XIX.

The Uchee Indians had a village not far from Ebenezer, at the time of the settlement of Georgia; but their principal town was at Chota, on the western branch of the Chattahoochee, or, as it was more properly spelt, Chota-Uchee river.  How long they had resided there we do not know.  As their language is a dialect of the Shawanees, it has been supposed that they were descendants from that tribe.  A jealousy existed between them and the Muscogees; but they were in amity with the Creeks, though they would not mix with them.  How numerous they were at the time of their treaty with Oglethorpe, cannot now be ascertained.

In 1773 they lived on a beautiful plain of great extent, in a compact village.  They had houses made of timbers framed together, lathed and plastered over with a kind of red clay, which gave them the appearance of having been built of brick.  At that time they numbered 1500, of whom 300 were warriors.  For many years they have not joined the Creeks in any of their games or dances; and have only been kept from open hostility with other tribes, by the influence of the white people.

[For this note I am indebted to my friend SAMUEL G. DRAKE; whose Biography and History of the Indians of North America comprises much that can be known of the aborigines.]

XX.

OF THE MUTINY IN THE CAMP, AND ATTEMPT AT ASSASSINATION.

From the journal of William Stephens, Esq. (Vol.  II. pp. 76, 90, 473, 480, 499, and 505; and Vol.  III. 4, 5, 27, and 32,) I collect the following particulars.  One of the persons implicated in the insidious plot, was William Shannon, a Roman Catholic.  “He was one of the new listed men in England, which the General brought over with him.  By his seditious behavior he merited to be shot or hanged at Spithead before they left it, and afterwards, for the like practices at St. Simons.  Upon searching him there, he was found to have belonged to Berwick’s regiment, and had a furlough from it in his pocket.”  Instead of suffering death for his treasonable conduct, in the last instance, he was whipped and drummed out of the regiment.  “Hence he rambled up among the Indian nations, with an intent to make his way to some of the French settlements; but being discovered by the General when he made his progress to those parts, in the year 1739, and it being ascertained that he had been endeavoring to persuade the Indians into the interest of the French, he fled, but was afterwards taken and sent down to Savannah, and committed to prison there as a dangerous fellow.”  On the 14th of August, 1740, he and a Spaniard, named Joseph Anthony Mazzique, who professed to be a travelling doctor, but had been imprisoned upon strong presumption of being a spy, broke out of prison and fled.  On the 18th of September, they murdered two persons at Fort Argyle, and rifled the fort.  They were taken on the beginning of October at the Uchee town, and brought back to Savannah, tried and found guilty, condemned and executed on the 11th of November, having previously confessed their crime.