[215]. To the Natchez Country left open to settlement by the king’s proclamation of 1763.
[216]. Charles Town was the first center of the Indian trade. From that place prior to 1700 traders had reached the Indian tribes on the Mississippi; in that year they were found there by the French. McCrady says that many of the early fortunes of Charleston families were built up by the Indian trade. This is more than can be said of the traders, who adventured themselves into the wilderness encompassed by manifold dangers to make possible the merchants’ fortunes. Augusta followed as chief mart. “It was laid out in the beginning of the year 1736, and thrives prodigiously. It is the chief place of trade with the Indians. There are several warehouses in it well furnished with goods for the Indian trade.... There are five large boats which belong to different inhabitants of the town, and carry about nine thousand weight of deer skins, each; and last year about one hundred thousand weight of skins was brought from there. All the Indian traders from both provinces of South Carolina and Georgia, resort thither in the spring. In June, 1739, the traders, pack-horsemen, servants, townsmen and others dependent upon that business, made about six hundred whites who live by the trade in the Indian nations. Each hunter is reckoned to get three hundred weight of deer skins in a year, which is a very advantageous trade to England, for the deer skins, beaver and other furs are chiefly paid for in woolen goods and iron.” An Impartial Inquiry, London, 1741, also in Ga. Hist. Coll. I, 153 et seq. Among the traders of Adair’s early period as a trader may be mentioned a few not elsewhere named who traded to the Chickasaws: Thos. Welch, James Alford, John Chester, James Welch, John Buckles, John Brown, Thomas Andrews, Wm. McMullian, Augustine Smith, Jerome Courtonne, John Tanner, Benj. Sealey, John Smith, Richard McCully and Francis Underwood. For traders to the Cherokees: Rothrock, Carolina Traders Among the Overhill Cherokees, 1690-1760, E. T. Hist. Soc. Pub., I, 3 et seq.
[217]. Set out, article by article, with prices in the proceedings of the Congress.
[218]. Lt. Col. Wedderburn, chief military officer of West Florida.
[219]. Charles Stuart, a younger brother of John Stuart, was deputy for many years prior to the War of the Revolution.
[220]. James Colbert, who was to become a great leader of the Chickasaws.
[221]. George Craghan or Croghan, whose career is set forth in Volwiler, George Croghan, and the Westward Movement. There is evidence that Craghan or one of his agents was on the Tennessee River in the Tennessee Country prior to 1756.
[222]. Kaskaskia, in the Illinois Country.
[223]. Was this a Joseph Greer of the Valley of Virginia? Andrew Greer, of the Watauga Settlement, was somewhat later a trader to the Cherokees.
[224]. Supplementing Adair’s statements as to the strength of the Chickasaws, only a few authorities are here quoted: Sir Nathaniel Johnson, Sept. 17, 1708, stated in a report that “the Chikysaws have at least 600 men. These Indians are stout and warlike.... Slaves is what we have in exchange for our goods, which these people take from several nations of Indians that live beyond them.” Rivers, Historical Sketch of South Carolina, 238. In 1715, the census taken by South Carolina authorities gave 700 warriors. Gov. Bull, of South Carolina (1742): “They do not exceed 400 men.” Royal Com. Hist. MSS., Appendix IV, 269. After the attrition of three wars with the French, John Buckles, a trader among them, reported this estimate in 1754: “Able gunmen, 340; old men between 50 and 70 years, 25; young boys, 155. As to the number of women in the nation ... every fellow has at least 2 or 3 wives; and young girls there may be about the same number as the boys, or they may exceed.” Maj. Robert Rogers in his Concise Account of North America, stated that in 1762 “they can raise 500 fighting men.” Two years later (1764) Capt. Thomas Hutchins estimated 750 warriors. For other figures: Swanton, Early Creeks, 449.