82 ' MYTHS OK THE CHEROKEE 1ktii.ann.19 



towns on Coosa river iiud in Alubanui were almost all of recent estul)- 

 ii.shnient, peopled by refugees from the east and north. The Middle 

 towns, in North Carolina, were still surrounded by Indian country. 



Fii'earm.s had iieen introduced into the tribe aliout one hundred 

 years before, and the Cherokee had learned well their use. Such 

 civilized goods as hatchets, knives, clothes, and trinkets had become 

 so common before the first Cherokee war that the Indians had declared 

 that they could no longer live without the traders. Horses and other 

 domestic animals had. been introduced early in the century, and at the 

 opening of the war of 1760, according to Adair, the Cherokee had "a 

 prodigious luimber of excellent hoi-ses," and although hunger had 

 compelled them to eat a great many of these during that period, thej' 

 still had, in 1775, from two to a dozen each, and bid fair soon to have 

 plenty of the 1)est sort, as, according to the same authority, they were 

 skilful jo(?keys and nice in their choice. Some of them had grown 

 fond of cattle, and they had also an abundance of hogs and poultry, 

 the Indian pork being esteemed better than that raised in the white 

 settlements on account of the chestnut diet. ' In Sevier's expedition 

 against the towns on Coosa I'iver, in 1793, the army killed three hun- 

 dred beeves at Etowah and left their carcasses rotting on the ground. 

 While crossing the Cherokee country in 1796 Hawkins met an Indian 

 woman on horseback driving ten very fat cattle to the settlements for 

 sale. Peach trees and potatoes, as well as the native corn and beans, 

 were abundant in their fields, and some had bees and honey and did a 

 considerable trade in beeswax. They seem to have quickly recovered 

 from the repeated ravages of war, and there was a general air of pros- 

 perity throughout the'nation. The native arts of potter}^ and basket- 

 making were still the principal employment of the women, and the 

 warriors liunted with such success that a party of traders iirought 

 down thirty wagon loads of skins on one trip." In dress and house- 

 Iniilding the Indian style was pi'uctically unchanged. 



In pursuance of a civilizing policy, the government had agreed, by 

 the treaty of 1791, to furnish the Cherokee gratuitously with farming 

 tools and similar assistance. This policy was continued and l^roadened 

 to such an extent that in fSOl Hawkins reports that "'in the Cherokee 

 agency, the wheel, the loom, and the plough is [sic] in pretty general 

 use. farming, manufactures, and stock raising the topic of conversation 

 among the ujen and women." At a conference held this year we find 

 the chiefs of the mountain towns complaining that the people of the 

 more western and southwestern settlements had received more than 

 their share of spinning wheels and cards, and were consequently more 

 advanced in making their own clothing as well as in farming, to which 



1 A<liiir, American Indiiins, pp. 230, 231,1775. 



-Sue Hawkins, MS journftl from South Carolimi to the Creeks, 1796, in library of Georgia Historical 

 Society. 



