72 The Winning of the West 



else joining in the plundering inroads made by the 

 other Indians upon the white settlements. Beyond 

 thus furnishing auxiliaries to our other Indian foes, 

 they had little to do with our history. 



The Muscogees or Creeks were the strongest of 

 all. Their southern bands, living in Florida, were 

 generally considered as a separate confederacy, un- 

 der the name of Seminoles. They numbered be- 

 tween twenty-five and thirty thousand souls, 7 three- 

 fourths of them being the Muscogees proper, and 

 the remainder Seminoles. They dwelt south of 

 the Cherokees and east of the Choctaws, adjoining 

 the Georgians. 



The Creeks and Cherokees were thus by their 

 position the barrier tribes of the South, who had to 

 stand the brunt of our advance, and who acted as 

 a buffer between us and the French and Span- 

 iards of the Gulf and the lower Mississippi. Their 

 fate once decided, that of the Chickasaws and Choc- 

 taws inevitably followed. 



The customs and the political and social systems 

 of these two tribes were very similar; and those of 

 their two western neighbors were merely ruder 

 copies thereof. They were very much further ad- 

 vanced than were the Algonquin nations of the 

 North. 



Unlike most mountaineers the Cherokees were 



7 Hawkins, Pickens, etc, make them "at least" 27,000 in 

 1789; the Indian report for 1837 makes them 26,844. During 

 the half century they had suffered from devastating wars 

 and forced removals, and had probably slightly decreased 

 in number. In Adair's time their population was increasing. 



