The Discoveries of John Lederer / In three several Marches from Virginia to the East of Carolina, and other parts of the Continent

by John Lederer

That a Stranger should presume (though with Sir William Berkly’s Commission) to go into those Parts of the American Continent where Englishmen never had been, and whither some refused to accompany him, was, in Virginia look’d on as so great an insolence, that our Traveller at his Return, instead of Welcom and Applause, met nothing but Affronts and Reproaches; for indeed it was their part, that forsook him in the Expedition, to procure him discredit that was a witness to theirs; Therefore no industry was wanting to prepare Men with a prejudice against him, and this their malice improved to such a general Animosity, that he was not safe in Virginia from the outrage of the People, drawn into a perswasion, that the Publick Levy of that year, went all to the expence of his Vagaries. Forced by this storm into Maryland, he became known to me, though then ill-affected to the Man, by the stories that went about of him: Nevertheless finding him, contrary to my expectation, a modest ingenious person, & a pretty Scholar, I thought it common Justice to give him an occasion of vindicating himself from what I had heard of him; which truly he did with so convincing Reason and circumstance, as quite abolished those former impressions in me, and made me desire this Account of his Travels, which here you have faithfully rendred out of Latine from his own Writings and Discourse, with an entire Map of the Territory he traversed, copied from his own hand. All these I have compared with Indian Relations of those parts (though I never met with any Indian that had followed a Southwest-Course so far as this German) and finding them agree, I thought the Printing of these Papers was no injury to the Author, and might prove a Service to the Publick.

William Talbot.

A MAP OF THE WHOLE TERRITORY TRAVERSED BY JOHN LEDERER IN HIS THREE MARCHES.

THE
Discoveries of John Lederer
from Virginia to the West of Carolina,
and other parts of the Continent.

A General and brief Account of the North-American Continent.

North, as well as South-America, may be divided into three Regions: the Flats, the Highlands, and the Mountains. The Flats (in Indian, Ahkynt) is the Territory lying between the Eastern Coast, and the falls of the great Rivers, that there run into the Atlantick Ocean, in extent generally taken Ninety miles. The Highlands (in Indian, Ahkontshuck) begin at those falls, and determine at the foot of the great ridge of Mountains that runs thorow the midst of this Continent, Northeast and Southwest, called by the Spaniards Apalatæi, from the Nation Apalakin; and by the Indians, Pæmotinck. According to the best of my observation and conjecture, they lie parallel to the Atlantick Sea-coast, that bearing from Canada to Cape Florida, Northeast and Southwest, and then falling off due West as the Mountains do at Sara: but here they take the name of Suala; Sara in the Warrennuncock dialect being Sasa or Sualy.