history of Adair, who was a resident in the southwestern states for above forty years. This gentleman, who has given us a very minute account of the manners, customs, and opinions of the Choctaws, Cherokees, and Chickasaws, amongst whom he chiefly resided in the Carolinas, and who is firmly convinced that they are descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel, and, moreover, gives us many proofs of the excellence of their nature—yet, most inconsistently, is loud in praise of the French policy of setting the different Indian nations by the ears; and condemnation of anything like conciliation and forbearance. Speaking of some such attempts in 1736, he says—"Our rivals, the French, never neglect so favourable an opportunity of securing and promoting their interests. We have known more than one instance wherein their wisdom has not only found out proper means to disconcert the most dangerous plans of disaffected savages, but likewise to foment, and artfully to encourage, great animosities between the heads of ambitious rival families, till they fixed them in an implacable hatred against each other, and all of their respective tribes."[1]
That he was in earnest in his admiration of such a policy, he goes on to relate to us, with the greatest naiveté and in the most circumstantial manner, how he recommended to the Governor of South Carolina to employ the Choctaws to scalp and extirpate the French traders in Louisiana, who, no doubt, interfered with his own gains. He lets us know that he got such a commission; and informs us particularly of the presents and flatteries with which he plied a great Choctaw chief, called Red Shoes, to set him on this
- ↑ Adair's History of the American Indians, p. 249.
