The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-05-14

the continent The story of this purely American sovereignty which died a. borning Is peculiarly interesting and romantic.
 In 17S6 the French had settlements at Mobile, New Orleans and few scat tered points along the Gulf coast and a short distance up the navigable rivers in what is now Alabama, Florida, Lou isiana and Mississippi. Similarly, the English had their posts and settlements on the coast of the Carolinas and Geor- gia. The colonies of both nations were few in number, weak, scattered and feeble. The vast country of the interior between these rivals was inhabited by a number of powerful and WaPllke Indian tribes. Principal among these were the Cherokees, the Creeks, the Choctaws and the Chickasaws. In 1700 the Che rokees alone possessed slXty-four in- habited towns. Later, in 17I1, the sin gle Choctaw tribe mustered nearly five thousand warriors. In TIT the town population of the Creeks was flf- teen thousand.
 These tribes were far in advance of the wild Indians, who lived in tempora- ry WigWams and depended on the chase for subsistence. Their towns were col lections of well-built log houses, forti- fled with palisades or walls of logs placed end to end and encircled by deep ditches. They cultivated the soil and raised peas, beans, squashes, corn and fruit. In the autumn they stored away their crops in granares and put up cured meat for the winter. From a mixture of the inner bark of trees and flax they made cloth.
 The government of the tribe was democratic, and of the very essence of home rule, In the center of each town was large open square, In some cases six or nine hundred feet long and of proportionate width. This area was excavated to the depth of two or three feet and was perfectly level. Around 1t rose a terrace, sometimes two, one above the other, built from the dirt of the excavation. Around the square were the houses of the chiefs and big men of the town, and also in every in- stance a large building for the use of strangers. In this square the leading men met every day to drink black tea made from the cacina plant, to smoke, to talk news, to discuss public and do- nestle affairs. Here all complaints were entered, heard and all wrongs re- dressed. Once a year in the month of | May all national affairs were settled in a grand legislative assembly in the | council square at the principal town of the nation. The delegates were the wise men, the chief and great warriors of the tribe.
 This was the condition of affairs when the King of France sent one M. Pribus-his first name has been lost-an | officer In His Majesty's army and man of great sagacity, to proceed through South Carolina, to give an ac- count of that colony and thence to jour ney to the Cherokees and seduce them from the British to the French inter- ests.
 Without molestation Pribus went through South Cadolina and arrived among the Indians. He professed to be SC charmed with his new acquaintances that, though possessing all the quallfi- cations of an accomplished gentleman having passed his life amid the refine ments of the most polished nation in | Europe, he exchanged hls clothes for the Indian dress, gave away all he brought with him save his writing ma terials and weapons, made friends with the warriors and became member of the tribe. He ate, slept. danced dressed and painted himself as an Indi- an and looked like one He married an Indian girl and took her to his house His retentive memory and strong un- derstandlng enabled him shortly to master the dialect. Never hastily, but by gradual advances, he impressed the tribesmen with bad opinion of the English colonists, representing them as avaricious, fraudulent and encroaching then, having lnstilled a proper dislike of them among the Cherokees, he im- pressed the red men with high opin- ion of their own importance in America, the situation of their country, their martial disposition, the great number of their warriors It lay within their power to check all efforts of the ambf- tious British, but they must have or ganizatlon, be taught the proper devel- opment of their possibilities. The In- dians listened and approved.
 He formed a government, a kind of constitutional monarchy. He was care full not to shock old traditions. The head chief he crowned as emperor of the Cherokee nation with ceremonies ard forms, invented by himself. pleas ing to the savage mind and eye. A c Jnrt was established with hlEl' sourd- ing titles, a council of state organized and his majesty's cabinet appointed. NJ. Pribus became his imperial majes- tvs secretary of state. The govern ment formed, Pribus began to organize its power. Tn the mountain caves he discovered nitre In vast deposits. He knew of iron ore ready for the smelter; of great resources that time and pa- tience would develop.
 Meanwhile the Cherokee nation began to look up, smaller tribes and scattered bands of harassed Indians came in to take refuge under the imperial aegis. The empire was beginning to form. Word of these things reached the English colonists. Angry letters of re- monstrance were sent up into the mountains, to all of which Pribus sent answers that the business of the Chero- kees was no business of the English,