchase from the Six Nations, who claimed to hold it by right of 

 conquest ; and the alleged era of that conquest is fixed at about the year 1064, when the Iroquois are 

 said to have "carried their arms as far south as Carolina, and as far west as the Mississippi, over a vast 

 country, which extended twelve hundred miles in length, and about six hundred in breadth ; where 

 they destroyed whole nations, of whom there are no accounts remaining among the English." This 

 claim, which Great Britain was as much interested to sustain as the Six Nations were to make it, General 

 Harrison endeavors to refute in his Historical Discourse. See, also, Butler's Hist, of Kentucky, eh. 1. 



