Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader · Chapter 120=137.= the Indians and the Early Settlers of Alabama
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During my youthful days, I was accustomed to be much with the Creek Indians, hundreds of whom came almost daily to the trading-house. For twenty years I frequently visited the Creek nation. Their green-corn dances, ball plays, war ceremonies, and manners and customs, are all fresh in my recollection. In my intercourse with them I was thrown into the company of many old white men called "Indian country men," who had for years conducted a commerce with them. Some of these men had come to the Creek nation before the Revolutionary War, and others, being tories, had fled to it during the war, and after it to escape from whig persecution. They were unquestionably the shrewdest and most interesting men with whom I ever conversed. Generally of Scotch descent, many of them were men of some education. All of them were married to Indian wives, and some of them had intelligent and handsome children…. I often conversed with the chiefs while they were seated in the shades of the spreading mulberry and walnut, upon the banks of the beautiful Tallapoosa. As they leisurely smoked their pipes, some of them related to me the traditions of their country. I occasionally saw Choctaw and Cherokee traders, and learned much from them. I had no particular object in view, at that time, except the gratification of a curiosity which led me, for my own satisfaction alone, to learn something of the early history of Alabama.
[Footnote 41: A native of North Carolina, who removed in early life to Alabama. His "History" abounds in interesting matter.]
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=Charles Wentworth Upham, 1802= (Manual, pp. 490, 532.)
From the "History of Witchcraft and Salem Village."