230 BUBEiAU OF AMERICAN ETHN'OLOGY [Bull. 137 



The Indians are credulous. Enveloped in dark Ignorance, and shut out from all 

 communion with the enlightened world, the few of them that have a desire for 

 knowledge are deprived of the means of obtaining it. They are naturally fickle, 

 inconstant, and excessively jealous of the encroachments of the white people. 

 They easily become the dupes of the traders that live in their towns, who have 

 established so complete an ascendency over them, that, whatever they tell them is 

 implicitly believed, until contradicted by some more artful story. Thus situated, 

 it is in the power of an ignorant vagabond trader, at anytime, over a pipe and a 

 cup of black-drink, to persuade them that the most solemn treaty is no more than 

 a well-covered plot, laid to deprive them of their lands, under the specious pre- 

 tences of friendship and presents, and that the sooner they break it the better. 

 This arouses their jealousy, which, with their insatiable thirst for plunder, will 

 probably, so long as the white villains are among them, continually destroy the 

 good effects intended by treaties. (Swan, 1855, p. 275.) 



In view of the manner in which some treaties were made and 

 their provisions executed, native distrust of them and of the gov- 

 ernment by which they were drawn up is much less difficult to 

 understand than the subserviency of the same natives to the opin- 

 ions of their nearby traders. There is still less to be said for 

 Swan's remark regarding the "phlegmatic coldness and indifference" 

 between the sexes made in another connection, since he proves it 

 by citing what was really a matter of etiquette and a sign of good 

 breeding. 



The strictures of George Stiggins, himself a mixed-blood Indian, 

 are worthier of consideration: 



They in a general way appreciate a good character very little, either in 

 themselves or anyone else in the common scenes of life as there is no perceptible 

 difference made by them between a discreet, virtuous woman and one of ill 

 fame and lewd practices in the common standing of society. It will equally 

 extend to men, for thieves, murderers, and other evil practitioners are not held 

 in disrepute nor are they subject to either scorn or reproach for they very 

 often make head men or miccos of such men as that. Their actions are in 

 unison with their natural inclinations and only amenable to their customary 

 laws. So far they are the irreproachable and true sons of nature and inclina- 

 tion. (Stiggins, ms.) 



But here again we encounter different standards. Other testi- 

 mony assures us that "thieves, murderers, and other evil practic- 

 tioners," as such vices were understood by the generality of the 

 Creeks, were not held in repute. The remarks regarding feminine 

 looseness apply, of course, to unmarried women only, since Stiggins 

 was perfectly well aware of the punishments inflicted upon adult- 

 erers and adulteresses. Nor is it true that the moral sense of the 

 nation failed wholly to distinguish degrees of looseness among the 

 unmarried. Part of the immorality of which Stiggins complains 

 was thus owing to the fact that Creeks drew moral lines in different 

 places from Europeans, and incidentally did not re^rard immorality 

 on the part of a woman as more heinous than masculine derelictions, 



