35
have been so bold, warlike and ferocious. In the States of Tenessee and Mississippi, the nation or tribe of Cherokees exist; in Georgia, the Creeks: in Mississippi, the Chickasaws and Choctaws; in the State of Indiana and territory of Michigan, a few savage hordes of the nation or tribe of Chippeway are to be found; and others occupy various points to the North East of the Illinois and East of Lake Michigan. They are all wretched, and gradually becoming extinct. Their whole number will amount at most to 50 or 60,000. Those who live within the Spanish dominions, contiguous to the United States, comprise various tribes, some of them sufficiently numerous; but they are gradually diminishing and abandoning the country to the Americans.
Although the federal government boasts of the tenderness and philanthropy with which it treats them, it cannot but be observed, that whatever may be its disposition to cherish sentiments so becoming the present age, and all free countries like that of America, the fact is, that the Indians are daily despoiled of their lands by purchases, for the most part fraudulent, or by treaties but little equitable, as well as by force of arms. It frequently happens, that the settlers, established on the frontier or near the lands of the Indians, make incursions into them, and rob them of their cattle, and of every thing upon which they can lay their hands. They
