SwANTON] INDIANS OP THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED STATES 741 



Catesby is repeating Lawson in part but in part adding to him 

 when he says : 



Those who are not good hunters dress skins, make bowls, dishes, spoons, to- 

 bacco-pipes, with other domestick implements. . . . These manufactures are 

 usually transported to some remote nations, who having plenty of deer and other 

 game, our neiglibouring Indians barter these commodities for their raw hides 

 with the hair on, which are brought home and dressed by the sorry hunters. 

 (Catesby, 1731-43, vol. 2, p. xi.) 



Marginella shells were also obtained in the Sound country to trade 

 with the interior Indians, and the effects of this trade are noted when 

 archeologists lay open mounds and burials along the Mississippi and 

 Ohio Rivers. 



From beyond the limits of this area catlinite pipes were obtained as 

 already noted, along with much of their copper. In later times, gold 

 and silver were picked up on the Florida coast from wrecked Spanish 

 treasure ships, and the Choctaw got silver by raiding the Caddo 

 Indians after they had taken it from the Spaniards. By this Red 

 River route the famous Chickasaw horses were also brought into the 

 country (see p. 348). But trade across the southern Plains had been 

 established before white contact, for De Soto's party found blue stones, 

 evidently turquoises, and shawls in a province called Guasco west of 

 the Mississippi, and the trade in Caddo bows seems to have extended 

 to the Pueblo country in prehistoric times (Robertson, 1933, p. 256). 

 A European j)roduct much more serious for the Indians was rum, 

 which also was distributed in part through native channels. 



The following interesting view of the changes introduced by white 

 contact is given by Catesby : 



Before the introduction of fire-arms amongst the American Indians, (though 

 hunting was their principal employment) they made no other use of the skins 

 of deer, and other beasts, than to cloath themselves, their carcasses for food, 

 probably, then being of as much value to them as the skins; but as they now 

 barter the skins to the Europeans for other cloathing and utensils they were 

 before unacquainted with, so the use of guns has enabled them to slaughter far 

 greater number of deer and other animals than they did with their primitive 

 bows and arrows. This destruction of deer and other animals being chiefly for 

 the sake of their skins, a small part of the venison they kill suffices them ; the 

 remainder is left to rot; or becomes a prey to the wolves, panthers, and other 

 voracious beasts. With these skins they purchase of the English, guns, powder 

 and shot, woollen cloth, hatchets, kettles, porridge-pots, knives, vermilion, beads, 

 rum, &c. (Catesby, 1731^3, vol. 2, pp. xi-xii.) 



By 1728, when William Byrd visited the Nottoway town in southern 

 Virginia, he found that the Indians used in hunting and war nothing 

 but firearms which they purchased from the English in exchange for 

 skins. 



Bows and Arrows are grown into disuse, except only amongst their Boys. Nor 

 is it ill Policy, [he adds shrewdly] but on the contrary very prudent, thus to 



