TH..MAS.1 INDIANS AND EUROPEANS. 713 



probably located on the SavauuaU river above Augusta.' Aucouutsof 

 other wrecked vessels were also given, but it is more than likely that 

 of much the larger number no record was ever made. 



The rapidity with \vhi<'h articles obtained by barter on the coast or 

 taken from wrecks found their way into the interior and the distance 

 to wliich they afterwards traveled do not appear to be fully appreciated 

 by antiquarians. 



OTHER METALS. 



Smith states that he found hatchets, knives, pieces of iron and brass 

 in the hands of the Indians at the head of Chesapeake l)ay which he 

 learned were from the French on the St. Lawrence (or " river of Can- 

 ada," as he names it),' and yet but a short time had elapsed since the 

 entrance of the latter into that region. Cabeza de Vaca found a hawk- 

 bell in the hands of the natives of Texas (or Louisiana), which may have 

 been carried from hand to hand and tribe to tribe from Mexico, though 

 more likely obtained from some vessel wrecked on the coast. Father 

 Mar(juette, in his voyage down the Mississippi says he found guns, 

 axes, hoes, knives, beads, and glass bottles in the hands of some In- 

 dians below the mouth of the Ohio, probably Ohickasaws.' 



These (if his statement is to be believed) nmst have come, as he sui)- 

 poses, from the "eastern side,'" that is to say, the English settlements 

 on the Atlantic coast. 



From these and similar examples which might be mentioned, it is 

 apparent that articles of European manufacture found their way rap- 

 idly into the interior, passing from hand to hand in the course of trade 

 and traffic between the tribes or by capture in war. ISTor is this to be 

 wondered at when seashells, such as limycoii perversuin and others, are 

 found in the mounds of Illinois and Wisconsin and articles of native cop- 

 l)er probably from northwestern Michigan occur in the mounds of Ohio 

 and West Virginia and at even more eastern points. 



Most authors writing on this subject also fail to appreciate properly 

 the fact that traders, trappers, hunters, adventurers, and coureurs de 

 bois were traversing the wilds of the new continent in advance of any 

 notice we have of such adventures. It is apparent from some state- 

 ments in the Ensayo Cronologico that Spanish adventurers had found 

 their way to the Coza region, probably in northern Georgia, a few years 

 after the return of the remnant of De Soto's followers. These vover.s 

 must have carried with them some articles of European manufacture 

 which, finding their way into the hands of the chief men of the tribes, 

 would be interred with them. 



Here we may also appropriately refer to a fact which seems to be 

 generally overlooked by writers on Xorth American archeology, to wit, 

 the very early date at which the manufacture of articles similar to> 

 those in rise among the Indians for the purpose of traffic commenced. 

 Biedma alludes in his Relation of De Soto's Expedition to this subject. 



I Freupli's Hist. Coll. Lii. ll, pp. 1(11 ami U4. Pnb. Haklnyt Soo. vol. I.x, pp. r,7 and IRl. 

 = Hist. ViVL'inia, Vol. l. p. 1«2- 18:1. ' Hi.al. Coll. I.a.. IV. p. 44. 



