.MTA2Mg.NzE5MjQ

5/ I know nothing of the order of emigration or to time, that obtained with the above name tribes; but with regard to the fifth, the Chickasaws, Choctaws, Creeks and Cherokees, we have evidence that it was the last. The traditions of these Indians as obtained by Colo. Hawkins, and of the Choctaws as obtained by W. Vose of Natchez, are quite satisfactory upon this point. The following letter from Genl. Goor you will regard as valuable in reference to the Southern Indians.

Hills April 2nd I835. Dear Sir, In the month of February 1810 I was detained by bad weather at the house of Colo. Benjamin Hawkins who was then and had been agent for the Creek Indians from the time of Genl. Washington's Presidency. In the cause of conversation he spoke of having been at considerable trouble in collecting from the most intelligent Indians of the four nations viz: Chickasaws, Choctaws, Cherokees and Creeks, the traditionary history of their people - which he had embodied in a manuscript, but wasito? not permit it to be published during his life. He died sometime in the spring of 1815, and his house (the agency) taking fire soon after, his papers were all consumed.

I will now give you as near as my memory will serve me his summary of the traditions he had received.

Many ages since our people resided in a county for west of the great river Mississippi. They war'd many years with a people more powerful than themselves. Beaten past hope, they retreated to the rising sun with a view of crossing the Mississippi and placing that great water between themselves and their foes. The first attempt was to cross at the Natchez bluffs but were beaten back fy the people inhabiting the country on the opposite side. Th [eir?} old enemies being close in pursuit they retreated up the west side of the river to opposite the Chickasaw bluffs where they succeeded in crossing and were at length safe from pursuit. They then jointly made war on the people inhabiting the country, now in the possession of the Chickasaws and Choctaws whom they exterminated from the open country, but were repulsed whenever they attempted to enter the thick cane. Here the Chickasaws & Choctaws nettle themselves. The Cherokees pursued their conquests in the mountains against the shawnees Indians, while the Creeks pushed their conquests towards the sea & eastwardly. They exterminated the Uchus, inhabiting the Chattahochee river excepting a small band which want not fight, then they enslaved (and still reside on the Uchee Crekk not far from the present town of Columbus in Georgia) they still pressed their conquests eastwardly and utterly destroyed the Yamassis living on the Okofonoko swamp and st. Mary's river and when ships appeared in the bay, where Charleston now stands, with the first British colony. They then made a treaty with the whites and have ever since held themselves the allies of the people of S. Carolina.