IV. THE FLORIDIAN.

IV. THE FLORIDIAN.

I call by this generic name, the languages spoken by those Indian nations who inhabit the southern frontier of the United States and the Spanish Province of Florida. They are the Creeks or Muskohgees, Chickesaws, Choctaws, Pascagoulas, Cherokees or Cheerakees, and several others. It is said that there once existed among them a powerful nation called the Natchez, whose language was the mother tongue of all those southern dialects. We are told also of an Apalachian nation, who it is said lived in the western parts of Louisiana, and were a part of the great nation of the Apalachians, who resided in the mountains which bear their name, and whose branches were settled under different denominations, in the vast extent of country situated between Louisiana, Canada and New England.[138] In this great _Apalachian_ nation we cannot help recognising our friends the Lenape, or _Wapanachki_, whose name the French in the south have as easily corrupted into _Apalaches_, as those in the north into _Abenakis_. It was they who gave their name to the Apalachian mountains, once so called, but which of late have resumed their former appellation of Alligewi, or Allegheny. Mr. Vater thinks that the remains of those Apalachians are still to be found in the Catawbas,[139] who are sometimes named Chaktawas[140] and probably are the same who by contraction are now called Choktaws.

Other writers speak to us of the Mobilians,[141] as the nation from which the neighbouring tribes derived their origin, and whose language was their mother tongue. The fact is, that we know very little about these southern Indians, and on the subject of their languages we have nothing to guide our enquiries, but a few words given us by Adair, and some that have been collected from various sources by the late Dr. Barton. We are not, however, without the means of obtaining full and accurate information on this interesting subject, and I hope the historical committee will be successful in the measures which they are about to take to procure it. Mr. Meigs, the United States agent with the Cherokees, Mr. Mitchell, agent to the Creeks, and the Rev. John Gambold, who has long lived as a Missionary of the Society of the United Brethren with the former of these nations, are well able to satisfy their enquiries, and I have no doubt will be happy to give their aid to the advancement of the literature of their country.

It is a fact worthy of remark, and much to be regretted, that the French and English, who have been so long in possession of the immense country extending from Labrador to the Mississippi, have written so little respecting the Indian languages of this part of the American continent. Among the English, Eliot alone, and among the French, Father Sagard, can be said to have published anything on this subject that is worth notice. Zeisberger was a German, and Mr. Edwards an American. On the contrary, the Spaniards[142] have published a great number of grammars and dictionaries of the Indian languages spoken within the limits of their American possessions, and deserve much credit for these exertions. It is not yet too late for the independent Americans to retrieve the neglect of their forefathers; but no time should be lost, as the Indian nations are fast disappearing from the face of our country, and our posterity may have to regret hereafter that greater pains were not taken to preserve the memory of their traditions, customs, manners, and LANGUAGES.