Page:The History of the American Indians.djvu/294

 C C O U N T

��OF THE

��CHOKTAH NATION, &c.

��THE Choktah country lies in about 33 and 34 Deg. N. L. According to the courfe of the Indian path, their weftern lower towns are fituated two hundred computed miles to the northward of New Orleans ; the upper ones an hundred and fixty miles to the fouthward of the Chikkafah nation ; 150 computed miles to the weft of the late dangerous French Alebahma garrifon, in the Mufkohge country ; and 1 50 to the north of Mobille, which is the firft fettlement, and only town, except New Orleans, that the French had in Weft-Florida.

Their country is pretty much in the form of an oblong fquare. The barrier towns, which are next to the Mufkohge and Chikkafah countries, are compactly fettled for focial defence, according to the general method of other favage nations ; but the reft, both in the center, and toward the Mifllfippi, are only fcattered plantations, as beft fuits a fcparate eafy way of living. A ftranger might be in the middle of one of their populous ex- tenfive towns, without feeing half a dozen of their houfes, in the direct courfe of his path. The French, to intimidate the Englifh traders by the prodigious number of their red legions in Weft-Florida, boafted that the Choktah confifted of nine thoufand men fit to bear arms : but we find the true amount of their numbers, fince Weft-Florida was ceded to us, to be not above half as many as the French report afcertained. And, in deed, if the French and Spanifh writers of the American Aborigines, had kept fo near the truth, as to mix one half of realities, with their flourishing

wild

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