“At this place,” says Drake, “the disconsolate tribes of the South had made a last great stand; and had a tolerably fortified camp. It was said they were 1000 strong.” They were attacked on all sides; the fighting was kept up five hours; _five hundred and fifty-seven_ were left dead on the peninsula, and a great number killed by the horsemen, in crossing the river. _It is believed that not more than twenty escaped!_ “We continued,” says the _brave General Jackson_, “to destroy many of them who had concealed themselves under the banks of the river, until we were prevented by the night!”
And what had these unfortunate tribes done, that they should be exterminated? Simply this:—When the United States remodelled the southern states, reducing the Carolinas and Georgia, and creating the new states of Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi, they stipulated, in behalf of Georgia, to extinguish all the Indian titles to lands in that State, “as soon as it could be done on peaceable terms.” Georgia, impatient to seize on these lands, immediately employed all means to effect this object. When the Indians, in national council, would not sell their lands, they prevailed on a half-breed chief, M’Intosh, and a few others, of no character, to sell them; and, on this mock title, proceeded to expel the Indians. The Indians resisted; an alarm of rebellion was sounded through the States, and General Jackson sent to put it down. The Indians, as in all other quarters, were compelled to give way before the irresistible American power. We cannot go at length into this bloody history of oppression; but the character of the whole may be seen in that of a part.
But the most singular feature of the treatment of the Indians by the Americans is, that while they assign their irreclaimable nature as the necessary cause of their expelling or desiring to expel them from all the states east of the Mississippi, their most strenuous and most recent efforts have been directed against those numerous tribes, that were not only extensive but rapidly advancing in civilization. So far from refusing to adopt settled, orderly habits, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Cherokees, were fast conforming both to the religion and the habits of the Americans. The Creeks were numbered in 1814 at 20,000. The Choctaws had some years ago 4041 warriors, and could not therefore be estimated at less than four times that number in total population, or 16,000. In 1810, the Cherokees consisted of 12,400 persons; in 1824 they had increased to 15,000. The Chickasaws reckoned some years ago 1000 warriors, making the tribe probably 4000.