Elsie and Her Namesakes
Page 9
CHAPTER IX
The next morning the weather was such as made the _Dolphin's_ saloona more attractive place to her passengers than was her deck; so therethey all gathered and sat chatting cosily together till at length thechildren began asking Grandma Elsie for another of her interestinghistorical stories.
"I think it is Captain Raymond's turn to be narrator now," she saidwith a smiling glance at him, "and I feel inclined to be one of theaudience."
"And I am inclined to be a listener to a story from you, mother," hereturned pleasantly; "or if you are unwilling to entertain us in thatway this morning, perhaps Cousin Ronald may feel inclined to do so."
"Thanks for the invitation, captain, but I would vastly prefer the roleof listener," was Mr. Lilburn's response to that, and after a moment'ssilent consideration the captain said: "As we are now passing throughthe Gulf of Mexico, some distance south of the States of Alabama andMississippi, I suppose a few passages from their history may proveinteresting and instructive to at least the younger members of myaudience. Shall I give them?"
The query seemed addressed to the children, and was promptly replied toby a chorus of expressions of pleasure in the prospect; for all thereknew the captain to be an interesting narrator of historical events.
"I shall begin with Alabama, just now the nearer of the two States,"he said. "The word Alabama signifies 'Here we rest.' It is an Indianexpression. Fernando de Soto was the first white man who ever enteredthe State. That was in 1540. His coming displeased the Indians wholived there and considered the country their own, therefore theyopposed his progress in several battles. He found them more civilizedthan in other sections of America which he visited. Just above theconfluence of the Tombigbee and Alabama rivers they had a place calledMaubila, consisting of eighty handsome houses, each large enough tocontain a thousand men. Round about them was a high wall, made ofimmense trunks of trees set deep in the ground and close together,strengthened with cross-timbers and interwoven with large vines.
"De Soto and his men entered the town, and were presently treacherouslyattacked by ten thousand of the Indians. The Spaniards resisted theattack, and a battle ensued which lasted nine hours, and resulted inthe destruction of the town and the killing of six thousand Indians.The Spaniards, too, suffered terribly, lost eighty men, forty-fivehorses and all their baggage and camp equipage."
"So it was very bad for both armies, wasn't it, papa?" said Ned.
"Yes, it was, indeed," replied his father, "but the Spaniards were theones most to blame. This country belonged to the Indians; what righthad the Spaniards to come here and try to take it from them? Surely,none at all. What presumption it was in the sovereigns of Europe togive to whomsoever they pleased great tracts of land in America towhich they themselves had no real right.
"But to go back to my story. The Indians were desperate, and fought theinvaders, contesting every rood of the ground from the hour of theirlanding. And naturally, whenever a Spaniard fell into their hands,they returned cruelty for cruelty; and the Spaniards were very, verycruel to men, women and children; but De Soto grew tired of having thecruelty of his men returned upon them, therefore he invited a powerfulCreek chief to meet him for a friendly talk. But the chief scorned theinvitation, called the white men by the names they deserved, and gavethem warning that he would never cease making war upon them as long asone of their hated race remained in the country. And both he and hisfollowers carried out their threat, resorting to ambush and stealthysurprises, killing scores, whose heads they chopped off and carried onthe ends of poles.
"But some of this you have been told before in our talks over thehistory of Florida.
"De Soto crossed Northern Georgia and Northeastern Alabama to Maubila,where they had that terrific fight of which I have just told you. Thefollowing winter was a severe one, passed by the Spaniards in thecountry of the Chickasaws, around the tributaries of the Yazoo. In thespring a furious engagement took place with the Chickasaws, in whichthe Spaniards came near being annihilated. In April the forlorn remnantbegan again tramping through the wilderness, blindly groping for theland where De Soto had been told he would find great quantities of gold.
"In the month of May, 1541, De Soto and his men reached the bank of theMississippi River, above the mouth of the St. Francis. The men stood along time, gazing upon it with awe and admiration, for it is one of themightiest rivers of the world, and they were the first Europeans to seeit at any distance above its mouth."
"And did they stop there, papa?" asked Ned.
"No, my son; they were not yet ready to give up their search for goldand for the Pacific Ocean, which they believed was now not far away."
"Didn't know much about geography, did they?" laughed Ned.
"No; scarcely anything of that of this continent," replied his father;"but perhaps my little son is not much wiser now in regard to what wasthen the condition of what is now this great country of ours. Can youtell him, Grace, what it was at that time?"
"In 1540, papa? A wilderness peopled only by savages and wild beasts.It was not until 1620 that the pilgrims came to Massachusetts. Thefirst settlement in Maryland was not made until 1631. Virginia's firstsettlers came in 1607. But the French Huguenots planted a colony inSouth Carolina as early as May, 1562, twenty years later than De Soto'svisit to Alabama. Georgia was the last settled of the thirteen originalcolonies."
"And those thirteen colonies were all there was of our country at thetime of the Revolutionary War, weren't they?" asked Elsie Dinsmore.
"Yes," replied the captain; "thirteen colonies at the beginning of thatwar, thirteen States before it ended.
"But to go back to the story of Alabama. It seems to have been left tothe Indians until the spring of 1682, when Robert Cavalier de la Salledescended the Mississippi to its mouth, named the country Louisiana,and took possession of it in the name of the King of France. All theMississippi valley was then claimed by France, but in 1763 she cededit to England. West Florida, from 1764 to 1781, included quite a gooddeal of the present territory of Alabama and Mississippi. In May of1779 Spain declared war against Great Britain, and the next March theSpanish governor of Louisiana captured Mobile. In 1783 Great Britainceded to the United States all territory east of the Mississippi,except Florida, which she ceded back to Spain.
"Alabama was at that time almost entirely in the occupation of theIndians. There was a garrison of Spanish troops at Mobile, one at St.Stephen's, on the Tombigbee, and there were trading posts at differentpoints in the South and West. And now the United States bought thewhole country west of what is now Georgia to the Mississippi, and in1817 made it the Mississippi Territory. Fort Stoddard was built nearthe confluence of the Alabama and Tombigbee. During the War of 1812with Great Britain there was a great deal of fighting with the Indiansof Alabama. The Creeks were the principal tribe, and in 1812 theywere stirred up to war by Tecumseh, the celebrated Shawnee warrior.In August they attacked Fort Mimms; the garrison made a desperateresistance, but were overcome, and out of three hundred men, women andchildren, only seventeen survived the massacre.
"This aroused the adjoining States to action. Generals Jackson,Claiborn, Floyd and Coffee entered the Indian country and defeated theIndians at Talladega, where two hundred and ninety of their warriorswere slain. In the same month (November) General Floyd attacked theCreeks on their sacred ground, at Autossee. Four hundred of theirhouses were burned and two hundred of their warriors killed, amongwhom were the kings of Autossee and Tallahassee. The last stand of theCreeks was at Horseshoe Bend, where the Indians fought desperately, butwere defeated with the loss of nearly six hundred men. The remainingwarriors submitted, and in 1814 a treaty of peace was made, and theremainder of the Creeks have removed beyond the Mississippi.
"After that people poured in from Georgia, the two Carolinas,Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. The State grew rapidly in wealthand population, so that in 1860 it was the fourth of the South inimportance and the second in the amount of cotton produced."
"It was a slave S
tate, wasn't it, papa, and one that seceded in thetime of the Civil War?" asked Elsie Raymond.
"Yes; on the 11th of January, 1861, the State seceded from the Unionand joined the Southern Confederacy. A sad thing for her, for agreat deal of the desperate fighting took place within her borders.The losses in the upper counties were immense, and raiding partiesfrequently desolated the central ones. Forts Gaines and Morgan,defending the entrance to Mobile Bay, were besieged and taken by theUnited States forces in 1865, and in the same year the victory ofMobile Bay, the severest naval battle of the war, was won by thenational forces under Admiral Farragut."
"But the folks there are not rebs any more, I suppose," remarked Ned ina tone of inquiry.
"No, my son," replied the captain. "I believe the most, if not all, ofthem are good Union people, now proud and fond of this great country,the United States of America."