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=_137._= THE INDIANS AND THE EARLY SETTLERS OF ALABAMA.
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.
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