THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 515 
use to-day by the white settlers on our frontiers, his account of it is 
translated im full. ‘The Indians,” he says, ‘belt (coupent) the trees 
about 2 or 3 feet from the ground, then they trim off all the branches 
and burn them at the foot of the tree in order to kill it, and afterwards 
they take away the roots, This being done, the women carefully clean 
up the ground between the trees, and at every step they dig a round 
hole, in which they sow 9 or 10 grains of maiz, which they have first 
carefully selected and soaked for some days in water.” * 
Among the Iroquois or Six Nations, after they took up their residence 
in western New York, our accounts are not less full and explicit. 
Those grim warriors, thanks to the ill-advised interference of Cham- 
plain (A. D. 1609-10), in their quarrel with the Adirondacks, lived in 
a chronic state of hostility to the French, whose pathway to the 
Ohio they effectually barred.t Expeditions were repeatedly fitted out 
against them, but always with the same barren results. A few villages 
were burned, sometimes by the savages themselves, to prevent their 
falling into the hands of the whites, and the adjacent corn-fields were 
destroyed; but the power of the confederacy remained unbroken. 
Jhamplain began this system of destructive inroads at an early period; 
in 1687 Denonville improved upon his teaching, and later on, in A. D. 
1779, the Americans took up the work and showed themselves to be 
apt scholars. In this year Gen. Sullivan, at the head of an American 
army, invaded their country, and is said to have destroyed 160,000 
bushels of corn, and to have cut down in one orchard alone 1,500 apple 
trees.{ Large as was the amount of property destroyed at this time, it 
was but a fraction of the destruction wrought by the French under 
Denonville in 1687. In the course of that one invasion four villages 
of the Senecas were burned, and, including the corn in cache and what 
terres non défrischees sont en commun, et est permis & un chacun d’ en defrischer et 
ensemencer autant qu’ il veut, qu’ il peut et qu’ il luy est necessaire; et cette terre 
ainsi defrischee demeure a la personne autant d’ années qu’ il continue de la culti- 
ver et 8’ en servir, et estant entiérement abandonne du maistre 8’ en sert par apres 
qui veut et non autrement:” Sagard, Voyage des Hurons, p. 133: Paris, 1632. The 
Hurons agree among themselves ‘to allot each family a certain compass of ground, 
so that when they arrive at the place they divide themselves into tribes. Each 
hunter fixes his house in the center of that ground which is his district:” La Hon- 
tan, vol. 11, p. 59: London, 1703. 
“Voyage des Hurons, p. 154: Paris, 1632. Compare Adair, History of the North 
American Indians, p. 405: London, 1775. Smith, Virginia in Purchas’ Pilgrime, vol. 
Iv, p. 1696: London, 1625. Voyages de Champlain, pp. 73, 86: Paris, 1632. 
tLa Hontan, vol. 1, p. 24: London, 1703. Loskiel, Mission in America, p. 137: 
London, 1794. Among the expeditions sent against them, besides those mentioned in 
the text, note particularly those in 1665 under Courcelles, in 1666 under de Tracy, in 
1684 under de la Barre, and in 1692 and 1696 under Frontenac. 
t History of New York during the Revolutionary War, vol. 11, p. 334: New York, 
1879. See, also, Stone’s Life of Brant, vol. 1, chap. i: Albany, 1865, for an account 
of the immense amount of corn, etc., destroyed at this time. 
