} 
THE MOUNDS OF THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. 525 
and relentless war which they waged against the Iroquois. They were 
extensively engaged in growing corn, as Adair speaks of one of their 
old fields that was 7 miles in extent, and argues that the tribe must 
have been very populous to cultivate so much land with their dull stone 
axes.* In the interior, and along the coast of these two States, there 
dwelt a number of small tribes, whose names have scarcely come down 
tous. In 1700—~0t Lawson travelled through this region, and much that 
we know of the people who then lived here is derived from his narra- 
tive. From it, we learn that they cultivated many kinds of pulse, part 
of which they ate green in summer, keeping great quantities for their 
winter supply.t This they stored in cribs or granaries, which were 
sometimes built on 8 feet or posts, about 7 feet high, wel daubed 
within and without with loam.j The young men worked the fields, as 
did the slaves, who, we are told, were not overworked.§ The women 
never planted corn as they did among the Iroquois. || There were no 
fences to divide the fields, but “every man knew his own; and it scarce 
ever happens that they rob one another of so much as an ear of corn, 
which if anyone is found to do, he is sentenced by the elders to work 
and plant for him that was robbed till he is recompensed for all the 
damage he has suffered in his cornfield; and this is punctually per- 
formed, and the thief held in disgrace that steals from any of his coun- 
try-folks.”4{ In the case of a woman without a husband, and with a 
great many children to maintain, the young men were obliged to plant 
and reap and do everything that she was not capable of doing herself. 
They do not allow any one to be idle, but all must employ themselves 
in some work or other.{]_ They bartered pipes, wooden bowls, and ladles 
with neighboring tribes for raw skins.** We are also told that the 
poorer sort of white planters often got them to plant, by hiring them 
for that season, or for so much work.tt 
Of the tribes that inhabited Florida, including under that title 
Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, and all the Gulf States except Texas, 
our accounts are very full and explicit. From the time of De Soto, 
A. BD. 1539, and even earlier,ii corn was grown everywhere in great 
abundance. Indeed, but for the quantities seized by that adventurer 
during the three or four years he passed in rambling, toe and fro, over 
the vast region traversed by him on both sides of the Mississippi, he 
*Adair, History of the American Indians, p. 225: London, 1775. 
tLawson, Carolina, p. 207: London, 1718. 
tIbid., pp. 17 and 177. 
§Jbid., pp. 179, 232, 198. 
|| [bid., p. 188. 
q [bid., p. 179. 
**Tbid., pp. 58, 176, 208. 
ttIbid., p. 86. 
ttCabeca de Vaca, in Buckingham Smith’s translation, pp. 41-47: New York, 
1871. Herrera, History of America, vol. v1, pp. 30, 31: London, 1740. 
