bwantom] EARLY BISTORY OF THE CREEK INDIANS 223 
Continuing on down the river from the creek, the land rises to a high flat, formerly 
the < hissetuh town, and afterwards a Chickasaw town. This flat is intersected with 
one branch. Prom the southern border of this flat, the Cussetuh town is seen below, 
on a Sat, just above flood mark, surrounded with this high flat to the north and east, 
and the river to the west; the land about the town is poor, and much exhausted; they 
cultivate but little bore of early corn; the principal dependence is on the rich fields 
above the creek: to call them rich must be understood in a limited sense; they have 
been so, bul being cultivated beyond the memory of the oldest man in Cussetuh, they 
arc almost exhausted; the produce is brought from the fields to the town in canoes or on 
horses; they make barely a sufficiency of corn for their support; they have no fences 
around their fields, and only a fence of three poles, tied to upright stakes, for their 
potatoes; the land up the river, above the fields, is fine for culture, with oak, hickory, 
blackjack and pine. 
The people of Cussetuh associate, more than any other Indians, with their white 
neighbors, and without obtaining any advantage from it; they know not the season 
for planting, or, if they do, they never avail themselves of what they know, as they 
always plant a month too late. 
This town with its villages is the largest in the Lower Creeks; the people are and 
have been friendly to white people and are fond of visiting them: the old chiefs are 
very orderly men and much occupied in governing their young men, who are rude and 
disorderly, in proportion to the intercourse they have had with white people; they 
frequently complain of the intercourse of their young people with the white people on 
the frontiers, as being very prejudicial to their morals: that they are more rude, more 
inclined to be tricky, and more difficult to govern, than those who do not associate 
with them. 
The settlements belonging to the town are spread out on the right side of the river; 
here they appear to be industrious, have forked fences, and more land enclosed than 
they can cultivate. One of them desires particularly to be named Mic E-maut-lau. 
This old chief has, with his own labor, made a good worm fence, and built himself a 
comfortable house; they have but a few peach trees, in and about the town; the main 
trading path, from the upper towns, passes through here; they estimate their number 
of gun men at three hundred; but they cannot exceed one hundred and eighty. 
Au-put-tau-e f Apatana, bull frog village?]; 1 a village of Cussetuh, twenty miles from 
the river, on Eat-che thluc-co; they have good fences, and the settlers under [enjoy?] 
the best characters of any among the Lower Creeks; they estimate their gun men at 
forty-three. <>n a visit here the agent for Indian affairs was met by all the men, at 
the house of Tus-se-kiah Micco. That chief addressed him in these words: Here, I 
am glad to see you; this is my wife, and these are my children; they are glad to see 
you; these are the men of the village; we have forty of them in all; they are glad to see 
you : you are now among those on whom you may rely. I have been six years at this 
village, and we have not a man here, or belonging to our village, who ever stole a 
horse from, or did any injury to a white man. 
The village is in the forks of llatche thlucco, and the situation is well chosen; the 
land is rich, on the margins of the creeks and the cane flats; the timber is large, of 
poplar, white oak, and hickory; the uplands to the south are the long-leaf pine; and 
to the north waving oak, pine, and hickory; cane is on the creeks and reed in all the 
branches. 
At this village, and at the house of Tus-se-ki-ah Micco, the agent for Indian affairs 
has introduced the plough: and a farmer was hired in 1797 to tend a crop of corn, and 
with so good success, as to induce several of the villagers to prepare their fields for the 
plough. Some of them have cattle, hogs and horses, and are attentive to them. 
1 Oatschet derives this name from apatayas, I cover, and says it means "a sheet-like covering." A 
native informant suggested to the writer apatana, bullfrog. This is probably the village which Hawkins 
elsewhere calls Thlonotiscauhatche, after Flint River. — Ga. Hist. Soc. Colls., ix, p. 172. 
