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SECTION I

AN ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT ABORIGINAL POPULATION OF THE BANKS OF THE MISSISSIPPI, AND THE CONTIGUOUS COUNTRY.

This wilderness, which we now contemplate as a dreary desert, was once thickly peopled by the natives, who, by some sudden revolution, of which we appear to be ignorant, have sunk into the deepest oblivion. In the abridged account of the great enterprise of Ferdinand de Soto by Purchas, begun in the year 1539, we read of numerous nations and tribes, then inhabiting the banks of the Mississippi, of whom, except the Chicaças, the Cherokees (called more properly Chelaques), and the small remnant of the Kaskaskias, and Tonicas, not an individual remains to reveal the destinies of his compatriots. Their extinction will ever remain in the utmost mystery. The agency of this destruction is, however, fairly to be attributed to the Europeans, and the present hostile Indians who possess the country. It is from these exterminating and savage conquerors, that we in vain inquire of the unhappy destiny of this great and extinguished population, and who, like so many troops of assassins, have concealed their outrages by an unlimited annihilation of their victims.

{248} As this part of the American history is very obscure and neglected, I shall probably be excused for introducing it at greater length than would otherwise have been necessary.

De Soto, after encountering considerable difficulty and hardship, in his progress through the interior of what then