plea that the Iroquois were their allies, and were subject to the eminent domain of the sovereigns of England. But between them and the tract they coveted, was the French fort at Niagara, commanding the water-way to the upper lakes and the Mississippi; all of which country the French claimed by right of early discovery and of occupation.

CHAPTER XX.

GEORGE II.: FIRST PERIOD.

1727-1744.

THE FRENCH WAR WITH THE NATCHEZ AND CHICKASAWS.

THE city of Natchez upon the Mississippi, marks the site, and will perpetuate the name, of a now extinct race of Sunworshippers, in whose lowly temples, dedicated to the great luminary, an undying fire was once kept burning. As stated in the preceding chapter, the French had planted in that country the settlement of Fort Rosalie. The commandant of this post, with the recklessness of insatiable avarice, demanded of the Natchez tribe, for his plantation, the very tract on which stood the huts of their principal village. It was a pretty little settlement called "the White Apple."

Incensed at such a proposition, the Natchez listened to the counsel of the Chickasaws, their neighbors to the northward, and, having planned a sudden attack in the latter part of the year 1729, a general massacre of the French settlers at the fort ensued. All of the men, to the number of several hundred were murdered, and the women and children made prisoners. We may well describe such a deed as a "savage blow;" and yet, how would nations called civilized-how would the French themselves-have treated so unjust a demand as that of giving into the hands of strangers their beloved homes, their chief city? Had they so learnt the pure law of the Gospel that they would have resigned all,

rather than have slain their enemies had they been in their power?

But the French did not tarry long ere they executed their revenge. On the east of the Mississippi, between the chief colony of the French at New Orleans and the little nation of Sun-worshippers, was the numerous tribe of the Choctaws. Having made these their auxiliaries, the French invaded the Natchez country, put to death or captured many of the natives, and drove the remnant across the river, or forced them to seek safety with the Creeks and Chickasaws. The four hundred prisoners whom they had taken, were sent to Hispaniola to be sold into slavery. But the cost to the Company of the Indies, of defending this wilderness possession, greatly exceeding the profits which they realized, the grant was resigned in 1732 to the crown of France.

Because of the counsel, hostile to the French, which the Chickasaws had extended to the Natchez, and because the former tribe was now threatening to sever the connection between Louisiana and the Great Lakes, by attacking the boats which passed up and down the Mississippi, the French authorities determined to make an end of them even as they had of the Natchez. If an additional incentive was wanting, to confirm the French in their purpose, it was afforded by the knowledge of the fact that English traders from Carolina had visited the Chickasaw villages, and busily inflamed the minds of the natives against them. So important was the success of the enterprise deemed to be, that many months were devoted to preparations for the expedition, which did not start until the spring of 1736.

The French force under Bienville proceeded in boats to Mobile, and ascended the Tombigbee to its upper waters; being accompanied by about 1200 of the Choctaws, who were eager to gain the high reward offered by the French for the scalps of their enemies. But when they arrived at the in

1739]

THE ASSIENTO AND AFRICAN TRADERS.

251

trenchments of the Chickasaws, they found the warriors on the watch, and English flags displayed above the rude walls of the fort. The attacks of Bienville were so strongly resisted that he was obliged to order a retreat down the Tombigbee. In the meantime a similar force of French and Indians from the Illinois country, entered the Chickasaw territory on the north, expecting to form a junction with Bienville's band. Failing in this, they too made an assault and were driven back with much loss. The wretched prisoners having been bound, were burnt at the stake. One of the principal of these unfortunates was a Canadian, DE VINCENNES, whose name was given to the city on the Wabash, the oldest settlement in Indiana.

In the year following, another attempt was made to subdue the refractory tribe, the French on the Mississippi receiving aid from Canada. On the prominent bluff where Memphis was subsequently built, a fort had been constructed; and here the whites, red men and negroes, to the number of about 3500, established their quarters and passed an unhealthy winter. In the spring (1739), the Chickasaws being willing to agree to a peace, the French gladly destroyed their fort on the bluff and went back to their settlements.

THE ASSIENTO AND THE AFRICAN TRADERS.

Under the treaty of Utrecht, the English South Sea Company was granted the exclusive privilege of introducing negro slaves into the Spanish West Indian dominion. For this wicked favor of becoming the chief slave-dealers of the nations, it was stipulated that the company should pay to the king of Spain a duty of $33% a head, and that it should introduce into the said colonies within the space of thirty years, 144,000 negro bondsmen. The South Sea Company, which was organized nearly at the same time as were Law's

Royal Bank and Mississippi Company, and which resembled the bank in its plan of buying up the national debt with its stock, was destined, however, to meet with a like disastrous termination.

Notwithstanding the notable failure of this bubble-scheme, the Assiento contract, above set forth, survived the financial wreck, and fulfilled its unholy office. At the same time, the organized "African Company," encouraged and firmly sustained by English legislation, continued to supply England's own colonies with thousands of the same oppressed race. It is computed that in the century between 1676 and 1776, the English nation, by means of these two agencies, imported into their own dependencies and into the Spanish and French West Indies, about three million negroes, most of them between the ages of 15 and 30 years. Beside these, there were probably a quarter of a million of those who had been purchased on the African coast for a similar purpose, who succumbed to the horrors of the "Middle passage" and were buried beneath the waters of the Atlantic.

If we would bring the iniquity of this traffic vividly to view, let us read from the diary of a certain surgeon of an English slaveship on the Guinea coast-written while waiting for a cargo of warcaptives:

"Sestro, Dec. 29, 1724.-No trade to-day, though many traders came on board. They informed us that the people are gone to war within-land, and will bring prisoners enough in two or three days, in hopes of which we stay.

"The 31st.-Fair weather, but no trading yet. We see each night towns burning; but we hear many of the Sestro men are killed by the inland negroes, so that we fear this war will be unsuccessful.

"The 2nd of January.-Last night we saw a prodigious fire break out about eleven o'clock, and this morning see the town of Sestro burnt down to the ground. It contained some hundred houses; so that we find their enemies are too hard for them at present, and consequently our trade is spoiled here. Therefore, about 7 o'clock we weighed anchor, to proceed lower down."