; 
a 
Be 
: 
THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 519 
“the plantation work,” as the old chronicler has it, must have been 
“left to the women and slaves” as a matter of necessity.* 
As might have been expected in a people who had developed such 
capacity for the management of military and political affairs, we find 
that the ideas of property had taken definite shape, and that the rights 
of individuals were duly respected. In fact, some of their regulations, 
notably those in relation to the property of married women,t might be 
copied with advantage in some of the States of our favored Republic. 
In regard to the tenure of land, we are told that no individual could 
obtain an absolute title, “but he could reduce unoccupied lands to ecul- 
tivation to any extent he pleased; and so long as he continued to use 
them, his right to their enjoyment was protected and secured. He could 
also sell his improvements or bequeath them to his wife and children.t 
Turning now to the tribes of the Algonquin family, and beginning 
with those that lived south of the St. Lawrence and east of the Hudson, 
we can not but be struck with the similarity of their condition to that 
which, as we have seen, existed among the Hurons. Champlain,§ who 
‘visited this coast in the early part of the seventeenth century, found 
corn in cultivation from the “ Kinnebequy” to Cape Mallebarre, near 
the southeastern extremity of Cape Cod. At Chacouet (Saco) he saw 
the natives cultivating the ground, “which was a thing he had not 
seen before, using for that purpose small implements of hard wood made 
like a spade.” In the neighborhood of Cape Mallebarre they are said 
to have been very industrious (‘‘fort amateurs du labourage”) and to 
have provided a supply of corn for winter use, which they stored in 
caches.|| They lived in stockaded forts,{] and made slaves of their pris- 
they lived in subjection to the Adirondacks, a branch of the Algonquin race.” 
League of the Iroquois, p.5: Rochester, 1851. Compare this with the following state- 
ment of Father Le Jeune in relation de la Nowvelle France en Vannée, 1636, p. 46: ‘ Les 
sauvages mont monstré quelques endroits ott les Hiroquois ont autrefois cultivé la 
terre.” 
*Lawson, Carolina, p. 188: London, 1718.: 
t**The rights of property, of both husband and wife, were continued distinct 
during the existence of the marriage relation, the wife holding and controlling her 
own the same as her husband, and in case of separation taking it with her. - - - 
If the wife either before or after marriage inherited orchards, or planting lots, or 
reduced land to cultivation, she could dispose of them at her pleasure, and in case of 
her death, they were inherited, together with her other effects, by her children.” 
Morgan, League of the Iroquois, p. 326; Rochester, 1851. Schoolcraft, Notes on the 
Iroquois, p. 88, New York, 1846. La Potherie, vol. 111, pp. 33, et seq., Paris, 1753. 
t League of the Iroquois, p. 326, Rochester, 1851. 
§ Voyages de Champlain, chapters iv, v, vi, and vii, Paris, 1632. Compare Lescar- 
bot, Nouvelle Prance, pp. T77-834-836, Paris, 1712. Also, Relation de la Nouvelle 
France en Vannée, 1611-1613, Quebec, 1858. 
|| Voyages de Champlain, p. 90, Paris, 1632. 
q De Laet in New York Hist. Coll., first series, vol. 1, p. 307. Champlain, p. 74: 
Paris, 1632. Lescarbot, book v, p. 632, Paris, 1712. Williams, Key to the Indian 
Language, in vol. 1, Rhode Island Hist. Coll., p. 92. Vincent, Pequot War in Massa- 
chusetts Hist. Coll., vol. vi of third series, p. 39. Purchas, Pilgrims, vol. Iv, p. 
1844, London, 1625. 
