Indians. They went on to Washington, and said they were going to see their Great Father, to talk about the good of the nation. And when they got there, they all wrote upon a little piece of paper, without the nation at home knowing anything about it. And the first thing the nation at home knew of the matter, they were called together by the Indian agent, who showed them a little piece of paper, which he told them was a treaty which their brethren had made in their name with their Great Father at Washington. And as they knew not what a treaty was, he held up the little piece of paper, and they looked under it, and lo! it covered a great extent of country, and they found that their brethren, by knowing how to read and write, had sold their houses, and their lands, and the graves of their fathers; and that the white man, by knowing how to read and write, had gained them. Tell our Great Father at Washington, therefore, that we are very sorry we cannot receive teachers among us; for reading and writing, though very good for white men, is very bad for Indians."

THE CONSPIRACY OF NEAMATHLA.

AN AUTHENTIC SKETCH.

IN the autumn of 1823, Governor Duval, and other commissioners on the part of the United States, concluded a treaty with the chiefs and warriors of the Florida Indians, by which the

latter, for certain considerations, ceded all claims to the whole territory, excepting a district in the eastern part, to which they were to remove, and within which they were to reside for twenty years. Several of the chiefs signed the treaty with great reluctance; but none opposed it more strongly than Neamathla, principal chief of the Mickasookies, a fierce and warlike people, many of them Creeks by origin, who lived about the Mickasookie lake. Neamathla had always been active in those depredations on the frontiers of Georgia, which had brought vengeance and ruin on the Seminoles. He was a remarkable man; upward of sixty years of age, about six feet high, with a fine eye, and a strongly marked countenance, over which he possessed great command. His hatred of the white men appeared to be mixed with contempt; on the common people he looked down with infinite scorn. He seemed unwilling to acknowledge any superiority of rank or dignity in Governor Duval, claiming to associate with him on terms of equality, as two great chieftains. Though he had been prevailed upon to sign the treaty, his heart revolted at it. In one of his frank conversations with Governor Duval, he observed: "This country belongs to the red man; and if I had the number of warriors at my command that this nation once had, I would not leave a white man on my lands. 1 would exterminate the whole. I can say this to you, for you can understand me; you are a man; but I would not say it to your people. They'd cry out I was a savage, and would take my life.

They cannot appreciate the feelings of a man that loves his country."

As Florida had but recently been erected into a territory, everything as yet was in rude and simple style. The Governor, to make himself acquainted with the Indians, and to be near a hand to keep an eye upon them, fixed his resi dence at Tallahassee, near the Fowel towns, in habited by the Mickasookies. His government

palace for a time was a mere log-house, and he lived on hunters' fare. The village of Neamathla

was but about three miles off, and thither the Governor occasionally rode, to visit the old chieftain. In one of these visits he found Neamathla seated in his wigwam, in the centre of the village, surrounded by his warriors. The Governor had brought him some liquor as a present, but it mounted quickly into his brain, and rendered him quite boastful and belligerent. The theme ever uppermost in his mind was the treaty with the whites. "It was true," he said, "the red men had made such a treaty, but the white men had not acted up to it. The red men had received none of the money and the cattle that had been promised them; the treaty, therefore, was at an end, and they did not mean to be bound by it."

Governor Duval calmly represented to him that the time appointed in the treaty for the payment and delivery of the money and the cattle had not yet arrived. This the old chieftain knew full well, but he chose, for the moment, to pretend ignorance. He kept on drinking and talking, his voice growing louder and louder, until it re

sounded all over the village. He held in his hand a long knife, with which he had been rasping tobacco; this he kept flourishing backward and forward, as he talked, by way of giving effect to his words, brandishing it at times within an inch of the Governor's throat. He concluded his tirade by repeating that the country belonged to the red men, and that sooner than give it up, his bones and the bones of his people should bleach upon its soil.

Duval knew that the object of all this bluster was to see whether he could be intimidated. He kept his eye, therefore, fixed steadily on the chief, and the moment he concluded with his menace, seized him by the bosom of his hunting-shirt, and clenching his other fist:

"I've heard what you have said,” replied he. "You have made a treaty, yet you say your bones shall bleach before you comply with it. As sure as there is a sun in heaven, your bones shall bleach if you do not fulfil every article of that treaty ! I'll let you know that I am first here, and will see that you do your duty!"

Upon this the old chieftain threw himself back, burst into a fit of laughing, and declared that all he had said was in joke. The Governor suspected, however, that there was a grave meaning at the bottom of this jocularity.

For two months everything went on smoothly; the Indians repaired daily to the log-cabin palace of the Governor at Tallahassee, and appeared perfectly contented. All at once they ceased their visits, and for three or four days not one was to

be seen. Governor Duval began to apprehend that some mischief was brewing. On the evening of the fourth day, a chief named Yellow-Hair, a resolute, intelligent fellow, who had always evinced an attachment for the Governor, entered his cabin about twelve o'clock at night, and informed him, that between four and five hundred warriors, painted and decorated, were assembled to hold a secret war-talk at Neamathla's town. He had slipped off to give intelligence, at the risk of his life, and hastened back lest his absence should be discovered.

Governor Duval passed an anxious night after this intelligence. He knew the talent and the daring character of Neamathla; he recollected the threats he had thrown out; he reflected that about eighty white families were scattered widely apart over a great extent of country, and might be swept away at once, should the Indians, as he feared, determine to clear the country. That he did not exaggerate the dangers of the case, has been proved by the horrid scenes of Indian warfare which have since desolated that devoted region. After a night of sleepless cogitation, Duval determined on a measure suited to his prompt and. resolute character. Knowing the admiration of the savages for personal courage, he determined, by a sudden surprise, to endeavor to overawe and check them. It was hazarding much; but where so many lives were in jeopardy, he felt bound to incur the hazard.

Accordingly, on the next morning he set off on horseback, attended merely by a white man