The South-West Volume Ii Part 7

"Where is she, George?" "Here she be, master," said he, pointing to a bright mulatto girl, about eighteen, with a genteel figure and a lively countenance, who was waiting with anxiety the reply of the planter.

Opposite to the line of males was also a line of females, extended along the left side of the court. They were about twenty in number, dressed in neat calico frocks, white ap.r.o.ns and capes, and fancy kerchiefs, tied in a mode peculiar to the negress, upon their heads. Their whole appearance was extremely neat and "tidy." They could not be disciplined to the grave silence observed by the males, but were constantly laughing and chattering with each other in suppressed voices, and appeared to take, generally, a livelier interest in the transactions in which all were equally concerned. The planter approached this line of female slaves, and inquired of the girl her capabilities as seamstress, nurse, and ironer. Her price was seven hundred and fifty dollars. He said he would take her to his family; and if the ladies were pleased with her, he would purchase her. The poor girl was as much delighted as though already purchased; and, at the command of the trader, went to prepare herself to leave the mart. Some other negroes were purchased, several of whom appeared merely powerful combinations of bone and muscle, and the only idea suggested to the mind, in gazing upon them, was of remarkable physical energy. In the dull eye and fleshy mouth there was no expression indicative of intellect.

It is the popular opinion, both at the north and south, that the negro is inferior in intellect to the white man. This opinion is not, however, founded upon just experience. The African intellect has never been developed. Individuals, indeed, have been educated, whose acquirements certainly reflect honour upon the race. Uneducated negroes have also exhibited indications of strong intellectual vigour. And because, in both instances, the negro has shown himself still inferior to the white man, he is unhesitatingly p.r.o.nounced an inferior being, irremediably so, in the estimation of his judges, by the operation of organic laws. That the African intellect, in its present state, is inferior to that of the European, is undeniable: but that, by any peculiarity in his organized system, a necessary inferiority ensues, will not so readily be admitted.

Physiologists have agreed, that physical peculiarities may be communicated from generation to generation; and it is no less certain that mental talents may thus be transmitted also. Dr. King, in speaking of the fatality which attended the house of Stuart, says, "If I were to ascribe their calamities to another cause" (than evil fate), "or endeavour to account for them by any natural means, I should think they were chiefly owing to a certain obstinacy of temper, which appears to have been hereditary, and inherent in all the Stuarts, except Charles the second." The Brahmins are much superior in intellect to all the other castes in Hindostan; and it is mentioned, says Combe, by the missionaries, as an ascertained fact, that the children of the Brahmins are naturally more acute, intelligent, and docile, than those of the inferior castes, age and other circ.u.mstances being equal. "Parents,"

says Dr. Gregory, "frequently live again in their offspring. It is certain that children resemble their parents, not only in countenance and in the form of the body, but in mental dispositions and in their virtues and vices. The haughty "gens Claudia" transmitted the peculiar mental character of its founder through six centuries, and in the tyrannical Nero again lived the imperious Appius Claudius." If this theory be correct, there is something more to be done before African intellect can be fairly developed. If culture will expand the intellect of the untutored negro--take one of the present generation for instance--according to this theory, which experience proves to be true, it is certain that he will transmit to his offspring an intellectual organization, so to speak, superior to that which was transmitted to himself by his parent; the mind of the offspring will be a less rude soil for mental cultivation than was his father's; and when his education is commenced, he will be one step in the scale of intellect in advance of his parents at the same period. When he arrives at maturity, he will, under equal circ.u.mstances, be mentally superior to his progenitors at the same period of their lives. His offspring will be superior to himself, and their offspring yet a grade higher in the scale of intelligence, and standing, perhaps, upon the very line drawn between human and angelic intellect. His mind will bear comparison with that of the white man; and, morally and intellectually, he will stand beside him as his equal.

This is mere theory, but it is theory based upon the operation of laws whose general principles cannot be controverted: and when the negro, by the emanc.i.p.ation of his species, has opportunity for the culture of his own mind--which, if he is disposed to neglect, the philanthropist will not be--a few generations will leave no traces of those mental shackles, which, like chains loaded upon the body, have so long borne him down to a level with the brute. Till time proves this original equi-mental organization of the white man and the negro, which opinion fact has been strengthening for two or three generations in individual instances, it is due, both to philanthropy and justice, to suspend the sentence which condemns him as a being less than man.

Shortly before leaving the slave mart--a handsome carriage drove up, from which alighted an elderly lady, who, leaning on the arm of a youth, entered the court. After looking at and questioning in a kind tone several of the female slaves, she purchased two, a young mother and her child, and in a few minutes afterward, at the solicitation of the youth, purchased the husband of the girl, and all three, with happy faces--happier, that they were not to be separated--flew to get their little parcels, and rode away with their mistress,--the wife and child sitting within the carriage on the front seat--and the man on the coach-box beside the coachman. We soon after mounted our horses, and with George and his wife walking on before us with elastic steps, returned to town. The slave market, which is the subject of this letter, I have since frequently visited, as well as four or five others in the vicinity of Natchez, where several hundred slaves of all ages, colours, and conditions, of both s.e.xes, were exposed for sale. I have conversed with a great number of them, from the liveliest to the most sullen, and my impression, which is daily strengthened by a more intimate knowledge of their species, is, that the negro is not dissatisfied with his condition--that it is seldom or never the subject of his thoughts--that he regards it as his destiny, as much as a home about the poles is the Laplander's; nor does he pine after freedom more than the other after the green hills and sunny skies of Italy. They find themselves first existing in this state, and pa.s.s through life without questioning the justice of their allotment, which, if they think at all, they suppose a natural one. Had the American slave once enjoyed freedom, these circ.u.mstances would be changed. But there is probably not one among them, except some venerable African, who has realized what it is to be free. So long as he has had any consciousness, he is conscious of having been a slave, and he fulfils his duties as such, without stopping from time to time to put the question to himself, "Is this my original destiny? Was my first ancestor created a slave?" With as much propriety might the haughty white man query if more exalted physical beauty and perfection were not once his, and whether man was not originally winged! There are, of course, individual exceptions to this general remark, but in the present darkened state of negro intellect, these exceptions are very few.

During the time they remain in the mart for sale, few men pa.s.s their time with more apparent contentment. There are two extensive markets for slaves, opposite to each other, on the road to Was.h.i.+ngton, three miles from Natchez. These I have pa.s.sed at least once a week for more than a year, and I have always seen the slaves either dancing to the sound of the violin, played by one of their number, playing at marbles, quoits, practising gymnastics, lounging, sleeping in the sun, or idling about the door, while their masters, the "slave traders," regardless of them, were playing at cards or backgammon, smoking or sitting about the door conversing together, or with a buyer; their presence not producing the least restraint upon the noisy merriment around them. But when a purchaser stops and desires to look at the "lot," the slaves at once leave their several amus.e.m.e.nts, and draw up into a line, for inspection and purchase; and when the stranger leaves, taking with him one or more of their number, to whom they bid a cheerful good-bye, they return to their former pursuits wholly unimpressed by the event that has just taken place.

Negroes, when brought into market, are always anxious to be sold; and to be sold first is a great desideratum, for in their estimation it is an evidence of their superiority. "None but poor n.i.g.g.e.r stay for be sol'

last." Hence, when a purchaser enters, they strive to appear before him to the best advantage, and by their manner a.s.siduously invite attention to themselves. There are but two things which at all depress the mind of the slave in market; these are, the possibility of obtaining a bad master, and that of being separated from their relations. The first, however, seldom troubles them, and the degree in which they are governed by this apprehension depends wholly upon their former treatment. With individuals who have been blessed with a partial master it may weigh much, but with the generality of slaves it is a light consideration. The latter apprehension is in a great measure lessened by a certainty of being sold together to the same individual, if possible. It is a rule seldom deviated from, to sell families and relations together, if practicable, and if not, at least to masters residing in the neighbourhood of each other. A negro trader, in my presence, refused to sell a negro girl, for whom a planter offered a high price, because he would not also purchase her sister--"for," said the trader, "they are much attached to each other, and when their mother died I promised her I would not part them."

Relatives, except husband and wife, often prefer being sold to different masters in the same neighbourhood. This is to be attributed to the roving propensity of their race, which induces them to prefer a separation of this nature, for a pretence to visit from one plantation to another on Sabbaths and Christmas holydays, at which season the slaves have a temporary freedom for several days. Then the highways, lanes, and streets, in town and country, are filled with gay parties on foot or on plough-horses, caparisoned for the occasion, as happy as the total absence of care, thoughtlessness of to-morrow, plenty of whiskey, and a cessation of all labour, can make them.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] Male slaves of any age under forty are always denominated boys.

XL.

Towns of Mississippi--Naming estates--The influence of towns on the social relations of the planters--Southern refinement --Colleges--Oakland--Clinton--Jefferson--History of the latter --Collegiate system of instruction--Primary departments-- Quadrennial cla.s.ses.

The towns and villages of Mississippi, as in European states, are located perfectly independent of each other, isolated among its forests, and often many leagues apart, leaving in the intervals large tracts of country covered with plantations, and claiming no minuter subdivision than that of "county." Natchez, for instance, is a corporation one mile square, but from the boundaries of the city to Woodville, the next incorporated town south, there is an interval of thirty-eight miles. It is necessary for the planters who reside between towns so far asunder, to have some more particular address, than the indefinite one arising from their vicinity to one or other of these towns. Hence has originated the pleasing custom of naming estates, as in England; and names so given are always regarded by the planters themselves, and by the community, as an inseparable part of their address. These names are generally selected with taste, such as "Monmouth," "Laurel-hill,"

"Grange," "Magnolia grove," "The Forest," "Cottage," "Briars,"

"Fatherland," and "Anchorage"--the last given by a retired navy officer to his plantation. The name is sometimes adopted with reference to some characteristic of the domain, as "The Oaks," "China grove," "New Forest," &c., but more frequently it is a mere matter of fancy. Towns in this state have usually originated from the location of a county seat, after the formation of a new county. Here the court-house is placed, and forms the centre of an area which is soon filled with edifices and inhabitants. If the county lies on the river, another town may arise, for a s.h.i.+pping port, but here the acc.u.mulation of towns usually ceases.

A county seat, and a cotton mart, are all that an agricultural country requires. The towns in this state are thus dispersed two or three to each county, nor so long as this is a planting country, will there be any great increase to their number, although in wealth and importance they may rival, particularly the s.h.i.+pping ports, the most populous places in the valley of the west. In these towns are the banks, the merchants, the post offices, and the several places of resort for business or pleasure that draw the planter and his family from his estate. Each town is the centre of a circle which extends many miles around it into the country, and daily attracts all within its influence.

The ladies come in their carriages "to shop," the gentlemen, on horseback, to do business with their commission merchants, visit the banks, hear the news, dine together at the hotels, and ride back in the evening. The southern town is properly the "Exchange" for the neighbouring planters, and the "Broadway" for their wives and daughters.

And as no plantation is without a private carriage, the number of these gay vehicles, filling the streets of the larger towns on pleasant mornings in the winter, is surprising. I have counted between thirty and forty private carriages in the streets of Natchez in one morning. In a small country village, I once numbered seventeen, standing around a Methodist chapel. Showy carriages and saddle horses are the peculiar characteristics of the "moving spectacle" in the streets of south-western towns.

Every village is a nucleus of southern society, to which the least portion is generally contributed by itself. When a public ball is given by the bachelors, in one of these towns--for private parties are scarcely known--the tickets of invitation fly into the retirement of the plantations, within the prescribed circle, often to the distance of thirty miles. Thus families, who reside several leagues apart, on opposite sides of the town, and who might otherwise never a.s.sociate, unless on "change," or in "shopping," meet together, like the inhabitants of one city. This state of things unites, in a social bond, the intelligent inhabitants of a large extent of country, who are nearly equally wealthy, and creates a state of society in the highest degree favourable to hospitality and social feeling. These social "circles" often revolve within one another, and sometimes enlarge, until they embrace several towns. The Mississippians are remarkable for their "locomotivity;" an organ which they have plainly developed, if we reason, as phrenologists sometimes do, from effect to cause--and whose existence is manifest from their propensity annually to depopulate their state, by taking northern tours during the summer months. During the season of gayety, in the winter months, the public a.s.semblies and private coteries of Natchez are unsurpa.s.sed by those of any other city, in the elegance, refinement, or loveliness of the individuals who compose them. If you will bear in mind, that the southern females of wealth are usually educated in the most finished style, at the first female seminaries in the north, and, until recently, not seldom in Europe; and recollect the personal beauty, sprightliness, and extreme refinement of the southern lady, you will not be surprised that elegant women grace the private circles, and s.h.i.+ne in the gay a.s.semblies of southern cities.

But fas.h.i.+on and refinement are not confined to Natchez. In nearly every county reside opulent planters, whose children enjoy precisely the same advantages as are afforded in the city. Drawn from the seclusion of their plantations, their daughters are sent to the north; whence they return, in the course of time, with cultivated minds and elegant manners. Hence every village can draw around it a polished circle of its own; for refinement and wealth do not always diminish here, as in New-England, in the inverse ratio of distance from a metropolis--and elegant women may often be found blooming in the depths of forests far in the interior.

Less attention is paid to the mental or personal cultivation of the male youth of this state, than to that of the females. Many of them are partially educated at home; and, by the time they attain the age at which northern boys enter college, become a.s.sistants on the plantation, which they expect one day to inherit; or, at the age of nineteen or twenty, receive from their parents land and negroes, and commence planting for themselves. At the age of twenty-one or two they frequently marry. Many planters are opposed to giving their sons, whom they destine to succeed them as farmers, a cla.s.sical education. A common practical education they consider sufficient for young gentlemen who are to bury themselves for life in the retirement of a plantation. But Mississippi, in this age and at this juncture, from the peculiar construction of her political and social laws, demands an educated youth.--The majority of the planters are able to educate their children in a superior manner; and if they do this, they will elevate the rising generation high in the scale of society, and give Mississippi an honourable rank among the republics of America. Although education is not indigenous, and is too frequently a secondary consideration in the minds of many, children in the towns are probably as well educated as they would be at the north, under similar circ.u.mstances, for no village is without private schools.

But the education of young children on plantations is much neglected.

Many boys and girls, whose parents reside five or ten miles from any town or academy, and do not employ tutors, grow up to the age of eight or ten, unable either to read or write. Some planters, who have but one or two children, and do not think it worth while to employ a tutor for so small a number, thoughtless of the injury their children may sustain, suffer them to grow up at home, almost ignorant even of the alphabet, till of an age to be sent away to a boarding-school, or an academy, where they first learn to read. In such a state of things, it is not uncommon to meet with very interesting and intelligent children wholly ignorant of those childish studies, and that story-book information, which throw such a charm over their little society, invigorating the intellectual faculties, and laying a foundation for a superstructure of mind. Often several families will unite and employ a tutor; constructing, for the purpose, a school-house, in a central position among their plantations. But those who look forward to a high rank in American and European society for their children, employ private tutors in their own houses, even if they have but one child. Some gentlemen send their children, when quite young, to the north, and visit them every summer. Two-thirds of the planters' children of this state are educated out of it. There is annually a larger sum carried out of the state, for the education of children at the north, and in the expenses of parents in making them yearly visits there, than would be sufficient to endow an inst.i.tution at intervals of four or five years.

There are three colleges in Mississippi; but Mississippians have so long been in the habit of sending their children away, when it was necessary, that they still adhere to the custom, when there is no farther occasion for it; and the consequence is, that their own inst.i.tutions are neglected, and soon fall into decay, while the money which they send for the support of northern colleges, would elevate their own to high literary distinction and usefulness.

Oakland college, twenty-five miles from Natchez, near Rodney, is a flouris.h.i.+ng inst.i.tution under Presbyterian patronage. It is of recent foundation, and has yet no permanent buildings; but handsome college edifices are about to be erected for the accommodation of the students.

Its situation is rural and very healthy. Its funds are respectable, and under the presidency of the Rev. J. Chamberlin, a gentleman of learning and piety, it is rapidly rising into eminence. It already has about one hundred students, and its professors are men of talent and industry, one of whom is a son of the late Dr. Payson of Portland. It is thus that young northerners work their way to distinction in the south and west.

There is another college at Clinton, of which I have before spoken, and also an academy at Natchez, ranking as high as a south-western college, under the superintendence of J. H. B. Black, Esq. of New-Jersey.

Jefferson college, in the village of Was.h.i.+ngton, six miles from Natchez, is the oldest and best endowed inst.i.tution in the state. It was founded by private subscription in 1802, and subsequently received a grant of a towns.h.i.+p of unsaleable land from Congress, exchanged two years since for a more eligible tract, which sold for a very large sum. The income of the college is now about eight thousand dollars, arising from a fund of more than one hundred and fifty thousand. The building is a large, three-story brick edifice, handsomely finished, and capable of containing one hundred students. The location is highly beautiful, in a grove of majestic oaks, and at the head of a fine green parade, which lies, with a magnificent oak in its centre, between it and the village.

A primary department is connected with it; and a pleasant brick building, half surrounded with galleries, on the opposite side of the "green," is appropriated to this branch of the inst.i.tution. The primary department, which includes a moiety of the students, is under the able superintendence of professor Crane, a native of New-Jersey, and recently from West Point. The history of this inst.i.tution will confirm what I have stated in my remarks upon education. Since its organization until very recently, it has laboured under pecuniary difficulties, with which it was unable to contend; for a great part of the time it has been without pupils or teachers; and its halls have occasionally been used for private schools. It obtained no celebrity as a college until 1829-30, when Mr. Williston, the author of "Eloquence in the United States," and "Williston's Tacitus," was chosen its president, and the inst.i.tution was placed under military organization, after the plan adopted by capt. Alden Partridge. The novelty of this mode drew a great number of pupils within its walls. The following year ill health compelled president Williston to resign, and he was succeeded by major Holbrook, formerly princ.i.p.al of the seminary in Georgetown, D. C. During his presidency there were above one hundred and fifty cadets connected with the inst.i.tution, and it was more flouris.h.i.+ng in every respect than any other in the south-west. But the new president, seized with the mania for cotton-planting, which infects all who reside here for any length of time, devoted a portion of his attention to agricultural pursuits, and the patrons of the college, perhaps regarding this additional vocation as incompatible with that of instructing, withdrew their sons, one after another, the novelty of a military education having worn off, and fell into the old mode of keeping them at home on their plantations, or sending them to Kentucky, the great academy for Mississippi youth, to complete their education. During the summer the president died, and the inst.i.tution again became disorganized. In 1833, capt. Alden Partridge was invited by the board of trustees to a.s.sume the presidency, but after remaining a few months, returned to the north, unable to restore it to its former flouris.h.i.+ng condition. The college halls became again, and for the sixth time since their foundation, nearly deserted. In the spring of 1834, the board invited two professors to take charge of the college until they could decide upon the choice of a president. The present year, C. B. Dubuisson, Esq. of Philadelphia, one of these professors, was unanimously elected president, and was inaugurated on the 6th of July, 1835. Under the new president, who is a finished scholar and a very amiable and energetic man, the college has become very flouris.h.i.+ng, and is rapidly advancing to permanent literary distinction. Professor Symmes, a graduate of the University of Virginia, and an able scholar, is professor of mathematics. Under these two gentlemen, and the professor in the primary department, planters may now have their sons as well educated as at the north. They are beginning to think so. But if they would more generally adopt the opinion, that their sons can be educated at the south by northern professors as well as at the north, the literary inst.i.tutions of this country would not have to struggle for existence, scarcely able to rise above the rank of an academy. In connexion with the disinclination which southerners have to educating their sons at home, and their disposition to depreciate their native inst.i.tutions, there exists another cause, with a direct tendency to check their advancement. It is the system of education pursued in their colleges, which, in a great degree, is the result of necessity.

Until within a few years, there have been no good preparatory schools in this state, where youth could fit themselves for admission into college.

Now, to form the lowest cla.s.s in a college, it is necessary that those who are to compose it--however large or small their number--should have gone through a prescribed series of preparatory studies. But where there has been no opportunity for pursuing this preparatory course, as here in the south-west, the college must open its doors to unprepared youth, to the great injury of its cla.s.ses, or, in the absence of other means, provide measures for fitting them for admission. These measures all colleges here are at present taking, by the establishment of primary departments; until the pupils of these departments are qualified for promotion, the college cla.s.ses remain vacant; and thus, though nominally a college, the inst.i.tution is, for the time being, an academy, or preparatory school for _itself_. This is the present state of the colleges here, and none of them have advanced so far as to open the junior cla.s.s. Jefferson College indeed has been, with the exception of its condition under military discipline a few years since, no more than a preparatory department since its organization. It is now rising into the dignity of a college, although the quadrennial course, which in our notions is inseparable from a collegiate education, is not intended by the board to form a part of their system. The method adopted in the University of Virginia, in relation to the routine of studies and succession of cla.s.ses, will be partially pursued. In the present state of things, this is no doubt the preferable course to follow; but it is to be feared that the college will never be eminent or very permanent, until established on the good old basis of our northern inst.i.tutions. If this system were adopted, and a professor appointed to fill the chair in each department of science, whether there were students or not--and the freshman cla.s.s opened, even by the admission of a single scholar--the inst.i.tution, with its immense fund, would stand upon an immovable foundation. The cla.s.ses would increase every year in size, and at the end of the fifth series, or in twenty years, a cla.s.s of seniors would receive their degrees, whom even aristocratic Harvard would not disdain to acknowledge as her foster children.

XLI.

Indian mounds--Their origin and object--Tumuli near Natchez --Skulls and other remains--Visit to the fortifications or mounds at Seltzertown--Appearance and description of the mounds--Their age--Reflections--History of the Natchez.

The Indian mounds, those gigantic mausolea of unhistoried nations, will ever present a subject of absorbing interest to the reflecting mind.

Elevating their green summits amid the great forests of the west--mysterious links of the unknown past--they will stand imperishable through time, encircled by the cities and palaces of men, silent but impressive monitors of their grasping ambition. These sepulchres are scattered every where throughout the valley of the Mississippi--itself a mighty cemetery of mighty tombs. In the pathless forests, and on the banks of the rivers of the south-west, they are still more thickly strewed than in the north valley, indicating a denser population. It was recently suggested to me, by a gentleman of antiquarian tastes, that the Indians of the southern valley, by whom these mounds were constructed, and who were a mild and inoffensive people, far advanced in civilization, were, in remote ages, invaded by a horde of northern tribes from the Atlantic sh.o.r.es--as were the effeminate states of southern Europe by the Goths and Vandals--who drove out the original possessors, and took possession of their delightful country; while the fugitive inhabitants crossed the Mississippi, and, moving to the west and south, laid the foundation of the empire of Mexico. This theory is not improbable, and it is supported by many established facts. It is certain that the rude tribes found in this country, by De Soto and his followers, remnants of which still exist, cannot be identified with those by whom these tumuli were erected. Among them there exists not even a tradition of the formation of these mounds.

There have been many curious hypotheses advanced in reference to their object. Some have supposed that they were constructed, after a great battle, of the numerous bodies of the slain; others, that they were the customary burial-places of the Indians, gradually acc.u.mulating in a series of years, until, terminating in a cone, they were covered with earth, and deserted for new cemeteries, to be in like manner abandoned in their turn. Others, by a train of a.n.a.logous reasoning, founded upon the prevailing custom of other aboriginal tribes, have supposed them to be fortifications; and others again believe them temples; or, like the pyramids of Egypt, structures connected with the mysteries of the religion of their builders. But their true origin, like that of their grander prototypes on the plains of Memphis, must for ever be lost in conjecture.

In the vicinity of Natchez, and within three hours' ride of the city, in various directions, are twelve or fifteen of these mounds. Some of them have been partially excavated; and besides many vessels, weapons of war, and ordinary human remains, skeletons of men of a large size have been found in them. On the estate of a gentleman two miles from Natchez, and in the loveliest vale in this region, there are three, situated equidistant from each other, along the bank of the St. Catharine. One of these was recently excavated by Dr. Powell, a distinguished phrenologist of the west; from which he obtained several earthen vessels, neatly made, various fragments, and besides other bones, three perfect skulls--one the most beautiful head I ever beheld, of a young Choctaw girl; another, the skull of a man of the same tribe; and the third, a ma.s.sive and remarkably formed skull of a Natchez. I have since examined two of these mounds, but was not able to add any thing important to the discoveries of Dr. Powell. The perfect decomposition which has taken place in one of them, would indicate a much greater age than is generally attributed to them. I laid bare a perpendicular face of this mound, ten feet square, and the spade struck but one hard substance, which proved to be the lower jaw, containing seven or eight teeth, of some wild animal, and a few splinters of corroded human bones that crumbled between the fingers. I could easily discern several strata, in this exposed surface, alternately of common earth and a black friable loam, resembling powder to the eye, but soft like paste in the fingers.

These black strata were veined with light brown or dingy white streaks, of a firmer consistence. The location of this mound, its height, not exceeding twenty feet, the uniform decomposition, and the regular series of strata, lead to the conclusion, that it was constructed at one time, probably after a battle, of the bodies of men whose deaths took place at the same period, laid in layers, one above another, as the modern slain are buried, by only reversing the process, in deep pits.

The skulls found by Dr. Powell in the mound opened by him, were very perfect specimens. The head of the Choctaw differs not materially from those of Europeans, when considered phrenologically, although its developements of the organs of animal feelings are more prominent than those of the intellectual faculties. The head is generally smaller than that of the European, but the general contour is nearly the same. The skull of the Natchez is remarkable in every respect. It is large, like the German head, very angular, with bold developements. It is shaped artificially in infancy,--a peculiarity only of the skulls of the males--so that the top of the forehead forms the apex of a cone. The compressure necessary to produce this shape has entirely destroyed the organs of veneration, of benevolence, and of the reasoning powers. My examination of this skull was for a moment only, and very superficial, so that I did not ascertain the particular deficiency or developement of any special organ. The heads of the females of this extinct tribe, I am informed by those who have examined them, are very fine, displaying in their graceful, undulating outline, the _beau ideal_ of the human cranium.

There is a mound about five miles from Natchez, upon the plantation of a gentleman, whose taste or ambition has influenced him to erect his dwelling upon its summit. A strange dwelling-place for the living, over the sepulchres of the dead! Eleven miles from the city there is another mound, or a collection of mounds, which, in the beauty of its location, the elevation of its summit, and the ingenuity displayed in its construction, either as a fortress or a temple, is ent.i.tled to an important rank among these mysterious structures of the western valley.

A few days since I left Natchez with a northern gentleman, for the purpose of visiting this mound. Three miles from town we pa.s.sed the race-course, situated in a delightful intervale. This is the finest "course" in the south, pa.s.sing round a perfectly level plain in a circle of one mile, whose centre is slightly convex, so that the spectators can obtain a full view of the horses while running. Ladies, on extraordinary occasions, attend the races, although it is not customary. But to south-western gentlemen the race-course is a place of resort of the most alluring character. On the St. Catharine race-course, now alluded to, on great race days, the chivalry of Mississippi will be found a.s.sembled in high spirits, and full of the peculiar excitement incident to the occasion. Home is, perhaps, the proper scene for studying the planter's character; but it will never be perfectly understood until he is seen, booted and spurred, with his pocket-book in one hand, and bank bills fluttering in the other, moving about upon the turf.

Three miles from the race-ground, about which is gathered a little village, sometimes called St. Catharinesville, we entered the pretty and rural town of Was.h.i.+ngton. The whole village was embowered in the foliage of China trees, which thickly lined both sides of the main street.

Turning down a street to the left, which led to the college, we alighted there after a short ride over the green, as it was the intention of the president and one or two of the professors to accompany us to the mound.

We were shown the college library, comprised in a few shelves filled with volumes of the statutes; and the cabinet, where, besides a few interesting geological specimens, were some bones of a mammoth, or mastodon, found in the neighbourhood.

In the course of an hour we all mounted our horses, and, entering the village, rode down its quiet and shaded streets, and emerged on the brow of the hill or ridge on which the town is built; and shortly after crossed the pebbly bed of the St. Catharine's, which, in its serpentine windings, crosses nearly every road in the neighbourhood of Natchez.

Beyond this stream, from an eminence over which the road wound, we had a fine view of the village on the opposite hill, with its college, lifting its roof among the towering oaks; its dwellings, with their light galleries and balconies, half hidden among the shade trees; the female academy, with its green lawn, a high colonnaded private edifice, overtopping the trees, and its neat una.s.suming churches.

After a pleasant ride of five miles, through forest and plantation scenery, over a country pleasantly undulating, we arrived at the summit of a hill, just after pa.s.sing a neat brick cottage, surrounded by a parterre, and half hidden in the woods; so that it would not have been observed, but for the wide gate on the road-side--often the only indication, as I have before remarked, of the vicinage of a planter's residence. From this hill we were gratified with an extensive prospect of a richly wooded and partially cultivated extent of country, occasionally rising into precipitous hills, crowned with forest trees.

About a mile to the north, on our left, in the centre of a large cotton plantation, surrounded by an amphitheatre of hills, stood a singular cl.u.s.ter of eminences, isolated from those encircling them, whose summits were dest.i.tute of verdure or trees. These were the goal of our excursion--the celebrated tumuli of Mississippi. Descending the hill, we pa.s.sed through a gate, opening into a narrow lane, bordered on either side with thick clumps of trees, and the luxuriant wild shrubbery which grows by the streams and along the roads throughout the south; and after winding through ravines and crossing bayous, we arrived at the "gin" of the plantation; a large building resembling a northern hay-press, where some negroes were at work; one of whom, with a readiness always characteristic of the negro slave, immediately came out to take charge of our horses. Declining his aid, as we had no authority for appropriating his services--a liberty as to which some planters are very punctilious--we hitched our horses to the rail fence. Had the proprietor of the estate been present, we should have solicited the aid of some of his slaves in excavating: but since then I have met with the venerable planter, who, with great politeness, has offered me every facility for making whatever researches or excavations curiosity might suggest.

We ascended the steep sides of the mound with some difficulty, as they were inclined but a few degrees from the perpendicular. On gaining the summit, thirty-five feet from the base, we saw, extended before us, an elliptical area, whose plane was three or four feet lower than the verge of the mound. To the right, at the eastern extremity of the area, rose a super-mound, fifteen feet high; and on the opposite extremity, to the east, stood another, rising thirty feet from the floor of the area or summit of the great mound we had just ascended, and sixty feet from the level of the surrounding plantation. From the summit of this second mound the eye embraced an irregular amphitheatre, confined by elevated forests, half a league in diameter, whose centre was the mound, from which, on nearly every side, the ground descended, almost imperceptibly, with a few obstructions, to the foot of the surrounding hills.

This peculiarity of its location, so favourable for a military position, would indicate such to have been the object of its constructors. The whole structure, so far as an opinion can be formed from a careful survey of its general features, was originally a conical hill, now changed to its present shape by human labour; which nature, in a wayward mood, placed, like Joseph's sheaf, conspicuous, and aloof from the hills that surround it on every side. From its present aspect, the mound, if originally a natural hill, must have been forty or fifty feet high, of an oblong form, its greatest diameter being from east to west, with very precipitous sides. It consists now of a single conspicuous elevation, oval in shape, and presenting, on every side, indentations and projections, not unlike the salient angles of military works, serving to strengthen the opinion that it was a fortification. Its summit is perfectly flat, comprising an area of four acres, surrounded by a kind of bal.u.s.trade, formed by the projection of the sides of the mound two or three feet higher than the area. The two super-mounds before mentioned stand at either extremity of the summit, in a direction east and west; a position indicating design, and confirming the views of those who believe the structure to be a temple. The Indians, by whom the mound is supposed to have been erected, were, like the Peruvians, wors.h.i.+ppers of the sun and of fire, and maintained a perpetual sacrifice of the latter upon their altars. If this was a temple, the two super-mounds were its altars; on one of which, toward the east, burned the sacrifice of fire, to welcome the rising sun, of which it was a pure and beautiful emblem; while the bright flame upon the altar toward the west, mingled with his last expiring beams. Between these two superior mounds are four others of inferior height, two of which border the northern verge of the area, and two the southern, although not exactly opposite to the former. Thus the area upon the summit is surrounded by six tumuli, of various elevations. The largest of them, to the west, before mentioned, is flat on the top, which contains about one-fourth of an acre. Its external sides slope, as do the outside surfaces of the other five, gradually down to the base of the great mound upon which it is constructed.

The whole work is surrounded by the remains of a ditch; from which, and from the sides of the chief mound, the earth must have been taken to form those upon the summit. The material of which the whole is constructed, is the same alluvial earth as that composing the sides of the ditch and the surrounding plain. Neither stone nor brick forms any portion of the material of the work, nor is the former found any where in the vicinity. In the centre of the elevated area is the mouth of a subterranean pa.s.sage, leading, with an easy inclination, to a spring without the mound, on the north side of the plain. It is now fallen in, and choked with briers, vines, and young trees. There are traces also of another avenue, conducting to the south side, and opening into the country. Against the two eastern angles of the mound, at its base, are two smaller mounds, ten feet high, which might be taken for bastions by one who regarded the work as a fortification. In the early settlement of this country, the mound was covered with fruit-trees of a large size, whose age indicated uninterrupted possession of their places for centuries. It is now divested of its trees, and under cultivation. It is to be regretted that the axe or plough should ever have desecrated a monument so sacred to the antiquary.

There is every evidence that formerly this position was one of great importance. Remains of excavated roads, pa.s.sing through the adjacent forests, and converging to this mound as their common centre, still exist, in which large trees are growing, whose age--more than two hundred years--gives an approximation to the date when these roads were disused, and when, probably, the spot to which they centred, ceased to be regarded either as a shrine for the Indian pilgrim--a national temple--or the centre of their military strength. Human remains of very large size have been discovered in its vicinity, and also fragments of pottery, weapons, pipes, and mortar-shaped vessels, covered with ornamental tracery and hieroglyphics, evincing a high degree of advancement in the arts. If their dwellings and apparel were made with the same skill which is displayed in the utensils and weapons discovered in these mounds, their fabricators will be regarded, so far as this criterion extends, as having possessed a high degree of civilization.

In surveying this mound from the plain, the mind is impressed with the idea of the vast amount of human labour expended in thus piling it up--mound upon mound--like Pelion upon Ossa. Thousands of human emmets have toiled to rear this hill--their busy hum filled the air, and every spot around us was trodden by their nimble feet. The question is naturally suggested to the mind, while gazing upon the huge pile, "For what was it constructed?"--and imagination, surveying the sad history of the departed nations, who once inhabited this pleasant land, might answer that a prophetic warning of their total annihilation influenced these people to erect a national tomb. And are they not their tombs? Are not these the only evidences that they ever have been--and are they not the receptacles of their national remains? The footstep of the labourer is now stayed for ever! his voice is hushed in death! The shout of the hunter--the cry of the warrior--the voice of love, are heard no more.

"The Natchez tribe of Indians," says a beautiful writer, to whom I have before alluded, and who involves in his historical sketch a touching narrative, "who inhabited the luxuriant soil of Mississippi, were a mild, generous, and hospitable people. The offspring of a serene climate, their character was marked by nothing ferocious; and beyond the necessity of self-defence, or the unavoidable collisions with neighbouring tribes, by nothing martial. Their government, it is true, was most despotic; and, perhaps, the history of no other nation north of the equator presents a parallel; and yet no charge of an unnecessary, or unwarrantable exercise of this great power, is made against them, even by their historians, who were also the countrymen of their oppressors.

Their king, or chief, was called "THE SUN," and the exalted station which he held, was designated by a representation of that luminary worn upon his breast. He united also with his civic function, the priestly power and supremacy--and thus entrenched behind the ramparts of physical force, and wielding the terrors of superst.i.tion, he was absolute master of the lives and property of his subjects. His equal, in dignity and power, was his queen, under the t.i.tle of "THE WIFE OF THE SUN." Thus, then, living in undisturbed repose, and in the innocent enjoyment of the bounties of nature, there came in an evil hour to their peaceful sh.o.r.es, a party of French emigrants, who, about the end of the seventeenth or beginning of the eighteenth century, navigated the Mississippi in quest of wealth and territory. They were received with all the cordiality and affection that these guiltless and inoffensive beings could bestow. The choicest gifts of the beneficent Creator had been showered upon them with a lavish hand, and with a spirit, somewhat allied to his who had conferred them, they cheerfully tendered to the houseless wanderers a partic.i.p.ation in the blessings they themselves enjoyed. These substantial pledges of amity and good feeling were received with apparent grat.i.tude by the emigrants; but their immediate wants supplied, they were again thrown back upon their evil pa.s.sions, that for a moment had been quelled by misfortune, and perpetrated acts of injustice and cruelty which excited the indignation of their benefactors. Driven almost to frenzy, by repeated acts of aggression, they attempted a re-establishment of their rights, but were eventually subdued, and basely ma.s.sacred. The French, upon their arrival, affected to treat upon terms of reciprocity for the products of the soil; perceiving, however, the unsuspicious temper of these generous Indians, they threw off the mask, and urged novel and extravagant demands; even extending to the fields which supported their wives and children--and not until they were driven in ignominy from them into the depth of the wilderness, were their shameless oppressors satisfied. At this period commenced the league against the French, which embraced all the tribes lying on the east, and to the failure of which, through the unmerited compa.s.sion of their queen, they owed their defeat and extermination.