and as each family did not gather in specifically the product of

the square that they had plowed and sown, it could not say that
it had a particular rig;ht to the enjoyment of what it had re-
ceived. It was not the communality of the land, but the com-
munality of the work which caused the communal ownership.
The Natchez preserved the exterior and the forms of their
old institutions: they did not cease having an absolute mon-
archy, a Sun, a Squaw Chief, and different orders or different
classes of men; but they were only remembrances of the past,
remembrances useful to the peoples, with whom it is never
good to destroy the authority of the ancestors. They continued
to maintain the perpetual fire in the temple; they did not even
touch the ashes of the old chiefs placed in that edifice because it
is a crime to violate the asylum of the dead, and, after all, the
dust of tyrants presents lessons as great as that of other men.

MUSKOGEES: LIMITED MONARCHY

IN THE STATE OF NATURE

To the east of the land of the despotically oppressed Natchez

the Muskogees offered on the scale of savage governments the
constitutional or limited monarchy.
The Muskogees form with the Seminoles in old Florida the
Creek confederation. They have a chief called Mico, a king or
magistrate. The Mico, recognized as the first man of the na-
tion, receives all sorts of marks of respect. When he presides
over the council, almost abject homage is paid him; when he is
absent, his seat remains empty. The Mico convokes the council
to deliberate on peace and war; to him the ambassadors and
foreigners who arrive in the nation present themselves.
The royalty of the Mico is elective and cannot be removed.
The old men name the Mico; the body of warriors confirm the
nomination. One must have spilled blood in combat or have
distinguished oneself by force of reason, genius, or eloquence,
in order to aspire to the place of the Mico. This sovereign, who
owes his power only to his merit, rises over the confederation of
the Creeks like the sun, to animate and fecundate the earth.
The Mico bears no mark of distinction. Outside the council

162
he is a simple Sachem who mixes with the crowd, chats,
smokes, drains the cup with all the warriors. A foreigner could
not recognize him. In the council itself, where he receives so
many honors, he has only his voice; all his influence is in his
wisdom. His opinion is generally accepted, because his opinion
is almost always the best.
The Muskogees' veneration for the Mico is extreme. If a
young man is tempted to do something dishonest, his compan-
ion says to him, "Be careful, the Mico sees you," and the young
man stops. It is the action of the invisible despotism of
virtue.
The Mico enjoys, however, a dangerous prerogative. The
harvests among the Muskogees are gathered in common. Each
family, after having received its lot, is obliged to bear part of it
to a public granary, on which the Mico draws at will. The
abuse of a like privilege produced the tyranny of the Suns of
the Natchez, as we have just seen.
After the Mico, the greatest authority of the state resides in
the council of old men. This council decides on peace and war
and executes the orders of the Mico: a singular political institu-
tion. In the monarchy of civilized peoples, the king is the
executive power, and the council or national assembly wields
the legislative power; here it is the opposite: the monarch
makes the laws, and the council executes them. These savages
thought perhaps that there was less peril in investing a council
of elders with the executive power than in putting this power in
the hands of a single man. On the other hand, experience
having proved that a single man of mature age and of a reflec-
tive mind better elaborates laws than a deliberative body, the
Muskogees have placed the legislative power in the king.
But the council of the Muskogees has a capital vice: it is
under the immediate direction of the grand medicine man, who
leads it through fear of enchantments and through the interpre-
tations of dreams. The priests form in this nation a redoubtable
body, which threatens to capture various powers.
The war chief, independent of the Mico, exercises an abso-
lute power over the armed youth. Nevertheless, if the nation is
in imminent peril, the Mico appears for a limited time to be the
general, since he is the magistrate at home.

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 Such is, or rather such was the Muskogee government, con-
sidered in itself and separately. It has other ties as a federative
government.
The Muskogees, a proud and ambitious nation, came from
the west and seized Florida after having wiped out the Yama-
sees, its first inhabitants. 115 Soon after, the Seminoles, arriving
from the east, contracted an alliance with the Muskogees. The
latter being the stronger, they forced the Seminoles to enter
into a confederation, in virtue of which the Seminoles send
representatives to the g:reat villages of the Muskogees and thus
find themselves governed in part by the Mico.
The two united nations were called by the Europeans the
nation of the Creeks and were divided by them into upper
Creeks, the Muskogees, and lower Creeks, the Seminoles. The
ambition of the Muskogees remained unsatisfied, and they car-
ried war to the Cherokees and the Chickasaws and obliged
them to enter into the common alliance, a confederation as
famous in the south of North America as that of the Iroquois in
the north. Is it not singular to see savages attempt the union of
the Indians into a federal republic at the same place where the
Europeans were to establish a government of that nature?
The Muskogees in making treaties with the whites stipu-
lated that no brandy would be sold to their allied nations. In the
villages of the Creeks only a single European trader was al-
lowed; he lived there under public protection. The laws of the
most exact probity were never violated in respect to him; he
came and went in safety for his fortune as for his life.
The Muskogees are inclined to idleness and feasting; they
cultivate the land, have flocks and Spanish horses, and also
slaves. The serf works in the fields, cultivates the fruits and
flowers in the garden, keeps the cabin clean, and prepares the
meals. He is housed, dressed, and fed like his masters. If he
marries, his children are free; they regain their natural right by
birth. The misfortune of the parents is not passed on to their
posterity; the Muskogees did not want servitude to be heredi-
tary: a fine lesson that savages have given to civilized men!
Such is slavery nonetheless: whatever its mildness, it de-
graded the virtues. The Muskogee, bold, boisterous, impetu-
ous, barely putting up with the slightest contradiction, is

164
served by the Yamasee, timid, silent, patient, abject. This Ya-
masee, former master of the Floridas, is still of the Indian race;
he fought like a hero to save his country from the invasion of
the Muskogees, but fortune betrayed him. What made such a
great difference between the Yamasee of old and the Yamasee
of today? Two words: liberty and servitude.

The Muskogee villages are built in a particular way: each

family has almost always four similar houses or huts. These
four cabins face one another to form a square court of about
half an acre which is entered at the four corners. The cabins,
constructed of boards, are plastered inside and out with a red
mortar that resembles brick clay. Bits of cypress bark, ar-
ranged like tortoise shells, serve as roofs for the buildings.
In the center of the principal village, and in the highest
place, is a public square surrounded by four long galleries. One
of these galleries is the council chamber where the council
meets every day to conduct business. This chamber is divided
into two rooms by a longitudinal partition; the room at the back
is thus deprived of light; it can be entered only by a low door
opening at the bottom of the partition. In this sanctuary are
placed the treasures of religion and politics: the deerhorn
beads, the medicine cup, the chichikoues, the peace pipe, the
national standard made from the tail of an eagle. Only the
Mico, the war chief, and the high priest can enter this fearsome
place.
The outer room of the council chamber is cut in three parts
by small transverse partitions waist high. From these balconies
rise three graduated rows of seats arranged against the wall of
the sanctuary. It is on these mat-covered benches that the
Sachems and the warriors sit.
The three other galleries, which form with the council gal-
lery the enclosure of the public square, are likewise divided
each into three parts; but they have no longitudinal partition.
These galleries are called banquet galleries. A noisy crowd can
always be found there, occupied at different games.
The walls, the partitions, and the wooden columns of these
galleries are covered with hieroglyphic ornaments embodying
the religious and political secrets of the nation. These paintings

165
represent men in diverse attitudes, birds and quadrupeds with
heads of men, men with heads of animals. The design of the
monuments is effected with boldness and in natural propor-
tions; the color is bright but applied without art. The order of
architecture of the columns varies in the villages according to
the tribe: at Otasses the columns are always spiral because the
Muskogees of Otasses are of the Snake tribe.
This nation has a city of peace and a city of blood. The city
of peace is the capital of the Creek confederation and is called
Apalachicola. In that city blood is never spilled; and when it is
a question of general peace, the Creek representatives are con-
voked there.
The Blood town is called Coweta; it is situated 12 miles from
Apalachicola. The question of war is deliberated there.
Notable in the Creek confederation are the savages who
inhabit the fair village Uche, composed of 2,000 inhabitants,
which can arm 500 warriors. These savages speak the Savanna
or Savantica language, a language radically different from the
Muskogee tongue. The allies of the village of Uche are ordinar-
ily, in the council, of a different opinion from the other allies,
who look upon them with jealousy; but they are circumspect
enough on both sides to avoid a rupture.
The Seminoles, less numerous than the Muskogees, have
barely nine villages, all situated on the Flint River. You cannot
take a step in their country without discovering savannas,
lakes, fountains, and rivers of the purest water.
The Seminole exudes gaiety, contentment, love; his step is
light, his manner open and serene; his gestures betray activity
and life. He speaks much and volubly; his language is harmoni-
ous and easy. This amiable and fickle character is so pro-
nounced among these people that they can scarcely maintain a
dignified appearance in the political assemblies of the confeder-
ation.
The Seminoles and the Muskogees are fairly tall, and, by an
extraordinary contrast, their women are the smallest race of
women known in America: they rarely attain the height of four
feet two or three inches; their hands and feet resemble those of
a European girl of nine or ten. But nature has compensated for
this kind of injustice: their figures are elegant and gracious,

166
their eyes black, extremely large, and full of languor and mod-
esty. They lower their eyelids with a kind of voluptuous mod-
esty. If you did not see them when they speak you would think
you were hearing children pronouncing only half-formed
words.
The Creek women work less that the other Indian women.
They busy themselves with embroidery, coloring, and other
small work. The slaves spare them the work of cultivating the
earth; and yet they help, as do the warriors, in gathering the
harvest.
The Muskogees are renowned for poetry and music. During
the third night of the new corn celebration, they gather in the
council galleries and compete for the singing prize. This prize
is bestowed by the Mico according to rna jority vote: it is a
branch of live oak; the Hellenes vied for an olive branch. The
women take part and often obtain the crown; one of their odes
is still famous:
SONG OF THE PALEFACE116

The paleface came from Virginia. He was rich; he had

blue cloth, powder, arms, and French poison. 117 The pale-
face saw Tibeima the IkouessenY 8
"I love you," he said to the painted woman. "When I
approach you, I feel the marrow of my bones melt; my eyes
become troubled; I feel as if I were dying."
The painted woman, who wanted the paleface's riches,
answered him, "Let me engrave my name on your lips;
press my breast against your breast."
Tibeima and the paleface built a cabin. The lkouessen
dissipated the great riches of the foreigner and then was
unfaithful to him. The paleface learned of it, but he could
not stop loving her. He went from door to door begging
grains of corn for Tibeima. When the paleface could ob-
tain a bit of liquid fire, 119 he drank it to forget his grief.
Still loving Tibeima, still deceived by her, the white man
lost his reason and started running wild in the woods. The
painted woman's father, a famous Sachem, reprimanded
her: the heart of a woman who has ceased loving is harder
than the fruit of the papaya. 120
The paleface returned to his cabin. He was naked and
had a long bristly beard; his eyes were hollow, his lips

167
 pale. He sat down on a mat to ask for hospitality in his own
cabin. The white man was hungry. As he had become un-
balanced, he thought he was a child and took Tibe'ima for
his mother.
Tibe'ima, who had found riches once again with another
warrior in the paleface's former cabin, held in horror the
man she had loved. She drove him out. The paleface sat
down on a heap of ]leaves at the door and died. Tibe'ima
died also. When the Seminole asks what are the ruins of
this cabin covered with tall grass, they do not answer.
In the beautiful wilderness of Florida the Spaniards had
placed a Fountain of Youth. So was I not authorized to choose
this wilderness for the land of some other illusions?
We shall soon see what has become of the Creeks and what
fate threatens this people making rapid strides toward civiliza-
tion.

THE HURONS AND THE IROQUOIS:

REPUBLIC IN THE STATE OF NATURE

If the Natchez offer an example of despotism in the state of

nature and the Creeks show the first characteristics of limited
monarchy, the Hurons and the Iroquois presented, in the same
state of nature, the republican form of government. Like the
Creeks, they had in addition to the nation's constitution itself, a
general representative assembly and a federal pact.
The government of the Hurons differed a little from that of
the Iroquois. Next to the council of the tribes there arose a
hereditary chief, whose succession was assured through
women, as with the Natchez. If the chief's line was extin-
guished, it was the noblest matron of the tribe who chose a new
chief. The influence of the women must have been considerable
in a nation whose politics and whose nature gave them so many
rights. The historians attribute to this influence a portion of the
good and bad qualities of the Huron.
Among the nations of Asia, the women are slaves and have
no part in the government; but, burdened with the domestic
tasks, they are spared in general the harshest work of the fields.
Among the nations of German origin the women were free, but

168
they remained strangers to the acts of politics, if not to the acts
of courage and honor. Among the tribes of North America the
women participated in the affairs of state but were employed at
those painful tasks which have devolved upon man in civilized
Europe. Slaves and beasts of burden in the fields and on the
hunts, they became free and queenlike in the family assemblies
and in the nation's councils. It is necessary to go back to the
Gauls to find something of this status of women in a nation.
The Iroquois or the Five Nations,121 called in the Algonquian
language the Agannonsioni, were a colony of the Hurons. They
separated from the Hurons at an unknown date; they abandoned
the shores of Lake Huron and settled on the south bank of the
Hochelaga River (the Saint Lawrence), not far from Lake
Champlain. Subsequently they went up as far as Lake Ontario
and occupied the country situated between Lake Erie and the
sources of the Hudson River.
The Iroquois offer a great example of the change oppression
and independence can effect in men's characters. After having
left the Hurons, they turned to cultivating the land and became
a peaceful agricultural nation, from which fact they drew their
name of Agannonsioni.
Their neighbors, the Adirondacks, of whom we have made
the Algonquians, a warlike hunter people who extended their
domination over an immense country, scorned the emigrating
Hurons whose harvests they bought. It so happened that the
Algonquians invited a few young Iroquois on a hunt; they
distinguished themselves to such an extent that the jealous
Algonquians massacred them.
The Iroquois rushed to arms for the first time; initially
defeated, they resolved to perish to the last man or to be free. A
warrior genius, which they had not suspected, developed in
them suddenly. They in turn overcame the Algonquians, who
allied themselves with the Hurons, from whom the Iroquois
traced their origin. It was at the most heated moment of that
quarrel that Jacques Cartier and then Champlain landed in
Canada. The Algonquians joined with the foreigners, and the
Iroquois had to fight against the French, the Algonquians, and
the Hurons.
Soon the Dutch arrived at Manhattan (New York). The

169
Iroquois sought the friendship of these new Europeans, pro-
cured firearms, and in a short time became more skillful in
operating those arms than the whites themselves. There is no
example among the civilized peoples of a war so long and
implacable as that the Iroquois waged against the Algonquians
and the Hurons. It lasted more than three centuries. The Al-
gonquians were exterminated and the Hurons reduced to a
tribe taking refuge under the cannon of Quebec. The French
colony of Canada, on the point of succumbing itself to the
attacks of the Iroquois, was saved only by a piece of political
strategy on the part of these extraordinary savages. 122
It is probable that the Indians of North America were first
governed by kings, like the inhabitants of Rome and Athens,
and that these monarchies changed then into aristocratic re-
publics; in the principal Huron and Iroquois settlements noble
families were found, ordinarily three in number. These fami-
lies were the source of the three main tribes: one of these tribes
enjoyed a sort of preeminence; the members of this first tribe
called one another brother and called the members of the two
other tribes cousins.
These three tribes bore the names of the Huron tribes: the
Deer Tribe, the Wolf Tribe, the Tortoise Tribe. The last one
was divided into two branches, the Great Tortoise and the
Small Tortoise.
The government, extremely complicated, was composed of
three councils: the council of the participants, the council of
the elders, and the council of the warriors capable of bearing
arms-that is, the body of the nation.
Each family furnished a representative to the council of
participants; this representative was named by the women, who
often chose a woman to represent them. The council of partici-
pants was the supreme council; thus the highest power be-
longed to the women, and the men called themselves only their
lieutenants; but the council of elders decided in the last resort,
and to it were appealed the deliberations of the council of
participants.
The Iroquois had thought that they should not be deprived
of the aid of a sex whose unbounded and ingenious mind is very
resourceful and is capable of acting on the human heart, but

170
they had also thought that the decrees of a council of women
could be impassioned. They had wanted these decrees to be
tempered and so to speak cooled by the judgment of the elders.
The council of women was to be found among our forefathers,
the Gauls.
The second council, or the council of elders, was the modera-
tor between the council of participants and the council com-
posed of the body of young warriors.
All the members of these three councils did not have the
right to speak: orators chosen by each tribe dealt with the
affairs of state before the councils. The orators made a particu-
lar study of politics and eloquence.
This custom, which would be an obstacle to liberty among
the civilized peoples of Europe, was only a measure of order
among the Iroquois. With these peoples none of the individual
liberty was sacrificed to the general liberty. No member of the
three councils felt himself bound individually by the delibera-
tion of the councils. However it was unprecedented for a war-
rior to refuse to submit to them.
The Iroquois nation was divided into five cantons. These
cantons were not dependent on one another and could make
peace and war separately. The neutral cantons offered them
their good offices in such cases.
The five cantons named representatives from time to time
who renewed the general alliance. In this diet, held in the midst
of the forests, they dealt with a few great undertakings involv-
ing the honor and safety of the whole nation. Each representa-
tive made a report relative to the canton he represented, and
they deliberated on the means of creating mutual prosperity.
The Iroquois were as famous for their politics as for their
arms. Placed between the English and the French, they soon
perceived the rivalry of these two peoples. They understood
that they would be sought after by both. They made an alliance
with the English, whom they didn't like, against the French,
whom they esteemed but who had united with the Algonquians
and tbe Hurons. However, they did not want the complete
triumph of either of the foreign parties; thus the Iroquois were
ready to disperse the French colony of Canada when an order
of the Sachems stopped the army and forced it to return; thus

171
also the French were on the point of conquering New Jersey
and driving out the English when the Iroquois had their five
nations march to the aid of the English and saved them.
The Iroquois had nothing in common with the Huron except
the language: the Huron, gay, witty, fickle, with a brilliant and
bold valor, tall and elegant, seemed to be born to be the ally of
the French.
The Iroquois was, on the contrary, heavily built with a wide
chest, muscular legs, and vigorous arms. The big round eyes of
the Iroquois sparkled with independence, and his entire appear-
ance was that of a hero; there shone on his forehead the intri-
cate combinations of thoughts and the elevated emotions of the
soul. This intrepid man was not at all surprised by firearms
when they were used against him for the first time; he stood
firm under the whistling of the balls and the noise of the
cannon, as if he had heard them all his life; he did not appear to
pay any more attention to them than to a storm. As soon as he
could procure a musket, he made better use of it than a Euro-
pean. Yet he did not abandon the tomahawk, the knife, the bow
and arrow; but he added the carbine, the pistol, the dagger,
and the hatchet: he seemed never to have enough arms to suit
his valor. Doubly armed with the murderous instruments of
Europe and America, his head ornamented with plumes, his
ears notched, his face smeared with black, his arms dyed with
blood, this noble champion of the New World became as fear-
some to see as to fight, on the shore he defended foot by foot
against the foreigner.
It was in the upbringing that the Iroquois placed the source
of their virtue. A young man never sat down in front of an old
man: the respect for age was equal to that Lycurgus had
caused in Lacedaemon. Youth was accustomed to bear the
greatest privations as well as to brave the greatest perils. Long
fasts ordered by politics in the name of religion, dangerous
hunts, continual training at arms, manly and virile games, had
given to the character of the Iroquois something indomitable.
Often little boys would tie their arms together, put a burning
coal on their bound arms, and fight to see who could bear the
pain the longest. If a girl did something wrong and her mother

172
threw some water in her face; that single reprimand sometimes
was enough to cause the girl to hang herself.
The Iroquois scorned pain as he did life: a Sachem 100
years old braved the flames of the pyre; he excited the enemy to
redouble their cruelty; he defied them to draw as much as a
sigh from him. This magnanimity of age had no other purpose
than to set an example for the young warriors and to teach
them to be worthy of their fathers.
This greatness made itself felt everywhere among these peo-
ple. Their language, almost entirely aspirated, shocked the ear.
When an Iroquois spoke it was like hearing a man who, ex-
pressing himself with effort, went successively from the lowest
to the highest tone.
Such was the Iroquois before the shadow and the destruction
of European civilization were extended over him.
Although I have said that civil law and criminal law are
almost unknown to the Indians, custom in some places has
taken the place of law. Murder, which among the Franks was
redeemed by a monetary settlement commensurate with the
status of the persons, is redeemed among the savages only by
the death of the murderer. In Italy during the Middle Ages the
respective families took up everything concerning their mem-
bers; that was the beginning of the hereditary vendettas which
divided the nation when the enemy families were powerful.
Among the tribes of North America the family of the mur-
derer does not come to his aid, but the relatives of the murdered
man consider it their duty to avenge him. The criminal whom
the law does not threaten, whom nature does not defend, find-
ing no asylum either in the woods where the allies of the dead
man pursue him, or among the foreign tribes who would
give him up, or in his home which would not save him, be-
comes so miserable that an avenging tribunal would be a bless-
ing to him. At least that would be a form, a manner of con-
demning or acquitting him; for if the law strikes down, it also
preserves, like time, which sows and harvests. The Indian
murderer, tired of a wandering life, finding no public family
to punish him, gives himself into the hands of a particular fam-
ily which immolates him; in the absence of armed force, the

173
crime leads the criminal to the feet of the judge and the execu-
tioner.
Involuntary manslaughter is sometimes expiated by pre-
sents. Among the Abnakis, the law was specific: the body of
the assassinated man was exposed on a kind of frame in the air;
the assassin, attached to a stake, was condemned to take his
food and spend several days in this pillory of death.

PRESENT STATE OF THE

SAVAGES OF NORTH AMERICA

If I presented the reader this tableau of savage America as the

faithful picture of what exists today, I would be deceiving him.
I have painted what was much more than what is. There are no
doubt still to be found several of these character traits in the
Indians of the wandering tribes of the New World; but the
manners in general, the originality of the customs, the primi-
tive form of the governments, in short the American genius, all
this has disappeared. After having told of the past, I have yet to
complete my work by sketching the present.
When one has evaluated the tales of the first navigators and
colonists who reconnoitered and cleared Louisiana, Florida,
Georgia, the two Carolinas, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware,
Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, and all that which is
called New England, Acadia, and Canada, one can scarcely
estimate the savage population contained between the Missis-
sippi and the Saint Lawrence at the time of the discovery of
those countries at less than three million men.
Today the Indian population of all North America, includ-
ing neither the Mexicans nor the Eskimo, scarcely reaches
400,000. The roll of the indigenous peoples of that part of the
New World has not been called: I shall do it. Many men, many
tribes will fail to answer: a last historian of those peoples, I
shall open their death register.
In 1534, upon the arrival of Jacques Cartier in Canada, and
at the time of the founding of Quebec by Champlain in 1608,
the Algonquians, the Iroquois, the Hurons, with their allies or
subjects, namely, the Etchimins, the Souriquois, the Bersiam-

174