THOMAS.) OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 615 



washed them, some washed ntir feet in warm water, and she herself took greatpains 

 to see all things ordered iu the best manner she could, making great haste to dress 

 some meat for us to eat. * " " Their vessels are earthen pots, very large, white, 

 and sweet; their dishes are wooden i>latters of sweet timber. 



Yet the writer above tiuoted adds: 



To suppose that such a race threw uj) the strong lines of circumvallation and the 

 symmetrical mounds which crown so many of our river terraces is as preposterous 

 almost as to suppose that they built the pyramids of Egypt. 



Another says : 



There is no trace or probability of any direct relationshipwhatever between the 

 mound-builders and the barbarous Indians found in the country. The wild Indians 

 of this continent have never known such a condition as that of the mound-builders. 

 They had nothing in common with it. In Africa, Asia, and elsewhere among the 

 more uncivilized families of the human race there is not as much really original bar- 

 barisms as some anthropologists are inclined to assume, but there can be no serious 

 douVit that the wild Indians of North America were original barbarians born of a stock 

 which had never at any time been either civilized or closely associated with the in- 

 fluence of civilization. » » ♦ It is absurd to suppose a relationship or a connec- 

 tion of any kind between the original barbarism of these Indians and the civiliza- 

 tion of the mound-builders.' 



Why this opinion has prevailed in the minds of the masses who have 

 learned it from the history and tradition of Indian life and Indian war- 

 fare Since the establishment of Enropean" colonies in this country, can 

 easily be understood, but why writers should so speak of them who 

 had access to the older records, giving accounts of the habits and cus- 

 toms of the Indian tribes when first observed by European navigators 

 and ex])lorers, is difticult to conceive, when the records, almost without 

 exception, notice the fact that although addicted to war, much devoted 

 to the chase, and often base and treacherous, they were generally found 

 from the Mississippi to the Atlantic dwelling in settled villages aud 

 cultivating the soil. 



In fact, when first visited by Europeans there was scarcely a tribe 

 from the Atlantic to the borders of the western plains but that had its 

 fixed seat, its local habitation, and subsisted to a very large extent 

 upon the products of agriculture. 



DeSoto found all the tribes he visited, from the Florida peninsula to 

 the western part of Arkansas, cultivating maize and various vegetables. 



The early voyagers along the Atlantic shore found the same thing true 

 from Florida to Massachusetts. Capt. John Smith and his colony, and 

 in fact all the early colonies, depended very largely for subsistence upon 

 this fact. Jacques Cartier found the inhabitants of old Hochelaga 

 cultivating maize. Champlain testifies to the same thing's being true of 

 the Iroquois. La Salle aud his companions observed the Indians of 

 Illinois, and from thence southward along the Mississippi, cultivating 

 and to a large extent subsisting upon maize. 



The truth of these statements has been so thoroughly demonstrated 

 by Mr. Lucien Carr in his " Mounds of the Mississippi Valley Histori- 



' Baldwin. Ancifiil Anierira, pi». 60,61. 



