head were the Knisteneaux and Chippeways, north of the Great Lakes; in the east, the Micmacs of the lower St. Lawrence, the Mohicans and Narragansetts of New England, the Lenni-Lenape or Delawares, on both sides of the river of that name; in the south, the Powhatans of Virginia, and the Shawnees of Kentucky; in the west, extending from the Ohio to Lake Superior, the Illinois, Miamis, and Ottawas, the Pottawattomies, and Sacs and Foxes.

Surrounded on every side by tribes of the AlgonquinLenape, was the land of the IROQUOIS. They included the Hurons or Wyandottes of Upper Canada; the Eries, south of the lake of the name; but principally, the compact confederacy known to the whites as the "Five Nations." These latter warlike tribes were located in the centre lake-belt of New York, and were named (from east to west) the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas, and Senecas. The Tuscaroras, who for awhile had located south of the Powhatans of Virginia, came northward in 1713, and united with the others. The fighting propensities of the Five Nations might well earn for them the title of the Indian Spartans. Isolated they were, in the midst of the Algonquins, who beat against them only to be repelled, like baffled waves upon a rock-bound coast; while they, in their turn, becoming the aggressors, soon all the country for hundreds of miles south and west of their strongholds among the lakes was overrun, and nearly depopulated by their reprisals. Ever ready to follow the war-path, it seemed as though they fought not so much to defend themselves and their homes, as to gratify an inappeasable thirst for blood and savage glory. It will appear farther on, how this sanguinary craving was taken advantage of by both English and French, that it might be used for purposes of revenge by the one nation of whites against the other.

The MOBILIAN tribes, occupying the region from the lower Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi, comprised chiefly the

THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS.

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Catawbas of Carolina, the Seminoles of Florida, the Creeks, Cherokees and Choctaws, the Natchez, Uchees and Chickasaws. Of these, the Choctaws were the most peaceably disposed toward the Europeans. They were further advanced in civilization than the tribes adjacent, more considerate to their prisoners, and applied themselves more to agriculture than to the chase. The Natchez tribe, near the present city of that name, had a wigwam-temple and sacred fire, being worshippers of the sun. The hereditary dignity of Chief of the Great Sun, descended by the female line. It is thought that the Natchez were a remnant of the Mound-Builders. The French writer, Charlevoix, says that most of the natives of Louisiana kept a perpetual fire in their temples. It should be noted, to avoid error, that the dialects of several of the foregoing tribes-as the Cherokees, the Uchees, and the Natchez-were quite distinct from each other, and those tribes are only here included in the Mobilian group for the purpose of convenience.

West of the Mississippi to the region of the desert, were the DACOTAHS OF SIOUX. Their country was included, north and south, between the Arkansas river and the Saskatchewan of British America. They comprised, in part, the Assiniboins of the north, the Mandans of Dakotah, the Tetons and Omahas of Nebraska, the Yanktons and Iowas, the Kansas, Osages and Arkansas. Fortunately, the Indian names which have been conferred upon our states, rivers, etc., designate pretty nearly the localities where those tribes formerly existed. One tribe only, belonging to this family-the Winnebagoes-was found east of the great river, being located upon the west side of Lake Michigan, from near the present city of Chicago to Green Bay.

Of the other large tribes, west of the land of the Dacotahs, there were, and are still, the Blackfeet of the upper Missouri, and the Crows of the Yellowstone; the Pawnees of the Platte;

the roving Comanches and Apaches of the Rio Grande. The Blackfeet were usually at war with the Flat-heads and Snake Indians, belonging west of the Rocky Mountains; keeping guard, like watchful bull-dogs, that their salmon-eating neighbors should not hunt the buffalo. The most of these tribes, as well as those of the Dacotahs, resided in their villages not over five months of the year, principally to plant and gather the crop of maize. Then the whole population, except those who trapped the beaver and other fur animals, would remove to the ranging-grounds of the buffalo, subsisting on the meat of that animal, and preserving it in quantities for future use.

The tribes of the Northwest, beyond the Rocky Mountains, the Flat-heads and Snakes, the Chinooks, Walla-wallas, etc., exhibit a marked inferiority in stature, strength and activity, to their brethren east of that range. The California tribes have long, straight hair, and very dark complexion, and, as has been stated, are thought to be of Malay extraction.

Finally, in the region of the Colorado and Rio Gila are the Pueblos, or Village Indians. These live in houses made

of adobe-i.e. mud, mixed with chopped straw and sand or gravel-which are generally several stories in height, each succeeding story less in size than the one below, and reached by ladders on the outside, the whole forming three sides of a square and capable of accommodating hundreds of people: a village, in fact, in a single structure. As a race, they seem to belong with the Toltecs or Aztecs of Mexico and Central America.

CHAPTER IV.

ENGLISH AND FRENCH DISCOVERIES IN AMERICA.

1496-1542.

THE ENGLISH: JOHN and sebasTIAN CABOT.

COLUMBUS named the isles of the Caribbean Sea which he had discovered, the WEST INDIES, being under the mistaken belief that they were really insular portions of that great Oriental Empire which, from early manhood, had existed as a cherished object of his thoughts. It was reserved for another Italian, sailing beneath the flag of England, first to behold since the voyages of the Northmen, the outlines of the American continent itself.

An imaginary line drawn north and south in the mid-Atlantic, had been declared by a "bull" of the pope as dividing the right and title to all new discoveries thereafter to be made by the subjects of Spain and of Portugal-Spain to take west of the line, and Portugal east of it. But, other maritime nations did not recognize either the right or the propriety of being thus excluded from any country previously unknown to them, to which their ships might sail; and, when found, of planting the standard of ownership in behalf of their respective sovereigns.

This highly presumptuous declaration or bull was promulgated by that wicked pope Alexander VI., of the notorious house of Borgia. It was the act of one who sat upon the throne as God's appointed vicegerent, commissioned to give away his earth; or, as a historian

has defined it-"Splitting this mighty planet into two imaginary halves, he hands one to the Spanish and the other to the Portuguese monarch, as he would hand the two halves of an orange to a couple of boys."

The fact of this declaration is important to be kept in mind, as it will explain, in a measure, the barbarous treatment of the Indians by the subjects of those monarchs who were the pope's recipients of such unexampled favors. They rested the responsibility of their sinful acts on the so-called Supreme Pontiff, fully persuaded that he who could confer upon them lands and people which himself had neither seen nor heard of, was amply qualified to absolve them from the wrongs which might follow their careers of conquest.

King Henry VII. of England would have been glad to secure the services of Columbus, but failing in that, he readily acceded to the request of JOHN CABOT or Kabotto, a wealthy merchant of Bristol, but a Venetian by birth, for a patent of discovery. This patent, which was granted in 1496 to Cabot and his three sons, Lewis, Sebastian, and Sancius, and to their heirs or deputies, authorized them, at their own expense, to fit out as many as five ships, and therewith to sail east, west, or northward, and to "seek out, discover and find whatsoever isles, countries, regions or provinces of the heathen and infidels whatsoever they may be, and in whatsoever place of the world soever they be, which before this time have been unknown to all Christians." A fifth of all the profits realized was to be paid to the king.

The expedition, which was soon equipped, sailed (1496) from the port of Bristol, at that time second only to London in commercial importance. Cabot was accompanied and greatly aided in the undertaking by his son Sebastian, who, though then but twenty years of age, was a young man of much practical good sense. They stopped for awhile at Iceland, and then continued on the voyage, hoping to make their way to India by a north-west passage. They came in sight of the main land in the high latitude of Labrador, in point of