Travels Through North and South Carolina, Georgia, East and West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. / Containing an Account of the Soil and Natural Productions of Those Regions, Together With Observations on the Manners of the Indians.

by William Bartram

OF THEIR GOVERNMENT AND CIVIL SOCIETY.

The constitution or system of their police is simply natural, and as little complicated as that which is supposed to direct or rule the approved economy of the ant and the bee; and seems to be nothing more than the simple dictates of natural reason, plain to every one, yet recommended to them by their wife and virtuous elders as divine, because necessary for securing mutual happiness: equally binding and effectual, as being proposed and assented to in the general combination: every one’s conscience being a sufficient conviction (the golden rule, do as you would be done by) instantly presents to view, and produces a society of peace and love, which in effect better maintains human happiness, than the most complicated system of modern politics, or sumptuary laws, enforced by coercive means: for here the people are all on an equality, as to the possession and enjoyments of the common necessaries and conveniencies of life, for luxuries and superfluities they have none.

This natural constitution is simply subordinate, and the supreme, sovereign or executive power resides in a council of elderly chiefs, warriors and others, respectable for wisdom, valour and virtue.

At the head of this venerable senate, presides their mico or king, which signifies a magistrate or chief ruler: the governors of Carolina, Georgia, &c. are called micos; and the king of England is called Ant-apala-mico-clucco[^[61]], that is the great king, over or beyond the great water.

The king, although he is acknowledged to be the first and greatest man in the town or tribe, and honoured with every due and rational mark of love and esteem, and when presiding in council, with a humility and homage as reverent as that paid to the most despotic monarch in Europe or the East, and when absent, his seat is not filled by any other person, yet he is not dreaded; and when out of the council, he associates with the people as a common man, converses with them, and they with him, in perfect ease and familiarity.

The mico or king, though elective, yet his advancement to that supreme dignity must be understood in a very different light from the elective monarchs of the old world, where the progress to magistracy is generally affected by schism and the influence of friends gained by craft, bribery, and often by more violent efforts; and after the throne is obtained, by measures little better than usurpation, he must be protected and supported there, by the same base means that carried him thither.

But here behold the majesty of the Muscogulge mico! he does not either publicly or privately beg of the people to place him in a situation to command and rule them. No, his appearance is altogether mysterious, as a benificent deity he rises king over them, as the sun rises to bless the earth!

No one will tell you how or when he became their king; but he is universally acknowledged to be the greatest person among them, and he is loved, esteemed and reverenced, although he associates, eats, drinks, and dances with them in common as another man; his dress is the same, and a stranger could not distinguish the king’s habitation from that of any other citizen, by any sort of splendour or magnificence; yet he percieves they act as though their mico beheld them, himself invisible. In a word, their mico seems to them, the representative of Providence or the Great Spirit, whom they acknowledge to preside over and influence their councils and public proceedings. He personally presides daily in their councils, either at the rotunda or public square: and even here his voice in regard to business in hand, is regarded no more than any other chief’s or senator’s, no farther than his advice, as being the best and wisest man of the tribe, and not by virtue of regal prerogative. But whether their ultimate decisions require unanimity, or only a majority of voices, I am uncertain; but probably where there is a majority, the minority voluntarily accede.

The most active part the mico takes is in the civil government of the town or tribe: here he has the power and prerogative of calling a council, to deliberate on peace and war, or all public concerns, as enquiring into, and deciding upon complaints and differences; but he has not the least shadow of exclusive executive power. He is complimented with the first visits of strangers, giving audience to ambassadors, with presents, and he has also the disposal of the public granary.

The next man in order of dignity and power, is the great war chief: he represents and exercises the dignity of the mico, in his absence, in council; his voice is of the greatest weight, in military affairs; his power and authority are entirely independent of the mico, though when a mico goes on an expedition, he heads the army, and is there the war chief. There are many of these war chiefs in a town or tribe, who are captains or leaders of military parties; they are elderly men, who in their youthful days have distinguished themselves in war by valour, subtilty and intrepidity; and these veteran chiefs, in a great degree, constitute their truly dignified and venerable senates.