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Letter No 2.
Fortville?, March 1. 1826.
So far as our traditioners gives any account of the extension of the settlements made by our ancestors, we are induced to believe them to be as correct as could be expected at this distant period, by which we are informed that the Highwassee old towns and Chestoeh, were the lowest settlements that composed the whole nation, who had emigrated from Big Tellico; and the first account given by traditioners that the Uchees became their nearet neighbors who settled on the south side opposite to the mouth of Highwassee River, and the Creeks made their settlement at Sawtee, above the mouth of Oo, le,te, wauh; tho' it is stated that Jolly's Island was settled by them; this, however, may have taken place many years after, - as there is no doubt they were induced to extend their settlement to these places from the Covda? River, by the circumstance of the friendly intercourse that existed between the Cherokees on the Ke wo hee & Toogelaw rivers, with the Cowetas on the Chattahauchee (unclear and on the Savanna Rivers, and their third neighbours were the Shawnees on the Cumberland and Duck Rivers; and their intercourse with their nearest neighbours appears to have been friendly with each other; nor is there any account extant of hostile nature in those times with any tribe which was then known by our ancestors, till many [years] or perhaps century"s after; by which we have reason to believe there existed a profound peace with all their neighbours; and there can be no doubt that our ancestors enjoyed all the customs and institutuions they had brought with them from the lands of their forefathers, to their arrival in this country; and there appears from the accounts given us, that there was three distinct order of men among them: First: The head man of a town. Second, the Aich, ne, coo, tauh, nus (which name I have been informed means the Proud: - And [Third] the Common People - And beside the head men of the towns to represent their people, there must have existed head chief by choice of the those adjacent towns as the organ of their part of the nation, to keep up a communication one to