Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/196

 An institution, I believe unparallelled in the policy of the northern natives, except among the Cherokees and Creeks (and which has been quoted by Mr. Adair[152] in order to prove an affinity with the Jews), was the existence of a town of refuge, inhabited by the supreme chief, in which no blood was suffered to be shed, and into which those who had committed manslaughter and other crimes were suffered to enter on excusing themselves or professing contrition.

With the inequality of fortune which civilization has introduced among the Cherokees, we find also a severity in their legal punishments, to which they were formerly strangers. Out of their salaries now received from government, they appropriate a certain sum towards the support of a police, whose duty it is to punish those who are guilty of crimes against the public. A man who has for the first time been convicted of horse-stealing, receives a punishment of 100 lashes, and for the second offence 200, thus increasing {135} the punishment for every additional offence. For stealing a cow 50 lashes were inflicted, and so on, in proportion to the value of the property stolen.

Mr. John Rogers,[153] a very respectable and civilized Cherokee, told me that one of the regulators happening to have a relation who had been repeatedly guilty of theft, and finding him incorrigible, he destroyed his eye-sight with a penknife, saying, "as long as you can see you will