Page:Archæologia Americana—volume 2, 1836.djvu/155

 SECT. III.] SOUTHERN INDIANS EAST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 119 latitude, across the continent of America from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific, we have not found more than two great families of languages, the Eskimaux and the Athapascas. South of these, as far as the thirty-fifth or thirty-sixth degree of latitude, two other families, the Algonkin-Lenape and Iro- quois, filled the whole space between the Atlantic and the Mississippi or the meridian which passes by its sources. Anoth- er great family, that of the Sioux, extends equally far from north to south, on the west side of the Mississippi. With the exception of a doubtful tribe (the Loucheux), there is not to be found, in the extensive territory occupied by those five families, a single tribe or remnant of a tribe, that speaks a dialect, which does not belong to one or another of those five families. On the contrary, in the comparatively small territory south of the Lenape and Iroquois tribes, and including that portion of the State of Louisiana which lies west of the Mississippi, we find, allowing even the Muskhogee and Choctaw to be but one, three extensive languages, the Catawba, the Cherokee, and the Choctaw Muskhogee, and six well ascertained of small tribes or remnants of tribes, to wit, the Uchee, the Natches, and the four abovementioned west of the Mississippi. And there is a strong probability that, independently of the several small extinct tribes of Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which still existed when those countries were first settled, several of those still existing west of the Mississippi will be found to have distinct languages. It also appears by the statements of their respec- tive population, communicated by Dr. Sibley, and which is indeed notorious, that those small tribes preserve their language to the last moment of their existence.* The most powerful southern nations appear to have been, upon the whole, less exterminating than the northern Indians. It is also probable that the impenetrable swamps and the multi- plied channels or bayoux by which the delta of the Mississippi and the Red River country are intersected, have afforded places of refuge to the remnants of conquered tribes. Instances have been mentioned in speaking of the Nanticokes, the Nottoways, and the Long Island Indians.
 * The same observation applies generally to all the Indian tribes.