Upon this continent the Indian found the
evidences in abundance of a preceding people, the monuments of whose
existence he disregards, but which, in the earth-mounds rising up over
all the land, arrest the white man's attention and wonder. He inquires
of the Indian inhabitant he is expelling from the country, Who was the
architect of these, and what their signification? and is answered: We
have no tradition which tells; our people found them when they came,
as you find them to-day. These traditions give the history of the
nations now here, and we find in every Southern tribe that they tell
of an immigration from the southwest.
The Muscogee, Natchez, Choctaw, and Chickasaw, all have the history of
their flying from beyond the Mississippi, and from the persecutions of
superior and more warlike nations, and resting here for security,
where they found none to molest them, and only these dumb evidences of
another people, who once filled the land, but had passed away.
When the white man came, he found but one race upon the two
continents. Their type was the same and universal, and only these
mounds to witness of a former race.
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