SWANTON] INDIANS OF THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 349 



the west. The far greater utility of this animal to the Plains Indians 

 had already stimulated systematic plundering of the Spanish settle- 

 ments in Old and New Mexico, and horses were soon passed on from 

 tribe to tribe until they reached the Mississippi and were even trans- 

 ported across it toward the east. Du Pratz informs us that horses, 

 and he adds cattle, were being brought into Louisiana via the Caddo 

 Indians and the Avoyel tribe on Red River (Le Page du Pratz, 1758, 

 vol. 2, pp. 241-242; Swanton, 1911, p. 273). Without much doubt 

 these were the horses out of which came that famous Chickasaw 

 breed, often mentioned by travelers in the Southeast.^^ The writer 

 of the anonymous French Memoir says that in his time (the first half 

 of the eighteenth century) the Chickasaw already had many Spanish 

 and English horses, the latter obtained (i. e., stolen) from English 

 traders. He adds: 



So far as the Chaquetas are concerned the greater part of those which they 

 have come from the French. In the last war with the Natches (1729-31) they 

 obtained a mare for each slave, French and black, which they had recaptured. 

 In this way they provided themselves with horses, and they were soon able 

 to sell horses to the French. They let them live in the woods whence they fetch 

 them whenever they have need of any. I have noticed that animals accustomed 

 to live in the woods in this manner decline visibly when one tries to keep 

 them at home. They are not fed as in Europe and they are not curried. They 

 would soon become expensive if one tried to keep them there the year round, 

 owing to the insufl3ciency of forage. They are very lively when they are brought 

 out of the woods and carry their riders at breakneck speed. In all the islands 

 [i. e., all the lands of America] women and girls ride horseback like men. As 

 horses are not numerous they make use of cattle for the cart and for plows. 

 (Swanton, 1918, pp. 70-71.) 



This last remark applies of course to the white settlers, not the 

 Indians. By 1762, however, there were plenty of horses even among 

 the Cherokee (Timberlake, Williams ed., 1927, p. 72). 



A decade later Bernard Romans reported of the Creeks; 



Vast numbers of horses are bred here, but of an indifferent kind; and 

 these savages are the greatest horse stealers yet known : it is impossible to be 

 sure of a horse wherever these fellows come. (Romans, 1775, p. 94.) 



The use to which Lawson's Indians put their horses, viz, to bring 

 home deer meat, which seemed to him so trivial, was of vast conse- 

 quence to that earlier beast of burden, the Indian woman, to whom 

 it brought emancipation from much of the drudgery of existence. 

 The place of the tough little Choctaw ponies in the life of that tribe 

 was very important, if not as spectacular as their use on the Plains. 

 Cushman gives us a very good picture of this : 



The famous little Choctaw pony was a veritable camel to the Choctaw hunter, 

 as the genuine animal is to the sons of Ishmael. His unwearied patience, and 



On Chickasaw horses, see S. C. Williams, 1928, p. 340, footnote. 



