A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida [1 ed.] 9780817384234, 9780817308766

Citation preview

A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida

A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida Bernard Romans

Edited and with an Introduction by

Kathryn E. Holland Braund

The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa

Copyright © 1999 The University of Alabama Press Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487-0380 All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 / 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99 ∞ The paper on which this book is printed meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Science–Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Jacket design by Shari DeGraw Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Romans, Bernard, ca. 1720–ca. 1784. A concise natural history of East and West Florida / by Bernard Romans ; edited and with an introduction by Kathryn E. Holland Braund. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. ISBN 0–8173–0876–8 (alk. paper) 1. Natural history—Florida. 2. Natural history—Gulf States. I. Braund, Kathryn E. Holland, 1955– II. Title. QH105.F6 R66 1999 508.759—ddc21 99–6088

ISBN 978-0-8173-8423-4 (electronic)

Contents

Illustrations and Maps

vii

A Note on This Edition

ix

Acknowledgments Bernard Romans: His Life and Works

xiii 1

Romans’s History as a Source for Understanding the Eighteenth-Century South

42

Romans’s Copper Plate Illustrations, Maps, and Table

71

A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida

75

Notes

349

Bibliography

411

Index

427

Illustrations and Maps

1. Representative page from A Concise Natural History

xi

2. Map of part of West Florida, 1772–1773, by Bernard Romans

9

3. Detail from the northwest quadrant of the manuscript Stuart-Purcell map, 1775

14

4. Dedicatory plate

20

5. Advertisement

25

6. Frontispiece, volume 1

27

7. Title page of the 1775 edition

29

8. The South as Bernard Romans knew it, ca. 1772

43

9. Avena aquatica Sylvestris

105

10. Characteristic Chickasaw Head

122

11. Characteristic Choctaw Busts

136

12. Choctaw Burial

141

13. Characteristic Head of a Creek War Chief

143

14. Indian Hieroglyphic Paintings

150

15. Table of exports from the Province of Georgia 16. Entrances of Tampa Bay 17. Reconstruction of Romans’s Travels

following 146 337 following 338

18. Map of Pensacola Bar

340

19. Map of Mobile Bar

342

A Note on This Edition

This project began as an effort to produce a facsimile edition of A Concise Natural History for the Library of Alabama Classics series of the University of Alabama Press. Although repeated attempts to locate a suitable copy for photographic reproduction were undertaken, the rarity and fragility of surviving copies led all owners of original 1775 editions of the work whom we contacted to decline our request to reproduce their copy for the series. Despite the failure of the facsimile project, the editors at the University of Alabama Press felt strongly enough about the value of the work to authorize the production of a modernized version of the book. Professor Gregory A. Waselkov of the Center for Archaeological Studies at the University of South Alabama graciously provided funds to have the original transcribed for a modernized version. The facsimile version issued by the University of Florida Press in 1962 was used as the basis for this work, which was also checked against other extant copies of the 1775 work. The typesetting and printing of the original 1775 edition of A Concise Natural History were poorly done. As a result, surviving copies are replete with mistakes as well as occasional blurs and smudges. There are also a number of peculiarities about the type. The most striking is the use of the oldstyle s. In A Concise Natural History, like other eighteenth-century texts, s was rendered ∫, except at the conclusion of a word. Thus, salt appeared as ∫alt and possessed as po∫∫e∫∫ed, while horses appeared as hor∫es. Modern readers often mistake the old-style s for an f, although the two are typographically distinct. In this version, the modern s has been substituted for the old-style s. To aid the reader, eighteenth-century books usually printed the ¤rst word of a following page immediately below the last word on each page. A Concise Natural History followed this practice, which, of necessity, is not retained in modern versions. An unusual feature of A Concise Natural History, which was not shared by other eighteenth-century texts, was the use of the lowercase i for the per-

x


This Edition

sonal pronoun I as well as occasional other words beginning with an i. Judging by the errata list included with the original edition, it seems that unless the pronoun I appeared at the beginning of a sentence, either Romans or his typesetter preferred to use a lowercase i for the personal pronoun, although in his other writings, including manuscript letters and published works, Romans used a capital letter. In this version, the lowercase i has been replaced with I where appropriate. Romans used ligatures inconsistently, occasionally substituting æ for œ and vice versa. As in the case of the lowercase i, perhaps the compositor lacked a suf¤cient number to achieve consistency. Or perhaps the dif¤culty of reading the italicized ligatures resulted in these errors. In this edition, the ligature used by Romans has been retained despite the inconsistency and resultant misspellings, most notably of Phœnicians. There are numerous inconsistencies and nonstandardized spellings in the book, particularly of place names. In addition, many of the spellings used by eighteenth-century British Americans are obsolete in modern American English: for example, neighbour for neighbor and staid for stayed. Romans’s original spellings, including inconsistencies and errors, have been retained. In a few instances in which an error or misspelling might confuse the reader, a correction, within square brackets, has been included. Square brackets also indicate an occasional missing letter as a result of printer’s errors or the poor quality of type. Letters typeset upside down and other minor typesetting errors in the original have been set properly without note. Extraneous space preceding or following marks of punctuation has been taken out. In the original edition, Romans provided an errata list of ¤fty-¤ve corrections at the end of the book. These corrections have been inserted in the text within square brackets where appropriate. Corrections inserted from Romans’s errata list are noted with his initials: e.g., [Boston br]. The errata list is found at the end of this edition. These pages, unnumbered in the original edition, precede the advertisement. Finally, the book carried an unusual system of pagination, with page numbers enclosed in either parentheses or brackets. Several pages, including the frontispiece, the full title page, a page of quotations, and a dedicatory page, precede a brief introduction. Unaccountably, this introduction is numbered pages 3 and 4, in brackets. The list of subscribers, which follows the introduction, is numbered beginning with i, in brackets. The actual text is numbered from 2, in parentheses, with the initial page of text carrying no page number. Although there are no pages numbered 176 and 177, no text was skipped, as this was only an error in the pagination of the original work. The regular text ends with page 342. The appendix title page and additional

(

10

)

'they ever occafioned any mifchief, nor could i learn, !:hat earthquakes have ever been experienced in this part of the world. Of Weft Florida, there needs fcaree any thing more to be faid, with reg ad to the article of climate, orair, than what i have faid of my northern divifion ~f Eaft Florida, it agreeing in every refpeCt therewith, except that the winter is fomething more fevere, it often killing tender fruit trees; * however, as the ficknefs of 1765 at Mobile, has been a fubjeer of much difcourfe, and as it has been fet up (by people who would if pomble prevent the population of fo fine a country) as a fcarecrow to fuch, as are eafily deceived by appearances, and never enquire deeper than externalfhews; this fatal diforder has been followed by the entire min of Mobile, and had nearly fpoiled the reputation of Penfacola, whIch though fituate in as fine, airy, dry and healthy a fite as any on the continent, and at leaft at a diftance of fixty miles from Mobile, had yet the misfortune to be confounded with it, and to be thought liable to the fame miffortunes; i will give as faithful an account of that illnefs, as has come within the verge of my knowledge. Mobile was originally built by the French, after they had left their old Fort Conde, thirty miles higher up the Tombeebe, having found that firuation very inconvenient; they now made at leaft as injudicious a choice in another refpeer, by placing themfelves at a diftance from good water, on low ground, and direCtly oppofite to fome marfhy iilands, at the divifion between the faIt and frefh water, a fituation well known in America not to be eligible for the fake of health, but the con1. Representative page from A Concise Natural History (original text page 10).

xi


This Edition

xii


This Edition

subscribers list, which follow, are not numbered. The ¤rst page of the appendix is numbered i, in parentheses. The advertisement at the end of the book is not numbered. In the current version, all original page numbers are placed in brackets in the text. In cases in which words are divided at page breaks, the hyphen has been eliminated and the bracketed page number has been placed at the end of the word. In most cases, the symbols used by Romans to mark the few footnotes he included have been retained. However, in cases where two notes having the same symbol fall on the same page in this edition, the second note symbol has been changed to avoid any confusion on the part of the modern reader. In one case, inconsistent use of reference symbol and note symbol has been corrected. An introductory essay, designed to provide an updated sketch of Romans’s life and career, is included in the present work. A second essay evaluates A Concise Natural History as a historical source and is intended to help the nonspecialist reader better appraise the text. A brief descriptive essay on Romans’s original illustrations is also included. Annotations to the work itself vary in character from entries designed to provide both general readers and scholars with more information on some of the people, places, and events mentioned by Romans to entries that provide speci¤c details designed to aid those who wish to do further reading on a topic. The nature of this endeavor, as well as the rambling quality of A Concise Natural History itself, has necessarily led to some minor repetition in a few cases, but this was judged appropriate in light of the convenience it affords the reader.

Acknowledgments

Special appreciation is extended to the following manuscript repositories and libraries that provided documents and information from their collections: American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia; William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; Staffordshire Record Of¤ce, Stafford, England; Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford; Georgia Historical Society, Savannah; Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; New York Public Library, New York City; Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia; Wethers¤eld Historical Society, Wethers¤eld, Connecticut; National Archives, Washington, D.C.; Public Record Of¤ce, Kew, England; Birmingham Public Library, Birmingham, Alabama; American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Massachusetts; Florida State Archives, Tallahassee; John Carter Brown Library, Providence; Royal Geographical Society, London; Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut; W. Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa; and Samford University Library, Birmingham, Alabama. The following repositories kindly responded to written and telephone inquiries regarding Bernard Romans: Historic New Orleans Collection; Connecticut State Library, Hartford; New Haven Colony Historical Society, New Haven, Connecticut; North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Raleigh; British Map Library, London; Library and Records Department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Of¤ce, London; Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and P. K. Yonge Library of Florida History, University of Florida, Gainesville. I would like to thank Gregory A. Waselkov and Louis De Vorsey, Jr., who generously offered advice and assistance during the preparation of the introductory material. Kenneth Carleton provided a copy of his master’s thesis. Correspondents Robin Fabel and Charles H. Lesser also provided helpful information: Fabel on eighteenth-century slang and the Connecticut Adven-

xiv


Acknowledgments

turers; Lesser on Joseph Purcell. Helen Twedell of the University of Florida Coastal Engineering Archives quickly provided information on Florida coastal names. Robert S. Alexander, historian of the First Church in Albany, New York, provided details on Bernard Romans’s ¤rst marriage. David Coles of the Florida State Archives provided photocopies of articles and information on Florida books. I made contact with Bernard Romans’s descendants after corresponding with John Inskeep of Don Pedro Island, Florida, who maintains a Florida history web site devoted to Bernard Romans and his A Concise Natural History. Priscilla Romans Hester and Peter Romans unreservedly shared information about their family history, for which I am grateful. Special thanks are due to Hilda Cruthirds of the University of South Alabama, who undertook the Herculean labor of transcribing the book into a modern format. Ashley Dumas, also of the University of South Alabama, helped proof the transcript. Gregory A. Waselkov assisted with proofreading and offered valuable support and assistance at every stage of the project. Craig Remington provided the maps. Kyle G. Braund, Marge Stevens, and Mary Kuntz rendered translations of Latin phrases scattered throughout the book. Kyle G. Braund, my husband, also assisted in numerous other ways, including helping procure library books, proofreading, and, as always, offering his steadfast support all along the way. Any errors and omissions in the background research and the ¤nal transcription are all my own. To that account, I repeat Bernard Romans’s declaration from his own introduction: “I offer this humble attempt without any recommendations, or praises, of my own; only I beg to ensure my reader, that I have, through the whole, adhered so strictly to truth, as to make no one deviation therefrom willingly, or knowingly.” Kathryn E. Holland Braund Dadeville, Alabama

Bernard Romans His Life and Works

Bernard Romans was a man of action: a navigator, surveyor, cartographer, botanist, writer, promoter, engineer, and soldier. His maxim, recorded in his most famous work, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, testi¤es that he was also a philosopher. “Truth,” wrote this Dutch scholar, “should be the object of man’s enquiries” (58).* Romans believed that man’s questioning mind, with the ability to reason and judge, was the one thing that set humankind apart from the rest of creation and provided the raison d’être for the existence of the species. Declared Romans: “God has given us the only advantage we have over brutes, in order to spur us on to enquiries into the mysteries of nature” (58–59). And this Romans did. From his arrival in North America, he devoted himself to “the ardent pursuit of Geography & Natural Philosophy.”1 The results of his quest—books, essays, and maps—are today rare treasures that furnish the modern reader with a unique picture of the eighteenth-century South: its ®ora, fauna, and inhabitants, both native peoples and interlopers. The scholarly community has long recognized the value of Romans’s works, particularly his maps and study of West Florida. The man himself, however, remains an enigma. Virtually nothing is known of Bernard Romans prior to his arrival in the Americas during the Seven Years’ War. Only a brief period of his life is well documented: the years in which he explored the Floridas and was a patriot participant in the War of the American Revolution. Even an exact account of his last years is missing. However, what is known of this energetic and forthright man is as fascinating as the world he explored and preserved for posterity in his writings.2 Born in The Netherlands about 1720, Romans was reared and educated there.3 Captain John D. Ware, a twentieth-century seaman and student of Romans’s career, noted, “Implicit in what may have been [Romans’s] last literary work, along with certain of his statements, is the suggestion that he *Parenthetical page references are to the original text pagination.

2


Life and Works

received much of his education in his native country and that his removal to England came as a youth or a young adult.” Romans’s last work, Annals of the Troubles in the Netherlands, a translation of Dutch historical writings into English, demonstrated, as Ware noted, “a familiarity with both native and adopted tongues normally associated with advanced studies of each.”4 Bernard Romans received formal training in surveying and navigation, and he had a facility for math, language, and cartography. He was certainly not a great artist, but he illustrated his maps and history of the Floridas with ¤ne line drawings of plants and animals, as well as landscapes. Romans possessed abundant curiosity and a keen and judgmental eye. His analytical and educated mind also turned to poetry, history, politics, botany, and anthropology. He was familiar with the works of French, Spanish, and Dutch authors, as well as classical Latin sources. Despite his obvious command of English, Romans always considered it his second language. In the preface to the ¤rst volume of Annals, he wrote that “as a foreigner, it cannot be expected that I should excel in elegance of composition, or correctness of language; especially in a tongue whose idiom, orthography, connexion and pronunciation are, of all others, the most dif¤cult and uncouth to the ear and powers of articulation in strangers.”5 Yet his correspondence and published works contradict this uncharacteristically self-deprecating prose. It is a tribute to his pro¤ciency as a student of the English language that over two hundred years after his death he is cited as an authority on the etymology of certain eighteenth-century words by the Oxford English Dictionary.6 Romans immigrated to the Americas around 1757, during the Seven Years’War.7 In 1773, he counted his time in North America at sixteen years.8 This date is seemingly con¤rmed by a statement in A Concise Natural History, dated two years later, when he asserted that he had been “acquainted with the continent” (116) for eighteen years. The exact nature of his ¤rst years in the western hemisphere remains a mystery. In a 1775 letter Romans noted that for the previous fourteen years (since 1761), he had been “employed as a commodore in the King’s service, sometimes at the head of a large body of men in the woods, and at the worst of times, I have been master of a merchantman, ¤tted in a warlike manner.”9 Thus, Romans dated his appearance in the western hemisphere at 1757, but his activities from 1757 until his entry in “the King’s service” in 1761 are unknown.10 His writings indicate that his work as a merchant seaman and privateer took him from Panama to Labrador, where he observed the “Esquimaux.”11 Evidence of his wide-ranging journeys can be discerned from his extensive knowledge of the key sailing passes in the West Indies and the Gulf of Mexico. Among

the other exotic locations mentioned by the navigator in his writings are Curaçao, an island in the Netherlands Antilles, and Cartagena.12 Perhaps the impetus for joining the “King’s service” was his marriage to Maria Wendel (Mary Wendell) on March 3, 1761, at the Dutch Reformed Church in Albany, New York. The couple listed their residence as “near” Albany. A son, Peter Milo Romans, was born January 16, 1762. Thereafter, Mary disappears from the historical records, presumably dying in childbirth or soon after.13 After the war, Romans commanded a trading vessel, the sloop Mary, until 1766–1767. In fact, Romans dated the beginning of his work on his natural history of the Floridas from August 1766, “when I unluckily ran my vessel on shore on the Tortugas.”14 At the time, Romans was transporting mahogany from the Isle of Pines [Isla de Pinos], an island just south of Cuba, to Georgia, where he arrived in late September 1766.15 In the appendix of A Concise Natural History, Romans recounted this tense episode, providing an informative account of the perils of navigating the Florida reef.16 Though his ship made it safely to port on that occasion, on the second voyage, the Mary was lost “near Cape Florida, with about 500 l. sterl. property in her.”17 This was, Romans wrote nearly ten years later, “a wound in my circumstances, which is as yet far from being healed” (appendix, i).18 Having lost money as an importer, he sought to correct his luck by chronicling the “mazy navigation” (appendix, liii) of the Florida waters. He also found employment as deputy surveyor of Georgia. In that colony, he served under Henry Younge, who in 1764 had been named the sole surveyor general in Georgia.19 During his brief stay in Georgia, Romans also acquired property in the colony. Among the lands granted to Romans were two lots totaling one hundred acres in the Parish of Christ Church and ¤ve hundred acres on the Ogeechee River, which he never surveyed and later was forced to resign under the terms of the land grant. However, adjacent to that property, he obtained land on the basis of three slaves he owned.20 During the same period, he also accepted a private commission from John Perceval, second Earl of Egmont, to “survey and divide” his extensive East Florida land grants.21 During the 1760s, Lord Egmont, whose father had been one of the founders of the Georgia colony, obtained title to 65,000 acres in East Florida.22 Egmont’s best-known Florida tract, Amelia Island (or Egmont Island), was thirteen miles long and lay just off the East Florida coast, near the boundary with Georgia. It was primarily developed as a large indigo plantation.23 His other holdings were situated inland. In the course of his work for Egmont, Romans was able to obtain “the most perfect obser-

3


Life and Works

4


Life and Works

vations in the Northern Parts of Florida,” which he recorded for later publication.24 The most signi¤cant work done by Romans during his Georgia sojourn was helping mark and map the boundary line between the Creek Indians and Georgia agreed upon at the 1763 Congress of Augusta. For various reasons, the boundary line was not marked until June 1768.25 Lachlan McGillivray, a prominent Georgia Indian trader, served as a representative for Georgia and the Southern Indian Department when the line was blazed in cooperation with an Indian delegation. McGillivray noted that the proceedings were marked by many “accidents, dif¤culties, squabbling with the Indians, and other circumstances.” Stated McGillivray, “I can in short assure you that in all my travels in the woods, I never met with anything equal to the part of the country we crossed.”26 The area to which McGillivray referred, between the Ogeechee River and the Okefenokee Swamp, indeed contains some of the most challenging terrain in the region, and appeared on a map compiled by Romans for the colony.27 It was during this time that Romans fell victim to a malady he termed the “haemorrhoidal ®ux . . . a most tedious and troublesome disease” (251). He was “attacked by it ¤rst [i]n the province of Georgia, in consequence of the great fatigue I underwent in my frequent long and wearisome journies by land” (252). When various astringent preparations failed to remedy the problem, Romans began taking “incredible doses” (252) of opium. That too failed, and the disorder plagued Romans for the next eight years. He ¤nally recovered after leaving the South. The Indian boundary line survey was Romans’s last of¤cial duty as a surveyor in Georgia, for in January 1768, he gave public notice that he was leaving the colony.28 The reason was that he had received a position more suited to his skills and ambitions, that of principal deputy surveyor for the Southern District. Fittingly, this new appointment made Romans “¤rst commander of the vessels on that service.” In addition to a salary of £30 yearly, the deputy surveyor could also earn fees from lands he surveyed for holders of provincial land warrants.29 His superior in Florida was William Gerard De Brahm, who in 1764 had been appointed surveyor general for East Florida as well as surveyor general of the Southern District. Romans is duly noted in De Brahm’s “List of the Inhabitants of East Florida” as a “Draughtsman, Mathematician, Navigator.”30 By the early part of 1769, Romans was engaged making coastal surveys of East Florida on the schooner Betsey.31 During 1769 and 1770, Romans explored “the middle” and “the Western side” of the Florida peninsula.32 The work was hard and dangerous. In 1769, while exploring the western coast of

Florida around the Tampa Bay area, Romans’s boat sank in the Manatee River, which he claimed to be the ¤rst to discover. He then traveled overland to St. Augustine, through the territory claimed by the Seminoles.33 Romans clearly understood the historical implications of the Tampa Bay landing site and his overland trek, for he later wrote that he had been “on Ferdinando Soto’s tract.”34 While on surveying expeditions, Romans and his crew supplied their needs by hunting and ¤shing or trading with the Spanish ¤shermen who came ashore to dry and salt their harvest. This was the case at Aisa Hatcha, translated by the Indians as Deer River, but known to whites as Indian River. Here, Romans’s vessel anchored alongside a Spanish ¤shing vessel for six weeks.35 During this period, he made numerous notes on the east coast of Florida. As a service to those who followed him Romans recorded locations of ¤shing banks, sources of fresh water, and places where game was abundant. Romans’s job provided opportunities of many sorts, including slave trading and speculation. During his expedition along the East Florida coast, Romans captured “four runaways [slaves] I chanced to get during my stay on the coast.”36 In 1769, he also acquired a two-hundred-acre grant along the Nassau River, which he sold for £27 pounds in early 1771.37 Romans’s tenure as deputy surveyor proved dif¤cult. There were personality clashes and professional differences of opinion between Romans and De Brahm. Characterized by his biographer as “East Florida’s testy and argumentative surveyor of lands,” De Brahm incurred many enemies.38 Romans, often undiplomatic and forthright in his opinions, was also a professional rival. In A Concise Natural History, Romans did not restrain his rhetoric when describing his irksome superior and dubbed De Brahm a “lunatic writer” (295). More seriously, he charged the surveyor general with misrepresenting the state of affairs in his department and making serious chorographical errors as well. Perhaps much of Romans’s bitterness toward De Brahm was due to the fact that he was not paid for services performed while serving under his command. De Brahm’s failure to pay those in his department was largely due to the squabbling between himself and Governor James Grant of Florida. So heated was this relationship that De Brahm was not invited to the ¤rst Indian congress under British rule—an incredible slight given that the congress was called to ¤x the boundary line between East Florida and the Lower Creek Indians who resided in the colony. On one occasion, De Brahm and Grant almost came to blows in the presence of Brigadier General Frederick Haldimand. In October 1770, Grant suspended De Brahm from his of¤ce as

5


Life and Works

6


Life and Works

surveyor for East Florida and appointed De Brahm’s son-in-law, Frederick George Mulcaster, as his replacement. Not surprisingly, Grant wrote to Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies and President of the Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations, that De Brahm was “at variance” not only with his son-in-law, but also “with all mankind.”39 The governor also withheld De Brahm’s allowance, and in turn De Brahm could not pay his staff. To redress this delinquency, Romans sued De Brahm. Romans noted that by this action, he “lost above three fourths of what I ought to have had.”40 Meanwhile, De Brahm left the province to present his case against Governor Grant in London, and Romans continued his duties under Mulcaster, who was of¤cially appointed to the position on October 4, 1770.41 Romans’s ¤nancial condition did not improve, however. Having lost his vessel on the Manatee River, he was forced to ¤t out another vessel at his own expense prior to embarking upon a surveying-exploring expedition from September 1770 until August 1771. In addition to charting the southern coast of Florida, he surveyed 20,000 acres that had been granted to Samuel Touchett, a man whose trading empire stretched from the Far East to the Americas.42 Mulcaster authorized the survey of Touchett’s grant in December 1771. Romans’s survey of the property, which today is the site of Miami, along Biscayne Bay, was apparently conducted during March 1772. The map he produced from his surveys is today one of the oldest known maps of the area.43 In addition to marking and plotting the grant, Romans provided a description of the land, including an account of the trees and other vegetation. According to the surveyor, the land could produce food crops, such as rice and beet sugar, and indigo. Romans was never compensated for his work.44 It is not known whether Romans undertook other surveying commissions during this voyage. Evidently, most of his time was taken up with his own pursuits, and it was during this “long and tedious voyage” that Romans worked on his book and completed a map “of the Florida and Bahama banks.” Romans spent the last seven months of the voyage on the western side of the Florida peninsula, thereby becoming one of the ¤rst of Britain’s navigators to explore and map that side of the peninsula. He asserted that he was the ¤rst to map—and name—Charlotte Harbor, recording in his book that the Spaniards had failed to describe both the harbor and the river.45 As he cruised along the coast, he made depth soundings and sketched coastal charts, noting good harbors and sources of fresh water, ¤nally reaching Pensacola in August 1771.46 Upon his arrival in Pensacola, Romans met John Stuart, the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern District, who was in West Florida for

conferences with the Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek Indians. Stuart had a long-time interest in mapping the Indian country under his jurisdiction and was ultimately responsible for producing the best maps of the interior southeast during the eighteenth century. It is no surprise that he “immediately” employed Romans to survey the western part of the province and the lands of the Choctaw and Chickasaw Indians.47 About the same time he hired Romans, Stuart employed David Taitt, “a good surveyor and a person of prudence,” to gain “a more perfect idea of the geography of the country in which all the printed maps are shamefully defective.” 48 In his instructions to Taitt, who was charged with mapping the Creek country, Stuart enjoined him to “be very particular in your remarks upon the rivers, the depths and courses, and the distances of the roads, and every information which may enable you to lay down the situation of the country, of the villages, and of the roads you shall travel as well from Pensacola to the [Creek] nation as from thence to Charleston.” Taitt was also instructed to “keep a diary or journal to be delivered to me when the service you are going upon shall be performed.”49 Taitt responded with a detailed account of the villages of both the Upper and Lower Creeks, and his journals now reside in the of¤cial papers of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs.50 Presumably, Romans was given the same instructions as those given to Taitt, and he too kept a journal of his proceedings among the Chickasaws and Choctaws. However, his manuscript journal cannot be found in the of¤cial departmental papers. Instead, Romans published his journal as part of A Concise Natural History. Romans left Mobile on September 20, 1771, to survey the western reaches of West Florida.51 Through most of October, he was in Choctaw territory, later moving into Chickasaw lands.52 During his sojourn among these two tribes, he was careful to note details of their culture, and in addition to his own observations, he queried local deerskin traders and others regarding their customs. Because the Creeks and Choctaws were at war, Romans and his party were in constant danger, and he recorded numerous sightings of war parties. At one point, reports reached Mobile that Romans and his party had been killed by warring Creeks.53 On his way back to Mobile, Romans’s party passed the deputy provincial surveyor and Stuart’s representatives who were on their way to mark the West Florida–Choctaw boundary.54 He arrived back in Mobile on January 19, 1772.55 After the Indian congresses, Stuart returned to his headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina, carrying copies of Romans’s completed work with him. Romans remained in West Florida, mapping other parts of the province under instructions from both Stuart and Governor Peter Chester.

7


Life and Works

8


Life and Works

In May, June, and July 1772, Romans surveyed the rivers feeding into Pensacola harbor and adjacent lands. He also explored the country between the Escambia and the Tensaw branches of the Alabama River, including the lower parts of the Coosa River. He was back in Pensacola by August 31, 1772. There, at the governor’s request, he worked on a comprehensive map of West Florida that incorporated the efforts of numerous skilled survey teams then in the ¤eld.56 From David Taitt, Romans obtained information on the area between the Coosa and Tombigbee rivers. Information on parts of the coast came from George Gauld, the Admiralty surveyor responsible for mapping much of the Gulf Coast, as well as parts of the Caribbean. Elias Durnford, the provincial surveyor, provided information on the interior regions that Romans had not personally surveyed. Governor Chester sent the ¤nal copy to London and proudly noted that the map was “more perfect than any hitherto transmitted.”57 A portion of the map, “A Map of part of West Florida,” was later presented by Romans to Stuart, at whose direction some of the work was done.58 A long essay by Romans, “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida,” detailing the economic potential of the colony, accompanied the larger map forwarded to England by Chester. In his essay, Romans enumerated several noteworthy native plants he had encountered in his explorations, and commented on the suitability of the region for the cultivation of well-known money crops, such as indigo.59 Having seen much of the colony ¤rsthand and having ascertained its value, upon his return from his surveying expedition Romans applied for a grant of two hundred acres of land located along the Middle River, which ®owed into Pensacola Bay. There were two problems with the parcel: it had not been ceded to West Florida by the Creeks and it was occupied by a squatter. Although the council ultimately approved it, the squatter, Indian interpreter John Simpson, quickly contested the grant to Romans.60 Simpson, who had already built a hut and planted corn on the land in question, was furious and claimed he had previously told Romans he intended to apply for the land himself. Both Simpson and Romans believed the land was valuable because it lay along the best route to the towns of the Upper Creek Indians. The usual route from Pensacola to the Indian nation, along the Escambia River, was marred by bogs, and according to Romans, it was “dif¤cult to pass there with light horses even in the driest season of the year.” Moreover, strong winds and a hurricane had so littered the long, winding route with trees and debris that Romans pronounced the path “a very indifferent one.” However, along the Middle River, there was a high, dry ridge of land, as well as many suitable landings. Romans at once sized up the area’s potential as an

2. A map of part of West Florida, 1772–1773. This pen-and-ink chart by Bernard Romans details the West Florida coast from the Mississippi Delta to Pensacola. It is one of the ¤nest maps of the Gulf Coast extant from the British period. (Photo courtesy of William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.)

10


Life and Works

entrepôt for the Indian trade out of West Florida and the timbering industry. He even suggested that “a small township or village by the name of New Augusta” be established at the site. According to Romans, the Upper Creeks themselves had suggested the location, which was some one hundred miles from their towns and near their favorite Escambia River hunting grounds. A branch path to the Lower Creek towns, though not frequently used, was already established as well.61 Governor Chester, always eager to expand his colony’s export potential, was delighted by Romans’s report and no doubt hoped his colony would one day replace Augusta, Georgia, as the seat of the Creek deerskin trade.62 While in Pensacola, Romans was befriended by Dr. John Lorimer, a military physician who dabbled in colonial politics and was the colony’s most notable intellectual.63 Sharing many of the same interests, Romans and Lorimer were immediately drawn together and doubtless spent much time comparing notes and discussing Romans’s book, then in progress. Lorimer was keenly interested in magnetism and, prior to his arrival in West Florida, had designed and commissioned a compass that would remain stable despite the motions of a rolling ship.64 In 1766, Lorimer had been the ¤rst to correctly ascertain the longitude of Pensacola Harbor.65 He was a careful observer of the climate in the new colony and, over the course of one year, recorded the temperature of Pensacola three times daily. This was a practical exercise, for Lorimer was investigating the relationship between climate and disease. He was also interested in the potential that West Florida’s native plants, many of which were unknown to the eighteenth-century scienti¤c community, might have in the treatment of diseases. After his arrival in Pensacola, Lorimer had learned that the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia was interested in expanding its membership, and he forwarded his observations on various topics to them. As a result, he was elected to the society on April 21, 1769.66 Lorimer’s interest in climate, navigation, and geography led him to freely assist many of the mapmakers who visited West Florida. Lorimer was especially close to George Gauld. He passed along some of Gauld’s ¤ndings to Romans and likewise shared the results of Romans’s work with Gauld. Lorimer pressed both Gauld and Romans to share their work with other scientists, and their introductions to the American Philosophical Society— the most noteworthy scienti¤c community in the colonies—came via correspondence from Lorimer.67 However, as Lorimer lamented to Dr. Hugh Williamson, his chief Philadelphia correspondent, “I am no great botanist, nor have we any man of

eminence in that way. Here is certainly a great ¤eld to employ naturalists.”68 In Romans, Lorimer believed that he had found his man. Romans was only too happy to expand his ¤elds of inquiry into the botanical realm, for it offered great promise. Naturalists and physicians, as well as plant collectors and breeders, were eager to ¤nd and classify hitherto unknown plants in the relatively unexplored Floridas and southeastern backcountry. Explorers, at the behest of rich and powerful patrons in England, sought out not only commercially viable and medically promising plants, but also beautiful ornamentals. Botanizing fever extended to the highest ranks. Queen Charlotte was a devoted patron of the royal garden at Kew. George III, who had little interest in natural history, nonetheless accepted presents of rare and exotic plants and animals from those eager to obtain his patronage. In 1765, his more scienti¤c-minded advisors even persuaded the king to support a research expedition to the Floridas by John Bartram, arguably the best-known American horticulturist of the time.69 Romans’s reputation as a botanist was secured when, during his exploration of the Chester River in the eastern part of West Florida, he discovered what he took to be jalap. Jalap, a popular cathartic, which theretofore had not been found outside Mexico, was in great demand.70 Romans was not hesitant to declare that he was the ¤rst to discover jalap in British territory and believed it would be possible to produce the plant commercially in West Florida.71 Doctor Lorimer supported Romans’s claim, describing it as “reall Jallap” after he had “proved” it on himself.72 Others in West Florida were convinced of the merits of Romans’s jalap as well. West Florida’s attorney general, Edmund Rush Wegg, quickly moved to secure an exclusive and potentially lucrative patent for the export of the drug.73 Like Lorimer, Governor Peter Chester was thoroughly impressed with Romans, particularly his botanical explorations, which might prove economically bene¤cial for his colony. Both Lorimer and Chester encouraged Romans’s botanical inquiries and sought support for his work. In August 1772, Chester wrote to Lord Hillsborough that Romans “appears to be an ingenious man and both a naturalist and botanist, I think him worthy of some encouragement.” The Governor also sent a map of the eastern part of the province, several “drafts of ®owers” done by Romans, and a specimen of Romans’s jalap.74 Chester and Lorimer also suggested that Romans correspond with John Ellis, a Fellow of the Royal Society and the royal agent for West Florida. A successful businessman, Ellis was at heart a natural scientist who was widely respected by the international scienti¤c community. Chester and Lorimer promptly expressed their con¤dence in the ability of

11


Life and Works

12


Life and Works

Romans to Ellis, who undoubtedly was in large measure responsible for ultimately persuading the secretary to include Romans on the civil list.75 With the encouragement of Chester and Lorimer, Romans wrote to John Ellis asking for his support for the establishment of a provincial garden in West Florida. Unstated, but certainly implied, was the assumption that Romans would be appointed as superintending botanist. Ellis was the obvious choice to lobby for help in establishing a botanical garden, for he had long obtained specimens and seeds of new plants from the colonies for his own collection and for that of Kew Gardens.76 Moreover, he had pressed for what would today be termed an agricultural experiment station as far back as 1757, when he had proposed the establishment of a botanical experiment garden in Charleston to his friend Dr. Alexander Garden of that city. Ellis’s continuing interest in promoting various useful and commercially viable plants that could be grown in the colonies led him to compile an annotated catalog of foreign plants that he believed suitable for the climate of the American colonies. In 1769, the American Philosophical Society published his “A Catalogue of such FOREIGN PLANTS, as are worthy of being encouraged in our American Colonies, for the Purposes of Medicine, Agriculture, and Commerce.”77 Romans’s proposal for a West Florida garden, which he had sent to Ellis from Pensacola on August 13, 1772, reiterated what all those interested in New World plants knew: “after a Curious plant has once been discovered in any distant part of this Country, before a Complete Description of it can be given, it is necessary to watch the time of its Flowering, and Likewise to procure the ripe fruit or Seed thereof, in order to propagate the Same; and . . . this must prove a very tedious method, and Sometimes be even liable to the disappointment of years.” Pensacola, Romans was quick to point out, was the logical choice for the location of such a garden. There, “curious” plants from the Floridas, as well as the West Indies, might be transplanted, tended, and systematically studied. He pointed out that from Pensacola an inquiring botanist would have access to a variety of ecological niches that supported different species of plants, including the alluvial lands along the Mississippi, the sandy tracts along the coast, swampy areas, and the “high lands” toward the Indian country. Moreover, the tiny port was “the only place that affords frequent opportunities of Sending Such growing plants to England.” Along with his proposal, he included an expense account, carefully noting estimates for fencing, labor, tools, frames, and a hot house but tactfully leaving the botanist’s salary and travel expenses blank for the careful consideration of his potential patron. He astutely included his own comments on Ellis’s catalog of plants in the proposal he sent to London.78 To help defray

the expense, Romans proposed that the garden be given the exclusive privilege of exporting jalap.79 Although he was eager to be included on the civil list as West Florida’s botanist, Romans left the colony in February 1773 to pursue other opportunities as he awaited word from London. His top priority was a trip to New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, where he planned to pursue publication of his nautical charts and accompanying navigational directions, now growing to encompass the natural productions and economic possibilities of the Floridas. However, his ¤rst stop along the way was Charleston. Ostensibly, he was traveling there to take up a position in John Stuart’s Indian Department.80 Even so, it is obvious he continued to seek additional support for his botanical project, for among his baggage, Romans packed rare seeds and plant specimens he had collected in West Florida. Romans traveled on the schooner Liberty, under the command of Captain John Hunt. The journey around the cape of Florida was long and hazardous, and during the voyage, Romans’s vessel was “over-set at sea” (appendix, vi). This was a heavy blow to the aspiring botanist, for his botanical specimens and seeds were ruined.81 Fortunately, the manuscript of the natural history of the Floridas, and his navigational charts, were saved. He arrived in Charleston in April 1773, only to ¤nd that Stuart had, in Romans’s words, “deluded” him, and that the £150 per annum position promised had not materialized.82 The exact nature of Stuart’s offer is unknown. In fact, Stuart’s of¤cial correspondence is void of any mention of Romans as a potential member of his department.83 Given Romans’s exceptional ability as a surveyor and cartographer, it is obvious that any offer of employment would have involved surveying work or, more likely, compiling the “accurate general map” of the southern colonies that Stuart was so anxious to complete. However, by the time Romans arrived in Charleston, Stuart had already employed Joseph Purcell to complete a general map of the Southern Indian Department using the maps Stuart had commissioned while in West Florida.84 Moreover, the work was nearly ¤nished. Thus, it was Joseph Purcell, a former De Brahm employee from East Florida described by Romans as “an excellent young man . . . draughtsman to our department” (270), who ultimately produced the outstanding maps that came out of Stuart’s department.85 Though Stuart did not employ him, he did grant Romans permission to use material gathered under his direction in his proposed publication and charged him with delivery of Purcell’s huge map to General Thomas Gage, then in New York. The map produced by Purcell, titled “A map of West Florida part of Et: Florida, Georgia part of So: Carolina . . . ,” incorporated the work of David

13


Life and Works

3. A map of the Southern Indian District of North America: detail from the northwest quadrant of the manuscript Stuart-Purcell map, 1775. (Photo courtesy of Edward E. Ayer Collection, The Newberry Library, Chicago, Illinois.)

Taitt among the Creeks, that of George Gauld along the coast, and Romans’s surveys of parts of the Floridas, as well as the latest knowledge of Georgia and South Carolina. It included the names of both Chickasaw and Choctaw villages, as well as those of the Creek Indians, with “remarks” by both Romans and Taitt.86 Now widely known as the Stuart-Gage map, it was

the most accurate and comprehensive map of the southeastern region of the present United States from Charleston to the Mississippi River produced up to that time.87 While in Charleston, Romans visited Dr. Alexander Garden, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Garden’s interests ranged from electric eels to the production of vegetable dyes, but his main interest, aside from his medical practice, was botany. Garden was a staunch friend and supporter of Philadelphian John Bartram. Not only did John Bartram visit Garden on two occasions, but Garden also befriended John’s son William and acted as an agent for Dr. John Fothergill, who sponsored William’s southern botanical explorations in the 1770s.88 More important, Garden was a respected correspondent of several wellknown naturalists, among them John Ellis and Peter Collinson, a successful London merchant and royal advisor who was John Bartram’s patron. His most notable correspondent was the great Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus (Carl von Linné), whose Systema Naturae made him master of the eighteenth-century botanical world and whose binomial system of nomenclature is still used in classifying plants and animals today. At the request of Linnaeus, Garden collected insects, ¤sh, and reptiles: as a result of his contributions, Garden’s name is cited in the twelfth edition of the Systema Naturae more than that of any other American. To honor his correspondent, Linnaeus named the gardenia after the Carolina physician, although it was not one of his discoveries.89 Of all those with whom Romans had met thus far, it would seem that Garden would have been the most able judge of the aspiring naturalist and his jalap. According to Garden, Romans’s jalap, although related to the true jalap, was not the same. Garden commented that many members of the convolvulus “species,” although cathartic, “are not only weaker than the [true] Jalap, but have not the same speci¤c virtues and effect.”90 Garden was correct that Romans’s jalap was not the same as Mexican jalap. Although a precise description of the jalap Romans discovered has not survived, it was most likely wild jalap, or wild potato, which is native to the southeastern United States. Although Garden dismissed the ¤nd, other physicians appreciated the properties of this plant, which is indeed a powerful cathartic, as Dr. Lorimer had observed. Wild jalap appeared in the Pharmacopoeia of the United States of America from 1820 until 1863, when other drugs ¤nally supplanted it.91 During his visit with Garden, Romans discussed his idea for a provincial garden in West Florida. Garden later supplied a critique of Roman’s proposal at the request of John Ellis. According to Garden, Romans seemed “a man

15


Life and Works

16


Life and Works

little versed in Botany; he knows a few of the terms, but his knowledge, as far as I can judge, in the science, is both much limited and very super¤cial. . . . He appears to me to be a man that would take pains, but I am afraid he wants knowledge for your purpose.”92 Garden concluded, “Upon the whole, I am very suspicious of the justness of Mr. Romans’s observations and remarks, and am afraid he speaks much on conjecture, regarding those plants he mentioned. I cannot advise you to trust much to his knowledge, though he might be willing to improve it.”93 As to Romans’s idea for a botanical garden, Garden was skeptical and believed Romans’s ideas of the expense of such a project were greatly underestimated. Prophetically, Garden noted, “When the present heats, heartburnings, and uneasiness, in America, are over, and people give up the study of politics for the more sensible study of the cultivation of their lands, and natural police, then I am persuaded the idea of provincial gardens will be revived and carried into execution.”94 The seeds that Romans managed to salvage from his baggage he left in Dr. Garden’s care, but as Romans later lamented to Ellis, “I am afraid [they were] in a State past vegetation[;] I never heard from that Gentleman since.”95 From Charleston, Romans proceeded to New York, where he planned to publish his ambitious work on the Floridas. He proposed a lavishly illustrated volume of about three hundred pages with copper plate engravings, accompanied by two large navigational charts of the Florida coast and the Caribbean.96 He described his projected book as “a very large and extensive Survey of the New Ceded Countries to the Southward.” Romans himself believed the primary audience for his work, both the book and the maps, in addition to the “studious and learned,” was “every Trader from NorthAmerica, especially the Merchants who trade to Jamaica, Hispaniola, and to the two Floridas.”97 His ¤rst order of business upon arriving in New York in June 1773 was a meeting with General Thomas Gage. He presented to Gage, on Stuart’s behalf, the map of the southeast compiled by Purcell, as well as his own coastal map of West Florida from Pensacola to the Mississippi River. Purcell’s map contained minor errors. Time constraints had prevented Stuart from having the map redrawn. In addition to the fact that David Taitt had made the trade path from the Creek towns too northerly, Romans had placed the Chickasaw tribe “greatly to the Northward of its true Situation.” Stuart informed Gage, by letter, that Romans would be able to “Account (he Says) for the Blunder.”98 During his meeting with Gage, Romans “cleared up the Error” for the general. Following his discussion with Romans, Gage reported that “upon the whole I have a much better Idea of all that Country than I

ever conceived before.”99 It was an auspicious meeting and lent credibility to the aspiring author and naturalist. Romans’s next stop was the Marine Society of the City of New York in order to seek funding for the publication of his book and maps. He had previously sent the society “a copy of above two thirds of my works” in 1769.100 Realizing the potential of his navigational charts, the society advanced him an interest-free loan of £50 to further the publication of his maps. The members also suggested he contact engraver Paul Revere for help in producing the maps.101 On August 2, 1773, Romans was admitted to membership of the organization.102 He also found a printer for his project: James Rivington, the publisher of Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer and the owner of successful bookstores in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston.103 Rivington’s business was indeed impressive. In addition to sixteen full-time employees, his New York paper had a circulation of thirty-six hundred, and Rivington claimed he had subscribers in every American colony and the West Indies, as well as major European cities.104 In August 1773, Romans went to Philadelphia, where he sought subscriptions for his forthcoming work and attended a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. There he displayed a navigational chart of the Floridas, which the Society members promised to compare with one sent earlier by George Gauld. Romans also read a paper on an improved sea compass, which was later published in the society’s Transactions. He also promised to provide Owen Biddle, the society’s secretary, with drawings of two new Florida plants, which he did in November 1773.105 Romans was anxious to have these drawings and descriptions of the Florida kalmia (Kalmia hirsuta) and illicium (anise) included in the society’s Transactions.106 His botanical expertise, together with his knowledge of navigation, impressed the Philadelphians, and on January 21, 1774, he was elected a member of the prestigious society.107 Romans’s descriptions of new Florida plants, though never published, were presented before the society in February 1774.108 After returning to New York, Romans received word that in December 1772, Hillsborough had approved the £50 allowance for Romans’s “care and skill in collection of rare and useful productions in physick and botany” as botanist for the West Florida colony.109 Desperate for funds, he took the highly irregular step of drawing the grant through the auspices of the mayor of New York, rather than the governor of West Florida. As Romans plainly stated, “I do not know whether I am regular in this proceeding but as I am at present much streightened for want of cash I have been obliged to take this step.”110 The appointment served as an impetus to Romans’s botani-

17


Life and Works

18


Life and Works

cal endeavors and enhanced his reputation as a botanical explorer. Romans began identifying himself as “Botanist to his Majesty in West-Florida.”111 Alexander Garden’s observation that the engineer would be willing to work to improve his botanizing skill was correct, and while in New York Romans placed an order for Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, presumably to further his ability to identify rare plants.112 Romans must have found Linnaeus’s precept, “There is need of much diligence and labour, before man can be thoroughly instructed,” to be true as he pored over the pages of the famous work, for he included the quotation, with others, opposite the dedicatory page in his A Concise Natural History.113 Romans’s appointment came with the approval of William Legge, second earl of Dartmouth, who succeeded Lord Hillsborough as Secretary of State for the Colonies and President of the Board of Trade and Foreign Plantations.114 Dartmouth had formerly supported De Brahm’s work. The secretary was impressed by what Romans termed his own “mean Endeavours to forward the Study of Geography & Botany.”115 These “mean Endeavours”— Romans’s West Florida map and essay—had come to Dartmouth’s attention when he assumed of¤ce. Seeking perhaps adventure as well as pecuniary return, and emboldened by Dartmouth’s support for his position in West Florida, Romans wrote directly to the secretary in November 1773, proposing an expedition to Asia.116 Romans boldly declared, “The general knowledge I have obtained of the Geography of this Extensive continent in my repeated travels through its vast wilds, have made me form an Idea, that a Journey into the North Eastern parts of Asia would not be attended with the numberless dif¤cultys hither to objected against the performance of it.” Noting that he believed it would be possible for him to raise £500 for such an enterprise on his own, he pointed out that a more practical approach might be to seek royal funds. Therefore, Romans noted he was prepared to present a detailed account of the proposed venture as well as a “demonstration of its plausibility” should Dartmouth favor the idea enough to present it to the king for his consideration.117 Romans’s proposal was doubtless prompted by his earlier discussions with Dr. John Lorimer, when in West Florida, regarding the botanical similarities between the eastern sides of the Eurasian and American continents as a result of wind patterns and climate. Lorimer had, in 1769, corresponded with Dr. Hugh Williamson of the American Philosophical Society on the subject,118 and it was for Williamson that Romans laid out a more detailed plan for a western expedition to explore the Mississippi River basin and Great Lakes, before moving westward to the Paci¤c Coast. From there, the expedition

would proceed across the Paci¤c Ocean to Asia, then Russia, and eventually Great Britain. Williamson had come to know Romans through his contact with Dr. John Lorimer, and it was Williamson who sponsored Romans for membership in the society. The two had doubtless discussed such an expedition when Romans had visited Philadelphia. Williamson promptly forwarded Romans’s expanded proposal to Dartmouth.119 Romans’s route presaged that of Lewis and Clark by decades and would have taken an expeditionary party of ¤fteen people through the unexplored lands belonging to numerous Indian tribes before reaching the Paci¤c. Romans estimated that it would take two years to reach the Paci¤c coast. One contingent of the expedition would return home, carrying detailed reports on routes and the peoples of the interior. Romans and the remaining members of the company “by Some means or other” would proceed to the “North Eastern parts of Asia.” They would then travel through Russia and cross the continent of Europe eventually arriving in London in ¤ve years’ time. In this proposal, Romans made a brief—and singular—reference to his son who would accompany the party and who was “thoroughly acquainted with the Woods.”120 Romans, like few others of the day, foresaw a time when settlements— and commerce—would stretch from the Atlantic to the Paci¤c. His sentiments were expressed in the concluding lines of a poem he submitted to the Royal American Magazine at the end of 1773, about the same time he sent his proposals to Dartmouth and Williamson: When through new channels sailing, we shall clothe The Californian coast, and all the realms That stretch from Anian’s Streights to proud Japan; And the green isles, which on the left arise Upon the glassy brine; whose various capes Not yet are ¤gur’d on the sailors chart: Then ev’ry variation shall be told Of the magnetic steel; and currents mark’d Which drive the heedless vessel from her coast.121

Despite Alexander Garden’s lukewarm appraisal of Romans’s botanical ability, John Ellis evidently supported Romans’s nomination for botanist in West Florida, and by the end of 1773, Ellis wrote to Romans, then in New York. Romans wrote in reply, “This attention to me I esteem with the utmost respect & the notice of the bene¤cence therein mentioned lay me under the greatest obligations, I shall not fail of my utmost endeavours to merit this mark of Patronage.” Ellis obviously asked for “a Collection of seeds &

19


Life and Works

20


Life and Works

4. Dedicatory plate.

dry Speciments of plants,” and Romans, in his reply, noted his misfortune in having lost at sea those previously collected. Instead, Romans wrote that he would “continue to send some more drawings of curious plants & employ myself as vigilantly as my present Situation will permit to make a Collection of what Ever comes under my observations & is rare, in order to Send to Europe.” He surmised that Ellis had probably been acquainted with his

proposal to Dartmouth and noted, “I wait impatiently to hear how it is received.” He closed by stating that he was still eager to receive an exclusive patent for the cultivation of jalap in West Florida.122 By March 1774, Romans despaired of ever hearing from Dartmouth. To his patron Ellis he explained that he feared the growing division between Great Britain and the colonies would destroy any chance of his Asian proposal’s receiving serious consideration. This, he con¤ded, “grieves me much, as I live in a part of the World where the Study of Nature, and its votaries is in a most unaccountable manner Neglected & I have but Little Else to recommend me to the attention of mankind[.] I Lead a very neglected Life and am very hard put to it to maintain myself & as I have no friend in Europe to whom to apply, I once more take the freedom to address you on that head, hoping it may be your inclination to recommend me to Some place or business. Be it never So tri®ing, I will Strive to shew my gratitude by close application to duty.” Romans again stated that failing all else, he still hoped to obtain “an Exclusive right for the curing and vending of Jalap in West Florida . . . as that Drugg is there very good in quality. I make no doubt But I could So increase the quantity, that Britain might be Supplied with this article from that Province.”123 Meanwhile, from his base in New York, Romans worked with Rivington on a number of revenue-producing projects. In 1774, Romans collaborated with engraver Paul Revere and drew the map that accompanied Rivington’s printing of John Hawkesworth’s A New Voyage, Round the World.124 This book detailed what was doubtless one of the most amazing voyages of discovery during the eighteenth century, that of Captain James Cook’s Endeavour, which had sailed into Botany Bay in April 1770.125 Romans also submitted a number of articles to Boston’s newly established Royal American Magazine. The issue for January 15, 1774, carried an article in which he advised the farmers of Boston to raise indigo for themselves rather than having to depend on costly imported supplies. Noting that the harsher climate would limit the yield from three cuttings to one, he still insisted that planting the crop would be worthwhile and included the complex directions for the manufacture of dye from the plant. The lengthy poem submitted by Romans that celebrated the virtues and abundant natural wealth of British America appeared in the same issue.126 From New York, he submitted another article for the issue of March 31, 1774, on the cultivation of madder, which was an excerpt from his forthcoming book.127 However, most of his time was devoted to marketing and producing his A Concise Natural History, a project that cost Romans dearly. After eight years of work, “at a vast Expence and bodily Fatigue,” Romans was pleased to

21


Life and Works

22


Life and Works

offer his effort to the public. He did not con¤ne his marketing efforts to personal appearances before such interested bodies as the American Philosophical Society and various marine societies, but launched a veritable media blitz, taking advertisements in major Atlantic seaboard newspapers.128 His advertisement assured potential subscribers that in addition to his extensive narrative “the inland Country is very minutely described, and the Maps will explain even the Land laid out on the river Mississippi; plain aad [sic] ample directions to Navigators will likewise be given, and extensive Soundings on the coast, pointed out, so as to render the Whole as desirable for the Sage in his Cabinet as for the Mariner in his Ship.”129 Romans labored diligently to attract subscribers for the work. In addition to those he had enrolled in the Floridas and South Carolina, he sought out “Lovers and Encouragers of American Literature” in Philadelphia, Boston, and New York.130 He appeared before several marine societies, including those in Boston and Salem, displaying his navigational charts and soliciting support for his book.131 He also solicited the help of the major colonial booksellers and corresponded with those he could not hope to reach personally. His efforts yielded an impressive list of subscribers: Timothy Dwight, Jr.; John Hancock; Governor William Tyron of New York; Owen Biddle, a Philadelphia clockmaker and active member of the American Philosophical Society; the royal customs agent at Boston; Samuel Holland, the surveyor general for the Northern Department; Major General Frederick Haldimand; Henry Knox; and John Adams. From London, Romans acquired two subscribers whose interest in the Floridas was well known: Dr. John Fothergill and John Ellis. Several old acquaintances from Pensacola, including Governor Peter Chester, Dr. John Lorimer, and Edmund Rush Wegg, also placed orders for the book. In Boston, one retailer ordered ¤fty copies of the book; another subscribed to twenty-¤ve.132 From Amsterdam, Huybertus Romans, Bernard’s brother, subscribed to the work.133 In early 1775, Romans targeted Rhode Island. At Newport, he met with Ezra Stiles, who would become president of Yale College in two years’ time. After hearing Romans elaborate on his forthcoming work on March 9, Stiles met with the author again on March 10 and 13. A member of the American Philosophical Society whose interests ranged from meteorology to anthropology, Stiles allowed Romans to examine a number of books from his library. He seemed most interested in the explorer’s accounts of the aborigines and recorded in his diary Romans’s estimates of the population of the southeastern tribes and noted that Romans had “travelled among all the Indians from Labradore to Panama.”134 As he had elsewhere, Romans sold numerous subscriptions at Newport, including twenty-¤ve to a local bookseller. How-

ever, though Stiles had met with Romans, he was not noted as a subscriber on Romans’s list of late subscribers.135 In the end, approximately one quarter of his subscribers were professional navigators and others interested in the maritime trade.136 Yet as the book took ¤nal form, and queries came in from those interested in moving to the Floridas, the character of the work changed. During this period, Romans was living in Wethers¤eld, Connecticut. Wethers¤eld, the colony’s oldest settlement and home to many sea captains and navigators, lay just south of Hartford on the Connecticut River. Wethers¤eld’s most celebrated resident was Silas Deane, a Yale graduate, merchant, and member of the Continental Congress from Connecticut. Why Romans should have settled in this small hamlet is unclear, but it seems likely it was due to his contacts—real and anticipated—with the Company of Military Adventurers. Led by Phineas Lyman, this group of Connecticut veterans hoped to obtain extensive land grants in West Florida. The ¤rst contingent of settlers from the group arrived in West Florida on March 3, 1774, and included members of the Phineas Lyman family. Rufus Putnam, a member of the original exploring party for the Company, provided Romans with a copy of his West Florida journal that described the land around Natchez and told Romans that he might make “what use I pleased of it” (334).137 Putnam in return ordered six copies of the forthcoming book. In fact, Florida fever had swept New England. Prospective settlers were also prospective readers. Accordingly, Romans expanded his book to include information essential for those thinking of migrating to the Floridas. As much as anything else, Romans’s natural history became a handbook for prospective settlers to the Floridas.138 The publication of the book did not go smoothly. As Captain John D. Ware observed, Romans faced “almost overwhelming dif¤culties” in seeing his book to print.139 In addition to the complications posed by the growing differences between the colonies and Great Britain, there were other troubles. In early 1774, one of Romans’s former acquaintances from Pensacola spread rumors that he had pirated George Gauld’s charts of the Gulf Coast with the assistance of Dr. John Lorimer. When these innuendoes reached the New York Marine Society, whom Romans counted as his “kindest patrons,” he issued a public denunciation of the allegation, branded his accuser, John Scott, as a “SCOUNDREL,” and defended his honor by declaring that he had not “pilfered nor pirated from any man living.” In addition to castigating Scott, Romans published excerpts of some of his correspondence with Lorimer concerning Gauld’s work that supported his contention that the two had freely shared their ¤ndings with each other. Further, he listed his activities of the previous years, explaining how and under what circum-

23


Life and Works

24


Life and Works

stances he had obtained his information. Romans, in acknowledging that some of the information he intended to publish was obtained from Gauld, af¤rmed it was used with Gauld’s permission and that Gauld had agreed to furnish him with additional information, which he would duly credit in his forthcoming book. Moreover, he claimed that he had forwarded some of his own work to Gauld for his bene¤t.140 He likewise defended his use of information he had acquired while working for the government, noting that John Stuart had given his permission to use information he had obtained of the area west of Pensacola during the term of his employment with the Indian Department (advertisement). Later, in the appendix of his book, by way of prefacing his navigational directions, Romans reaf¤rmed that most of his information had been obtained “at my own great expence, and fatigue” (appendix, i). More important, he again stated that his charting and writing had never interfered with the performance of his of¤cial duties, and he listed his sources of information, including early French manuscripts and George Gauld, whose work he had been shown by both John Stuart and Dr. John Lorimer. While Scott’s motivations in casting aspersions on Romans’s work are unclear, those of William Gerard De Brahm, who complained privately about what he considered improper conduct on the part of Romans, were more transparent. De Brahm was angered by Stuart’s hiring of both Romans and Purcell and believed that both men were unfairly using surveys made while in his employ. Writing in 1773 to Lord Dartmouth, De Brahm complained that “my Geometer Joseph Purcell during the time of his apprenticeship has secretly taken copys of my surveys, since my absense from America perused them publickly and entered with out giving me any notice into the service of Mr. John Stuart.” He further noted that Romans had been guilty of the same “in¤delity” in entering Stuart’s employ. Moreover, referring to a seemingly innocent request by George Gauld for the exchange of “the plans of our Surveys,” he stated that he believed Gauld’s request was part of a plot by Governor James Grant to prove him un¤t for his position. De Brahm reasoned that if he and Gauld exchanged surveys, Governor Grant would forward only Gauld’s work to London and thus “would have suf¤cient colour of pretence to prove I return nothing to Your Lordships Board, than copys of Mr. Gaulds Surveys.”141 De Brahm’s charge against Gauld was without merit, and the claim that Purcell and Romans had left his employ is likewise dubious since De Brahm had already been dismissed from his Florida of¤ce when those two men sought alternate employment. In the case of composite maps, such as those produced by John Stuart’s of¤ce and those commissioned by Governor Peter

ADVER TISEMENT. THE map of the country of the fovage "aiions, intended to be put, facing page 72 , w.as Inzra-. 'lJed by a Gentleman who refides in thl country 60 _ 70 miles from New-York, to whom the Ilate was fint ; hut when it 'Was font ,a&k,# mijcarried, Ibrougb lie c.relefnefs of /pe wIIlgoner; and Ihoulb thl pith.. /iclI#on bas heen delayed Jome time on tbat account, it is not yet come t(J band; the reader will therefor, pleaje 10 expttl faid" map with the fuonJ volume. At the firft plllnning of this publication, it was ill~ lendld only to be a jingle volume, not exceeding 300 pages, appendix and all; but at tbe requeft of.foml Gentlemen, my friends, i ba.ve fllbjoined fo many ar· titles, tbal itIwelltli imptreeptiilly to about 800 page,r r flJhich maJ( it neceJfary to print it in two volun:.i:s ; lind as Jome ""eJtpe&Jed acci«enu, eJPecially tbe wan' ,f a copper-plate printer, have occafioned delays;i will therefore, t(J atone in fame meafut;e (for faid de. lays) to thoft kind Gentlemen who favoured me with their fuhfcripti01ls for tbe maps, deliver them thl fe .. tond volume gratis, as Joon tiS il is publi./hed: II is. now in the prefs. I return my moft jilUlrt thanKS for the liheral m'/'· touragement that hilS been IIfforded me; and b'pe ~ worlc will p, deemed deferoing it." ~

lBernard 1l0DaanS; 5. Advertisement. (Courtesy American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.)

25


Life and Works

26


Life and Works

Chester, it was essential that the work of many different surveyors and cartographers be pooled in order to obtain the most accurate result. Tender egos were sometimes bruised when individuals believed they had failed to obtain proper recognition for their contributions to joint efforts, but that did not mean the practice of pooling or sharing information was unethical. On the contrary, by combining the best surveys from a variety of sources, John Stuart’s department was able to produce the best map of the southeast up to that time. In addition, as De Brahm’s letter indicates, there was also considerable jealousy and competition among departments, including the army and navy. In any case, no evidence survives that Lorimer, Gauld, or Stuart was troubled by Romans’s project or that others took the charges against him seriously. Romans was particularly annoyed at insinuations of unethical conduct by improperly using information he had obtained while in the government’s employ.142 His bitterness at having failed to obtain proper remuneration and suitable employment was evident in his de¤ant statement, “Therefore I am under no manner of obligation to any of the LITTLE GREAT ONES, who have occasionally used me, (sometimes as the monkey did the cat) and this production being undoubtedly my own, as such I have a right to publish it” (appendix, ii). Romans had originally intended to produce a book of about three hundred pages.143 As it progressed, however, he enlarged the scope of the work, added material, and found that the book had “swelled imperceptibly to about 800 pages.”144 This necessitated splitting it into two volumes. He had planned to publish an appendix of “directions to navigators” at the end of the “whole work” (appendix, i), but since this section was eagerly anticipated by his marine supporters, he decided to tack the navigational directions onto the end of the ¤rst volume. To those who had subscribed to both his map and books, he promised the second volume at no charge, and he assured his readers that even as the ¤rst volume was being completed, the second volume was in press.145 Romans had originally expected his book to be completed in July 1774, but like most authors he was overly optimistic in his projection.146 The numerous copper plate engravings he planned to illustrate his work were an expensive and complicating factor in the production of the book. According to an advertisement Romans placed in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer on April 27, 1775, “a struggle of above 4 months with the art and mystery of Copper-plate printing has occasioned delays.”147 In all, twelve plates were planned. The frontispiece contained an elaborate allegorical drawing. A dedicatory plate in ®ourishing script honored John Ellis. Symbolic of Romans’s

27


Life and Works

6. Frontispiece, volume 1. (Courtesy American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia.)

28


Life and Works

botanizing efforts, the ¤rst illustration was a drawing of a new West Florida plant that Romans titled Avena aquatica sylvestris and that he identi¤ed as wild oats. Five plates were dedicated to Indian themes, including “characteristic” heads of the three major Florida tribes, examples of Indian art, and a Choctaw burial platform. For merchants and navigators, the ¤nal three plates detailed the entrances to Tampa Bay, Pensacola, and Mobile. The plate of a map of the southern Indian tribes was the cause of considerable delay. The man to whom Romans entrusted the job of engraving this plate was Abel Buell, a well-known engraver. The completed plate from Buell was lost in transit, and after a lengthy delay, Romans advised his subscribers that the map would accompany the second volume of his work.148 Causing even more expense and delay were the large maps that were to accompany the volume. After engaging engravers, Romans’s next problem was securing paper large enough for the two maps. This he eventually found in Philadelphia.149 A large folding table of Georgia exports compiled by the customs agent at Savannah for the years 1754 to 1773 was included as well, to illustrate the potential economic rewards awaiting Florida settlers. By the end of April 1775, the copper plate engravings were ready and the prints were completed and inserted into the ¤rst volume. A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida was ready for delivery. Romans apologized for the delay and announced in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer that his subscribers should inform him where their volumes were to be delivered.150 Bernard Romans’s book and large maps, a labor of love for the author, had been ten years in the making. It was not a propitious moment for a work to appear concerning the two southernmost continental colonies. Just eight days before Romans’s announcement that his book was ready for delivery, Americans had witnessed the battles of Lexington and Concord, on April 19, 1775, and armies of rebels were organizing to ¤ght British troops and harass those who openly opposed them. This “dreadfull change in the Situation of affairs in America” further complicated the completion and distribution of the book. As his announcements suggested, books from the ¤rst printing were delivered in April 1775. A second printing, in 1776, was necessary to ful¤ll all subscription orders. The 1776 edition, which contained a new title page, omitted the frontispiece, the subscriber list, and the appendix and its three maps.151 As late as March 10, 1776, by which time he was “deeply engaged in the Service of the Country,” Romans was still attempting to deliver his completed books. The delays and the changes in circumstance made the author fearful that subscribers would be unwilling to ful¤ll their obligations by accepting the

29


Life and Works

7. Title page of the 1775 edition.

completed work and remitting the money due him upon delivery. Con¤ded Romans to a friend, “I have however had so few instances of that, that I hope my Caution will be needless.”152 Romans quickly found himself caught up in the War of the American Revolution, and even before his book was ready for delivery, Romans had joined the rebellion. On December 7, 1773, he had appeared before the

30


Life and Works

Boston Marine Society. Thus, he was in town when the Boston Tea Party took place December 10, 1773.153 Romans shared the sentiments of many in Boston, including his engraver Paul Revere, and his comments in A Concise Natural History re®ect the prevailing opinion of a certain British import: “a despicable weed, and of late attempted to be made a dirty conduit, to lead a stream of oppressions into these happy regions” (167).154 By early April 1775, he accepted an appointment with the rank of captain from the Connecticut Committee of Safety, whose membership included Silas Deane, to take possession of Fort Ticonderoga and nearby British forti¤cations.155 He was given an allowance of £100 to raise troops on the way north. Other volunteers were also commissioned and sent to join Romans, and within days, the rebel expedition had grown to over two hundred men.156 The Connecticut volunteers were quickly caught up in the larger movement against Ticonderoga, and as they entered New York, two more-experienced commanders, Benedict Arnold and Nathanael Greene, quickly assumed overall command of the expedition. While the main body of troops continued toward the primary target, Romans’s company headed for a secondary objective, Fort George, a poorly armed and almost deserted fort at the edge of Lake George. There, the elderly captain in charge offered no resistance and would later comment on the civility of his captor. After making arrangements to have his prisoner transported back to New York, Romans rejoined the forces at Ticonderoga, where he helped in the assessment of the captured ammunition at the fort. According to Benedict Arnold, Romans seemed “an able engineer.”157 Thus, the noted cartographer and new author took part in what is properly considered the ¤rst offensive act of the Revolutionary War by American troops.158 By May 31, 1775, he was back in Hartford, presenting his expense account to the committee.159 The British too noticed Romans’s actions. Lord Dartmouth, among others, noted that Romans—described as an excellent draughtsman—was on the list of those who had taken part in the Ticonderoga expedition.160 Other important battles were not long in coming, and on June 17, 1775, the British engaged the Americans at the Battle of Bunker Hill, actually Breed’s Hill. There, Israel Putnam commanded three thousand Connecticut rebels. Israel Putnam was the cousin of Lieutenant Rufus Putnam, who eventually became surveyor general of the United States. Rufus Putnam, who purchased subscriptions for six copies of Romans’s book and provided a portion of his West Florida diary for the publication, was also an engineer and had been responsible for fortifying Dorchester Heights above Boston.

Both Putnams were involved in the Company of Military Adventurers. Whether Romans was actually present at the battle is not clear, but he did produce an illustration of the engagement entitled “An Exact View of the Late Battle at Charlestown, June 17th, 1775.”161 In Romans’s illustration of the great battle, the red-coated troops of General Thomas Gage are shown advancing toward the American line. Israel Putnam is shown seated on his restless horse presumably just after he had uttered his famous—and frequently misquoted—line: “Men, you are all marksmen—don’t one of you ¤re until you see the whites of their eyes.”162 Dead troops—of His Majesty’s Ministerial Forces—litter the ground. The “Exact View,” which one of Romans’s biographers has justly described as a “major creative breakthrough” for the artist, proved highly popular. By August, it had been printed by Nicholas Brooks in Philadelphia. The September issue of Robert Aitken’s Pennsylvania Magazine, or American Monthly Museum also carried the “Exact View,” minus Romans’s signature. By 1776, Romans’s work was published in London.163 Modern scholars rank this work as one of the ¤ve most important engravings of early American history.164 In addition to the “Exact View,” Romans prepared a map of the area around Boston, “The Seat of Civil War in America.” The large map, with an inset of Boston Neck, was dutifully dedicated to John Hancock, the President of the Continental Congress and a subscriber to A Concise Natural History. The map showed the location of Hancock’s house, now occupied by British troops, as well as defenses erected on Boston Neck by “the Ministerial Army,” and included all the major roads out of Boston. The map, engraved by Abel Buell and printed and sold by James Rivington, was advertised by the beginning of August 1775 and appeared at the beginning of September.165 Advertisements for the map in Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer proclaimed that “the draught was taken by the most skillful draughtsman in all America, and who was on the spot at the engagements of Lexington and Bunker’s Hill.” Romans’s map of Boston, declared the advertisement for its sale, was “one of the most correct that has ever been published.”166 The value of Romans’s maps was not lost on British printers. As early as October 1776, his work was incorporated into “A General Map of the Southern British Colonies,” particularly his work on East and West Florida and St. Augustine.167 This map was also included in the American Military Pocket Atlas, more commonly known as the “Holster Atlas,” since it was printed for the use of mounted British of¤cers.168 The inclusion of Romans’s work gives him the distinction of being the only Patriot whose maps were published for the use of the British army. By the time the atlas appeared, Romans was an active American rebel and must have been piqued beyond

31


Life and Works

32


Life and Works

normal measure to ¤nd that his works had been published by those from whom he had failed to obtain what he considered adequate recognition. Unfortunately, the second volume of A Concise Natural History, which was to contain Romans’s Indian map, was never published as a result of the upheavals of the period. From his print shop on Hanover Square, New York City, James Rivington printed fairly even-handed accounts of the mounting colonial troubles. For his dedication to both sides of the story, he was condemned by the Sons of Liberty. American rebels denounced Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer as “Rivington’s Lying Gazette.” Rivington was hung in ef¤gy, his print shop was ransacked, and in November 1775, a patriot mob destroyed his print shop. The second volume of A Concise Natural History was then in production according to earlier advertisements. It seems likely that the plates for the second volume, and perhaps the map of the southeastern Indian tribes that was to have accompanied it, were lost by this destructive act.169 Rivington was forced to ®ee the city. Sale and distribution of the second printing of the ¤rst volume of A Concise Natural History, in 1776, was handled by Robert Aiken.170 In the meantime, Romans’s career had taken an unexpected turn as wartime needs placed a premium on cartographic, engineering, and surveying skills. Opportunity presented itself when the Continental Congress, recognizing the importance of controlling the Hudson River, recommended to the state of New York that it fortify the river at once. Should the British obtain unchallenged control of the Hudson, they could cut communications between New England and the Middle Colonies, gain unfettered access to interior Indian tribes, and open the way for effective cooperation with the British army in Canada. To carry out the plan, New York’s Provincial Congress appointed a site committee to choose a location for the proposed forti¤cations. Unfortunately, the committee chose Martelaer’s Rock, a low island in the Hudson River just across the river from West Point. As the rebellion against Britain continued, the Provincial Congress in New York turned prosecution of the rebellion over to a Committee of Safety, which in turn named a ¤ve-man panel known as the Commissioners for Forti¤cations at the Highlands to oversee the construction of a fort at Martelaer’s Rock. Engineers were in short supply, and the Commissioners were unable to ¤nd and engage an engineer to design and construct forti¤cations. Back in Philadelphia, Bernard Romans had favorably impressed the Continental Congress, and they recommended him to the New York Commissioners, who in turn urged the Committee of Safety to place him in charge of the entire effort.171 Romans began work at once, abandoning his own “very considerable”

private business affairs and, as he knew, endangering his West Florida stipend from the Crown by enlisting in America’s “great and common cause.”172 During late August 1775, even though he did not have proper instruments and his appointment had not been con¤rmed, Romans began surveying the river and designing plans for forti¤cations. The plan, covering the type of armament needed, noted areas where enemy ships could land and was, according to Romans, “the most frugal plan that can be of any service here.” 173 However, when the Commissioners visited the site, they immediately spotted problems, not only with Romans’s plan but also with its proposed location. Undaunted, Romans proceeded to New York City, where he presented his plan to the Committee of Safety but failed to mention the reservations expressed by the Commissioners. Romans’s presentation impressed the Committee, and they sent his plan and expenses to the Continental Congress. Moreover, according to Romans, the Committee of Safety “gave me their words that I should be appointd principal Engineer for this Province, with the rank and pay of Colonel.”174 When the Commissioners learned of the proceedings, they were outraged since the Committee had failed to obtain their recommendation or even consult them before granting ¤nal approval to Romans’s plan. Whatever the Committee of Safety had made him, the strong-willed civilian Commissioners for Forti¤cations at the Highlands had their own ideas about lines of authority, as well as the feasibility of Romans’s project. They declared that his plan was inadequate and his expenses exorbitant and became even more impatient as he simply ignored them, ordered building materials, hired laborers, sent his bills to them, and began construction. Their question became “whether we are under Mr. Romans’s direction, or whether he is obliged to consult with us upon the measures to be pursued.”175 As construction progressed, it became apparent to everyone that Romans’s original forti¤cations would have to be extended. In early November 1775, Romans wrote to the Commissioners to present his view and to remind them that he considered himself “placed by the Congress in a very conspicuous rank.” He also noted that he had “frequently observed” that the plan for fortifying the Hudson River was “a very lame one . . . [for] remedying of which I have often offered my discourse.”176 Among other things, he complained that he had received little direction from either the Congress or the Committee, thereby ignoring the fact that he had charged ahead without authorization from the Committee while the various governmental authorities struggled to establish lines of authority and evaluate the situation. However, in a conciliatory manner, he presented his proposals for amending de¤ciencies in the project. In their answer to Romans, the Commissioners

33


Life and Works

34


Life and Works

accused Romans of taking super¤cial surveys and submitting inadequate plans, and even called his character into question. As Philip Lee Phillips, an early student of Romans’s career, noted, “one cannot help being convinced that there was considerable uncalled-for acerbity in the reply of the Commissioners, and according to present day ideas Romans had many reasons for future irritation.”177 Romans was not willing to submit meekly. He at once declared that the Commissioners’ lengthy reply to his own “reasonable remonstrances” was likely to be a “long starter of dif¤culties, which seems to me a declared commencement of a paper war.” With that, Romans began his defense—and the paper war—noting, “I am, from long experience, enabled to take more exact surveys of places, with a piece of papers and pencil, than perhaps ninety-nine besides me can, with all the circumstantial apparatus generally used.” He declared that he was the kind of gentleman who “forebore to make use of the many polite appellations, such as scoundrel, villain &c.” with which his rivals publicly bated him. Firmly, the engineer noted: My business, well followed, is three men’s work. Perhaps you think me your of¤cer too. Softly, gentlemen; that will never do. The Congress appointed me to a rank I esteem more honourable than any I ever held. . . . I interrupt none of your powers, I meddle with none; but you have hindered me from having as much again work done; and till I am sole director of my plan, things cannot go well. None can be more happy in the union you mention; but if I must be cap in hand, gentlemen, to be an overseer under you, it will not do, depend upon it. I have too much blood in me for so mean an action, and you must seek such submissive engineers elsewhere.178

It was to be a useless argument, for Romans’s complex plans for fortifying Martelaer’s Rock were bound to be inadequate, more from the location of the site than the design of the forti¤cations. The higher land to the west, across the Hudson River, now known as West Point, commanded the region, and no matter the number of guns and entrenchments carved into Martelaer’s Rock, cannon placed on West Point, some ¤ve hundred feet higher, could easily force it into submission. More important, West Point was more strategically located in regard to the course of the river, which makes an S-shaped bend at that point. When the Commissioners visited the site to inspect, they were horri¤ed to ¤nd that Romans’s batteries had been placed so far west on the island that enemy ships would be shielded by West Point from any ¤re from the batteries until they were almost directly on the fort. To remedy this problem, the forti¤cations would have to be extended east-

ward. As tempers ®ared, winter approached, the project faltered, and the paper war enlarged. It was left to the Continental Congress to settle the matter. Romans, having completed a good portion of the work, retired from the fray and headed for Philadelphia to make his case before the Continental Congress. For their part, the Commissioners rightly noted that the inadequacies of Romans’s plan could not be judged from surveys and plans alone and demanded that lines of authority for the project be drawn. By March 1776, Romans was pleased to inform the New York Committee of Safety that in Philadelphia he “had the pleasure to meet with an entire approbation of his conduct.” Moreover, Congress awarded him a new commission and “passed a vote that it was reasonable . . . [he] should be paid [by New York] up to the date of his new commission” for his work in the highlands.179 However, this was a facesaving gesture, as even the members of Congress had ¤nally recognized the problems inherent in the site and Romans’s forti¤cations.180 As a 1776 report to General Washington noted, Romans’s costly forti¤cations were “very neat” and “very picturesque” but “upon the whole, Mr. Romans has displayed his genius at a very great expense and to very little publick advantage.” 181 Romans’s new commission was that of captain of the First Pennsylvania Company of Artillery.182 In this capacity, he participated in the unsuccessful campaign against Quebec, under General Philip Schuyler. Romans proudly wrote that his new company was “every where acknowledged to be a ¤ne set of men.” He deemed them “tolerably expert in the use of Artillery” but lamented that they were not fully supplied with arms after having been on the march from Philadelphia for over two weeks. The lack of proper supplies, noted the captain, “is the only dif¤culty I now labor under.”183 Other dif¤culties soon arose, and his new commission brought him even more trouble. In order to help maintain order during the march north, Romans declared tippling houses along the way off-limits to his men. In revenge for depriving them of business, the purveyors of “infernal rum” in Albany, New York, encouraged his men to desert. Four did. When another tavern keeper refused to provide some of Romans’s men with water, shouts of “a Tory! a Tory!” rose from the ranks, and in the ensuing donnybrook “among other mischief done a Turkey was killed.” Romans managed to regain command of the situation, kept the man’s house from being torched, and even offered to compensate the owner for the loss of the bird. The man was not satis¤ed, however, and other allegations followed. Romans brushed them aside, declaring that his men were innocent of wrongdoing. He later

35


Life and Works

36


Life and Works

wrote that he would “sooner be guilty of a crime of a Black dye than to be at the head of a gang of ruf¤an marauders.” Moreover, he swore to resign should he ever fail to adequately lead his troops.184 Although command had its bene¤ts, Romans still longed for work as an engineer, as he believed John Hancock had promised. Ever mindful of his duty, he took the time to procure “a Captn Lieutenant [Mr. Jones] who is well experienced and much used to Command” to assume control of the company should he be called upon to take up duties elsewhere.185 In early July 1776, his company was reassigned from the Canadian Department to the Northern Department, and Romans was ordered to Fort Ticonderoga, under the command of Colonel Arthur St. Clair. There, he was placed in charge of “two twelve and two four-pounders.”186 Rather than the good tidings of an engineering position came the bad tidings of more controversy. Soon after he arrived at Ticonderoga in July, complaints from John Dewitt, a lieutenant, resulted in Romans’s being the subject of a court of inquiry under General Horatio Gates. Dewitt, piqued that Romans had “entirely left me out” of the returns for the artillery company, denounced his superior of¤cer as a man with “neither honour, honesty, nor true valor in him.” Romans emerged the victor in this contest with his disgruntled lieutenant, and a day after sending his letter, Dewitt was dismissed from service. Romans, vindicated, found the incident rewarding, for if nothing else, it gained the attention of his commanding of¤cer, who soon found a need for Romans’s unique skills.187 Foremost on the minds of strategic planners on both sides of the war was the control of Lake Champlain, which was the only route between the Hudson and St. Lawrence rivers. Should the British gain control of the lake, they would be able to cut communications between New England and the rest of the colonies. It was imperative that the rebels prevent the British navy from gaining control of the lake since it could be used as a staging area for an invasion from the north. Following the successful capture of Ticonderoga in 1775, Benedict Arnold at once began to assemble a fresh-water navy on Lake Champlain. In May, he captured the British post at St. Johns, as well as a number of British vessels, which he added to the American ®eet. Though the British quickly retook the post, Arnold’s action left the Americans in command of the lake for a time. With the failure of their 1775–1776 winter campaign into Canada, the Americans fell back to Crown Point. Realizing their vulnerability to British attack, preparations were at once made to build vessels with which to supply the troops, as well as to ¤ght the British. The center of the American naval building program was Skenesborough. Now

known as Whitehall, this town has come to be regarded as the birthplace of the American navy. Major General Philip Schuyler, ordered to protect Lake Champlain by the Continental Congress, believed that time constraints would not allow the construction of large vessels and so ordered the construction of small, simple craft. Schuyler’s decision to build small vessels, primarily gundalows (gondolas) and galleys was, at least on the surface, a sensible decision, for he lacked both experienced shipwrights and sailors.188 Benedict Arnold, a former merchantman, was appointed to command the growing armada of undermanned and undergunned ships. General Horatio Gates, who was Arnold’s supporter, quarreled with Schuyler. Under these circumstances, Gates sent Romans to investigate the activities at the shipyard at Skenesborough. It was an eminently logical choice, given Romans’s considerable nautical experience. At Skenesborough, Romans was shocked at what he saw. He immediately attacked “those cursed things called Gondolas!” and at once “declaimed [against them] open mouthed.”189 To no avail. The gundalows and galleys were readied, and Arnold, his ®eet manned by inexperienced hands, took up a position near Valcour Island, on the western side of Lake Champlain, near present-day Plattsburgh, New York. On October 11, 1776, the day the actual battle of Valcour Island began, Romans was again en route to Ticonderoga, which guards the narrows between Lake Champlain and Lake George. Upon reaching Lake George, Romans’s “Ears were saluted with the dinn of Cannon from the Northward.” After a delay of two days he was able to cross Lake George. As he headed north toward the action, the battle wore on. When he arrived at Fort Ticonderoga, he found the American ®eet “totally defeated . . . after our good folk vainly paraded on the lake [on gondolas] . . . Behold out comes the Enemy with a much superior force & Beat our paraders.” Though he decried their leaders and their ships, he praised the Americans who fought the great battle of Valcour Island. Reported Romans: “Our people fought like Lions[;] the Enemy took but one [ship] . . . all the rest were blown up or otherways destroyed by our own folks . . . the ¤rst day our people however drove them [the British] with considerable damage, carrying away the mizen mast of their principal vessel, & sinking or blowing up some of their ®atbottommed craft; in short they behaved Hero like.” Romans was further angered by the lack of intelligence information and noted bitterly that the northern army “is yet & has always been shockingly neglected.”190 Like Romans, most of the defeated Americans expected the British to follow up their victory and attack Ticonderoga and begin a push southward. However, it was not to be. The battle of Valcour Island, one of the greatest

37


Life and Works

38


Life and Works

fresh-water naval battles in American history, was ostensibly an American loss, but the ¤erce resistance the little ®eet had put forth delayed the planned invasion by the British. The delay, according to modern scholars, was directly responsible for the crucial American victory at Saratoga in October 1777.191 Following the battle, Romans continued his inspection of Skenesborough and other minor forti¤cations in the region. By early November 1776, he had sent General Gates his comments on the forti¤cations at Skenesborough and Fort Anne, as well as sketches of the forti¤cations with his recommendation for improving them.192 He also helped inventory armaments at Ticonderoga and other locales.193 Later that month, the Pennsylvania Council of Safety directed that Romans, now classi¤ed as an “Engineer,” should be furnished “with such Materials as he may require to perform an experiment, in order to give a specimen of his skill in destroying distant objects by ¤re.”194 Unfortunately, the exact nature of this experiment and its result are not known.195 All the while, Romans continued to produce maps for the use of the Americans. In 1777, an unsigned and undated map of Connecticut was released, and in 1778, another Connecticut map, dated New Haven, June 5, 1778, went on sale. This map was also published in Amsterdam in 1780. In June, Romans’s “A Chorographical Map of the Country Round Philadelphia,” including virtually all of New Jersey, Delaware, the northeastern portion of Maryland, and southeastern Pennsylvania, appeared. Included in this map was the location of the “Grand American Winter Camp 1778” at Valley Forge.196 A large “Chorographical Map of the Northern Department of North America Drawn from the Latest and most accurate Observations,” unsigned, appeared in 1778. It claims the distinction of being the ¤rst map in which the name Vermont is used.197 All Romans’s extant maps are extremely rare, and more may have been produced. It is almost a certainty that many manuscript maps came from his hand during these years. Romans resigned from his company on June 1, 1778, as the war in the north wound down. At ¤fty-eight years old, Romans must have felt the strain of his many years of rugged living and army service. From Ticonderoga, he had earlier reported that he was in poor health.198 Free from military duties, Romans turned his attention to completing a manuscript he had been working on for some time, a history of the oppression of The Netherlands at the hands of the British. By the end of September, the ¤rst volume was complete, and later in the year he declared that the second volume, “much more interesting than the ¤rst,” was likewise ready for the press. In the preface to the ¤rst volume, Romans wrote, “I HAVE not

vanity enough to rank myself in the eminent dignity of an HISTORIAN: No; Candid Reader, I only beg of you to regard me as a diligent Compiler, and faithful Translator.” Moreover, he assured his readers “that not the least assistance whatever has been given me.”199 The book, Romans’s advertisements declared, “is wrote to evince the great hardships and amazing success of a vassal people who extricated themselves from the tyranny of the most exorbitant power in Europe, and in the end ruined that power while the ocean was covered with its navy, and the earth with its armies.”200 Romans believed the story of his native land would be “a proper and seasonable Mirror for the present Americans.”201 The book was pitched at statesmen, soldiers, merchants, the clergy, and farmers. Newspaper advertisements noted, “The public in general, are requested to take it for granted, that the work is meant to be useful.”202 By January 1779, the ¤rst volume of Annals of the Troubles in the Netherlands was on hand in bookstores in Connecticut. The patriot closed his preface with a “sincere prayer” for America: “MAY Heaven smile on your virtuous struggles, and give you lasting name among the nations.” 203 As his book was readied for delivery to subscribers, Romans married Elizabeth Whiting, a nineteen year old from Wethers¤eld, on January 28, 1779.204 She quickly produced a son for Romans, Hubertus Romans, born October 23, 1779. Their life together was brief. As the war in the north came to a virtual standstill, the pace quickened in the south. The experienced captain and engineer/cartographer again answered the call to duty. He joined the Southern Campaign in 1780, leaving his young wife and son behind. It was only after he had left Connecticut that the second volume of his history of The Netherlands appeared, in 1782. Surviving documents do not reveal the exact nature of Romans’s ¤nal service to his country, but Elizabeth Romans’s pension application, ¤led in 1846, provides the following details, none of which can be veri¤ed. Following his service in Pennsylvania, her application states, in 1780 “he was ordered to go to the State of South Carolina, there to join the Southern Army.” According to her information, the vessel on which he sailed from Connecticut was captured and Romans was carried to Montego Bay, Jamaica, and held as a prisoner of war until 1783, since the British refused to exchange him. At the end of the war, on his way to the United States, “he was said to have died on his passage, though from circumstances attending his demise his friends had good reason to believe him to have been wilfully murdered.” 205 Elizabeth Romans’s pension application was denied on the incredible grounds that her husband’s service had not been military in nature.

39


Life and Works

40


Life and Works

While there is substantial documentary evidence detailing Romans’s military service, no records have been uncovered to date to substantiate this version of his last years. His widow died in 1848. In his History of Ancient Wethers¤eld, Henry Stiles gave a slightly different version of events. Stiles related that the ship upon which Romans sailed was traveling from New London, Connecticut, to Charleston, South Carolina, when captured. According to Stiles, after his capture at sea, Romans was taken to England rather than Jamaica and was released in 1784. Like Mrs. Romans, Stiles believed that Romans was murdered at sea during the voyage home.206 Surviving documents tell much of Romans’s life in America. Together with his writings, they also provide clues about the man’s character and personality. Romans’s penchant for acerbic criticism of other writers and the numerous controversies in which he was involved have tended to color modern views of the author. Rembert Patrick, noting these “personal arguments and legal suits and controversies,” wrote that Romans “could not live in amity with his fellow man.”207 Yet Romans lived in an age of contentious men, and he crossed the path of many others cut from the same haughty cloth, all quick to take offense and defend slights—real or imagined—against their honor. There was more to Bernard Romans than mere bombast. Resourceful and determined, he was also a man of intelligence, courage, and ambition who sought recognition at a time when birthright was often more important than ability. It required self-assurance, or perhaps even pigheadedness, for such a man to declare he had found true jalap in a remote corner of the colonial world and to seek important patrons for his projects. Additionally, scattered amid the disdainful remarks and loudly expressed irritation at irritating things, there are hints of humor lurking beneath the stolid Dutch exterior. By the strength of his personality and breadth of his education, the immigrant navigator managed to create a place for himself in British America. In his ¤nal years, he rendered loyal and valuable service in his country’s ¤ght for independence. Romans was a devout man who believed in “the omnipotent Lord of the universe” (57). Rembert Patrick, in noting that Romans did not take the Bible to be literally true regarding a single creation, wrote that Romans’s “implied criticism of the Bible as the exact word of God would arouse the ire of a later-day fundamentalist. In truth the engineer-writer had no great faith in the Bible or in religion. . . . Many passages of the Concise History clearly indicate that their author was an agnostic.”208 But Romans was no agnostic. On the contrary, like many of his contemporaries, he expressed a

universalist view of God. In his book, Romans wrote that his rejection of a strict literal interpretation of the Bible, “God’s holy word,” did “not at all derogate from God’s greatness, nor in any ways dishonour the sacred evidence given us by his servants” (55). Romans was one of the few men of his time to express awe at the varied wonders of the natural world, as he did when describing the beauty of the magni¤cent virgin forest of the American southeast or the impressive sight of numerous sea turtles laying their eggs in the Florida sand. While he was eager to promote immigration and foster economic development, he decried needless destruction and unnecessary waste. Intertwined with Romans’s competitive spirit and a relentless need for proper recognition was genuine concern for the lives of fellow navigators and indignation at the plight of the less fortunate. Above all, in Romans’s writings, his zest for discovery and description shines through, and “truth” was indeed his maxim, for although he was often undiplomatic and cruelly honest, Bernard Romans was nonetheless a ¤rst-rate and perceptive observer of the early South. The fact that his “truth” was colored by his Eurocentric male viewpoint does not so much devalue his work as bear witness to the perspectives of his own time and place. Today, his blunt prose stands in welcome contrast to the well-ordered sentences of diplomats and the ebullient accounts of real-estate promoters. Although many of the theories he propounded on such varied subjects as race and climate are today ridiculed, even the most controversial statements of fact contained in his book are usually con¤rmed by other sources. Indeed, Bernard Romans’s A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida provides one of the few faithful accounts of the region and its people during the late eighteenth century. That he managed to see his book to completion during the early period of the War of the American Revolution is itself a tribute to the tenacity and audacity of a man who might properly be deemed one of the Deep South’s ¤rst true scholars.

41


Life and Works

Romans’s History as a Source for Understanding the Eighteenth-Century South

Bernard Romans’s A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, William Bartram’s Travels, and James Adair’s History of the American Indians comprise the three most signi¤cant accounts of the Deep South published during the late eighteenth century. Adair, an Indian trader and entrepreneur of long standing, lived for years among the Chickasaw Indians. His work describes the lands and customs of the southeastern Indians and includes comments on British imperial policy.1 Bartram traveled through the Floridas and the interior Indian country identifying and collecting new and marketable plants at the same time that Romans was preparing his own book for the printer in the 1770s. Bartram’s account of his journey, published years after the fact, is rightfully considered one of the masterpieces of early American literature. Far from being a botanical tome, Bartram’s book deals extensively with the southeastern Indian tribes. His melodious prose and lilting descriptions of the land and the people he encountered, as well as his honesty and integrity, make Travels one of the leading sources on the eighteenth-century South.2 Taken together, the works of Adair, Bartram, and Romans provide an understanding of the eighteenth-century southeast rarely encountered in of¤cial reports and descriptions by settlers who lived along the coast. The area considered by Romans—East Florida and West Florida—came under British jurisdiction in 1763 according to the terms of the peace treaty that ended the Seven Years’ War. East Florida stretched southward from the St. Marys River, which formed its northern border with Georgia, to the Florida Keys. The western boundary of the colony was the Apalachicola River, where West Florida began. St. Augustine was virtually the only area of European settlement in the formerly Spanish colony, although abandoned mission sites and rancheros dotted the peninsula. Most of the land within the colony’s boundaries was acknowledged by the British to belong to the Creek Indians. Additionally, numerous villages in the upper and central portions of the peninsula had been recently settled by the Seminoles, part of the Lower

8. The South as Bernard Romans knew it, ca. 1772.

Creek confederation of tribes. West Florida extended westward from the Apalachicola River all the way to the Mississippi River and northward to 32°28′, thereby including the burgeoning settlements along the Mississippi River that stretched northward to the Natchez area. About one-half of the modern state of Alabama was included within the colony’s borders, as were substantial parts of the modern states of Mississippi and Florida, as well as parts of Louisiana. Although the capital of Pensacola was originally settled by the Spanish, most of the colony had been French territory. In a separate treaty, in 1762, France had ceded Louisiana to Spain. At the close of the war, Spain retained Louisiana west of the Mississippi River, including the “island of New Orleans,” which actually lay to the east of the river. Both East and West Florida claimed lands not ceded to the crown by the Creek and Choctaw Indians, and the history of both colonies was marred by con®ict with these tribes over illegal white settlements and encroachments on Indian hunting lands. West Florida was the most populous of the two colonies and

44


Romans’s History

boasted numerous settlements, including Pensacola, Mobile, Biloxi, and Natchez.3 Romans was by no means the only cartographer/geographer to produce a descriptive report of the Floridas, but he was one of the ¤rst to publish. In 1770, Lieutenant Philip Pittman had produced a slim volume, with maps, aptly titled The Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi. Pittman’s work lacked the detail and scope of later studies, however.4 Thomas Hutchins, a contemporary of Romans who was later appointed the Geographer of the United States, produced a brief work in 1784 entitled An Historical Narrative and Topographical Description of Louisiana, and West-Florida.5 Joseph G. Tregle, who studied Hutchins’s career, believed that Romans’s book was “nowhere so full in its directions or so well organized in its content as the Historical Narrative.” However, he pointed out that Hutchins con¤ned his descriptions “fairly closely to the coastline, with nothing approaching the engrossing, detailed account of Indians, ®ora and fauna, disease, and general folkways to be found in Romans’ pages.”6 Both Romans and Hutchins bene¤ted from the work of George Gauld, whose charts and pamphlets of sailing directions were published posthumously in the years following the American Revolution.7 However, Gauld’s work primarily detailed the coast, as did William Gerard De Brahm’s Atlantic Pilot (1772). The only work to equal Romans’s A Concise Natural History in scope and content was a manuscript report on the southern district by De Brahm that he personally presented to the king in 1773. De Brahm’s report contains the same kinds of information found in A Concise Natural History, is better organized, is written in a more detached scholarly style, and provides extensive and unique information on Georgia, South Carolina, and East Florida. De Brahm was unfamiliar with West Florida and so omitted discussion of that colony in his report. Though a very brief part of one of De Brahm’s earlier reports to the Board of Trade concerning East Florida was published by William Stork, De Brahm’s massive ¤nal report to the king was not published in his lifetime. De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America, edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr., was ¤nally published in 1971 and has since become an essential source for historians of the eighteenth-century South. Florida scholars have long noted the importance of Romans’s rare effort. Fittingly, it was chosen as the ¤rst volume in the University of Florida Press Floridiana Facsimile and Reprint Series, which consists of facsimile editions of rare books about the state. That edition, edited by Rembert Patrick and issued in 1962, is now out of print. A modernized limited edition, published by Pelican Press in 1961 and edited by Louise Richardson, included a reprint

of Romans’s two large sheet maps. Like the Florida Press edition it is also out of print. A Concise Natural History also appeared in microform format as part of the Early America Imprints Series by the Readex Microprint Corporation, and in 1960 was offered in a microcard edition by the Lost Cause Press, Louisville, Kentucky. The extreme rarity of the work, even the various reprint editions, has meant that scholars have failed to utilize Romans as well as they might.8 In addition to the scarcity of the book, the tone and organization of the book have caused some to overlook its signi¤cance. As Louise Richardson wrote in the introduction to her edition of A Concise Natural History, the book “follows no law. Frequently digressive and at times bombastic, it is nevertheless often picturesque and original.” Nonetheless, she conceded that “his facts are authentic, valuable, and interesting. He has given us a fascinating, true account of early Florida.”9 Rembert Patrick, recalling that critics of Romans had found his style “grandiloquent and bombastic,” thought that Romans’s writing, although “quaint in expression at times and different from modern English in spelling and punctuation . . . [was] clear and forceful.”10 James H. O’Donnell, whose works focus on the Revolutionary period in the South, described the work as a “rambling diatribe.”11 Those familiar with the peculiarities of eighteenth-century writing would probably consider Romans’s effort no better or worse than most contemporary printed works. Perhaps general readers will ¤nd the book a welcome respite from the typically staid prose of modern writers. In the end, the content is more important than the book’s style, and the value of the account itself cannot be disputed. As twentieth-century historian Bernard Bailyn noted, a “long, rambling, but informative travelogue, technically descriptive yet anecdotal, [the book] contains not only detailed accounts of topography, ®ora, and coastal waters, but also depictions of the social life of both Indians and whites.” 12 Louise Richardson, who ranked Romans’s work with those of De Brahm, the Bartrams, and William Stork, noted that A Concise Natural History “is of the ¤rst importance, basic to any study of the period. It is also the rarest.” 13 In fact, through his book, Romans added his voice to the ongoing intellectual debate carried out via published argument and discussion among learned men throughout colonial America and Europe. Thus, while his style might appear meandering and the book itself is ¤lled with obscurities and nuance today lost on the modern reader, knowledgeable men of the late eighteenth century knew very well Romans’s intended meanings, were familiar with the pattern of the narrative, which was common to that of similar works, and were intimately acquainted with the arguments of those cited

45


Romans’s History

46


Romans’s History

and referenced by Romans in his work. A Concise Natural History is, in sum, truly of its own time; its aim was to inform and in®uence. The impact of Romans’s work during his own time was minimal, for with the dissolution of the British Empire in America and the takeover of the Floridas by Spain following the war, there was little intellectual curiosity or economic incentive to study the region either in the new United States or in Britain. Both sides, of course, maintained a political interest, as did the French. As the future of the Floridas as a Spanish possession became more doubtful, scholars and diplomats again turned to Romans for information about the region. As early as 1803, the French writer Constantin-François Chasseboeuf, comte de Volney, lamented “that such a book, containing such various, authentic, and useful information, has not been translated into French.” C. B. Brown, who translated Volney’s Tableau du climat et du sol des Etats-Unis and issued an English language version in 1804, also expressed “regret that [A Concise Natural History] has not been republished in its native language.” 14 Brown believed Romans’s account so valuable, considering the likelihood that Florida would soon be annexed by the United States, that he expanded the excerpts from A Concise Natural History in his edition of Volney, noting that the “information on the soil and diseases . . . is very curious and authentic, and, at the same time, this book is out of print, and extremely rare.”15 Yet Romans still languished in obscurity. In 1848, his book and map, as well as the work of De Brahm, were used by a Senate committee to settle a boundary dispute, centered on the St. Marys River, among the states of Florida and Georgia and the federal government.16 Among the ¤rst twentiethcentury scholars of note to employ Romans’s work were Peter J. Hamilton, who reprinted parts of Romans’s journal concerning the Choctaw country in his Colonial Mobile, and John R. Swanton, who cited Romans extensively concerning food and other information in his Indians of the Southeastern United States.17 With the issuance of two reprint editions in the early 1960s and more intense scrutiny of the region’s history, more scholars, particularly ethnohistorians and historians of Florida, have begun to cite Romans. The value of the book lies in the high quality of the author’s observations. Romans was well educated and trained to take careful and complete observations and measurements of the natural environment. His inquiries extended to a variety of topics, and his conclusions were generally well balanced and not far a¤eld from those of like-minded individuals of his own time. In his effort to thoroughly describe the Floridas, he provided information on the natural environment, the early development of the Floridas, and the state of scienti¤c enquiry in the South, and he touched on many of

the most important intellectual arguments of the day, such as the origin of races, the bene¤ts or drawbacks of monopoly on trade, and the value of small landholdings over large estates. Romans was an inveterate reader, on all subjects, and his book is replete with quotations, corrections, and comments on the works of other writers, from classical scholars to the leading philosophers and scientists of his own time. As he noted, he had eagerly read “all other English, French, and Spanish authors, which have fallen in my way (and they are not a few)” (38). Among the better-known authors cited by Romans in his own work are such classical scholars as Pliny, Grotius, Apollonius Rhodios, Horace, and Virgil; leading European philosophers and scientists including Linnaeus, Isaac Biberg, and Sir Francis Bacon; and contemporary writers such as John Oldmixon, Jean Bossu, and Sir John Hawkensworth.18 He was also familiar with the publications of various scienti¤c societies, including the Transactions of the Swedish Academy.19 Not a man to suffer fools silently, Romans noted the errors, omissions, and commissions of other writers with varying degrees of odium. Most modern scholars would commiserate with Romans’s declaration that he had sometimes been “beyond all measure vexed, and at other times have been obliged to laugh” (179) at some of his sources. The errors, he observed, seem to take on a life of their own. Cartobibliographer Philip L. Phillips, noting Romans’s tendency to so forcefully state his opinions, editorialized “we wonder at the outspoken denunciation for seemingly trivial subjects.”20 However, Bernard Romans was neither a man to mince words nor one to keep his opinions to himself, especially when critiquing the work of others who had published on the Floridas. Romans was particularly annoyed by the writers of guide books and promotional literature. These “foolish writers,” he observed, “have raised some absurd hypothesis in their own brain, from whence they deduce as crooked theories as ever entered the thoughts of mankind; thus writing without experience, they lead a parcel of blind copiers, as it were, in a string, as if intended on purpose to deceive mankind” (179). Romans was irritated by the authors of the “numerous and noted puffs,” who had, in his words, “so plentifully interlarded” their works with overly optimistic “misrepresentations” or, worse, “taken so much pains to render this country undeservedly despised” (introduction, 3–4). As a result, many felt the sting of his overstated and sometimes caustic—but often cogent—observations. William Stork, dubbed “General Puff ” by one knowledgeable reader, was a favorite target of Romans. Beginning in 1766, Stork published a series of short pamphlets praising East Florida’s potential. After the initial publication,

47


Romans’s History

48


Romans’s History

succeeding editions featured portions of John Bartram’s East Florida “diary,” quotations from De Brahm’s of¤cial reports to the Board of Trade, and remarks by Denys Rolle, an East Florida entrepreneur and member of Parliament.21 Stork saw incredible similarities between the climates of the Mediterranean and East Florida and quoted many of the respected sources Romans would later use, including John Ellis and Engelbert Kaempfer, on the potential of East Florida for tropical crops. However, on the whole, Romans took aim at Stork’s work, and lambasted not only the author but also those whose direct observations on Florida he had appended to his pamphlets. John Bartram’s journal, wrote Romans, was “a very loose performance, and principally defective where we might expect it most compleat, viz. in the botanical articles” (260). Elsewhere, Romans derided Bartram as “the self taught Pennsylvanian Philosopher” (117). Bartram’s journal, which was published without his knowledge, was spotty and marred by the fact the elderly botanist was ill during part of his short Florida sojourn. Moreover, it was a preliminary report of his journey, presented to Governor Grant. Characteristically, Romans’s caviling was overdone, for Bartram was by far the most respected botanist in the American colonies and has remained so despite the disapprobation. For William Gerard De Brahm—and his report to the Board of Trade as presented by Stork—Romans had only “contempt”; the work “deserves . . . to be exposed” (296), he noted. Declaring De Brahm’s published facts were forgeries from “the brain of this lunatic writer” (295), Romans asked his own readers rhetorically, “Can we any longer be surprized at the little, not to say perverse knowledge the people of the mother-country have of America, when we ¤nd principal of¤cers misrepresenting facts to the chief rulers of the land?” (296). His vituperation of De Brahm did not end with his censure of Stork’s citation. He denounced De Brahm as a “Bedlamite” (296) and avowed that the Atlantic Pilot, published in London in 1772, “evidently bearing marks of insanity, demands our pity” (296). While De Brahm’s mental condition was unstable in his later years, his Atlantic Pilot hardly deserves the harsh criticism given by Romans. Instead, Romans’s personal animosity to De Brahm blinded him to the merits of the book, which included an extensive description of the Florida Keys and associated reefs and a hypothesis on the manner in which they were formed. De Brahm also presented some of the earliest observations of the Gulf Stream and theorized about the manner in which the phenomenon affected oceanic circulation. Moreover, Romans was incorrect when he claimed that De Brahm had manufactured the term Tequesta for the southern end of the

Florida peninsula. The term actually derives from the name of a sixteenthcentury chiefdom located on the Miami River and Biscayne Bay. The designation was regularly employed by Spanish cartographers.22 Romans likewise disparaged the work of Frenchman Jean Bernard Bossu, whose account of his travels in North America, including parts of the southeast, during the years 1751 to 1762, was ¤rst published in France in 1771.23 Romans declared Bossu a “super¤cial writer” and doubted he had actually visited the parts of West Florida he described. Romans believed all Bossu’s natural history observations were “hear say” (156). Romans was also quick to point out what he believed to be the mistaken actions of those who settled in the Floridas. As he put it, he “often wondered at the stupidity of people let loose in a certain part of the ¤eld of commerce” (213). In this case, he was musing on those who traded with the Spanish colonies, but colonizers, governmental of¤cials, and others were also his frequent targets. The inhabitants of St. Augustine, “a few excepted,” he reckoned “to be a kind of outcast and scum of the earth” (264). However correct he might have been in many of his observations, his forthrightness only earned him a reputation as a testy and “egotistical blowhard.”24 One historian aptly observed that when Romans moved from one place to the next, he left “both friends and a heritage of tension behind him.”25 But Romans also had a sense of humor, albeit the dry, biting variety. His wit is occasionally in evidence in his book, as when, in speculating on the reason for what he believed was the needless and extravagant forti¤cation of St. Augustine, Romans declared that “the English were so much in dread of musketos, that they thought a large army requisite to drive off these formidable foes” (262). A Natural Histor y of the Flor idas Bernard Romans thought of himself as “A DESCRIBER of countries” (1). His purpose in producing his work was twofold: to provide an aid to navigators and shippers by detailing the sailing passages of the region and to promote trade and settlement in the region. To this end, he provided scienti¤c observations on the natural history of the region, its political history, and its potential for economic growth based on a careful assessment of its natural resources. In this regard, Romans’s book is an example of what was perhaps the leading intellectual trend in both America and Europe at the time: the pursuit of knowledge about the natural world. The main thrust of this natural history impulse was exploration, description, identi¤cation, and, ¤nally, classi¤cation of nature. A better understanding of the plant world, with its vast potential for agriculture, horticultural ornamentals, medicines, and

49


Romans’s History

50


Romans’s History

various commercial applications lay at the heart of natural history inquiry. Any work devoted to describing the economic potential of a region of necessity placed a heavy emphasis on soils, climate, and the growing conditions of plants as well as other aspects of the environment. Thus, a more complete understanding of the natural history of a region was necessary in order to exploit the region for economic pro¤t and growth, which eighteenthcentury minds equated with progress.26 As a botanist and natural historian, Romans’s ¤rst priority was a thorough description of the topography and the region’s environment, including climate and weather patterns, plants, animals, and disease. No less important to settlers and scientists was information on the native peoples—whom Europeans as well as Americans were prone to describe as part of the natural environment. Climate and topography not only held the key to explaining the natural resources of the region, but also were important in assessing the economic potential of the region. Thus, Romans divided the Floridas into two climatic zones and then brie®y described the “air,” or weather, of these two regions, before embarking upon a generalized description of the soil types (he names six in all) and the plants and animals native to these “lands,” or ecological zones. Florida’s climate, so unlike that of Britain’s other mainland colonies, was the basis of the region’s appeal, for conventional wisdom held that in that warm, fertile land a variety of useful and pro¤table crops was sure to ®ourish. The lure of “hot” climates was not new. Romans was well aware that one of the aims of the Trustees of Georgia had been to encourage cultivation of products that England was forced to import from foreign sources. As the Trustees phrased it, “The Colony of Georgia lying about the same latitude with part of China, Persia, Palestine, and the Madeiras, it is highly probable that when hereafter it shall be well-peopled and rightly cultivated, ENGLAND many be supplied from thence with raw Silk, Wine, Oil, dyes, Drugs, and many other materials for manufactures, which she is obliged to purchase from Southern countries.”27 Time and experience dimmed the hopes of Georgia planters, and their economy instead turned to the export of deerskins, naval stores, and other produce more suited to the region. However, the newly acquired Floridas, whose climate, soil, and “native productions” were altogether different from those of the other English colonies, again raised the hopes of those who envisioned enormous pro¤t from the production of exotic products, including cotton, indigo, dye from cochineal insects, and various medicinal plants. Plants with medicinal properties were especially valued, and Romans was among the ¤rst to seek such ¤nds in the Floridas. The search for cures and

palliatives for the common ailments and diseases of the day was no less important in late eighteenth-century Florida than it is today when drug companies expend millions on rain forest plants in hopes of ¤nding cures for cancer and infectious diseases. Because the climate of the Floridas was thought to resemble that of Mexico, the source of many important eighteenth-century drugs, Romans’s attempts to locate and describe medicinal plants and drugs were reasonable. Again, there was the precedent of Georgia: in the 1730s, London’s Worshipful Society of Apothecaries hoped to identify plants with medicinal properties that were either native to Georgia or might be successfully transplanted there.28 To that end, they appointed Dr. William Houstoun to procure plants from the Spanish territories and determine their suitability for production in the Georgia colony.29 Houstoun established himself in Jamaica, and Romans was familiar with his work, especially Houstoun’s attempts to grow jalap. In A Concise Natural History, Romans touted his West Florida jalap, rhubarb, ipecac, scammony, cascarilla, and China root or sarsaparilla as drugs that might be produced in the Floridas. Climate was strongly linked to disease in the eighteenth-century scienti¤c and medical world. The two were considered “distinct,” meaning that certain diseases were observed to be speci¤c to a location, or climate, and usually the native peoples were aware of indigenous plant cures for each speci¤c illness.30 Tropical or hot climates were considered unhealthy, especially for Europeans.31 Thus, Romans took pains to counter what he termed “the universally dreaded, though chimerical unhealthiness of this climate” (225). He did this by attacking the “proofs or signs of an unhealthy country” (225), particularly those Dr. James Lind had earlier set forth. Lind, the ¤rst to conduct dietary experiments with lemons as a cure for scurvy is today known as the “father of nautical medicine.” His An Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen, ¤rst published in 1757, was a standard reference work of the time. Like most other eighteenth-century physicians, he linked the causes of the most severe diseases of the time, such as scurvy, yellow fever, and typhus, to “bad air,” which included everything from lack of cooling breezes to high humidity. His last publication, Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates, with the Method of Preventing their fatal Consequences, ¤rst appeared in 1768, and was considered the standard reference work on tropical medicine for many years. It was speci¤cally written for Europeans planning to migrate to hot climates, such as India and the Caribbean.32 In his own work, Romans believed it necessary to allay the fears of potential settlers regarding the relationship of climate to disease. Many of Lind’s “proofs,” such as sudden changes in air temperature, heavy fog, the presence of gnats and mosquitoes, and sandy soil, were easily

51


Romans’s History

52


Romans’s History

explained or dismissed by Romans as having no relevance to the Floridas.33 Muttered the author, “we see again how men reasoning from mere theory, are liable to commit mistakes” (229). After reassuring his readers of the basic healthfulness of the Floridas, Romans proceeded to describe the many diseases and disorders, both chronic and acute, that were endemic to the region. His list of chronic diseases alone, including “dropsies, consumptions, hemorrhoidal and habitual ®uxes, relaxed and bilious habits of body, ruptures, worm fevers, and among blacks the leprosy, elephantiasis and body yaws” (249), seems enough to have cowed even the most robust emigrant. In addition to providing the standard remedies employed for such troubles, Romans, like Lind, stressed hygiene, common sense, and steady habits to prevent and lessen the effects of such diseases. The remedies he recommended, many of which he had used on himself or men in his service, tell the modern reader much about the state of eighteenthcentury medicine and are a valuable record for historians.34 Some of the advice will be familiar to modern readers, for according to Romans, “a person of a gross habit of body . . . a wine-bibber or rum guzzler” (228) was more likely to fall prey to disease. In his discussion of the “noble science of agriculture” (172), Romans noted the plants he believed would ®ourish in the region and provided information on their culture. Since he was not a farmer, his expertise on the subject came, as he put it, “from a degree of experimental observation.” The plants and methods he advocated were, he claimed, the least expensive and most productive and, more important, the majority were in actual use. Re®ecting the tendency of eighteenth-century American scientists to rely on empirical and anecdotal data, he declared, “I have shunned a mere theoretical narrative, because I utterly hate it” (172). According to Romans, West Florida, “this noble country,” would produce “all the products of the torrid Zone as well as of the temperate” (117). He followed this with a descriptive list of ¤fty-one products, ranging from such exotics as coffee, cacao, and tea to more standard products like tobacco, hemp, ®ax, various fruits, and vegetables.35 Included in the list were his views on the value of livestock, naval stores, and even bees and bison (or buffalo). Native species thought to hold economic potential, such as sumac and china root, were also mentioned. As might be imagined, many of the plants included in “A Catalogue of such FOREIGN PLANTS, as are worthy of being encouraged in our American Colonies, for the Purposes of Medicine, Agriculture, and Commerce,” written by Romans’s patron John Ellis, ¤gured prominently in his discussion.36 Romans heartily advocated the cultivation of cotton, “so very useful a

commodity that scarce any other exceeds it” (139). Stressing the advantage of economic self-suf¤ciency in this necessary article, Romans noted that in the Floridas, particularly the rich lands along the Mississippi River, upland cotton or green seed cotton was grown. This variety has bristly seeds, unlike the sea island cotton, which meant that for optimal pro¤t, it was necessary to ¤nd a way to expeditiously separate the ¤bers from the seeds by mechanical means.37 Several dyestuffs, particularly indigo, madder, and plants that would support cochineal insects, caught his attention, because of the likely feasibility of their production in the Floridas and their value as an export commodity. He devoted a great many pages to indigo, a crop dif¤cult to produce and even more tedious to process into dye. Romans provided extensive directions for its cultivation and preparation into dye.38 The interest in indigo was universal, and it was an essential commodity to the British textile industry. Planters in both Georgia and South Carolina grew the crop and attempted to produce the dye, which product was supported by imperial bounties. Their results were varied. Indigo production was quickly tried by new British settlers in the Floridas. It was an instant success in East Florida, perhaps because of the slightly longer growing season and most certainly as a result of the care that growers there devoted to the production process. By the time A Concise Natural History appeared in 1775, East Florida indigo was already known for its superior quality and pro¤t record.39 Madder, which produced red hues in woolens, was also valuable as a foodstuff for livestock. Madder had not been successfully cultivated in the Floridas, but Romans, pointing out that the climate was similar to that of the Levant, where it was extensively grown, recommended it anyway.40 Also promising was the production of a red dye from the bodies of cochineal insects that fed on certain cacti, a laborious process that required incredible numbers of these scale insects. West Florida colonists did engage in limited cochineal production, and Romans noted that East Florida was more likely to be successful in the production of this article.41 Other products, such as naval stores and timber, which were articles of “immense speculation” (212) in both Floridas, were noted. Romans remarked that “reducing the rough timber into boards is now the most common branch of business in the southern colonies” (181). His observation would prove true well into the twentieth century for the rich pine lands of north peninsular Florida. His views of trade and commerce generally re®ected those of most Floridians and he vehemently rejected monopolies. The exception to this was the deerskin trade. He joined numerous government of¤cials and the more

53


Romans’s History

54


Romans’s History

respectable merchants in denouncing the abuses of the deerskin trade.42 Monopolies were necessary here, he declared, because of the character of the deerskin traders, whose conduct he derided as “villainous over reachings, chicanery, and mutual calumniations” (74). Romans believed that granting certain individuals sole authority to trade with speci¤c tribes and subjecting the traders to strict regulations might remedy “the present distracted state of this great and pro¤table branch of trade” (207). In his view, leaving New Orleans in the hands of the French in 1763 had been “a fatal mistake.” He wrote, “O! how just is every Englishman’s reason for cursing the late peace-makers” (182), thereby re®ecting the sentiments of numerous West Florida of¤cials and settlers. Indeed the “problem” of New Orleans would plague the economic development of the region until the entire area came under American dominion. Not an economic endeavor was left uncovered by Romans, and in addition to his thoughts on trade with the Spanish colonies, he mentioned numerous other manufactures and commercial activities ranging from iron and potash production to the establishment of ¤sheries. Many of Romans’s suggestions were ignored in his own day, but in modern times, his ideas have proved pro¤table. Romans repeatedly noted the abundant ¤sh of the Gulf waters and described the seasonal ¤shing cycle employed by Cubans who came ashore along the Florida peninsula during the winter to harvest red bass, pompanos, sole, mullet, sea turtles, and sharks. He bemoaned the fact that the pro¤tability of smoked and salted ¤sh for export was ignored by the British settlers.43 Unfortunately, his call for the domestication of bison to provide hides, tallow, and meat was moot, for by the time his book appeared, bison had been virtually extirpated from the South. Romans pointed to the cause: the animal was “wantonly” (174) destroyed by both whites and Indians for the highly prized tongue.44 To bolster his assertions regarding the potential of certain crops and native products, Romans listed exports already shipped from the Floridas and included a folding chart of Georgia exports to demonstrate the tremendous growth that colony had enjoyed over the previous decade.45 Like other scientists and philosophers of his day, Romans was extremely interested in implements and machinery that would facilitate the daily activities of those who labored. His own interest and knowledge of navigational instruments gave him a keen appreciation for the tools of other trades, and in his book he called not only for improvements in machinery and farm implements, but also for the introduction of labor-saving devices. He recalled many Dutch machines and recommended them to those who hoped to turn a pro¤t in the Floridas. He called for the use of wind over water to

power sawmills, thereby freeing them from inconvenient river locations.46 His Dutch background again betrayed itself when he recommended the Dutch foot plough, as well as a threshing machine he remembered from Holland.47 In addition to these recommendations, he heartily endorsed effective machinery he had observed already in use in the region and included in his account a description of one of the earliest cotton gins in the South.48 Settlement Schemes in East and West Flor ida and Advice for Emig rants In addition to its place in the scienti¤c literature of the day, A Concise Natural History can be placed ¤rmly in the genre of colonial promotional literature. Romans’s work followed the basic format of John Oldmixon’s two-volume The British Empire in America, particularly the “corrected and amended” second edition (London, 1741) cited by Romans. Oldmixon’s work covered all of Britain’s mainland and West Indian colonies, with information on their history, native inhabitants, natural resources, and climate and practical information on the cost of provisions, wages, trade, exports, crops, and “setting an Estate.” 49 In his study, Romans provided information speci¤cally related to the Floridas and aimed his remarks at those seeking modest holdings. Although he was openly hostile to promoters, Romans did not hesitate to enthusiastically praise the two Floridas: “what a ¤eld is open here! what a prospect of power and grandeur seems to be already welcoming us! no country had ever such inexhaustible resources; no empire had ever half so many advantages combining in its behalf !” (183). While he described both East and West Florida, Romans clearly favored West Florida for potential settlement by the average settlers for two reasons. First, he believed that West Florida had more fertile soil. Second, most of the available land in East Florida had already been granted in large parcels to powerful speculators who hoped to establish extensive plantations in that colony.50 Romans believed that Dr. William Stork’s highly favorable accounts of East Florida were responsible for the rampant speculation there. Stork, according to Romans, “wanted to extol [East Florida] even beyond reason” (260). Stork’s ¤rst three pamphlets, all published in 1766, did indeed have that effect. According to one titled investor, Stork’s publications “sett us all Florida mad.”51 Stork’s ¤rst pamphlet compared the east coast of Florida to the Mediterranean. The second edition contained a copy of the diary kept by John Bartram, provided by Governor Grant, who was eager to promote his colony. To the third edition of his pamphlet, Stork appended support from Denys Rolle, a member of Parliament who soon relocated to the colony. Potential investors were

55


Romans’s History

56


Romans’s History

quite naturally excited by these glowing reports of a tropical paradise, particularly a group of powerful men who gathered regularly at the Covent Garden tavern known as Shakespeare Head. Among this number were Lord Adam Gordon, Samuel Touchett, Charles Townshend, Dr. Andrew Turnbull, and William Knox. Sensing that there was money to be made, they soon formalized their loose association into the East Florida Society of London.52 The in®uence of the group on East Florida’s development was profound. From 1764 to 1770, the Privy Council in London issued orders in council for 2,856,000 acres (roughly 748,000 more acres than were granted in Nova Scotia, New York, Quebec, and West Florida combined). A high percentage of these orders in council went directly to members of the East Florida Society and gave the holder the right to survey from 5,000 to 20,000 acres. Upon completion of the survey, the governor could then award a land grant, with the stipulation that the land be populated with white settlers at the rate of one settler per one hundred acres. Once such a large grant was made, it was left to the holder to locate land to claim and then survey. Settlers received free passage to the colony in return for a term of indentured servitude, usually seven or more years. Not only was this method of distributing land markedly different from the way much smaller holdings were granted in Georgia and South Carolina, but it also presented a number of drawbacks. Romans named the most obvious: the large grants made it impossible for men of modest means to acquire land in the colony. However, the system failed speculators too. As noted by Henry Laurens of South Carolina, who acted as agent for some of these men, it was hard to ¤nd the best land when laying out such large tracts. It also meant that the holder of the grant had to procure large numbers of white settlers, and few tried. Those who did, including Stork, Rolle, and Turnbull, failed miserably. A few, such as Touchett, who went to the trouble of having his land surveyed, never attempted colonization schemes. Stork, himself a German, had planned to procure Protestants from Germany and the south of France for his venture, and in 1767, he established a settlement at Mosquito Inlet.53 The largest settlement by a member of the East Florida Society was that by Dr. Andrew Turnbull, at New Smyrna, on the Mosquito Inlet. By 1776, 112 large grants had been issued for some 1,443,000 acres. Only sixteen grants, however, whose total acreage came to 222,000, had actually been settled.54 Romans had only contempt for these early Florida land barons whose enormous land grants were selected and awarded without regard to topography or common sense. As one of those who had surveyed many of the grants, he derided the poor choices made by these land-hungry speculators

and noted that “barren sands . . . were chosen by the monopolizers of East Florida.” They had, in effect, “overlooked the most usefull places . . . and planted their baronies in the pine barrens.” Asserted Romans, “There let the lords be lumber cutters!” (117). Romans reserved his harshest criticism for the end result of this land distribution procedure: a labor system in which landless whites toiled in a brutal climate for avaricious absentee masters. Romans’s harsh indictment of the practices of the “monopolizers” was primarily based on his ¤rst-hand knowledge of Dr. Andrew Turnbull’s settlement at New Smyrna, about seventy-¤ve miles south of St. Augustine. Romans’s is the earliest, and most complete, account of the settlement’s history. His observations on the disposition of land in British East Florida and particularly his discourse on Andrew Turnbull’s settlement at New Smyrna quickly became the most controversial section of the book. The ¤rst contingent of Turnbull’s ships arrived in Florida in June 1768. The remainder arrived in August, raising the total number of indentured immigrants to approximately fourteen hundred, most of whom were from Minorca, although there were some Greeks, French, and Italians among the ¤rst settlers.55 This large number of immigrants arrived to ¤nd no shelter and inadequate provisions awaiting them. Soon, disease and hunger began taking their toll. By the end of the year, after only six months in the colony, 450 individuals—almost one-third of the settlers—were dead.56 The hard life was so contrary to the terms the immigrants had been led to expect that a riot occurred, forcing Turnbull to employ guards to watch the settlers.57 According to Romans, Dr. William Stork, who was living near New Smyrna at the time, “died with the fright” (272) upon receiving news of the revolt. Doubtless the stress of the news precipitated Stork’s demise, and other manuscript sources lend support to Romans’s diagnosis: “’tis reported he [Stork] was ill of a fever there & hearing there was a Mutiny amongst some of Dr. Turnbull’s Settlers, went into convulsions, in which he continued two days, & then expired.”58 The arena in which the settlement was successful was the production of indigo dye, and by 1771, exports of dye worth £13,500 had left the colony. As production rose, the number of vats built for the process was expanded. Joyce Chaplin, an agricultural historian, observed that the New Smyrna settlement became “more a factory than agricultural estate.” According to Chaplin, such high production pointed to “intensive exploitation” of the available labor force. She ¤ttingly concluded that “the disastrous history of this colony took on a melancholy blue tint.”59 Even though productivity increased and churches and homes were erected, the settlers continued to

57


Romans’s History

58


Romans’s History

complain of harsh conditions. By 1773, after only ¤ve years, almost nine hundred people had died at New Smyrna. In the turmoil of the American Revolution, the survivors straggled to St. Augustine, where the governor of¤cially released them from their tenure.60 Romans provided details on life in the settlement and the revolt in A Concise Natural History. While resident at the colony, Romans spent ¤fteen days on the grand jury that heard testimony pertaining to the 1768 New Smyrna rebellion.61 In addition to his own experience, much of Romans’s information about the settlement came from Joseph Purcell, his fellow cartographer whose family lived among the Minorcans of the New Smyrna settlement. According to Romans, Purcell could not speak of New Smyrna without tears.62 In 1788, the Columbian Magazine published excerpts of A Concise Natural History relating to the New Smyrna settlement. The untitled excerpt enraged Dr. Andrew Turnbull, then living in Charleston, who was evidently unaware of its source or previous publication. Turnbull, in a published reply, denounced the author of the piece as a “calumniator” whose “malicious tale” was a string of “improbable falsehoods.” Moreover, Turnbull disputed that Joseph Purcell had lived at the settlement, but claimed that Purcell’s father was transported by him to St. Augustine and that “not one of the family were engaged to him even for one hour, nor ever intended as one of his settlers.”63 Romans was dead by the time Turnbull’s rebuttal appeared, and Turnbull’s version of the story prevailed, leading many historians to discount Romans’s account of events. Thus, the history of the ill-fated settlement has been obscured by the undue respect paid to the social and political position of its founder and by too little regard for the men and women of the settlement, perhaps because of their ethnic background. As Romans put it, “the native prejudice of vulgar Englishmen” (272) blinded them to the misery of the settlers and led them to render harsh judgments when their settlers revolted. Romans’s condemnation of Turnbull stands virtually alone. Contemporary accounts of the colony, such as the one by Jacob Motte of Charleston, who visited St. Augustine in 1773, were typically uncritical. The South Carolina Gazette reported that Motte gave “a most favourable account” of Turnbull’s settlement and that it was “a delightful and ®ourishing Place.” The same notice placed the population at seven hundred settlers—some six hundred fewer than had originally landed in East Florida only a few years before—and failed to mention any of the troubled history of the settlement.64 William Bartram, who visited the settlement just before the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, wrote in his Travels that New Smyrna was “a pretty thriving town,” but did not mention the settlers.65 Carita Doggett, Turnbull’s

principal modern apologist, was one of his descendants.66 As modern scholars have subjected the settlement to closer scrutiny and examined the available records documenting its history, Romans has been vindicated.67 Romans was also critical of Denys Rolle’s settlement, and described the location of Rolles-Town as “as complete a sandy desart as can be found” (35). However, his assertion that Rolles-Town “in particular has been the sepulchre of above four hundred such victims” (270) cannot be con¤rmed. Rolle’s ¤rst attempt at settlement with a small number of white Protestant settlers ended in failure, and Rolle abandoned the settlement in 1765. He later returned with 150 black slaves and overseers and made a pro¤table venture.68 It seems that Romans mistakenly wrote Rolles-Town when he actually meant New Smyrna, since the mortality ¤gures he gives equal the New Smyrna death toll. Many schemes for developing West Florida were touted but, for the most part, failed to materialize.69 Montfort Browne, lieutenant governor and later governor of West Florida, acquired nearly 20,000 acres along the Mississippi River just north of Baton Rouge. Browne actively promoted the establishment of a new colony in the region, and by the time Romans surveyed the area in 1772, rumors abounded that a new colony was soon to be authorized.70 Romans would have been aware of these proceedings, as well as those of General Phineas Lyman, who was head of a group of Connecticut war veterans. Lyman had likewise received a grant of 20,000 acres along the Mississippi for his Company of Military Adventurers. The relationship between Romans and the Company of Military Adventurers was incidental, and the two were linked more by mutual interest than by any cooperative venture. Romans left Pensacola in January 1773, whereas the ¤rst exploratory party for the Adventurers, which included Rufus and Israel Putnam, did not arrive until February 28, 1773. Although they did not meet face to face in West Florida, the Putnams did correspond with Romans after they returned from their initial exploring expedition, possibly at the suggestion of Dr. John Lorimer. Romans’s book, with its emphasis on the suitability of West Florida for settlement, would have been of interest to the Adventurers, and Romans would certainly have found many in Connecticut eager to hear his impression of the region. Indeed, it is likely that the reason he chose to settle in Wethers¤eld, Connecticut, in the mid-1770s was ease of communication with this group. In A Concise Natural History, Romans offers a heavily edited version of Rufus Putnam’s journal of his explorations along the Mississippi River in West Florida. It also served the purposes of Putnam and the other Adventurers that this journal, with its description of the lush land around Natchez, appear in print.71

59


Romans’s History

60


Romans’s History

For those planning to emigrate to the Floridas, Romans provided an abundance of practical advice. His remarks would have interested not only Lyman’s Connecticut Yankees, but also others, like the Reverend Samuel Swayze of Chester, New Jersey, who was actively settling emigrants from that colony at Natchez. New Yorkers were interested as well, and the lure of the rich alluvial soil along the Mississippi River valley drew individuals as well as mammoth speculators and bold dreamers.72 Re®ecting the prejudices of his intended audience, Romans stressed the possibilities for “those Americans who were originally planted from England, Holland, and France, and emigrated from Germany . . . and who now generally speak English” (222). For these people of modest means, Romans estimated that between 31 and 46 degrees north latitude, from the Atlantic to the Paci¤c, there were over two billion acres of land, or enough land for more than 42,000,000 families to settle on ¤fty acres each.73 Romans explained how they should travel to the region, what to pack, and how much it would all cost. He was especially knowledgeable as to the dif¤culties and expenses of having land surveyed.74 His advice for settlers is more valuable today than it was when it was written, for by the time the book appeared in late 1775, the unsettled conditions in New England and the Middle Colonies had effectively stopped large-scale emigration to the Floridas. For modern readers, the narrative reveals the conditions that existed along the southern frontier and what expenses and dif¤culties were in store for immigrants to the backcountry. The information provided on current prices, speci¤cations for tools and provisions, and advice regarding travel through the backcountry are perhaps the most valuable parts of the narrative.75 Blacks and Slaver y: The Eighteenth-Centur y Souther n View Among the main requirements for a new and better life in the Floridas, according to Romans, was at least one slave. He believed Europeans unsuited to labor in the semitropical climate of the Floridas. Recalling the stagnant economy of Georgia until slavery was allowed, Romans pointed to that colony as an example of the bene¤ts of slave labor. His views on blacks and slavery have been the object of much discussion and condemnation. Blacks, he wrote, were “useful though inferior members of society” (104). He warned those eager to immigrate not to be swayed by antislavery pamphlets and declared his “very absolute conviction of the necessity of having Negroe slaves” (104). He cited the Bible as justi¤cation for slaveholding and believed

that “the very perverse nature of this black race seems to require the harsh treatment they generally receive, but like all other things, this is carried into the extreme; far be it from me to approve or recommend the vile usage to which this useful part of the creation is subjected by some of our western nabobs” (105). He declared that “treachery, theft, stubbornness, and idleness” (105) were natural characteristics of the black race and not the result of a life of slavery. Therefore, he did not believe that ending slavery would improve the character of the black race, as many abolitionists claimed. As further justi¤cation for the institution, Romans noted that rival African tribes enslaved one another: “Can any one say that the favourites of mankind (I mean liberty and property) are any where enjoyed in Africa?” (107). Given these facts, Romans pointed out the practicality of the institution since he deemed blacks more suited to the climate and the hard labor necessary to produce such crops as sugar and indigo. As a slaveowner, it is not surprising that Romans defended the institution. He owned slaves, both during his Florida sojourn and while in the North, even during his Revolutionary War service. Thus, his view re®ects that of the slaveowning class. Unfortunately, his stereotypical prejudices also re®ected the views of many of his readers, whether slaveowners or not. In the eighteenth century, and well into the nineteenth, such views were the rule rather than the exception, in the South and elsewhere. Nor was Romans the only one to cite the example of Georgia regarding the pro¤tability of slave labor or to point out the failure of early plantation efforts in East Florida that used bonded white labor rather than slave labor.76 Especially striking was the example of Denys Rolle, who failed miserably with indentured white settlers, but succeeded with black slaves. General Lyman too was an advocate of slavery. Although many factors other than slavery were important in the cases of Georgia and Denys Rolle, those looking for support of slavery continued to cite them as examples. The economy of Florida, under the British, Spanish, and ¤nally American ®ag, depended heavily on slave labor until the institution was outlawed. Like other southern slaveholders, Floridians continued to espouse many of the views espoused by Romans in 1775. Romans failed to provide a well-crafted portrait of slavery in the Floridas, but his work does provide evidence about slave life, particularly common diseases. More important, Romans noted that blacks had been instrumental in introducing such plants as sesame and peanuts to the South and also pointed out their contributions in developing cultivation, harvesting, and processing techniques for such commodities as rice and indigo. Modern readers will condemn the racial bias in many of Romans’s statements regard-

61


Romans’s History

62


Romans’s History

ing slaves, but a careful reading of the book reveals scattered evidence of the signi¤cant role played by blacks in developing the agricultural economy of the early South. The Southeaster n Indian Tr ibes While Romans believed that blacks were “useful” and deserving of consideration as human beings, he considered the black race “inferior.” Thus, his views on blacks were clearly racist. On the other hand, his views of the American Indians were characterized more by ethnocentrism than racism. Rather than describing the characteristics of the American Indians in racial terms, he was more likely to condemn their culture or society as “uncivilized” and “primitive” on the basis of his comparison with more “enlightened” European society. For him as for many of his contemporaries, the color prejudice with which whites often viewed blacks during this period was absent from his thinking in regard to the Indians.77 Much of the information Romans relates in his narrative was drawn from ¤rsthand experience, which was considerable. He declared in his history, “I shall relate what I know and have found from real experience among four or ¤ve nations” (38). During his tenure in Georgia, he helped survey part of the 1768 Creek-Georgia treaty line through the Okefenokee Swamp. As a surveyor in East Florida, he moved among the Seminoles, and his information about the size, number, and location of Seminole settlements is particularly valuable. While in West Florida, he traveled to and through the towns of the Choctaws and, to a lesser extent, those of the Chickasaws. He worked with members of the Southern Indian Department and knew many deerskin traders, interpreters, and guides, and much of his information was provided by them, or con¤rmed by them. As an eyewitness, and a welleducated and well-traveled one at that, his comments and illustrations are particularly valuable additions to the extant contemporary literature on the Indians of the late-eighteenth century southeast. Indeed, one of the earliest reviews of his book was little more than a reprint of his “account of the Creek Indians.”78 However, the casual modern reader must use care when reading Romans’s account, for his observations are marred by his ethnocentric viewpoints, derogatory and biased commentary, and a super¤cial understanding of basic kinship relationships and other southeastern Indian rituals. Before recounting speci¤c cultural descriptions of the tribes, Romans stated his positions on two of the most debated intellectual questions of the day concerning Indians: the origin of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas and whether they could be “civilized” (i.e., persuaded to adopt

European cultural norms). The origin of the American Indians generated intense speculation in Romans’s day. At the time, there were two main schools of thought: either the Indians had migrated to the New World from the Old World via northeast Asia, or there had been multiple creations. Romans opted for the theory of separate creations. Romans was not alone in accepting the theory, although it was not widely held. Another noted supporter of this theory was Henry Home, Lord Kames, who in his multivolume 1774 work Sketches of the History of Man proposed much the same argument as Romans by asserting that the best explanation for the different races and cultures was multiple creations or polygenism.79 Those who accepted this theory had to, of necessity, question the literal word of the Bible, which mentioned only a single creation. Though Romans believed that “without doubt Moses’s account of the Creation is true,” he also believed it unnecessary to apply this account—“a kind of chronicle concerning one small part of the earth” (54)—to the entire world. Thus, Romans believed that “there were as many Adams and Eves (every body knows these names to have an allegorical sense) as we ¤nd different species of the human genus” (55). The more widely favored theory, argued at length by James Adair, was that there had been, as stated in the Bible, a single creation. Thus, the American Indians had originated in the Old World and crossed into the New in the distant past, most likely by a land link between Asia and America. It was then necessary to explain from whence in the Old World they had come. Adair believed that the American Indians were the descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel, and he went to extraordinary lengths to prove his point, offering twenty-three arguments in favor of this theory in his book, published the same year as Romans’s. In his own work, Romans attempted to refute the argument that Indians were descendants of the Jews, Phoenicians, Chinese, Tatars, or any of the other progenitors suggested by the various theories current at the time. During his time among them, Romans had frequently asked Indians questions on their traditions regarding a Great Flood and Jewish cultural practices and relayed information obtained from them to his readers that controverted opposing theories or supported his own.80 While these theories are now regarded as unfounded, modern readers should remember that they were major concerns among eighteenth-century intellectuals. Educated observers minutely examined American Indian cultures and relics, such as their “ancient [earth] works” to discover their true origin. While these lines of inquiry have been discredited, the answers elicited in the search for the origin of the tribes are nonetheless valid. As anthropologist Charles M. Hudson has shown, the knowledge Europeans possessed

63


Romans’s History

64


Romans’s History

of alternative religions and cultural practices actually helped them better understand certain aspects of Indian societies.81 The argument over the origin of the American Indians continued through the nineteenth century. Not until the 1850s when Henry Rowe Schoolcraft’s massive six-volume work on the American Indians appeared did religious fundamentalism triumph. That work presented a massive compilation of data on the cultural practices and histories of tribes throughout the United States and, according to historian Robert E. Bieder, constituted a “disorganized and elephantine defense of monogenism.” 82 However, this did not settle the debate. Polygenists continued to publish through the 1850s, and the “Lost Tribes” hypothesis was not de¤nitively refuted until the early 1890s, with the publication of Cyrus Thomas’s book on Indian mounds.83 As to the other central argument of his time regarding the Indians, Romans belittled the concept of the “noble savage” and completely rejected the suggestion that the southeastern Indians were capable of adopting the mores of white society. He wrote that the southeastern Indians were “a people not only rude and uncultivated, but incapable of civilization: a people that would think themselves degraded in the lowest degree, were they to imitate us in any respect whatever, and that look down on us and all our manners with the highest contempt” (39). A more enlightened view would shun the use of “rude” and “uncultivated” to describe the elaborately ordered culture of the southeastern Indians, and today Romans’s words carry pejorative meaning. However, in his impression that the Indians did not care to accept the cultural norms of white society—to become “civilized”—he proved more astute than many other observers. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, William Bartram, Benjamin Hawkins, Henry Knox, and other proponents of the American civilization policy actively attempted to persuade the southeastern Indians to abandon their traditional cultural values and adopt new family structure, private land ownership, the use of chattel slavery, and new gender-related work roles (with men abandoning their traditional roles as warriors/hunters to become farmers). The civilization or assimilation policy was a failure, leading many people to eventually support the call for the forced removal of the tribes from the South.84 What Romans saw as a weakness or a ®aw in Indian character in rejecting white society is today seen as evidence of the strength of their own cultures.85 Buried amid these now-forgotten arguments, Romans provides interesting and reliable facts on Indian cultures, including the manner in which Indian women transported their young and the “surprise” tactics employed by Indian warriors. In other areas, Romans’s ignorance of matrilineal kinship

and gender-related work roles led him to serious misunderstandings. He was correct when he noted that “a savage has the most determined resolution against labouring or tilling the ground, the slave his wife must do that, and a boy of seven or eight years old is ashamed to be seen in his mother’s company. No greater disgrace can be thrown on a man than calling him by the odious epithet of Woman; what other nation do we ¤nd so absolutely neglecting agriculture?” (41). Romans believed that Indian women assumed a larger share of the physical labor than was acceptable, assumed that women were degraded by this, and thus inferred that Indian men had a low opinion of the opposite sex. In reality, Romans failed to grasp a central dichotomy among all southeastern Indian tribes, that of strictly de¤ned labor roles. Among the southeastern tribes, women tilled the ¤elds, tended crops, and were responsible for the harvest. Indian agriculture was not particularly onerous, and men participated in the heavier aspects of the work, including ¤eld clearing and planting. The growth and ultimate harvest of the crop were linked to beliefs about fertility and growth. Corn itself was a symbol of female fertility. Under these circumstances, male participation in the harvest was incomprehensible to southeastern Indians. Men were hunters and warriors, roles that de¤ned maleness and manhood in southeastern Indian society. For an Indian man to have labored in the ¤elds with women would have meant that he accepted the sexual role of women, the submissive role. Indian men found hoeing corn abhorrent, an aversion that many Europeans, like Romans, attributed to laziness, which was far from the case. In addition, they misinterpreted the use of the epithet “woman” as degrading to women. Rather, it was extremely degrading for a man to be termed “woman.” It implied that he was not a successful warrior/hunter and therefore not a successful “man” and that he accepted the submissive role in sexual relations. Interestingly, though Romans noted the practice of sodomy among the southeastern Indians, and even reported that Indian warriors sodomized the bodies of dead enemies “thereby (as they say) degrading them into women” (70), he failed to comprehend the larger signi¤cance of these related observations. If the modern reader understands the biases and cultural ignorance under which Romans and other European men labored, their facts—if not their interpretations—can prove helpful in understanding eighteenth-century Indian societies. For example, according to Romans, the Chickasaws were the worst thieves among the southeastern Indian tribes. He lost “incomparably more in one day at the Chicasaw town than I did in two months going through seventy four Chactaw towns, notwithstanding I had been warned, and was on my guard.” They took his “razors and a case of instruments, and

65


Romans’s History

66


Romans’s History

other tri®es of no real use to them, besides every horse I had with me” (61). This surely, among Europeans, was thievery. However, Romans failed to consider an alternative viewpoint—that of the Chickasaws. It is very likely that the Chickasaws were suspicious of Romans’s activities, and there is no doubt that they understood he was surveying their land. Indians, with good reason, resented the survey of their land because it was a clear indication that Europeans coveted the land for themselves. Moreover, they had slight regard for surveying devices used by those who coveted their land. Taken in this light, it is easier to understand the disappearance of instruments that the Chickasaws did not trust, which were being put to a use of which they did not approve. Among the Creeks, David Taitt always took care to conceal his activities from the Indians and kept his surveying instruments hidden from view. Also, when accompanied by Indians, he refrained from taking surveys.86 Romans was not so cautious, and proudly displayed his instruments for the Chickasaws. He recorded in his book that “nothing was more entertaining than the surprize of the savages, at seeing me take observations of the solar altitude, the mercury I used for an arti¤cial horizon, was a matter of great wonder to them, particularly, when I shewed them its divisibility, and the succeeding cohesion of the globules” (314). Mercury, with its mysterious properties, would have been viewed with awe by the Chickasaws. Their surprise was likely tinged with fear at the presumed power of this new element. It is not inconceivable that in taking the substance from Romans they believed they were protecting him from harm. Without more information, it is hard to ascertain their precise reason for relieving Romans of his instruments, but the answer is more complex than the simplistic report that they were the worst thieves among the southern Indians. Modern readers, when examining white accounts of Indian actions and behavior, are wise to use caution in accepting such ethnocentric and biased interpretations. While the action is always signi¤cant, the reason assigned to it by Europeans is frequently naive and incorrect. Regarding the physical characteristics of the southeastern Indians, Romans recorded striking portraits, both in his narrative and in his illustrations of “characteristic” heads. The Indians, wrote Romans, were generally “well made, of a good stature, and neatly limbed” (42). Their eyes were “black, lively and piercing.” They were “strong and active, patient in hunger and the fatigue of hunting and journeying . . . incredibly swift of foot . . . their women [were] handsome, well made” (43). He described in detail the culturally designated tasks of Indian men and women. Hunting techniques, housing styles, the practice of mercy killing of the old and diseased, the

tracking ability of Indian men, and other cultural practices, including the Choctaw treatment of the dead, are also covered in his account. He wrote candidly about sexual matters, including the practice of sodomy—“unnatural commerce with members of their own sex” (97)—which was seldom mentioned by other contemporary writers, as well as about topics that were discussed elsewhere, including premarital sex and the treatment of adulterers.87 He testi¤ed to the ill effects of alcohol among the tribes. Like all others who observed the southeastern Indians, Romans condemned the traf¤c in liquor. Indeed, few writers left a better picture of the men who traded with the Indians: “those monsters in human form, the very scum and out cast of the earth, are always more prone to savage barbarity than the savages themselves” (60). Romans’s account of the diet of the Creeks and Choctaws is one of the most complete available.88 In addition, his description of the location of Choctaw village sites is one of the best sources for that topic.89 Most of Romans’s observations, on these and other subjects, are supported by other writers. Regarding historical facts as opposed to cultural practices, he is also highly reliable, particularly in his moving account of the death of the Choctaw Red Captain at the hands of the Creeks during the CreekChoctaw War (72–73). Even the most obscure fact presented—that Indian men squatted to urinate while Indian women stood—is con¤rmed by other sources.90 Navigational Char ts and Sailing Directions Romans’s ¤rst goal in producing his work, and the one of most importance to his early backers, was publication of sailing directions and navigational charts that would facilitate commerce between New England and the West Indies and Floridas. In a report to the Governor of West Florida, he predicted “a safe navigation and a short one too, of which everybody will be sensible when those dreadful Schyllas and Charybdises, the Florida and Bahama Banks, those bugbears to the fancy of our navigators, come once to be as well known in general as I know them now.”91 He came by his information the hard way, for Romans began work on his book in 1766 after running his vessel aground on the Dry Tortugas.92 He was not alone in falling victim to the treacherous waters of the Florida passage, and scores of troop transports, merchant vessels, and mail packets were similarly stricken. Following the cession of the Floridas, there was a tremendous

67


Romans’s History

68


Romans’s History

demand for accurate charts and sailing directions.93 De Brahm’s Atlantic Pilot, “calculated for the safer conduct of ships in their navigation from the Gulf of Mexico,” was the ¤rst work to take advantage of the demand.94 This short work included both maps and charts for navigators. Romans, whose appendix provided detailed written descriptions in addition to several charts, aimed to supplant De Brahm as the expert of record on Atlantic Coast and Caribbean navigation. Romans’s chief pique with the Atlantic Pilot was that De Brahm had renamed so many well-known features and landmarks to honor his patrons.95 Romans asked his own readers, “can the arbitrary imposition of the names of Dartmouth, Littleton, Pownal . . . and about a legion more . . . make up for the mistakes they may occasion? Or can these statesmen and heroes owe him thanks for the confusion occasioned by the jumbling of their names, like dice in a box?” (297–98). Thus, in his own directions, Romans took care to provide the common Spanish and Indian names for various locations, their English equivalents, and, occasionally, the name given by De Brahm. While his written account of the Floridas and adjacent Indian nations, together with the appendix of sailing directions, usually receives the most attention from scholars, Romans clearly considered the large maps that he prepared to accompany his book equally important. In the wording of his advertisement, “There is added to the Maps a Book of 500 pages.”96 His contemporaries shared his opinion of the importance of the maps, and most of the subscribers purchased the “work” rather than the “book only.”97 These large maps were deemed by their maker to be works of art; he described them as an “Ornamental Piece of Furniture.”98 Romans had the paper for his charts manufactured speci¤cally and engaged Paul Revere to prepare and engrave the charts.99 Together, these maps comprised the best information available at the time on the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean. The effort was indeed a credit to its maker. In his standard reference work on early maps, William P. Cumming wrote that he considered them among “the ¤nest and rarest cartographical items of that region.”100 One of the maps is so rare, according to Philip Lee Phillips, a noted authority on early maps and a student of Romans’s career, that early “bibliographers . . . doubted its existence.”101 The ¤rst map, “Part of the Province of East Florida,” actually shows the upper part of East Florida, including St. Augustine and south to the Mosquito Inlet, and West Florida to the Mississippi River.102 This long, rectangular map was dedicated to the Marine Society of the City of New York.103 The map cartouche included the seal of the Marine Society and two allegorical ¤gures representing war and “civilization enlightening savagery.”104 Additional insets provide a “View of Fort

St. Marks, at Apalache seen from the Southward—a Squall rising over the Land” and a “View of the Entrance of St. Mary’s River.” The second map, a large square, covers the lower part of the Florida peninsula, the Bahama Islands, and the northern part of Cuba. The part of this map covering the Cape of Florida carried a dedication “to all Commanders of Vessels round the Globe.” A second dedication was inscribed to the planters and merchants in Jamaica. The crudely engraved cartouche includes an allegorical mermaid ¤gure. A Florida panther, a roaring alligator, and what appears to be an inquisitive raccoon embellish the Florida peninsula.105 Romans’s sailing instructions for the Florida coast and the “mazy” waters off the Florida cape provide important geographical data about eighteenthcentury coastal formations, reefs, currents, and tides and offer tantalizing glimpses of life in the Caribbean and along the Gulf Coast as viewed from a late eighteenth-century small sailing craft. Romans discussed navigational techniques, watering holes, ¤shing grounds, land types, and kinds of game found along the shore, thereby making his book an indispensable source for historical geographers, ecologists, botanists, and historians eager for information about the largely unpopulated Florida peninsula. Romans’s appendix of sailing directions and his maps proved more popular than his book in his own era. They were reprinted, posthumously, together with charts by De Brahm and others, in The Complete pilot for the gulf passage; or directions for Sailing through the gulf of Florida, named also New Bahama channel . . . (London, 1789) and again appeared as A New Book of Sailing Directions (London, 1797), which also included the surveys of others.106 A Concise Natural History is stocked with interesting and informative historical tidbits. In addition to minor incidents and anecdotes concerning settlers and explorers, Romans provides generally reliable information on people and events pertinent to Florida history. He was well versed with earlier maritime tragedies and personally saw evidence of the wreck of the Spanish gold ®eet that was destroyed off the east Florida coast, near Sebastian Inlet, on July 30, 1715. Losses were among the most spectacular in the history of the Spanish treasure ®eet. As Romans recounted, “The people employed in the course of our survey, while walking the strand, after strong eastern gales, have repeatedly found pistareens and double pistareens” (273–74). Modern treasure hunters observed the same thing, and the site was eventually located and salvaged in the 1960s and 1970s. This site ultimately became the ¤rst Underwater Archaeological Preserve in Florida.107 Romans also investigated the saga of Captain Pierre Viaud, a Frenchman who published an emotional account of the suffering endured by the survi-

69


Romans’s History

70


Romans’s History

vors of a 1766 shipwreck along the Florida coast. Unable to ¤nd food suf¤cient to sustain themselves, Viaud’s party ultimately resorted to cannibalism—¤rst killing and then eating a slave. Romans, who knew one member of the rescue party, sympathized with the survivors, but rejected the notion that people in such circumstances could not ¤nd food along the bountiful Florida coast.108 Romans’s description of the storm system that swept across West Florida from August 30 to September 3, 1772, is one of the most graphic early accounts of a Gulf Coast hurricane. His data are supported by manuscript accounts of the storm that appeared in of¤cial correspondence, but Romans’s portrayal was the only one to be published.109 Romans also described the devastation on land, including the damage to the Krebs plantation, site of the cotton gin he discussed in his book. As proof of the importance of seemingly minor historical data found in A Concise Natural History, modern archaeologists have used Romans’s description to date existing structures at the site of the Krebs plantation and interpret the history of this now important historical site in Mississippi.110 Equally impressive was the damage done to the Chandeleur or Candlemas Islands off New Orleans. According to Romans, the storm cut the two islands “into so many parts, that they lie, or at least did lie in near the same number and form as in the map is represented.” He attempted to plot the changes on the map that accompanied the book.111 On the basis of his description, modern meteorologists have named the storm the Bernard Romans Hurricane of 1772.112 Rambling, digressive, bombastic, and opinionated, A Concise Natural History is nonetheless a valuable source for the study of the eighteenth-century southeast. Such a variety of information—often obscure, but always interesting—is seldom found in such a reliable source. Whether describing the correct method of “travelling through the uninhabited part of the woods” (188); condemning the wanton destruction of the bison (174), orange orchards (278), and mahogany stands (292) of the Floridas; or commending the service provided by “wreckers” off the Cape of Florida (appendix, xxx), Bernard Romans’s A Concise Natural History is sure to entertain and enlighten modern readers about a long-forgotten and little-known period in southeastern history.

Romans’s Copper Plate Illustrations, Maps, and Table

Romans planned twelve copper plate illustrations to accompany his book, but only eleven were ultimately included in the ¤nal work. Unfortunately, the twelfth plate, a map of the southern Indian nations, was lost in transit between the engraver and the publisher. The eleven copper plates that illustrate A Concise Natural History are especially valuable to historians, particularly ethnohistorians and others interested in the southeastern Indians. While they support Romans’s written account of the Indians, they also provide pictorial evidence about such important matters as dress, personal decoration, and hairstyles not mentioned in the text. Given the rarity of drawings of the Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws from the eighteenth century, their value is inestimable. Others, including William Bartram, William Bonar, and Georg Friedrich von Reck, provided portraits of Creeks from the period; however, the Romans drawings are virtually the only renditions of Chickasaws and Choctaws from the period by a British subject.1 The eleven plates, reproduced with this volume, are as follows. Frontispiece, Volume 12 This allegorical drawing, with its mixed images from classical mythology and the Americas, is notable for a number of reasons. The female ¤gure, perhaps Athena representing knowledge, holds a long rod, which supports a liberty cap. An Indian is placing a rolled map before her. A youthful angel uses a compass to compute distances on a navigational chart while waters stream forth from large casks labeled “Mississippi.” Through the portal—of knowledge—distant bays, cities, and lands await the informed. What appears to be “SPQA” (Senate and People of the American Republic?) is found on the shield of the seated goddess. Dedicatory Plate The dedicatory plate honors John Ellis, Romans’s patron.

72


Illustrations

Avena aquatica Sylvestris Romans provided an incomplete description of this fresh-water marsh plant but states it was commonly known as wild oats by the “western” Indians, meaning those along the Mississippi River. This plant, Zizania aquatica, is more likely to be called Indian rice or wild rice today, but it is also still known as wild oats. Romans was describing one of the two native varieties of wild rice. The southern variety seen by Romans is today found primarily in eastern Arkansas, Louisiana, northern Florida, coastal Georgia, and Alabama in quiet marshes and is also found in the Carolina wetlands. It ®owers from July to September. Like the better-known wild rice of the northern lakes, it is not true rice. These grass seeds swell just as rice does when boiled, but the seeds may also be ground into ®our, hence the name wild oats. This is the manner in which Romans reported that the Indians used the seeds. Unfortunately, he did not relate the method used by the southern Indians to harvest the grain. Most likely, they did it in the same way northern tribes still do, by gently tapping the ripe stalks with a stick so that the grains fall into a container or even the bottom of a boat.3 Characteristic Chickasaw Head This “typical” warrior wears a traditional hairstyle, in which all hair from the forehead and sides of the head has been plucked. A central swatch of hair along the back of the head is ornamented with a beaded headdress. The man also wears a necklace made of tubular beads. Prior to trade with Europeans, this type bead was manufactured from small, hollow animal bones. The mantle, shown on the left shoulder of the ¤gure, provides insuf¤cient details for proper identi¤cation as either animal skin or European trade cloth, and it might even have been a traditional feather mantle. The portrait also illustrates deformed, elongated earlobes, which were popular among many southeastern tribes, including the Creeks and Cherokees. This style was produced by piercing and subsequent stretching of the lobe with a variety of objects. The practice, which was popular during the eighteenth century, was in decline by the end of the century. Romans does not elaborate on the practice, but other writers made clear that the operation was often painful and laborious. According to James Adair, Chickasaw men “cut a hole round almost the extremity of both of their ears, which till healed, they stretch out with a large tuft of buffalo’s wool mixt with bear’s oil: then they twist as much small wire round as will keep them extended in that hideaous form.” He also reported, “I have been among the Indians at a drinking match, when several of their beaus have been humbled as low as death, for the great loss of their big ears. Being so widely extended, it is as easy for a person to take hold of,

and pull them off, as to remove a couple of small hoops were they hung within reach.” It was possible to mend the damage if one end of the loop was still attached to the ear, which they did by sewing it together with deer sinews. According to Adair, the loops became very brittle with age and were easily damaged.4 Characteristic Choctaw Busts These portraits illustrate that the ancient practice of skull deformation by ®attening the forehead was on the decline among the Choctaws by the middle of the eighteenth century. The most interesting detail of this illustration is the body tattoos. The woman sports characteristic swirls and lines, as well as a tattooed necklace. The man’s body is covered by more elaborate tattooing, which includes a detail of a deer. Most Indians in the South tattooed their bodies. The designs were usually dark blue, but sometimes red and black. The usual method involved pricking the skin with the sharp tooth of a gar ¤sh and then rubbing the small wound with pigment. Adair claimed that the soot of pitch pine mixed with grease resulted in a blue mark.5 Choctaw Burial This untitled plate depicts the “stage” erected for the temporary burial of the Choctaw dead. Choctaw mortuary practices called for allowing the corpse to partially decay above ground, followed by ritual bone picking and later mass burial of the bones. The practice both fascinated and horri¤ed European observers. Romans provides information on the practice in the text. This plate shows mourners at the foot of the platform, as well as a Choctaw dwelling at the rear.6 Characteristic Head of a Creek War Chief In this portrait, Romans again illustrated the highly stylized pierced and elongated earlobes popular among the southeastern Indian tribes. William Bartram described in detail the manner in which the Creeks achieved this effect: “Their ears are lacerated, separating the border or cartilagenous limb, which at ¤rst is bound round very close and tight with leather strings or thongs, and anointed with fresh bear’s oil, until healed.” Then, a lead weight was attached, which stretched the “cartilage an incredible length, which afterwards being craped, or bound round in brass or silver wire, extends semicircularly like a bow or crescent; and it is then very elastic, even so as to spring or bound about with the least motion or ®exure of the body: this is decorated with soft white plumes of heron feathers.” Brass, silver, and copper wire became important trade commodities during the eighteenth century. Note also the necklace of glass beads.7

73


Illustrations

74


Illustrations

Indian Hieroglyphic Paintings These two illustrations, one Choctaw and one Creek, are the only examples of this type of art extant today, although it was described by other writers, including Bartram. Such paintings were done on both deerskin and buffalo skins. Romans fails to note which was used in these instances, but they were most likely on deerskins. These illustrations, discussed by Romans in the text, were meant to celebrate military victories during the Creek-Choctaw war (1763–1776).8 Entrances of Tampa Bay Meant as an accompaniment to Romans’s sailing directions in the appendix, this chart gives depth soundings for Tampa Bay. Map of Pensacola Bar Romans again provided soundings and landmarks for navigators. Map of Mobile Bar Among the interesting notations on this map is the mention of the ruins of the French settlement on Dauphin Island. An Aggregate and Valuation of Exports of Produce from the Province of Georgia . . . In addition to the copper plates, Romans included a table detailing exports from Georgia from 1754 until 1773. The oversized table documented how trade had increased, and it provides the modern reader with an overview of the variety and type of goods traded. It points out the tremendous increase in the deerskin trade with the southeastern tribes and the importance of lumber, naval stores, agricultural produce, and meat, as well as some minor, but very interesting, early exports, including orange juice.

A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida by BERNARD ROMANS

A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida

C O N TA I N I N G An Account of the natural Produce of all the Southern Part of British America, in the three Kingdoms of Nature, particularly the Animal and Vegetable. LIK EWISE, The arti¤cial Produce now raised, or possible to be raised, and manufactured there, with some commercial and political Observations in that part of the world; and a chorographical Account of the same. T O W H I C H I S A D D E D, B Y WAY O F A P P E N D I X , Plain and easy Directions to Navigators over the Bank of Bahama, the Coast of the two Floridas, the North of Cuba, and the dangerous Gulph Passage. Noting also, the hitherto unknown watering Places in that Part of America, intended principally for the Use of such Vessels as may be so unfortunate as to be distressed by Weather in that dif¤cult Part of the World. B Y C A P T A I N B E R N A R D RO M A N S . Illustrated with twelve Copper Plates, And Two whole Sheet Maps. Vol. I. New-York: Printed for the Author, M,DCC,LXXV.

REASON without experience can do nothing; being no more than the mere dreams, phantasms, and meteors of ingenious men, who abuse their time. There is need of much diligence and labour, before man can be thoroughly instructed. LIN N EUS. All things contained in the compass of the universe declare, as it were with one accord, the in¤nite wisdom of the Creator; for whatever strikes our senses, whatever is the object of our thoughts, is so contrived, as to assist in manifesting the divine glory (i.e.) the ultimate end which God proposed in all his works. Whoever duly turns his attention to the things on this our terraqueous globe, must necessarily confess, that they are so connected, so linked together, that they all tend to the same end, and to this end a vast number of intermediate ends are necessary. I S A A C B I B E RG . Man; the servant and explainer of nature, observes and practises as much as he has learned, concerning her order, effect, and power; further he neither knows nor can do. BACON.

TO JOH N ELLIS Esq Fellow of the Royal Societys of LON DON and U PSAL Agent for the Province of West-Florida. This Work is with the greatest Respect most humbly Dedicated by His most Obedient Humble Servant Bernard Romans.

Introduction

P R E F A C E S, at this present day, become such impertinent things, that it is almost improper to offer one without an apology. The many different reports, which have prevailed in America, since the cession of the Floridas, concerning their state, situation and soil, joined to the natural desire of those concerned, to see a good account of those so celebrated countries, I hope will be apology enough in the present case. Conscious of being, from experience, suf¤ciently enabled to give a just account of them, I have undertaken the following sketch, or out-lines of a future natural history of those countries, in hopes that some abler hand may be thereby induced to take up the pen, and furnish the world with a complete work of that kind for these provinces; being well assured, that no part of British America will furnish the naturalist with more variety. I offer this humble attempt without any recommendations, or praises, of my own; only I beg to assure my reader, that I have, through the whole, adhered so strictly to truth, as to make no one deviation therefrom willingly, or knowingly; guarding on the one hand against the misrepresentations, wherewith the authors of the numerous and noted puffs, concerning these provinces, have so plentifully interlarded [4] their labours; and on the other, against the prejudices of those, who have taken so much pains to render this country undeservedly despised. No elegance of style, nor ®owers of rhetoric, must be expected from a person, who is conscious that he is not suf¤ciently acquainted with the language, to write in such a manner as will please a critical reader, and if he has wrote so as to be intelligible, he hopes the candid will excuse such inaccuracies in composition as it is dif¤cult for a foreigner to avoid.

List of Subscribers to this Work

A Mr. Benjamin Andrews, Boston, Capt. Samuel Andrews, Newbury-Port, John Antill, Esq; New-York, Capt. Vincent P. Ash¤eld, ditto, Mr. Thomas Aylwin, Boston, Mr. Thomas Allen, New-London. B Mr. Theophilact Bache, New-York, Mr. Isaac Beers, New-Haven, [ii] Charles Bernard, Esq; East Florida, 3 copies, Capt. Robert Bethell, Philadelphia, George Bethune, Esq; Boston, Mr. Clement Biddle, Philadelphia, Mr. Owen Biddle, ditto. Captain John Blake, Boston, Mr. William Bradford, Philadelphia, Mr. Anthony L. Bleeker, New-York, Honourable James Bowdoin, Esq; Boston, Dirk Brinkerhoff, Esq; New-York, Lieutenant Brudenell, of the Navy, Capt. Ashbel Burnham, Middletown, Thaddeus Burr, Esq; Fair¤eld, Adam Babcock, Esq; New-Haven, C Captain Richard Cary, Boston, Chamber of Commerce, 12 copies,

82


Bernard Romans

His Excellency Peter Chester, Esq; Governor of West-Florida, Matthew Clarkson, Esq; for the Library Company, Philadelphia, Captain Benjamin Cobb, Boston, Captain Tristram Cof¤n, Newbury-Port, Honourable Commissioners of his Majesty’s Customs, Boston, Capt. W. Coombs, Newbury Port, Capt. James Creighton, jun. New-York, Captain William Curtis, New-York, Messieurs Cox and Berry, Boston. [iii] D Capt. Benjamin Davis, New-York, Mr. James Davis, ditto, Lieut. Dawson, of the Navy Capt. Patrick Dennis, New York, Mr. Gerardus Duyckink, ditto, Mr. Timothy Dwight, jun. Yale College. E John Ellis, Esq; F. R. S. London, George Erving, Esq; Boston, John Ewing, D. D. Philadelphia. F Edmund Fanning, Esq; Secretary to Governor Tryon, Capt. Nicholas Fletcher, New-York, John Fothergill, M D. F. R. S. London, Mr. Philip Francis, Philadelphia, Mr. David Frazier, Sussex, New Jersey, Capt. Benjamin French, Lansingburgh, Capt. Joseph French, New-York. G Dr. Sylvester Gardiner, Boston, Capt. Martin Gay, ditto, John Gibson, Esq; Philadelphia, Capt. John Gore, Boston, [iv] Joseph Green, Esq; Boston, John Grif¤th, Esq; New-York, Mr. Anthony Grif¤ths, do.

The right Noble Gronovius, one of the Deputies from the ancient city of Leyden, to the Chambers of Finances at the Hague. H Mr. Reuben Haines, Philadelphia, His Excellency Major General Frederick Haldimand, Esq; Mr. Willis Hall, Boston, Jonathan Hampton, Esq; Elizabeth-Town, Honourable John Hancock, Esq; Boston, Ditto for Harvard College, Capt. J. Harrison, of the Ship Queen, S. Caro. Capt. William Henderson, Middletown, Samuel Holland, Esq; Surveyor General for the Northern District, Stephen Hooper, Esq; Newbury-Port, Thomas Howell, Esq; New-Haven, Capt. Francis Hutcheson, 60th Regiment, Lieutenant Hunter, of the Navy, Capt. John Hylton, New-York. I Capt. Jabez Johnson, New-York, Evan Jones, Esq; Pensacola, Mr. Ralph Isaacs, New-Haven. K Mr. Henry Knox, Boston. L James de Lancey, Esq; New-York, Mr. John Landon, Boston, [v] Mr. William Lewis, New-York, Leonard Lispenard, Esq; do. Mr. Abraham Livingston, jun. do. Hon. Philip Livingston, Esq; Pensacola, Mr. James Lockwood, New-Haven, John Lorimer Esq; M. D. Pensacola, Mr. Samuel Loudon, New-York, John Lukens, Esq; Philadelphia, 6 copies, Mr. Char. Lukens, York-Town, Pennsylvania, Thomas Lynch, Esq; Charles-Town, S. Caro.

83


A Concise Natural History

84


Bernard Romans

Christopher Lef¤ngwell, Esq; Norwich. M Marine Society, New-York, Marine Society, of Boston, Marine Society, of Salem, Marine Society, of Newbury-Port, Mr. Edward M’Michael, Sussex, New-Jersey, Capt. Alexander M’Dougall, New-York, Mr. William Malcom, ditto, Richard Martin, Esq; Rio Bueno Jamaica, Thomas Martin, Esq; Portsmouth, N. Hampsh. Mr. Charles Marshal, Philadelphia, Mr. Samuel Miles, ditto, Capt. Magnus Miller, ditto, Mr. John Minshall, New-York, Hon. J. Montague. Esq; Rear Adm. of the Blue. Capt. Montresor, as Successor to Capt. T. Sowers, six Copies for the Engineers Of¤ce, America, Capt. Thomas Moore, New-York, Mr. Ph. Moore, Philadelphia, Capt. Roderick Morrison, Newbury Port, Robert Morris, Esq; Philadelphia. [vi] N J. M. Nesbitt, Esq; Philadelphia, Capt. Samuel Newhall, Newbury Port, Capt. Downham Newtown, N. Providence, Capt. James Nicoll, Newbury-Port, Capt. Silas Nowell, ditto. P Major Adino Paddock, Boston, Mr. Z. Parsons, Spring¤eld, M. Timothy Penny, Boston, Mr. Isaac Green Pearson, Newbury Port, Mr. Joseph Pemberton, Philadelphia, William Philips, Esq; Boston, Mr. Samuel Philips, ditto,

John Pitts, Esq; ditto, Mr. Peter le Pool, Charlestown, South-Carolina, 6 Copies, William Powell, Esq; Boston, Capt. Job Prince, ditto, Mr. John Perrit, Norwich. R Capt. Thomas Randall, New-York, Mr. Gerrit Rapalje, do. John Rapalje, Esq; do. Messieurs Read and Yates, do. Capt. John Rionson, Boston, Mr. Huybertus Romans, Amsterdam, John L. C. Roome, Esq; New-York, Parr Ross, Esq; N. Providence, John Rowe, Esq; Boston, Thomas Russel, Esq; Charlestown, New-England, S Capt. Giles Sage, Middletown, Daniel Sargeant, Esq; Cape Ann, Mr. Elias Shipman, New-Haven, Joseph Sherburne, Esq; Boston, Jonathan Simpson, Esq; ditto. Major John Small, ditto, Mr. Christopher Smith, New-York, Mr. Archibald Stewart, Sussex, New-Jersey, Mr. H. W. Stiegel, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, 6 Copies, Ebenezer Storer, Esq; Boston, [vii] Capt. Symonds, of the Navy, Mr. Nathaniel Shaw, jun. New-London. T Mr. Nathaniel Tracey, Newbury-Port, 2 Copies, Mr. John Tracy, Newbury Port, Mr. Robert Tracey, ditto, His Excellency William Tryon, Esq; Governor of N. York, William Todd, Esq; York, in Old England, Capt. Samuel Tuder, New-York.

85


A Concise Natural History

86


Bernard Romans

V Mr. Anthony Van Dam, for the New-York Insurance Of¤ce, Mr. John Van Rensselaer, jun. Albany, William Vassal, Esq; ditto. [Boston (b.r.)] John Vassal, Esq; ditto, W Capt. Jeremiah Wandsworth, Middletown, Hon. Hugh Wallace, Esq; New-York, Mr. Joshua Wallace, Philadelphia, Oliver Wendell, Esq; Boston, Mr. Joseph Webb, Weathers¤eld, Mr. Samuel Webb, ditto, Edmund Rush Wegg, Esq; Pensacola, Joseph Wharton, Esq; jun. Philadelphia, 3 Copies, Hon. Thomas Willing, Esq; ditto, Capt. Erasmus Williams, New-York, Mr. Jonathan Williams, tertius, Boston, Mr. Thomas C. Williams, Philadelphia, Mr. William Wilson, New-Providence, Capt. Edward Wigglesworth, Newbury-Port, Capt. Aaron Willard, Boston, Capt. Is. L. Winn, New-York, Mr. Joshua Winslow, Boston, Mr. Joseph Whitall, Philadelphia, Capt. James Wright, New-York, Capt. William Wyer, Newbury Port. Y Robert William Yates [Robert Waldron Yates (b.r.)], Esq; Albany, Dr. Thomas Young, New-Port, Rhode-Island.

Subscribers for the Book Only

Mr. John Adams, Boston, Mr. Joseph Barnell, ditto, Mr. Samuel Blagden, New-Haven, James Burrows, Esq; Boston, Rev. Mr. Carey, ditto, Messieurs Cox and Berry, ditto, 25 Copies, Mr. Thomas Fanning, ditto, Mr. D. S. Franks, Quebec, Dr. John Greenleaf, Boston, Mr. Roger Haldane, New-Haven, Mr. William Kennedy, Boston, Mr. Henry Knox, ditto, 50 Copies, Mr. James Lockwood, New-Haven, 25 Copies, Mr. William Molineaux, Boston, Mr. Henry Pelham, ditto, Capt. Rufus Putnam, Brook¤eld, 6 Copies, Dr. Isaac Rand, Boston, Hector St. John, Esq; Grey Court, Mr. William Tuder, jun. Boston.

A Concise Natural History of East and West-Florida

A DESCRIBER of countries, ought in a great measure, to imitate a building Engineer, in ¤rst laying before those, whom he will employ, accurate and distinct plans of his intended work, thereby enabling them to judge more distinctly of the execution thereof. I think that in a work of this nature, I could not do this better that [than] by directing my readers to the charts or plans accompanying it, in which they will undoubtedly ¤nd materials to form just ideas of the places herein described. To reduce my work to some regularity, I shall proceed from the East, Westward, and begin with the Peninsula, dividing it into two parts, which I will call climates, the one beginning at Amelia or St. Mary’s inlet, in latitude 31: and extending Southward to the latitude of 27:40: this will include the rivers St. Mary, Nassau, St. John’s or Ylacco, and the Musketo Lagoon (for surely no one can call this last a river) besides several smaller ones, which will be mentioned in their places; [2] these all empty themselves on the Eastern side of the Apalachicola (the boundary between the two Floridas)1 the Oskaulaskna the Apalachian, St. Juan de Guacaro,2 vulgarly called little Seguana, the river Amaxura, and the Manatee, which last falls into the bay of Tampe, or harbour of Spirito Santo, and which I have ¤rst discovered. The other, or Southern climate, beginning at the latitude 27:40: and extending Southward to the latitude of 25, on the main, or to 24:17: including the keys; this contains a large river, which empties itself into the new harbour, of which I am the ¤rst explorer, we have given it the name of Charlotte harbour, but neither harbour nor river have been described by the Spaniards in their maps, and the Spanish ¤shermen distinguish the place by the names of its inlets, which are ¤ve, and will hereafter be described; next is Carlos bay and Carlos harbour, into which the river Coloosahatcha empties itself; further South are not any more deserving the name of rivers, but such as they are, I shall give them a place also; on the East side is only the river St. Lucia, with its Southern branch, the river Ratones, and the Lagoon,

known by the name of Aïsa Hatcha, Rio d’ais, or Indian river, some others can scarcely be ranked among rivers, but will likewise be more particularly mentioned hereafter. After this general division of the country, I think it is not improper to begin with an account of the air, which this province enjoys very pure and clear fogs are seldom known any where except upon St. John’s river, but the dews are very heavy, the spring and summer are in general dry, the autumn very changeable; the beginning of [3] winter wet and stormy, but the latter part very dry and serene; from the end of September to the end of June, there is perhaps not any where a more delightful climate to be found, but all July, August, and most of September are excessively hot, yet the changes from hot to cold are not so sudden, as in Carolina, and frost is not frequently known, the noon day’s sun is always warm, the severest cold ever known there affects not the tender china orange trees, which grow here to a very great perfection, I scruple not to say, that this fruit here exceeds in goodness every other of the kind I have yet seen, however the change from the middle of this climate, to the Northern part of it is much more perceptible from heat to cold, than it was [is br] to the southward from cold to heat, in the year 1770 and 1771.[, br] I felt very severe weather about the river Nassau, and to [Nassau. To br] the southward of the town of St. Augustine, the climate changes so gradually, that it is not perceivable to the above named lat. of 27:40: where there is no frost at all, and which I have always set down as the line of no frost. From this line to the southern extent is a most charming climate, the air almost always serene; on the east side the common trade wind, and on the west side the Apalachian sea breeze from the west to the north-west, refresh this delightful Peninsula during the summer; here we ¤nd all the produce of more northern climes mixed with the inhabitants of the Tropics, and this as well in the water as on the land, nor is there ever so great a cold as to destroy the fruits of the south nor so great a heat as to parch the produce of the north; in all this Peninsula it is remarkable, that rain is always prognosticated one or two days before [4] it falls, and this by either an immoderate dew or no dew at all, so that if a very heavy dew falls, it is a certain sign of rain, and the same if on a calm ¤ne night, there be no dew, but I cannot account for this phenomenon. The winds are not so very changeable here as they are further to the northward, but are during the greatest part of spring, the whole summer, and beginning of autumn, generally between the east and south east, and during the last of autumn, and ¤rst part of winter, they are commonly in the north east quarter; the latter part of the winter, and ¤rst of spring they are more generally west and north west, the autumnal equinox is to be dreaded here,

89


A Concise Natural History

90


Bernard Romans

as well two or three weeks before, as two or three months after it, great storms will then happen, and many vessels are drove on shore, or otherwise disabled: I have never heard of much mischief in the vernal equinox, and if a hurricane was ever known in this Peninsula, it was on the 29th of October 1769, when there was a terrible gust between the lat. 25:10, and 25:50, which blew many trees down, and drove the Snow Ledbury a shore,3 where she remained dry on a key, now distinguished by her name, but heretofore considered as a part of what was improperly called by the name of Key Largo. The fatal hurricane of August 30, 31, September 1, 2, 3, anno 1772, was severely felt in West Florida, it destroyed the woods for about 30 miles from the sea coast in a terrible manner, what were its effects in the unsettled countries to the eastward, we cannot learn; in Pensacola it did little or no mischief except the breaking down of all the wharfs but one; but farther westward, it was [5] terrible; at Mobile every thing was in confusion, vessels, boats, and loggs were drove up into the streets a great distance, the gullies and hollows as well as all the lower grounds of this town were so ¤lled with loggs, that many of the inhabitants got the greatest part of their yearly provision of ¤rewood there; all the vegitables [vegetables br] were burned up by the salt water, which was by the violence of the wind, carried over the town, so as at the distance of half a mile, it was seen to fall like rain; all the lower ®oors of the houses were covered with water, but no houses were hurt except one, which stood at the water side, in which lived a joiner, a schooner drove upon it, and they alternately destroyed each other; but the greatest fury of it was spent on the neighbourhood of the Pasca Oocolo river; the plantation of Mr. Krebs4 there was almost totally destroyed, of a ¤ne crop of rice, and a large one of corn were scarcely left any remains, the houses were left uncovered, his smith’s shop was almost all washed away, all his works and out houses blown down; and for thirty miles up a branch of this river which (on account of the abundance of that species of cypress* vulgarly called white cedar) is called cedar river, there was scarce a tree left standing, the pines were blown down or broke, and those which had not intirely yielded to this violence, were so twisted, that they might be compared to ropes; at Botereaux’s cow pen, the people were above six weeks consulting on a method of ¤nding and bringing home their cattle; twelve miles up the river, live some Germans who, seeing the water rise with so incredible a rapidity, were almost embarked, fearing an universal ®ood, but the water not rising over their land, [6] they did not proceed on their intended journey to the *Cupressus Thyoides

Chactaw nation. At Yoani, in this nation, I am told the effects were perceivable; in all this tract of coast and country the wind had ranged between the south south east and east, but farther west its fury was between the north north east and east, a schooner belonging to the government having a detachment of the sixteenth regiments on board,5 was drove by accident to the westward as far as Cat Island, where she lay at an anchor under the west point, the water rose so high, that when she parted her cables, she ®oated over the island, the wind north by east, or thereabout she was forced upon the Free masons islands, and lay about six weeks before she was got off, and if they had not accidentally been discovered by a hunting boat, the people might have remained there and died for want, particularly as water failed them already when discovered; the effect of this different direction of the current of air or wind was here surprising, the south easterly wind having drove the water in immense quantities up all the rivers, bays, and sounds to the westward, being here counteracted by the northerly wind, this body of water was violently forced into the bay of Spirito Santo at the back of the Chandeleurs, grand Gozier, and Breton Isles, and not ¤nding suf¤cient vent up the rigolets, nor down the outlets of the bay, it forced a number of very deep channels through these islands, cutting them into a great number of small islands. The high island of the Chandeleur had all the surface of its ground washed off, and I really think, had not the clay been held fast by the roots of the black mangrove, and in some places the myrtle (Myrica) [7] there would have been scarce a vestige of the island left; at the mouth of Missisippi all the shipping was drove into the marshes; a Spanish brig foundered and parted, and a large crew was lost, some of the people were taken from a piece of her at sea, by a sloop from Pensacola a few days after; in the lakes at Chef Menteur, and in the passes of the rigolets, the water rose prodigiously and covered the low islands there two feet; at St. John’s Creek, and New Orleans, the tide was thought extraordinary high, but at all these last places there was no wind felt, being a ¤ne serene day with a small air from the eastward. The most extraordinary effect of this hurricane was the production of a second crop of leaves and fruit on all the mulberry trees in this country, a circumstance into which I very carefully enquired, but could not learn from the oldest and most curious observers that this had ever happened before; this tardy tree budded, foliated, blossomed, and bore ripe fruit with the amazing rapidity of only four weeks time immediately after the gust, and no other trees were thus affected. The south and south west winds make a thick heavy air, and are in my opinion hurtful to the lungs; they also occasion the sultry weather, so much complained of in July and August. The winds from the eastern quarter every

91


A Concise Natural History

92


Bernard Romans

where between the south east and the north east, are cool and moist, and they cause the frequent showers, by which the very sand of this climate is endued with so prodigious a vegetative power that it amazes every one. The winds from the east to the north are agreeably cool, and from the north to the north west, occasion what is here called cold weather, I [8] have frequently kept thermometrical journals, but have none left now for inspection. I remember the general height of the mercury on Fahrenheit’s scale,6 to have been, in the shade where the air was not prevented circulating freely about it, between 84° and 88° and on some sultry hot days in July and August, I have known it to rise up to 94°, when at the same time by carrying it out and exposing it to the sun, it will rise in a very short time up to 114°, nor can I remember ever to have seen it above one or two degrees below the freezing point; it is impossible for one to imagine how inexpressibly temperate the weather is here from the latter end of September to the latter end of June; the western part of this northern division is not so very hot in summer, as the whole eastern shore of the Peninsula is, but its sea shore is much more exposed to the bleak winter winds. In the southern division I have never seen the mercury in Fahrenheit’s thermometer below the temperate point, and I cannot remember ever to have seen it higher than in the northern division. This southern part of the Peninsula is in the months of May, June, July, and August very subject, on its west side, to dreadful squalls, and there is a certainty of one or more of these tornadoes every day, when during that season, the wind comes any where between the south south east, and south west, but they are of very short duration; then also thunder and lightning is frequent, but nothing near so violent as in Carolina and Georgia, nor do I remember any more than one instance of damage occasioned by it, when it made a large hole in a stone wall of a house at St. Augustine; yet very few electrical conductors7 are made use of there. [9] Before I quit this subject of the air, I cannot help taking notice of a remark, which I have read some where, made by Dr. James McKenzie,8 which is that dampness or discoloring of plaister and wainscoat, the soon moulding of bread, moistness of spunge, dissolution of loaf sugar, rusting of metals, and rotting of furniture, are certain marks of a bad air; now every one of those marks except the last, are more to be seen at St. Augustine, than in any place I ever was at, and yet I do not think, that on all the continent, there is a more healthy spot; burials have been less frequent here, than any where else, where an equal number of inhabitants is to be found, and it was remarked during my stay there, that when a detachment of the royal regiment of artillery once arrived there in a sickly state, none of the inhabitants

caught the contagion, and the troops themselves soon recruited; I also know of several asthmatic and consumptive subjects, who have been greatly relieved there; the Spanish inhabitants lived here to a great age, and certain it is, that the people of the Havannah looked on it as their Montpelier, frequenting it for the sake of health; I therefore ascribe the above circumstances to the nature of the stone, wherewith the houses are built. Haloes, or as they are vulgarly called circles round the sun and moon, are very often seen, and are sure forerunners of rain if not wind storms; those of the sun are less frequent, but they are always followed by very violent gales of wind; it is remarkable, that if in those haloes a break is observed, that break is always towards the quarter, from whence the wind begins; water spouts are often seen along this coast, but I cannot learn that [10] they ever occasioned any mischief, nor could I learn, that earthquakes have ever been experienced in this part of the world. Of West Florida, there needs scarce any thing more to be said, with regad [regard br] to the article of climate, or air, than what I have said of my northern division of East Florida, it agreeing in every respect therewith, except that the winter is something more severe, it often killing tender fruit trees;* however, as the sickness of 1765 at Mobile,9 has been a subject of much discourse, and as it has been set up (by people who would if possible prevent the population of so ¤ne a country) as a scarecrow to such, as are easily deceived by appearances, and never enquire deeper than external shews; this fatal disorder has been followed by the entire ruin of Mobile, and had nearly spoiled the reputation of Pensacola, which though situate in as ¤ne, airy, dry and healthy a site as any on the continent, and at least at a distance of sixty miles from Mobile, had yet the misfortune to be confounded with it, and to be thought liable to the same misfortunes; I will give as faithful an account of that illness, as has come within the verge of my knowledge. Mobile was originally built by the French, after they had left their old Fort Condè,10 thirty miles higher up the Tombecbé, having found that situation very inconvenient; they now made at least as injudicious a choice in another respect, by placing themselves at a distance from good water, on low ground, and directly opposite to some marshy islands, at the division between the salt and fresh water, a situation well known in America not to be eligible for the sake of health, but the [11] convenience of the navigation up to it being the best in their possession at that time, its being a barrier against the Spaniards, and the easy communication with the Chactaw and Upper Creek nations, as well as with the Mississippi, made people forget the evils *In 1771–2, it killed apple and pear trees.

93


A Concise Natural History

94


Bernard Romans

attending it, and it soon became, from a fort, a pretty town, with some very good houses built in no inelegant taste, yet the French inhabitants duly observing the inconveniencies of this unhealthy spot, adapted their constitutions to it, by a regular sober life, being uncommonly careful to get their drinking water from a rivulet at the distance of three miles, where it is very good, neither did they give into excess of drinking spirituous liquors and wine, and at the season, when the continued heat caused a putrefaction of the water in pools, and exhaled the moisture of this low ground, thereby ¤lling the air with noxious vapours, and thus occasioning the acute epidemical disorders (that proved so fatal in the year 1765) those prudent inhabitants retired to their plantations up or down the river, some even at a small distance, there to enjoy a freer circulation of a less putri¤ed air, thus also by the depopulation of the town, the remaining inhabitants suffered less by being less crowded together, and there were such instances of longevity here as are not to be outdone in any part of America. Let me beg leave to mention among many others, one more commonly known, it is the Chevalier de Lucere’s family, who are now all very old, and whose mother not many years since died by breaking one of her legs, that had been so much calcarizated by the gout, that it snapped by stepping into bed, she died aged far above one hundred years. One other I shall mention, [12] more familiar to me, which is that of one Mr. François, who lives now about ¤ve miles below the river Poule: In September 1771, I called there, the old man told me he was then past eighty three years of age, that the old woman, whom I saw putting bread into the oven, was his mother; and that she was one of the ¤rst women that came from France to this country; I saw her about her domestick business in many ways; in a very cheerful manner, singing and running from place to place as briskly as a girl of twenty; Mr. François told me, that at the age of sixty he fell out of a pine tree, above ¤fty feet high, with his loins over a fallen one, that he with dif¤culty recovered, and that had it not been for that accident, he would not, as he thinks, yet have been sensible of the heavy hand of time; that he was still a hearty cheerful old man, was evidently to be seen; when I came to the river Poule in October 1772, I met the same old gentleman ¤shing at the mouth of the river, on my asking him whether this diversion was agreeable to him, he told me; that his mother had an inclination to eat ¤sh, and he was come to get her a mess; he was then on foot and had ¤ve miles to come to this place, and as much back with his prey, after catching it; a very dutiful son this at eighty ¤ve! He lives comfortably at an agreeable place, and on the produce of a midling large stock of cattle. Many more of this kind might be mentioned, but these two being more universally known, I chose to relate them only. Far otherwise was it with

our sons of incontinence, who upon their arrival, and after their ¤rst taking possession of this country, lived there so fast, that their race was [13] too soon scampered over; midnight carouzals, and the converting day into night, and night into day was all the study of those gay, those thoughtless men, who sported with their lives; as with a toy not worth esteeming; the fatal effects of their debauches; joined to the consequences of the situation of their residence, made their lives indeed comparable to grass, ®ourishing today, and withering to morrow; but as if a punishment for this abandoned life, was not suf¤ciently incurred by its own fatality, in the year 1765 arrived a regiment (I think the twenty ¤rst)11 from Jamaica, with them they brought a contagious distemper; contracted either in the island, or on their passage; these men, like most soldiers; lived a life of intemperance, and besides, drank the water out of the stagnated pools, which I myself have even in the winter, seen such as to ¤ll a man with horror at the thought of making use thereof, this and other inconveniences of a soldier’s life, joined to their arriving in a bad season, swept them off so as scarce to leave a living one to bury the dead. See there the true reason of the sickly character of the climate, and of the destruction of this once ®ourishing town, whose situation by far exceeds that of Savannah in Georgia, in every respect. It is an almost invariable rule for people, who intend going to a different climate, to consult some friend or acquaintance on the manner of life, he would advise him to lead, I have never yet heard of one going to Florida, who was not told by his friend, that a free glass was necessary; how true this is, I shall not pretend to say, but certain it is, that the advice is almost always too freely followed, the free glass generally degenerating into a glass of excess. [14] Notwithstanding all I have above asserted, it is not to be denied, that during the hot months, the air is not so wholesome as in the other seasons, but even then it does not so much affect careful strangers, and new comers, as those who have been some time there and live irregular lives. The night air is not so much to be dreaded here, as in countries where the sun is vertical, or nearly so, and consequently, by its long absence, makes a chilling penetrating night follow a burning day, but here it is not long enough absent to cool the atmosphere suf¤ciently to hurt the unweary [unwary br] sleeper, who during the ¤rst heat of a sultry night perhaps has exposed his open pores to the mercy of the air. The atmosphere is, during this season, so burning hot, that undoubtedly very sudden rarefactions of the humours are often experienced, which cause such abundant perspiration, that water, as soon as drank, penetrates [pervades br] the open pores, so that the human skin seems to be comparable to a wet

95


A Concise Natural History

96


Bernard Romans

spunge when squeezed; yet although the water is here very cool (and if it has not this quality naturally, it is arti¤cially made to acquire it) we never hear of the fatal effects of water drinking, so often experienced in the cities of New York and Philadelphia, the reason perhaps is, that it is seldom if ever drank unmixed. I will however venture to foretell, that on opening the woods of this country for cultivation, which will naturally drain ponds, gullies, &c. the air will be here very little affected by those pernicious vapours, which have so uncommon an in®uence over the humours and ¤brous parts of the human frame, as to destroy their harmonious concordance [15] (may I be admitted the phrase?) and occasioning them to relax, and thereby producing weaknesses, lassitudes, and ¤nally dangerous and fatal disorders. If we consider the effects of heat and humidity on the hardest substances, such as wood, and even metals, which are thereby expanded, and have the union of their solid parts relaxed, it may give us an idea, how much more their effects must be felt in the animal œconomy at times, when ¤re and water unite their dissolving powers to act on all nature. A very dry hot air, though less dangerous to the body, than a hot moist one, has yet very nearly the same effects, as it partially dries the Ponds, Marshes, Swamps, &c. leaving the remaining water and mud [ef®uvia of small animals br] to exhale, and spread their noxious vapours through the atmosphere. Every inhabitant of any part of America knows, that the sudden transitions from cold to heat so prevalent on that continent, are much more to be dreaded, than any of the above named causes of immoderate heat, cold, moisture, and drought. I am now to consider the nature and appearance of the earth, which in this part of America, may be divided into six different sorts, much the same as in Carolina, with this distinction, that it is much more unequally divided. I shall treat of them by the names of pine land, Hammock land, savannahs, swamps, marshes, and bay, or cypress galls. First the pine land, commonly called pine barren,12 which makes up the largest body by far, the Peninsula being scarce any thing else; but about an hundred miles towards the north west from St. [16] Augustine, and about two hundred from the sea in West Florida, carry us intirely out of it. This land consists of a grey, or white sand, and in many places of a red or yellow gravel; it produces a great variety of shrubs or plants, of which I shall hereafter describe some, the principal produce from whence it derives its name is the pinus foliis longissimis ex una theca ternis,13 or yellow pine and pitch pine tree, which I take to be a variety of the same species, both excellent and good timber.

Also the chamœrops frondibus palmatis plicatis stipitibus serratis, of whose fruit all animals are very fond. It is on this kind of land, that immense stocks of cattle are maintained, although the most natural grass on this soil is of a very harsh nature, and the cattle not at all fond of it, it is known by the name of wire grass; and they only eat it while young; for the procuring it young or renewing this kind of pasture, the woods are frequently ¤red, and at different seasons, in order to have a succession of young grass, but the savannahs that are interspersed in this kind of land furnish a more plentiful and more proper food for the cattle. Some high pine hills are so covered with two or three varieties of the quercus or oak so [delete so br] as to make an underwood to the lofty pines; and a species of dwarf chesnut is often found here; another species of a larger growth is also found in the lower parts, particularly in the edges of the bay or cypress galls. This barren and unfavourable soil in a wet season bears many things far beyond expectation; and is very useful for the cultivation of peach and mulberry orchards; this land might also be rendered useful for many other purposes, but either [17] the people do not choose to go out of the old beaten track, or content themselves with looking elsewhere for new land improveable with less cost; the method of meliorating it is certainly obvious to the meanest capacity, as it every where, at a greater or less depth, covers a stiff marly kind of clay, which I am certain, was it properly mixed with the land; would render it fertile, and this might be done with little expence, the clay laying in some places within half a foot or a foot of the surface; in most places it is found at the depth of three, four, or ¤ve feet, consequently not very hard to come at. In East Florida, in the southern parts, this kind of land is often very rocky, but especially from the latitude 25:50, southward to the point, where it is a solid rock, of a kind of lime stone covered with innumerable small, loose and sharp stones, every where. In West Florida the pine land is also frequently found rocky, with an iron stone, especially near where the pines are found growing in a gravelly tract, which is frequently the case here. The hammock land so called from its appearing in tufts among the lofty pines; some small spots of this kind, if seen at a distance, have a very romantick appearance; the large parcels of it often divide swamps, creeks, or rivers from the pine land, this is indeed its most common situation; the whole of the up lands, remote from the sea in the northern parts, is this kind of land, its soil is various, in some places a sand of divers colours, and in East Florida, often a white sand; but the true hammock soil is a mixture of clay and a

97


A Concise Natural History

98


Bernard Romans

blackish sand, and in some spots a kind of ochre, in East Florida some of this is also sometimes [18] found rocky; on every kind of this land lays a stratum of black mould, made by the decayed leaves &c. of the wood and other plants growing upon it; the salts contained in this stratum render it very fruitful, and when cleared this is the best; nay the only ¤t land for the production of indigo, potatoes, and pulse; the ¤rst crops, by means of the manure above mentioned, generally are very plentiful, but the salts being soon evaporated, if the soil over which it lay, should prove to be sand, it is not better than pine land; the other sort bears many years planting; its natural produce is so various in this climate, that the compleat description of all, would be more work than one man’s life time would be suf¤cient for, the principal however are the following: Quercus alba Virginiana. Quercus alba pumilis. Quercus, foliis oblongis non sinuatis, semper virens. Quercus nigra, folio non serrato, in summitate quasi triangulo. Quercus nigra foliis cunei forma, obsolete trilobis. Quercus nigra Marilandica, folio tri¤do, ad sassafras accidente. [19] Quercus rubra Carolinensis, virens muricata. Quercus castaneæ foliis, procera arbor. Juglans alba, fructu ovato compresso profundè insculpto durissimo, cavitate intus minima.

Juglans Virginiana alba minor. Nux juglans nigra. Fagus humilis (seu castanea, pumila) racemosa fructu parvo; in capsulis echinatis, singulo. Fagus foliis lanceolatis ovalis, acute serratis subtus tomentosis, amentis ¤lisormi nodosis, fructu in capsulis echinatis, duplice.

Virginian white oak. Dwarf white oak, or post oak. Evergreen oak with oblong entire leaves, or live oak. Black oak, with leaves serrated, and their tops almost triangular. Black oak, with wedge shaped leaves, and having imperfectly three lobes. Black Maryland oak, with tri¤d leaves resembling sassafras. Carolina red oak, prickly when young. Chesnut leaved oak of a large size. White walnut, or hickory with egg shaped fruit closely grasped, and buried, in a very hard shell, with the smallest inward cavities. Small Virginian hickory tree. Black walnut. Smallest fagus (or dwarf chesnut) having the fruit in bunches, and contained singly in a prickly pod, vulgo chinkapin. Fagus, with leaves between egg and spear shaped, sharply serrated and woolly underneath, slender knotty catkins, and a double fruit in a prickly pod.

Morus foliis subtus tomentosis amentis longis, diœcis.

Morus, loti arboris instar, [20] ramosa; foliis amplissimis. Morus foliis palmatis, cortice ¤lamentosa, fructu nigra, radice tinctoria. Diospyros guajacana. Liquidambar, styraci®ua; aceris folio. Borassus frondibus palmatis (seu) palma coccifera latifolio, fructu atro purpureo, omnium minimo.

Palma humilis (seu) chamæriphis. Laurus foliis acuminatis, baccis cæruleis, pedicellis longis rubris insidentibus. Laurus (seu cinnamomum sylvestre) Americana. Laurus (seu) cornus mas odorata, folio tre¤do, margine plano, sassafras dicta. Liliodendron tulipifera, tripartito, aceris folio, [21] media lacinia velut abscissa. Magnolia maximo ®ore, foliis subtus ferrugineis. Magnolia glauca laurifolio subtus albicante. Magnolia ®ore albo, folio majore acuminato haud albicante. Magnolia tripetala amplissimo ®ore albo, fructu coccineo. Citrus (seu) malus aurantia acida. *Illicium ®oridanum (seu) anisum stellatum.

Mulberry with the under part of the leaves woolly, having long catkins; and trees of different sexes. Mulberry resembling the lote-tree full of branches; and large leaves. Mulberry with hand shaped leaves a thready bark, black fruit, and the root containing a dye. Parsimmon. Maple leaved liquidamber, yielding storax or sweet gum. Borassus, with hand or fan shaped leaves (or) scarlet yielding palm, with broad leaves, and a deep purple fruit which is the least of all. Dwarf palm, or chamæriphis. Laurel, with pointed leaves, and blue berries, sitting on long red foot stalks. The wild American cinnamon Laurel. The male scented cornel or laurel tree, with a tri¤d leaf, having plain edges, called sassafras. Tulip bearing liliodendron, with a tripartite maple leaf, having the middle piece seemingly cut off. Magnolia, with the largest ®ower, and the lower side of the leaves ferrugineous. Magnolia, with a grey laurel leaf whitish below. Magnolia, with a white ®ower, a larger pointed leaf, and not whitish. Magnolia, with a very large white ®ower of three petals; and a scarlet fruit. The sour orange. Starry anniseed, or skimmi.

*First found growing near Pensacola, by a free Negro (Pompey) formerly belonging to Chief Justice Clifton,14 which Negro in his own way is a curious herbalist.

99


A Concise Natural History

100


Bernard Romans

Kalmia, foliis glabris lanceolatis, et corolla campanulæ hypocraterique forma. Ficus Americana, citri folio, fructu parvo purpureo. Coccoloba (seu) prunus maritima racemosa, folio subrotundo, venoso [22] fructu cæruleo quasi purpureo. Coccoloba foliis oblongis ovatis venosis, uvis minoribus corinthiacis.

Zantoxylum spinosum album, quasi fraxini folio, evonymi fructu capsulari.

Kalmia, with smooth lanceolate leaves, and a corolla between salver and bell shaped. American ¤g, with a citron leaf and a small purple fruit. Coccoloba, or sea side plumb, growing in bunches, an almost round veined leaf, & the fruit blue, inclined to purple. Coccoloba, with oblong egg shaped veined leaves, with pointed grape like fruit less than currants. Tooth ach tree, with white spines almost an ash leaf, and the capsulum like the fruit of the spindle tree.

The savannah’s are in this country of two very different kinds, the one is to be found in the pine lands; and notwithstanding the black appearance of the soil, they are as much a white sand as the higher lands round them; true it is that clay is very often much nearer to their surface, than in the higher pine lands; they are a kind of sinks or drains to those higher lands, and their low situation only prevents the growth of pines in them. In wet weather the roads leading through them are almost impassable. On account of their producing some species of grass of a better kind than the wire grass, they are very often stiled meadows, and I believe, if they could be improved by draining them, without taking away all their moisture, very useful grass might be raised in them; but on draining them completely, they prove to be as arrant a sand as any in this country. These savannahs often have spots in them more low than common, and ¤lled with water; they are over grown with different species of the cratægus, or hawthorn, as also very often a species of shrub [23] much resembling the Laurus in appearance, but as I never had an opportunity of seeing it in blossom, I cannot describe it, so as to ascertain the genus it belongs to; in its fruit it is widely different from any of the laurel kind, that have fallen under my inspection; it is a bacca with several cells full of an agreeable acid like the common lime from the West Indies; it is of the size of a large pigeon’s egg, but more oblong; we also ¤nd it on the low banks of rivers in Georgia, and know it by the name of the Ogeechee lime. The other savannahs differ very widely from these, and are chie®y to be found in West Florida, they consist of a high ground often with small gentle risings in them, some are of a vast extent, and on the west of Mississippi, they are said to be

many days journey over, the largest within my knowledge is on the road from the Chactaw to the Chicasaw nation, and is in length near forty miles over from north to South, and from one end to the other, a horizon, similar to that at sea, appears; there is generally a rivulet at one or other, or at each end of the savannahs, and some come to the river banks; in one or two of them I have seen some very small remains of ancient huts, by which I judge, they were formerly inhabited by Indians; the soil here is very fertile; in some I have seen fossil shells in great numbers, in others, ®int, in others again, some chalk and marl; it is remarkable, that cattle are very fond of the grasses growing here; the Chicasaw old ¤eld,15 as it is termed, is a clear demonstration of this, for the cattle will come to it from any distance, even when the grass scarcely appears; and in all the circumjacent tract, are abundance of both winter and summer canes to be found, on which [24] they might more luxuriously feed. In these savannahs if a well or pond is dug, the water has a very strong nitrous taste. I have seen some very curious plants in this kind of ground, but there was no time for my examining any of them, except a nondescript of the genus Tagetes of a ¤ne crimson colour. I shall in some measure describe and give the ¤gure of this plant. The only high growth I have seen in these savannahs are some willows and other aquatic plants, by the side of rivulets, in or near them; some of the smaller kind of oaks and a few small junipers are also to be seen in those places, the fragaria or strawberry is very common in them. Swamps are also found of two kinds, river and inland swamps, those on the rivers are justly esteemed the most valuable, and the more so, if they are in the tide way, because then the river water may be at pleasure let on or kept out, with much less labour and expence than in the other kinds; these lands are the sources of riches in these provinces, because where they lay between the sandy pine barrens, they produce that valuable staple Rice, and on the Mississippi (where much of this river land is situated a great deal higher, than the common run of it in Carolina, and other similar countries) this soil is the best adapted for corn and indigo, yet known; some of these grounds are clay, others sand, and others again partake of both; when used for rice, it matters not which of these soils they are made up of, but I believe, were the sandy ones to be quite drained, they would prove barren enough; the use of water on rice is more to suppress the growth of noxious weeds and grass; which would otherwise sti®e the grain, than for promoting the growth of the rice itself, for none [25] of the grasses can stand the water, but rice does, as long as it is not totally immersed, therefore it is, that after weeding, the planter (if he has it convenient) lets on water to about half the height of his grain; by swamps then in general is to be understood any low ground

101


A Concise Natural History

102


Bernard Romans

subject to inundations, distinguished from marshes, in having a large growth of timber, and much underwood, canes, reeds, wythes, vines, briars and such like, so matted together, that they are in a great measure impenetrable to man or beast; the produce of these swamps if sandy is more generally the cypress tree, which is here of three species; two of these grow in this kind of land; the common sort grows to an enormous size, but none so large, as what is seen on or near the banks of the Mississippi, the other kind vulgarly miscalled white cedar, is in great quantities near Pensacola, particularly in the swamps of Chester River; this likewise grows to a tree which may be ranked among those of the ¤rst magnitude: If these swamps are not altogether sand, but mixed with clay, and other earth, their produce is in general. Cupressus Americana foliis deciduis. Cupressus semper virens seu cupressus Thyoides. Quercus alba aquatica salicis folio breviore. Quercus folio longo angusto salicis. [26] Quercus alba foliis superne latioribus, opposite sinuatis, sinubus angulisque obtusis. Ilex ®oridana, foliis dentatis, baccis rubris. Acer foliis compositis, ®oribus racemosis. Acer foliis quinque partito palmatis acuminato dentatis. Acer foliis quinquelobis subdentatis, subtus glaucis pedunculis simplissimis aggregatis. Fraxinus ®oridana, foliis angustioribus utrinque œcuminatis pendulis. Nyssa foliis latis acuminatis et dentatis fructu æleagni majore. Populus alba majoribus foliis subcordatis. Populus nigra folio maximo, gemmis balsamum [27] odoratissimum fundentibus. Platanus occidentalis foliis lobatis.

American deciduous cypress Evergreen cypress, vulgo white cedar. White swamp oak, with a short willow leaf, vulgo water oak. Oak with a long narrow willow leaf, vulgo willow oak. White oak, with the upper leaves broad, oppositely sinuated, the sinusses having obtuse angles, or the true white oak. Floridan holly, with indented leaves and red berries. Maple, with composite leaves and the ®owers in bunches. Maple, with a palmated leaf of ¤ve parts sharply indented. Maple, with a ¤ve lobed leaf faintly indented, their lower part of a blue cast, with simply aggregate ®ower stalks. Floridan ash, with narrow hanging leaves on both ends pointed. Tupelo, with broad pointed and indented leaves, with a fruit like the largest wild olive. Great white popular, with almost heart shaped leaves. Black popular, with the largest leaves, whose buds exude an odoriferous gum or balsam. Western plantane, with lobated

Salix folio angustissimo, longissimo subtus albo. Bignonia foliis simplicibus cordatis, ®ore sordidè albo, intus maculis cæruleis et purpureis irregulariter adspersis; silique longissima et angustissima.

Bignonia, fraxini foliis. Laurus foliis acuminatis, baccis cæruleis; pedicellis longis rubris in¤dentibus. Cratægus fructu parvo rubro. Genista capsulo aromatico. Vitis nigra, vulpina dicta. Vitis foliis api, uva corymbosa [28] purpura minore. Vitis vinifera silvestris. Betula nigra foliis rhombeis ovatis acuminatis duplicato serratis. Coriaria foliis gladiatis serratis (seu) nicotiana Indiorum. Rhus vernix (seu) toxicodencron foliis alatis fructu rhomboide. Juglans alba aquatica, cortice glabro, arbor humilis; fructu amaro. Sambucus racemosa acinis nigris, caula herbacea. Sambucus cymis quinque-partitis foliis subpinnatis. Magnolia, glauca lauri folio subtus albicante. Fagus foliis ovatis obsolete serratis; fructu triangulo. Myrica (seu) myrtus (brabantica similis) ®oridana, baccifera, baccis sessilis; fructu cerifero.

leaves (vulgo) button wood, water beech, or sycamore. Willow, with narrow long leaves, being white below. Bignonia, or trumpet ®ower, with single heart shaped leaves, ®owers of a dirty white, through whose inside blue and purple spots are irregularly scattered, having a long and narrow seed pod (vulgo) catalpa. Bignonia, with an ash leaf. Laurel, with a pointed leaf, blue berries sitting on long foot-stalks. Hawthorn, with a small red fruit. Broom, with an aromatic seed pod. Black vine, called fox grape. Parsley leaved vine, with small purple grapes in a corymbus. Wild wine vine. Black birch; with ovate rhomboid leaves, being doubly serrated. Shumac, with serrated sword like leaves, or Savages tobacco, Shumac or poison tree, with winged leaves, and a rhomboidal fruit. White swamp hickory, with a smooth bark being a dwarf tree and a bitter fruit. Elder, with bunches of black berries, and an herbaceous stalk. Elder, with the cyma of ¤ve parts and imperfectly winged leaves. Magnolia, with a green laurel leaf whitish belowBeech, with almost egg shaped slightly serrated leaves and a triangular fruit. Florida berry-bearing myrtle, the berries squat; and yielding wax.

103


A Concise Natural History

104


Bernard Romans

[29] Canna foliis enervibus. Gleditsia spinosa, spinis triplicibus axillaribus, capsula ovali, unicum semen claudente. Salix folio angustissimo serrato glabro, petiolis dentatis glandu losis.

Reed, with very week leaves Locust, with triple axillary spines, an oval seed pod inclosing a single seed. Willow, with very narrow smooth serrated leaves, the stalks dentated and full of glandules.

The back or inland swamps answer in situation to what are called the meadows or savannahs (among the pine lands) their soil being rich, occasions them to bear trees. The true back swamps, that are in wet seasons full of standing water, bear scarcely any other tree, than a variety of that species of Nyssa distinguished by Botanists by the name of Nyssa foliis latis acuminatis non dentatis fructu æleagni minore, pedunculis multi®ore, vulgarly called bottle arsed tupelo; the continuance of water on this kind of ground, is the reason why scarce any undergrowth is found here. There are swamps also called back swamps, but they are either at the head of some stream, or have more or less water running through them; these are generally easy to drain. I would have con¤ned my description of back swamps to the ¤rst or standing ones, and ranked the last (which I think might properly be done) among the river swamps, but I was apprehensive, that it might have displeased some person, who entertains the more established opinion; these last described often are found meer cypress swamps, in that case, they are almost impassable, by reason [30] of the cypress spurs, even when dry, and for horses, they are extremely dangerous, as they often get staked on those spurs. This vegetable monster I shall hereafter describe; I do not remember to have ever seen it mentioned any where; when this kind of swamp is not over grown with cypress alone, its product is the same as that of the river swamps above mentioned, and in that case the soil is certainly good; these last when properly drained, are the best land for the cultivation of hemp. The marshes are next to be considered, they are of four kinds, two in the salt, and two in the fresh water; they are either soft or hard, the soft marshes consisting of a very wet clay or mud, are as yet of no use, without a very great expence to drain them; the hard ones are made up of a kind of marly clay, which in dry seasons is almost burned up, true it is they afford a pasture suf¤cient to keep any gramenivorous animals in good order; but the milk and ®esh of them in seasons, when the cattle near the sea side cannot ¤nd any other food, and consequently feed on this alone, are of so horrible a taste, that no stranger to the country can make use of them. Hard marshes in gen-

105


A Concise Natural History

9. Avena aquatica Sylvestris (original faces page 31).

eral are such, whose soil has too much solidity, for the water to disunite its particles by penetrating them; the soft marshes are those, whose spungy nature allows the water easily to penetrate them; I have seen of both kinds on Turtle River, about twenty miles up, in which, at about eight or ten feet below the surface, there are numbers of cypress and other stumps remaining, but chie®y cypress, and many of the fallen trees crossing each other; this is only to be seen at low water, and to the height [31] above named; these trees are covered with a rich nitrous muddy soil; but I beg leave to expect, that

106


Bernard Romans

better Naturalists may explain this extraordinary appearance; I believe them ruins of ancient forests on which the sea has encroached.* The marshes on fresh water are in every respect similar to those on the salt, except, that they are not impregnated with the saline particles, of which the ¤rst are very replete; therefore the hard ones, with little trouble, are adapted to cultivation; the soft ones cost a considerable deal more of expence, to render them ¤t to answer this purpose, but when so drained as to answer this [the br] end, they certainly are by no means inferior to any land in this country; in the lower part of these marshes grows a kind of hitherto undescribed grain, of which the western Indians make a great use for bread, I never could see it in blossom, therefore, cannot describe it, but joined to this is a ¤gure of it, nearly equal in size to one eighth of the common growth of the plant when in perfection, it is known by the name of wild oats. This kind of land produces rice very willingly, but if suf¤ciently made dry, always proves the best [very good br] for corn, indigo and hemp; I have seen at Mr. Brewington’s plantation, about three miles below savannah in Georgia, very good corn and rice together, with the two kinds of melons, and cucumbers in great perfection on this species of soil. I shall next describe the bay and cypress galls; these intersect the pine lands, and are seldom of any breadth; the bay galls are properly water courses, covered with a spungy earth mixed with [32] a kind of matted vegetable ¤bres; they are so very unstable, as to shake for a great extent round a person, who, standing on some part thereof, moves himself slightly up and down; they often prove fatal to cattle, aud [and] sometimes I have been detained for above an hour at the narrowest passes of them, they being so dangerous to cross, that frequently a horse plunges in, so as to leave only his head in sight; their natural produce is a stately tree called loblolly bay,† and many different vines, briars, thorny withs, and on their edges a species of red or summer cane, which together combine to make this ground impenetrable, as if nature had thus intended to prevent the destruction of cattle in these dismal bogs, which would be particularly fatal to many of them in spring, when the early produce of grass and green leaves in these galls, might entice them into this danger, was not such a natural obstacle in their way; as these have generally vent, they are sometimes drained, and rice planted therein, which for one or two years thrives there tolerably, but this ground is so replete with vitriolic principles, that the water standing in them is impregnated with acid, insomuch, that I have tasted it sour enough to have persuaded a person, unac*The whole appearance of this river seems to indicate such an ancient and unrecorded hurricane on this part of the coast. †Hyperium, seu Gordonia Lasianthus.

quainted with this circumstance, that it was an equal portion of vinegar and water mixed together, therefore it requires to lay open at least one year before it will bear any thing, and they generally, by laying open four or ¤ve years without any other draining, become quite dry, and might be advantageously used for pasture ground. The cypress galls differ from these, in being a ¤rm sandy soil, in having no vitriolic taste in the [33] water, and very seldom vent; I never knew these made use of for the purpose of planting, and the cypress they produce, is a dwarf kind, not ¤t for use, being very much twisted and often hollow, there is no undergrowth here, but in dry seasons some tolerable grass. Through all the above species of land we ¤nd a distribution of very ¤ne clay, ¤t for manufacturing; the ¤nest I ever saw is at the village on Mobile Bay,16 where I have seen the inhabitants, in imitation of the Savages, have several rough made vessels thereof; there is also a great variety of nitrous and bituminous earths, fossills, marles, boles, magnetic and other iron ore, lead, coal, chalk, slate, free stone, chrystals, and white topazes, these last in the beds of rivers; ambergris17 is sometimes found; one Stirrup a few years ago found a piece of a very enormous size on one of the keys; there is also much of a natural pitch or asphalthus,18 vulgarly called mungiac, thrown up by the sea: The uplands also afford a metallic substance appearing like musket bullets, which on being thrown into the ¤re go off in smoak with a very sulphureous stench. The water in this country is very various as to taste, quality and use, there are salt, brackish, nitrous, sulphureous, and good fresh springs in most parts of this country, as well as salt and fresh lakes, lagoons and rivers, the rivers also vary in many respects, and so does the sea as well in the colour, and clearness of the water as in its degree of saltness; the water of St. Mary’s and Nassau, and all the brooks that run into them is very good, wholesome, and well tasted, the colour in the rivers is dark, as in all the American rivers of the [34] southern district; St. John’s is a curiosity among rivers indeed, this rises at a small distance from the lagoon called Indian river, somewhere in or near the latitude of 27, perhaps out of the lake Mayacco,19 which I have reason to believe really exists, and is the head of the river St. Lucia, as I am told by a credible Spanish hunter, who had been carried there by way of this last river; from its origin it runs through wide extended plains and marshes, till near the latitude 28, where it approaches the lagoon much, it then continues its course with a considerable current northward, and glides thro’ ¤ve great lakes, of which the last, called Lake George, is by much the most considerable; in this last lake is about eight feet water, it is twenty miles long and about eleven or twelve wide; all these lakes and the river in general is very pleasant; endless orange groves are found here, and indeed on every part of

107


A Concise Natural History

108


Bernard Romans

the river; below these the river grows wider, loses it current, and has in some places none, in others a retrograde one, when yet lower down it is again in its true direction; the banks of this river are very poor land and exhibit in a number of places sad monuments of the folly and extravagant ideas of the ¤rst European adventurers and schemers, and the villany of their managers; the tide does not effect this river very far up. In many places high up this river are found some extraordinary springs,20 which at a small distance from the river on both sides, rush or boil out of the earth, at once becoming navigable for boats, and from twenty ¤ve to forty yards wide, their course is seldom half a mile before they meet the river; their water is (contrary to that of the river) clear, so as to admit of the [35] seeing a small piece of money at the depth of ten feet or more; they smell strong of sulphur, and whatever is thrown in them becomes soon incrusted with a white fungous matter; their taste is bituminous, very disagreeable, and they in my opinion cause the green cloudings we see on the surface of the water of this river, and make it putrid, and so unwholesome as experience has taught us it is. I have no suf¤cient ground to decide upon another circumstance, which I am told, viz: That when rice is over®own with this river water, it kills it; above these springs the water of the river is good: This river is from one and a half to three miles wide, except at the house of Mr. Rolle,21 who has here made an odd attempt towards settling and making an estate in as complete a sandy desart as can be found; just above this, it is full of islands, exhibiting every where a very romantic appearance; there is a ¤ne piece of water, called Dun’s Lake,22 this is about nine miles from the river, eastward from this place, this empties itself by a stream into the river; another called the Doctor’s Lake, is on the west side, about sixty miles from the mouth, we see a variety of aquatic plants ®oating thereon. In my journey by land from the Bay of Tampe across the Peninsula to St. Augustine, I crossed twenty three miles from east to west of miserable barren sand hills,23 the grain of the sand is very small and ferrugineous; these hills rise a considerable height; on them is some growth of very small pines, and a very humble kind of oak grows so thick, that with the addition of some wythes and other plants, to me utterly unknown, they render it absolutely impenetrable. In this Ridge, which, as far as I can [36] learn, extends from North to South, between the rivers St. John and Ocklaw-wawhaw,24 for about an hundred and ¤fty miles having no where any water in its whole extent, and I am told, that where we crossed it, is its narrowest place; my Indian guide had the precaution to carry water for ourselves and horses, which proved very serviceable as it was a very hot day, no growth of trees to shade us, and such a burning sand for the sun to re®ect

on; I leave the reader to judge what we suffered, though it was but a short distance over, both ourselves and beasts often experienced the necessity of carrying water; what must travelling over this place be in a hot day, where it is forty or more miles wide? Before I leave St. John’s River, I must not forget the river running from south to north, called Pablo: This originates at a small distance from St. Marks or North River, and empties into St. Johns at a small distance from the mouth. The water of this river is good, so is the land on it; and it is thought that a communication with St. Mark’s or the North River might be effected without much dif¤culty: this would open an inland navigation by canoes or boats, all the way from Carolina to near the Musketo. The river St. Mary although it is said to originate in the Ækanphanækin swamp25 has a current of ¤ne clear and wholesome water supplied from the pine lands through which it ®ows, with many ¤ne springs, runs, and rivulets of very clear water, Nassau has also the same blessings, but doth not spring far distant from the sea. On Amelia Island near the sea, is a very good spring, which makes a ¤ne stream for some miles, dividing the island almost [37] into two; but below the spring its water is not commendable. On the beach betwen St. John’s and St. Augustine, at or near a place called the Horseguards,26 there are three good springs running into the sea, and in every part where the beach is clear sand, water is obtained by digging. About four miles north of St. Augustine rises St. Sebastian’s Creek, being a good fresh spring, it soon joins a creek in salt marshes, and at a small distance from town it becomes very large and deep; it empties into St. Anastasia’s Sound two miles south of St. Augustine, making a Peninsula of this territory nearly in form of a crescent; three miles farther south is the mouth of the river St. Nicholas not very considerable; St. Cecilia in the same sound, the North west, south of the Matança and Penon; the Tomoke and Spruce Creek in the Musketo Lagoon, and in short every river and creek in the country except those [the br] above named [bituminous one br], are excellent wholesome water; thus much I suppose will suf¤ce as to the nature and quality of the water. All the rivers and springs in West Florida are good. The aborigines of the country come most naturally under our next consideration, no one is ignorant, that the epithet of Indians is given to those people, though no doubt, the French name of savage is a much more proper one, as the manners of the red men are in every respect such as betray that disposition, and shew the savage thro’ the best wrought veil of civilization; we might call them Americans, as the inhabitants of the old world are each distinguished by a name expressive of, or relative to the quarters, from

109


A Concise Natural History

110


Bernard Romans

which they respectively originate, but this would be confounding [38] them with the other natives, as well white as black, which I think by no means reasonable. Oldmixon27 with all his failings is undoubtedly the only writer, who speaks with truth and pertinence on this subject; all other English, French, and Spanish authors, which have fallen in my way (and they are not a few) have made of this story a confused heap of nonsense and falshood; I shall relate what I know and have found from real experience among four or ¤ve nations, and as I can vouch for the similarity, that will be found among them, I believe my reader will be of my opinion, that from one end of America to the other, the red people are the same nation and draw their origin from a different source, than either Europeans, Chinese, Negroes, Moors, Indians, or any other different species of the human genus, of which I think there are many species, as well as among most other animals, and that they are not a variety occasioned by a commixture of any of the above species must also appear. The above account will perhaps raise a conjecture that I believe the red men are not come from the westward out of the east of Asia; I do not believe it, I am ¤rmly of opinion, that God created an original man and woman in this part of the globe, of different species from any in the other parts, and if per chance in the Russian dominions, there are a people of similar make and manners, is it not more natural to think they were colonies from the numerous nations on the continent of America, than to imagine, that from the small comparative number of those Russian subjects, such a vast country should have been so numerously [39] peopled, and by what we know from the geographical discoveries that have been made within this century, it was undoubtedly easier for these people to have crossed out of America into Asia, than it was for the white people we ¤nd in Labrador to come from Lapland, yet who will deny that a Laplander and Eskimaux are of the same original stock; add to this, that I have both sacred and prophane history, besides daily experience on my side to prove, that population, as well as all other things we ¤nd in nature, have always moved from the eastward, and still continue so to do, why then should we insist on one part of this system to move in a retrograde way, when for a further proof we ¤nd, by what we learn from the savages that have been far to the northwest, that some white people answering to the Japonese, sometimes come on that coast, but do not stay, nor have ever attempted colonization. But alas! what a people do we ¤nd them, a people not only rude and uncultivated, but incapable of civilization: a people that would think them-

selves degraded in the lowest degree, were they to imitate us in any respect whatever, and that look down on us and all our manners with the highest contempt: and of whom experience has taught us, that on the least opportunity they will return like the dog to his vomit. See there the boasted, the admired state of nature, in which these brutes enjoy and pass their time here! How justly did the above named author exclaim:—“Let the learned say all the ¤ne things that wit, eloquence, and art can inspire them with, of the simplicity of pure nature, and its beauty and innocence, the savage wretches of America [40] are an instance, that this innocence is a downright stupidity, and this pretended beauty a deformity, which puts man, the Lord of the creation, on an equal foot (yea below) the brute beasts of the ¤elds and forests.[”] In describing a people an historian is obliged to speak as they generally are; Dr. Blackwell,28 drawing consequences from what he imagined a state of nature to be (and what I believe it may have been) among most of the nations on the old continent, says: “In the infancy of states, men generally resemble the publick constitution, they have only that turn, which the rough culture of accidents, perhaps dismal enough, through which they have passed, could give them, they are ignorant and undesigning, governed by fear, and superstition its companion; there is a vast void in their minds, they know not what will happen, nor according to what tenor things will take their course, every new object ¤nds them unprepared, and they gaze and stare like infants taking in their ¤rst ideas of light.” How opposite is the savage, he is cunning and designing, knows no fear, nor has he any idea of religion to make him superstitious, on the contrary, the pretended conjurer who lives with him, runs a perpetual risque of his life, he has no void in his mind, but is very deliberate and careful in his mischief and cruelty; the study of what may occur in the next war or hunting season always employs him, he can ever so plan his schemes, as to be certain of his future safety, and success; without this last he neither undertakes nor risks any thing; new objects are but a momentary surprize [41] to him, and his gazing and staring always end in sovereign contempt. But to demonstrate more clearly the contrast between a savage and the people of the old continent, I beg leave to observe a few things, which have fallen under my inspection and consideration, which I apprehend will be thought pertinent to this purpose: A savage comes into this world with all the possibility of opposition to us; his mother on her approaching labour, retires from all company, aid, or assistance, into some lonesome wood, and

111


A Concise Natural History

112


Bernard Romans

there without perceptible pain or inconvenience, disburthens herself, goes into cold water to cleanse herself and her offspring, and returns to her daily vocation. A savage has the most determined resolution against labouring or tilling the ground, the slave his wife must do that, and a boy of seven or eight years old is ashamed to be seen in his mother’s company. No greater disgrace can be thrown on a man than calling him by the odious epithet of Woman; what other nation do we ¤nd so absolutely neglecting agriculture? What people are ashamed to be seen eating or drinking in company with the fairer sex? Our women carry their children with their faces towards their own, a she savage puts the back of hers towards her own back. When we make ¤re, we pile the fuel parrallel to each other; the savage puts his wood in a circular form, lights the central ends, and by the help of one of the sticks, which he shoves always to the center, he keeps it in. We make war in an open brave way, a savage by hiding himself surprizes; our prisoners are sure [42] of life, the prisoner of a savage is sure to die by cruel tortures. When we take a sweat, we keep ourselves warm with the utmost care; a savage with his open pores, plunges head long into the almost frozen river, or into a hole in the ice if quite frozen. A savage man discharges his urine in a sitting posture, and a savage woman standing, I need not tell how opposite this is to our common practice. A savage never eats salted meats, nor boils any thing in salted water, though he has salt in abundance, but when he has been a long while from salt and then gets it, he will frequently eat a pound of it without any thing else. A savage either buries none of his dead, or if he does he puts the body in a sitting or standing posture; in a word, if they had always studied to be in contrast with us, they could not be more so, than nature has made them. O Deus! Homines Et Homines Creavisti.29 All savages, with whom I have been acquainted, are, generally speaking, well made, of a good stature, and neatly limbed; crooked, lame, or otherwise deformed persons are seldom or never seen among these people; and if per chance we ¤nd a savage labouring under these misfortunes, we always ¤nd them accidental, never natural. Their colour resembles that of cinnamon, with a copperish cast; they are born white, but retain that hue a very short time; their hair is lank, strong, black, and long; they prevent the growth of what little beard nature has given them, by plucking it out by the roots; they never suffer any hair to grow on any part of the body except [43] the head, their eyes are black, lively and piercing, and they are blessed with an amazing

faculty of discovering objects at a vast distance; their teeth are very good, and to the last they retain them, being never subject to the tooth ach; they are strong and active, patient in hunger and the fatigue of hunting and journeying, but impatient and incapable of bearing labour, they are incredibly swift of foot; their discourse is generally of war, hunting, or indecency; their women are handsome, well made, only wanting the colour and cleanliness of our ladies, to make them appear lovely in every eye; their strength is great, and they labour hard, carrying very heavy burdens a great distance; they are lascivious, and have no idea of chastity in a girl, but in married women, incontinence is severely punished; a savage never forgives that crime. They are capable of an attachment, rather than a friendship; addicted to lying in a high degree; their seeming candour and simplicity is an effect of dissimulation; they know how to save appearances, and will always ¤nd ways to cover their knavish, thieving tricks; their notions of faith and honour are such as make them violate their word of promise, even when they are in treaty, unless compelled to be true by fear or force. They are brutal and have not the most distant idea of decorum; without taste they are terrible drunkards, in which last state, there is no villany nor crime, they will not commit, and when they recover their senses, throw the blame on the liquor, holding themselves entirely excused; no religion of any kind can we trace among them. Possessed of indifference and want of sentiment, they drag themselves through [44] a kind of life, which would make us pass our days very irksomely, and tire us in a short time with the disagreeable similitude of our hours; in a word, they have nothing in their way of life to tempt a man of the least re®ection, to envy them their miserable state of nature. But with all these bad qualities, they have one virtue, which is hospitality, and this they carry to excess; a savage will share his last ounce of meat with a visitant stranger. What travellers have related of their giving their daughters to transient persons, is not true, and it is not till after some acquaintance, that they will give a white man, what they call a wife, unless he chooses an abandoned prostitute, which are here to be found as well as elsewhere. Among the nations, which I have frequented, a young stranger (led away by the notion of this traveller’s story) that would attempt, on his ¤rst acquaintance, to ask a man for his daughter, might pay dear for it. The Chactaws, who have a greater idea of a meum and tuum30 than any of their neighbours, are not so hospitable as they, but although they will on this principle require pay for even the least morsel, they set before one, yet the same idea of property has taken off much of their savage dispositions in many other cases. I cannot think it foreign to my subject to mention, before I proceed to the particular description of each nation, something farther about the origin

113


A Concise Natural History

114


Bernard Romans

of the native Americans: Great pains have been taken to prove these people descended from the Phænicians; among others I ¤nd an anonimous Gentleman, who gravely tells us, that Phænicians or Erythreans in Greek, carry the same [45] sense as Esau or Edom in Hebrew, both meaning red, hence that nation was red, so are the savages, ergo, they are the same people; as ridiculous as this argument is, the pains taken to shew that the extensive navigation of the Phænicians amounts to a proof of their having crossed rhe [the] Atlantic to America, is no less void of sense, although far fetched annotations are made use of to prove their naval power, by Cambyses being obliged to renounce his design on Carthage, by reason of the Phænicians refusing to put to sea, yet neither that, nor the proof of their having built Leptis, Utica, Hippo, Adrumetum, on the African continent, nor Calis, and Tartessus in Europe, or their colonizations in Iberia, and Lybia, nor all the power ascribed to them by Curtius, seems in the least to indicate any transit to this western world. Equally absurd are the reveries of Comtæus, of those who construe the island discovered by the Phænicians (which Diodorus Siculus mentions L. 6 C. 7, and the passages of Pliny L. 5 C. 1 and Pomponius Mela L. 1 C. 4) likewise the common wealth of the alegorical dialogue between Midas and Silenus by Theopompus, and the quotation of Pausanias concerning the discovery of the Satyrides by Euphemius of Caria) into America; also Bossu father Laf¤teau, du Pratz,31 and others, as the refutation of these would be uninteresting and therefore tedious, I shall content myself with having only mentioned them, and proceed to take some notice of the more general hypothesis; that the savages are the dispersions of the ten lost tribes of Israel.32 We are told, that the Americans agree in many of their customs with the Jews; but in which? [46] We see not the smallest similarity in any of their ways, unless the seperation [separation br] of women among the Chicasaws, at the time of their Catamenia; but not to urge how naturally this fashion might point itself out, and its being con¤ned to one small tribe only,33 let us argue a little on the jewish grand and characteristic ceremony of circumcision, of which the boldest geneologist in this way, cannot ¤nd any the least mark, nor traces among those people. How have the jews neglected to introduce this sign of the covenant here, when they have made it obtain among so many of the Easterns where they lived even as slaves and exiles; and they always thought their salvation dependent thereon? How many tribes in Africa still retain that custom, though without any other of the Isralitish rites, which they have forgot? but where can we discover even the most distant appearance of this ceremony in America? Just so is it with that pretended migration to Assareth, as mentioned in the fourth book of Esdras, in the thirteenth chapter; but without insisting on

the apocryphal quality of this evidence, I would only ask, why this Assareth should be more America, than any other far distant country? And how they found their way by the Euphrates to this continent? Further it is evident, that St. Jerome (who ®ourished under Theodosius in the latter end of the fourth century, lived in Asia, and held a close correspondence with the Jews, for the sake of learning their language) plainly tells us in his Ezech: L. 5, and Jerem: L. 6, that those very ten tribes, were then groaning under the severe yoke of slavery, in the [47] cities of Media and Persia; this I judge to be proof enough to invalidate this journey to Assareth, and rank it along with the fables of the loss of the whole law, the con¤nement of souls in subterraneous apartments, and with the childish tales of Behemoth and Leviathan in the same fourth book of Esdras. Yet, as a farther proof of the falshood of this American expedition, by the ten tribes of Israel, I would beg leave to ask my readers, whether they can imagine, that so prodigious a migration could possibly happen at a time of the most desperate wars, and desolations in the very countries through which they must necessarily pass, for it is evident, that since St. Jerome’s time, although the Persians had again regained their empire, yet for several centuries together, they were constantly warring with the Romans, Indians, and other Eastern nations, and lastly with the Saracens. ’Till the famous Tartarian expedition under Zengis Chan, this whole country swam in the blood of its natives, and before this period, the Grecian wars, the conquests of Alexander, with the divisions of his captains at his death, furnished as little opportunity for this journey, which also must have been strangely overlooked, by such a number of historians of credit, as ®ourished during the above space of time. I could with as much force of argument invalidate Emanuel de Moras (a Spaniard;) who, to prove that America is peopled from Carthage, and by the Jews, makes numerous far fetched comparisons, of the manners of these nations and the Brazilians; nor can I think, that after this, any of the favourers of this Jewish ancestry will insist, that the natives [48] of America are descended from the other two tribes, since they were not only not allowed to see the land of their fathers, even in quality of travellers, but on pain of death, were they forbid to assemble in large companies, which it was however necessary they should do for such a migration; but I am afraid my reader, as well as myself, is by this time tired of so much argumentation against so silly an Hypothesis. No less idle is the argument used by Grotius34 concerning the Mexicans telling the Spaniards, that they came out of the North, where he thinks to ¤nd the Norwegian descent in the city Norumbega, but who can ¤nd in North America, traces of any ancient city at all? That the Americans divide

115


A Concise Natural History

116


Bernard Romans

their time by nights (or sleeps, as they stile them) is true, also their dipping new born infants in cold water, their going naked, and their eating separate from the women, with many other customs of the savages, similar to the ancient manners of the Germans, but this only proves to me, that in the times of Tacitus and the other Roman historians, the Teutonick nations were in as savage a state of nature, as we now see the Americans; a sameness in colour, and stature, as well as, or rather than similarity of Languages is to me a requisite proof, and for that reason I believe, that the Eskimaux came from Lapland, but by what accident, we are ignorant of, and so we might guess at some eventual passage of the red savages, were we able to trace any similarity between them and any nation of the old world, but we see none; yet all the islands of America, even New Zealand, are peopled by the same race as this vast continent; therefore I will rather suppose, [49] that the savages, have sent out colonies, than that they are a colony from any other part of the earth. The same Gentleman endeavours to fetch the Peruvians from China, but with as little foundation in truth. Mr. Powell’s story of Maddock the Welshman’s voyage,35 cannot be thought ¤t, to ascribe a Welsh origin to the savages, because they could by no means either grow to such numbers, nor degenerate so much in colour, as they must have done, in two centuries; yet even this has been made use of by a certain Dutch writer, whose name I do not now recollect; and how unluckily does Bossu here bring forth the black headed Pinguin, to prove that the Welsh word Pen-gwin, was given to this bird for a name, by Maddock’s followers, because Pen is head, and gwyn is white, and Mr. Foster in his note on that passage, is as unlucky in saying Penguin is Spanish for a fat bird. I ¤nd a more powerful argument used by those who bring the savages from Tartary; because I do not at all doubt, from my judgment of geography, that America [nearly br] joins Asia; but the expedition of Hoccota, the son of Canguista, ¤rst King of the Tartars, as mentioned by Michalon Lituanus, in his Ennead 9, L. 6, which has likewise been construed to have reached America, is also too late to allow them time to become so numerous a people; because this man lived about the year 1240; but although I believe a possibility of the passage by land [delete by land br], yet I cannot ¤nd, that there is any similarity in the persons of the North Eastern Tarters. [sic] and the American savages, and much less in their manners; and if there is between those of Kamschatka and America, I still [50] think, that the ¤rst are more naturally to be supposed a small colony from the latter, than that the latter prodigious numerous people are sprung from so small a tribe as the Kamschatkans; every one of the red men over the whole continent, and those who still remain in a few of the islands, is exactly similar in person to his neighbour, and their

numbers are to this day vastly great, notwithstanding the cruel depredations of the several European nations. The contemptible light, in which Bossu endeavours to place the number of the savages, is well confuted by Mr. Hutchin’s account of the nations near our settlements,36 who having mutually destroyed each other, and been destroyed by the sword, and liquid ¤re of the Europeans, at a shocking rate, yet amount by that Gentleman’s moderate calculation, even at this day, to near three hundred thousand souls; therefore it is not their small number, but the vast extent of this continent, that causes their nomadic life. But to treat more particularly against this notion, of the American descent from the Tartars, who can suppose that their darling animal, as well for food, labour, and war, as other uses, I mean the horse, should not have been brought along with the colony? Who knows not, that the Tartars use most, and can least spare this noble creature? Does not all their martial power consist in horsemen? Does not their very maintenance depend on horses? Have we not suf¤cient proof, that many Tartarian Lords keep hundreds of horses, and even stable them? None are so poor as not to have two or three; when they shift their abode, do not horses carry [51] their tents and provisions? When all other food fails them, garlick and mare’s milk is their resource; the very blood out of the veins of these animals supplies the place of an agreeable drink; what stream so rapid which they do not cross on their horses backs, or by holding their manes, and guiding them with a twig, while they swim at their side? making a small raft of their baggage, they tie it to the tail, and thus cross every river in their way; a horse’s skin makes a boat to cross a very wide river, lake, or even an arm of the sea; the supposed narrow division between Asia and America, near Cape Tchukshi, could then by no means, be an obstacle to the transportation of these animals; the division of the several places, named by Bossu, through earthquakes, is absurdly introduced, to prove that this migration happened before such a convulsion of nature, which prevented the return of any of these emigrants. A Tartarian army appears larger than it is, on account of each man having two or three horses; and notwithstanding their horses die by the sword, or are killed for food, yet many thousands are yearly delivered to Russia, by the European Tartars only; this much premised, how had the savages no horses on the arrival of the Spaniards? Had the Tartars inhabited a country near America, the very horses would have increased so as to come over to this continent; how many instances do we ¤nd even among the settled provinces of America, of horses going wild! but the greatest proof, that this must have infallibly happened, is to be found in South America, where now many millions are found wild, in the great plains south of Brazil, [52] especially near Rio de la Plata; yet these take their origin

117


A Concise Natural History

118


Bernard Romans

from the Northern America, and have crossed vast mountains; how came it then, that a dozen or two of horsemen routed myriads of Americans? only one objection remains to be confuted; there may be an arm of the sea between Asia and America, and this colony came by water; but can it even then be supposed, that these people would have forgot their favoutite horses? or will any say that if the horses could come by land, yet every climate does not maintain them; one summer would suf¤ce for the journey: A horse when travelling alone, is experienced to go very fast forward on his journey, and we learn also from the same great teacher (experience) that thousands of horses in North America, even breeding mares, live in the woods in deep snows, through hard winters, without human assistance; but no, these Tartars could not bring horses, nor other useful animals, and yet a colony of Panthers, Lynxes, Wolves, Foxes, Otters, and other destructive animals must be supposed to have found their way as well as these emigrants. Here language is tortured into a proof; a certain Abraham a Mylis has found out, that in the empire of Cathay, which lays nearest America, they speak the Teutonic dialect, and this same empire being divided, into seven provinces, the Eastermost is called Tendhuk, very like to het eynde des hoeks, or the end of the point, and Anyan is very like, Aangang, or passage (a passage to be sure out of Tartary, to America;) again beyond Anyan, is the vast country of Bergo, this certainly is very much like Bergen, or sheltering, because the Scythians leaving their native country, sheltered [53] themselves here; ¤ne Etymology! noble Geography! (risum teneatis amici!37) The passage from Asia to America, is by no means proved by the pretended Elephants bones found in the swamp near Ohio, since by later observations, and examinations of the bones, by men of more knowledge than the meer vulgar, they appear never to have belonged to elephants, but more probably are the remains of some Hippopotami, especially as near that river, the Indians, often at this day, discover large foot steps, and hear great bellowings, both proceeding from animals they never see themselves.38 I think if Mr. Bossu had obliged us with the knowledge of the particular nation that calls the Ginseng,* Gareloguen, he would have thrown more light on his far fetched notion of the parallel between the Tartars and Savages; and since he has himself invalidated the pretended etymology, I would beg leave to deal with his similar signi¤cations in the same manner, for why should not the same idea strike Bossus’s nation and the Mantcheoux Tartars upon sight of the Ginseng, and make both compare it to men’s thighs? But as but one nation among so many has accepted this idea, it cannot be allowed, even as *Panax Quinquefoliùm

the most distant proof; the fable of the Escaaniba by Bossu also, is too ridiculous and absurd to merit confutation. Nothing now remains, but a few words about the migration of the Chinese into Peru, from whence some suppose America is peopled, but how different the colour and ¤gure of the people! and where do we ¤nd any Chinese ¤nesse among the savages? besides, what Geographer [54] does not know that the Chinese might more easily, have come over to the eastern shore of America, across the Atlantic, than over the wilder, wider, and more stormy South Sea, to land on Perus’s or Chilis’s unhospitable shore, where our large European vessels can scarcely live, much less a Chinese junk; nor did the Peruvians know any thing of large Vessels till the arrival of the Spaniards; strange indeed, that their naval knowledge, and mother country, should be thus forgotten! the more so, as it is much easier, to go from America to China, than the contrary, by reason of the constant easterly winds reigning here, which also make it more improbable that the Chinese vessels came here by chance, or stress of weather; nor could they in that case, but by chance, be provided with the provisions necessary for so long a voyage. Methinks I hear some critical person say, whence then came the savages? That indeed, is a dif¤cult question to answer; it is easier to confute the different opinions, than to say any thing with certainty on this head, more especially as these people want all manner of record; yet a tolerable guess may be made to extricate us out of this dif¤cult labyrinth. Without doubt Moses’s account of the Creation is true, but why should this Historian’s books, in this one thing, be taken so universally, when he evidently has con¤ned himself to a kind of chronicle concerning one small part of the earth, and in this to one nation only; this account therefore must be understood with the same limitation as many others in holy writ are generally allowed to be; I think therefore that (as mentioned [55] before) we do not at all derogate from God’s greatness, nor in any ways dishonour the sacred evidence given us by his servants, when we think, that there were as many Adams and Eves (every body knows these names to have an allegorical sense) as we ¤nd different species of the human genus; is this not a more natural way, agreeing more with the proceedings of a God of order, than the silly suppositions that the variety is an effect of chance, much less a consequence of curses? the more so, as neither has any foundation in God’s holy word; why must we think that the curses of a head of a family, should effect each race with a peculiar set of features, and shape of body? Or one tribe with a red, a second with a sallow, a third with a yellow, and a fourth with a black colour, &c? Besides we read of but one curse of this kind; they are different species then. Anatomy has taught us, that the bone of a Negroe’s skull, is always

119


A Concise Natural History

120


Bernard Romans

black, that besides the Tunics of which our skins are composed, they have an additional one, consisting of numerous vesicles, ¤lled wish [with] a black ink-like humour; see here then two characteristicks, besides the blackness of the skin, whereby this sable race is distinguished; may not experience teach us, that when the other species are more carefully examined, they will all be found to have some such peculiar character of distinction? Why then shall we involve ourselves into numberless, needless dif¤culties about the origin of these so singular people, so very different from all other tribes on the globe, yet so very similar to each other: Throughout their own continent their wild manners are universally [56] alike; their languages only differ; why then can we not take the more easy way in saying, God has created an original pair here as well as elsewhere: Is not this opinion supported by our ¤nding numberless other kinds of the animal kingdom on this continent peculiar to itself; where (besides in America) do we ¤nd the Bos Americanus? Where the Paca, and Vecunha (both American sheep?) where the Ursus Luscus or racoon, the Armadillo, the Agouti, the Lacerta Americana, called Leguana? the Ignavo (an animal called the American Sloth?) where the same kind of Simiæ, and the Vespertilio Cynocephalus? where the Warri or the Pecairi (two species of the Sus?) The many kinds of Myrmecophaga, the Mus Marsupialis, Mus Scalopes, Mus Palustris hispidus, of the same kind, as those in America? Where again the Struthio Americanus, or the immense variety of the Psittacus, peculiar to America? Where the Toucan, the Phænicopteros and Arquato, with the red Platea? Where the beautiful wood duck, and the kinds of Phasianus called Quama and Curasoa? Where the little Mellisuga, or the beautiful, and remarkable aquatic Muscophagus, called a sun bird? and many more of the quadruped and winged tribes, large and small, too tedious to enumerate? Where again the rattle Snake, and others of the reptile kind? Even among Fishes, the same observation holds; has Pliny among all his fabulous animals, described any like these really existing ones? Again, whence was America stocked with men in our likeness? Where were the oxen, the horses, the swine, dogs, cats, or even rats? or [57] where were our poultry to be found on this continent? Yet we see how immensely they have multiplied since their ¤rst importation, so that the air and food are certainly well adapted to them; a wise effect of providence, which knew this quarter must one day become inhabited by animals not originally created in it. What can now be said against this my argument for a separate origin of the savages? Nothing that will amount to an absolute proof of the contrary. But a dif¤culty arises as to the effect of the deluge; to remove which I must observe, that America, even in its mountains, retains very few if any of the

so often quoted marks of this inundation; on the contrary, it is a smooth regularly rising country; and I think, that to believe the ®ood so far partial, as to have reached the only lands of Egypt, Palestine, Armenia, and Greece, is by no means an absurd opinion, nor inconsistent with the destruction of the race of men of which Moses treats, nor with the water being ¤fteen cubits above the highest hill then known, supposed to be Arrarat; and had it been absolutely universal, yet the Andes, Cordileras, Aceytas, and Santa Martha, are many hundred cubits higher and consequently, might remain a vast way dry; but grant the deluge universal, who will dispute with me, that the omnipotent Lord of the universe could create a red man after his own image, suffer him to fall as well as a white man, destroy his posterity except a few, and ¤nd a way to save a remnant of man and beast, and then for reasons, into which we have no right to enter, any more than the clay has to contend with the potter, leave this race without [58] extending his tender mercies to them, as he did to us, not even sending his apostles into this quarter of the world; and when the christians, so called, arrived here ¤rst, to suffer the pretended Missionaries to preach a false, absurd doctrine to those wretches, nay, even to this day to harden their hearts against the light drawn from under a bushel, and placed conspicuously on a candle-stick. However among none of the savages do we ¤nd any tradition of such a ®ood, except among some southern nations, who tell of six persons creeping out of a hole, whereby the earth was peopled; these have been construed into Noah’s sons and their wives. The Chactaws have told me of a hole between their nation and the Chicasaws, out of which their whole very numerous nation walked forth at once, without so much as warning any neighbours39; I cannot ¤nd any relation between this and a deluge: On the Isthmus of Darien I have indeed been warned by the savages of an approaching ®ood on a certain day, and when I had stayed till then and saw the event to be nothing, I ridiculed them about it; and they told me that a great while ago they had such an inundation, and that their Sukies or conjurors, had foretold a similar one now, but had proved themselves lyars; this is the only hint I could ever trace of any notion of a great ®ood; and I leave my reader to judge of the weakness or force of this evidence, and of the justness of the opinion advanced, which I offer only because I think that truth should be the object of man’s enquiries, and that God has given us the only advantage we [59] have over brutes, in order to spur us on to enquiries into the mysteries of nature. I shall now treat of the four most noted nations connected with Florida in particular, beginning with the Chicasaws, they being (although a small tribe) accounted the mother nation on this part of the continent, and their

121


A Concise Natural History

122


Bernard Romans

10. Characteristic Chickasaw Head (original faces page 59).

language, universally adopted by most, if not all the western nations.40 This is the most ¤erce, cruel, insolent, and haughty people, among the southern nations; they are very intrepid in the wars with their Meridional neighbours, and the French under Messrs. Artaguette and Bienville, in 1736 experienced their valour (when aided by a few Englishmen of tried courage) and in 1752, and 1753, Messrs. Benoist and Reggio likewise found them successful to their cost;41 but with the northern nations it stands otherways; the Kikapoos, Piancashas and others are their terror; notwithstanding their boast of scalps from the northward, it has appeared that, except some private murders among nations, who think the insult to come from some other quarter, and some slaves and scalps obtained from [the da]stardly Chigtagiks, they have

really not been able so much as to ¤nd the Kikapoos, Piancashas, Wyogtani, Shogteys, Musquakey, Otogami towns;42 this appeared clearly while I was in the Chicasaw nation in the winter of 1771 and 1772, when one Mr. James (who had been a prisoner with the Kikapoos, for the space of three years, and had found means to escape from them arrived there, and told, that in all that time never one of the Chicasaws appeared, or did mischief among these nations, nor could he learn they ever did; yet it is evident that these come [60] to the very Chicasaw towns to commit depredations, as well as in their hunting grounds, where the Chicasaws always take care to fortify themselves. It is also observable, that to the north of their towns they never venture any plantations, and to the southward they have many; nay they scarcely venture to get ¤re wood north of their habitation; in short they have never shewn their bravery but against the Chactaws and Creeks, with the French their allies; the northerns have always been their masters, and the Arkansas and Catawbas their match; the Cherokees have generally had the worst of the wars between them; they have always been staunch allies to the English, but I think there is no very great dependance to be had on them now, for I can (not without reason) af¤rm, that that alliance was all owing to the French being their irreconcilable, and mortal enemies; now these are out of the way, little reliance is to be had on them; and in the winter of 1771 and 1772, the traders were under daily apprehensions of a quarrel. It is true that those monsters in human form, the very scum and out cast of the earth, are always more prone to savage barbarity than the savages themselves; but it is no less true, that the traders were of as dissolute a life, and of as pro®igate manners, with as great an inclination for deceit and over reaching during the French time, as they are now; but then the policy of these savages curbed their thoughts of revenge; whereas now they frequently dare to vent threats of a disagreeable nature, which are the more dangerous because those savage politicians are always very much upon their guard when [61] they are treating with our men in of¤ce, how they behave themselves in this respect, well knowing that the ancient fame of their faithful alliance is suf¤ciently rooted in the hearts of the open minded English, to enable them to impose on their credulity. As an instance of Chicasaw honour or faith, which is indeed equal to that of any nation of American savages whatever; I would mention the tryal that has been made for concluding an union between the Arkansas, Quappas, or Kappas, and the Chicasaws;43 the ¤rst attempted at least an alliance with the latter so long ago as 1764, but no kind of solemn embassy, or deputation was employed for the effecting this before the summer 1771, and then at this meeting the insolence of the Chicasaws run so high, as to insult one of the Quapa deputies by calling him a woman, and spitting rum in his face, which

123


A Concise Natural History

124


Bernard Romans

was put up with; but the Arkansas never have made an attempt to ¤nish the treaty since, and I dare venture to foretell, that such an union would by no means be for our good, let it happen when it may. The morals of this nation are more corrupt than those of any of their neighbours; the Chactaws are said to be thieves, but I can assure the reader that the Chicasaws are a thousand times more so; I have had ample proof of it by losing incomparably more in one day at the Chicasaw town than I did in two months going through seventy four Chactaw towns, notwithstanding I had been warned, and was on my guard against the Chicasaws; my razors and a case of instruments, and other tri®es of no real use to them, besides every horse I had with me, vanished in one day [62] among these deceitful people. Their discourse is really intolerable, nothing but ¤lth is heard from them; the vanity of being accounted great hunters and warriors has the better of every consideration, and rather than condescend to cultivate the earth (which they think beneath them) they will sit and toy with their women; or if they send them to labour, they play on an aukward kind of ®ute made of a cane, lolling thus their time away with great indifference, which obliges them yearly to apply for corn and pulse to the Chactaws. They live nearly in the center of a very large and somewhat uneven savannah, of a diameter of above three miles; this savannah at all times has but a barren look, the earth is very Nitrous, and the savages get their water out of holes or wells dug near the town; in any drought the ground will gape in¤ssures of about six or seven inches wide, and again, two or three days rain will cause an inundation; the water is always nitrous, and this ¤eld abounds, with ®int, marl, and those kinds of anomilous fossils mistaken for oyster shells, which cannot be burnt into lime; yet this produces a grass of which cattle are so fond as to leave the richest cane brakes for it; and notwithstanding the soil appears barren and burnt up, they thrive to admiration; it also affords a vast, or even immense store of the salubrious Fragaria, vulgarly known by the name of wood strawberry. They have in this ¤eld what might be called one town, or rather an assemblage of hutts, of the length of about one mile and a half, and very narrow and irregular;44 this however they [63] divide into seven, by the names of Melattaw (i.e.) hat and feather, Chatelaw (i.e.) copper town, Chukafalaya (i.e.) long town, Hikihaw (i.e.) stand still, Chucalissa (i.e.) great town, Tuckahaw (i.e.) a certain weed, and Ashuck hooma (i.e.) red grass; this was formerly inclosed in palisadoes, and thus well forti¤ed against the attacks of small arms, but now it lays open; a second Artaguette, a little more prudent than the ¤rst, would now ¤nd them an easy prey.45 The nearest running water, is about one mile and a half off, to the south

of the town, in the edge of the ¤eld, but it is of no note; the next is four miles off; and at high times, canoes might come up here out of the river Tombechbé; this place is a ford, which often proves dif¤cult, and on this account is called Nahoola Inalchubba (i.e.) the white mens hard labour. Horses and cattle thrive well in this nation, their breed of the former was once famous, being descended from some Arabian horses brought from Spain to Mexico, but of late they have so mixed them with meaner kinds, as to cause them to degenerate much. The traders who for fear of causing jealousy by their discourse have formed nick names for all the savage nations, have called these by the whimsical name of the breed; as cunningly suspicious as the savages are, yet I never found that any of them ever took notice of this distinction. One remarkable thing I cannot omit of this nation: There were in 1771, only two real original Chicasaws left; one of them, who goes by the name of North West, scruples not to tell them all very often, that they are of a slave race. [64] Their grand Chief is called Opaya Mataha,46 and it is said he has killed his man upwards of forty times, for which great feats he has been raised to this nominal dignity, which by all savages is as much regarded, as among us a titular nobleman would be if he should be obliged to be a journeyman taylor for his maintenance. These savages are the only ones I ever heard of who make their females observe a separation at the time of their Menses (some ancient almost extirpated tribes to the northward only excepted, and these used to avoid their own dwelling houses) the women then retire into a small hut set apart for that purpose, of which there are from two to six round each habitation, and by them called moon houses.47 The whole tribe are remarkably strong made fellows, but few of their women have regular features, or deserve to be called handsome; these labour vastly hard, either in the ¤eld for cultivation of corn, or fetching nuts, ¤re wood and water, which they chie®y carry on their backs; the two ¤rst articles generally two or three miles, and the last often a mile, their burthens would amaze a stranger, being rather ¤t for asses than women to carry. This nation is the most imperious in their carriage towards their women, of any I have met with; they are very jealous of their wives, and adultery in them is punished by the loss of the tip of the nose, which they sometimes cut, but more generally bite off, but this does not deter them, for they are a very salacious race, and the mark is pretty general.48 They are all good swimmers, notwithstanding they live so far from waters, but [65] they learn their children to swim in clay holes, that are ¤lled in wet seasons by rain.

125


A Concise Natural History

126


Bernard Romans

They are the most expert of any perhaps in America in tracking what they are in pursuit of, and they will follow their ®ying enemy, on a long gallop, over any kind of ground without mistaking. Since I am on this subject, I cannot forbear taking notice of one thing related by many writers on America; which is the knowledge the savages have by the track of what kind of people they pursue; this is very true, and this sagacious particular deserved admiration, but the wonder must cease when I tell my reader, that I have found in it much of a juggle, for instead of knowing it by the foot steps (which they pretend to measure very ceremoniously with their hands) they know it by the strokes of the hatchets in the trees and branches as they go along, which no two savage nations agree in, be it in the height from the ground, or in the slope of the cut; they can also distinguish the different ways of making camps and ¤res; for instance; a Chactaw war camp is circular, with a ¤re in the center, and each man has a crutched branch at his head to hang his powder and shot upon, and to set his gun against, and the feet of all to the ¤re; a Cherokee war camp is a long line of ¤re, against which they also lay their feet; a Chactaw makes his camp in travelling in form of a sugar loaf; a Chicasaw makes it in form of our arbours; a Creek like to our sheds, or piazzas, to a timber house; in this manner every nation has some distinguishing way. The Chicasaws are esteemed good hunters, they [66] have extensive hunting grounds, and make excellent use of them; they extend them to the branch of the Ohio, called Tanassé, Hogoheechee or Cherokee river, and claim to the mouth of the Ohio, but this ground they frequent with great caution, only in the depth of winter when their northern enemies are close at home; they are often surprised on the rivers Margot and Yasoo, but below the Yasoo as far east as the eastern branches of Tombechbè, and as low as Oka Tibehaw, they hunt safely; this last they regard as their boundary with the Chactaws, but these two nations are by no means jealous of each other in this respect, and hunt in each others grounds without lett or hindrance from either side; although their country abounds in beaver, they kill none, leaving that to the white men; they think this kind of hunting beneath them, saying any body can kill beaver, but men only deer; this is exactly the reverse of a northern Indian; they hunt like all their neighbours with the skin and frontal bone of a deer’s head, dried and stretched on elastic chips; the horns they scoup out very curiously, employing so much patience on this, that such a head and antlers often do not exceed ten or twelve ounces; they ¤x this on the left hand, and imitating the motions of the deer in sight, they decoy them within sure shot. I cannot forbear to mention a merry accident on this occasion; a Chactaw Indian, who was hunting with one of these decoys on his ¤st, saw

a deer, and thinking to bring it to him, imitated the deer’s motions of feeding and looking round in a very natural way, another savage within shot, mistaking the head for a real one, shot the ball through it, scarcely missing [67] the ¤ngers of the ¤rst; the affair ended in ¤sty cuffs, but was no farther resented. Their habitations at home consist of three buildings, a summer house, a corn house, and a winter house, called a hot house; the two ¤rst are oblong squares, the latter is circular, they have no chimnies but let the smoke ¤nd its way out through a hole at the top in their dwelling houses, but in the hot houses, where it can; in these they make large wood ¤res, on the middle of the ®oor, which being by evening all coals, they enter in, and sleep on benches made round the inside of the building; this would sti®e any one not used to it, and be it never so sharp a morning, they come out sweating and naked as soon as it is day; I believe this proceeding kills numbers of them, as in lattitude 35 00, where they live, it is often very cold; they also use for an universal cure of all diseases, excessive sweating in these hot houses, and then with their pores open jump into a hole of cold water, this treatment of those that had the small pox killed numbers; these hot houses of a morning emitting smoke through every crevice, seem to a stranger to be all on ¤re on the inside. Their common food is the zea or the Indian corn, of which they make meal, and boil it; they also parch it, and then pound it; thus taking it on their journey, they mix it with cold water, and will travel a great way without any other food; they begin to have the knowledge of keeping cattle; but at present they enjoy little or no fresh meats while at home, but in the hunting season in the woods, it is almost the only food they make use of; they have also a way of drying [68] and pounding their corn, before it comes to maturity; this they call Boota Copassa (i.e.) cold ®our; this, in small quantities, thrown into cold water, boils and swells as much as common meal boiled over a ¤re; it is hearty food, and being sweet, they are fond of it; but as the process for making it is troublesome, their laziness seldom allows them to have it;49 they likewise use hickory nuts in plenty, and make a milkey liquor of them, which they call milk of nuts; the process is at bottom the same as what we use to make milk of almonds; this milk they are very fond of, and eat it with sweet potatoes in it; they also make a great use of Bears fat as oil; the ®esh the traders have learned them to make into bacon, exactly resembling that of a hog; but all these dishes suit but ill the palate of an European, and when they have any deer or buffalo ®esh at home, it is so dried as to have no taste in it. The knowledge they have of cattle keeping is borrowed from the traders

127


A Concise Natural History

128


Bernard Romans

among them, who, notwithstanding the ordinance against settling on Indian grounds, have many of them plantations, and raise cattle and hogs; one Caldwell has the greatest stock; and Opaya Mingo Luxi50 went in 1771 to complain of it, but Caldwell, knowing that no savage can withstand the words of a white man, took advantage thereof, and so intimidated the savage, by his meer presence at Pensacola, when in the superintendant’s hall, in order to lodge his information, and make his complaint that Opaya Mingo Luxi himself said he had nothing against him; but as the very Commissary has a plantation and cattle,51 and keeps negroes &c. for the cultivation thereof (though [69] he keeps his cattle under the name of Opaya Mataha) I think very little will be done to hinder it;52 and upon the whole, I think the affair of advantage to the savages, who must soon generally give into this way of life for their own preservation, or else remove further from us. This of¤ce of Commissary seems to me the most needless expence the crown is at, as it only serves for a subject of ridicule both to the traders and savages, which last scruple not often to give the of¤cer in this nation the (among them) scandalous epithet of old woman; and he can do but little towards preventing disorders among them, or in regulating the standard of the trade; besides, I am sure that whatever Commissary dared to pretend to be any thing more than a cypher, would run an imminent risque of his life.53 Their numbers have been very large, and they themselves have a tradition that they were a colony from another nation in the West, and that they ¤rst set themselves down near the Ohio, but soon removed to their present Site; the greatest number that their gunmen can now be reckoned at, does not exceed too hundred and ¤fty;54 it is really amazing, to think, that such a handfull keeps about ten thousand of the men of the other tribes from destroying them; but their ferocity and the way of making war among the savages which gives no advantage to numbers, because the war parties of a small nation are as numerous as those of a larger one) has long saved them from destruction. Strong liquors make a sad havock among these as among all other nations of the savages in the North. [70] They are strong, and swift of foot, and their exercise at home is chie®y their ball play, a very laborious diversion. They are horridly given to sodomy, committing that crime even on the dead bodies of their enemies, thereby (as they say) degrading them into women.55 In their war parties, they have generally one who has done most mischief to the enemy for their leader; but he is so far from having a command, that an attempt, to do more than proposing whether such or such an undertaking

would not be most adviseable, or at most persuading them to it, would at least be followed by a total desertion. They are very ceremonious in their preparations for war, and their fondness for witchcraft makes them look for omens of futurity. They and all other savages have the greatest share of patience imaginable; when a scalp or prisoner is in question, they will travel hundreds of miles in the desarts, with amazing precaution, enduring hunger, and often thirst, at a great rate; nay if their provisions fail before they strike the blow, they have been known to return to hunt for more in some safe place, and without going home, to make a second or third attempt. They make war by stratagem, surprise or ambush, despising us as fools for exposing ourselves to be shot at like marks. A man’s valour with them consists in their cunning, and he is deemed the greatest hero who employs most art in surprising his enemy; they never strike a blow unless they think themselves sure of a retreat, and the loss of many men is an infamous crime laid to the charge of the party. [71] They bury their dead almost the moment the breath is out of the body, in the very spot under the couch on which the deceased died, and the nearest relations mourn over it with woeful lamentations; the women are very vociferous in it, but the men do it in silence, taking great care not to be seen any more than heard at this business; the mourning continues about a year, which they know by counting the moons, they are every morning and evening, and at ¤rst throughout the day at different times, employed in the exercise of this last duty. A people who by many peculiar customs, are very different from the other red men on the continent, will next amuse us: They are the Chactaws, more commonly known by the name of the Flatheads.56 These people are the only nation from whom I could learn any idea of a traditional account of a ¤rst origin; and that is their coming out of a hole in the ground, which they shew between their nation and the Chicasaws; they tell us also that their neighbours were surprised at seeing a people rise at once out of the earth; dark as this account of a ¤rst existence of these people is to us, we discover in it a higher idea of an origin than among their neighbours, who never pretend to tell from whence they came, and have only loose ideas of a migration from the north west; which prevail among the Chicasaws and all other southern nations. The Chactaws may more properly be called a nation of farmers than any savages I have met with; they are the most considerable people in Florida, and their situation may be known by [72] the annexed plan of their country:57 Their hunting grounds are in proportion less considerable than any of their

129


A Concise Natural History

130


Bernard Romans

neighbours; but as they are very little jealous of their territories, nay with ease part with them, the Chicasaws and they never interrupt each other in their hunting; as I mentioned before. They are in their warlike temper far from being such cowards as people in general will pretend, but it is true they are not so fond of wandering abroad to do mischief as the other savages are; few of such expeditions are undertaken by them, and they give for a reason, that in going abroad they may chance to be obliged to content themselves with a woman’s or child’s scalp, but in staying at home and waiting the attack of the enemy, they by pursuing them, are sure to take men, which is a greater mark of valour: be this as it will, it is certain they are carefully, cunningly, and bravely watchfull at home, and on several occasions they have, after many insults, boldly offered to meet their enemies in equal numbers on a plain, which has always been by the other savages treated with scorn, as cowardice; however when it has happened by chance that they meet so, we have seen them brave and victorious. Even in the very town of Mobile, an action of this kind happened deserving a record, when they drove their enemies (the Creeks) through the river, and but for their inability to swim, they would have totally destroyed them; the Captain Hooma or red Captain ¤ghting with forty Men against three hundred Creeks, and with his own hand destroying thirteen of their Chiefs, even when ¤ghting on his knees, and [73] when he fell, bravely telling who he was, and his being ®ead alive for his heroism, is so fresh in every one’s memory (being not above six Years ago) that many living evidences can testify it; I thought the action worthy of this attempt, to save it from oblivion.58 They have deserted many of their eastern frontier towns since their present war with the Creeks, but during my stay in their nation, I saw four or ¤ve instances of their not suffering their enemy to escape unpunished, when he dared to commit depredations, and they valued themselves on the event of the present war, when in 1771, news coming among the Traders, that the Creeks computed their loss at near three hundred persons, and they having guessed the number of their’s, lost much the same; they said, we have lost many women and children and even of them some Scalps have been retaken, but we like men, have killed men only, and got all the marks thereof; this war began in August 1765; the readers may judge at the greatness of their exploits, when I assure them, that that number was the total loss during all that time. These savages were the staunch and ¤rm friends of the French while they continued on the continent, until some English traders found means to draw the east party, and the district of Coosa (which together are called Oypat-oocooloo, or the small nation) into a civil war with the western divi-

sions called Oocooloo-Falaya, Oocooloo-Hanalé, and Chickasawhays, which after many con®icts and the destruction of east Congeeto, ended with the peace in 1763.59 I believe they are a nation whose word may be depended on [74] when they give into the interest of any person, and that their faith is to be better relied on than that of the Chicasaws or Creeks, which two last are really versed in all the gallic tricks of deceit. At the congress of 1771, there were two thousand three hundred of this nation nearly all men, at Mobile on the superintendants books;60 in the nation I found at above seventy of their villages, about two thousand men, and in the woods and hunting grounds, I was at and heard of as many camps as could make no less than six hundred men more. The French used to keep them very poor, but the yearly small gifts they were accustomed to, were more proper to leave an idea of gratitude on the mind of a savage, than our septennial great ones. Monsieur de Kerlerec61 and others made a ¤ne juggle and kind of monopoly of this trade, which was very ill brooked by the French; but although I make no doubt of the Gentlemen’s having gone beyond the orders of their court, and notwithstanding I am a bitter enemy to unreasonable regraters, yet I am certain that a monopoly of this trade under proper restrictions would prove an advantage and security to the colonies, since now the villainous over reachings, chicanery, and mutual calumniations of the abandoned wretches, who reside among the savages, joined to their worse than brutish or savage way of life, tend to the rendering the nation to which they belong infamous, despicable, and scandalous among the savages, as well as to turn the hopes of advantage into a real disadvantage; and I dare venture to say, that unless such restrictions take place, the different savages will always ¤nd [75] reason to complain against the colonies, and join in cabals against the poor settlers in the remote counties, and at last oblige the colonies to take the disagreable step of realizing our mock authority, by extirpating all savages that dare to remain on the East of the Mississippi. But to return to the war-like inclinations of the Chactaws, and not to involve myself in politicks; I take them to be a brave people, who can upon occasion defend themselves very coolly, for during my stay in the nation, a woman of that tribe made a bargain with me to give her ammunition for some provisions I bought of her; and when I expressed by surprise thereat, she informed me that she kept a gun to defend herself as well as her husband did; and I have several times seen armed women in motion with the parties going in pursuit of the invading enemy, who having completed their intended murder, were ®ying off. They never exercised so much cruelty upon their captive enemies as the

131


A Concise Natural History

132


Bernard Romans

other savages; they almost always brought them home to shew them, and then dispatched them with a bullet or hatchet; after which, the body being cut into many parts, and all the hairy pieces of skin converted into scalps, the remainder is buried and the above trophies carried home, where the women dance with them till tired; then they are exposed on the tops of the hot houses till they are annihiliated. The same treatment is exercised on those who are killed near the nation, but he that falls in battle at a distance is barely scalped. Their addictedness to pretended witchcraft leads them into a very superstitious behavour [76] when on an expedition which is remarkable, they carry with them a certain thing which they look on as the genius of the party; it is most commonly the stuffed skin of an owl of a large kind; they are very careful of him, keep a guard over him, and offer him a part of their meat; should he fall, or any other ways be disordered in position, the expedition is frustrated; they always set him with his head towards the place of destination, and if he should prove to be turned directly contrary, they consider this as portending some very bad omen, and an absolute order to return; should therefore any one’s heart fail him, he needs only watch his opportunity to do this to save his character of a brave or true man. There is also a species of Motacilla (which I often endeavoured to catch, in vain) whose chirping near the camp, will occasion their immediate return.62 Their war camps are already mentioned. They are given to pilfering, but not so much as the Chicasaws. They are the swiftest of foot of any savages in America, and very expert in tracking a ®ying enemy, who very seldom escapes. Their leader can not pretend to command on an expedition, the most he can do, is to endeavour to persuade, or at the extent, he can only pretend to a greater experience in order to enforce his counsel; should he pretend to order, desertion would at least be his punishment, if not death. Their exercises agree pretty much with what I have seen among other nations: from their infancy they learn the use of bows and arrows; they [77] are never beaten or otherways rudely chastised, and very seldom chid; this education renders them very willful and wayward, yet I think it preferable to the cruel and barbarous treatment indiscriminately used by some European parents, who might with slight punishments by the excellency of wholesome christian Admonitions, work in a very different manner on the tender inclinations of pliable infancy. The young savages also use a very strait cane eight or nine feet long, cleared of its inward divisions of the joints; in this they put a small arrow, whose one end is covered one third of the whole length with cotton or

something similar to it: this they hold nearest their mouth and blow it so expertly as seldom to miss a mark ¤fteen or twenty yards off and that so violently as to kill squirrils and birds therewith; with this instrument they often plague dogs and other animals according to the innate disposition to cruelty of all savages, being encouraged to take a delight in torturing any poor animal that has the misfortune to fall into their hands; thinking best of him, who can longest keep the victim in pain, and invent the greatest variety of torture. When growing up, they use wrestling, running, heaving and lifting great weights, the playing with the ball two different ways, and their favourite game of chunké, all very violent exercises. The excess in spirituous liquors to which they use themselves, is really incredible. Their meetings about serious matters are at night. Their belief in charms and exorcisms is ¤rm and out of reason, and he that should dare [78] openly to boast of this gift is sure to lose his life on the ¤rst misfortune in the town where he resides; but if it is only pretended to extend to the cure of wounds and diseases it is overlooked; when they prepare for war, and when they return they use exorcisms, they call them all physic though only bare words or actions; and if they prove unsuccessful, they say the physic was not strong enough; it is no small diversion to see a Chactaw during this preparation act all his strange gestures, and the day before his departure painted scarlet and black almost naked and with swan wings to his arms run like a bacchant up and down through the place of his abode; not drunk neither, as rum is by them avoided like poison during this preparation. While I was in this nation, I had the misfortune to be af®icted with a violent fever which ended in a ®ux; my own skill being baf®ed, I applied to my guide, who had the reputation of being a knowing Physician well acquainted with the simples used among them. I submitted to his prescription; he got some herbs and roots, and made a decoction of them; I drank it; while the effect was expected, he alternately burnt some of the simples and sat down by me blowing upon me to drive away the disorder; I found no bene¤t by it; and on my refusing an other trial he said I was a fool, the next time the physic would be stronger, but he was not affronted. The French have made great attempts to render this nation Christians; at Chicasawhay there resided a missionary and a chapel was built,63 but they were absolutely unsuccessful; the savages always derided the Jesuit, called him a woman, [79] and would frequently desire him to take away his physic, thereby meaning he would undo his ceremony of baptism; and when the English arrived there they would go up to the altar and imitate all the jesuitical farce, telling them that they were not such fools as to hear him; the

133


A Concise Natural History

134


Bernard Romans

chapel was destroyed before I came there in 1771, but the cross (being of lightwood*) stood yet. Their play at ball is either with a small ball of deer skin or a large one of woollen rags; the ¤rst is thrown with battledores, the second with the hand only; this is a trial of skill between village and village; after having appointed the day and ¤eld for meeting, they assemble at the time and place, ¤x two poles across each other at about an hundred and ¤fty feet apart, they then attempt to throw the ball through the lower part of them, and the opposite party trying to prevent it, throw it back among themselves, which the ¤rst again try to prevent; thus they attempt to beat it about from one to the other with amazing violence, and not seldom broken limbs or dislocated joints are the consequence; their being almost naked, painted and ornamented with feathers, has a good effect on the eye of the by stander during this violent diversion; a number is agreed on for the score, and the party who ¤rst gets this number wins.64 The women play among themselves (after the men have done) disputing with as much eagerness as the men; the stakes or betts are generally high. There is no difference in the other game with the large ball, only the men and women play promiscuously, and they use no battledores. Their favourite game of chunké is a plain proof of the evil consequences of a violent passion for [80] gaming upon all kinds, classes and orders of men; at this they play from morning till night, with an unwearied application, and they bet high; here you may see a savage come and bring all his skins, stake them and lose them; next his pipe, his beads, trinkets and ornaments; at last his blanket, and other garment, and even all their arms, and after all it is not uncommon for them to go home, borrow a gun and shoot themselves; an instance of this happened in 1771 at EastYasoo a short time before my arrival. Suicide has also been practised here on other occasions, and they regard the act as a crime, and bury the body as unworthy of their ordinary funeral rites. The manner of playing this game is thus: They make an alley of about two hundred feet in length, where a very smooth caly [clay br] ground is laid, which when dry is very hard; they play two together having each a streight pole of about ¤fteen feet long; one holds a stone, which is in shape of a truck, which he throws before him over this alley, and the instant of its departure, they set off and run; in running they cast their poles after the stone, he that did not throw it endeavours to hit it, the other strives to strike the pole of his antagonist in its ®ight so as to prevent its hitting the stone; if the ¤rst should strike the stone he counts one for it, and if the other by the *The heart of yellow pine.

dexterity of his cast should prevent the pole of his opponent hitting the stone, he counts one, but should both miss their aim the throw is renewed; and in case a score is won the winner casts the stone and eleven is up; they hurl this stone and pole with wonderful dexterity and violence, and fatigue themselves much at it.65 [81] The women also have a game where they take a small stick, or something else off the ground after having thrown up a small ball which they are to catch again, having picked up the other; they are fond of it, but ashamed to be seen at it. I believe it is this propensity to gaming which has given these savages an idea of a meum and tuum above all other nations of America. They are extravagant in their debauches; when met for a drinking match some women attend them, when these ¤nd the men beginning to be heated with liquor they will take away all the weapons found near them and return with a callebash under their wrappers, then mixing with them, the men offer them their bottles, they take a draught and when not observed they empty it into the callebash, which when full they empty into bottles brought for that purpose, and thus they will accumulate two or three bottles full, and with the help of a little water, still make them more; after a while rum fails among the men, and the women acquaint them, that they have got some; they are told to fetch it; they refuse, saying it cost them much and they cannot give it for nothing; a bargain ensues, they receive the consideration ¤rst, and then bring it; in this way of trade they will often get all the effects the men can command for such a delicate nectar.66 I have a great opinion of a Chactaw’s faithfully performing his promises, I have seen several little instances thereof; they detest a liar, and shew gratitude to a man that keeps his word; my guide whose name was Pooskoos Mingo gave [82] me an instance of this; when I left him he said I had satis¤ed him for every thing like a true man, but if I would give him a speaking paper to the great white man at Mobile (meaning John Stuart Esq)67 then he would still better know it; I gave him a note recommending him to that gentleman, and because he had been of extraordinary service on the journey, begged he would allow him something more than common; it had the desired effect, he got a good many things extraordinary; when I was afterwards missing, and it was thought the Creeks had destroyed us in coming from the Chicasaw nation, this savage armed to avenge my death, and was actually taking the war physick as they term it, when news was brought to the nation of my arrival at Mobile. They are well made both men and women; the women have agreeable features and countenances, but their nasty way of life in general dis¤gures them; those that are cleanly are really attractive; the women dis¤gure the

135


A Concise Natural History

11. Characteristic Choctaw Busts (original faces page 83).




136

Bernard Romans

heads of their male children by means of bags of sand, ®attening them into different shapes, thinking it adds to their beauty; both men and women wear long hair, except some young fellows who begin to imitate the Chicasaw fashion, and both sexes mark their faces and bodies, particularly the women with indelible blue ¤gures of fancy, among which is a great deal of voluted work of vast variety. Before the English traders came among them, there were scarcely any half breed, but now they abound among the younger sort. Both sexes are wanton to the highest degree, and a certain fashionable disorder is very common among them. Sodomy is also practised but [83] not to the same excess as among the Creeks and Chicasaws, and the Cinædi among the Chactaws are obliged to dress themselves in woman’s attire, and are highly despised especially by the women.68 Their buildings are exactly similar to those of the Chicasaws. Their way of life in general may be called industrious, they will do what no uncompelled savage will do, that is work in the ¤eld to raise grain; and one may among them hire not only a guide, or a man to build a house, or make a fence, but even to hoe his grounds; nay they will for payment be your menial servants to the meanest of¤ces; no other unsubdued savage will do any more of all these than be your guide; they are very ingenious in making tools, utensils and furniture; I have seen a narrow tooth comb made by one of these savages with a knife only out of a root of the Diospyros69 that was as well ¤nished as I ever saw one with all the necessary tools; this shews their patience. The Chactaws are very hospitable at their hunting camps, and there only they will entertain a stranger at free cost. Here I must relate a particular custom of these people: When a deer or bear is killed by them, they divide the liver into as many pieces as there are ¤res, and send a boy to each with a piece, that the men belonging to each ¤re may burn it, but the women’s ¤res are excluded from this ceremony, and if each party kills one or more animals, the livers of them are all treated in the same manner. Horses of a good kind are in such plenty as to be sold for a kegg of four gallons half water half [84] rum; they would be excellent were it not that they back them before the animals attain two years of age. They cultivate for bread all the species and varieties of the Zea, likewise two varieties of that species of Panicum vulgarly called guinea corn; a greater number of different Phaseolus and Dolichos than any I have seen elsewhere; the esculent Convolvulus (vulgo) sweet potatoes, and the Helianthus Giganteus; with the seed of the last made into ®our and mixed with ®our of the Zea

137


A Concise Natural History

138


Bernard Romans

they make a very palatable bread;70 they have carried the spirit of husbandry so far as to cultivate leeks, garlic, cabbage and some other garden plants, of which they make no use, in order to make pro¤t of them to the traders; they also used to carry poultry to market at Mobile, although it lays at the distance of an hundred and twenty miles from the nearest town; dunghill fowls and a very few ducks, and with some hogs, are the only esculent animals raised in the nation. They make many kinds of bread of the above grains with the help of water, Eggs, or hickory milk; they boil the esculent convolvulus and eat it with the hickory milk; they boil green ears of corn, they boil corn and beans together, and make many other preparations of their vegetables, but fresh meat they have only at the hunting season, and then they never fail to eat while it lasts; of their fowls and hogs they seldom eat any as they keep them for pro¤t. In failure of their crops, they make bread of the different kinds of Fagus, of the Diospyros, of a species of Convolvulus with a tuberous root found in the low cane grounds, of the root of a [85] species of Smilax, of live oak acorns, and of the young shoots of the Canna; in summer many wild plants chie®y of the Drupi and Bacciferous kind supply them.71 They raise some tobacco, and even sell some to the traders, but when they use it for smoaking they mix it with the leaves of two species of the Cariaria or of the Liquidambar Styraci®ua dried and rubbed to pieces.72 They prepare a kind of cloth out of the bark of a species of Morus, and with its root dye it yellow;73 I have all the reason in the world to believe, that this cloth might be manufactured into paper. Buffaloe’s wool also furnishes them a material for a useful manufacture. They likewise make blankets and other coverings out of the feathers of the breasts of wild turkies by a process similar to that of our wig makers, when they knit hair together for the purpose of making wigs. They have a root by means of which they dye most substances of a bright lasting scarlet, but hitherto I have not been able to discover what it was. Many among them are well acquainted with plants of every kind, and apply them judicially both externally and internally; to others again they attribute supernatural virtues; for instance, there is one which they make use of to procure rain; for this purpose they have a number of people in their nation called rainmakers; these assemble in a deserted ¤eld, and they boil this plant in a large pot, dancing and singing round it with numberless aukward gestures; then if it [86] should happen to rain soon after, the jugglers boast the virtue of the plant; but should no rain follow, they say the physick was not strong enough; they take care however not to employ this rain compel-

ling herb unless a cloudy day forebodes rain. The plant is very singular, and I believe a nondescript; I saw two species of it, but could not ascertain the genius; the savages call it Esta Hoola or the most beloved.74 The most remarkable thing of these savages is their inability to swim, occasioned by their being remote from large waters; this art the people of Chicasahay and Yoani who live on the banks of the Pasca Oocooloo enjoy alone, and incredible as it may appear, even most of their horses partake of this inability, as many people and among others the Commissary for the nation have informed me from their own experience.75 They help their wives in the labour of the ¤elds and many other works; near one half of the men have never killed a deer or turkey during their lives. Game is so scarce, that during my circuit through the nation we never saw any, and we had but two or three opportunities of eating venison in as many months; they take wives without much ceremony, and live together during pleasure, and after separation which is not very frequent, they often leave the second to retake the ¤rst wife. Fornication is among them thought to be a natural accident, therefore a girl is not the worse looked on for ten or a dozen slips; but although they are not over jealous of their wives, they punish adultery in the woman, unless she happens to belong to a stronger or more noted and numerous [87] family than the husband; in which case he scarce ventures even to put her away; but if she is doomed to suffer, her punishment is to be at a publick place (for the purpose set apart at every town) carnally known by all who choose to be present, young and old; thus the poor wretch after defending herself and struggling hard with the ¤rst three or four, at last suffers motionless the brutality of perhaps an hundred or an hundred and ¤fty of these barbarians; the same treatment is undergone by a girl or woman who belonging to another town or quarter of the nation, comes to a place where she is a stranger and cannot give a very good account of herself and business, or the reason of her coming there; this they call running through the meadow, and if a white man happens to be in the town, they send him an offer or invitation to take the ¤rst heat; they plead in excuse for so barbarous a custom, that the only way to disgust lewd women is to give them at once what they so constantly and eagerly pursue. The education of their children I have already mentioned. The women suffer no more by child birth than any other savage women; they retire into a place of solitude at the time, and after delivery return to their daily labour; however while I staid at Oka Altakkala in this nation one died in labour within about eighty yards of the house I resided in. There are no laws or regulations observable among these people, except

139


A Concise Natural History

140


Bernard Romans

the Lex Talionis, and although they have a strict notion of distinction in property, and even divide their lands, we never [88] hear them quarrel about boundaries; the above law is so strictly followed, that I am furnished with the following anecdote: It happened that a young Chactaw having done something deserving reproof, he was therefore chid by his mother, this he took so ill as in the fury of his shame to resolve his own death, which he effected with a gun; his sister as his nearest relation thought herself bound to avenge his death, and knowing the circumstance told her mother she had caused her brother’s death and must pay for his life; the old woman resigned herself to her fate, and died by the hands of her daughter, who shot her with a gun which she had provided for the catastrophe. In sickness the juggling Quacks are consulted, and as they are naturally good connoisseurs in simples, and judge pretty well of the nature of diseases, they often succeed; but if a disorder is obstinate or incurable, the relations of the patient assemble in his house, bewail his misfortune, cry bitterly, take their leave of him, and he tells them how tired he is of life, that his misfortunes are unsufferable, and that it is good he should die; upon this an universal howl is raised, the nearest male relation jumps on him, and violently in a moment breaks the neck of the patient, and then they rejoice that his misery is over, but lamentations for his departure soon succeed. The following treatment of the dead is very strange,76 yet we ¤nd Apollonius Rhodius mention a similar custom of the inhabitants of Colchis near Pontus;77 we ¤nd Ives in his voyage relating the like of the remainder of the ancient Persians,78 and we ¤nd again in Hawkesworth’s voyage[s br] the people [89] of Otaheite,79 performing their obsequies in a manner little or nothing different from the Chactaws; but it would be an hard matter to assign a reason for it among the latter; that it is not with any solicitude about the disposition of the body in regard to a future state is plain; all the reason I could hear of them was, that they would not so soon forget their deceased friends, and might be the oftener stimulated to weep over their remains. As soon as the deceased is departed, a stage is erected (as in the annexed plate is represented) and the corpse is laid on it and covered with a bear skin; if he be a man of note, it is decorated, and the poles painted red with vermillion and bears oil; if a child, it is put upon stakes set across; at this stage the relations come and weep, asking many questions of the corpse, such as, why he left them? did not his wife serve him well? was he not contented with his children? had he not corn enough? did not his land produce suf¤cient of every thing? was he afraid of his enemies? &c. and this accompanied by loud howlings; the women will be there constantly, and sometimes with the corrupted air and heat of the sun faint so as to oblige the by standers to carry

12. Choctaw Burial (original faces page 89).

141




A Concise Natural History

142


Bernard Romans

them home; the men will also come and mourn in the same manner, but in the night or at other unseasonable times, when they are least likely to be discovered. The stage is fenced round with poles, it remains thus a certain time but not a ¤xed space, this is sometimes extended to three or four months, but seldom more than half that time. A certain set of venerable old Gentlemen who wear very long nails as a distinguishing badge on the [90] thumb, fore and middle ¤nger of each hand, constantly travel through the nation (when I was there, I was told there were but ¤ve of this respectable order) that one of them may acquaint those concerned, of the expiration of this period, which is according to their own fancy; the day being come, the friends and relations assemble near the stage, a ¤re is made, and the respectable operator, after the body is taken down, with his nails tears the remaining ®esh off the bones, and throws it with the intrails into the ¤re, where it is consumed; then he scrapes the bones and burns the scrapings likewise; the head being painted red with vermillion is with the rest of the bones put into a neatly made chest (which for a Chief is also made red) and deposited in the loft of a hut built for that purpose, and called bone house; each town has one of these; after remaining here one year or thereabouts, if he be a man of any note, they take the chest down, and in an assembly of relations and friends they weep once more over him, refresh the colour of the head, paint the box red, and then deposit him to lasting oblivion. An enemy and one who commits suicide is buried under the earth as one to be directly forgotten and unworthy the above ceremonial obsequies and mourning. A mixture of the remains of the Cawittas, Talepoosas, Coosas, Apalachias, Conshacs or Coosades, Oakmulgis, Oconis, Okchoys, Alibamons, Natchez, Weetumkus, Pakanas, Taënsas, Chacsihoomas, Abékas and some other tribes whose names I do not recollect, will be the next subject of our attention; they call themselves Muscokees and are at present [91] known to us by the general name of Creeks, and divided into upper and lower Creeks;80 also those they call allies and are a colony from the others living far south in East Florida.81 They inhabit a noble and fruitful country, where a civilized people in future will enjoy all the earthly sweets they can wish for, and where the inhabitants will always be placed commodiously for navigation, so as with little trouble to bring all the valuable produce of a rich soil situate in a temperate air of the middle latitudes to a market; in a word, I foresee this will become the seat of trade and its attendant riches in North America. They are the next most numerous nation after the Chactaws; but because I have not been so universally through this nation as through the others, I

143


A Concise Natural History

13. Characteristic Head of a Creek War Chief (original faces page 93).

cannot so nearly calculate their numbers, but to all appearance, three thousand ¤ve hundred gun men is all the extent;82 this confederacy of remnants is a race of very cunning fellows, and with regard to us, the most to be dreaded of any nation on the continent, as well for their indefatigable thirst for blood (which makes them travel incredibly for a scalp or prisoner) as for their being truly politicians bred, and so very jealous of their lands, that they will not only not part with any, but endeavour constantly to enlarge

144


Bernard Romans

their territories by conquest and claiming large tracts from the Cherokees and Chactaws. As an instance of their politicks, I beg leave to relate the following fact: When in 1764 and 1765, Messrs. Rea and Galphus [Galphin br] of Georgia, had the contract of providing Pensacola with beef, [92] they were of necessity obliged to have the cattle drove through this nation, who never suffered any but oxen to pass, the tendency of this prohibition must be obvious to every reader.83 They are all remarkably well shaped, they live in a level country full of rivers, are expert swimmers, and in general a very hardy race; what deserves notice here is that their Thorax is very shallow, so that a savage of this race may appear almost a giant by the breadth of his shoulders and yet not measure so much in circumference as an ordinary European; but whether this is the effect of art or nature, I cannot pretend to decide; their women are handsome and many of them very cleanly, they are very hospitable and never fail of making a stranger heartily welcome, offering him the pipe as soon as he arrives, while the good women are employed to prepare a dish of venison and homany,* with some bread made of maize and ®our, and being wraped in maize leaves, baked under the ashes; when it is served up they accompany it with bears fat puri¤ed to a perfect chrystalline oyl, and a bottle of honey with which last article the country abounds, and it is of so good a quality, as in my opinion to exceed that of Calabria and Minorca. In the lower nation and the allied tribes, there are many who keep rice by them and have plenty of beef; of all which articles they are profusely liberal, and I believe had they only a single potatoe, they would share it with a stranger. In the fruit season they never fail to accompany these regales with melons, peaches, plumbs, grapes, or some other wild fruit. [93] After the traveller is made welcome by his host, the latter introduces him into the assembly, which is kept every evening at a place called the square, of which we ¤nd one in each town. At this place he is entertained with tobacco and cassine drink; this is also the common resort of their old men and warriors to deliberate on matters of peace and war, to judge what steps are to be taken for the welfare of the nation, and to decide the fate of their neighbours; so that this square doth not ill answer to the description we have of the Roman Forum or Athenian Areopage; the evening ends in a dance, which is the common practice every night.84 To relate any thing concerning the wars of this nation, would be no more than repeating what has been said of the Chicasaws. *Maize coarsly pounded, salted and boiled in water.

Their way of life is in general very abundant; they have much more of venison, Bear, turkies; and small game in their country than their neighbours have, and they raise abundance of small cattle, hogs, turkeys, ducks and dunghill fowls (all which are very good in their kind) and of these they spare not; the labour of the ¤eld is all done by the women; no savages are more proud of being counted hunters, ¤shermen, and warriors: were they to cultivate their plentiful country, they might raise amazing quantities of grain and pulse, as it is they have enough for their home consumption, they buy a good deal of rice, and they are the only savages that ever I saw that could bear to have some rum in store; yet they drink to excess as well as others; there are few towns in this nation where there is not some savage residing, who either trades of his own stock, [94] or is employed as a factor. They have more variety in their diet than other savages: They make pancakes; they dry the tongues of their venison; they make a caustick salt out of a kind of moss found at the bottom of creeks and rivers, which although a vegetable salt, does not deliquiate on exposing to the air;85 this they dissolve in water and pound their dried venison till it looks like oakum and then eat it dipped in the above sauce; they eat much roasted and boiled venison, a great deal of milk and eggs; they dry peaches and persimmons, chesnuts and the fruit of the chamærops,86 they also prepare a cake of the pulp of the species of the passi ®ora, vulgarly called may apple;87 some kinds of acorns they also prepare into good bread; the common esculent convolvulus and the sort found in the low woods, both called potatoes, are eat in abundance among them;88 they have plenty of the various species of Zea or maize, or [of br] the Phaseolis and Dolichos, and of different kinds of Panicum;89 bears oyl, honey and hickory milk90 are the boast of the country; they have also many kinds of salt and fresh water turtle, and their eggs, and plenty of ¤sh; we likewise ¤nd among them salted meats, corned venison in particular, which is very ¤ne; they cultivate abundance of melons; in a word, they have naturally the greatest plenty imaginable; were they to cultivate the earth they would have too much; vast numbers of horses are bred here, but of an indifferent kind; and these savages are the greatest horse stealers yet known: it is impossible to be sure of a horse wherever these fellows come. The Cassine is by them used as a drink, they barbacue or toast the leaves and make a strong [95] decoction of them; the men only are permitted to drink this liquor to which they attribute many virtues, and it is made so strong as to be black and raise a froth; when they drink it at their assemblies in the square, they call it black drink. Every afternoon a young savage warns the village to dance; as soon as it is dusky they make a ¤re of dry pitch pine, and round this they dance in a

145


A Concise Natural History

146


Bernard Romans

circle with many strange gestures, postures, and cries; the women sing regularly and some very prettily to the musick of a kind of drum. I have heard them sing, and seen them dance to no more than the words Yahoodela,Yahoyahena for above two hours.91 On this occasion I must not forget to mention an instance of female fondness for dress, which I saw at one of these dancing assemblies: I observed the women dressed their legs in a kind of leather stockings, hung full of the hoofs of the roe deer in form of bells, in so much as to make a sound exactly like that of the Castagnettes; I was very desirous of examining these stockings and had an opportunity of satisfying my curiosity on those of my landlady at her return home. I counted in one of her stockings four hundred and ninety three of these claws; there were nine of the women at the dance with this kind of ornament, so that allowing each of them to have had the same number of hoofs, and eight hoofs to a deer, there must have been killed eleven hundred and ten deer to furnish this small assembly of ladies with their ornaments, besides which, earrings, bracelets, &c. are by no means forgot; an instance of luxury in dress scarcely to be paralleled by our European ladies. [96] The men are also very fond of dress; my guide across the Peninsula, employed above two hours at his toilet, at Mr. Moultrie’s house, four miles from St. Augustine, before he would venture to shew himself in town. Their principal exercises at home are ball playing in the manner afore related, and the just mentioned dances; the women are employed, besides the cultivation of the earth, in dressing the victuals, preparing, scraping, braining, rubbing and smoaking the Roe skins, making macksens of them, spinning buffaloe wool, making salt, preparing cassine drink, drying the chamærops and passi®ora, making cold ®our for travelling, gathering nuts and making their milk; likewise in making baskets, brooms, pots, bowls and other earthen and wooden vessels. They live nearly in the same kind of habitations as the two other nations already mentioned, except that their hot houses are not circular but oblong squares;92 they learn their boys from their youth to endure all manner of hardships particularly swimming in the coldest weather; they make them frequently undergo scratching from head to foot through the skin with broken glass or gar ¤sh teeth, so as to make them all in a gore of blood, and then wash them with cold water; this is with them the Arcanum against all diseases, but when they design it as a punishment to the boys, they dry scratch them (i.e) they apply no water after the operation, which renders it very painful;93 they endeavour as much as possible to teach them all manner of cruelty, by

making them exercise it on the poor brute creation, in order to be the better versed in it when [97] they want to exercise it on their own species, and others of the human genus, when they unhappily become their enemies. As hospitable as this nation is to friends, as irreconcileably inhuman are they to their enemies; there is hardly an instance of one miserable prisoner’s ever having escaped their barbarity; the torments they put the wretched victims to, are too horrid to relate, and the account thereof can only serve to make human nature shudder. No nation has so contemptible an opinion of us as these. They practice unnatural commerce with their own sex to as high a degree as the Chicasaws; they, like all other savages, are very fond of dogs, in so much as never to kill one out of a litter, and it is not uncommon in the nation to see a dog very lean, and so sensible of his misfortune as to seek a wall or post for his support before he ventures to bark. With regard to the women, their girls are the most arrant prudes and coquets in the world, though they will never scruple to sell the use of their bodies when they can do it in private; a person who wishes to be accommodated here can generally be supplied for payment, and the savages think a young woman nothing the worse for making use of her body, as they term it; but it is a great falshood which has been related of these savages, that they exhort their young women to cohabitation with white men. Polygamy is here allowed, though not generally made use of; they marry without much ceremony, seldom any more than to make some presents to the parents, and to have a feast or hearty regale at the hut of the wife’s Father; [98] when once married the women are bound to the strictest observation of obedience and conjugal ¤delity, saying that she that has once sold herself, can not any more dispose of any thing whatever; and of their wives they are the most unreasonably jealous of any nation under the sun. Adultery is punished by severe ®agellations and loss of hair, nose, and ears, in both parties, if they are taken; sometimes they spare the nose of the man, and I have known some instances of white men having this misfortune and being obliged to apply to the Commissary, or the nearest Governor for a certi¤cate to secure them from the imputation of the pillory. Physick, or the knowledge of it, is another thing in which they pride themselves not a little, but they apply that name to all kinds of exorcisms, juggling and legerdemain tricks, as well as to the knowledge of diseases and the simples proper to cure them. Once a year, about July, these people put out all the ¤res throughout the nation; they fast the two next days; then the ¤re is lighted again according to

147


A Concise Natural History

148


Bernard Romans

their old fashion (i.e.) by drilling with a hard piece of wood on a soft one till it catches which soon happens; thus all the ¤res are again lighted and universal feasting ensues.94 The women are just as easily delivered as those of the other savages, and immediately after birth the infant is plunged into cold water. They revere old age to excess; in extreme sickness they will out of compassion break the neck of the decrepid or lingering patient. The dead are buried in a sitting posture, and they are furnished with a musket, powder and ball, [99] a hatchet, pipe, some tobacco, a club, a bow and arrows, a looking glass, some vermillion and other trinkets, in order to come well provided in the world of spirits. The Arkanzas, Kanzas, Kappas, or Kwappas are the only nation of any note after the three above named, with whom West Florida has any connection, notwithstanding they live on the west side of the river; they are supposed to be about four hundred gun men.95 This nation is famous for the death of Ferdinand Soto in the year 1543, after his immense journey from the Bay of Tampe through Apalachia, Pensacola, Mobile, and the Chicasaw nation, &c. to the Mississippi, by his historian called Rio Grande;96 also the arrival of Mr. de la Salle, who in 1682, coming down this river and having taken formal possession of this country, went further down to its mouth, observed it in Latitude 29, went up again as far as Illinois, thence to Canada and France, from whence he returned with a small squadron in 1684 to ¤nd the mouth of the river once more, but through obstinacy passed it so far as to get into the Bay of St. Bernard and river Bravo, where losing his vessels he attempted to ¤nd the Arkanzas a second time, but after a long and tedious journey of almost three years he shared if possible a worse fate than Soto, being murdered by his own people near the nation of the Cæni on the 29th of May 1687; this we gather from the writings of Mr. Joutel who was present at all the scenes I have related, concerning this affair, and who pursued the journey to the Arkanzas and Canada;97 this nation were till lately the declared enemies of the Chicasaws; [100] their country is said to be exceeding ¤ne, but as I have not seen it I can not judge of it, I never saw above six of this race, therefore I only treat of them on account of their connection with the country I am describing. In general their manners are very like those of all other savages, but among them I ¤nd a custom not known by the other southern nations which is that of a feast of dogs ®esh at the declaration of war, which is a common practise among all the northern tribes; we are also told that an Arkanza is counted a warrior in his nation for having killed his enemies dog. As many various accounts have been given of the manner of a declaration

of war by different savages, I will here acquaint my reader of my having more or less personal knowledge or acquaintance with every tribe between the river St. Lawrence and the bottom of the gulph of Darien, and I think I can give the following as an account that will stand the universal test in all that extent. When war has been resolved on by the leading men of the nation, a feast is prepared and all the chief warriors are invited; after a great deal of swilling, the cause of the assembly is eloquently made known by some Orator, and the intended expedition submitted to the consideration of the assembly; as soon as it is approved of, they paint themselves red or black, assume a very gastly appearance and behaviour, adorning themselves many uncouth ways; they dance their war dances under a continual roar of the death whoop, every one relates the great actions of his ancestors, and sings the praises of his own, as well past as future; [101] the insults of the enemy are painted in their blackest colours, and a great deal of bloody advice to their young men with an universal cry of revenge! revenge! ends the farce, and then every one plans expeditions as he sees proper and convenient to execute. The practice of scalping their slain enemy I believe is universal, but those in the neighbourhood of the Dutch colonies have laid it by for another, that of cutting off the hands, which was in consequence of a reward the company gave them for the hands of such runaway blacks as joined the rebel Negroes, because there were instances of persons scalped who have recovered, but after the loss of hands they cannot any more use arms. Juggling and pretence to witchcraft, as also consulting of omens, is common to the Arkanzas as well as others, and passes by the name of physick. They have so far a veneration for the alligator as not to destroy him, nor have I seen a savage who would willingly kill a snake. The pipe is used here as with others, Tobacco in some shape or other seems to be the American symbol of peace, friendship and social conversation, to which last the Europeans seem also to have applied it in imitation of the savages. I am informed that they bury their dead like the Creeks with the addition of tying the head down to the knees. To be particular about the remains of the Tonicas, Chitimachas, Yasoos, Hoomas, Mobilians, Pasca-Oocoolos, Hattakappas, Taënsas, Biloxis, Ybitoopas, Aquelon-Pissas, or Colla-Pissas, Tiaoux, Oaktashippas, [102] and many others, who have been destroyed by the French, would be needless, as there are not above from ¤ve to eighteen or twenty families of each of them left, who inhabit the banks of the Mississippi, dispersed among the plantations, where they serve as hunters, and for some other laborious uses; something similar

149


A Concise Natural History

14. Indian Hieroglyphic Paintings (original faces page 103).




150

Bernard Romans

to the subdued tribes of New England; and so unnatural is a humanized life to these people, that being as it were out of their element, this remnant melts daily like snow before the Sun.98 To give an idea of Indian hieroglyphick painting, I have subjoined the two following cuts; the ¤rst is Chactaw, and means that an expedition by seventy men, led by seven principal warriors, and eight of inferior rank, had in an action killed nine of their enemies, of which they brought the scalps, and that the place where it was marked was the ¤rst publick place in their territories where they arrived with the scalps. The second is a painting in the Creek taste, it means, that ten of that nation of the Stag family came in three canoes into their enemies country, that six of the party near this place, which was at Oopah Ullah, a brook so called on the road to the Chactaws, had met two men, and two women with a dog, that they lay in ambush for them, killed them, and that they all went home with the four scalps; the scalp in the stag’s foot implies the honour of the action to the whole family. Such my reader may be assured were the boasted hieroglyphick paintings of Muteczuma’s people when Cortes landed in Mexico, and similar to my description were the people, the palaces and [103] temples of Mexico so gloriously painted in Spanish Rhodomontades, for what end I know not, but I can assure every one that these Iberian histories of the conquest of Mexico are no other than truth very thickly veiled with absurdities; for except the silver and gold which these savages might then have, believe me they differed nothing from others; and as an evident proof of this we see the free unconquered nations of Darien in possession of gold and silver of their own ¤nding, but very con¤ned in their ideas of working it. The primum Mobile of the welfare of these countries and of the wealth of their inhabitants are the African slaves; the primary ¤ne spun constitution of Georgia, is a recent and striking proof of this; that country would not this day have been worth the notice of any, had not the importation and use of Negroes been allowed on the arrival of Governor Reynolds;99 when this Gentleman came to the Government it had languished under the administration of General Oglethorpe100 and the other trustees for about twenty years and then the land was worth less than at the ¤rst beginning, but no sooner had Mr. Reynolds arrived, and, among other useful regulations, the free use of slaves taken place, the country ®ourished; it is now about seventeen years ago that this happened: Hutchinson’s island before Savannah was then sold for twenty pounds sterling, as yet there is a great deal of it unimproved and it cannot now be bought for ten thousand pound sterling, the improvements likewise are far more perfect; amazing as this increase of value

151


A Concise Natural History

152


Bernard Romans

is, yet I believe that [104] there are many instances of a still greater, and I know some lands without any improvements on them of any kind, increase in six years time from ¤ve to forty shillings per acre, and many inhabitants of savannah can now testify, that before the surrender of the trustees, almost every house there might have been bought for the consideration of doing the militia duty in the room of the ¤rst owner only. Last year the exports of the province amounted to above 121,000 l. sterling, as may be seen by a state of the custom house books then published, an amazing increase in seventeen years from nothing! [Table facing p. 104 in original now follows p. 146.] The late foolish, not to call them cruel attempts of settling East Florida by whites from Europe (I mean as well from England as from the Levant) are likewise a very absolute conviction of the necessity of having Negroe slaves; but as some people who are able to purchase, slaves, run away with the notion of the unlawfulness of holding a property in Negroes, and who are perhaps not a little misled by the silly pamphlet published in some of the colonies, called “an address to the inhabitants of the British settlements in America upon slave keeping, &c.”101 have attempted to settle without Negroes at all; I cannot in conscience forbear to give my advice to all adventurers in Florida, who desire to improve a plantation for their bene¤t, not to forget these useful though inferior members of society; not but poor families may live in plenty, and by honest labour acquire a comfortable and easy situation in life as may be wished for, but until their industry helps them to the means of buying one slave and so on till they get [105] more it will be vanity for them to hope for an accumulation of wealth. Do we not see Solomon’s words fully veri¤ed in Negroes? A servant will not answer though he understand. The very perverse nature of this black race seems to require the harsh treatment they generally receive, but like all other things, this is carried into the extreme; far be it from me to approve or recommend the vile usage to which this useful part of the creation is subjected by some of our western nabobs, but against the Phyllis of Boston102 (who is the Phænix of her race) I could bring at least twenty well known instances of the contrary effect of education on this sable generation. Treachery, theft, stubbornness, and idleness, the ¤rst in the more northern Negroes, and the three last in the Ebo, Angola, and Benin slaves are such consequences of their manner of life at home as to put it out of all doubt that these qualities are natural to them and not originated by their state of slavery. Had Montesquieu103 been well acquainted with the American colonies, he would not have made use of any argument so much below so great a man as

the one quoted in the above named enthusiastical production, which seems calculated to procure a greater number of vagabonds than we are already pestered with. I think no man ought to be allowed the manumission of his slave except he be bound for his good behaviour and industry, and idle free blacks ought to be sold for the good of the community. The anecdotes of the sublimity of Negroes [106] sentiments in their own country are very similar to my anecdote of a savage shooting himself because his mother reprimanded him, or another doing the same because he lost his all at play. Mr. Le Poivre has mentioned the making sugar in Cochin China,104 by free men, but it has not been observed, that those free men make small quantities, and sell it at the low rate they do, only because others who employ slaves in the same or in the adjacent countries, sell them at that price, which may be easily proved, and consequently oblige the others to do the same; nor that these free men live on the same diet as our slaves, and who will say that Cochin Chinese sugar after exportation sells at a more reasonable rate than Javan, Martinique, Jamaica, or any eastern or western sugar does. Have not all the endeavours of the several Legislatures in the West Indies to introduce more white or free people proved abortive, by reason of their general inability for labour in those climates? Is it not therefore better to employ those, who labour at a similar work in their own sultry country, and in a state of slavery too, than to make victims of men who can by no means be quali¤ed for the fatigue of a southern plantation. We have known not long ago sugars &c. as cheap in the West Indies as in the East; it is the increase of consumption in Europe and North America that renders it dear: I af¤rm that in America, neither sugar, rice nor indigo can be made by whites at three times the price it is made now by the blacks, and I also af¤rm that the West India lands are distributed among all nations [107] with less reservation, than they are on the continent of British North America. Can any one say that the favourites of mankind (I mean liberty and property) are any where enjoyed in Africa? The rhapsodical opinion that the earth produces more when worked by free men than by slaves may do in theory but not in practice; the contrary is easily made to appear; and I am certain from the nature of the climates, that the same colonies when cultivated by free men would not produce one tenth part of what they do now; as for an equal distribution of property it is like Harrington’s Oceana or Sir Thomas More’s Utopia.105

153


A Concise Natural History

154


Bernard Romans

An European will outlive a Creole by means of his more regular life, not otherwise, and who knows not that Negroes attain with all their labour a much higher age than the generality of idle Whites. The foolish argument of the shortness of the Jewish history, as well as lugging in the practice of Polygamy by the head and shoulders (although the text quoted is not to the purpose) is too mean to be refuted. Let not therefore the narrow system of morality adopted by some of our contemporary enthusiastical Philosophers restrain us from properly using this naturally subjected species of mankind; the impossibility of an European’s bearing the requisite labour in those climes is now so well ascertained as not to require any elucidation, nor can any one pretend to say, that the posterity of Europeans born in the torrid Zone ought to bear its inclemency; what labour can we expect from men brought up in ease and af®uence? It is pretended [108] that our employing slaves is contrary to the precepts of the founder of our most holy religion, when he says: “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself;” I need not make use of the con¤ned ideas of the antient Jews, who thought that the title of neighbour did not extend to any thing beyond their own nation. I will then af¤rm, that there is a ¤vefold state of slavery, not only known or permitted; but commanded in God’s holy word. 1st. Those who are condemned to slavery for their crimes, which we but too often experience to be the case with the slaves imported to us from Africa. 2ly. Those that are taken in war, which is the most general way among the Negroes to furnish us with slaves, and who would be murdered; did we not induce their conquerors by our manufactures and money to shew them mercy. 3ly. Those who are sold by their Parents, which custom obtains among many people even the re¤ned and civilized Chinese, not to mention some christians, but most among the Negroes. 4ly Those who sell themselves or are sold for debts, or other wants, which not only the Negroes, but our own laws justify. 5ly Those who are born in slavery. I need not seek assistance from the laws actually in force among us to prove the ¤rst; Noah in Genesis, chap. 9, v. 25, 27, condemns Ham to slavery for the crime he had committed, and in Exodus, chap. 22, v. 3, God commands us that, “If the Sun be risen upon a thief, it shall unto him be a crime of blood, for he should make full restitution, if he have nothing, let him be [109] sold for his theft.” Here let me remind my reader, how much easier the

slavery of our Negroes is, than the cruel captivity of those, who for their misdemeanors are condemned to the chain, the wheelbarrow or the gallies. For the second read Joshua, chap. 9, v. 23. Does not Exodus, chap. 21, v. 7, shew, that a man might sell his child as a servant, only giving the maid servant a privilege above men servants? In the fourth case I think that (without leaving the point in view) I may ask, does not the soldier sell his liberty to his sovereign or other Prince for his pay be it for a time or for life? Proverbs, chap. 11, v. 29, tell us, “That the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” Chap. 22, v. 7, “The rich ruleth over the poor and the borrower shall be servant to the lender.” Does not Jesus himself, Math. chap. 18. v. 25 make use of a parable fully to my purpose? when he says: “But for as much as he had not to pay, his Lord commanded him to be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.” Exodus chap. 21, v. 4, tells us that; “if the master have given his servant a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her masters.[”] For the perpetuity of slavery read Leviticus chap. 25, v. 39, to 47, how absurdly is Montesquieu again quoted, when in his L. 10, C. 3, he speaks of a conquered nation, who through necessity are made slaves in their own country: every one knows that such conquered people, who are suffered to remain at home at ¤rst under oppression, ought by degrees to be made free [110] subjects, their good behavior being their ransom; but who, even among those re¤ned moralists, would emancipate his slave without some reward either private or publick? How Tacitus comes to be so pat to the purpose of this acute Philosopher I have not been able to learn; nor is the quotation from the universal history, or Mr. Robertson of any more force: Since we are able then to get slaves in a lawful manner, why should we now be restrained from buying them to cultivate our grounds, when all nations at all times have enjoyed that privilege? Had not the well known Christian Doctor of the Colossian Church a slave called Onesimus? did not this slave run away (after having, as usual with slaves, robbed his master) come to Rome and go to see St. Paul? Paul treated him kindly, instructed, converted, and baptised him and sent him back to his master with a letter full of godly eloquence to persuade Philemon to forgive his slave and re-establish him in his favour, but by no means an exhortation, much less an order to set him free. It is not religion then nor christian charity that forbids us to have slaves,

155


A Concise Natural History

156


Bernard Romans

but it commands us the duties we are to ful¤l towards them, instructing them to obey us, and to use them as a part of the reasonable creation. Who knows not, that the Spaniards are so much slaves that they can not well be more so, were they bought by their King: And who, that is acquainted in the Spanish dominions, knows not, that a modern Iberian does himself more honour by saying (Soi Blanco) i.e. I am a [111] white man, than if he exclaimed, I am Noble! Shall after what I have said, this Rhapsodist with his con¤ned ideas, send us to some modern system of religion, or say, that I have offered any thing contrary to the sublime doctrine of the author of christianity? Had this anonymous writer instead of playing with the word slavery, told us, that the Northern colonies had no occasion for Negroes, he would have said more, than all he has advanced in his futile publication. A Negroe at the Mississippi is reckoned to bring in his master an hundred dollars per annum, besides his share towards all the provision consumed in the family; Negroes in general are used with more lenity there than in Carolina. I have in my dissertation on the origin of the savages, which has swelled beyond my intention, made mention of a peculiar characteristic of the Negroe species, here let me be allowed to mention that they, like all others of the different species, and varieties of the human genus are born white, which colour soon changes, but on the moment of birth in both sexes the exterior parts of generatiou [generation] will shew, whether the person will be black, yellow, brown, red or any other colour known among mankind. There is among the Negroes a kind of anomalous beings with white skins, feeble eyes, &c. which have been so often described by other authors that I shall not trouble my reader with a particular account of them; yet one observation I cannot forbear to make, which I believe will be found no less curious than new: Through all the Northern America the red men are universally so, but as soon as we come [112] on the Isthmus we ¤nd some of those unhappy anomalous individuals among the savages; I have myself seen several of either sex of this forlorn kind among the Sant Blass nation, who call themselves Ayomalas; they inhabit the South Eastern part of the Isthmus, and I understand from others conversant farther South, that in South America it is common; these people are of such an exceeding tender texture of skin, that it is disagreeably fair and very liable to become scurfy and freckled; their eyes are nearly as red as those of a white rabbit and very weak, seeing objects plainly only after Sun set, before Sun rise, or in a cloudy day: Their hair is straight, long, lank, and red, not participating of the harsh strong texture of the hair

of common savages; their in ability for labour, for want of sight, causes the others of the nation to support them; the offspring of these poor creatures however is again red and in the general course of nature.106 The manners and way of life of the white people in Florida, differ very greatly from those in other provinces of America, particularly in respect of cloathing; they are very plain, their dress consists of a slight waistcoast of striped cotton, and a pair of trowsers of the same, and often no coat; if any, it is a short one of some light stuff; in winter a kind of surtout, made of a blanket, and a pair of Indian boots is all the addition; the women also dress light and are not very expensive; happy frugality! May the inhabitants of this blessed climate long continue to cherish thee as their greatest temporary [temporal br] blessing! Manufactures of cotton for their own use also prevail greatly among the industrious Acadians; [113] may the new comer under the free government of the English not be ashamed to follow this excellent example! sorry I am though, that I ¤nd myself obliged to say that when in anno 1772 I was in Orleans I could not forbear to feel the weight and justice of an exclamation made by a French gentleman to me upon seeing some English gentlemen walk upon the Levis “*Dites moy Monsieur (says he) lesquels sont les petits maitres de la Louisiane Messrs. les Anglois ou nous autres,[”] with grief I was obliged tacitly to own the English were. The amazing plenty of the country in its western regions makes them keep princely tables at a small expence, thus I can not call this luxury a fault; to form an idea at what a good table may be furnished, I beg my reader to peruse the following account, as this really stood in the year 1772 in the months of November and December, and in January and February 1773:107 Beef at 13s6. per hundred; fresh pork of the best corn fed 18s. per hundred; country ®our from 12s. to 13s6. the North American ®our 15s6. to 16s6. per hundred; a bushel of good clean full grained Indian corn about 13d.2; a barrel of the best clean merchantable rice being about two gross hundred weight of neat grain, from 9s. to 11s3; sweet potatoes about 8d. per bushel; a sheep of about 12 pound per quarter, if purchased above New Orleans, will cost 6s9, if below, 9s; a tame goose of the best kind from 10d. to 1s; a turkey about 20d. to 2s; if a very ¤ne wild one, some times 2s6; a common dunghill [114] fowl about 6d; a tame duck from 6d. to 8d; venison variable according to the caprice or nation of the hunter, but always very cheap, this has a noble peculiar ¤ne ®avour here; butter is little used, yet the best the Acadians make which is very good sells at about 6d.3; bears oil carefully clari¤ed supplies its place; this is bought at about 3s6 a gallon; and in my opinion, as well as *Tell me Sir, which of us are the Petits Maitres of Louisiana the English or we.

157


A Concise Natural History

158


Bernard Romans

in the opinion of all who once try it, richly deserves the pre-eminence of butter; besides these the lakes Pont-Chartrain, Maurepas, Borgne, and Ouachas supply the country with a vast variety of excellent ¤sh at an exceeding low price, and in winter large quantities of ¤ne oysters and a great choice of water game in high perfection, so low as seldom to be asked more than 6d. for a goose, about 4d. for a duck, mallard, widgeon, or other of that size, and about 2d. for a teal;* all these have here a peculiar ®avour and are much admired; the river abounds likewise in ¤sh, but being very deep and little pains taken to catch them, the different kinds are scarcely known; the planters all keep their hunters for providing their tables, and their yards abound in poultry; small game, such as quails, pheasants, hares, squirrels, snipes, godwits, curlews, meadow larks, ¤eldfares, rice birds, &c. &c. are very frequently had. It is true that Pensacola and Mobile especially the ¤rst are not so abundant; but in regard of meat, venison and ¤sh, I pronounce it to be owing to the indolence of the inhabitants, who content [115] themselves to pay any price ¤xed thereon by one or two butchers, and three or four industrious Spanish hunters and ¤shermen. Mobile has plenty of bread kind already, and notwithstanding the barren miserable appearance of the sea coast here and at Pensacola, their ¤ne rivers will e’re long oblige propitious plenty to rear her at present hidden head. In respect of vegetables, from Mobile westward there is an amazing supply of every kind the year round in their highest perfection and of the ¤nest ®avour; but the barren sand of Pensacola will not admit of gardening in June, July, and August, the proportion of moisture being then too small for that of heat. In the gardens we ¤nd various kinds of cabbage and sallading, carrots, turnips, radishes, skirrets, leaks [leeks br], scallions and other roots, asparagus, artichoakes, cucumbers, green pease (in some the year round) vast variety of beans, and choice of best ®avoured pot herbs, in short every ¤ne esculent plant Europe can boast of, they have beyond description perfect, neither has the bounteous hand of nature here been sparing in the most delicious fruits for the table, nor forgot to stock the ¤elds and woods with ¤ne mushrooms, truf®es and morels for the most exquisite sauces. Hic ver assiduum atque alienis mensibus æstas bis gravidæ pecudes; bis pomis utilis arbos VIRG.108

*All these prices are as near as possible reduced out of the country currency into sterling.

Happy climate where through all seasons of the year the inestimable gifts of Flora and Pomona are common, where snow or ice are very seldom seen, [116] and where the cruel necessity of roasting one’s self before a ¤re is utterly unknown! With respect to drink, among the English inhabitants it is generally water tempered with a moderate quantity of the best West India rum, and among the better sort the Portuguese and Spanish wines; the French drink their favorite claret of the two kinds called vin cahor and vin de ville; the Spaniards add the St. Lucar wine to it, New England rum (that bane of health and happiness) has found its way here also, among the lower classes; a low kind of rum from the French Isles is likewise used by some, and its cheapness makes it preferred for the trade with the savages. A transition to the agriculture of these colonies comes most naturally in course; this science (undoubtedly the most noble and most useful of all employments) has not only had the protection and countenance of Monarchs and other great men, but they have even practised it, our present gracious Sovereign has shewn instances of his care of [for br] the art, and many individuals of rank in England, Holland and France now practise it and study its improvement, and the annals of all nations tell us, that the ®ourishing state of that art was the happy period of their grandeur; and it undoubtedly is and always will be an honourable, innocent, pleasant, and usefull pursuit. The amazing multiplication of mankind in America, which since eighteen years that I have been acquainted with the continent has proceeded nearly, if not wholly, in a triplicate proportion, is entirely owing to this great art, and to the room this wide waste of new world affords for its improvement; this art is the source of our grandeur, [117] and the cause of our happy strides to greatness; the welfare of the people depends thereon, all the consequence of a nation is owing to it, and the national independency of the greatest comunities is in a great measure inseparable from it. In this noble country then (which will afford not only all the necessaries but even the super®uities of life) it ought therefore to be the principal object of our most arduous pursuits; all the products of the torrid Zone as well as of the temperate are capable of being produced in this perfect climate, let us see which of them most deserves our attention. Before I descend to particulars a thought claims my notice; West Florida is beyond measure happy in having its fertile soil more equally divided than the barren sands which were chosen by the* monopolizers of East Florida; *No doubt this was a scheme of the enemies of American population who see themselves every way baf®ed.

159


A Concise Natural History

160


Bernard Romans

these even overlooked the most usefull places there, and planted their baronies in the pine barrens. There let the lords be lumber cutters! The fertile part of West Florida is more equally divided, and there population through agriculture does and must continue to ®ourish, happy circumstance! for which Dr. Stork and the self taught Pennsylvanian Philosopher deserve our perpetual thanks.109 I. Wheat will always be produced in West Florida especially in the higher latitudes on the river, so that all attempts to starve that country by blockade would be vain and frustrated; barley, and oats grow well in all the lighter soils, and rye may be produced in the most barren sands of the province. [118] The cultivation of these are so universally known, that to describe them would be spending paper in vain, but a remark in regard to wheat (which has fallen under my observation) must not be omitted; in the lower latitudes wheat will grow exceeding well till it comes almost to maturity; but then of a sudden a disease called the blast will often take it, and this in one night reduces the hopes of a ¤ne crop into a certainty that the best thing to be done next morning is to burn the straw to clear the ground for some thing else; to prevent this an observant farmer of my acquaintance in Georgia* having found that rye was never subject to this disease, mixed some rye among his wheat, and the ¤eld escaped the blast; he repeated the trial till he was convinced of its ef¤cacy, and then sowed a ¤eld of about ¤ve acres with wheat, surrounding it with a list of about twenty feet of rye; he succeeded in this experiment also, and his repeated trials have now shewn that it may be depended upon as ef¤cacious, and thus wheat may be truly made an universal grain. II. The Zea, Maize or Indian corn is a grain by no means to be neglected; the rich grounds in the N. W. parts of East Florida about Alachua &c. and the lands in the N. E. of West Florida are peculiarly adapted thereto and will yield ¤fty or sixty bushels per acre, the intervale on the Tombechbé and the land on the Mississippi is capable of producing eighty bushels per acre; even the sandy land, or that which is little better than sand, will yield according to seasons from ¤fteen to twenty ¤ve bushels an acre. The vast consumption of this grain in food for mankind is very well known, but its superior [119] goodness for the feeding of swine, poultry, and indeed all animals, joined to its easy culture and prodigious increase makes it deserve a rank before all other grain after wheat: Its culture requires the ground to be thoroughly hoed† or plowed, so as to make it entirely mellow, *Mr. Isaac Young,110 †The savages anciently performed this with the shoulder blade of animals ¤xed on staves.

and break every clod, then holes are made at equal distances in regular rows, and four or ¤ve grains dropped in each and covered; in this part of the husbandry the greatest mistake is often made through over greediness of land, the holes ought to be at the regular distance of ¤ve feet, which will leave room for the horse or hand hoeing it much better, than if it was placed at four feet; some people are so near minded as to plant them only three feet a part, but this prevents the free circulation of air through the rows, of which this grain stands very much in need; this is so evident, that on planting in the same ¤eld some corn at three, at four, or at ¤ve feet distance, (suppose the soil equally good) there will be a difference of six feet in the height of the plants, for the best land can not raise the crowded corn to above ten or twelve feet, whereas that through which the air has free access, is frequently raised to sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty feet;† nor is this the only difference, the crowded corn will not produce grain in any thing like the proportion of that which stands at proper distances; a stem of crowded corn will hardly ever furnish above three ears, and these not above eight inches [120] long, nor have they their extremities ever ¤lled, neither are the rows so compact nor close together as that of corn that has enjoyed more freedom; a stem of which will produce generally from three to ¤ve well grown ears from nine to twelve inches long, compact; and to the end full grown and of a wholesome look; when the young plants are grown about ¤ve or six inches out of the ground, a man ought to go through the ¤eld, and pull up those plants that look least promising leaving only three plants in each hill and the ground must be kept weeded; when at the height of a foot or thereabouts, it must have the ¤rst hoeing, the earth is then to be drawn round upon the root in form of a cucumber hill; and now it may stand till it attains the height of three feet, when it must have a second hoeing, and be cleared of suckers, which will appear in numbers; when the grain is got to the growth of about six or seven feet, or when the tassel or female ®ower begins to appear, it must again be relieved from suckers, and have a third hoeing, throwing the ground well up round its foot; in a large ¤eld these hoeings are most commodiously performed by the hoe-plow drawn by one horse, but in new ¤elds the hand hoe must assist, if not do all the work; all the trouble with which this culture seems burthened is amply repaid by this grateful grain, the time of ripening depends on the climate; the northern climes bring it tardily but the southern ones hastily. After this third hoeing the spike or male ®ower will appear in perfection; you may now strip some super®uous leaves from the lower part of the plant †I write for Florida.

161


A Concise Natural History

162


Bernard Romans

which will prove excellent hay for a horse [121] and some cows that are necessary to keep near the house; the corn having attained nearly its growth and the spikes not shewing any more pollen, which is the impregnating yellow dust, that is seen on it during its ®owering state, we ¤nd the female ®ower or silken tassel change colour; the ears ¤ll and some lower leaves begin to fade, it will not be bad husbandry to cut off all the tops above the uppermost ear; this is left two or three days to dry on the summit of the plant, then tied in sheaves, it is as ¤ne a hay as any known for feeding such animals as are intended to be kept about the farm yard, or in the stable, and every prudent planter will ¤nd it his interest to keep some milch cows (at least) at home; this lopping of the tops is also said to contribute to the ¤lling of the ears and the sooner ripening of them: the corn ripens in four or ¤ve months from the planting, in Florida; the gathering is done by pulling the ear from the stem, and carrying it in baskets to a place where it is stript of all its husk except the inner coat, and then it is kept in some airy loft or granary: and when wanted for use, it is laid in heaps and threshed with ®ails, and afterwards winnowed like other grain. A report has been spread that on the Mississippi it was only necessary to burn the canes, make a hole in the ground and put the grain in, and it will grow without culture; it is true, but less wise men than Solomon will know such a ¤eld at sight to be that of the sluggard, and know the owner by his shabby appearance. To enumerate the vast variety of ways in employing this noble grain for food such as hommany, mush, groats, parched ®our, cold ®our, puddings, [122] Anagreeta* and a multitude of other dishes, that vary in the difference of ripeness, grinding or other ways of dressing it, would be too tedious and un¤t for this work; however the mixing its ®our in equal parts with wheat ®our after macerating the ¤rst in water till the liquor becomes slightly acidulated makes so ¤ne a bread that I could by no means think it just to forget the mention of this process, the meal coarsly ground and cleared of bran, then boiled with a little salt in water, and thus mixed with wheat ®our, makes also a palatable bread of great use to the poor; I hope my reader will excuse this prolixity, so great a staff of life deserves some notice.111 III. Pease, as they are here called but improperly, because species of the Phaseolus and Dolichos are meant, follow the maize in utility: It is well known *Anagreeta is the corn gathered before maturity, and dried in an oven or the hot sun by which means it retains its sweetness and is easily dressed, making a ¤ne mixture in puddings especially with pease, but this is only practised in the provinces of New York and New Jersey.

that most people use them like European pease either green or dry, and some kinds, such as the small white sort, the bonavist, cuckolds increase, the white black eyed pea, the white crowder, and many others, are undoubtedly at least as good; add to this that while young, hull and all, they make a ¤ne esculent dish for the table, and when hulled they are as good as green pease, and as much admired; the hulls after threshing are eagerly sought after by cattle, and increase milk, the hogs fattened with this pulse are the next best pork to those fed with maize; thus they in¤nitely increase the quantity of food; their culture is easy, they are [123] generally now planted between the corn at the second time of hoeing; they want little or no attendance in that case, as the corn serves them for support to climb up by, and the further attendance on the corn also serves the crop of pease; I can not but think this husbandry a very good one as by the time that the Cirrhi take hold of the corn it is suf¤ciently ¤lled to be out of all danger of hurt from this parasitical nature of the pease. I also believe that the haulm left behind supplies the land with suf¤cient manure to re-establish its vegetative vigour, which maize is but too apt to exhaust. The proper pea is not so ¤t for the ¤eld in this part of America, therefore only cultivated in gardens for the purpose of eating them green. IV. The esculent convolvulus, vulgo, sweet potatoe, claims the next place in this list; this root is by agriculture meliorated so much that some of the varieties are by no means inferior to any food we use on the southern tables, although some palates, for instance my own, can hardly accommodate themselves to them; the following list will point out the varieties, in an ascending scale for goodness. 1st. Spanish, or the original root. 2d. Carolina, little superior to the ¤rst. 3d. Brimstone, from its internal colour, with a red skin. 4th. Purple potatoe, having that colour throughout except a very little of the heart. 5th. Bermudas, or round white potatoe. The 1st. 4th. and a few of the 5th. are cultivated in the Floridas. The 1st. is scarce ¤t for the table being very ¤brous, therefore most proper to feed cattle; however [124] pork from hogs fed with them is indifferent, and requires to be hardened a considerable time with corn; it is remarkable that in pork fed with them the fat always separates wholly from the lean, which is likewise the case with that fed on the common peruvian potatoe, vulgarly called the Irish. The 4th and 5th are excellent food and deserve a place on every table; the

163


A Concise Natural History

164


Bernard Romans

4th cut into longitudinal slices and fryed is a very good dish; plainly boiled they are a good succedaneum for bread. The 5th being less sweet and more dry than the others are best for stewing with meat, such as fat pork or beef, or a fat goose or duck, to make what is called an Haricot; their very mealy texture renders them the most proper in room of bread, or to mix with ®our and make bread of. They are a pro¤table crop, and require a light sandy soil which must be made very clean and mellow; they are planted in beds or hills, being propagated from pieces that have what is called an eye in them; they require two or three hoeings, and with this management will produce from three hundred to ¤ve hundred bushels per acre; even the last, if we reckon ten hills necessary to make a bushel. About July, in rainy weather, slips are taken from them, and planted in beds to procure a crop of small ones for next years seed. The very same treatment is here necessary for the peruvian potatoe, but it wants oftener covering because the heat of the summer sun would strengthen the poisonous juices (with which this genus of night shade abounds) in those that might be exposed to the air; therefore they are [125] un¤t for the ¤eld in this climate, nor will they bear to be kept any time but in the garden; they will yield six or eight crops yearly, of a very good kind for the table. V. Buckwheat justly deserves the next rank, it being the most fattening grain to all animals, but especially hogs and poultry; which last are always surprisingly multiplied where this grain is raised; to man it is also an excellent food; it is well known that in Philadelphia buckwheat cakes are one of the articles of that city at their breakfasts; it is also a noble crop near an apiary, and will multiply honey greatly; it requires a light loamy soil well broke, and to be sowed very thin, it improves land where ever it is planted. VI. The panicum or Guinea corn is next in this scale of the produce of the earth; it differs from maize in being more dif¤cult to be reduced into food, and being of too hot a nature for brutes, especially poultry, who will become blind by eating it often; it impoverishes land, but when sown at broad cast will yield a ¤ne and pro¤table crop of hay for such as are inclined to keep horses or milch cows near home, nor has it in this case so bad an effect on the soil.112 VII. Rice though so lucrative a commodity did not deserve an earlier place in this enumeration, because it is not properly a necessary article in the human Œconomy in this country but a staple branch of trade, not likely to increase the number of pro¤table members of society; however notwithstanding it is (for our use) only ¤t for puddings, and to put in soops, or to make the wafer-like bread called journey cakes in Carolina, yet it must be

mentioned here on account [126] of its usefulness in feeding Negroes, cattle and poultry. Its culture is in wet grounds, where in the dry season it is sowed in drills eighteen inches apart and kept very clean, ¤rst by hoeing, and afterwards by letting water on just suf¤cient to destroy the weeds, and not to drown the rice by covering its top; for rice will grow in any soil though it loves watery ones best; but the reason of letting water on is more to suppress other plants than to forward the growth of rice; for the crop grass and other weeds are kept under by being covered; cover the rice and you will also destroy it; and I have seen good crops in high lands, when the season was but moderately wet; it is therefore to save labour that the planter chuses wet ground, but should he not have the water at his command, the noxious growth in dry weather, or a profusion of water in wet weather, would equally destroy the crop; it is therefore necessary that great banks and deep ditches should be made to secure the crop, and that is no work for new planters to begin. The grain in the rough is very noble food for all quadrupeds and poultry; to manufacture it there is a great deal of labour necessary; when manufactured a quart per diem will very plentifully feed a working Negroe, and the dust, beaten husk &c. that comes off will cause all animals on the plantation to be very fat, especially turkeys, which no place on earth furnishes equal to those on a rice plantation; it will require eighteen or twenty bushels of rough grain to make a manufactured barrel of 500 pounds weight: The time of planting is from the end of the frost [127] to the 10th of June, and the season for reaping is generally in October; a second crop will rise ¤t for fodder. In the twelve mile swamp in East Florida I have seen a second crop come to perfection, and no doubt in the grand marsh in latitude 25, 30, in that province it would always yield twice.113 An acre will produce from sixteen to eighteen hundred pound weight, manufactured grain, and one Negroe will attend three acres in a very compleat manner. This grain causes a great consumption of cypress and pine wood to be made into casks; consequently a great deal of coopers labour is necessary, in which the planter ought to be obliged to employ white men, it not being harder labour than is consistent with our temperament and constitution. The process of manufacturing rice in a great measure resembles that of peeling barley; the planter who has water at command manufactures by a water mill, consequently cheaper than he who is obliged to do it by horses or by the manual labour of his slaves. This grain has one great article in its favour, that is the number of hands it employs in transporting and exporting it, who may be truly said to live by it.

165


A Concise Natural History

166


Bernard Romans

The machines for manufacturing it have been so often described and ¤gured, that they hardly ought to be introduced into a work that bears the name of concise. VIII. There is no doubt but beans would be found of use, were they cultivated on the strong clay grounds which are at some distance [128] from the Mississippi, and such as the lands on the ridges of the Yasoo, and in the Chicasaw nation; but as long as the canes, reeds, and the numberless natural grasses are in such abundance, this article is not yet worth attending to, any more than crops of turnips, carrots, or cabbage, which however would undoubtedly answer here for culture in the ¤eld as well as in any other part of the earth. IX. The arti¤cial grasses114 found here are 1st: That kind of grass known in the islands by the name of dog grass, and in Carolina and Georgia by that of crop grass, and by the French of Florida chiendent; this so greatly resembles the annual meadow grass, that I would rank it as one of that class; its leaves are broader; this rises naturally after the ground is broke up and will continue in the ground for two or three years, when the ground being again plowed up, a fresh crop ensues, and this is all the culture it wants; in Carolina and Georgia, this is apt to plague the planter much by reason of its continual renovation, and the strong matting of its roots whereby it renders the surface of the earth in a great measure impenetrable to the hoe, wherefore they wish to destroy it; but in places where pasture is scarce and eagerly desired, they would do well to consider its excellent quality in fattening cattle, and the fondness all cattle shew for it; and if instead of trying clover and other foreign grasses, which have so often baf®ed their utmost efforts, they would encourage this easily cultivated grass by plowing their poorest grounds once in two years, they would soon ¤nd themselves amply repaid by their long wished for desideratum, [129] pasture; this grass will grow kindly in the poorest soils of Florida. 2dly, A second species of the same kind with narrow leaves called by the French Herbe au cheval, from the fondness of horses for it; in Carolina it is called nutt grass from a nutt found at its root; this, when once it takes in the ground, is as easily entertained as the ¤rst and makes a very good pasture on poor ground, but it must be well fenced against hogs, which being very fond of the nutts would root all up in a short time. It may be said that I describe these grasses as natural yet call them arti¤cial, but when we re®ect, that they require some kind of culture, the name of arti¤cial can not be thought improper. 3dly, A grass not ill resembling silver hair grass, which is called from the colour of its seed, black seed grass, makes an excellent pasture on the meanest

sand we ¤nd in the country; the seed is easily procured in Carolina, Georgia and East Florida. 4thly, Scud grass vulgarly called Scots grass is a noble grass on poor land, it grows to the height of thirty inches and upwards;* an experiment made by Mr. Wegg at Pensacola115 convinces me that this grass will grow in the sandy land of the provinces; the seed or plant may be procured at Jamaica where I knew a gentleman of the name of Jones make 1500l. per annum of a penn by means [130] of this grass alone: Cattle prefer it to every other. 5thly, The Panicum and maize are of use as grasses I have already shewn how. 6thly, A species of Dolichos lately introduced into Georgia from China although not properly a grass, yet as it thrives to admiration there and yields four or ¤ve crops per annum, I think it not improper to recommend, as deserving cultivation for feeding cattle, the more so as all kinds are fond of it. 7thly, Experience has taught us that sain-soin, lucerne, clover and timothy grass thrive not in the eastern part of these provinces, the sun being too hot for them in summer, at which season clover in particular can not resist it out of the shade; on the western part of West Florida I believe they might answer, but we need not yet look out for pasture there, while that noble grass Indian reed (canna) is so abundant. X. Sago might be here produced as well as in Georgia, for the tree from which the basis of this drug is taken abounds particularly in East Florida; every body knows of what a vast use it is.116 XI. Sesamen or oily grain, This was introduced by some of the Negroes from the coast of Africa, into Carolina, and is the best thing yet known for extracting a ¤ne esculent oil; it will grow in any sandy ground, even luxuriantly, and yields more oil than any thing we have as yet any knowledge of: Capt. P. M’Kay of Sunbury in Georgia,117 told me that a quantity of this seed sent to Philadelphia, yielded him twelve quarts per bushel; incredible as this may appear, I have the greatest reason to believe him; the ¤rst run of this oil is always transparent, the second [131] expression, which is procured by the addition of hot water, is muddy, but on standing it will deposit a white sediment, and become as limpid as the ¤rst; this oil is at ¤rst of a slightly pungent taste, but soon loses that and will never grow rancid even if left exposed to the air; the Negroes use it as food either raw, toasted, or boiled in their soups and are very fond of it, they call it Benni. *In wet lands in Jamaica it will grow four or ¤ve feet high though the soil be sandy. It is propagated by cutting it in pieces, leaving a joint to each piece, this stuck into wet swampy ground soon grows and propagates others, so that it becomes a very close matted sod; I have seen it called gramen panicum.

167


A Concise Natural History

168


Bernard Romans

All the culture it requires is to be sown in drills about eighteen inches apart and by frequent hoeings to be kept clean. XII. The ground nut also introduced by the Blacks from Guinea, is next after this for its easy cultivation, a good kind of oil that does not soon grow rancid, and the great quantity it yields; but the earth does not produce the seed in such plenty as the last, and it takes up more room.118 XIII. The pumpkins as cultivated in the ¤elds here, being of an easy culture in the poorest soils, and yielding a great and bene¤cial increase of food, should not be forgot, although on account of their being chie®y used as a sauce I have given them this late place; their culture is so easy as to require little or no attendance after the seed is in the ground; they overgrow every kind of grass or weed, and are generally planted by dropping some seeds in the potatoe or corn ¤elds, and their increase is immense; was the shield shaped squash from the north added to this, it would prove a bene¤cial addition; all these kinds are eagerly eaten by horses and cattle of every sort, and they increase milk. XIV. Liquor is as necessary as victuals; I [132] would therefore recommend the culture of vines, which will here succeed with certainty; ask the French inhabitants and they will tell you, that they once were in a very fair way to make their own wines at least, until an order for the suppression of the vineyards came from France; the remains of these vineyards in many places yet shew the practicability of this scheme; the Spaniards continue the proscription, but why should not we make this pro¤table use of a country, whose soil and climate are evidently inviting us to this attempt, and which experience has taught us are adapted to it? XV. Apples and pears are here of very good quality, but are never likely to become an object of attention by growing in quantities suf¤cient to make cyder and perry; but peaches grow here of the ¤nest ®avour, and in the highest perfection, on standard trees, and therefore are ¤t to be planted in orchards. It is well known that hogs fattened by them make an excellent pork; the super®uous quantity would not be ill employed in that way, but as in Virginia they have set us the example, why can we not in Florida also distill their juices, and by means of that spirit which becomes excellent by age, at least partially banish the money draining useless article rum? This tree should be grafted not so much on account of the choice of fruit (Florida produces no indifferent ones) as because the tree in this climate, especially in sandy soils, is not so lasting when raised from the nut as when grafted on its own or any other proper stock. XVI. Sugar is a matter at present of mere speculation, yet it is made already near Orleans, although [133] acknowledged not to yield the pro¤t of a

rice or indigo plantation. At or near New Smyrna some is also produced, and rum has been made there. Some of the lands between the latitude 25 and 27, would undoubtedly yield it to advantage particularly at the river Rattones and the grand marsh.119 We gather from Horace and Virgil that severe frosts were common in their time at Rome; now ice is scarce known naturally there; so while I have been acquainted with New York government, which is about seventeen years, it seems to have altered its climate four or ¤ve degrees more southward;* of this we have many striking proofs; this being owing to the opening of the country it is not unlikely but in time, by clearing the woods of Florida, that country may be brought to produce sugar to advantage, till then its culture merits no place here. XVII. Oranges of various kinds are worth notice as they are on many accounts usefull in drink and sauces, and their leaves a good fodder for some esculent animals, such as sheep, rabbits and goats; they thrive extremely well throughout all Florida. XVIII. Olives are as yet a matter of speculation, but as the wild olive is found here, and the cultivated one has already shown its propensity to a naturalization in this country, I make no doubt but they will become a grand article here; their utility is so well known that it requires no [134] comment; their culture can not yet claim room in this work. XIX. †Hops grow spontaneously through all this country. XX. Having now gone through most of the different esculent productions of the earth, I will examine the merits of those which are serviceable in commerce, be they for manufactures or otherways; and among these indigo justly calls for the ¤rst rank.

*The later appearance of frost and the earlier arrival of spring, but above all, the visits paid of late years by some species of southern ¤shes to New York harbour, such as the mullet, porgy and some others are evident proofs of this. †In some of the Swedish provinces, a strong kind of cloth is said to be prepared from hop stalks; and in the transactions of the swedish acadamy for the year 1750 there is an account of an experiment made in consequence of that report. Of the stalks, gathered in autumn, about as much was taken as equalled in bulk a quantity of ®ax, that would have produced a pound after preparation. The stalks were put into water and kept covered therewith during the winter: in March they were taken out, dried in a stove, and dressed as ®ax. The prepared ¤laments weighed very nearly a pound, and proved ¤ne, soft and white; they were spun and woven into six ells of ¤ne strong cloth. The author Mr. Schissler observes, that hop stalks take much longer time to rot than ®ax; and that if not fully rotted, the woody part will not separate, and the cloth will neither prove white nor ¤ne. Dr. Lewis’s notes on Neuman’s chymistry 4to, London 1759, page 429.120

169


A Concise Natural History

170


Bernard Romans

The description of this plant will more properly appear in the botanical part of the work. For its culture it requires a middling rich loose soil, and the ¤eld ought to be as nearly as possible a perfect level; it will grow in any soil from the heaviest to the lightest, but rich hammock, or oak land, of a moist nature, is the best adapted to this purpose; the ground should be thoroughly cleaned, and reduced to a perfect garden mould; this is the most laborious part of [135] the culture, and so absolutely necessary that no crops can be expected without it. Seed of the best kind abounds on the Mississippi, about four bushels of seed are requisite for an acre, it must be sown in drills about two feet apart; the time of approaching rain is always best; the season for sowing sets in the beginning of March and may be continued down till May; if the season is any thing favourable it will afford ¤ve cuttings between March and November; seven weeks being a long allowance between each two cuttings; we must be very cautious about cutting, for if that be done in dry weather it will infallibly destroy the plant; but in rainy weather there is no manner of risque of this; by this treatment and care, the plant is continued for years together in the warmer climates; it ought to be cut as soon as there is any appearance of blossom, ten weeks from planting will generally ripen the seed perfectly; when cut, it is tied in bundles and carried to the vats. The vats are three in number and ought to be, the ¤rst very large, the second one third less, and the third yet less: At the head of the large vat stands a pump to ¤ll it with water; these vats particularly the ¤rst or steeping vat, ought to be made of very hard timber; in this steeping vat the weed is thrown together, and pressed down with pieces of live oak or other solid and ponderous timber; it is then covered with water by means of the pump; here it remains to ferment; the crisis whereby to know the exact time it is to remain in this vat is when the liquor thickens, begins violently to effervesce and assumes a purplish blue colour; this will be effected in a greater or less [136] space of time from eight to twenty hours according to the temperature of the atmosphere. The steeping vat projects with one edge about three feet over the second or beating vat; in this edge the bottom of the ¤rst has a hole and plug in it, this plug must be drawn as soon as the above signs of the perfection of fermentation appear, to draw off the liquor from the weed, which last is absolutely useless; except perhaps it might be employed to good purpose in a saltpetre manufacture. In this second or beating vat as soon as the liquor is in, it must be beat or stirred by a process similar to churning; this is a laborious work and used to

be performed by Negroes, who draw up and down a lever that has either one or two bottomless square buckets at each end; but of late horses have been employed in large works; this churning is continued till the dying particles are separated from the liquor, or as it were suf¤ciently congealed to form a body or mass; here lies the secret of the art, for if the beating is ceased too soon a part of the dying matter remains undissolved, and if beat too long some part will again dissolve; only experience can teach this criterion, and there is only one method to try it which is by taking up some of the liquor in a phial or cup and observing whether the dying matter is inclined to depose itself or not; all farther theoretical lessons are in vain, the young planter must have recourse to practice. Lime water is in the English colonies used to hasten the separation, this I am inclined to believe spoils the indigo, neither the French, Dutch, nor Spaniards use any in their plantations. [137] The indigo being arrived at this crisis the churning ceases, and it is left to subside at the bottom of the vat; when the liquor begins to look of a faint green transparent colour the water must be drawn off, ¤rst by a cock ¤xed at a certain height in the side of this second vat, till you come near to the super¤cies of the Residuum which is the indigo; then another cock corresponding with the third vat must be opened to let the Residuum run into this last vat, where it remains to settle a little longer in order that it may totally discharge itself of all the tinging matter,* it is then put into bags of the form of Hippocrates’s sleave to drain it from all super®uous humidity; these bags must hang in the shade. When all the water is drained from it, the remainder, which has all the appearance of mud is put into very shallow boxes, where it is left to dry; when it begins to have the consistence of clay ¤t to make brick with, it must be cut with a very thin bladed knife into square pieces, and then further left to become quite dry, which is the state in which indigo comes to us. This last process must be all done under a shed where the air has free access but the sun none; should the sun touch indigo in this state, it would exhale all the tinging matter and leave the mass in a colourless state, similar to slate in appearance; beware also of moisture for that will keep it dissolved and incline it to putrefacton. Some planters press their bags in a box of about [138] six feet long three feet wide and two deep, having holes in the bottom to let the water off, and a strong thick board ¤tting exactly in it; in this box the indigo bags are laid *This will be compleatly deposited in about 8 or 10 hours time, the Residuum must be strained through a horse hair sieve, previous to its being put into bags in order to have it entirely pure and free from extraneous matter.

171


A Concise Natural History

172


Bernard Romans

and the board with a number of weights on it, but whether this method is better than hanging them in a shed to dry I know not. I should have observed, that in the drying shed the pieces must be carefully turned three or four times a day, and that two young Negroes with a bush, wing, or bunch of feathers, ought to be employed in fanning the ®ies out of the drying shed, as they are hurtful to indigo; be cautious also in packing it in barrels not to put it in till it is thoroughly dryed. The dimensions of a set of vats in Carolina is about sixteen feet square, and three feet deep, in the clear, for the steeper; and the battery twelve feet square and four and a half feet deep for every seven acres of indigo; they make them of two and a half inch plank of cypress, and the joints or studs of live oak; to these the planks are well secured by seven inch spikes; such a set will last seven or eight years. The best indigo is called ®otant or ®ora; this is light, pure and approaching to hard; it ®oats on water, is easily in®ammable, and is almost totally consumed by ¤re; the colour is a ¤ne dark blue inclining to violet, and by rubbing it with the nail it assumes the colour of old copper. The next best is more ponderous, and is called violet or gorge de pigeon, its colour being alluded to; these two are best for dying or staining linen and cotton. The third kind is of a copper colour deriving [139] its name from the coppery appearance it exhibits on being broke; this is the weightiest of all the merchantable indigo, and therefore the desideratum of the planters; and is most used for the woollen manufacture. The inferior sorts are not worth describing as they are unsaleable and un¤t for use; they discover themselves by ®intiness, or a muddy soft crumbling appearance accompanied by a dull blue colour, often appearing even like slate. An indigo work should always be remote from the dwelling house on account of the disagreeable ef®uvia of the rotten weed and the quantity of ®ies it draws; by which means it is also scarce possible to keep any animal on an indigo plantation in any tolerable case, the ®y being so troublesome, that even poultry thrive but little where indigo is made; nor is there scarce a possibility to live in a house nearer than a quarter of a mile to the vats; the stench at the work is likewise horrid: This is certainly a great inconvenience, but it is the only one this pro¤table business is subject to. XXI. Cotton being so very useful a commodity that scarce any other exceeds it, and an article of which we can never raise too much (for like all other things, the more it is multiplied the more its consumption increases) it therefore behoves me to mention it as second in rank: We, by following the

example of the industrious Acadians, will do well to manufacture all our necessary clothing in Florida of this staple, and although it has not yet been raised in a suf¤cient extent to export a considerable quantity thereof, yet when we consider the number of manufactures in Lancashire, [140] Derbyshire, and Cheshire that consume this beni¤cial commodity either alone or in mixture with silk, wool, ®ax, &c. and that England imports all the rough materials from abroad (chie®y from the Levant) to so great an amount as near 400,000l. sterling value, we may perhaps ¤nd it worthy of a more universal propagation; I shall, in hopes that this may take place, give the method of culture and of cleaning this produce of our earth. The natural history of the plant and its characters, species and varieties will be found in the botanical account. Cotton will grow in any soil, even the most meagre and barren sand we can ¤nd. The sort we must cultivate here is the Gossypium Anniversarium or Xylon Herbaceum; also known by the name of green seeded cotton, which grows about four or ¤ve feet in height.121 Give this plant a dry soil and further it will cost you little trouble or attention; it must be planted in rows at regular distances about six feet apart; plant the seed in rainy weather and in about ¤ve months time the ¤bres will be compleatly formed and the pods ¤t to gather, which will be known by their being compleatly expanded; it must now be carried to the mill of which take the following description. It is a strong frame of four studs, each about four feet high and joined above and below by strong transverse pieces; across this are placed two round well polished iron spindles, having a small groove through their whole length, and by means of treddles are by the workman’s foot put in directly opposite motions to each other; the [141] workman sits before the frame having a thin board, of seven or eight inches wide and the length of the frame, before him; this board is so ¤xed to the frame that it may be moved, over again, and near the spindle; he has the cotton in a basket near him, and with his left hand spreads it on this board along the spindles which by their turning draw the cotton through them being wide enough to admit the cotton, but too near to permit the seed to go through, which being thus forced to leave the cotton in which it was contained, and by its rough coat entangled; falls on the ground between the workmans legs while the cotton drawn through falls on the other side into an open bag suspended for the purpose under the spindles. The French in Florida have much improved this machine by a large wheel, which turns two of these mills at once, and with so much velocity as by means of a boy, who turns it, to employ two negroes at hard labour

173


A Concise Natural History

174


Bernard Romans

to shovel the seed from under the mill: One of these machines I saw at Mr. Krebs at Pasca Oocooloo, but as it was partly taken down, he claiming the invention was very cautious in answering my questions, I cannot pretend to describe it accurately; I am informed that one of those improving mills will deliver seventy or eighty pounds of clean cotton per diem. The packing is done in large canvas bags, which must be wetted as the cotton is put in, that it may not hang to the cloth and may slide better down; the bag is suspended between two trees, posts or beams and a negro with his feet stamps it down; these bags are made to contain from three hundred and ¤fty to four hundred weight; with [142] about twenty slaves moderately working a very large piece of poor ground might be ¤nely improved so as to yield to its owner a ¤ne annual income by means of a staple which is much in demand in England, and here is raised by no means inferior in whiteness and ¤neness as well as length of ¤bres to that of the Levant. XXII. The Mulberry, deserves our next notice for a two fold cloathing it provides us with. Among my botanical articles the reader will ¤nd the description of one of this class, which I have all the reason in the world to believe to be the Morus papyrifera and which I have on page 20 of this volume distinguished by the name of Morus foliis palmatis, cortice ¤lamentosa, fructu nigro, radice tinctoria. This tree is found in abundance in the North Western parts of Florida: The chactaws put its inner bark in hot water along with a quantity of ashes and obtain ¤laments, with which they weave a kind of cloth not unlike a coarse hempen cloth; I would propose to boil the bark in a strong alkaline Lixivium, by which means I make no doubt but a very ¤ne and durable thread of the nature of cotton, ®ax or hemp might be obtained; the root of this same tree likewise yields an excellent yellow dye: But I shall here treat of the article, which is most commonly known to be produced by means of the mulberry tree, this is silk: A very short time about six weeks in the year will suf¤ce for all the labour requisite to acquire this valuable article, and that labour is so light as only need children to attend it[.] The gathering of the leaves being the most laborious part of the work I would advise the sowing [143] the seed as it were at broad cast, so that it may spring up in form of wide hedges of about ten feet breadth leaving a lane of two feet between each pair, by this treatment the leaves may be gathered by means of a pair of sheers or if the hedges are narrower the hand may do it, without the disagreable necessity of climbing trees, which is always more or less attended with some danger, and as this is a female business, with indecency. I am convinced mulberry bushes will grow thus and yield abundance of

leaves and therefore this method is eligible before groves or orchards, which take up much room and have a dirty effect during the fruit season. All the species of mulberry trees grow kindly in Florida and some people pretend the white kind to be best, but on my strictest enquiries I could not ¤nd in what manner this affects the worms, but I would have the silk planter be very cautious if he has one kind in his nursery, strictly to banish the other, because this change of leaves is certainly the reason of some of the diseases attending the worms: The remainder of the silk culture is no more than to keep the worms well fed, and the apartment where they are kept thoroughly clean; when they begin to acquire a certain transparency, the period of their spinning or resolving themselves into a Chrysalis is at hand; then it is necessary to put up bundles of some slight thin twigs between the shelves. The wild or dogs fennel affords a ready and proper material for it; here the worms will naturally enough mount upon and pitch on a place where to metamorphose themselves into a cocoon; in Georgia we have a ¤lature, likewise at Purysburg;122 but as there are none in Florida I will subjoin [144] the following account of its preparation for the manufactury. 1st. The cocoons are to be put into an oven just hot enough to deprive the Chrysalis it involves of life, without hurting, the ¤bres of the cocoon: A heat something below Fahrenheits scale for boiling water will effect this: without this precaution the insect eats its way out and destroys the thread of silk. 2dly. It must then be put into a copper with water just on the boil and kept so, this will discharge the glutinous matter from the cocoon and discover the end of the clew; then taking several of these ends together they are gently reeled off, and afterwards spun and prepared for the loom. This process is hurtful to the elasticity and strength of the silk, though it does not deprive it of its gloss: Therefore if we could attain the knowledge how the raw silk is managed in the Levant, it would be the most eligible way; all we know about this is, that it is performed without hot water: this is called raw silk and comes in bales to England and other manufacturing countries. The refuse cocoons either damaged by the insect or other ways, are carded in Europe, and are then improperly stiled raw silk; this should not be confounded with the above named from the Levant, being by no means equal to it. After the silk is reeled off, we ¤nd some irregular coarser kind on the inner division of the cocoon; damaged cocoons are mixed with this, as also the inner division next over the Chrysalis, after being steeped in warm water to dissipate its gelatinous parts; this mixture is carded and called ®oretting. [145] All these carded silks loose their lustre by that process.

175


A Concise Natural History

176


Bernard Romans

Of this commodity there is at present imported into Britain *From Spain and Italy to the value of †From Turkey, the East Indies, and China,

£.1,500,000 400,000 £.Sterling 1,900,000

This account shews suf¤ciently how bene¤cial this business would be to America, would we by our industry in a very light labor try to oblige England to let this money circulate here instead of among Spaniards, Italians, Chinese, and Turks; which is by no means impossible, since the bounteous hand of nature has furnished us with the requisite plant among the number of those that are indigenous in Florida. XXIII. The Carthamus Tinctorius or saf®ower is likewise found among the indigenous plants in the western part of Florida; this useful dying weed requires but little cultivation, and well deserves our attention in that country.123 XXIV. Hemp and ®ax (according to a very ingenious performance‡) Britain imports from the Baltic annually to the value of 500,000 l. sterling; another great encouragement for Florida; neither Carolina nor Georgia have any lands [146] comparable to our ¤ne lands on the Mississippi, and yet they have already exported considerable quantities of hemp, and thus set Florida an example well worthy of imitation; the lands are so rich on the Mississippi, that neither of these two impoverishing plants will exhaust them, therefore let us apply ourselves to this cultivation, which is so universally known as not to need description; thoroughly pulverizing the earth, and not sowing it too thick are almost the only things to be attended to in its cultivation, and the proper criterion of rotting the ligneous parts of the plant, so that they may be easily separated in the brake, is the only one of moment in preparing it for embarkation. Add to this, that ere long we shall have extensive settlements producing immense quantities of materials for exportation on and near the banks of that almost unbounded interior ocean the Mississippi, for three thousand miles up it; not to mention the products of the river Ohio, the Shawanese, Ouabache, Hogoheegee, Yasoo, Missouri, St. Peter. St. Francis, and the red and black *Thoughts on the times, and the silk manufactory 8vo page 7, anno 1765.124 †Political essays concerning the present state of the British empire, 4to. page 191, London 1772.125 ‡Museum Rusticum, vol. I, page 457.126

rivers with many others of inferior note, all emptying themselves in it, where there is so much room for the increase of people; which always proceeds in proportion as there is more space for them to sit down in, this is beyond reply veri¤ed by so amazing a rapidity of increase as America has experienced within these twenty years, being no less than in triplicate proportion. Now it is evident, that to carry off the produce of this vast tract, it will be necessary to build ships in every part of it which together with their bulky commodities must be sold abroad, as very few [147] small craft will be suf¤cient ro [to] bring up the tri®ing returns the inhabitants of this happy country may stand in need of; this being the case let us consider that timber, iron, lead, &c. are found up this river, but without rigging and sails they cannot constitute a ship; likewise we must recollect, that rigging and sails are bulky articles and would cost much for carrying up so immense a distance. Think not reader, that these are chimerical ideas, by no means; every part above named has already in some degree experienced more or less the effects of the industrious ax and hoe in the hands of the Herculean sons of America. There is a very strong kind of ¤bre called Indian hemp in Florida; I would recommend an inquiry into what it is; the savages use it and I am persuaded we should ¤nd it worth improving. The use of ®ax is too wellknown and its necessity so evident, that a description or recommendation of its culture and preparation would be super®uous. The North American Annona, the Lime, and Mahoe tree; all indigenous in Florida, yield each a serviceable bark of great use if properly manufactured. XXV. Tobacco is a source of great riches in this country; the French have proved that this plant may be produced in great quantities and of the best quality; this may be made an article of great emolument especially as that trade is excessively on the decline in Virginia and Maryland, but if we cannot keep it clear from the multiplicity of incumbrances it is saddled with in those colonies, such as a trade by factors and many etcæteras [148] which makes its value to the planter very inconsiderable, I would rather cultivate none; it is a rank luxuriant, impoverishing vegetable, requiring a deep rich soil such as the Mississippi alone affords here; therefore it will undoubtedly thrive; its culture is almost identically the same as that of the Zea, but I would advise the planting it further apart, such as six feet at least; the only material thing this culture differs in, is because the seed being exceedingly diminutive in size it must be sown in beds of rich new ground, which has been well manured, with the ashes of the brush cut off from it; from hence it is transplanted in regular rows at the above named distances: In about three

177


A Concise Natural History

178


Bernard Romans

weeks time it will be advanced to the growth of a foot: Now the ¤rst hoeing takes place, and suckers and worms begin to appear; from both these the plants must be carefully cleared. The plants are at this period out of danger of being scratched out of the ground by a large ®ock of turkies which may now be turned into the ¤eld, who will not touch the plants but carefully look for the worms that infect them, of which those birds are very fond; and thus they will save a great deal of labour, but the suckers must be attended to by human labour, which is also required to keep the ground clear from weeds; when the plant attains the heighth of eighteen inches it must be deprived of its head and stripped of its lowermost leaves, reserving a few with their heads on for seed: In about eleven weeks after they are transplanted the plants cease growing and the leaves assume a variegated colour of different green shades; this is an indication of their maturity; [149] they are then cut and laid in heaps to sweat for about sixteen hours; next day they are carried to a shed, so constructed as to admit a free circulation of air through every part thereof, but well covered against rain; this is the practice in Virginia; in some countries they keep all the light out except where the rays cannot immediately re®ect on the tobacco; in this shed they are hung with their tops downwards for about six weeks; then taking advantage of a day when the atmosphere is pretty much loaden with moisture, they are laid on a kind of ®oor of poles, and left to sweat for about ten or twelve days; now the leaves are stripped off and the tops kept separate from the middle and the lower leaves; the uppermost leaves being the best tobacco and the lower the worst; they are then made up into very close packed bundles called in Florida Carrots, which are held together by a string of bark; there are at present but two sorts produced viz Nanquitoche and Pointe coupée, the ¤rst in¤nitely superior to the second. XXVI. Pitch, tar and turpentine being the produce of vegetables will not improperly come in here; the process of making the common tar is by splitting the heart of the pitch pine, fallen down (with which the ground is covered in the eastern and southern parts of Florida) into small sticks of the length of about three feet, and arrange them into a kiln of a urcular [circular] form; but as this is a process hardly to be learned by theory, I will recommend it to the inquisitive reader to inform himself at a tar kiln great or small, which are a very common occurrence thoughout this continent. [150] Sometimes this kind of tar is made of pine knots without splitting. The green tar has not yet been made in Florida and until I gave some account of the process to some of the planters there, it was intirely unknown in the country. This is made from trees that have been tapped for turpentine, and con-

tinued running for about three years, by chopping the bark off by degrees to twelve or ¤fteen feet high; they are then cut down and split into small sticks; and the tar is made by the same operation as the common sort. Notwithstanding the great quantities of pitch pine in Florida, turpentine has not yet been made there; even in February 1773 when I was at Orleans, there being a necessity for some turpentine on board of the vessel (in which I came from thence) the Captain was obliged to pay sixteen dollars for a half cask of it, and I have been informed, that even then it was sold in that town for medicinal uses at a great price by the pint and quart. The process is very simple; a hole is cut in the tree on the side most exposed to the solar rays (in large trees two of these may take place) these holes are cut slanting downwards leaving the bottom concave and large enough to introduce a calebash to dip out the gum, which deposits its self in the bottom of the hole; this hole is called a box, and the turpentine is dipped out of it and put in casks: Florida, especially the Eastern and Southern parts, has the advantage for this business of the more Northern provinces by not being tied down to any particular season, the climate admitting of this work the year round. [151] Pitch is in this country generally made by burning the tar in the clay hole into which it runs from the kiln but I would recommend the use of a still for this purpose, which is agreeable to the practice in Sweden and Germany; by this means a very valuable essential oil is saved which arises in the boiling; this oil is called Oleum pini or Oleum tædæ. It is of great use with painters, varnishers &c. on account of its drying quality, it soon becomes thick of a consistence like balsam: Along with this oil comes over a watery liquor, which the workmen injudiciously throw away; it is a good acid spirit, capable of being applied to sundry useful purposes: Neuman says he knew a person in France, who had saved by it several thousand dollars.* Resin commonly called Rosin is best made by distillation also, a considerable quantity of oil would be obtained, and the expence of a still would be amply repaid by these savings. As pitch and tar are often used to pay roofs of houses &c. and the addition of red lead &c. made use of, which has proved ineffectual, and as the same observation takes place with regard to ships bottoms, w[h]ere water (as does air in the former case) corrodes the pitch, I think it not improper to insert the following note of the ingenious Dr. Lewis on Neuman’s chymistry: “An anonymous correspondent of the Swedish academy observes, that the tarred *Neuman’s chymistry 4to. page 288, London 1759.

179


A Concise Natural History

180


Bernard Romans

or pitched boards or shingles, with which houses in many places are covered are soon damaged by the heat and moisture, the sun’s heat melting off the tar so that the wood remains bare. Some have endevoured to [152] prevent this, by laying on the tar late in the year, that the winter’s cold might ¤x it; an expedient of some use, but very far from being effectual, for however the tar may be hardned by the winter, the return of summer soon makes it soft again. Others have mixed smith’s cinders with the tar, which instead of mending the matter makes it worse, all ponderous substances do the same. He says, he has never found any addition comparable to coal dust (that of charcoal he seems to mean) which is to be stirred into tar made hot in such a quantity as to make it thick: The mixture is to be laid on with wooden trowels in a hot day: tar thus prepared, he says, is ¤xed, never runs, binds and hardens surprisingly from heat and moisture and shines better than oil varnish.” Pitch burnt in a close furnace, so that no smoak escapes causes a soot to arise, which is the lamp black so much in use. The last quoted gentleman in the same page* favours us with the following annotations: As I think other words than his own, cannot be so descriptive of any process whatever, I hope my reader will excuse these quotations: “What is called lamp black (originally perhaps the soot collected from lamps) is obtained in different parts of Germany, Sweden, &c. not from pure resin or pitch, but from the dregs and pieces of bark of the trees separated in their preparation, for making common resin, the impure juice collected from incisions in pine and ¤r-trees is boiled down with a little [153] water, and strained whilst hot through a sack, on cooling the resin congeals upon the surface of the water, and is then packed up in barrels; it is distinguished according to its color, into white, yellow and brown. The dross left on straining is burnt for lampblack in a low oven, from which the smoke is conveyed by a long passage into a square chamber, having an aperture in the top, upon which a large sack is fastened: the soot concretes partly in the sack, which is occasionally removed, and partly in the chamber and canal, from which it is swept out.” XXVII. Gum elemi is a resin ¤t for many medicinal uses, and the product of a species of Pistachia, very common in the southern and southeastern parts of Florida;127 the wood in itself is not valuable, but as the gum is one of those articles, that are generally brought to England in a sophisticated state: this tree is worthy our attention, and may prove a serviceable article to the country; but this is not the only use of this tree, it is very useful for cattle either in dry seasons in the southern part of the country, or for such as are kept up *Neuman’s chymistry 4to. page 289, London 1759.

at the farm yard, they are very fond of the leaves of this tree, which are a wholesome food, increasing milk, and keeping cattle in a thriving condition. XXVIII. A species of tree greatly resembling the poplar is found in WestFlorida, which produces, if not the Tacamahaca, at least something of the resinous kind so extremely like it, that it is not distinguishable from it; I am told, that the resin is obtained by digesting the buds, which appear early in the spring.128 [154] XXIX. The Liquidambar, or maple leaved Storax is also found in abundance in both Floridas; from this the Storax is produced, by boiling the branches: this valuable gum may be worth attention, as a great deal might be gathered in these provinces.129 XXX. Cortex Eleuthera [Cassia Cinnamomia br], or Cortex Winteranus, is an article found in abundance in the southern parts of the Peninsula; the people from Providence know it by the name of Cascarilla [Cinnamon br], and carry a good deal of it to market; it is a medical plant of good use, and worth our notice.130 XXXI. Balaustians, or the double ®owering Pome granate comes to a good perfection here, and as they are a pro¤table article they deserve our attention.131 XXXII. China Root is found in both provinces, but the prickly plant, commonly known by that name, does not yield the genuine kind; the true one, which is not thorny, is also found in abundance; and as in India this is paid for at the rate of from 6 to 16 shillings per hundred pounds, to send to Europe, it undoubtedly is an article worth exporting from America.132 XXXIII. Ipecacuanha is found in almost every spot of oak land in this country, it may deserve to be manufactured from the spontaneous root, if not to be cultivated.133 XXXIV. Jalap, an article of consequence in trade, not only on account of its use in physic, but likewise for its universal use in the fermentation of liquors: Europe has hitherto been obliged to import this article from Mexico, in which kingdom is a place called Xaleppo, or Haleppo, of which this drug bears the name; the only place [155] where it was supposed to grow: we have hitherto been at a loss to know the genus it belongs to, and many roots of purgative quality have been supposed to be it, and were substituted in its room: the late Doctor Houston introduced it from Mexico into Jamaica;134 but while he was gone to England the man whom he left in care of it, suffered hogs to destroy it; however, this gentleman brought a pencil drawing of it to Europe, but as this did not shew the colour, and the seed has been sown in the botanical garden, at Chelsea, without success, what it was remained still a secret, until I accidentally found it growing wild near Pensacola; being led to

181


A Concise Natural History

182


Bernard Romans

think, that a certain tuberous root made use of by the savages as a purgative might be it; I dried some slices of it, and found it so nearly agree with that drug in appearance, that it caused me to examine all the convolvuli I could ¤nd in this country, because I was informed that to that genus the plant belonged: I succeeded, and samples, which I sent to divers parts of Europe and America, have proved to be it, and of a good quality; this plant is pretty plentiful in some spots on the highest and driest lands, and I suppose its cultivation must be somewhat analogous to that of carrots. XXXV. The above researches among the convolvuli, have made me acquainted with another of that genus, which seems to answer to the Scammony plant; I am not yet able with certainty to determine whether it really is the Scammony or not, but have great reason to believe it is.135 XXXVI. Seeds of the true Rhubarb* having [156] been lately introduced into America, and the deep soil of the Mississippi, being very proper for its cultivation, I would by all means recommend trials to be made for raising that valuable root, which I think will not fail to answer our expectation.136 XXXVII. A shrub resembling in its fructi¤cation the Starry Anise is found in West-Florida, but it totally wants the aromatic taste of the seed; perhaps cultivation may bring it to the same state of perfection with the oriental. XXXVIII. Silk Grass grows on the most barren sand hills of Florida (called black Jack ridges) if it does not deserve a cultivation on account of its ¤bres; yet the root having been found by experience to wash woollen the cleanest and whitest of any thing yet known. Quere, would it not be useful for the woollen manufactory? XXXIX. Arnotto, a useful dye is introduced in the colony; I have seen some of the plants vigorous [157] and in good health, in Mr. Wegg’s garden; should it succeed, its cultivation is by no means to be neglected, however, if

[155]*In Bossu’s travels by Foster, vol. I. page 353, London [156] 1771, mention is made both of Jalap and Rhubarb, as indigenous in West-Florida; my strictest inquiry on the subject near the banks of Mississippi have been in vain to ¤nd Rhubarb, or even any thing the French call so, and as for Jalap I have all the reason in the world to believe, that this super¤cial writer never was in those parts of West-Florida where it is found, as he wrote his book merely to blacken the of¤cers of a different opinion from himself, in regard to their conduct in admitting English vessels in time of need, into New Orleans, and being an inveterate enemy of M. De Kerlerec in particular, cloaked it under the specious title he has done, and therefore I believe, that he received all he says, concerning natural history, from hear say only, and thus has been led to mistake a kind of Belle de Nuit with a purgative root, which is pretty common on Mississippi, for the true Jalap. Mr. Foster in his note on this passage has copied the same mistake, when he says it is the Mirabilis.

it fails in West-Florida, the southern parts of East-Florida will certainly produce it.137 XL. My knowledge of Mosses being hitherto very con¤ned, I shall not speak with certainty about the Argal (Lichen Rocelia) but having seen some mosses on the rocky islands, and part of the Peninsula greatly resembling the Argal, gathered on the island of Orchilla, I verily believe this valuable article to be there, if not it mig[h]t easily be introduced from Orchilla; the face of this part of the country exactly resembling that island, and its climate being nearly the same.138 XLI. Cochineal. This valuable insect is found in pretty large quantities in the Floridas, especially in the eastern province, of the kind, which is called Sylvester, on a species of Cactus, or Opuntia; could the true Cochineal Cactus be introduced into East-Florida, I make no doubt of its succeeding, and the vicinity of the Cochineal countries makes this not at all improbable; the people from the Musketo Shore, or Bay of Honduras might be serviceable in obtaining it.139 XLII. Sumach greatly necessary in dying and tanning, which is much used for preparing Turkey leather; several kinds grow in the southern parts of America, and therefore it is worth our while to enquire into the matter, to know which kind is used for this purpose. This plant is also known in medicine. The large kind is used to make vinegar with, and I am told by the French people, that a piece of the wood put into a cask of weak [158] or faded vinegar, or even water, will produce an intensely sharp vinegar. As a hint to travellers, in the southern parts of America, where the distance between the settlements often obliges us to carry our provisions with us, I will assure them, that the fruit of this kind, steeped a very short time in water, communicates to it a very agreeable acid ®avor, which will render it very ¤t to make punch; which agreeable liquor proves a great refreshment in a hot day, in the woods. Another kind possesses a noxious quality; this grows in low grounds; beware therefore of making spits of this to roast meat on, and take it for a general rule not to employ any wood (unless you are well acquainted with it) growing in low grounds for that purpose, as almost all the noxious plants, of this country, are found in such situations; in high grounds you may indiscriminately use any wood (which has no bad taste) for that purpose.140 XLIII. If the acorns of the Quercus Suber could be introduced here, I make no doubt, in this part of the world (where above twenty kinds of oak are indigenous) the cork manufacture might be pro¤tably carried on. Since I am on the subject of oaks, I beg leave to mention, that in New-

183


A Concise Natural History

184


Bernard Romans

England there are works for making an extract of oak bark, which yields a considerable advantage by sending it to Europe for the use of the tanners. I have seen also a kind of dwarf oak producing galls; quere, could they not be made use of ? XLIV. Madder, Rubia Tinctorum.141 This root is one of the most useful ingredients in dying [159] wooll and stuffs red, as also cotton of an agreeable bloom color, and consequently much used in England for the different manufactures; but incomparably the greatest quantity used is imported from abroad, to the amount of large sums. It is likewise said, that Madder is an excellent food for cattle, that it increases milk, and causes the butter to have a most agreeable color and ®avor; I know it to be sometimes cut for hay and we are told, that it makes an excellent fodder. This plant does undoubtedly deserve our attention in Florida, on the above accounts, especially as the many trials to grow it to advantage in England, seem for the most part unsuccessful. Many different kinds of madder have been tried for this purpose, but none have yet proved of real use except the Rubia Tinctorum Sativa of C. Baubine, which is the sort cultivated in Zealand, and some parts of Austrian Flanders. If it be objected to the culture of Madder in Florida, that these are in a very different climate from the southern part of British America, let it be remembered that in the Levant it is cultivated with success, and that what comes from thence is more valuable dye. The ground in which Madder thrives best seems to be a deep black mould, in something of a low situation, which should not have a clay foundation, but sand or gravel; the land in Zeeland is, and that on the river Amite, seems to be in general of this kind. It is cultivated in Zeeland by offsets, or shoots, which they take from an old plantation, and replant immediately in rows, about eighteen inches apart; the young plants have each a distance of [160] four inches allowed them, and the ground is divided into beds of twelve feet wide, leaving a ditch of about twenty inches between them; this is done in the beginning of May, and great care is taken that no offset is planted, without it be furnished with ¤bres; as it is thought that for want of ¤bres they would miscarry, which they often do even in the most favourable seasons. The greatest labour, I think, I have seen the people at in Holland, in regard to this culture, is the covering the stalk, when they attain the height of about sixteen inches, leaving only the tops bare, in order to promote the multiplication of roots, which is the part of the plant manufactured and sold; when this covering is performed, there remains only the attention of weeding, which ought to be done often; the

root is generally taken up the second year, but I think I have heard it said, as well as read it, that three summers are necessary for this crop to come to full maturity; the roots, which are said to yield the most and best dye, have been taken up, when they had obtained about three tenths of an inch diameter in size; it is thought that when they grow too large, they yield a dye more inclining to yellow than red. The lateral ¤brous vermicular roots, are said to yield a superior dye, but not to pay for the expence necessary for gathering them. From this general sketch of the Madder culture, such as it is in Holland and Zeeland, my readers may see, that it is not so expensive an affair as it is generally deemed to be, but like all other things the cultivation of this plant may be carried on at too costly a rate, and it likewise may be attempted in too penurious a way: I have endeavoured [161] to make my writing intelligible to every capacity, and therefore hope, that every one of my readers may be led into the true idea of this culture, to make it answer the purpose in Florida. This cultivation by sets or shoots being practised in countries where the seed does not at all, or very dif¤cultly come to maturity, I think the seed ought to be introduced into Florida, or endeavours made to obtain it, from plants to be carried or transplanted there, which, if productive of seed, it ought to be sown in drills, like rice; which I would think the most elegible in the moderate climates of those provinces. I believe this plant to be a great impoverisher of the soil, for in Zeeland they always allow some years between every two crops in the same spot. As it has lately been said, that there was no necessity for drying Madder, and that in using it green, there is even in the evaporation of dying matter a saving of one half, besides the greater saving of the expences of a kiln, a mill, a drying house, &c. I must inform my reader, that he will ¤nd all this true, but then it will be necessary for him to transport the dying houses from Europe to our Madder ¤elds, and not the Madder to the dyers, in order to enjoy the pro¤ts of all this great and œconomical frugality; for perhaps there is not a plant on earth so soon inclining to fermentation and putrefaction, which is occasioned by its succulency; yet for the planters present family-use it is certainly ¤t to use green; as soon as the roots have become spotted, or black, or lost a strong scent (similar to that of liquorice) they are utterly un¤t for any use; I shall therefore make a few remarks, necessary to be known for [162] the drying process in Florida. A hot, sun-shiny day may be used to advantage, to dry the roots partially; but if the weather be not favourable, when the roots are taken up, they must be spread within doors on a ®oor, taking care to spread them thinly, and stir them often; but this will never

185


A Concise Natural History

186


Bernard Romans

absolutely preserve them from changing, much less make them ¤t for transportation to any distance; if the crop be small, a baker’s oven may suf¤ce, but beware of raising the heat above 180 degrees of Farenheit’s thermometer in the place where the roots are put, which should be over the oven; but for larger crops kilns, similar to malt-kilns are necessary; take care to make them roomy, keep an equal and moderate heat, and by all means prevent any the least access of smoke to the roots; for which reason I would advise large ovens, such as the biscuit bakers in Holland use, as preferrable to every other method; a building may be so contrived as to contain 13 ovens, viz. four on each side, three at one end, and two at the end where the door is, with one general brick ®oor over all; one or two windows may be so contrived as to give access to a suf¤cient light; let us suppose the oven ten feet long, by eight wide, and allow two feet for each partition, this will make an oblong apartment of forty-two feet by thirty-two in the clear below, and on the upper ®oor ¤fty-two, by forty-two, room enough for any crop; provide good brick funnels to your chimneys, and there can be no danger of ¤re, the rest of the building may be of timber; in this process Madder will loose ¤ve sixths of its weight. When the roots are suf¤ciently dried, they must be pounded in wooden mortars; for this purpose [163] a mill constructed exactly like the old fashioned rice mills is very proper, only varying in the shape of the lower end of the pistil, or beetle; for in the rice mills their lower end is in form of an inverted cone; but here the lower end ought not only to terminate in a square, but the but-end ought to be cut into small squares, so as to render the pestle toothed; for this reason also the mortar ought to be of a different form from the rice mortar, which last is likewse an inverted cone, or shaped like the side of the top of a funnel, whereas this ought to be in form of a hollow globe, which has a neck like a decanter or bottle, in which neck the pestle ought nearly to ¤t. To empty the mortars and supply them with fresh roots, is a necessary occupation during the pounding. The roots ought to be cleared of their outer bark. It will then be ¤t for packing into casks and exporting. I remember to have heard it said in Holland, that poor people, in order not to be obliged to sell their small crops to the manufacturer, at his own price, preserve the roots from fermentation, by burying them between layers of earth in the ground, and that by this means it may be preserved for any term of time, without perceptible alteration. XLV. Coffee being an article to all appearance ¤t to be raised in the southern parts of the peninsula, and some of the islands, I shall give it a place here. This is an object worth our notice, as its consumption is great already, and

still increasing; there is little or none produced in the English West-India islands, in comparison of that which the Dutch and French colonies produce. [164] Its culture throughout all the settlements where it is raised, is now by the young shoots obtained from the larger trees; but originally it was introduced by seed, which being soaked for about twenty-four hours, is then planted in tubs, pots, or beds, at about three inches distance, covered lightly with earth, and carefully watered when no rain happens. Usually in about 14 days time the plant appears; when the young plants have attained the height of eight or ten inches, a rainy day is watched to transplant them into a walk, as it is there called, which answers to our orchards; the ground is here carefully cleared of all manner of roots and plants, and turned up at least a spit deep. About twelve feet is the distance which ought to be left between every two plants. The growth of coffee is quick, provided the ground be kept clean, but perhaps no plant is sooner hurt than this by too luxuriant a growth of weeds or plants, round or near it. The second year Eddos†, or Taniers,142 or even patatoes, may be planted among them, which will be a means of raising provisions by the same labour, that is necessary to keep the ground clean. This plant bears fruit suf¤cient to defray the yearly expences at the end of the third year; its produce will then increase until the seventh year, and after this it will continue to bear in a degree nearly equal, until about the fortieth year of its age, when it begins to decay. If any of the young plants should fail, they ought immediately to be replaced by others. In the Dutch colonies, when a coffee walk decays, [165] they root the trees out, and let the ground lay fallow for ten years, or upwards, during which time it affords pasture for cattle, and afterwards it is turned into a cocoa walk, or cotton plantation. The ordinary height of this tree is from twelve to sixteen feet; in the Dutch colonies they are lopped, to reduce them to a kind of Espaliers, for the easier gathering of the fruit. When the coffee has attained to ripeness, it is carried to drying sheds, which are constructed in the Dutch colonies on the following plan: The Area of the ground generally applied to this use is seventy feet by thirty; a brick foundation of four, ¤ve or six feet high, is ¤rst laid to raise the building from the ground; on this the building is placed of timber, being of two stories; the upper ®oor is about twelve feet above the lower; in each side †Eddo or Tanier is a species of esculent Arum, well known in East Florida, and is good food for negroes.

187


A Concise Natural History

188


Bernard Romans

of the building are from twelve to sixteen large windows likewise two at each end, on each side of large doors, all this is necessary to give a free access to the air, to prevent the coffee from heating or shooting. In the lower part of the building a kind of drawers, of about six feet square are so contrived as to be drawn without side the building, where they rest on wooden rollers or blocks, these drawers receive the coffee after the drying ®oor, and in ¤ne weather are drawn out, but pushed back the moment it begins to rain; by this contrivance a large quantity is, as it were, instantly sheltered from ruin; no other invention can be so expeditious. The building must be furnished with two pieces of square timber, of the length of twenty-¤ve or thirty feet, and about eighteen, or twenty-four inches thick, made of hard wood; in these a row [166] of mortars is sunk, to beat the coffee in, pestles or beatles for the same, fanning mills to clean the coffee, shovels for turning it often while it lies on the upper ®oor; a competent number of baskets, of different sizes, and a pair of scales with weights. Before this building there are generally one or two platforms, from forty to ¤fty feet square, called drying ®oors, intended to take all bene¤t of the ¤ne drying weather during the coffee harvest. Adjoining to the building is generally a smaller one, containing a cooper’s shop and a mill, called a breaking mill, through which the new gathered coffee passes, to deprive the grain of its pulp, or red outer skin; after coming from this mill it is soaked during one night in water, and next day spred upon the drying ®oors, where it remains till the air and wind have suf¤ciently dried it; if rain should happen it is quickly gathered into heaps, and covered with sear cloth. The coffee, being thus dried, is put into the drawers, where it is left till thoroughly dry; from hence it is carried into the loft (being now only surrounded with a thin, semi-transparent husk over each pair of seeds) where it is left till the whole crop is gathered, the harvest lasting often two months; while it remains in the loft it must be daily turned, to prevent its heating, and in good weather all the air possible must be admitted; after harvest it is again returned into the drawers, and left there for three or four days, in order to become totally dry, it is then pounded or beat in the above mortars by hand, to deprive it of the thin, inner husk, which involves every pair of seeds; after this it is fanned, and when fanned the broken grains are separated from the whole, [167] which last are put in bales, or casks, for the market, with all this seeming trouble a coffee walk is easier attended than a sugar plantation, and is said to be full as pro¤table. XLVI. Cacao is a plant which I make no doubt would succeed in some of the lands found in the southern division of East-Florida, but as it is tender, and requires a deal of attention I shall only hint at it, as an object worth

trying, and we ought to do this out of regard for our lives and constitutions; chocalate being become so common an aliment, and the vilainous adulterations of it in the northern colonies, make it an enemy to the stomach, whereas if good and genuine it proves a very agreeable, nourishing and a balsamic food. XLVII. Tea, a despicable weed, and of late attempted to be made a dirty conduit, to lead a stream of oppressions into these happy regions,143 one of the greatest causes of the poverty, which seems for some years past to have preyed on the vitals of Britain, would not have deserved my attention, had it not so universally become a necessary of life; and were not most people so infatuated as more and more to establish this vile article of luxury in America; our gold and silver for this dirty return is sent to Europe, from whence, being joined by more from the mother-country, it ¤nds its way to the Chinese, who, no doubt, ¤nd sport in this instance of superior wisdom of the Europeans. These considerations, joined to the additional evil of its being a monopoly of the worst kind, and the frauds of mixing it with leaves of other plants, ought to rouse us here, to introduce the plant (which is of late become pretty common [168] in Europe) into these provinces, where the same climate reigns as in China, and where (no doubt) the same soil is to be found; by this means we may trample under foot this yoke of oppression, which has so long pressed the mother country, and begins to gall us very sore; and will the Europeans (according to an unaccountable custom of despising all our western produce, when compared to oriental ones) avoid drinking American tea? Be not ye so infatuated, ye sons of America, as not to drink of your own growth! Learn to save your money at home! I cannot think this advice contrary to the interest of Britain, for whatever is bene¤cial to the colonies, will in the end be at least equally so to the mother country. In hopes of some well minded planter taking this into consideration, I have thus hinted at it, and will write what I can, from hear-say, of its culture. First then let me caution the attempter against imposition; be sure that you get the seeds in good order, and in their capsules, for the friend you employ may be deceived more in the plants than the seeds, there being a plant called by Linnæus, Camellia, and by Kæmpfer,144 Tsubakki, so exactly like to Tea in its leaves, as not to be distinguished therefrom; this has frequently been sold to the Europeans for Tea, and is thus introduced into Europe. If the seed cannot be procured in Europe, nor the real plant from a trusty friend, apply to some well-meaning Captain of an East Indiaman, no matter of what nation, he can get the seed in China, and it may be brought to America, without any danger of decay, in a manner which I shall hereafter mention for the preservation [169] of seeds in general. After the tea seed is procured some may be

189


A Concise Natural History

190


Bernard Romans

sown on the passage from England here. Will any reader say this is building castles in the air? let him remember, that seventy years ago rice was an utter stranger in America, till some such good captain, who had been in the east made a present of some seeds to a person in Carolina, who planted it; both these men are seemingly forgot, but how much more did they deserve statues, than many others, who have been in an unnatural manner, often for crimes, idolized, and as it were eternized, by pompous ef¤gies, and lying monuments! Even in their native country the seeds are very liable to miscarriage, therefore they plant ten or twelve in each hole, in rows throughout the ¤eld; Kæmpfer, who had the best opportunity of information, tells us, that the plants are left to grow till seven or eight years before the leaves are gathered; but he should have told us, whether this was necessary to the perfection of the leaves, or only done on account of the quantity obtainable, perhaps to strip them younger would destroy the plants: I think he also says, that after ten years the plant is cut down, and young shoots spring up, or the plantation is entirely removed. In the gathering, it is said, much time is taken up, each person culling not above two or three pounds per day, it being done leaf by leaf; during the time a sheet is spread over the bush, in form of a canopy, to prevent the leaves drying hastily, in the sun-shine, which would exhale the ®avour; it is said also, that they have three crops, viz. in the end of February, this is the best; then in the end of March, and beginning of April, and the [170] last and worst is in the end of April and beginning of May; what remains on the bush till the end of May is said to be un¤t for curing, and consequently for exporting; the observation on tobacco is also said to hold good in regard to tea, I mean, that the upper, middle, and lower leaves are different in goodness, and consequently three different kinds. The curing is done on iron plates, over a moderate arti¤cial ¤re, and the leaves are constantly rolled by the hand. Neuman thinks the dark colour, and the rose ®avour of Bohea tea, to be arti¤cial; he seems to say that Kæmpfer and Dr. Cunningham (when they wrote that Bohea tea was the ¤rst gathering) meant it to be a crop of leaves collected before the plant comes to maturity, which is perhaps the case in the provinces of China that are too far north, to bring it to perfection: He also mentions the process related by one Meister, to wit, that the leaves are put into a hot kettle, just emptied of boiling water, and that in this they are kept close, till they are cold, afterwards committed to the hot plates this produces Bohea tea; he adds, that this at least is certain, that by a similar process good Bohea tea may be made among ourselves; a specimen of which he himself exhibited to a numerous audience.

He further says, some dealers in tea, in England are not ignorant that certain European leaves, particularly those of the Dog Rose, and Cherry tree may be so coloured as to pass for good Bohea. The leaves of the red whortle, or cranberry, and rose bush seem now to be most in esteem among these sophisticating gentlemen. The above author relates, that the Chinese are extremely curious in every branch of this manufacture, they gather the leaves with thin gloves, and [171] the workmen employed in cutting it are restrained for a fortnight before from ®atulent food, or whatever else may communicate an ill ®avour. There is a later writer on this subject, I think Dr. I. C. Letsom,145 who is perhaps better informed, but I have not been able to consult him: be all this as it may, let us introduce the plant, and we will discover its culture and curation. XLVIII. Such numbers of Lauri being found indigenous in America, it may not be amiss to hint at the Pimento, or Jamaica pepper, as very proper to be introduced into the southern parts of East-Florida, where, I make no doubt, it will prove a pro¤table article. XLIX. Mangroves and Salsola: Pot, Pearl and Barilla ashes, can nowhere be made to more pro¤t than in East-Florida; the several genera of trees known by the name of Mangroves, are in so great an abundance, and so replete with salts, that they will undoubtedly yield a much greater proportion than any wood yet used for that purpose; I have made several very good samples on the coast; these trees have never yet been properly classed, I intend to do it in the course of this work: the Kali for Barilla is perhaps nowhere so abundant as in that province.146 L. Bees are in great numbers in the eastern province, but found their way as far westward as Pensacola only about the year 1772, they not being original natives of America, but all of this class which are found wild, have sprung from swarms deserted from Apiaries in the settled provinces; there are none wild about the Mississippi yet, but a few years will certainly bring them thither; it is evident from this relapse of the bees in a wild state, [172] and their prodigious thriving, that honey and wax may be made very considerable articles. LI. Ginger will certainly be found pro¤table if introduced into the southern parts of East-Florida. No doubt many of my readers begin to think, I have swelled this account beyond all bounds; I beg pardon for intruding on their patience, if I have done it, but the inquiring philosopher will, I suppose, ¤nd that considering the variety of climates and soils, I might have gone on, and reasonably enumerated a number of others; my earnest hopes are that these loose hints may

191


A Concise Natural History

192


Bernard Romans

prove bene¤cial to a continent, which has so great a share in my warmest wishes. I have every where avoided describing expensive ways of culture, such are too much obtruded on gentlemen who begin the noble science of agriculture; men are discouraged by following such precepts; in those hints which are new I speak from a degree of experimental observation, in others I have chosen such methods as are in use and least expensive, I have shunned a mere theoretical narrative, because I utterly hate it: unpractised methods often appear plausible, even when they will produce effects diametrically opposite to what were intended. It is true, that the pine barrens (so called) will in all appearance not be soon wanted, especially in West-Florida; but I think that for those, who are not possessed of hammock land, a hint for the improvement of these pine lands may not be amiss; we see a surprizing vegetation effected on some of them: complaints of barrenness may sometimes be removed by meerely adapting the soil to its proper use; a man who has a good piece of river [173] land, bordering immediately on these barrens, without any intermidiate oak or hammock soil in Georgia, Carolina and East-Florida, thinks himself almost always deprived of means to raise Maize, and will think his staple land of less value on that account: let such a person well examine his pine land, perhaps the clay or marl lays at the same [a small br] depth below the surface, in that case, by mixing the soils, you may improve them so as to be ¤t for any purpose. None of these lands are so absolutely barren but they will produce sweet potatoes, or pumpkins; I have seen yams come to good perfection in Georgia and East-Florida in such lands; in West-Florida I saw them pretty forward in the navy garden of Pensacola, which is comparatively a meer beach. Peach orchards will do here as well as in the richest soils; the worst kind of this land will produce rye to advantage, even twice in one year; the sesamen, or oily grain, a pro¤table article if well attended to, will grow kindly in them, and they produce crop grass (a good pasture) in abundance, by merely turning them up often: for these reasons then a man ought never to be too precipitate in pronouncing a piece of ground absolutely barren; we have in these provinces no undrainable boggs, no mountains, and very few stones to deal with. The manner in which cattle are now kept in the southern colonies is unpro¤table; twelve or sixteen cattle might be with a little attention made to yield more pro¤t in a dairy, than stocks of three or 400 do now, with all the labour and time at present bestowed on them; the practice of letting calves suck so long as they now do, is contrary to the practice of all ages and countries, except [174] among the Spaniards; who keep large stocks for the sake of their hides and tallow only; and as in the southern colonies the people

seem more and more to neglect keeping a few cows at home for the dairy, and hides and tallow cannot be made large articles in trade, by means of small stocks of ¤ve hundred or six hundred only, I can hardly see the intent of keeping such stocks of cattle, except for exportation alive, as the stocks of horses are kept; for in the article of beef, cattle can hardly yield pro¤t where the Carolinian or Georgian method of killing at two, three, and four years old obtains, which is the cause of the badness of their beef. Hogs are so pro¤table an article, and so easily made spontaneous, that it is a matter of the greatest surprise to me that no more are raised in Florida; especially as mast is very various, and in great abundance. The bounteous hand of nature has here given us an animal, which, by experience, we know may easily be domesticated, whose ¤ne wooll might yield good pro¤t, and whose ®esh is equal at least to our beef, and yields as much tallow; I mean the buffaloe: if instead of wantonly destroying this excellent beast, (for the sake of perhaps his tongue only) we were to endeavour its domiciliation either by a pure breed, or by raising a spurious one with him and our common cattle, I think we would ¤nd our account in it. The Moose, or American Elk, found in the higher latitudes on the river, naturally leads a life so nearly approaching to a state of domestication, that I am often surprized he has never yet been attempted to be incorporated among the class of useful tame animals on this continent. These and [175] the like hints I think deserve attention, and I hope they may be of use. In a country where horses and cattle are in such abundance, and consequently cheap, and where human labour is so dear, more improvements in machinery ought to be introduced: it has amazed me often to see people so blindly mad as to ruin themselves, by obstinately persisting in building saw-mills in improper places, which has been here too often the case. The Mississippi indeed affords the means for mills at a small expence, but they are only of temporary use. In such a timber country as the Floridas, introduce the Dutch windmills, it is easily done; I have frequently heard, that they are un¤t for this climate, but in my strictest inquiry not one reason appears against them, but that people by infatuation will run on a sand, where so many before them have suffered ruin by making dams in improper places. As much as possible disuse the hand hoe, particularly at turning up, and otherwise preparing the ground for seed; introduce the plough; the newest lands may be plouged, and the hand hoe is only necessary to assist a little round the edges of stumps, &c. introduce likewise the horse hoe with the Dutch and Suffolk foot ploughs, to do the laborious work of the hoe in hilling corn up; in well improved grounds for rice use the drill plough, especially in countries where an ox of four years old may be had for forty shil-

193


A Concise Natural History

194


Bernard Romans

lings, and a serviceable horse for four pounds; all these would save great sums, and render it less necessary for the planter to depend on the labour of negroes. In lieu of the aukward tool made use of to cut [178] grain, I mean the sicle, I would advise the introduction of the short scythe and hook, called in New-York government segt and mat hook; and in case of thin crops the scythe and cradle: by means of these, expedition and neatness will become common, whereas now the crop stands sometimes on the ¤eld till it is damaged, unless a great number of slaves can be employed. Threshing is performed in the most aukward manner imaginable, in the Southern colonies; to many the common ®ail is entirely unknown, and long poles; or a crooked cudgel made use of, and where the ®ail is used it is ill managed; for the large crops of rice, &c, I would recommend a machine which I remember to have seen used in Holland, as long as my memory can serve, and yet strange to tell, even in England the people were breaking their heads for the invention of a threshing machine no longer than four years ago; when the same machine had been known, and commonly used in New-York and Pennsylvania, near ¤fty years: it consists of a wooden cone, whose base is about two feet or two and and a half foot diameter and whose length is from nine to twelve feet, it should be made of very hard wood, its surface is regularly ®uted, toothed, ribbed or indented; the ribs are about ¤fteen in number, with as many grooves alternately between them, of about three inches thickness and depth; the small end of this kind of roller is furnished with a strong ragged eye-bolt and ring, and iron hoops to prevent its cracking, or the bolts drawing, this ring should be about six inches diameter in the clear, and be ¤xed on a post in the middle of the ®oor, which for twelve or fourteen inches up ought to be cased [179] with iron, to prevent the ring from cutting it off by the continual friction: the sheaves being laid circularly round this post, the roller is by one or two horses or oxen drawn round in a constant circular process, one man attending to turn up the straw continually; this is more expeditious and cleanly than the trampling of it out with horses and cattle, because the thing is so contrived as to let the cattle walk without all, and it makes incomparably more dispatch than the ®ail can even with many hands. In the common way of shelling maize there is also great loss of time. A man can hardly shell six bushels per day, whereas with the ®ail he will shell twenty in an hour, and the fanning mill will soon clean it; many more improvements will in time be wanting, but the above are now absolutely necessary. Thus far I have given a detail of the agriculture practised, or practicable

in those climates; during the course of my collecting materials for this narrative, I have sometimes been beyond all measure vexed, and at others I have been obliged to laugh at the silly notions, whereby England is deceived in her ideas of America, occasioned by some foolish writers, who have raised some absurd hypothesis in their own brain, from whence they deduce as crooked theories as ever entered the thoughts of mankind; thus writing without experience, they lead a parcel of blind copiers, as it were, in a string, as if intended on purpose to deceive mankind; and what is more strange, some people so implicitly believe these ingenious writers, that I have seen them after coming here obstinately follow the precepts of these guides, [180] though in direct opposition to what they see to be the practice of their neighbours, who have been taught by experience How sillily has one vented an opinion, that by clearing the woods of North-America, we would ruin our temperate colonies, and turn them into cold uninhabitable desarts, thereby bestowing the climates of New-England, on Carolina;* with more such fancied evils, notwithstanding that even when he wrote, Canada (by the French only deemed ¤t for a fur-factory) began by English industry to become a grain country; so that he might have known better, and now that same country even exports wheat; pray what is the reason of this but that the clearing the land causes the snow to remove sooner than it formerly did? Under the head of sugar in this work see more of this. Just such nonsense he vends, when he attributes the want of wood in the plains of the north western parts of America to barrenness, when experience has taught every one that they are fertile; how well does it con¤rm this genius’s opinion when we see without deception, that the nearer we approach those plains to the west, the more temperate is the climate! At Ilionois, in latitude 40, snow seldom lays three days, and cattle are out all winter; in the Nadouessin’s country, latitude 45 and 46, above two thousand miles from the Atlantic, snow rarely exceeds three inches in depth, and the wild rice is found spontaneous in amazing tracts.147 Nor is his argument of the cold being more felt in a ¤eld than in a wood of any force; let him remember that snow [181] lies a month, or even six weeks longer in a wood than in a ¤eld. This man dares to tell us “we talk from experience.” So it seems, when he says the badness of pasturage in the southern colonies renders it impracticable to maintain stocks of cattle: was it my business I might enumerate more such shining authors;† but as it could serve no good purpose I omit it, and .

*Present State of Great-Britain and America. 8vo 1767.148 †There is one so very cunning as to have discovered the labour of our slaves here to be dearer than that of hired people. Amazing wisdom! See the Appendix to the Interest of Great-Britain. 8vo. 1760.149

195


A Concise Natural History

196


Bernard Romans

only beg leave to hint that such blind guides ought not to be too implicitly followed. In the above account I have inserted some articles which might possibly have come more properly under the head of manufacturing, such as indigo, pitch, tar, turpentine, &c. and even rice, but their near connection with tillage has made me insert them there, rather than in the following part of this work, where I have dedicated some pages to hints concerning manufactures. Reducing the rough timber into boards is now the most common branch of business in the southern colonies, that comes under the name of manufactures: a pair of negro sawyers are taxed to cut an hundred feet per diem, this the industrious ones often perform by two o’clock, or sooner, they are then suffered to cut lumber for their own use the rest of the day, or do any other business, for which their masters pay them; these hundred feet per diem, are six hundred per week, or thirty-one thousand two hundred per annum, which, allowing them to be only inch boards, and to sell at six shillings sterling per hundred, is £.93, [182] 12 s. per annum, a noble bene¤t! which in thicker board, scantling, and ranging timber is much greater; the owner of such a pair of slaves lets them out at £.60 per annum; from hence we may gather how necessary the introduction of saw mills is to lower the price of this article. Hogshead staves of white oak are made by what are called gangs of people; a stave making gang consists of ¤ve persons, a feller of the timber, who cuts down the trees, two to cross-cut them in proper lengths, a river or splitter, who rives them with the fro, and the ¤fth is employed in shaving them; this gang makes ¤ve hundred staves each day, which are supposed to be worth 30 s. is 6 s. per diem for each man. Shingles of cypress and white cedar, which are made nearly in the manner of staves, are sold at about 10 s. per thousand, and one gang may very well make three or four thousand per day. But the grand manufacture to be made of timber here, is SHIPPING, for this purpose no country affords more or better wood; live oak, cedar, cypress, yellow pine, are adapted by nature to this. O! how just is every Englishman’s reason for cursing the late peace-makers,150 when he re®ects upon the fatal mistake of leaving the isle of New-Orleans in the hands of the French and consequently of the Spaniards! and when he sees them building such ¤ne frigates as they did last year on that island; to add to the misfortune they leave their own timber and cut it off of the English land, about the lakes, for present use; might not England herself in¤nitely rather build ships of war, and sell them to her enemies, and so make pro¤ts of them, than to be obliged to behold this [183] with supineness? When we recollect the amazing distance

into the heart of the country to which the Mississippi and its branches gives us access, and where we may build ships of two hundred tons at least; when we see the iron mines dispersed up and down the country; when we recollect the possibility of producing the most immense quantities of hemp and ®ax; when we behold the more than rapid increase of mankind there; and ¤nally when we survey the harbours, Charlotte, Tampe, St. Joseph, Pensacola, all proper for the admission of ships of rank, besides others we know not yet; what a ¤eld is open here! what a prospect of power and grandeur seems to be already welcoming us! no country had ever such inexhaustible resources; no empire had ever half so many advantages combining in its behalf: methinks I see already the American ®eets inhabiting the ocean, like cities in vicinity! The manufactory of iron will undoubtedly be very great here; every part of the western province at least abounds with it; no doubt other minerals are hidden in the bowels of the earth, but except lead and antimony they are not yet found. The article of Potashes of various kinds have been mentioned under the head of Mangroves and Salsola; I shall only repeat here that no country can make these commodities equal to East Florida; that province can undersell and supply all others of the earth, when we consider that England takes £.50,000 sterling worth out of North America alone, where people can not make it either so good or so cheap, it is spur enough to encourage some person to begin this manufactory in that country, [184] but be aware of doing it in a manner clear of Stevens’s151 and other expensive schemes. Deerskins though none are manufactured here, yet, being a great staple commodity already, they deserve a place here, was it but to remind my reader that the Floridas are watered by all the rivers by which peltry is like to come in future, and that by a little attention and pains taken with that trade, these two provinces, particularly the western one, may lead it down their own channel to that degree, that every individual skin (got to the westward of the heads of the Ouabache, and so up to the western branches of the Mississippi, and to the southward of Ohio) must, as they certainly ere long will, center in the gulph of Mexico. When we consider the vast increase of stocks here, and the ease of maintaining a stock of a thousand or ¤fteen hundred cattle, and four or ¤ve hundred horses, and the very great dif¤culty attending the northern colonists in keeping up a stock even of no more than twenty or thirty head of black cattle, it must be evident, that tanning of leather will be a great business here; even allowing the number of American inhabitants to be no more than three millions (which number the late systematic writers seem determined

197


A Concise Natural History

198


Bernard Romans

to con¤ne us to) and allowing two and an half millions of these to wear about six pair of shoes per annum, and that in America about ten millions of these are annually made of American leather, which is more than likely to be the case; the town of Lynn alone exporting above three hundred thousand per annum,152 there will then remain about ¤ve millions to be supplied from England, even this leaves a large ¤eld open, and if we are [185] industrious not only that gap will be stopped, but we may export tanned leather; if England does not want it, or will not take it, other countries will; consider ye Floridans what an extensive manufacture of Chamois leather your lazy neighbours of Campeachy carry on already. When we consider that the northern inhabitants clothe at least seven eights of themselves with cloth, that costs them hardly any thing, but their industry, when we ponder well the indefatigable pains taken by the Acadians, settled on the Mississippi,153 to array themselves in every respect with the produce of their own ¤elds, and the work of their own hands, when we see the immense quantity and variety of raw materials afforded by this country, such as wool, cotton, silk, &c. heretofore enumerated, must we not be inspired by the genius of frugality, to make use of these blessings of the bounteous hand of nature, and to imitate these industrious people, whom Providence already suffered to be driven out of the land of their fore-fathers by the iron rod of arbitrary Mars, and caused to settle in our neighbourhood? If we learn by times to know, that we enjoy all these blessings, we shall have but little use for importing any thing but money. Pork and beef will shortly be worth attending to on the Mississippi, as is evident from the quantities of salted wild beef, already exported by the Spaniards to the Havannah. An article little known, perhaps not thought of, next claims our attention, I mean the extensive ¤sheries in the power of these colonies, with which they now supinely, not to say stupidly, allow the Spaniards to run away. The whole of the west [186] coast of East Florida, is covered with ¤shermens huts and ®akes; these are built by the Spanish ¤shermen from the Havannah, who come annually to make one or two ¤shing voyages on this coast, to the number of about thirty sail, and one or two visit Rio d’Ais,154 and other places on the east coast of the penninsula, they arrive about the later end of August, and continue coming and going till the end of March; their ¤rst care is to prepare their nets, and to build a hut, or re¤t the old one; then they new furnish their ®akes or stages with new strings of silk grass to the wooden hooks by which the ¤sh is to be hung up to dry; their nets and other apparatus of lines, &c. are all made of silk grass likewise; and as they ¤sh upon shares, each man furnishes his piece of net, number of lines, share of salt,

and quota of provisions for the voyage, or if not able to purchase all these (which is seldom the case) the proportion of such person is furnished by the owner or captain, who deducts their value from his share, when he receives the dividend of the neat proceeds of the cargo; the distribution of this dividend is generally as follows; the vessel draws one third, the patroon or master, two shares of the remaining two thirds, which is divided into as many shares as there are adventurers; reckoning two boys for a man: their charges are little more than the wear and tear of the vessel, the purchase of salt from the King, and the duties of entry for the ¤sh, which last I think is two and an half per cent, with these people a pro¤table trade might be established; they have often told me, that in case they could ¤nd Englishmen on the coast, who would furnish them with salt, they would not purchase any more than what [187] was absolutely necessary to cover their licence, for these very men are obliged to go to Key Sal, to gather the salt there, and bring it to the Havanna, where they are obliged to deliver it into the King’s ware houses at three rials for a fanego, a measure containing scarce two bushels, and when they prepare for the ¤shing voyages, they are not suffered to take any salt elsewhere but out of these warehouses, where they are now constrained, by their most gracious Sovereign, to pay one dollar and an half, or twelve rials for the identical salt he took from them for three; provisions and dry goods might also be sold to them to advantage, but it would be necessary, that they were made certain ¤rst of ¤nding such vessels on the coast, for without such a certainty, they would not venture to come without salt, nor would they bring any money; the same vessel that carried salt and dry goods might here drive an advantageous trade with the parties of lower Creeks, who come to hunt in the same season, in this part of the peninsula, and always get great quantities of skin, she might likewise get a load of ¤sh, which would answer well in the WestIndies, as the ¤sh from hence always fetch a considerably greater price in the islands, than the ¤sh from Newfoundland. The principal ¤sh here, and of which the Spaniards make up the bulk of their cargoes, is the red drum, called in East Florida a bass, and in West Florida carp; the French call them poisson rouge; this is in those provinces a ¤ne ¤sh, although in the northern colonies they are generally poor. They also salt a quantity of ¤sh which they call Pampanos, for which they get a price three times as high as for other ¤sh. A few soles, some sea trout, and the [188] roes of mullets and black drum make up the remainder of the cargo; some oil from the liver of nurses and sharks is also carried; of the sound of the sea trout a glew is made by only drying them, which is a perfect and ¤ne ichthyocolla. The roes of mullets and black drums are put into a pickle for about a quarter of an hour, then taken out and partially dried in the sun, then pressed between two boards; afterwards exposed upon

199


A Concise Natural History

200


Bernard Romans

a hurdle in a small hut to the smoak of the inner part of the ears of corn, which is properly the receptacle of the seed, and called the cobs. These roes the Spaniards are very fond of, and use them instead of cavear. From this account my reader may judge of the worth of this ¤shery. These ¤shermen make likewise no inconsiderable quantity of shark oil, and it is well known what number of turtle the Providence people catch on the east coast. The Myrica, or candle berry myrtle grows in great abundance on the seashore of both these provinces; the wax produced by it is too well known to need description; it is manufactured by throwing the berries into a hot bath, to discharge them of their wax, which is skimmed from of the top after the water grows cold. Travelling through the uninhabited part of the woods, falling to the share of every person, who arrives at present in Florida, it cannot be amiss to say a few words about it: whether you go by water or by land it is most necessary to carry with you powder, shot, and a fowling piece; provide yourself with rice, or such bread as you like best to use; a hunter is necessary and utensils for dressing provisions; always before night allow yourself at least one hour’s time to prepare ¤re wood, for this must be used in summer [189] as well as winter to rarify the air round the camp; always lay with your feet towards the ¤re, and you are out of danger of catching cold; if you are in a country where warring savages resort, keep up a large ¤re all night, and be sure to put some hats on poles near the ¤re, this will protect you from their attempts, unless they are at war with ourselves. A bear skin on the ground to protect you from its dampness is very necessary; always choose an elevated spot, and if you have horses chuse a situation near a cane branch, or where the woods have been lately burnt, this will effectually prevent your beasts from straying. As the diet is generally roasted meat remember my former caution against spits got out of a low ground; small reeds are excellently adapted to this purpose: a small hut covered with thatch of palmittos, or bark of trees, is always preferable to the lumber of a tent; such an one, suf¤ciently large for two men at least, is easily set up in a quarter of an hour; if you are in a river be sure of fastening your boat in a still water or eddy, and be cautious not to fasten it with a wythe, which is too common a practice with many; this precaution will prevent your boats going adrift by means of a beaver’s appetite. If you are where the grass is long, burn a space of ground before you make your ¤re, this will save your baggage, which many have lost by neglecting this; if in a part of the country where musketoes are plenty, have a close covering, called in this country a Bère, and made in form of a musketo net, to put up over your bed, suspending it by two stakes; and lastly encamp not near any old trees, but as much as possible shelter your camp against the

wind; by carefully observing these hints, you will not ¤nd travelling [190] through the American desarts so uncomfortable a business as it may generally appear to be; as for the dreadful stories told of wild beasts, believe me they are vain, no animal is yet found in the North American wilderness ferocious enough to come within sight of a man, if the wind wafts the air of a human body towards the brute; if it does not, he will not venture nearer than in sight; but should you wound a bear, or the American panther, so as to disable him from ®ight, he will prove dangerous, but remember, if you tread even on a worm, he will turn up his tail at you, as it were in his own defence. I shall now say something about the most adviseable method to be taken by emigrants, who intend to transplant themselves into this part of America, from the more northern regions; ¤rst I would observe that if destined for East Florida, it is absolutely necessary to carry at least one year’s provisions in ®our, maize, pork and beef; if to the eastern part of West Florida, the same step is to be taken; but if to the Mississippi, provisions barely for the voyage will be suf¤cient, they being always to be had there in plenty, at or nearly at the prices beforementioned; if the person be able I would advise him to purchase negroes in the northern provinces, and to carry a few more than he intends for his own use, the pro¤ts on the sale of four or ¤ve will nearly defray his expences; carry no white servants, unless you have a mind to colonize a large tract of land, and this has never yet turned to account; I will suppose two instances of what in my opinion is the most elegible method of settling people of different situations in life. [191] Let one man be possessed of two thousand ¤ve hundred Dollars in money, and we will suppose him living in Rhode-Island, or in any other part of New-England, or New-York, New-Jersey, or Pennsylvania; and allow him to have a wife and four children, with two house slaves, in either of these colonies; he may purchase eight good working slaves for twelve hundred dollars, out of his two thousand ¤ve hundred; about four hundred dollars more will buy four young girls or boys, for which he will, in Florida, ¤nd ready sale, with 80 per cent advance, but they ought not to be under twelve or thirteen years old; his next care is now to get a vessel, we will suppose her of sixty tons burthen, such a one as may generally be had manned and victualed, at two dollars and a half a ton, per month, from any of these provinces, the planters provisions and implements for himself and family will cost about three hundred dollars, allowing him well provided with every necessary for eight weeks; thus we may suppose him arrived in the Mississippi, with six hundred dollars left him in money: here we will leave him a while, to pay a visit to a poorer family, we will allow the head of this to have as many cattle, horses, hogs and super®uous implements as may raise him four hundred dol-

201


A Concise Natural History

202


Bernard Romans

lars, for a poorer man should not attempt to go as a planter, he may as an arti¤cer, or tradesman, we will also allow him to have an equal share of matrimonial blessings with his richer neighbour this man must lay out about sixty dollars in provisions, and about twenty-¤ve for plantation tools, his passage money will amount to ¤fty dollars more, we may suppose him possessed of one good able negro, besides his money which may be worth [192] an hundred and sixty dollars; thus he may arrive at the Mississipi and have ninety dollars clear money after obtaining his land and stock; hereby the way let all who intend going to this country endeavour to arrive about the latter end of November, in order to clear some land and build some place for shelter. White servants will never turn to account, there being so many idlers already imported on wrong plans, that you can carry none with you who would not in three months time think it very hard to be obliged to call you master, in a country where the most dirty vagabond you can hire at six Dollars per month, would think his honour touched by hearing any body call him to you with less civility than, Sir, your employer would be glad to speak to you. I will now throw this matter into a clearer light, by placing it in tables, in which the reader may see it at one view. The ¤rst men being possessed of We will suppose him to prepare himself for the journey in New-York, where he purchases 8 working slaves, at £.60 per head, 4 young do. [ditto] for sale, at £.40 Allowing his 14 slaves, including his 2 house-slaves 2 lb. of rice, and half a pound of pork per diem, for 60 days passage; this will amount to about three tierces, containing 1700 pound of rice, which at 24 s. per Ct. amounts to

[193] brought over, 2 barrels containing 420 lb. of pork, £ 4 10 per barrel, For his white family’s use we will say, 2 tierces of 360 lb. of bread, at 17 s. per Ct.

Dol. 2500

£.480 160

20

8

660

8

£.660

8

0

1

2

2500

9 3

1 barrel of 180 lb. of ®our, at 22 s. per Ct. 1 barrel of choice beef, £.3 2 barrel of choice pork, 50 s. 50 lb. of hams, 1 s. per lb. a ¤rkin, 60 lb. of butter, 1 s. per pound, 2 large shoats, 10 s. a piece, 2 sheep, 15 s. do. 1 dozen of geese and turkies 4 dozen of small poultry, coffee, tea, and spices 3 loaves, 30 lb. of sugar, 25 lb. of muscovado ditto, 15 bushels of corn, to feed his stock, at 3s. per bushel small expences, for greens, &c. Total in N.Y. cur. amounts to

1 3 2 2 3 1 1 1 2 3 1

2

700 remains,

19

203

6


A Concise Natural History

10 10

10 4 8 10 16 5 18

4

0

0

1750 750

we will suppose him to carry one half puncheon of Jamaica spirits, and one half ditto of common rum, Dollars 50 and to lay out for half a pipe of good Madeira, to serve him for his ¤rst year’s stock, 100 150 There now remains as above

Dollars

600

Remain Ds.

300 300

Dollars

600 900

[194] in his possession, at his arrival: of this he must pay for the charter of the vessel, Suppose his 4 young negroes sell at an average for 150 Dollars each (which is not a high price) this amounts to

In the above account no mention is made of furniture, because a man possessed of such a sum of money may naturally be supposed to be super®uously provided with that article, and by selling a part of this, he may supply himself with others, that have a peculiar reference to these climates, and are indeed not to be dispensed with: axes, saws, spades, hoes and other implements of husbandry perhaps necessary to the amount of sixty Dollars, may be likewise supposed to be purchased out of the sale of his super®uous furniture. Since the writing of this part of the manuscript, the new mode of par-

204


Bernard Romans

celling lands out in small lots, and selling them at auction, was introduced into the colonies. This scheme, it is said, was ¤rst projected by Sir James Wright, Baronet, Governor of Georgia.155 On what terms lands are to be had now since the shutting up the landof¤ce is yet impossible to tell; but the undermentioned was the state of this business before that event happened, with the fees as they stood regulated in South-Carolina, Georgia, and East-Florida. In the western of¤ce I was never conversant enough to know the real state of this matter; but I have seen some of Mr. Durnford’s156 [195] bills for surveys calculated at 50 per cent. higher; for what reason I know not, for surveying in West Florida is attended with less dif¤culty, than in either of the others. Petition, warrant, and precept, To the surveyor general, and his deputy, each 2s3 per 100 acres; the number of acres for the above-named family would amount honestly to 850 acres, which makes at 4s6 per hundred Suppose that 1000 acres were granted besides on purchase, this would cost 10s. per hundred, The above-mentioned expences of petition, warrant and precept on the last 1000 acres is, Survey of 1000 acres, at 4s6 per 100 Suppose the land 150 miles distant from the surveyor’s residence, he being allowed 6s9 for every 20 miles out and in, except for the ¤rst 20 miles, this being 130 miles, at 6s9 per 20 miles out, The same 130 miles at 6s9 per 20 miles home, Allow the surveyor 14 days to go and come back, he has four men with him to row in his boat, or carry his provisions and instruments, if by land these same two men serve as chain-bearers, and two as blazers, they are generally paid for at 2s6 per diem each, Provisions for 5 men for 14 days are

11

7

18

3

11 5

7

2

2 2

3 3

102 102

1 5

7

Carried forward

£21

14

2

[196] brought over,

£21

14

2

3

10

to be had plentifully, and good, at one shilling per diem, rum included, Return of two precepts, plats and certi¤cates by the deputy surveyor, 6s9 each,

13

6

Return of the two warrants, platts and certi¤cates by the surveyor general, to the attorney-general, 6s9 each, Two ¤ats by the attorney-general, 6s9 each, Governors and Secretray’s fees, about

205


6 6

4

8

8

Total Sterling £. 35 Which £.35 4 8 Str. (in consideration whereof the planter is now in possession of 1850 acres of land,) are at the exchange of 4s6 per Dollar Building a comfortable neat timber house, outhouses and negro hutts on this land, will cost about Maintenance of the planter and his family for 4 months, during which time all the above business may be done and the house at least rendered habitable, the expence of travelling to Pensacola and back to Mississippi included

13 13

Dol.

250

150 Deduct these from

and we will leave him now in possession of his land, house, two negroes, and cash to the amount of

155

555 900

345

Suppose the month of April now set in, and his [197] negroes in these 4 months to have cleared him 20 acres of land, of which he plants 10 with Maize, pease, &c. 3 with rice, and 7 with indigo, from this he may reasonably expect at the most moderate calculation on the Mississippi lands, about 400 bushels of Maize, and 300 of pease, with perhaps about 500 pumkins, about 150 bushels of rough rice* and 400 lb- of indigo by the beginning of November; we will suppose that in this same interval he has purchased

Six milch cows at 12 Dollars each Six hogs 4 A stock of poultry A horse Having lived at home between April and November, we may reasonably suppose these 7 months to have been less expence to him, and to have cost for maintenance no more than the ¤rst mentioned 4 months or

72 24 10 30

150

*It is necessary to observe here what I forgot before, this is that about three pecks of rice are sown on an acre.

A Concise Natural History

206




Expences of building his indigo vats A boat for plantation use,

Bernard Romans

40 15 341 Dol.

We must suppose him to have converted one of his house negroes into a ¤eld slave, which will make his working hands 9 in all; by no means too small a number to clear and cultivate 20 acres for the ¤rst year [198] We have now indeed seen him expend nearly all his money, but the year is come round and he has now 400 bushels of corn, 200 of which together with the pumpkins he must reserve to feed his negroes and stock with during the next year: thus remains 200 bushels of maize for sale at 2 ryalls per bushell as before said is Of 300 bushels of pease (150 reserved for his use) remain 150 for sale at 2 ryalls also 150 bushels of rough will make 3500lb. of clean’d rice, which his negroes manufacture during the ¤rst winter by hand; this is about 17 barrels of the Mississippi measure, of which 2 being kept for his own use, there will remain 15 barrels for sale which at 22 Dol. per barrel is 400lb. of indigo at the price it bore in November and December 1772, is

400

Thus we may suppose for this ¤rst year his live stock in a thriving condition, his stores full of provisions, and his cash amount to

520 Dol.

50 Dol. 322

372

He may at present reasonably be thought to increase his working negroes to 10, and to add 10 more acres to his cleared ground, besides improving last years clearing. I will now leave this man and give some advice to his poorer neighbour—I appeal to every man who will be candid and is really acquainted with the country I speak [199] of, whether my calculations are just or not, and whether my ballance of the ¤rst years work is not exceedingly moderate: in regard to a buck or jockey, who expecting to ¤nd this new country on his arrival full of Vaux-halls, Ranelaghs, and New Markets;157 who just comes to scamper over it, and when he ¤nds his expectations failing takes a look at the woods, and at the moderate life of the new planter, then turns up his nose, takes a pet and goes off, puf¤ng of a “d—n the country,” he can at best pretend that he was there in a dream; he is no judge, he has no business with serious books on the present subject, at least I write not for him.

The poorer planter we have before allowed to possess The provisions necessary for his voyage for his negro and all included, to be bought at New York as before, 2 tierces of bread 1 barrel of beef 1 barrel of pork, 25 lb. of ham, 1 ¤rkin of butter, 4 small shoats, 2 dozen small poultry, 25 lb. muscovado sugar, 10 bushels of maize coffee, tea, and other small expences, rum included,

207

400 D


A Concise Natural History

£.3 2 4 1 3 2 2 0 1

1 5 10 5 0 0 8 15 10

2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

3

6

0

24

0

2 equal to remains

60 D. 340 50

remains

290 D.

his passage money,

[200] brought over,

290 D.

I will suppose the plantation tools he wants may amount to

25 remains

The expences attending a survey of 400 acres of land (150 miles from the surveyors house,) the quantity this family was formerly intitled to, are as follows, viz. Petition warrant and precept as before Surveying 400 acres at 4s6 Milage Allow the surveyor 12 days with four men, but at the same time the planter may be supposed to have a son, being an able lad, who together with the negro make out three, thus remains only one to pay 2s6 per diem, Provisions for 5 men 12 days rum included, 1s per diem, Return of precept warrant, plat certi¤cate and ¤at

£.11

265 D.

2

7 Str. 18 3

1

10

0

3 1

0 3

0 0

10

208




Governors and secretarys fees,

Bernard Romans

3 £.12

0

0

3 8 Str. Equal to 52 Dollars.

Himself, his son, and negro eployed between November and April, in building a comfortable house of square cypress timber, dove tailed, consisting of two rooms and a loft, together with a corn-house, and in clearing 8 Carried forward

52—265D.

[201] brought over

52—265D

acres of land, during which interval the maintenance of his family may be supposed to cost Allow that he buys in the same interval a cow, 2 sows, 4 D. 2 ®ock of poultry,

A horse A canoe we may suppose built by himself, iron work excepted, Thus we see him in possession of 400 acres of land, a small plantation stock, and Suppose his clear land planted in the following proportion, viz. 5 acres with maize, pease and pumpkins, 1 acre of potatoes, 2 acres of indigo, It may reasonable be supposed to yield 200 bushels of corn, 150 do. of pease, 300 pumpkins, 100 lb of indigo. During summer, his son and negro attending the land, he may be usefully employed in squaring timber, or in some handicraft he understands, this together with the increase of his little stock, and about 60 dollars well laid out, we may reasonably think will Carried forward

80 D. 12 D. 8 D. 6 D. 158 D. 15 D. 2 D. 175 D. 90 D. (in cash.

90 D.

[202] brought over

90 D.

209

maintain his family from April till November

60 D.

Thus the remainder of his cash now amounts to We must allow himself to have made his small indigo vats, He has now for sale 100lb of indigo 120 bushels of corn 2s. 100 do pease, 2s.

30 D.

A Concise Natural History

100 D. 30 D. 25 D. 155 D.

Thus he may very justly at a moderate computation be said to remain at the ¤rst years end in possession of 400 acres of land, a comfortable house, improving stock, and fruitful farm, besides in cash,

185 D.

Let it always be remembered, that the same calculation I have made for the Mississippi, will nearly answer for the Tombechbe or Mobile river too; but if you intend for the eastern province, or for Pensacola, be cautious and bring provisions along with you to last you at least the ¤rst year. It may not be amiss to recapitulate in a general view the present exports of these provinces, together with the possible additions, which to all appearance may be made to them as mentioned in the foregoing pages. 1st. Articles already exported from these provinces. Indigo, Maize, Rice, Tobacco, [203] Mules from Spanish Louisiana, Pitch, Tar, Squared timber, Cedar posts and plank, Cypress & pine boards, Plank of various woods, Scantling,

Indigo seed, Salted wild beef, Carravances,158 Live cattle from West Florida, Hoops, *Dried salt ¤sh, Canes, Oranges, Deer-skins, Peltry, Myrtle wax, Pacan-nuts, Raw hides,

*This article and Cavear with some Ichthyocolla are already exported by the Spanish ¤shermen, the two ¤rst in very considerable quantities.




210


Bernard Romans

Staves and heading, Shingles, Sassafras,

Buffaloe tallow, Bears oil.

2d. Articles, some of which are already naturally found, and others, which to all appearance will soon be introduced, and must become staple commodities in these provinces, Wheat and wheat ®our, Rye, Hemp, Flax, Bees-wax and honey, Silk, Wine, Madder, Rhubarb, Jalap, Pot-ash, Barilla, Saf®ower, Oil of Benni, ——of ground nuts,

Oil of olives, Cotton, Tanned leather, Salt beef, Salt pork, Ichthyocolla, Cavear, Turpentine, Oil of do. Rosin, Gum elemi, Storax, Figgs, Raisins, Drugs of many kinds.

3d. Articles which we have the greatest reason [204] to believe will in process of time become staple exports from these provinces; these are, Sugar, Rum, Ginger,

Coffee, Pimento, Cacao.

4th. Articles of which it were to be wished that the introduction would be attempted soon, under some encouragement, Tea, Arnotto, Orchil, Cochineal,

Cork Tree, Spurious breed of the buffaloe.

I have used my utmost endeavours to collect materials for ascertaining the enumerated exports of Carolina and Georgia for the last two years, but to no purpose, except a paper of the best authority wherein the state of the exports of the last province are recapitulated, and their value ascertained; this paper was printed by James Johnston, in Savannah, and is republished in this work, with a view to convince my reader by the most undoubted matter of fact, that the province of Georgia has advanced the value of her exports in about seventeen years time from £15000 to £121000 sterling per annum, before the 1st of January 1773, as shewn in page 104 of this volume [now after p. 146], this together with a consideration that in the year 1768, when Georgia was still poor, that province and Carolina were thought to increase the wealth of the British nation, near a million sterling* will make us reasonably judge that these two provinces under consideration, (one of which is at least equal to Georgia, and the western one [205] in¤nitely superior to both Carolina and Georgia in point of the quantity of fertile acres) may in 10 years time do as much, provided that the course of nature be not forced into another channel, when either by fraud or violence means will be found to deprive the inhabitants of the Floridas of the bene¤ts which have accrued to Carolina and Georgia, from that law of nature and of God, the lex agraria. Commerce is so effectually necessary to all people on earth, that none can be said to subsist without it; it is in this part of the world chie®y necessary on one account; this is to acquire the means of power to defend the country by riches, which in all probability we must expect to do chie®y ourselves, if we may judge from the policy of destroying the forts Toulouse and Tombechbé among the chain of forts that defended the colonies from the inroads of the savages;160 it may also be of use to maintain the poor, for of these there are already no inconsiderable number who not being brought up or used to tillage are obliged to become ¤shermen and hunters, contributing to support the naval power of Britain may likewise be called a third important motive to urge us on to a promotion of trade, but this last cause of incitement is yet in embryo. Let us endeavour to build vessels ourselves, let not our trade in this country (where ships may be so easily procured) be con¤ned to selling our products at home to people from abroad, who will come to fetch them at pleasure; if we do, what must become of the hopes of ever extending our present limited settlements! consider that on this point depends the increase of mankind, and the welfare of every country. [206] Never let us suffer monopolies from abroad; observe with what a *Political essays 4to London 1772. p. 359.159

211


A Concise Natural History

212


Bernard Romans

fatality they are attended; see what a large cultivable tract of America lies waste through the in®uence of a mean dirty company, who do not annually trade to above one fourth the value of what some private merchants do both in England and Holland, and who have ever with might and main in private opposed the pursuit of a business* the very effecting and encouraging of which was the fundamental intention and condition of the charter which intitles them to be at present such a set of illegal regraters.161 When we consider again the effects, of the establishment of European factors on the trade of Virginia, we shall likewise see the effects of monopolies to be pernicious; for this very scheme, however strange my assertion may appear, is a monopoly in disguise; keep such mangonizers from among us; it is true, some few merchants will be at ¤rst possessed of the chief of all the trade, and thereby (if they are not more virtuous than the generality of mankind at present are) have it in their power to do much mischief to commerce, but let it be remembered, that as long as they are not factors from Europe there is room for others to come in, whereas if once European factors take place, who have the sale of the European manufacturers consigned to them, with orders to keep the price of our valuable products within their own stated limits, it is also done with us; commerce will be so cramped that the innumerable quantities of pro¤table [207] and fertile acres of this wide extended waste of new world might as well be converted into a sea, and think not these cautions premature; there is no want of designing men to set such a scheme on foot to the prejudice of these new countries, and too many ungrateful sons of America itself, would be found to turn their acquaintance with its commercial interests to advantage in gratifying a desire to have a bite at her vitals. I would not be thought, notwithstanding this, to contradict the advice I gave in page 74 of this volume; that scandalous licentiousness which so greatly prevails among the present traders, is so great an evil, that it is become highly necessary a less one should be introduced to effect the destruction of the greater, by monopolies of the trade of each particular savage nation being granted to different men, who would go to reside in each of these different nations; nor should they have this stretch of favour bestowed on them by the community, unless they are laid under proper legal restraints, and until such time, as an amendment in the present distracted state of this great and pro¤table branch of trade might be effected.162 It would scarcely have been necessary to say so much on this subject, were it not that new countries are so open to an introduction of novel schemes, which will be found of pernicious consequences when it is too late; I say it *Discovery of a north west passage.

therefore once more, oppose all schemes that may have a tendency to introduce a monopoly of your products, for a conclusion, hear from me the opinion of the greatest statesman Europe ever produced;* he [208] says, that it was the opinion of the greatest statesmen (undoubtedly after him) that had the rulers of that respectable union in 1609 dealt in the same manner with every branch of trade as they did with that of the East and West-Indies, not one tenth part of the inhabitants of that opulent country would have been able to live and earn their bread; and Holland would have been ruined. Another writer poetically exclaims, “this (meaning monopolies) is the spring from whence misery overwhelms the people.”† In short, to me it seems nothing can be more evident than that the establishing a rational commerce, in an equitable manner, should be a principal aim at the same time with the establishment of agriculture, and introduction of pro¤table staples in a country so peculiarly full of advantages for the promoting of these grand objects, as the western province especially is.‡ The particular branches of commerce so naturally

*Jan De Witt, counsellor pensionary of Holland.163 †Hac fonte derivata cladis in patriam populumque ®uxit[.] Thoughts of the present state of trade in India. ‡I am here tempted, although not the least appearance of such a monopoly exists yet, to lay before my readers the manner of government at Surinam, a colony of people who are beyond contradiction possessed of real liberty in all its extent, and whose political history (notwithstanding their vicinity to Great-Britain) remains absolutely a dark labyrinth to almost every individual of all ranks and classes, high or low, in the British dominions, notwithstanding the knowledge of a pamphlet, called Observations upon the Netherlands, whose author§ (I ask pardon of his respectable memory) has only made some crude and short remarks, in which he has in the most evident manner, published his thorough ignorance of the state of the government he pretended to explain. This mode of administration would [209] never have been erected by my countrymen over their plantations, was it not that a monopoly was at the head of it, what I offer here is a faithful translation of some papers authenticated in the utmost extent of the word. “The governor, who at the same time is colonel of the military, (not the militia only) has the supreme command over the colony, as well in civil as military affairs: he is appointed by the society; but his appointment must be approved of by the universal states. In affairs of consequence, he is obliged to assemble the council of police, where he always presides, as well as in the council of justice, the vacating of¤ces are pro tempore in the gift of the governor till further orders from the directors; the governor has the care of the safety of the colony, and issues the necessary orders for that end; but when is to be protected against inimical invasions, he must assemble the grand court-martial, consisting of the commander, all the captains, and as many members of the council of police, as there are military of¤cers in the court-martial; the governor presides in this assembly, and proposes what he thinks necessary for the security of the colony. Lastly, the governor (by his instructions) is obliged to protect and promote the reformed religion in Surinam. 164

§Sir William Temple.

213


A Concise Natural History

214


Bernard Romans

point themselves out, that it [209] is unnecessary to say much on that head; I will however slightly touch on a very few of the principal [210] prospects now apparently already open to us. Our timber trade is certainly capable of being [211] made incomparably greater than that of other countries together, as well in quantity as in variety: but care should be taken that this trade should be put under such regulations as would prevent a waste of timber, (such as has been too fatally practised in

The governor has a secretary, who is paid by the directors. The maintenance of all the of¤cers is paid out of taxes imposed on all the inhabitants, the directors pay only the governor’s salary with a part of the pay of the soldiers, and the maintenance of the garrison. The council of police and criminal justice consists of ten counsellors, (including the commander of the forts and troops, who bears the title of prime counsellor,) with the attorney-general and a secretary: it has already been observed that the governor constantly presides in this council. The council of justice consists of the governor, and six other persons, to whom a secretary is added; civil affairs are managed by this council. But an appeal lies to the universal states; the governor has here only one vote, except where a casting vote is wanted, in these cases his opinion is decisive; the counsellors of police and justice draw no salaries; the members are elected by the votes of all and every of the inhabitants for a double number, out of which the governor [210] appoints according to his pleasure: they must declare by a solemn oath that they will observe and maintain (in every part) the charter granted by the universal states to the society and that in every other business they will conform themselves to the orders which from time to time they may receive from the directors. At Paramaribo there is also a chamber of small affairs, and a chamber for the management of the affairs of orphans and unpossessed legacies. The ¤rst consists of seven commissaries and one secretary; the last of four overseers of orphans, who have a clerk and book-keeper in their service. The military, maintained at Surinam, consists of four companies of foot; the governor is their colonel, and captain of the ¤rst company; the commandant of the forts commands the second company; this last named gentleman together with the captains, lieutenants, and ensigns compose the inferior court-martial. The seven provinces have promised to pay the expence of one man in each company, on the return of the war-of¤ce, for the protection of the colony of Surinam. The whole colony is divided into eight parts; according to which division, we ¤nd a similar number of companies of militia; each commanded by a captain, the two ¤rst companies are composed of the inhabitants of Paramaribo, the third of the ward of Thorarica; the fourth and ¤fth from upper and lower Cammawina; the sixth of Cottika and Perika, the seventh from Paulus-Creek; and the eighth of the Jewish nation. The churches, the clergy, and lecturers are maintained at the expence of the inhabitants; the clergy meet yearly in the month of February to consider the state and necessities of the church. In this assembly (known by the name of Conventus Deputatorum) a counsellor of the court of police presides with the title of political commissary. As an addendum, every man without exception, whether a native of the mother country or not, is obliged on his arrival to take the oath of fealty to this noble society. I do not present my readers with the above account because I think a general monopoly is ever likely to take place, but to let them have an opportunity of comparing their own happy circumstances with those of a people where monopolies [211] preside, considering at the same time that even these monopolizers through poverty are obliged to allow extraordinary privileges; I wish to put every person on his guard even against particular monopolies or monopolies in disguise. All Dutch ships pay three guilders per last, both at entering and clearing out of the colony,

the north of America,)* and at the same time make our timber by a proper mode of manufacturing, answer the European markets, equally with those of the West-India islands, where the superior quality of West-Florida timber stands acknowledged without a rival. Nothing is wanting to effect this, but the erecting a number of sawing-mills on the Dutch model, and the procuring a regularity of demand for the manufactured boards, &c. As a proof that large quantities of timber may be brought down to our sea-side settlements, I beg leave to relate the following instance; Mons. de la Gauterais, formerly an of¤cer in the service of his most Christian Majesty, but now residing as a planter on Pearl-river, some years ago had the command of the garrison of Tombechbé, during this tedious sequestration from christian inhabitants he thought [212] of a scheme to turn this solitude to advantage; to effect this he employed several savages of the Chactaw nation in the cutting of cedar trees, and made those of his little garrison who were able and willing for a reward to do it, square the timber, and form some of it into a very strong frame of a house of about sixty foot by twenty-¤ve, which frame was next spring erected on an island or gravel bank, about two miles below the fort, and during the summer season, and recess of the waters, this frame was ¤lled with the squared timber, which was effectually secured against removing. When he had this raft compleated, he got leave of absence, and watched the time of the rising waters, which at length took the raft away and him with four people upon it; this raft drew about 12 feet of water, and came down the river without let or hindrance, carrying before it every obstacle (even bending large trees under it) all the way down to Mobile, and by some neglect even as far down the bay as the present fort Croftown; when thus we see that an enormous raft containing upwards of ¤ve hundred tuns of solid timber may be with facility brought down the Tombechbe, above three hundred miles, what have we not a right to expect in the Mississipi. Naval stores are likewise an article of immense speculation in both provinces; West-Florida already supplies Spain with considerable quantities; no province can so pro¤tably furnish Madeira with corn and pipe-staves than West-Florida, and in return supply itself and other provinces with wines: the above named ¤sheries likewise may yield a very pro¤table commercial [213] bene¤t. The trade for furs is a ¤fth article of importance, and is already very great; to mention rice, indigo, tobacco, &c. would be super®uous. But I have one which is about 2s. 9d. ster. per ton, of every ship, port-charges, and the inhabitants pay a general poll-tax, black or white; each 50lb. of sugar, and 22 per cent, on all imported goods, and no vessels from the other Dutch colonies are allowed to enter here.

*For a small instance, dog-wood is used as ¤re-wood in New-York; it is a hard ¤ne grained timber, ¤t for many uses to much better purposes.

215


A Concise Natural History

216


Bernard Romans

material point to mention, I have often wondered at the stupidity of people let loose in a certain part of the ¤eld of commerce: I mean the trade with the Spaniards, the deceitful appearance of which has led many into ruin, and yet intoxicates every one who is so unfortunate as to stray within its bounds to a degree of madness. The generality of traders this way, consider only the price of things as they formerly stood, and not that these articles are much fallen in their price on the Spanish coasts; the danger attending this trade they despise, though it too often proves fatal; the delays on the coast are not so much as thought of, and the per¤dy of the Spanish traders forgot; the underselling by Dutch and French traders, although very real, is thought chimerical, and so on; in short, the prospect is here so gilded over, that nothing but pro¤ts appear, where nothing but certain and inevitable loss can be expected; the fatal mistake of over-stocking every part of America with European manufactures, is a kind of obligation, or rather compulsion on us to strike out into such pernicious branches of trade to the ruin of those who are interested, as well here as in Europe. Be then advised, and let no vain hopes intoxicate you, have patience, and if you import goods from Europe with views of pro¤t, import them in moderate quantities, unless long credit or abundance of money enable you to wait patiently for the arrival of the Spaniards on our own coast; and let none of our vessels frequent [214] their coasts except it be for the purpose of cutting ¤ne timber and dye-wood, (and even these not often) or when you are very well secured by value left in your hands for the vessel to fetch a previously engaged, (but by no means by you) yet paid for cargo. Believe me, an American Spaniard will give you more for your goods at your own house than he will on his coast, and by coming to us he seems to loose all his cunning, which in fact is only owing to our eagerness of compleating a voyage when we arrive on their coasts. More branches of trade are not at present to be mentioned, because none have as yet appeared in this country to be worth pursuing, but an immense variety must and will in the course of nature make their apperance. Having now explained my meaning in respect of the commercial interest of the country, I will say a few words on the bene¤ts arising from the population of these and other similar provinces. It is an undoubted fact, which has been long ago taken notice of,* that one man transplanted into the colonies creates work for four or ¤ve in the mother country; a late writer§ agrees with this in saying, that numbers of people who would have migrated to foreign countries, or done worse, are, by coming here preserved, and when *By Sir Josiah Child, in his discourse on trade, p. 149.165 §Dr. Campbell’s considerations on the sugar trade.166

become rich, return home. I must, however, differ in opinion from a third,† who has quoted both these, and expresses his opinion, by saying, that emigrants ought to be made settle where [215] they may be bene¤cial to GreatBritain; his saying would be just if a migration to the northern colonies was pernicious, but this is so far from being the case, that people there love room as much as any where; the continual and of late excessive importation of settlers into these colonies is an evident proof of this, for by means of these, even the natives are obliged to look out for habitations where they are more at liberty to encrease, not only the necessaries of life to which they are at present con¤ned, but also pro¤table staples for the mother country. A very striking proof of this appears at present in every one of the northern colonies, though in none so much as in Connecticut, whose very hill-tops are inhabited full; those migrations ought therefore to be encouraged, because they will naturally ¤nd their way to the more favourable climates and soil of the southern colonies. It is also the interest of the southern colonies to encourage the migrations from the northward, for fear these last might by being con¤ned within their proli¤c regions be in time induced to think of forming bodies of modern Goths and Vandals to over-run and invade the territories of their more happily situated southern neighbours. I am therefore induced to think, that (however strange it may appear that a people in one hundred and ¤fty years time should increase so rapidly as these have done) there is a necessity even now to enlarge their territories; in this I agree with the last quoted writer, and if Britain wants to secure the dependency of these colonies, it is absolutely incumbent on her to allow this, contrary to some late ill-judged schemes as this may [216] appear. Can she suppose that those countries will remain unsettled? No, the prospect is too ¤ne, numbers of families have through the natural course of the increase of mankind settled themselves on the lands intended lately for a new province on the Ohio:167 if I am rightly informed, no less than ¤fteen hundred families already, and many others on places not yet so much as thought of in Britain. These are the people who are most likely to form independencies, and not the known provinces; what ideas have these people of the paltry fear of a war with a few savages, (for in the northern America they are but few) not that I would be thought to imagine that these last mentioned provinces would not strike in with them in case of favourable opportunities; what if some enterprizing genius among those dispersed inhabitants should form an idea of becoming a great man, and by insinuating himself among the most western tribes of savages (who never having had intercourse with us, nor any †Political essays, p. 359.168

217


A Concise Natural History

218


Bernard Romans

other white people, such for instance are the Nadouessins, who are said to be a people remarkably tractable) would incorporate a body of whites with them, and form [forming br] combinations with other neighbouring nations, and thus form [erect br] themselves into a regular state. Such a state would undoubtedly soon become formidable, and be daily increased by such men as for want of room would leave the crouded provinces. These, supposing them at ¤rst vagabonds, or little better, when they should ¤nd themselves in a place where they might possess the sweets of life at ease, would ¤nd it their interest to become united with the common weal; therefore, I say again, that since [217] for want of room, people to the number of at least ¤ve hundred thousand men, brought up to farming, are now without employ through lack of land, and therefore they are obliged to migrate,) and settle without the limits of the established governments, and thus it is highly incumbent on Britain to enlarge those limits, or form new provinces; a few paltry tribes of savages who retain the ancient grudge against us are no obstacle; the emigrants will soon bear down those melting remains of a people, who having lost their country, cannot fail to hate us, on that account, and in a kind of despair will rather choose to be destroyed than to incorporate with us. Such bodies as above described being once formed, can any man in his senses suppose, that possessed with the spirit and ideas of freedom, for which the Americans are so remarkable, they would after a course of thirty or forty years enjoyment of such an independency be brought to submit themselves to any imposed government? By no means; for not to mention their inaccessibility, men, who thus by a regular train of accidents become masters of a country by honest means, and improve it by robust industry, are not so easily dislodged as we may imagine; history furnishes abundance of instances of such combinations of men, in a short time, becoming formidable; and even in General Oglethorpe’s time a German with conceptions similar to those above named was found among the Creek savages,169 who, had he not engaged in his scheme intirely alone, and therefore by the Creeks, (although reluctantly) through the General’s importunity and intrigues betrayed into [218] his enemies hands, it would have been no wonder if such a man, with such ideas, joined to the amazing presence of mind and intrepidity he is said to have been possessed of. would have so nestled himself in the southern part of America, that we might have had no occasion to think of forming the two provinces of Florida in 1763; and we may venture to af¤rm, that had not the settlement of Georgia, just at that crisis become the object of Britain’s attention, he would have gone on unnoticed till he had formed all the neighbouring nations into a regular governed body, too strong to be crushed by any power from abroad. But laying aside this reasoning, which I still insist upon

is not only apparently probable, but may be looked upon as certainly to happen, unless the present bounds of the several provinces are enlarged; there are other cogent reasons to induce Britain to change her conduct in respect to this branch of her politicks, she ought to let the Americans spread themselves under regular governments over the continent that they may be planters of staples, and thereby ¤nd the means of employing more hands in the mother country, by obtaining from her such of the necessaries of life as they ¤nd themselves obliged to have from Europe, at an easier rate than they could procure them among themselves. By suffering the upper latitude of the Mississippi, and the banks of the Ohio to be cultivated under the in®uence of a regular and civil government, we shall increase such plenty of necessaries in the mother country, that all connection with foreigners who have the balance of trade against Britain will become needless, any further than in selling [219] them British manufactures for money, instead of what is now the case of sending bullion, besides the stated quota of manufactures, in exchange for hemp, iron, ®ax, and other such necessary and bulky articles. When we consider, that during the period of time in which these higher countries enjoyed and were protected by a state of regular government under the French, one winter (so long ago as twenty-eight years) furnished new Orleans with eight hundred thousand weight of good ®our from Ilinois*, we must be sensible at what a reasonable rate this and other necessaries of life could be procured at New-Orleans and Pensacola, and from thence to East-Florida and the West-Indies, where the Pennsylvanians and New-Yorkers at present insist on their own price, in so much that ®our now is commonly at from 20s. to 22s. per cent their currency at home; whereas I remember that even in 1760, during the war, 16s. and 18s. was thought a high price. This alone demonstrates the necessity of such a measure; would not such a fresh supply spread its in®uence even across the Atlantic to the poor in Britain? no doubt it would, the navigation down these rivers is nothing in dif¤culty or expence compared with that of the European rivers, from whence the materials come for the supply of Britain. The inhabitants of the upper counties of Virginia and Pennsylvania would be obliged to drop the bulky commodities they now raise, if they saw the inhabitants of upper Mississippi, the Ohio, &c. raise the same with redoubled ardor, and in a [220] perhaps four-fold quantity, at the same time bringing them to market at much less than half the expence themselves can do it at, and instead of the said coarse, heavy, and bulky articles, they would necessarily be induced to think seriously of a vigorous culture of wine, silk, oil, and similar necessary, light, and valuable products, able

*Du Pratz.

219


A Concise Natural History

220


Bernard Romans

to bear the heavy tax of land carriage to which those countries are by nature subjected. In case of a rupture with any power who should think proper to attack the southern provinces, especially West-Florida, would they not most naturally be supplied with provisions, ammunition, and soldiers by way of the river from those settlements in the higher latitudes? nor is it on account of hemp and ®ax, &c. alone, which may be said to be still objects of speculation, we see the tobacco culture which is a branch of vast importance to the revenue as it were daily mouldering away into its primitive non-existence, and therefore new lands for this culture ought to be found and improved; the want of this supply of the revenue will soon be felt in the treasury, and Britain will ¤nd too late that she would have done well to have gone not only to the expence of the establishment of these new provinces, but even to the expence of that tremendous bug-bear, a war, with the remains of the ancient inimical tribes of savages; unless indeed, she intended the proclamation of October 7, 1763,170 as a meer matter of form, and wished the back settlements quietly to spread themselves without any expence to the mother-country; but should this be the case, the mistakes of such policy I think are fully refuted in the foregoing [221] pages: the spreading of people over the continent will make them produce great quantities of staples, and Britain hereby would secure a [long br] period for the dependance of the colonies upon her, while she would have nothing to do but provide markets for the produce of the labour of her sons. All Europe is sensible of this; every writer I meet with is either of my opinion, or absurdly and continually contradicts and confutes his own maintenance of the contrary in his own writings: I beg leave, to quote a very sensible Frenchman (whose name I know not) on this subject, “it is true,” say he, “that the free and happy situation of North-America, may much disorder our European systems,* particularly, if the English colonies attain to the not paying imposed duties. Vast, fertile, and new tracts, where neither customs, taxes, nor military troops, will take place, because they need fear no invasion, will deserve the most serious attention from all our governments; and policy will be obliged more than ever to turn all her views on the side of bene¤cence. Those states which will be latest in using this re®ection, will ¤nd themselves utterly incapable of mending the evil; for the greatness of punishments or weight of slavery only serve to increase ill-blood.” This is not the way to mend the matter, and I think certainly that no remedy will possibly be found out against such a number of *The French word is Combenaisones [Combinaisons br] Europeanes, which may mean European alliances, combinations, or junctions, but I cannot ¤nd English sense in using either, therefore I suppose he means systems, or he may have meant European plots which the word also bears.

evils, as must necessarily attend the [222] keeping the colonies con¤ned to their present bounds, whereas, by only allowing people to spread over the country, they will all be effectually prevented. To give my reader an idea of what room there is yet left for people to plant themselves, I must tell him, that between the latitudes of 31 to 46, which I judge to be the most habitable country from the Atlantic to the Paci¤c ocean, and which cannot fail by the course of nature to become the country of those Americans who were originally planted from England, Holland, and France, and emigrated from Germany, on, and to the shores which bound the Atlantic westward, and who now generally speak English; within these limits I say are contained no less than two thousand one hundred and thirty-¤ve millions, and forty thousand square acres, exclusive of the known waters; at least twice as much as the vast empire of China is said to contain, and allowing each family to possess ¤fty acres of land, there is room for forty two millions, seven hundred and eight families to live here. To conclude this discourse on the settling of new provinces, I will just observe that the daily emigrations of the people beyond the frontiers, even at the risque of the dreadful situation of being exposed to savage incursions, is the most evident proof of the necessity of this measure to the at present crouded Americans, if not to Britain. Likewise it is a proof how little the present Americans who inhabit the frontier countries value so insigni¤cant a foe as the remains of the ancient inimical tribes of savages, or even the prosecutions in law of super-intendants, their [223] delegates, and other formerly useful of¤cers. To say a word or two about the political history of these provinces, may be thought incumbent on me, but little can be said of moment on that subject as yet; except that Major Ogilvie in taking possession of the eastern province,171 by his impolitick behaviour caused all the Spaniards to remove to Havanna, which was a deadly wound to the province, never to be cured again, notwithstanding the inviting means used by Governor Grant,172 who succeeded him, to retain the remainder, and to make them all return;—that Governor Grant used all possible means to encourage indigo and rice planting;—that the crown would not allow the transfer of Spanish landed interest to be good, although mentioned in the articles of peace;—that the said governor reigned supreme without controul, and in peace, notwithstanding the frequent murmurs of the people, and the presentments of the grand juries, occasioned by his not calling an assembly, which they thought was a duty incumbent on him;—there was also a complaint of the contingent money of ¤ve thousand pounds per annum, for seven years, not being so very visibly expended on highways, bridges, ferries. and such other necessary things as

221


A Concise Natural History

222


Bernard Romans

the people could have wished; ¤nally, Governor Grant departed the province for Britain in 1772, on account of his bad state of health, having a pompous address presented to him by his council, which was re-echoed by a few of the inhabitants;—that he was succeeded by Major Moultrie as lieutenantgovernor,173 who was again succeeded by Patrick Tonyn, Esq;174 as governor in chief, who enjoys the command [224] there now;—that in the northern extremity of the province at the mouth of St. Mary’s river, a place is now founded, which, to all appearance, by its situation and superior entrance into its harbour compared with St. Augustine, will draw the seat of government away from the latter;—that the cultivation of many articles, especially indigo, begins to wear a pleasing and promising aspect. Concerning West-Florida, I can only say, that discord has early made her appearance in the counsels of this province;—that disaffection to Governor Johnson has been the occasion of its being so late as it was in rearing its head;—that Montfort Brown, Esq; succeeded him as commander in chief in quality of lieutenant-governor, who was succeeded by —— Elliot, Esq; who unhappily ended his days; when the lieutenant-governor again succeeded him, and was a second time replaced by Governor Chester, who is universally esteemed, and under whose auspices the province is in a thriving condition.175 About March 1772, the freeholders being met for the purpose of electing their representatives, but ¤nding that the writs mentioned a continuance of the assembly for three years, (whereas they had heretofore held annual elections) they now added this condition to their votes, that the new elected members were to continue only one year; the mode of return on the writ the governor took ill, and refused to accept it, insisting that the members should be returned for three years, but all in vain, the freeholders remained in®exible, and rather than not have annual elections, they chose to remain without representatives, [225] which has been the case ever since.176 The settlement of this province goes on very rapidly, and its different valuable products increase a-pace. I shall now treat of a subject in which I confess myself not to have so much skill as I could wish; I speak of it from such experience as my temper, inquisitive into the mysteries of nature, has furnished me with during my stay in this country; I mean the diseases most frequent in those provinces. But by way of prologue, I shall enquire a little into the universally dreaded, though chimerical unhealthiness of this climate. Dr. Lind*177 enumerates some proofs or signs of an unhealthy country, which are as follows, viz. 1st. Sudden and great alterations in the air, from intolerable heat, and chilling *2d edition p. 1. ch. 4. sect. 2, p. 137, et seq. London 1771.

cold; this is perceived as soon as the sun is set, and for the most part is accompanied with a very heavy dew, and shews an unhealthy swampy soil; this is perfectly the case on St. John’s river, and about Nassau-river, in EastFlorida, likewise at Mobille, and Campbellton, in West-Florida. At Pensacola, and from thence East: there is little or none of this perceivable; at Orleans, and on the Mississippi I was not sensible of any sudden alterations of this kind: and on enquiry found it not to be generally complained of. Neither of those provinces are so subject to this unhealthy variability as Georgia and Carolina, especially the last; however, I do not ¤nd that any person need be much under uneasiness about this any where, not even a newly arrived European; the chief care necessary to such at seasons when these sudden alterations take [226] place, is to avoid being exposed to the night air, and after sun set, to add some more clothes to those worn in the day time; and if on a journey in the woods, never forget keeping a very large ¤re at night in order to rarify this dangerous air. His second sign is, thick noisome fogs, arising chie®y after sun-set, from the vallies, and more particularly from the mud, slime, and other impurities; this I never perceived to a great degree in any part of these provinces; St. John’s alone is very subject to thick nasty fogs of all kinds, the sea-side where soft salt marshes are frequent, is often troubled with these, and these marshes a little before rain emit a most horrid, and to me a suffocating stench; the northern part of East-Florida is very full of these kind of marshes, in Georgia and Carolina they cover a prodigious surface; the marshes in the south east of East-Florida are of a different nature, and in West-Florida I remember very few of this kind; I have, however, never heard any thing said contrary to a prevailing opinion of great salubrity in dwelling near the sea side, even among the thickest of these marshes; nor have I ever heard any notice taken of the above stench by the inhabitants, except as being a certain indication of rain; where this kind of marshes are situate in brackish water, the situation is beyond doubt very unhealthy, the wan complexion and miserable mien of the generality of the inhabitants of such districts too plainly evinces it- We know by experience, that all such fenny countries on every part of the earth labour under the same unhealthy calamity, but the comfort is, their areas are every where very small when compared [227] with the more salutary situations which abound almost universally in every province, and in every climate. The third is, uncommon swarms of ®ies, gnats, and other insects, which attend putrid air, and unhealthy places covered with wood; the ¤rst of these is not common here, except at indigo works; and if these, according to my former caution* be a little remote from the dwelling, I never saw nor heard *Page 139.

223


A Concise Natural History

224


Bernard Romans

of any bad consequences with regard to health attending them. I have already mentioned the bad effects of these voracious vermin on cattle of all kind at an indigo work; gnats, here called musquitos, are vastly numerous in some spots, but after we have passed some distance the brackish waters in every river, they diminish, and at last we ¤nd none; the Mississippi however is an exception, but on this river they are not in such plenty at the freshes as below, at the rigolets, on pearl river, and at the Riviere aux Boeufs, and on Dolphin-island, likewise in Santa-Rosa bay, and in the bays of St. Andrews, St. Josephs, and at St. George’s sound and islands, they are intollerable, and all the sea coast of both provinces is exceedingly pestered with them. I travelled across the peninsula in 1769, in the months of June, July, August, and September, but found none at all in the interior part; I never heard these being attended by any fatal disease except their troublesome bites, which sometimes cause in®ammations, especially in the legs; but the inhabitants of the western province so effectualy fortify themselves against those vermin with musqueto nets, tents, and [228] Baires,* that whether at home or travelling, they are not in the least danger from the attacks of this terrible and bold, though dimunitive enemy, whose destruction gradually takes place as the woods daily diminish; in very dry hot summers, scarce any of these vermin are seen; a very dry hot air causing the deaths of numberless animaculæ of every kind, their ef®uvia, even of those that are imperceptible to the naked eye, arising or exhaling from ponds, marshes, swamps, &c. must spread a great quantity of noxious vapours through the atmosphere,§ and consequently corrupt the air, and spread disease throughout their vicinity; this misfortune will likewise cease on opening the country, till then let me advise every new comer, particularly a person of a gross habit of body, to be careful of his constitution, a wine-bibber or rum guzzler, with such a plethoric habit, can hardly avoid falling a prey to this bad air. His fourth, is the quick corruption of butcher’s meat, &c. this, if the case at all in any of these provinces, is not common, I remember indeed to have heard a complaint of this happening at Pensacola in 1765, which was a sickly season, but in all my journies through these provinces I never experienced it, on the contrary I could always by some means or other preserve my venison, or beef, when there was a necessity for doing it. The ¤fth reason, says the Doctor, is a sort of sandy soil, among others he says, such as that at Pensacola; I beg leave to inform the Doctor, that the sand about Pensacola, and throughout these [229] provinces, is a coarse, gritty and *Baires are a kind of tent made of light coarse cloth, like canvas gauze, called by the French villemontiers. §See page 15 of this volume.

gravelly sand of various colours, though chie®y red and white, that on this sandy soil many excellent salubrious herbs grow, which serve as food to innumerable herds of cattle, and when cleared they are improvable by culture; this is not the case with the hot sandy desarts of South-America, Africa, and Asia, over which the samiel wind passes,178 nor do I believe that the oldest person in Florida remembers any sudden, hot and suffocating gusts, or blasts, from which he has ever been obliged to turn his face in order to draw breath; there are no open plains of sand in North-America, they are all covered with trees rooted in the lower strata of these sandy tracts; the only plain of sand I know without trees, is at, or near the head of St. Lucia, in East-Florida, which however is not extensive, and to it numerous herds of roe-deer resort during night from the adjacent woods; I think, therefore, that neither of the Floridas have any ill consequences to dread from their land winds; moreover, if we consider, that the land-winds come from the west and north-west; geography will tell us, that they range over innumerable acres of oak land, consequently clay ground,* and that only the sea coasts, and from twenty to about an hundred miles off, are any ways sandy; which being so constantly fanned by the wholesome sea-breezes, (so remarkable in these provinces) could not have any fatal effects, even if the ground was of the nature of the Lybian desarts; thus we see again how men reasoning from mere theory, are liable to commit mistakes. [230] To treat of the diseases to which the human frame is most liable here, in the same regular manner, as I believe I have done of every preceeding article, I will divide them into two classes, viz. acute and chronic, and the ¤rst again into two orders, viz. those of the summer, and those of the winter.179 Fevers are the ¤rst of the summer diseases; the ancients have ages ago made an observation, that the season of the reign of this terrible disorder was always preceeded by an atmosphere laden with great heats, and much rain, for some time; the modern writers seem to me to be generally of the same opinion; this is exactly the case in all the southern provinces; for fevers begin to take place in some districts more, in some less, about the latter end of July, and in August, and continue throughout September, and part of October, just the season immediately succeeding our greatest rains; and most violent heats; here I will notice a† remark which I have read long ago, and I ¤nd it con¤rmed in all climates, “That the middle of the third month was observed to be the period of the greatest rage of epidemical disorders.” Those districts *Excepting the few hommocks near the sea, which are oak land, but most of them sand. †Inquiry concerning the cause of the pestilence, and the diseases in ®eets and armies. London 1759.180

225


A Concise Natural History

226


Bernard Romans

which lay near to low rice ¤elds, particularly in back swamps) and to such indigo works, where the planter is obliged to make reservoirs of water, are most liable to these disorders, after, and during the latter part of an excessive drought; because in those neighbourhoods the air is at such times most prodigiously loaden with corrupt moist [231] ef®uvia; for this same reason, cool rainy summers will make those places more healthy than dryer spots, because during such a season all the above mentioned noxious exhalations do not take place in so great a degree, and the air is kept cool by the frequency of the showers; however such situations will never be so common in the Floridas as in Carolina or Georgia, the quantity of good wholesome fresh running water being in¤nitely greater, and consequently little necessity of making stagnating ponds or dams. It must be allowed, that all fevers however dissimilar in appearance, proceed from the same origin; nature only works with more or less violence to rid herself of what is detrimental to her. The Ephemera, or day fever, occasioned by a meer increase of the velocity of the blood, by means of a ¤t of drunkenness, or debauch, or originating from violent exercise during the heat of the day is too frequently seen here; but as it is seldom of a longer continuance than eighteen or twenty hours, it has not often dangerous consequences, and may be avoided by every person; I shall content myself with barely observing, that some cooling acidulated liquid aliments will soon abate its violence, bleeding may likewise be of use to restrain its force. The continual fever, or in®ammatory fever, is sometimes, though rarely experienced in this climate, but seldom attended by those dreadful symptoms and fatality, which accompany the same kind of fever, though of a more violent class in the countries immediately between the tropics: this, in its common form lasts about ten [232] or twelve days, beginning to abate its violence in general after the seventh; the fourth or ¤fth is often fatal. I am persuaded, that whenever the yellow fever has made its appearance in the Floridas, it was imported from Jamaica or Havannah, as was the case in 1765, which (by the way) was almost universally an unhealthy Æra, as well in Europe as elsewhere. This continual fever begins with an excessive heat of the whole body, continued, though not violent head ach, great drought of the tongue and palate, and consequently a continual desire to drink; those people who die of this disorder, generally depart on the fourth day, and I am of opinion, that few are carried off by it, except such as are kept too close con¤ned from the fresh air: I would recommend the keeping the sun out of the room, but to admit as much air as will gently ventilate it; a cooling diet, such as rice gruel, barley water, infusions of baum, or sage, and lemon-

ade, which is lime juice, water, and very little sugar; lime juice, syrup of lemons, and currant jelly should moderately enter into every part of the patient’s diet; avoid all salt, spices, spirituous liquors or generous wines; a gentle purge of glauber salt, with a few grains of kermes mineral, and some drops of oil of mint is generally given on the ¤rst appearance of the disease;181 the effects of this are forwarded by frequent draughts of warm chicken broth. During the operation of this, avoid all acids: bleeding (especially if the disease makes a violent attack, and the patient is of a plethoric habit) is indispensably necessary, the patient ought by all means to avoid motion, and notwithstanding the above caution of admiting [233] air in the room, keep himself covered, and be careful not to throw his bed cloths a-side. If the symptoms abate after the above mixture, emetics are commonly subscribed; if it still continues, particularly if attended with delirium, lethargic symptoms, or their reverse, blisters are applied; and in great watchfulness some laudanum is used; if worms are suspected, an infusion of †Indian pink root,182 (a very common plant here) leaves, wood, and all, is made use of as tea; but this plant possessing a pretty strong narcotic quality, ought to be used with caution: in excessive heats some grains of sal nitri183 are added to the liquors administered to the patient, and as soon as the fever begins to abate, some orange, lime or lemon juice, saturated with salt of wormwood, is given by a small tea-cup full every two hours. The yellow fever being sometimes imported here, it may be necessary to describe this Proteus among diseases, which I have frequently seen, and which I myself have suffered in Jamaica under one of its various forms. I chuse to follow the description of Dr. Rouppe, in his de morb. navigant,184 as quoted by Dr. Lind, because I ¤nd no other author who has done it so exactly, and if I had not seen his account I should not perhaps have recollected half the symtoms he mentions, altho’ I now perfectly remember to have seen that dire distemper in every shape he paints it in. He seems to speak of it as an illness to which seamen only are subject in that climate (Curacoa;) he may have been induced to think so by the disorder not raging on shore; the ®orid complexion of [234] most of the people in the island suf¤ciently shewing it to be a very healthy spot; but I ¤nd by his description, that it was the real yellow fever contracted at St. Eustatius; he calls it the putrid colliquative or spotted fever; it raged in the Dutch ship of war Princess Carolina, on board of which this physician arrived at St. Eustatius on the 1st of August, 1760, on the 11th they sailed from thence for Curacoa, which harbour they entered on the 19th, and then (whether he means on the passage, or the very day he †Lonicœra.

227


A Concise Natural History

228


Bernard Romans

arrived, seems doubtful) twenty people were sick, some of these had headaches without fevers, and some were af®icted with a true bilious cholic; but they were by an easy cure again restored to the enjoyment of their former health: the sense of his account of the disorder, I take to be as follows, viz. “In the beginning of our stay in the isle of Curacoa, as before mentioned, the diseases which occurred most frequently were headaches and bilious cholics, which were soon cured; this changed into true choleric complaints, gradually increasing with pain much more dangerous than the former, wonderfully tormenting the patients: the disorder begun with a very great burning heat about the præcordia, (sides of the upper part of the belly) griping stools, great anxiety and uneasiness, these were followed by bilious stools and vomitings, with great loss of strength, many of them being bedewed with abundance of cold sweat; if this continued, especially if a fever came on, (which was the manner in which it seized some with a high pulse, which continued in most about ten hours,) then the lips began [235] to swell. and a ghastly paleness seized the face; afterwards, the fever abating, they vomited abundance of dark coloured blood; at this period they generally died, or within a few hours after the appearance of these symptoms. Those who voided the above named and some blacker matter by stool, emitted a terrible offensive smell; but some of these were with dif¤culty cured; in the same manner it happened to those, who suffering of the fever, had, however no evacuation; others were only seized with a common bilious fever, and as much as I could judge, the major part of those were young men, or middle aged, robust, and before sickness the briskest and most cheerful; they had a heat about the prœcordium, they vomited bile, or were making attempts to vomit and had an unquenchable thirst; some of these frequently found themselves cold, and by turns heats would seize them; then succeeded a hot itching of the whole body, with a high, full, and quick pulse; the tongue was yellowish or whitish-often encompassed with a green border on the edges, and always wet or moist. “The disease continued in some to the second, in others to the third day; then the heat would abate of itself, and the natural pulse returned suddenly or unawares, which by little and little would sink, and at length become small and tremulous, in some there appeared petechiœ about the breast, arms, and inside of the thighs; in others, large livid spots appeared; the strength of some was by all this so exceedingly exhausted, that on the least motion, the patient would swoon; besides an abundant sweat would [236] arise on the whole body; the patient moreover would be anxious, fretful, uneasy, slightly delirious, very inattentive, valuing nothing, complaining of nothing, eluding questions, and yet at the same time almost always answering pertinently to

them; in some, upon the declining of the pulse, a ¤ery heat would arise about the stomach, the lips swelling a little, the face becoming ghastly, shortly after they vomited discoloured matter, and at length died; others would be consumed by heat and griping stools, and discharged corrupt, stinking, and almost black blood by stool; some in the third, and others in the fourth day, would begin to acquire a yellow tinge in the white of the eye, and on the skin, which was an evil sign; moreover, the tongue would from day to day become whiter, and at length tremulous; they would always lay on their backs, thus as the disease increased, sometimes on the second, third, or at latest on the fourth day, an easy, calm death would follow. “Blood drawn from the veins, in the heat of the fever; was bright red: it concreted and separated a yellow serum, just as in Europe. Those, who by meer dint of strength resisted the disease, and reached the ¤fth or seventh day, would have the whole body almost covered with small boils, or little painful red pimples, very dif¤cult to be brought to a suppuration, resembling small pox of the con®uent kind. “At length, most of the diseased, particularly those who had reached beyond thirty years of age, and were of a bad habit of body, when they were seized with the disorder were overwhelmed [237] with pain and heat about the stomach, with a continual retching, but yet bringing up little or nothing; in some the pulse increased for some hours, and again appeared in a short time to be in its natural state; it became low, the skin possessed its natural heat, the tongue was moist and white; on the ¤rst day of the disease a copious sweat would break out over the whole body, but no spots appeared, those whose sweat was little or none, had copious black and very fœtid discharges, were troubled with gripings, and would often faint away suddenly; when the evacuations were tri®ing, ceased, or otherways remarkably lessened, and but little sweat pervaded; then the patients suffered greatly and were very restless; on the contrary, if it broke forth plentifully, they found themselves much better. “Lastly, in all its stages from beginning to end they were af®icted with constant watchings. “A worthy lad about eighteen years old, who found himself well in the morning early, was, about 10 o’clock of the same morning taken with a head ach, and other feverish symptoms, he had a high full and quick pulse, he obstinately refused being blooded: the second day at evening he voided abundance of dark discoloured blood by vomit, and the third he died. Another of about sixteen was well in the evening, but we found him next morning ill, and utterly deprived of all sense, I examined his body, which was swelled and overspread with livid spots, his pulse almost entirely gone; some black

229


A Concise Natural History

230


Bernard Romans

blood of a sweetish taste ®owed from his left ear and out of his nostrils, which continued [238] to ooze out some hours after his disease [decease], the corpse in a short time became wholly discoloured and livid, emitting a very disagreeable smell.” The French call this disorder mal de Siam, supposing it originally imported from thence into the islands; the Spaniards vomito preto, or black vomit; the Dutch geele koorts, which last conveys the same idea as the English yellow fever. In general, when fevers are violent, the practice which prevails at present, is to have recourse to antimonial medicines, and as soon as a remission is brought about: the bark is administered in large doses. Intermittents are endemial in all low situations,185 thus we see in all the provinces to the southward, particular places remarkable for a continuance of this disorder in them, such as more especially Jacksonburg, in SouthCarolina, Savannah, in Georgia, Rolles-Town, and most of the settlements on St. John’s, in East-Florida, at Campbell-town, near the mouth of the Escambe and at Mobile in West-Florida; this disease attacks people much in the same form as the continued fever, the ¤rst ¤t frequently lasting three days without intermission; physicians treat it nearly in the same manner as the last, but I have observed, that they are very averse to taking blood from a patient af®icted with this disorder, saying, that bleeding is a sure way to prolong the disease, although sometimes a small matter of blood is taken from people of a very gross habit of body, when the returning ¤ts seemed to continue longer in point of time than at the ¤rst, the same diet is observed as in the continued [239] fever, except when the patient is very weak, when strong broths well separated from the fat are frequently given; if delirious, or comatose symptoms with pains in the back, &c, make their appearance, cooling medicines are used, during the paroxysms, Doctor James’s powder or other antimonials,186 and on intermission the bark in copious doses is administered with success, and in obstinate head-aches recourse is had to blisters. This is a very tedious disease, and whoever is af®icted with it should not too soon judge himself cured, but continue taking a bitter infusion, composed of the bark of the root of the magnolia major (which the French on the Mississippi substitute in lieu of Jesuit’s bark) with Virginia heart, snake-root, rue, sal absynth, and pink root, in good Madeira or Lisbon wine.187 People in general, suppose them even obliged to remain on the sickly spot during the fatal season, which is autumn, may by care, in a great measure shun this tedious illness, such as living on a more generous diet, especially animal food high seasoned, and a moderate glass of wine; avoiding a too

great exposure to the then frequent sudden changes of air. They ought to use the cold bath often, wear garlic and camphire in the pockets, not expose themselves to rain, and above all keep warm and dry feet, and if got wet by rain not to change their clothes too suddenly; never go out of a morning fasting, but before you go to work, business, &c. eat a piece of bread, and drink a glass of the bitter infusion; avoid the night air, and keep some ¤re in the house, particularly in the mornings and [240] evenings to rarify the damp air in the rooms, especially in the bed rooms which ought never to be on a lower ®oor, and should be in the eastern parts of the building exposed to the morning sun: by observing these rules the constitution of the human body will be less disposed to receive the impressions of a bad air. An excellent thing to be given the negroes on a plantation before they go to work, is a wine glass full of the above bitter ingredients, and garlic infused in rum; and they should be encouraged to chew and smoke tobacco. When a person is seized with a ¤t of the ague, he ought by no means to delay going to bed, and drink a draught of lime juice, and powder of chalk, while it is fermenting in the glass; this will bring on a sweat, and shorten the ¤t, or in the hot ¤t use some opiate if the patient is not delirious, this ought to be done as often as the paroxysms return. The nervous fever, likewise called the slow fever, is known by a small, quick and low pulse, and by not affecting the patient with such violent heats as the others fevers, but with greater oppression about the prœcordium; it does not make them so thirsty; the tongue is at ¤rst unusually moist, and looks white, though at last it becomes dry, and looks brown or in®amed; continual heats are felt in the palms of the hands, heats and chills return alternately very quick, a copious clammy weakening sweat, excessive lowness of spirits, restlessness, being drowsy without power of sleeping, pain and giddiness of the head, ringing in the ears, and if it lasts long, the tendons are often affected with a sort of cramp; deafness, [241] deliriums, continual lethargic ¤ts; insensibility and stupor are the constant attendants of this disorder when in its last stages. This is a most treacherous disorder, and by affecting the sufferer with only slight symptoms of weariness and weakness, attended with frequent yawnings and stretchings, a slight giddiness and loss of appetite, and a great heat in the forehead, makes people neglect an early application to the physican, and thus they endanger themselves much, though in people of a robust constitution who are much exposed to the sun, it will often appear for the ¤rst day or two with violent symptoms; this fever will last sometimes for twenty days or more without any apparent abatement; it generally attacks people

231


A Concise Natural History

232


Bernard Romans

who have been exposed to unusual fatigue, or such as are naturally of a weak constitntion. Vomits are the remedy to which recourse is most usually had in this disorder. Physicians steadily, and almost totally avoid bleeding and purging, till after a free use of the Ipecacuana, and even then their cathartic prescriptions are rarely any other than manna and salts, and after the gentle purges obtained by this method, they order a free use of rich chicken broth, and the above described juice of lemons saturated with sal absynth: this they generally continue until the disease changes into an intermittent fever, and then treat it in the manner last mentioned; frequently also applying blisters. This fever more particularly than any other disorder, bears hardest on the patient towards sunset. The diet commonly prescribed is sago, chicken broth and panado,188 with some small matter of wine and loaf sugar in the ¤rst and last; [242] infusions of sage and baum, together with wine whey, are the drink mostly thought proper during the continuance of this disorder. The use of bark is generally blamed as productive of dropsy; jaundice, the ague cake,* and other inveterate chronical disorders, but it is certain that the bark is blameless; it is the fault of the physicians, who too late and with too much caution use this blessed remedy, which seems as purposely designed by Providence to relieve us in those tedious disorders; or it is that of the patient himself, who, prejudiced against this excellent remedy, refuses to take it till it is too late, and thereby brings upon himself the above diseases, which are consequences of the fevers, not of this great speci¤c. The above mentioned fevers and unusual hardships in travelling, &c. as well as excesses at plentiful tables full of variety, often bring on a severe bloody ®ux189 especially in autumn, and if this makes its appearance with hard dry and bloody stools, the disease is dangerous; brisk purges and clysters of Castile soap, and some of the hot seeds are used to expell these; when the desired end is obtained, gentle emetics are called in; I have known people ¤nd great relief from a decoction of logwood and pomgranate skins, others again it would not help in the least; a new honey comb inclosed in an apple scooped out, and then roasted before the ¤re, has often proved a speedy and very effectual remedy; [243] calcined hartshorn, a nauseous medicine, is nonsense; bark of sumach is a good medicine, but there being a dangerous kind, it ought to be gathered by a skilful hand; the bark of the liquidambar styraci®ua; aceris folio mentioned in page 20, together with the gum exuding from *A hardness in the region of the spleen, one of the consequences of long continued fevers, and by the Dutch Creoles distinguished by this name, they call it in their own language koek in de buyck, or simply de koek.

the same tree, is generally found ef¤cacious; a wine glass full of the juice of lemons mixed with some common salt has often proved a most excellent, safe, and general speci¤c; the frequent chewing of cinnamon and camomile ®owers, especially when a weak stomach vexes the patient, has a noble effect; avoid all vegetable food except rice, eat roasted rather than boiled ®esh; salted beef need not to be avoided; use often veal, jellies and salop; use a great deal of mustard; I know by the experience of many as well as my own, that Dr. Barry’s observation of vegetables not being so easily assimilated as animal food,190 is in the strictest sense universally true, and in an obstinate continuance of this disorder, vegetables even our common wheaten bread are not at all digested, but most generally pass through the body unaltered. When this disease changes into a chronic habitual ®ux, it will be necessary to use pills of equal parts of rhubarb and ipecacuana, mixed with some liquid opiate, and use weak lime water for common drink: if this does not prove a speci¤c, let the patient be removed to some other clime, for no remedy will affect that disorder in the same climate, where it was originally contracted, claret or port ought to be their constant drink in this disease, and spirituous liquors ought by all means to be avoided; rum, a cursed bane of health and of society; is too often [244] and indiscriminately applied to every disease as an universal arcaum. The cholera morbus is likewise a consequence of intemperate meals, and when it is not occasioned by any food peculiarly repugnant to the stomach it often proves fatal. Debauch of every kind, particularly unseasonable sitting up, is most frequently productive of some of the most dreadful disorders, and excessive passions of the mind sometimes produce the same effects. Excess in venery is generally productive of the most violent and obstinate disorders, principally in®ammatory fevers, and obstinate ®uxes. There is a disease which the French call La Tytanose, which affects people in the western parts of Florida, and will attack them with prodigious violence upon being wounded even in the slightest manner: if during the hot months a splinter be run into the ®esh, the patients are attacked with violent contorsive spasms, and generally die in about eighteen or twenty hours. I never saw any person af®icted with this dreadful disorder, but from the similarity of the name with the latin Tetanus, and from my being told, that opium and camphire are much used to procure relief, I take it to be the locked jaw, with which I saw a young man die at Mobile, Mr. Lind* recom*Hot Climates, second edition, page 285–286.

233


A Concise Natural History

234


Bernard Romans

mends copious external applications of opium, and the cold bath; and gives some imperfect account of mercurial ointment having lately proved an ef¤cacious remedy; the hint was perhaps necessary to be inserted here. [245] Angina Suffocativa, or the putrid sore-throat, sometimes appears here, this is a contagious distemper, and rages in America mostly among the youth; it generally begins with a slow fever attended with great lassitude and a low pulse; this is succeeded by a sore throat with white spots near the uvula, and if it be not immediately taken notice of, the patient soon becomes past hopes, and generally dies within 24 hours after the ¤rst severe attack of the fever; the physicians in Carolina and Georgia prescribe ¤rst mercurial purges, and order a gargle of borax, dragon’s blood and Armenian bole in vinegar and honey;191 and the throat is anointed frequently by help of a feather, with a mixture of balsam of sulphur, tincture of myrh, honey, loaf sugar, and yolk of eggs; the principal part of the cure is to attend the disease early, the least neglect being dangerous. The dry belly-ach is a very painful and tormenting disorder, though rarely fatal; it is occasioned by cold damp lodgings, and being exposed to the night air; but most frequently in all climates by an excessive use of the vegetable acid juices, which are all extremely astringent in their nature: and when this disorder proceeds from too liberal an use of punch, rheumatic pains and paralytic affections of the nerves are its constant consequences and attendants, with loss of the proper use of limbs: (often for life) the most usual symptoms are the vomiting of bile, with the most obstinate costive habit imaginable; and when stools are procured, the excrements are excessive hard, and in round balls like horse dung: all this is attended with the most excruciating pain in the bowels, and a clammy sweat[:] [246] the method of cure is by administering emetics of the antimonial kind, which often also procure a stool; this is the only thing that can relieve the poor sufferers; the warm steam of hot herb baths, clysters of the tinct. Thebaic.192 in luke warm milk, and emollient plaisters in which opium enters, applied to the stomach and belly; bitter purging salts and manna, and infusions of sena leaves, after the middle vein is stript out of them; in the severe attacks of the pain, opiates are used, and too often that cursed arcanam of the vulgar among the English: I mean rum and other distilled spirits, which in this disorder too often prove fatal poisons; the oil of Palmæ Christi,193 by three or four spoonfuls has sometimes proved effectual; oil of almonds and of olives, have been given with success; after all medicines had failed, I once applied to a mulato woman, who was a noted empyric in the island of Curacoa, where I was attacked by this distemper: she ordered a clyster of sweet milk, tobacco and brown sugar, which gave some slight relief, but after a while the painful symptoms of the

disease seemed to be as excruciating as ever; she then gathered some handfuls of the leaves of a shrub which is there called Wild Carpat;* these she boiled like spinnage, and made them into seven or eight balls of the size of walnuts, put them in a plate, and poured oil olive on them, and a little pepper; this kind of salad she made me eat with a piece of bread, when I observed to her, that [247] she ought to have added vinegar to have made a perfect sallad; she answered, that vinegar in my case was poison; in half an hour after the use of this mess, a stool (the ¤rst in twenty-three days) was procured, which was followed by ¤ve or six more that very afternoon; and she then gave me for some days an intensely bitter mixture, in which I perceived the juice of aloes predominant, but could not learn the composition. This kept me in a lax habit of body, and in about fourteen days I was enabled to pursue my ordinary avocations; camphire and opium enter into all the purgative prescriptions I have seen ordered in this disease, by the physicians of the south. There is an instantaneous fatal disorder which the French call un coup de Soleil, i.e. literally, a stroke of the sun; of this I remember one instance during my stay in West-Florida, when it killed a child of about twelve years old on the spot between the hours of eleven and twelve in the forenoon, the time, as I am informed, in which it always takes place; by instantly applying cold water to the crown of the head, I am told, its fatality is prevented; likewise by cupping the crown of the head: what its symptoms are, I have not seen, but by the descriptions, I take it to be a fever, which so violently attacks the patient, that it causes instant death. This disorder occurs very seldom, and as it is so very easily guarded against, persons who are attacked by it, are in a great measure blameable for their own misfortune, particularly if they know the country; the French, one and all, put a single piece of clean writing paper between their hat and head during the hot months, to ward off the attacks of the coup de Soleil. [248] These are the diseases, which occur during the hot seasons; there is likewise a fever, in which the patient is continually affected with de®uxions of the head: this appears in the late winter months, and during a wet spring; it is called a Catarrhal Fever: this disease is not frequent, but when it appears, it is generally treated like other fevers, except that bleeding is more freely used. The pleurisy also makes its appearance sometimes in winter. Moderate or copious bleedings from the arm according to the degrees of violence of its attacks are immediately used: if looseness and gripes attend the pain, blood *Carpat, is the Dutch name of Palma Christi; I have long in vain tried to ¤nd the shrub, from which these leaves were taken; all I know of them is, they are Lanceolate, of a lucid green, and boil very tender.

235


A Concise Natural History

236


Bernard Romans

is taken away often, and in small quantities; the patient is kept moderately warm, and on no account suffered to uncover; the ¤rst medecine is commonly a cooling purge; gentle sudori¤cs are likewise administered; frequent hot baths for the feet are also prescribed, but very cautiously applied for fear of his catching cold. After the operation of purges and sudori¤cs, gentle antimonials are used, and a light easy digested diet, with infusions of hyssop, sage, or baum, follow in course; likewise swallowing of living wood-lice: and in case of costive symptoms, clysters are used; on a continuance of the pain in the side, a moderate blister or drawing plaister is put to the part;—much coughing, which causes a watchfulness, is removed by opiates: in feverish symptoms the disease is treated as the other fevers; spirituous liquors are to be avoided by all means. During some winters, a Peripneumony also visits a few people here; the method of cure is the same as for the pleurisy: it is said to be more dangerous than the pleurisy, particularly if copious [249] bleeding is not made use of as soon as the patient is affected. In this disorder there is generally a freer access of air allowed than in the last, and the patient kept almost in a sitting posture; it is said that the steams of warm water drawn into the lungs in this disease, is a powerful help. A compound of the two last disorders, called the Pleuro-peripneumony, is likewise sometimes heard of, and is treated as the last. In Georgia I saw one or two instances of a disorder among blacks, to which the people give the odd name of the pleurisy of the temple, of the forehead, of the eye, and so on; I am told they have a pleurisy for every part of the head. It is violently acute, and, as I am informed, proves sometimes fatal in ten or twelve hours time; if immediately on its attack, a quantity of blood is not drawn from the arm, for the rest this disease is treated like a pleurisy. The chronic diseases are dropsies, consumptions, hemorrhoidal and habitual ®uxes, relaxed and bilious habits of body, ruptures, worm-fevers, and among blacks the leprosy, elephantiasis and body yaws; which last in Carolina is called the lame distemper; the ¤rst ¤ve of these are often best removed by a change of air, as the most ef¤cacious medicines often prove of no use against the obstinacy of the disorders in the climate where they ¤rst originated. The dropsy most frequently seizes a patient after an obstinate intermitting fever, where the use of the bark has been too long delayed: in this disorder the ordinary prescriptions in these countries is syrup of squills,194 and the common [250] diuretic salt; with these the patient is con¤ned to dry food, and from spirituous liqurs; such vegetables as turnips, radishes, &c. he is allowed to indulge in: Dr. Lind says, that exciting a slight salivation, may be

of help in a tolerable sound constitution, perhaps none of the chronic diseases are more relieved by change of climate than an obstinate dropsy. A consumptive habit of body, particularly where the cough is very obstinate and frequent, and when bilious stools, with a great hardness of the lower belly affect the patient, or when a continual fever emaciates the poor sufferer, he is in a dangerous way, and a remove to colder climates is hardly adviseable; I have known such people relieved by making frequent short voyages to sea in moderate climates; but unless proper remedies are also made use of during these voyages, the fever returns almost directly on relanding; frequently after one or two of these voyages the patient feels himself better; if he then retires to a milk diet, and freely indulges himself in fruits, utterly avoiding all manner of drugs or medicines, he may ¤nd relief, and even a return of constitution; frequent doses of ®our of brimstone, and cooling the water he drinks with sal nitre, are of use during this course: likewise the patient ought with the greatest care to avoid exercise; the stiller he keeps himself the more hopes of recovery there is. The fever which attends this disorder is of such a nature, that here the use of the bark must be carefully shunned, as it has been during long practice, and by frequent experiments of very able physicians, found to be a sure poison in this disorder. The Spaniards wear the nest of [251] the great travelling spider sowed in a rag about their necks as a sure way to assuage a hectick fever, and I think with great success: it is a matter of surprize to see how perhaps a thousand animalculæ which are in perfect life in one of these nests, at the time of its being put round the patient’s neck, will in the course of about thirty hours be perfectly pulverized by meer dint of the heat of the body, which these young Spiders seem in a peculiar manner to attract. In hardness of the belly in this disorder most of the Creoles use hard and frequent rubbing it with a warm hand dipt in oil or hogs-lard, Quere bears oil being so very subtil and penetrating, would it not be preferable in rubbing? The hæmorrhoidal ®ux is very frequent here, and was it not so very troublesome an attendant, it would be looked upon as a bene¤cial event. Persons who are attacked by it are generally certain of not falling into the more dangerous diseases occasioned by obstructions of the Viscera in hot climates; the greatest danger attending it is that of the patient’s falling into an habitual ®ux, which is a most tedious and troublesome disease, and that although the patient has no other complaint but the frequent necessity of going to stool and is but seldom troubled with an involuntary expulsion of the fæces; this disease is almost always a slow though sure harbinger of death by its continuance for years, draining to the very last drop of moisture from the sufferer, who being left a meer skeleton, is as it were carried off in the manner of an

237


A Concise Natural History

238


Bernard Romans

expiring candle-snuff; yet those persons, who have been opened after death have been found with all the inward parts perfectly [252] sound, and thus the faculty is left in the dark without any way to account for this disorder; I have heard of people of a very robust constitution with whom it has continued above twenty years; no disease is so frequent; it almost always attacks people who have suffered much from frequent sickness or severe fatigue; and its obstinacy is such, that it will yield to no remedy whatever in the climate where it originated; I have myself been attacked by it ¤rst [i]n the province of Georgia, in consequence of the great fatigue I underwent in my frequent long and wearisome journies by land; no astringent of any kind, not even the long use of rhubarb and ipecacuanha was of any the least service to me; vain was every medicine against this obstinate malady; opium was recommended to me as a speci¤c;195 this I took at length in incredible doses but the relief was only momentary; after the short reprieve obtained hereby it returned with tenfold violence and obstinacy: if then I was unhappy enough to use opium during this attack it was of no use whatever, but obliged me for the next time to seek respite from a double dose, the cold bath I found of some slight bene¤t and when I was at the proper season in any part of Florida, where the coco-plumb*196 grew in abundance, by freely eating this wholesome fruit I was relieved for that season, and no sooner was I obliged to abandon this excellent remedy, but the disease again prevailed. Thus was I harrassed for about eight years when I changed climates by coming to NewYork; here likewise all medical prescriptions [253] failed, till at length I found that a decoction of the bark of Semi-Ruba and Terra japonica197 in the proportion of half an ounce of each to six pounds of water being boiled down to one sixth, was an effectual medicine after the change of climate, which last alone must not be relied on: one quart of the above decoction in the quantity of a wine-glass full taken morning and evening cured me; but relapsing again after about three months I got another quart, with the two ¤rst glasses of which I took a small pill of crude opium, and by two more glasses full I found myself again restored to my natural habit of body. An entire relaxation of the solids, and a bilious habit of body is another common af®iction of those, who have suffered much by the diseases of hot climates; the constitution is in such people so decayed, that it seems as if every moment would be that of dissolution: the stomach is weak, their complexion is nearly that of a sufferer by the jaundice, and hardly any food especially greens and salads are found digestible; if the dry belly-ach has been *Chryso Calanus [Chrysobalanus br].

their frequent attendant a paralytic contraction of the limbs is the ¤nal consequence of that malady: others again will frequently vomit clear bile and be very costive having the abdomen exceeding hard; for all these complaints there is no better cure than a change of climate, and when the patient begins to feel any bene¤t from the difference of air while at sea, I would recommend a plentiful and constant use of chamœmile ®owers, chewing them in the same manner as people do tobacco; this, however disagreeable to most palates at ¤rst, becomes in time as agreeable to the mouth as it is grateful to the stomach. [254] The use of Elixir Vitrioli198 in the quantity of ¤fteen or twenty drops taken every morning fasting and again an hour before dinner; and the moderate use of a glass of generous wine is not amiss to such sufferers: animal food, especially mutton, is the most suitable diet, and in case of an obstinate costiveness use the Elixir Aloes199 often at night or in the morning; the cold bath, especially of salt water, is very bene¤cial to such sufferers. Ruptures are pretty much complained of on the banks of Mississippi; I have observed likewise that they are a good deal frequent in Georgia and in Carolina: what can be the cause of a disorder of this kind being frequent I know not, but I ¤nd in a pamphlet which gives a super¤cial description of South-Carolina the following way to account for it, “the obstructed viscera being swelled beyond their natural size, the intestines are too much con¤ned, and by nature of the aliment and bad digestion being frequently distended with wind, it is not to be wondered at, that they often pass through the rings of the abdominal muscles.” The Worm fever which is common through all America, especially from Pennsylvania southwards, is not so common here as in Carolina, Georgia, &c. the reason I take to be because the sweet potatoe is not so universally used for food here as elsewhere; children suffer most with it; though it sometimes affects people of all ages. When a fever obstinately withstands all medicines it may almost be depended upon, that this obstinacy proceeds from worms; the stincking weed which is known by the name of Jerusalem Oak,200 and in those provinces is the most ef¤cacious vermifuge, [255] and the safest medicine especially for children; a spoon full of the expressed juice of the whole plant taken on an empty stomach is found to be a sovereign antidote; the Lonicœra I have already mentioned as to its qualities; if the worms are suspected to be lodged in the rectum, clysters of a decoction of tansey, onions, garlick, rue, worm wood, and such like in milk are of good effect; a plaister of pulverized Aloes, oil of rue, or worm-wood, with powder of the bitter gourd and ox-gall applied to the navel is also of good effect: I would recommend the use of animal food, particularly rich ¤sh-soups highly seasoned

239


A Concise Natural History

240


Bernard Romans

with garlick or onions, and it will be proper to avoid all kinds of farinaceous vegetables except wheaten bread: above all the potatoe and pumpkin ought to be shunned as poison. A loathsome disease appears some times among the Negroes after severe acute disorders, especially if the patient has been obliged to keep his bed long, likewise after a violent exercise has brought on a surfeit: this is called the Elephantiasis from the swelling of the feet and legs; it is most frequently seen to affect one leg only; in the ¤rst stages of this disorder the patient becomes wretched through excessive lassitudes which bring on an emaciation of the body, then the corrupted juices subside into the leg or legs and feet, these swell, the skin becoming distended, shines and shews the distended veins every where below the knee; now the skin by degrees loses its gloss and becomes unequal and something scaly; after this chaps make their appearance, the glands are stretched and the scales are daily enlarged, appearing as hard and callous as the hide of an Alligator, notwithstanding [256] which the slightest prick of a pointed instrument will cause the blood to exude; this disease affects neither the appetite nor the digestive powers of the body, on the contrary the patient in this and chearfulness of spirits resembles the healthiest of men, and the inconvenience of his heavy leg only prevents his ability for the more laborious part of his duty. No manner of cure has yet been found for this cruel disorder, but the patients often live to a very advanced age under the pressure of its yoke, even when it has been contracted in early youth; it is said that the amputation of the affected limbs is no cure, for the disease will immediately attack the sound leg; this I ¤nd also asserted by Hughes in his Natural History of Barbados.201 I have seen three or four instances of the disease called body yaws202 (in the Islands) and in Carolina the lame distemper, this is said to proceed from hereditary venereal taints; it appears in cancerous corroding sores in the mouth and throat, and spreading ulcers together with ®eshy protuberances chie®y on the face, breast and thighs, with a swelling of the skin and kneebones, and commonly corrodes the Cartilages of the nose, its ¤rst symptoms shewing themselves about the throat and palate, have caused ignorant people to mistake it for the Angina Suffocativa before described: Mercurial medicines are used against it, afterwards diet-drinks of China root, nut-grass, &c. the sores in the mouth are often to be rubbed with a feather dipt in syrup of roses to an ounce of which two drops of Sp.Vitr. have been added: unctuous, salt, spiced meats and spirituous liquors are absolutely to be avoided; frequent sweats are [257] also prescribed and a great care against catching cold. The Leprosy so called, whether the same as was the cause of proscription

to the unhappy patients under the Mosaic laws I shall not pretend to determine; certain it is, that it is a nauseous, loathsome and infectious disease some times seen among the blacks; this appears ¤rst with the loss of beard and hair from the eye-brows, swelling of the lobes of the ears, the face begins to shine and brown protuberances appear thereon, the lips and nose swell to a monstrous size, the ¤ngers and toes will in the end drop off, and the body becomes at last so ulcerated as to make the poor incurable patient really a miserable object of pity. Having thus largely described the climate, soil, water, general productions of the earth, the inhabitants with their customs, manners and the diseases incident to the human race here, I shall next proceed to give a topographical description of the country, the general face particularly, and with this subject end my ¤rst volume. The river St. Mary is the northernmost boundary of East Florida and by the Spaniards called Rio Santa Cecilia, and by the savages Thlathla Tlakuphka, and is described in page 36; the soil here is not very fertile, unless it be at its very head, which reaches up to near the head of ®int river, which last runs into the river Apalachicola, and this being the western bounds of this province, we may in the present undetermined state of these matters regard as the most natural limits of the province on the land side; from St. Mary’s river’s mouth there is a distance of fourteen miles along the beach of Amelia island to the mouth of Nassau [258] river; this island is in general sandy and hilly, but has some fertile spots on it capable of ¤ne improvements, it is about two miles through in its broadest parts, which is the north end, and tapers away till it’s south end is scarce half a mile across; here near the south end was formerly a convent of Nuns and a church dedicated to St. Mary, whose name the island bore in the time of the Spaniards, but there were scarce any traces left of the buildings in 1770; west of its north end lay the Tyger islands, between which and Amelia there is a tolerable broad passage forming a convenient harbour, these islands consist chie®y of marsh and pine hammocks; this passage continues through Amelia narrows into Nassau river, and is frequented by such crafts as exceed not four feet draught of water. The land on Nassau river is almost all very fertile; the river originates not above thirty miles from the sea, where it begins in many small rivulets, which all joining very soon, by their con®uence form a considerable large stream navigable for vessels of ten feet draught up to its forks, this river formerly called Rio Sta. Maria, in my opinion has along its banks the best body of land in East Florida near the sea, and I believe that this will form in time a pretty opulent district; between this river and St John’s river the land is miserably barren, as it is likewise between Nassau and St. Mary, though not in so wretched a

241


A Concise Natural History

242


Bernard Romans

degree; we ¤nd between the mouths of Nassau and St. John’s river three islands, great and little Talbot, and fort George, together in length about ¤ve or six miles; the Talbot’s islands lay next to the south of Amelia, and the greatest innermost: this last is counted fertile, the other is inconsiderable; [259] they are hilly as well as fort George; the last has received its name from an intrenchment thrown up on it by general Oglethorp during his fruitless expedition against St. Augustine. We are now at the mouth of the river St. John, already in part described in page 34 and 35; this river called by the Indians Ylacco, and by the Spaniards Rio St. Matheo o Picolato, runs from its mouth something above twenty-four miles up nearly east and west; at this distance up the ferry is kept: (commonly called the cow-ford from the multitude of cattle drove through here at the beginning of the settlement by the English:) just above this ferry the river takes a bend and the direction of its course becomes parallel to the ocean; the general run of its water being from south to north rising at or near the latitude 27: and this ferry laying nearly in 30:10; near the latitude 28: it approaches the sea within a mile, in so much, that some marsh and broken pine-land only separates them: thus it makes a pen[i]nsula from hence to the above latitude 30:10 which peninsula is for the most part between twenty-¤ve and twenty miles in br[e]adth. This part of the country is the chief seat of the present improvements, and is for the most part too barren for planting; but excellent for the keeping of cattle and horses, as the land chie®y consists of pine-land and savannahs of the kind described in page 22; the swamps along the river (although their appearance from the river deceived the ¤rst adventurers,) are for the most part no more than an edging along its banks, hardly any where extending a quarter of a mile deep; the journal of Mr. Bartram as published by Dr. Stork,203 may give a [260] tolerable idea of the banks of this river, and consequently of the west part of this peninsula; but this journal, though a very loose performance, and principally defective where we might expect it most compleat, viz. in the botanical articles, yet such as it is, the Doctor who wanted to extol this province even beyond reason, has not thought ¤t to give it us in its native dress, but mutilated and unfairly modelled it to answer his own purpose, which has given another author*204 a handle for depreciating this country still more below its value than the Doctor has endeavoured to raise it above; however all such prejudiced writers being below contempt, let us leave them what they are, and after observing once more that the fruitful spots are few when compared with the unfruitful in this tract, proceed to give an account of the *Present State of Great Britain and North America.

eastern edge of this peninsula viz. the sea coast from the mouth of St. John to the mouth of the river Ais or Aisahatcha: not far from the entrance of St. John’s is St. Pablo or St. Paul’s creek or river; on it are some fruitful spots about twelve miles south of the great river; Sablo river approaches the head of St. Mark’s or the North river, at whose head are the plains of Diego very proper for the breeding of cattle. This river St. Mark falls into the harbour of Augustine about two miles to the northward of the fort, and but a little way within the bar: to which bar from the general’s mount at the entrance of St. John’s is a measured distance of 36 miles. Between the north river and the sea is a very narrow slip of sand-hills and other almost useless ground; the bar of this [261] harbour is a perpetual obstruction to St. Augustine’s becoming a place of any great trade, and alone is security enough against enemies; so that I see but little occasion for so much forti¤cation as the Spaniards had here, especially as a little look out called Mossa at a small distance north of the town, proved suf¤cient to repel general Oglethorpe with the most formidable armament ever intended against Augustine;205 however there was much more propriety in the Spaniards having a fort in the modern taste of military architecture of a regular quadrangular form, with four bastions, a wide ditch, a cover’d way, a glacis, a ravelin to defend the gate, places of arms and bomb-proofs with a casemating all round &c. &c. for a defence against the savages, than there was in raising such stupendous piles of building as the new barracks by the English, which are large enough to contain ¤ve regiments, when it is a matter of great doubt whether there will ever be a necessity to keep one whole regiment here; to mend this matter the great barrack was built with materials brought to Augustine from New York, far inferior in value to those found on the spot; yet the freight alone amounted to more than their value when landed; so that people can hardly help thinking that the contrivers of all this having a sum of money to throw away, found a necessity to ¤ll some parasite pockets, and judged the best method for doing this was to make contractors of the folks in view, as ¤fty men besides the inhabitants would defend this fort against the united bands of all the savages here; as a constant supply of provisions can come by water, and no formidable foreign force can ever be reasonably expected [262] to come here, it makes us almost believe that all th[i]s shew [i]s in vain, or at most, that the English were so much in dread of musketos, that they thought a large army requisite to drive off these formidable foes. To be serious, this fort and barracks add not a little to the beauty of the prospect, but most good men will think with me that the money spent on this useless parade would have been better laid out on roads and ferries through the province, or if it must be in forts, why not at Pensacola? where there is a necessity to

243


A Concise Natural History

244


Bernard Romans

have a powerful force, and where the bar will admit a sixty gun-ship: but I had almost forgot that the acts of Assembly there would have defeated the sanguine expectations of Messrs. contractors. The town has by all writers till Dr. Stork’s time been said to lay at the foot of a hill; so far from truth is this, that it is almost surrounded by water, and the remains of the line drawn from the harbour to St. Sebastian’s creek, a quarter of a mile to the north of the fort, in which line stands a forti¤ed gate called the barrier gate, is the only rising ground near it; this line had a ditch, and its forti¤cation was pretty regular; about a mile and a half beyond this are the remains of another forti¤ed line, which had a kind of look out or advanced guard of stoccadoes at its western extremity on St. Sebastian’s creek; and fort Mossa at its east end; besides these the town has been forti¤ed with a slight but regular line of circumvallation and a ditch[.] The town is half a mile in length and its southern line had two bastions of stone, one of which (if not both) are broken down, and the materials used for the [263] building of the foundation of the barracks; the ditch and parapet are planted with a species of agave, which by its points is well ¤tted to keep cattle out, and with that intention was used by the Spaniards for fences. Dr. Stork has raised this fence into a forti¤cation against the savages and magni¤ed it into Chevaux de frize. The town is very ill built, the streets being all except one crooked and narrow. The date on one of the houses I remember to be 1571; these are of stone, mostly ®at roofed, heavy and look badly. Till the arrival of the English neither glass windows nor chimneys were known here, the lower windows had all a projecting frame of wooden rails before them. On the 3d of January 1766, a frost destroyed all the tropical productions in the country except the oranges; the Spaniards called this a judgement on the place, for being become the property of Hereticks, as they never had experienced the like. The Governor’s house is a heavy unsightly pile, but well contrived for the climate; at its north west side it has a kind of tower to the height of which Governor Grant has added several feet; this serves as a look out. There were three suburbs in the time of the Spaniards, but all destroyed before my acquaintance with the place, except the church of the Indian town to the north now converted into an hospital; (Dr. Stork says the steeple of this church is of good workmanship though built by the Indians, neither of which assertions is true,) and the steeple of the German chapel to the west of the town likewise remains. The parish church in the town is a wretched building and now almost a heap of ruins; the parade before the Governor’s house is nearly [264] in the middle of the town and has a very ¤ne effect; there are two rows of orange trees planted by order of Governor Grant, which make a ¤ne walk on each side of it: the sandy streets are hardened by

lime and oyster-shells; Dr. Stork says there were nine hundred houses at the time of the Spanish evacuation, and three thousand two hundred inhabitants; in my time there were not three hundred houses and at most a thousand inhabitants; these, a few excepted, I found to be a kind of outcast and scum of the earth; to keep them such, their ill form of government does not a little contribute. A letter from a friend, who lately returned from England, directed to me, dated 27th May 1774, says, “this town is now truly become a heap of ruins, a ¤t receptacle for the wretches of inhabitants.” About eight miles north of the town is a tract of a considerable size, called the twelve mile swamp;206 which I take to be equal in goodness to any in America; this began to be cultivated in the year 1770. Three miles west from the town is another small tract of tolerable land, called the three mile swamp; all besides this within many miles is really a miserable sand, a dreary scrub ground, and boggy salt marsh, a few acres at the head of St. Sebastian’s only excepted. The island St. Anastatio is situate opposite the town and forms the harbour, its north end being opposite to the south end of the narrow peninsula made by the north river: this is the only part of all the lands purchased by the worthy Mr. Fish,207 for the debts due to him by the Spaniards, which he was allowed to keep, notwithstanding the treaty allowed it him; for no sale was judged valid if [265] made by him, unless the government afterwards gave a grant, but this was one of the many ways to make of¤ces worthy of holding; the above named gentleman has a pretty retreat on this island, about four miles from town; but as the land is barren it is more pleasant than pro¤table. The sound which divides this island from the main, is called Matanca river, it is about twenty miles in length; the island affords pasturage for numerous herds of horses and some cattle, the ¤rst in particular breed kindly here; about half a mile from the north end of the island is a heavy stone building serving for a look out; a small detachment of troops is kept here, and by signals from hence, the inhabitants are given to understand what kind of, and how many vessels are approaching the harbour, either from the north or from the south; in the year 1770 ¤fty feet of timber frame work was added to its former height, as was likewise a mast or ®agstaff forty seven feet long, but this last proving too weighty, endangered the building and was soon taken down. In this island are quarries of a kind of concreted petri¤ed shells, or a stone bearing their resemblance, this will be described hereafter. About two miles south of the town is the mouth of St. Sebastian’s river already mentioned, this is a small creek rising near six miles north of the town, but its stream soon becomes salt by the meeting of the waters from below; vessels go two miles and a half up it to clean. A bridge was built over

245


A Concise Natural History

246


Bernard Romans

it to the west of the town, which shortened the road into the country near seven miles, but the great depth of the water joined to the instability of the bottom did not suffer it to remain [266] long, and a ferry is now established in its room; the keeper of the ferry has £50 sterl. per annum allowed him, and the inhabitants pay nothing for crossing except after dark. We next meet the mouth of St. Nicholas creek, on the point to the north of which the ¤rst town was built by the Spaniards, but they soon removed it for conveniency’s sake to its present site: on the south point is a plantation belonging to Mr. Moultrie the present Lieutenant Governor;208 this place is remarkable for a large oyster bank being entirely eat out by this gentleman’s negroes in a scarce season. This river is short originating about ten miles to the west of the sound, and has no fertile land on or near it. Six miles further south, or about ten miles from town is the mouth of Sta. Cecilia, another small river of little note. Between nine and ten miles further is the look out or fort of Matanca, on a marshy island, commanding the entrance of Matanca, which lays opposite to it; this fort is to be seen at the distance of about ¤ve leagues, it is of very little strength, nor need it be otherwise, as there is scarce eight feet water at the best of times on this bar: the Spaniards kept a Lieutenant’s command here; the English a Serjeant’s. Between two or three miles from this inlet or bar is another of still less note, called el Penon; opposite and southward is the mouth of a river called North West, I suppose from the direction of the course we go up it; it is somewhat more considerable than the two or three last mentioned; some settlements are near its banks, but of small importance, the land being in general arid and poor. Three miles further south is the upper end of the [267] water which by former Geographers has been stiled a river; the Spaniards called it Rio Musketo, and the English the Musketo river: Mr. de Brahm209 has changed the name of it into Halifax river. This pretended river is one of those arms of the sea commonly called a Lagoon; thus I believe the wonder of Dr. Stork’s two rivers, lying parrallel to each other and the ocean, and yet running directly opposite courses is well accounted for, such Lagoons being not at all uncommon: the upper part of this piece of water is a kind of lake or pond, and is removed at so inconsiderable a distance from the sea, that boats which were obliged to go outside at Penon, where the inland navigation ceases, are here drawn out of the sea into this lagoon. I believe the ¤rst rocks to be seen on the beach of the coast of America, from Long-Island to this place are to be seen here; they are of that kind which seems to be a concretion of shells; they are small and do not extend far into the water, but are as it were buried in the sand at low water mark. About twenty miles south is the mouth of Tomoco creek, falling into this

lagoon from the westward; the head of this is at a small distance from St. John’s river; it is said that some good land lays along its banks. Thirty two miles further south is the mouth of another river called spruce creek; it is very rich in fresh marsh, the ground being greatly broken at its mouth; this is a more considerable stream than the last, and at a little distance from this mouth are the ¤rst settlements of Musketo or New Smyrna, particularly Mr. Penman’s.210 Between three and four miles further south is [268] the entrance, or bar of New Smyrna of still less navigable convenience than St. Augustine, and is the outwatering of the above named lagoon as likewise of another coming from the south stiled North Hillsborough river; here we begin to see a few of the tropical plants, such as carica, borassus, capsicum, mangles and blackwood. At a few miles from the bar is the situation of the town or settlement made by Dr.Turnbull211 for Sir William Duncan, himself, and perhaps more associates; this town is called New Smyrna, from the place of the Doctor’s lady’s nativity. The settlements round this famous town extend considerably along the banks of this lagoon, and large quantities of very good indigo have been made here. If my reader is inquisitive to know why I call this famous, I answer on account of the cruel methods used in settling it, which made it the daily topic of conversation for a long time in this and the neighbouring provinces. About 1500 people, men, women and children were deluded away from their native country, where they lived at home in the plentiful corn¤elds and vineyards of Greece and Italy, to this place, where instead of plenty they found want in its last degree, instead of promised ¤elds, a dreary wilderness; instead of a grateful fertile soil, a barren arid sand; and in addition to their misery, were obliged to indent themselves, their wives, and children for many years, to a man who had to most sanguine expectations of transplanting Bashawship from the Levant. The better to effect his purpose, he granted them a pitiful portion of land for ten years, upon the plan of the feodal system: this being improved and just [269] rendered ¤t for cultivation, at the end of that term it again reverts to the original grantor, and the grantee, may, if he chuses, begin a new state of vassalage for ten years more. Many were denied even such grants as these, and were obliged to work in the manner of negroes, a task in the ¤eld; their provisions were at the best of times only a quart of maize per day, and two ounces of pork per week; this might have suf¤ced with the help of ¤sh which abounds in this lagoon, but they were denied the liberty of ¤shing, and lest they should not labour enough, inhuman task-masters were set over them, and instead of allowing each family to do with their homely fare as they pleased, they were forced to join all

247


A Concise Natural History

248


Bernard Romans

together in one mess, and at the beat of a vile drum, to come to one common copper, from whence their homany was laded out to them; even this coarse and scanty meal was through careless management rendered still more coarse, and through the knavery of a proveditor, and the pilfering of a hungry cook, still more scant. Masters of vessels were forewarned from giving any of them a piece of bread or meat. Imagine to yourself an African (an expert hunter) who had been long the favorite of his master, through the importunities of this petty tyrant sold to him,—imagine to yourself one of a class of men, whose hearts are generally callous against the softer feelings, melted with the wants of some of these wretches, giving them a piece of his venison, of which he caught what he pleased, and for this charitable act disgraced, whipped, and in course of time used so severely that the unusual servitude soon released him to a happier state; again, behold a man obliged to whip [270] his own wife in public, for pilfering bread to relieve her helpless family; then think of a time when the above small allowance was reduced to half, and see some brave generous seamen charitably sharing their own allowance with some of these wretches, the merciful tars212 suffering abuse for their generosity, and the miserable objects of their ill-timed pity, undergoing bodily punishment, for satisfying the cravings of a long disappointed appetite, and you may form some judgement of the manner in which New Smyrna was settled. Mr. Joseph Purcell, an excellent young man, who was draughtsman to our department, a Minorquin, who with his family came over at the same time with these people,213 but happily withdrew from the yoke, could never speak of this without tears; he had been several times an eye witness to this distress, and told me, that he knew many among the unhappy sufferers who were comfortably established in Europe, but by great promises deluded away; and O Florida! were this the only instance of similar barbarity which thou hast seen, we might draw a veil over these scenes of horror; but Rolles Town, Mount Royal, and three or four others of less note have seen too many wretches fall victims to hunger and ill usage, and that at a period of life when health and strength generally maintain the human frame in its greatest vigour, and seem to insure longevity. Rolles-Town in particular has been the sepulchre of above four hundred such victims. Before I leave this subject, I will relate the insurrection to which those unhappy people at New Smyrna, were obliged to have recourse, and which the great ones stiled rebellion. In the year 1769, at [271] a time when the unparalleled severities of their task-masters, particularly one Cutter214 (who had been made a justice of the peace, with no other view than to enable him to execute his barbarities in a larger extent, and with the greater appearance of authority) had drove these wretches to despair, they resolved to escape to the

Havannah; to execute this, they broke into the provision stores, and seized on some craft lying in the harbour, but were prevented from taking others by the care of the masters. Destitute of any man ¤t for the important post of a leader, their proceedings were all confusion, and an Italian of very bad principles, who was accused of a rape on a very young girl, but of so much note, that he had formerly been admitted to the overseer’s table, assumed a kind of command; they thought themselves secure where they were, and this occasioned a delay, ’till a detachment of the ninth regiment had time to arrive, to whom they submitted, except one boat full, which escaped to the Florida Keys; but was taken up by a Providence-man: many were the victims destined to punishment; as I was one of the grand jury which sat ¤fteen days on this business, I had an opportunity of canvassing it well, but the accusations were of so small account that we found only ¤ve bills; one of these was against a man for maiming the above said Cutter, whom, it seems, they had pitched upon as the principal object of their resentment, and curtailed his ear, and two of his ¤ngers;—another for shooting a cow, which being a capital crime in England, the law making it such was here extended to this Province; the others were against the leader, and three more, for [272] the burglary committed on the provision store; the distresses of the sufferers touched us so, that we almost unanimously wished for some happy circumstances that might justify our rejecting all the bills, except that against the chief, who was a villain. One man was brought before us three or four times, and at last was joined in one accusation with the person who maimed Cutter; yet no evidence of weight appearing against him, I had an opportunity to remark by the appearance of some faces in court, that he had been marked, and that the grand jury disappointed the expectations of more than one great man. Governor Grant pardoned two, and a third who was obliged to be the executioner of the remaining two. On this occasion I saw one of the most moving scenes I ever experienced; long and obstinate was the struggle of this man’s mind, who repeatedly called out, that he chose to die rather than be the executioner of his friends in distress: this not a little perplexed Mr. Woolridge, the sheriff, till at length the entreaties of the victims themselves, put an end to the con®ict in his breast, by encouraging him to the act. Now we beheld a man thus compelled to mount the ladder, take leave of his friends in the most moving manner, kissing them the moment before he committed them to an ignominious death. I have dwelt the longer on this subject, because the native prejudice of vulgar Englishmen, has represented the misfortunes of these wretches in too black a light. It is said that Dr. Stork, who was near the spot when the insurrection happened, died with the fright, and Cutter some time after died a lingering death, having experi-

249


A Concise Natural History

250


Bernard Romans

enced, besides his [273] wounds, the terrors of a coward in power, overtaken by vengeance. To return to our topographical account:—along this southern lagoon, which extends itself for about forty miles to Cape Cannaveral, in the latitude of 28 degrees and a half, we ¤nd several settlements of good note, among which that of Captain Rogers is the most meridional habitation on the British continent. At Cape Cannaveral is some good plantable land, and here is the southern head of this lagoon; about two miles and an half to the westward thereof is the head or northern end of another branch, likewise called a river; a road is cut to draw boats out of the Musketo Lagoon into this, which is called Southhillsborough, by De Braham, but commonly called Indian River; the savages call it Aïsa Hatcha, i e. Deer River, although the same elegant Lexiphanes has made it Hysweeslake; a word by him fabricated, as I suppose, from Ylacco, the name given by the savages to St. John’s River; the Spaniards call it Reo d’aïs. No rivers of any note fall into its northern branch, except St. Sebastians, directly opposite to whose mouth happened the shipwreck of the Spanish Admiral, who was the northermost wreck of fourteen galleons, and a hired Dutch ship, all laden with specie and plate; which by stress of north east winds were drove ashore and lost on this coast, between this place and the bleach-yard, in 1715.215 A hired Frenchman, fortunately escaped, by having steered half a point more east than the others. The people employed in the course of our survey, while walking the strand, after strong eastern gales, have repeatedly found pistareens and [274] double pistareens, which kinds of money probably yet remaining in the wrecks, are sometimes washed up by the surf in hard winds. This Lagoon stretches parallel to the sea, until the latitude 27:20, where it has an out-watering, or mouth: directly before this mouth, in three fathom water, lie the remains of the Dutch wreck. The banks of this lagoon are not fruitful. Having now exceeded the latitude 28, to the southward, I shall here break off from the sea-coast, and resume the description of the interior country from that latitude; being, as before observed, the south-end of the peninsula, made by St. John’s River and the sea. This southern end is a mere point of marsh, with some broken pine land in it, not much above three quarters of a mile wide, dividing the fresh water of St. John, from the salt of Aïsa hatcha: imagine then to yourself a country gradually rising into a ridge of highland, very barren, sandy and gravelly, a few places excepted, intersected with abundance of rivulets, and variegated with ponds and lakes, whose banks being in general lined with oak Magnolia, and other trees, exhibit the most romantic scene imaginable, and you will have a just idea of this place. We

frequently meet with spacious savannahs of the high kind; the country is covered with roe deer and turkies, the lakes stocked with ¤sh, and thus it continues in a due west line across the Mexican gulph to the said latitude 28, which strikes said gulph 15 m. northward of the bay of Spiritu Santo.216 As we go northerly the fertile spots become more frequent, till we come to that part of the province formerly possessed by the Spaniards: here we ¤nd along the [275] road from Augustine to Apalachia, the remains, or ruins of the following forts and towns,217 viz. on each side of St. John’s; fort Picolata, Popa, and about seventy miles W. N. W. of Popa, we meet with Alachua, Puebla nova Navala, Santa Fe, in a very fertile region, Utoca, St. Pedro, and St. Matheo in a less favourable soil; then some small remains of Ayovola; next the fort St. Mark’s in pine barren, all which are still marked (even in late maps) though not now inhabited; in this part of the country, especially at Alachua, an hundred miles N. W. from Augustine; the ground is fertile in a high degree, and so continues northward, to the extent of the province. Near Santa Fé is a river of the same name, which, by the English, is corruptly called St.Taffy’s;218 this river, after a considerable course, loses itself under ground, and the geography is not suf¤ciently known to acquaint us whether it emerges again or not. This I reckon one of the chief curiosities of this province. We next met with very great holes, ¤fty or sixty feet deep, and thirty or forty feet in diameter at the surface, in the highest part of the pine ridges, which afford some good water to the thirsty traveller, there being no other water in those ridges. I came across the peninsula in a dry season, and we were ¤ve days without water, because we travelled over the ridge almost in its longitudinal direction, and saw but few of these holes; (in the southern latitude of 28 and 29, in which I was then) even these we found dry; but I did not know, at that time, their nature, which I afterwards found. My guide informed me, that in the road from Augustine to Apalachia, in a similar [276] season, he had been obliged to suffer a long thirst, and at last came to one of these holes, in which he had always found water, though in others it failed; but this time he found his expectations frustrated; pressed by drought, and animated by his companions, they, with some labour, removed a ®at stone, which lay at the bottom, with an intent to dig for water; but how were they surprised, when they saw a small hole, and about six inches below its surface some very ¤ne water; having satis¤ed the call of nature, their contemplation led them to consider whence this water sprung; one of them imagined he saw it gently running, their staves were put in to feel for bottom, but none was found: inqusitive curiosity led them to sound deeper, and lo! a sapplin, of near thirty feet, found no bottom, and they departed with unsettled conjectures.

251


A Concise Natural History

252


Bernard Romans

On the 10th of June, 1771, I found myself in a disagreeable situation, on the west course [coast br] of East-Florida, through want of water; I saw frequently very strong currents of discoloured water, indicating fresh streams; supposing these to proceed from rivers, I coasted along shore; but found nothing except innumerable islands and vast shoals; frequently tasting the water, found it always brackish: at length, on the 21st day of said month, I found an opening, where I got anchorage for my vessel. I went personally on shore, to explore the small island we were next to, taking with me a lad, and a thirty gallon cask. Its aspect was miserable; oyster shells and rocks were every where its super¤cies; at last, however, I found a small hole in the rock, and water in it; which, to my inexpressible joy proved [277] fresh, and of the clearest and ¤nest kind; hastening back on board, we were obliged to roll the cask in the water, in order to get it into the boat, when, accidentally applying my hand to my mouth, I found to my surprize the water to be fresh; having proceeded on board, we tasted the water in which the vessel swam, which also proved fresh and good: thus I found myself, as it were, in a sea of fresh water; stimulated by curiosity, I left the vessel next day, with an intention to penetrate to the main land, which, with dif¤culty was effected; but in a whole day’s search no river was found; yet a constant strong current proceeded from the shore, and along it. The singularity of the circumstance made me beat the ground, and stamp on it, which occasioned a hollow sound. I have since been informed by travellers, that between the town St. Mattheo,219 (now inhabited by savages, and situate on the river St. Juan de Guacaro) and Apalachia, they frequently meet with this hollow sound under their horses feet. Twenty miles east from Apalachia, we cross a place over a creek, called by the savages, the natural bridge:220 all these circumstances correspond with an idea which I have formed of subterraneous rivers in this province. Another curiosity, though not a natural one, are the marks of former improvement of this country; particularly the vestiges of the regular maize hills (even in woods where, since the æra of culture, trees of twelve to eighteen inches diameter have grown up) and the nails and spikes drove into some very large trees, apparently at ancient Spanish Cowpens; add to these, the reliques of old fences, huts, houses and churches, [278] particularly a church bell in the ¤elds, at Santa Fé. Thus we have a melancholy instance, even in this new world, of the depredations of time, and a country once nobly and extensively settled, through the inroads of the savages reduced again to a wilderness, yet all this must have happened some time later than Anno Domini 1543, the year when Soto compleated the ¤rst Christian expedition to Florida, with his death.

Tanta Est Terrestrium Vicissitudo! 221 The remaining natural curiosities are the mineral springs, described in page 34 and 35, and the ridge of sand hills between Oclawwawhaw, and St. John’s, likewise mentioned in page 35 and 36 of this volume. I also regard as a curiosity of the arti¤cial kind, the immense orange groves, found in the woods between latitude 282, and 30°, supposing them originally sprung from the seeds of some oranges formerly dropt, by travelling Spaniards, at their camps; but which are now gradually decaying, by reason of the wantonness of our traders and hunters, who, when in want of the fruit, cut down the tree; other vegetable curiosities will more probably appear under the botanical heads. The many Tumuli, originally intended for the peaceful repository of the dead, tho’ some of their tops now bear summer houses for recreation to the living, are another curiosity.222 Having mentioned hills, I could wish to know whence comes the idea of Apalachian Mountains, nothing above a moderate hill appearing in all this vast extent of country, till we meet (to the north of latitude 35) with the mountains of the Upper Cherokees, on the Tanassee river; and it is observable, that this ridge continuing back of [279] North-Carolina, Virginia and Maryland, through Pennsylvania, and back of New-Jersey, into New-York, and terminating near Katskill, about eight miles from Hudson’s River (where they bear the name of Blue Mountains) lie nearer to the ocean than to the Mississippi; all the country west of them is nearly a plain, there being no falls from Monongahela and Aligheny forks, down to the mouth of Mississippi, that are of consequence enough to interrupt navigation; even the Ohio falls, so called, are not violently rapid; nor are there any falls from the place of embarkation on the Tanassee, down the Hogoheegee, to the Ohio; the Shawanese river, has none that ever I could learn; Tombechbe none in all its extent;—whence then come the descriptions of Apalachian Mountains? whence Augustine, at the foot of a hill, and many more such dreams not worth repeating. Either the face of the country is more changed than any we read of elsewhere, or former writers having been abused, have again imposed on us; for the face of Greece and other regions of the East, is yet reconcileable to Homer’s geography. Holland still has nearly the same kind of super¤cial appearance, as we are informed, it had eighteen hundred years ago; and we may still trace Julius Cæsar through these ancient habitations of the Catti, Kelti and Cherusci; how then comes America so altered? Most of the describers of this new world, even late ones must have imposed upon us, either originally, or by copying such lying exaggerators and impostors, as the inventors of the conquest of Mexico, and others of his

253


A Concise Natural History

254


Bernard Romans

stamp; who, not content with giving us plain truth, and simple [280] facts in their native dress, have almost hid them from us by the thick clouds of fable. In this northern part of the province we ¤nd the following settlements of savages; about the middle of the land, nearly in latitude 28, in a village called New Yufala,223 being a colony from Yufala, in the upper Creek nation, planted in 1767, in a beautiful and fertile plain: about ¤fty miles N. E. from thence, and about thirty W. S. W. from the upper part of Lake George, in St. John’s River, which is eighty miles nearly south of Augustine, is another town, situate on a very beautiful lake, about seven miles in length, and from one to one and an half in breadth; this town is accessible only on the N. W. side of the above lake, over a very narrow and high ridge: when I came to it from the southward, though in a very dry season, we had near a mile and a half, or two miles, to wade breast high, and sometimes deeper, through a kind of marsh on the west bank. The town lies near the N. W. end of the lake, and from its situation is called Taloffa Ockhasé,224 i.e. the town of the lake; some islands in this lake, as well as some land near the town, are cultivated by the savages. Further north is Alacua,225 Santa Fé, and St. Mattheo, now inhabited by the savages; the fort at Apalache226 is now a trading house, chie®y in their possession, and the western extremity of the province is the great river Apalachicola,227 on which the Lower Creek nation is settled, whose principal towns228 are called the Cowettas, Chatahoochas, Euchas, Citasees, Hogoleeges, Oakmulgos, Tuskeegies, Cussitos, and Cherokee Lousitsa, near the ruins of fort Apalachicola,229 at the junction of Flint River, and the river [Apalachicola. br] [281] In the south western extreme of this division is the head of Manatee river, between which and the Amaxura, I saw a vast number of deer, and the marks of many of the hunting camps of the savages. We found the foot steps of six or eight buffaloes hereabouts,230 so plain as to be convinced of the track being made by those animals, but saw none of the animals themselves; the Amaxura or some of its branches is not far from the Manatee, and where we crossed it, was an extensive piece of excellent land. To compleat the Topography of this part, I shall maintain [mention br] that Rio d’aïs abounds so much in ¤sh of various kinds, that a person may sit on the bank, and stick the ¤sh with a knife, or sharp stick, as they swim by; and I have frequently shot from four to twelve mullets at one shot, nay our boys used to go along side of the vessel in the boat, and kill the cat-¤sh with a hatchet, or stick. This might well be ranked among the curiosities; but the whole country abounds so much in ¤sh, that when St. Augustine ®ourished most, the ¤shermen frequently used to allow people, who brought a Real, to take as much as they pleased, out of their boats. The reader will observe that the rules of geography, with regard to natu-

ral limits, have caused me to vary a little in the present division of the peninsula, from that adopted in page 1 and 2 in this work, which was founded in the climates; but the variation being small, I hope it is excuseable. I shall now proceed with the description or topography of the southern part of the peninsula. From the latitude 28, the lagoon of Aïsa, or Indian River, has not any thing very remarkable, [282] until latitude 27:20, where there is a mouth, or outwatering, into the ocean, with several small inlets within it. This mouth can seldom be entered by any vessel that draws above ¤ve feet water; and before it, in the sea, are two bars, the inner one having about ten, the outer one seventeen feet on it; and this outer one is near four miles from the land. The sand before this entrance, is a ¤ne white quicksand, of a particular nature. I have anchored several times within the distance of three or four leagues from this mouth, but not above once or twice without having the cable all eaten through, in the ring of the anchor; sometimes I have purchased the anchor by a single strand, sometimes by less, at other times by a little more; and I have lost above six or seven anchors, and large grapnels at this place, yet there is nowhere any foul ground, or, in other words, no rocky bottom. At a mile, or more, from the shore, and within that distance, I think, I have found a few shell stones, I imagine that this ¤ne quicksand, being very sharp, by its continual motion chafes and frets the cable quite through, and this, it generally does, in less than four and twenty hours. From this mouth of the lagoon an island stretches to about the latitude 26, 55, where there is another mouth, or inlet, caled Hobé by the Spaniards;231 this island is thirty-nine measured statute miles long: at twenty-four miles from its north-end are several high cliffs of a blue stone; these are the ¤rst rocks that lie high out of the water, along the American beach; they are placed at about high water mark, and a small ridge, or reef, runs sloping off from the northernmost one: [283] and about nine miles further, towards Hobé is another parcel; as there is likewise at the entrance of Hobé, of very solid, hard rock; all which, particularly the northernmost ones, are excellent landmarks for the seamen, going southwards. The remarkable things about this island are, that it is a narrow slip of beach, and mangrove land; on the beach are always great numbers of pieces of Spanish cedar; originally cut on the windward rivers of Cuba, for the use of the Catholic King’s shipyards; but by land ®oods drove into the Bahama channel, and Gulph stream, whence the frequent east-winds force them upon soundings, and so on this beach; very few pieces are found either north or south of this island. The island on its west-side is indented, almost regularly into points and bays. Fresh water may be obtained by digging in almost every part of the beach. The

255


A Concise Natural History

256


Bernard Romans

chief growth here are mangroves, blackwood, conocarpus, salsola and uniola; with a parasitical plant of the genus Bromelia [Tillandsia br], called wild pine apple. A few spots of hammock or upland, are found on this island; these produce the zantoxylum, ¤cus citri folio, Coccoloba, Mastick, Borassus, and a few trees of the live oak, and willow oak, the Chrysobolanus, and the Cercus Tri[a]ngularis, with that kind of Cactus, commonly called Opuntia. During the season the loggerhead turtles land here in vast multitudes,232 to lay their eggs, which the bears pro¤t by; for, led by instinct, or otherwise, these animals come in droves, and dig the eggs out: at this business they are so expert, that they dig wells for their supply of water; during their stay, they sometimes fetch down the [284] wild Pine*, which, by its structure naturally contains a considerable quantity of rain-water, preserved in a fresh, sweet taste. So industrious are the bears at digging up the eggs, that the turtle seldom leaves her nest above a quarter of an hour before they are eaten, insomuch, that a traveller, if he choses any of this provision, is obliged to watch the turtles coming. I have seen the bears approach within ¤ve or six yards of our camp, at times when we had some of these eggs, but this stretch of latronical boldness, generally cost them their lives. Opposite this island the shore is sandy and high, here are many rivulets, and the Berassus here appears to be the master of the soil, scarce any other plant shewing itself; directly opposite the rocks before described is the mouth of St. Lucia river, which has a wide kind of bay, for eight miles up, stretching ¤rst N. E. [N br] 40 W. four miles, then W. four miles more, when it divides into two branches, one coming from the south, the other from the N. W. by N. this last appearing the principal, I went up it for twenty-four miles, reckoning direct distance, and found no where less than seven feet water; here the river became narrow, and partly on account of the obstructions by logs, partly on account of the rapidity of the stream, I left the vessel; and going up by land, found the river at last to run through a vast plain, the bank of the stream only being fringed with a few trees. Here we shot what number of deer, and turkies we pleased, and might have continued so to do, I dare say, two months longer; the reason [285] of this plenty is, in my opinion, that this tract is scarcely ever invaded by the hostile savages, or yet more destructive white hunter; this is the river, which, as I was told by a Spanish pilot and ¤sherman of good credit, proceeds from the lake Mayacco,233 a lake of seventy-¤ve miles in circumference by his account. The man told me that he had formerly been taken by the savages, and by them carried a prisoner, in a canoe, by way of this river, to their settle*Tillandsia Lingulata.

ments on the banks of the lake; he says, that at the disemboguing of the river, out of the lake, lies a small cedar island; he also told me that he saw the mouth of ¤ve or six rivers, but whether falling out of, or into the lake, I could not learn of him; probably some of the many rivers I crossed in my journey across this peninsula, fall into it, and it is not improbable that St. John’s river originates in it. The large river in Charlotte harbour, by the direction of its course, meridian situation, and great width, I judge, might, perhaps, spring from the same fountain; however, the savages of Taloffo Ochasé told me, that in going far south, they go round a large water, emptying itself into the west sea, i.e. gulph of Mexico. Thus much have I been able to learn of this water, the exploring of which I always intended; whether there is really this lake, or not, I will not be positive, but the above circumstances, joined to a dark account, which the savages give of going up St. John’s, and coming down another river, to go into some far southern region of East Florida (on which account the name of Ylacco, and the name given to St. Lucia by the savages, both conveying indecent meanings, are [286] by them given to these rivers) seems to con¤rm it. That there is some such great water, is further to be gathered from the profusion of fresh water which this river, St. Lucia, pours down. Such is the immense quantity that the whole sound between the abovenamed island and the main, though an arm of the sea, situate in a very salt region, and in general two miles wide, is very often rendered totally fresh thereby: in so much, that it has made the very speculative Mr. De Brahm insist upon having seen mangrove stumps [swamps br] in fresh water. This lake has given rise to the intersected, and mangled condition in which we see the peninsula exhibited in old maps. But to return to the mouth of the river St. Lucia, it lays one mile, seventy four chains, and seventy links, S. W. by S. from the great rocks; the mouth is ¤fty-four chains, eighty-nine links wide: six miles and a quarter N. N. W. from the mouth on the edge of the sound, lieth the hill by the Spaniards called Ropa Tendida, and by us the Bleach-Yard, on account of its appearance; being a high hill full of white spots, the ¤rst of any note from the Neversinks in the Jerseys, to this place, and is a remarkable land-mark. At the mouth of the river is a bay, into which runs a rivulet from the south; Mr. De Brahm had honoured this with the name of Grenville River, on account of a tract of land here laid out for that gentleman, on one of the most unaccountable pieces of white sand I ever saw; which by reason of its being covered with a large growth of all sorts of trees, indicating a ¤ne soil, I have always looked upon in the light of a natural curiosity. [287] From this mouth of the river southward the sound is cut into three branches, by means of two peninsulas of mangroves, divided from the main

257


A Concise Natural History

258


Bernard Romans

island by these lagoons; the branch which disembogues itself at Hobé, is shallow, and full of oyster banks, about fourteen miles long; however, a small schooner, drawing ¤ve feet water, was by our people brought through here, and out at Hobé. This inlet was shut for many years before 1769, but I have since seen it open till 1773, our people have been encamped on the same spot where now the water allows egress and regress to such a craft as the above-mentioned schooner, just suf¤cient to pass it: This, I suppose, has been owing to a less quantity of water coming down St. Lucia river for some years, because the Spaniards informed me of its having been open before. In short, this part of the country is such a curiosity, that I have many times lamented the want of leisure, and means to explore it thoroughly. My journal from the bay of Tampe, over land to Augustine, threw indeed a great light on this; but to my irretrievable loss I have missed it these four or ¤ve years: I can, however, remark upon the authority of that journal, that the fertile land is found in less proportion, in the interior part of the peninsula, in this southern, than in the northern division;—that the ground becomes more stony as we approach the meridional regions; that it is likewise interspersed with the same kind of romantic ponds, or lakes, as described on page [274 br],—that in the river Manatee is a considerable fall of rocks fourteen miles from its mouth;—that above these falls the banks are very steep;—that this steepness causes the water [288] to rise about ¤fty feet above its ordinary surface; a circumstance which this short river has in common with all torrents;—and that the bay of Tampe, into which this river falls, is the most proper place in all America, south of Halifax, for the rendezvous of a large ®eet of heavy ships; the country all around being plentifully timbered and watered; the soil is poor, some of the islands along the west coast excepted, and both this and Charlotte harbour are excellent situations for establishing ¤sheries. From Hobé to the latitude 25:44, the coast is all double land, or narrow necks between the sea; there are some rivers and lagoons; on the banks of such of them as are fresh we meet with great bodies of marsh land, which may be improveable. About ¤fty miles north of the southern point of the main land the coast changes its course from S. S. E. to directly south; and at the head land, occasioned by this, is a large hard blue rock on the beach, out of which a large stream of very ¤ne fresh water issues, gushing directly into the ocean; there are four little inlets between this rock and latitude 25:35; one of these not always open; the last is in the north end of the ¤rst island, whose south end De Brahm has thought proper to call Cape Florida, although it is by no means a cape, or head land at all. West from this is the river Rattones, being a ¤ne stream, and pretty considerable, with a little good rich soil on its banks, where many tropical plants grow; at its mouth are the re-

mains of a savage settlement. To the southward of this river is a large body of marsh, through which several rivulets of ¤ne water empty themselves into [289] the sound, back of the keys, which begin here, that a man may here stand with one foot in fresh, and the other in salt water; nay when the tide is out fresh water boils up through the sand. From this river and marsh the remainder of the land is a heap of stones and rocks, very sharp, and little water to be found, there being only a few ponds, and these dry in a dry season. The only growth here is shrubby pine. At Sandy point, the southern extremity of the peninsula, are large old ¤elds, being the lands formerly planted by the Coloosa savages;234 in latitude 25:20, is a salt lake, and a remarkable isthmus, joining what was formerly called Cayo largo, or long key to the main: our researches for a passage, west of the keys, have convinced us of its being fast to the main land. In the bay of Juan Ponce De Leon, in the west side of the land, we meet with innumerable small islands, and several fresh streams: the land in general is drowned mangrove swamp. On the banks of these streams we meet with some hills of rich soil, and on every one of those the evident marks of their having been formerly cultivated by the savages. I went up into some high trees on these hills, to see if I could not spy the pine land from their tops, with a view, if I saw it any where near, to penetrate to it, through the swamps, but the nearest I saw was, by computation, twelve miles off. These hills, among this dreary mangrove land, have apparently been the last retreats, and skulking places, of the Coloosa savages, when their more potent neighbours, the Creeks, drove them off the continent. Punta largo, or cape Roman,235 in latitude 25:43, on the west-side, terminates with [290] this great bay, and the situation of the country will be best learned by consulting my charts. From this place to latitude 26:30 are many inconsiderable inlets, all carefully laid down in the chart; here is Carlos Bay, and the Coloosa Hatcha, or Coloosa river, with the island San Ybell, where we ¤nd the southern entrance of Charlotte harbour abovenamed: Let it suf¤ce to refer my readers in general to my maps, after I shall have told him that all this point is sandy pine land, and that deer, turkeys, oysters, clams, and ¤sh abound here surprisingly. The keys, or Martyrs, and the reef will likewise be best known by inspection of the charts: these are a heap of rocks, very few small spots on them being cultivated [cultivable br]; Matacombé alone would be worth attention for a settlement; all their productions are tropical, not an oak to be found on any one, and pine trees on one only; but this reef and keys may be rendered serviceable in time of war, to any people who are well acquainted with them; the reef begins in latitude 25; 34, and the channel, between it and the islands, will admit a vessel drawing sixteen feet water; for a good way in,

259


A Concise Natural History

260


Bernard Romans

and at key Biscay, is a good place for careening craft of ten feet draught: there is good water on it, and if it should fail, the rivulets in the grand marsh will supply any quantity for a ship of considerable force, and her tender might here ¤nd the best station, for a cruize, of any I know, for there being no more than ¤fteen leagues from the reef to the Beminis, where there is likewise water, and on both shores plenty of ¤sh and turtle, she may lay on either side in safety. The tender ¤nds a harbour on each side, of ten feet at [291] least; on the Florida side, the ship laying within the reef, I need not tell the seamen that she lay safe; thus cruizing across here, or one being on the station on one side, and the other on the other, it would be next to an impossibility for a ship to escape them. Of what consequence this is, in a place through which the Spaniards are obliged to send all their treasures, every one may judge. At Cayo Tabona, a large ship, even of 60 guns, may ride just within the reef, and her tender can always supply her with water, either from Matacombé, or the above-named marsh, and key Biskay. Few vessels can come through the gulph without coming in sight of this place, and it is generally the ¤rst land made by every sail of shipping after they leave the Cuba shore, Sound-Point, or Cape-Florida, being just N. of it. Matacombé is another good station for small vessels, which may run in here, and the Bahama bank affords anchorage in case one would chuse to cruize across. Cayo Huiso, commonly called Key West, is another good station for a small frigate, but not so advantageous as the others, nor is there so much safety here. Nothing further of note occurs at these islands, except that at Cayos Vacos, and Cayo Huiso, we see the remains of some savage habitations, built, or rather piled up of stones; these were the last refuges of the Caloosa nation; but even here the water did not protect them against the inroads from the Creeks, and in 1763 the remnant of this people, consisting of about eighty families, left this last possession of their native land, and went to the Havannah. They were a tribe of excellent ¤shermen; this nation was strenuously [292] engaged in the Spanish interest, they were governed in a manner somewhat monarchical, and while they lived on these keys, were the dread and terror of the seamen; who, not being able to steer clear of the dangerous reefs which are here, escaped one kind of cruel death, to run into the jaws of one still more terrible: the inhumanity committed by the Coloosas, on shipwrecked mariners, is shocking even to Barbarians. A little key lying before Matacombé is a dreadful monument of this, it is called the Matança, (i.e.) slaughter, from the murder of near four hundred wretched Frenchmen, who, being cast away, fell into the hands of these monsters; who, after keeping them in the adjacent islands for some time, carried them all to this little key, which now serves them for one common grave.236 The people from Provi-

dence, who came here for turtle or Mahogany wood, came always armed, and had frequent brushes with them so that the dislodging of these ¤erce savages has been of service to navigation. The unhappy sufferer by wreck, who escapes with life, may now be sure of safety on the shore of these islands. Having mentioned the cutting of mahogany it may be proper to observe that little or none now remains here. I have now given as ample a description of East Florida, as the nature of this work will allow, and after having made some remarks on two curious productious of that profound and speculative philosopher, William Gerrard De Brahm, Esq; his Majesty’s surveyor general of the southern district of North-America,237 I shall say something of the western province. [293] The ¤rst of these consists of some observations made by this singular genius, and transmitted to the Honourable Board of Trade; such as they are, Dr. Stork has given them to the publick, as to be depended upon. First he says, “in latitude 27 the plantable land is scarce, except the mangrove swamps, for the cultivation of Barilla.” What reader, seeing this, would not imagine that these swamps were improveable, but they are a soil drowned by the sea to the depth of three or four feet; often only sand banks, and as the roots of trees grow in arches, above ground, they are for the most part impenetrable, and some totally inaccessible to either man or beast. 2. “The trees and shrubs——are the arboreous grape vine, and spice bark trees, the Hiccora, Plumb and Panao [papao br].” I shall inform my botanical reader, that this arboreous grape vine is the Coccolaba, or grape tree, well known in the West-Indies, which has no manner of af¤nity with the vitis or vine, the spice bark trees are no other than two species of Lauri, one of them the Laurus Borbonia, or Red Bay, having its aromatic juices more concentrated in this climate than further north, and through the in®uence of the sun it is no more than a mere shrub. The Hiccora: Anno 1772 he has learned to call this by its right name, Hickorey; but what shall we say, when it is not possible to ¤nd a single plant of this kind in the southern part of the province; nor is there any thing that looks like a plumb, except the Chrysobalanus, Icaco, or Coco-plumb, not at all alike in kind to the pruni which one would judge to be meant by the plumb. [294] The Papao I guess is the Carica, vulgarly called Papaw, of which we ¤nd a good number. 3. “From latitude 26:40 to 27, there is a branch of Hillsborough river, terminating in fresh water marsh, the principal river departing southward.” Compare this with my description of the sound into which St. Lucia river falls. What a piece of accuracy do we discover in the numbers 4693, 9386, 24,

261


A Concise Natural History

262


Bernard Romans

300, 950, 2800, and 37961 acres! this is of the same stamp with the matchless exactness of latitudes 25d. 48m. 33s. 26d. 53m. 35s. 24d. 57m 6s. &c in his map pre¤xed to that curious publication, the Atlantic Pilot. 4. “The west side—may do in time for the cultivation of the Opuntia plant.” When we know, that this identical plant is a weed and meer nuisance in the very spot here mentioned; pray what is meant by a hope of its becoming a cultivated article in the soil where it grows spontaneously in great abundance? 5. “The cape and sea-coast——whose luxurious plants are the pomegranate, &c.” Not a pomegranate in all the country, except what is cultivated in the gardens, at and near St. Augustine. 6. “The main on the west of Cape River appears to be all high land, and is chie®y covered with cedar, oak, mulberry, and gum.” No such river as Cape river known to any but this extraordinary inventor himself, nor is there a sprig of any of the above plants found within many miles of the cape. 7. “In latitude 25:35, the main upon a [295] due west line is a mile across, and there appears a river four miles over, which comes either from Tampe Bay, St. John’s river, or is the mouth of Hillsborough river, which in latitude 26:50 takes a S. W. departure.” Every letter of this is a forgery of the brain of this lunatic writer, no river is found at or near this latitude, but Rio Rattones above described; what a pity it is, that the conjectures or wishes of such dreamers did not sometimes become real! Either of the communications there mentioned would open a most bene¤cial addition to the ease and convenience of our navigation. 8. “No ¤sh in the white waters round the cape, at least there were none on May 13 and 29, nor is any other animal species there except sea birds, and the track of only one bear was observed.” Every body that is acquainted with the immense variety and quantity of ¤sh found here, will naturally imagine, that the ¤sh were retired on May 13 and 29, to some general council or meeting of the ¤nny nations, and the gentlemen from providence, who come sometimes here for the diversion of hunting a species of deer peculiar to these islands, and very numerous on them, can witness for me how true this last assertion is; not to mention the bald pate, and small American turtle dove, the red bird, the stare and American ¤eldfare, nor the racoon, which seems here to be an universal inhabitant in vast numbers, nor the amphibious crocodile and turtle. 9. “No sign of winter effect is visible, nor any shrub or tree species of those in the northern climate, &c. &c. [296] How well does this agree with the trees mentioned in the sixth

article, and the impudent faseshood [falsehood] of the pomegranate is here a second time introduced with an “of which I had a full proof by the pomegranate, of which the trees are full of blossoms with half ripe and full ripe fruit.” 10. “At Shark’s-tail, Middle-river, and the head of Cape-river, are a few live oaks,” and in the next article we ¤nd “hickory, live oak, mulberry, smooth black [bark br] yellow pine.” The very choice for timber! 11 [(delete number) br]. This agrees pretty well with the assertion in No. 9.——The conclusion of these ¤ne remarks, is a recommendation of laying the land out in large tracts, the very thing which has proved the means of keeping the country uncultivated. Can we any longer be surprized at the little, not to say perverse knowledge the people of the mother-country have of America, when we ¤nd principal of¤cers misrepresenting facts to the chief rulers of the land? I make no doubt but many good folks, in other of¤ces, have as much misrepresented facts of another kind, as this man has done the description of the affairs in the department he was intrusted with. But if this narrative deserves contempt, and to be exposed, the latter production of 1772, with its very improper title of Atlantic Pilot, evidently bearing marks of insanity, demands our pity; here we see an account of an unnatural change in the face of the country, which for many reasons never could have happened but in the brain of this Bedlamite,238 from whence also seems to originate the name of Tegesta;239 he turns one peninsula into broken islands, another into sunken [297] rocks; what a havock of jumbling this Hercules makes! when in this unmeaning chaos he joins and disjoins, turns water into land, and land into water, calls the current from Baf¤n’s frozen bay, to join with the velocious stream of Torrid Mexico and Florida; and again makes them form a vortex reverting back to their points of departure;240 magni¤es a parcel of pitiful ®ats into a gulph, with the sonorous name of Sandwich, or into a lake with the pretorian title of grand [Grant br] af¤xed to it, and all this does not cost him more trouble than a few strokes of his inimitable pen; nay more, he metamorphoses the hunting feat of the Prince of Orange into a wolf, and turns a woman just delivered from child bed travail, and her child, into a paradise‡. Not to say much of his arrogant false claim of his having discovered the navigation through the channel, inside of the reef, which numbers of people, ‡Key Loo, so called from the Loo frigate which was cast away on it,241 he has changed into Loup, the French name for a wolf, and the two keys by the English called Soldier Keys, from the multitude of those animals found on and near them, are by the Spaniards titled La Parida y Su Iiguela, but this curious raver has called them Los Paradizos.

263


A Concise Natural History

264


Bernard Romans

even Englishmen, knew better forty years ago, than it is likely he ever will know it; I cannot forbear mentioning the alteration of well-known names in a place of so much danger; can the arbitrary imposition of the names of Dartmouth, Littleton, Pownal, Hawke, Egmont, Huntingdon, Holbourn, Keppel, Fox, Townshend, Ellis, Oglethorp, Reynolds, Dyson, and about a legion more,242 of inferior great and little men, make up for the mistakes they may occasion? Or can [298] these statesmen and heroes owe him thanks for the confusion occasioned by the jumbling of their names, like dice in a box? The formation of a reef, “out of sight of any land,” west of the dry Tortugas, is likewise a child of his own brain; and we are apt to think him ¤nding fault with the goodness of the Creator, in not making shoals enough, for there is no such bank any where west of the dry Tortugas. But his placing soundings in his draught deeper by three feet than they really are; and his advising people who intend to go through the Gulph of Florida, to take their departure at the Havannah, and steer due north, in order to make, what he calls, Cape Florida, seems as if calculated on purpose to destroy ship, goods and people; happy is it for me that our present navigators know the navigation so well, and for the bene¤t of trade I hope his pamphlet will never serve as a guide to any man that is a novice, and chances to come this way. As a specimen of his marine knowledge, observe him telling us, that at times of a westerly wind, the Atlantic coast is the most eligible lee for navigators who do not chuse to take the stream; as he has just before de¤ned this Atlantic coast to be the Florida shore, it must consequently at such seasons be the weather shore; but cease to wonder at this, when I tell you, that the method of his own, which he refers to, for taking the variation, is a mechanical one, and very tedious, and that he did not know how to do it astronomically, by an amplitude of the sun, till I taught him in 1769.243 I am almost weary of removing all this dirt, and would leave the man [299] and his performance, but my love for truth in natural history obliges me to trace him, even through his presumptuous rummaging of the kingdoms of nature, of which he knows as little as of nautical affairs. To support the ridiculous hypothesis, he has broached about the change of his ancient Tegesta, he says, amongst other arguments, in page 9, “myself and people, employed by me in this service” (of which number, I the present writer was one) “have these three years observed many places where fresh encroachments appear to this effect: even the vast quantity of scattered large old trees, washed out with their roots on all shores of the islands, and out in the shallow sea, between the islands and the main, testify, that they lay on the

spot of the former continent and peninsulas, where their genus and species formerly ®ourished.” I came through this place four years before I knew this man, and from that time down to last year I have seen many changes and alterations in the positions of these trees, some of which come down the rivers in Cuba, in land ®oods, but more down the Mississipi; and by the currents are here forced on the reefs and keys||. A few of those from Cuba being tropical, might serve to support the reasoning of the Atlantic Pilot, but many kinds never grew in Florida; the coconuts found on the shore likewise convince us, that Cuba sends much of her outcast [300] this way; but when we consider that nine out of ten of the trees thus found are oak, cypress, red cedar, elms, and above all, beach of the greatest magnitude (none of which ever grew in this climate) it is done with Tegesta, she is fallen never to rise again! He has however this time forgot the pomegranate; but how do we know what is meant by Papaios, distinguished from Papaw; some new genus in botany, no doubt, has the Spanish name of the Papaw bestowed on it by this excellent naturalist. Observe him last of all turn systematist, when he tells us “that a species of prawn (shrimps) growing to the size of ¤ve pounds” (he might have said ¤fteen) “are improperly called lobsters;” ô Philosophus eximius!244 The lobster which is the ¤rst in rank among the families of Astaci, must here give way to the most diminutive of the whole genus, which is placed ¤rst, and that forsooth because in Mr. De Brahm’s opinion there can be no lobsters without claws: —but enough of this, let us proceed to the topography of West Florida. The river Apalachicola is the boundary of the two provinces; before its mouth eastward, and a little westward, we meet with St. George’s Islands, well known for the sufferings of Pierre Viaud, &c. after shipwreck here.245 I must remark, that the relation we have of this affair is a great exaggeration of facts; people in that situation may suffer, but on a place like this, where plenty of ¤sh, crabs and oysters are to be had, as well as water, for the trouble of digging, their sufferings cannot be great. Our pity is much lessened upon ¤nding a reasonable man so [301] debilitated by fright and despair, that he cannot make use of a plenty provided by providence. All along this coast ¤sh are in such abundance, that both myself and people, when not inclined to ¤sh with a hook and line, have struck many hundreds with a stick sharpened at one end, and hardened in the ¤re, in lieu of a harpoon; I will not mention ||Let us for a moment calculate, how long the worms will leave such a tree as a monument, and we shall ¤nd, that this change of Tegesta, at least in part, must have happened of late years.

265


A Concise Natural History

266


Bernard Romans

much about the exaggeration of distress, which runs through the whole of this performance; but the story of Madame La Couture bringing a turkey and her eggs, out of the woods, at the time when relief had reached her fellow sufferers, appeared to me too palpable a falshood to be credited, because these birds were never found on any island from Carolina to this place, except formerly on Amelia island; (which is separated from the main only by a little creek, in some places scarce ten feet across) but supposing one to have been accidentally here, I will readily allow that the eggs may have been found, and taken by Madame La Couture; yet as these birds are the most shy animal we meet with, (insomuch that a deer, in places where he is frequently disturbed, is incomparably more easy to come at than turkies) certainly she must have been a more expert huntress than ever I heard of before, and I should be after all very much inclined to think that the poor woman, and her companions, had mistaken the Mexican vulture for a turkey; but that from the relation we naturally judge there were many eggs in the nest, which oversets that kind of reconciliation: wherefore, ¤nding it was at the time of their relief, I went to Mr. Simpson, (the interpreter for the savages, who was one of the people in the boat at the time of affording [302] help to those unhappy people, and is a man of veracity)246 and asked him if it was true that the woman brought in a turkey, and her nest, of which he and his companions shared; he told me that it was no other than a crab of the kind called in the southern province a king crab, and to the northward a horse-shoe, but he saw no eggs of any kind. As this ¤sh bears a distant resemblance to a turtle, perhaps Mr. Viaud took it for such, and wrote tortue, which may have been translated turtle too, but by a mistake common enough in printingof¤ces, the compositor may have made it a turkey*,247 and the corrector, either through inadvertency, or not considering how largely he launched into the marvellous, left it so. But to proceed, a little west of these islands we ¤nd Cape Blaze in latitude 29:47, and the Bay of St. Joseph, to the N. W. of which is St. Andrew’s Bay, and W. by N. from here, Santa Rosa bay and islands; in the east end of this bay is Matto [Chatto br] Hatcha; which last running E. and W. makes the eastern shore of Pensacola entrance. All these places are very arid, dry sand, near the *I ¤nd mention made also of a bustard, it is well known that there is not one of this kind of birds in all America; however a bustard is in French called outarde, and this is the name given by the French to the blackhead Canada goose, which abounds here in the season, when Viaud was on this coast, this the translator seems not to have been informed of. I perceived many symptoms of an imperfect knowledge of the French language, by the translator, however, this is not a place to point them out, only out of complaisance to the sex, I will inform her that casse tete means a tomahawk.

coast; farther in towards the Upper Creek country, which is in some measure described in page 91, it is scarcely known, but what I have seen of [303] it is much like Georgia, and the north part of East Florida. Pensacola has about an hundred and eighty houses in it, built in general in a good taste, but of timber: the town is laid out in an oblong square, near the foot of an hill, called Gage-hill; and by means of two rivulets of excellent water, which almost surround it, is the best watered of any I know on the continent. The harbour is spacious, and here are three considerable rivers, viz. Escambé, Chester, and Middle rivers, besides several lagoons and rivulets of no note. Chester-river is full of islands, great and small, abounding principally with the Cupressus Thyoides. Middle-river communicates with several lakes; the water of this river is so cold, that the savages call it Weewa Casupka, which in the Creek language signi¤es cold water. The Escambé is navigable a considerable way up, but rapid, and about twenty miles from Pensacola we begin to meet with some spots of fertile land, variously timbered. Twenty-eight miles from the town, and on the banks of this river, on an eminence, are the remains of a Spanish out-guard, or stocado fort; about seventy-eight miles from town, this river forks, a branch called Weewa Oka, or Weeoka, by us little Scambé, coming from the N. W. runs into the main river; this branch where it is crossed is about sixty feet wide, and the ford is a bottom of small gravel, which is not common here; the road that crosses it leads from Pensacola to the Upper Creek nation; the distance is two hundred and ten miles; and the heads of these rivers are all within a few miles of the savage towns. Fourteen miles farther west from Pensacola, is the Rio Perdido, or lost river, of inconsiderable [304] length and navigation; and about forty miles west of this, we meet with Mobile, Tombechbé and Taënsa bay and rivers; into which last the Alibama, or Coosa river falls. All the country between this last river and Chester-river, and probably all to Apalachicola is very favourable for stocks of cattle; many noble cane branches, mixed in the pine land, affording them excellent food, and they multiply very rapidly. Lovers of minute geography, by examining my maps, will ¤nd that the lower part of the coast between Mobile bay and Perdido, and so on to Pensacola, may easily be made navigable for boats in land, there being already a rolling road out of the river Bon secour, into a creek running into Perdido; but this being mere matter of speculation we must leave the practical part to some future generation. The country west from Mobile bay, to Nita Albany, or Bean-camp [Bear Camp br], at lake Maurepas, is much of the same kind as that already described; only we ¤nd more fertile planting ground in it. The timber here is nearly the same as in the north part of East-Florida; but it is worthy of remark, that not one of the

267


A Concise Natural History

268


Bernard Romans

Borassus, or Cabbage tree,248 is found along this whole extent from Apalachia westward; which does not agree well with a report in a letter to a certain George Lookup, Esq; in Robinson’s history of Florida,249 where he says, that the cabbage trees along this coast, rear their lofty heads above all others; but so curious a piece as this pamphlet is ought not be ransaked, I will therefore proceed to give some extracts from my journals through the western parts of West Florida, as being the best way to give my reader a true idea of this country.250 [305] In the following pages the distances are accurately measured, by such methods as circumstances permitted. On Saturday the 20th September, 1771, at 4 P. M. I left Mobile, and encamped that night in pine land, near a spring to the north of the path, and at the foot of an hill, six miles from town, to the west a little by south. 21st. Opaya Mingo, a Chicasaw warrior, of our train, was this morning sick, on which occasion I saw one of his companions cut his temples with a ®int, and applying a cane about four inches long, to the scari¤cation, suck it till he nearly ¤lled it with blood, then threw it out, and repeated it several times; this is something like cupping:251 we were obliged to leave these two behind, and proceeded this day chie®y to the N. W. through pine land, and encamped this night at the head of a branch of Dog-river, ¤fteen miles and three quarters from town. 22d. Crossed several creeks, and headed others, running all eastward; we advanced twenty miles and a half through pine land, and encamped near a creek called pine logg; in the afternoon we came to the ¤rst considerable ascent, where the ground is gravelly, here the road goes of to Yoani. 23d. This morning we went over a very narnow [narrow] ridge, leaving Dog-river on the left, and Tombechbé on the right of us. Crossed several heads of cane branches, running different ways; saw many grass ponds, and Indian camps, and crossed a large cane branch, called by the Chactaws Coosak Hattak falaya; proceeded eleven miles and encamped on the waters of Pasca Oocoloo [306] river;252 here saw a good deal of chestnut and other timber, besides pine trees. 24th. This morning we came past some good low grounds, and saw the ¤rst oaks of the kind called black jacks: crossed several creeks, and went through some swamps and oak land; encamped near a branch, and here saw the hieroglyphick253 No. 1, in page 108, advanced this day twenty-one miles. 25th. This morning we had a great deal of rain, which continued by showers all day; the two savages left behind joined us. We advanced but ¤ve miles and a half; encamped this night about two miles W. S. Westward from

the path, near a lake abounding in excellent ¤sh, particularly pikes, perch, and red eyed chubs, of a very superior size. 26th. Being rainy we lay by, and recruited our provision with abundance of ¤sh, two deer, and two turkies. 27th. Went over a good deal of gravelly ground, mostly pine land, and encamped at Bogue Hooma,254 (i.e. Red Creek, our boundary with the Chactaws; here we saw the ¤rst rocks on the south side of the creek: we travelled only eleven miles and a quarter; the creek being very high we were obliged to spend a great while in ferrying our goods, and swimming our horses over; the stream runs westward;—shot three turkies. 28th. After six miles travelling, we came to oak-land, being short hills, and all day we found the land pretty much mixed;—crossed many springs and rivulets;—saw the head of a savage stuck on a pole, with many other marks of our being on the theatre of war;255 we left the road to [307] Chicasawhay on the left;—all this afternoon we leave a considerable stream on our right, running N. eastward:—advanced this day ¤fteen miles and a quarter, the last three or four miles the land was chie®y oak-land: at night we encamped at a war-camp, near a branch running into the above stream, from which we were one and an half mile to the west, using the ordinary precautions*. 29th. Ascended and descended several considerably steep hills; found the land mixed, chie®y oak; at three o’clock went through the savannah called Poos coos Paähaw, about one mile and an half across, with here and there some points of wood land on it; and again crossed some hilly oak land; and after thirteen miles travel encamped near a branch of Pasca Oocoloo river; here a very plain path goes eastward. N. B. The water in the savannah has a taste of lime. 30th. Almost as soon as we left camp we crossed a branch of Bogue aithee Tanné, vulgarly Bakkatané,256 having the low land of this river constantly in sight, about half a mile to our left; travelled chie®y through pine land, and some hurricane ground†, and after journeying eleven miles and three quarters, we encamped at Hoopah Ullah, (i.e.) the noisy owl, where we saw the hieroglyphick No. 2, page 102. 1st October, went through a vast variety of hilly, stony, boggy, swampy and oak land; passed some very elevated hills, and crossed several [308] rivulets: encamped at Oku Ullah (i.e.) the noisy water, a creek; having gone twenty-two miles and an half this day, we passed by three graves within the *See page 189. †Tracts of wood formerly destroyed by hurricanes are so called.

269


A Concise Natural History

270


Bernard Romans

space of three quarters of a mile from each other, the ¤rst of a soldier of a detachment that went to fort Tombeehbe, the second of a savage, who went by the name of rum-drinker, after whom the hill is called rum drinker’s hill; and the third of one Mr. Brown,257 a very considerable trader in the Chactaw and Chicasaw nations. 2d. At four miles distance from our last night’s encapment we crossed Pancha Waya, the last water running to the south-west, and two miles further we left the path going to Coosa on our left. Our road all this day led through the same kind of rugged, uneven, stony, gravelly and swampy ground as yesterday, as also a hurricane ground and scrub hill; some of the stones we saw were very large, and the hills considerably elevated: having travelled eighteen miles and three quarters, we encamped a quarter of a mile west of a Chactaw village called Paonte, near a delightful spot, but deserted on account of the war; here we got some peaches, plumbs, and grapes; six miles W. S. W. from the camp is the Coosa town, of Chactaw. A showery day. 3d. Very heavy rain from midnight till noon, at two miles and an half from our camp left the road going to Haänka Ullah (i.e.) the bawling goose, a chactaw town, to the left; travelled only four miles and an half through mixed but pretty even land, and encamped near a branch of Sook han Hatcha river, the streams being very high the ferriage delayed us much. 4th. This day we met some traders and savages, [309] and travelled through several deserted ¤elds, and one deserted town, called Sapa-Pesah: the ground is generally very uneven;—here we crossed several paths, and were joined by three Chactaw savages, who extricated us from a great dif¤culty, as we found no convenient logs to ferry us over a large branch of Soak hanatcha, till they shewed us a place half a mile down the stream; and for a small consideration ferried our goods over, while we swam our horses across: having traveled ten miles and three quarters, we encamped on the north bank of this stream, called Hatchatipke. 5th. We came after half a mile’s journey to a deserted town, called Etuck Chukké (i.e.) Blue Wood. This morning, at day-break, we heard the report of ¤re arms, at a little distance, which, being very often repeated, we soon guessed it was what we found it to be a little while after; that is, an action; the savages always attacking either at day-break, or at sun-set; crossed many paths and ¤elds, and after ten miles and an half journey, we found one of the victorious Chactaws, presenting us the fresh scalp of one of his enemies. Here were the ¤rst inhabited houses, being a kind of suburb to the town of east Abecka; here we crossed the branch of Sookhanatcha river, which gives name to all the rest, and at a mile and an half further, we came to the town itself, and put up at the house of an old trader, called Hewitt,258 and were

civilly treated by both savages and whites. Of the ¤rst we found here three chiefs, not a little exulting in their late victory, and the women in every part of the town were performing their savage orgies and dances; we [310] staid here till the 9th, when part of my company proceeded to the Chicasaw nation. 9th. Agreed with a very worthy young man, one Mr. George Dow, to serve me as a guide through the Chactaw nation; and that day we went through Ebeetap-Oocoola, a town on a hill, where the savages have a large stockade fort in their own manner. Such there are also at Abeika, which two places are the frontiers against the Creeks. We went this day south westward, through Chooka-hoola, part of Oka-hoolah, through Hoola-tassa, which last is four miles from Abeeka; then nearly south three miles more to the ridge of east Moka-Lassa, then about a mile and an half westward to Ebeetap-oocoolocho, where we stopt at the house of one Foster, a trader; then went nearly S. E. for two miles, and came to the middle of east Moka Lassa; from here continued S. E. a little more than two miles, and entered Haänka-Ullah; still went on the same course for a mile and a quarter, and then were at the middle of said town, and refreshed ourselves for an hour. The town of Oka Loosa lays S. E. three miles from here; then returned, in a round about manner, through another road, back to Mr. Foster’s house, where we slept. 10th. Proceeded ¤rst W. N. W. about two miles, afterwards W. S. W. for a mile and a quarter; this brought us into Oka-attakkala, a neat little place for a town of savages; went about a quarter of a mile into it, and put up at the house of Mr. Dow, my guide. About three miles W. S. W. from this are the ruins of East Congeata, destroyed in the civil war of these people, by the western party. Hitherto travelled [311] chie®y through corn-¤elds; we lay here till the 21st, partly to refresh our horses, and partly on account of a violent fever, which I was troubled with; during this time agreed with a savage to join us as a guide to the S. W. of the nation, his name was PooscoosMingo, or king of the children. 21st. Went S. westward, a mile and an half into Yanatoe, crossing many paths, and several old, as well as some cultivated ¤elds, which lay interspersed in the woods; crossed Bague-fooka, and the heads of Poreetamogue, with several other creeks, and after riding something better than seven miles and an half, mostly S. W. we ascended a long hill, steep in its ¤rst rising, and when on its top we had the view of a high ridge, to N. W. with a deep valley between them. Went south, and after a mile and a half crossed Bogue Chitto, a large creek, which runs S. E. into the river Bogue-aithé-Tannè, in three quarters of a mile more went through the deserted old ¤eld of Coosak Baloagtaw; about a mile and a half further we crossed a creek of that name, emptying into

271


A Concise Natural History

272


Bernard Romans

Bogue-Chitto: a quarter of a mile further we crossed a large pond upon a beaver dam, and in half a mile more stopped to bait, at a creek called Pooscoos te Kalè, in a deserted village of that name. At near three o’clock proceeded S. W. by W. after a little more than two miles, crossed a deserted ¤eld called Pooscoos tekale, Hoca; two miles and three quarters further crossed Tallé Katta, a large branch of Chicasaw-hay river, then came into pine land, for the ¤rst time of these fourteen days: went south, a little westerly, and came to camp at a place, where we found some old camps convenient, near the head of a branch [312] of Talle Hatta; having this day travelled twenty-two miles and an half, all in woods. 22d. We travelled through various kinds of wood, and something of uneven ground, chie®y to south; and at twelve miles from our camp we crossed a river near eighty feet wide, here said to be the principal branch of Chicasawhay river; and is called Aitheesuka; the ford is a ®at rock, the land on each side here is pine land, and rises high above the bed of the river: continue in pine land four miles and a half more, then come into low land, cross some creeks and savannahs, and after having travelled twelve miles more, chie®y S. E. from the river, I came to camp on the side of a pine hill. My weakness not suffering me to go further, I ordered our people forward to Chicasawhay, to provide necessaries, except one lad, whom I kept to accompany me. 23d. South eastward through some hurricane and other uneven ground for ¤ve miles and an half, then went through intervale for a mile and a half, at the end of this we go up a considerable hill, from whose top we see a very high blue ridge to E. and S. E. a great way from us, and at the end of nine miles and three quarters we arrived at Chicasawhay, and stayed at the house of Ben James. 24th and 25th. Employed in going to and coming from Yoani. The road that leads to this place is chie®y pine and shrubby oak land: at ¤ve miles from Chicasawhay, a middling branch of Chicasawhay is crossed: it is called Owhan lowy; judging this suf¤cient to give an idea of the face of the country here, I shall only subjoin that on the 7th November, having made a circuit [313] of the nation, we returned to Hewitt’s house at Abeeka, our road from Chicasawhay, leading chie®y through ¤ne improved, and many among them rich ¤elds, and a large number of considerable towns and villages of the savages. 10th November, having dismissed Pooscoos-Mingo, we went to the Chicasaw nation, through a road leading in general over stiff clay land; saw very little else but white oak, and that no where tall, occasioned by the stiffness of the land; crossed only two rivers of note, one Nashooba, the other Oka tebbee haw; no remarkable ascent or descent on the whole road; crossed many

savannahs, the distance is about an hundred and ¤fty-nine miles from Abeeka, to the Chicasaw towns; (described in page 63) where we arrived on the 18th November, and put up at the house of one Buckles, a trader:259 our course hitherto has chie®y been north. Here I stayed till the 8th December, and observed this house to lie in nearly 35° north latitude. I cannot help relating in this place an anecdote of Mr. Commissary in this nation:260 this Gentleman had engaged to me, and promised Mr. Stuart, that I should have all the necessary assistance I might want; I went to his plantation, which lays at Paön titack, eleven miles from the place where he ought to reside, and to my astonishment I was here treated worse than in any place I had been at: so far from providing horses, which was one of the articles I wanted, I was obliged to give him one back, which I had borrowed at the Chactaw, in lieu of one that failed me. I saw clearly, that I was an unwelcome guest in every respect; however, I procured [314] from him a recommendatory note, to the above Buckles, and he told me that Buckles knew of two canoes, the choice of which I might have for my intended voyage, down the river; but when I spoke to Mr. Buckles on the subject, he denied ever having spoke about any canoes, nor did he know of any, and as to the note, I might have any thing I wanted on my own credit, by giving an order on Mr. Stuart; but with the commissary he had nothing to do. Thus I was obliged to do all myself at last; this is in some measure an instance of the inutility of the commissary’s of¤ce; I sent Mr. Dow with three negroes to the river, to make a canoe. During my stay here, on the ¤rst December, it began to freeze very hard; on the fourth the ice in town-creek was four or ¤ve inches thick; and on the 6th in the morning we could scarce keep water from freezing in a close house, and near a good ¤re; but I saw no snow during all the time of my stay. Nothing was more entertaining than the surprize of the savages, at seeing me take observations of the solar altitude, the mercury I used for an arti¤cial horizon, was a matter of great wonder to them, particularly, when I shewed them its divisibility, and the succeeding cohesion of the globules. 8th December, in the afternoon I proceeded from Buckles’s house, and travelled E. by S. nearly ¤ve miles and a half; then crossed Nohoo-la-inalchubba, or the town Creek, mentioned in page 63, then went about S. S. E. for a mile and a quarter more, and encamped on a hill, near a small lake, in which we heard all night a great number of ducks. We met this day eleven [315] savages, of the Creek nation, and three more of the Natchez, who live with the Upper Creeks, coming through the Chicasaw ¤eld, with the Death Whoop: they had surprized a hunting camp of Chactaws, on a branch of the river Yaasoo, called Tallé Hatcha, at a time when the hunters were absent, and took

273


A Concise Natural History

274


Bernard Romans

away all their skins, two horses, and ¤ve women of the Chacchooma tribe, belonging to west Congeta, in the Chactaw nation: they took care not to stay for the return of the men, as the camp indicated them to be numerous; but because they had not a scalp to shew, these devils incarnate had scalped the eldest of the women they carried into captivity, yet let the wretch live, and she was one of the number we saw. The Chicasaws were all abroad that day; but I observed by the behaviour of some superannuated fellows, that they disliked the Creeks behaviour of bawling the Death Whoop through the ¤eld; and having asked the reason, I was told, that as they were neutrals in this war, they did not like to give umbrage, which the Chactaws might take at this, and if their men had been at home, they would not have suffered this small victorious party to make use of this kind of triumphal entry here; thus we see these savages strictly observing a neutrality in form. 9th. Proceeded, and at 3 miles, saw a large tumulus, which was the only remarkable thing in this road, we went over one steep hill, and crossed three or four branches, and the last two miles and a half of the road we saw much pine mixed with the oak; having travelled nearly twenty three miles on a course S. E. by S. we arrived about four o’clock P. M. on the bank of Tombechbé [316] river, here called the twenty mile creek. 10th. Examined the canoe, but found her too heavy for our purpose, therefore dispatched Mr. Dow (who knew the ground, and was well acquainted with the woods) to see if he could not ¤nd some canoe of the savages; he found one about noon, in the mouth of Nahoola inalchubba, two miles and a half west from our camp, therefore went and encamped on the bank of said creek, the opposite bank was very high steep hills, above hundred and twenty feet perpendicular, and some pines on their summits; found the canoe a very sorry one, but it being Hopson’s choice,261 must venture in her. 11th. We spent in ¤tting our craft; since the 7th we had very bad weather here, one hour it is sharp, clear, and intensely cold, the next cloudy, sultry, with lightning, thunder, rain and hail, the wind veering round the horizon in an incredible manner, which made my situation very disagreeable. 12th. We had some tolerable weather, and ¤nished ¤tting our boat, but she was so miserable a tool, that I believe few men would have ventured in her. 13th. All the company returned to the nation with the horses; kept only Mr. Dow, and my servant, to be the companions of this ®uvial expedition; while we staid here we caught some beavers. At half an hour past one, P. M. we proceeded from our camp in Nahoola Inalchubba, or Town Creek, and in twenty minutes were in the river. We passed one bluff, where the French formerly had a forti¤ed trading house, about one mile below the mouth of

the creek, on [317] the west bank; we passed one creek on each side, and left three small gravelly islands on our left; for the rest of the land was low on both sides;—having come ¤ve miles and an half we came to camp on a sand bar at half an hour past three, P. M. the river pretty rapid, and found only one log, which detained us a quarter of an hour[.] 14th. Proceeded at ten o’clock, A. M. in half an hour past a bluff on the east side, and in half an hour more found a very tall cypress laying across the river, by which we were detained an hour; but cutting the top away we passed on; about three quarters of an hour after had some pine land* on the west bank; in general the land on both sides is low. About two o’clock P. M. past a small island; about half an hour after two the bank on the west side was about seventy feet high;|| continued between pretty high banks till half an hour after three, when we encamped on a high sand bar, on the west side of the river, current unequal, and the obstructions of no note, since we cut the tree, travelled this day nine miles. 15th. Departed half an hour past ten o’clock A. M. past several islands, and found the bank, on the west side, in many places high, we saw in many others high and intervale oak land;—not so much drowned land as the former days;—passed through several rapids, and at half an hour past three, P. M. came to camp at the end of a [318] large high pine bluff, on the east side, having travelled this day ¤fteen miles. 16th. At half an hour past nine o’clock, A. M. proceeded and came past a variety of high and low land; shot some ducks and teals; but unfortunately this forenoon lost our gun, being torn out of my hands by a snag of a tree, and as it sunk in deep water, it was irrecoverable, the river being rapid. About two o’clock P. M. past a short hill, on the west shore, upwards of eighty feet high above the present level of the water;—passed a few creeks and lagoons, three islands and several rapids; we came down fourteen miles and three quarters, and at half an hour past three, encamped on the east side in an hollow. 17th. Proceeded a quarter before nine A. M. and in less than half an hour saw a hill, a little inland, on the west side; and an hour after this we had the mouth of a river on the east, this is called, at its fording place, in the trading path, the last branch of Tombechbé; none of the banks we past this morning were very low, and on the west side, opposite this mouth of a river, the banks ¤fty or sixty feet higher than the present surface of the water. The weather being severely cold I was obliged to go on shore and make a ¤re, on this *When the pine is mentioned hereabouts, I mean the Pinus Abies Virginiana, conis parvis subrotundis, or the balm of Gilead pine. ||N B. The river was high.

275


A Concise Natural History

276


Bernard Romans

highland, half a mile below the above river, near the mouth of a stony creek, which we took to be the Sonac Tocalè, which we had crossed in the road going up; here we remained till noon. We passed three islands this day, and the general run of the land is middling high on both sides. The weather was very severe, which obliged us to encamp at one o’clock; [319] in the mouth of a creek, called Old Town Creek, at the foot of an hill, rising about seventy feet out of the water, having come about seven miles; it rained very hard all the afternoon, and the next two days, by which means we kept in camp till the 20th, at noon. Half a mile from our camp the high land ends, and we travelled but one hour and twenty minutes, when the severity of the weather obliged us again to encamp, having come six miles, and in that distance found chie®y low land: past four islands, and as many rapids, one of them a bad pass; our camp was on a piece of ¤ne rich, middling high land, which Mr. Dow reported to be very extensive. We lay here on account of bad weather; such as cold, rain and snow, till the 26th, when at a little past twelve we departed. During our stay here the water gained near four feet in height; in one hour and an half, having gone near ¤ve miles, and past six or seven islands and rapids, we were at the mouth of the river Oca Tibehaw, the lower road between the Choctaws and Chicasaws;—crossed [Chicasaws crosses br] this river about two miles above this place;—about one mile below this, having past an island, we saw a very remarkable bluff on the west side, rising above ¤fty feet out of the present level of the water;262 this is near a mile and a half long; the bluff is covered principally with Juniper, or cedar shrubs, and in it are two or three gullies, in which as many springs come trickling down [(insert semicolon) br] for about two thirds of its length: [(delete colon) br] a bank projects out at its foot, having a ®at and very even surface, without any plants, (a little grass excepted) [320] growing thereon. This surface projects about nine or ten feet from the bluff into the river, and was about eight feet above the level of the water, it looks as if made by art, and if placed near any town of note, I do not doubt would be much used as a walk. The bluff ends in two little hills, and a small island is at the lower end of it; all which, added to its being in the form of a crescent, makes it have a very romantic appearance. From hence we went past one more bluff, a considerable island, and a rapid; in which last we had low pine land on the east bank, and got into the mouth of a creek, called eleven mile creek, which we went up half a mile, and at three P. M. we were forced by the rain to come to camp, having travelled this day, ten miles and a half. 27th. The rain obliged us to lay by all day.

28th. At 11 o’clock we embarked, and had more rapids to go thro’ than on any of the former days; likewise saw more high land than before. I think it remarkable, that we see so very few outwaterings of creeks, or rivers, into the great river. An hour and an half after leaving camp we saw a bark log, just landed on the west side, and evident marks of people having just landed; this was in a long reach, and we had seen a smoak, but when we came near the bark log, the smoak vanished all at once. We soon found these people to be a war party of Creeks, who perceiving our boat, had put out their ¤re, which on these occasions they make of hickory bark and other oily matters, that yield little smoak. We therefore put on our hats, which we had not on before, it being a ¤ne agreeable day, and rather warm, and laying on the paddles, did all we [321] could to shew that we were white people. It was fortunate for me that I had not brought a savage guide with me, which would have exposed us to a volley from those warriors; we did not see them, but we knew by the suppression of the smoak, that they had discovered us; they were undoubtedly on the top of a pretty high bank, in ambush, so we let the boat ®ow past them. N. B. We have discovered many of those bark logs, made of cones [canes br], both above and below this place, upon which the war party ferry over. Half a mile lower down we saw the mouth of a middling large creek, on the east side. We past four islands this day, in two hours and an half ’s time. We saw one of the high savannahs, which bounds here on the river, with a delightful grassy bluff: the river is here above two hundred feet wide. Having come twenty three miles, we encamped at four o’clock, on a gravel bar. We saw many places that appeared like old ¤elds, as having been formerly cultivated. 29th. At nine o’clock proceeded; the ¤rst half hour we passed chie®y through drowned lands, and then came to a large lagoon, going to N. W. in which were innumerable geese and ducks; but the west bank of the lagoon is a handsome bluff. In half an hour more we came to a creek’s mouth on the west: we saw again some spots bearing marks of former cultivation, and more of drowned land; the river in general this day rapid, with many islands: at half an hour past three, P. M. having travelled thirty-¤ve miles, we encamped on the east side, in a lagoon, on a high bank, where, for the ¤rst time, we saw the rich ground clear of large canes; [322] this being timbered, chie®y with the shag bark hickory, iron wood and Spanish oak. 30th. This morning we had our boat loaden, but it began to rain, and thus were obliged to unload again. Here we found a canoe which was well made, but had been by the savages, on account of the war, scuttled, and rendered un¤t for use, however we found, that if we could make her any ways tight, she would be more safe than the one we had, and this we effected by the help

277


A Concise Natural History

278


Bernard Romans

of wedges, clay and leather. Our provisions beginning to grow scant, and having lost the only gun I had taken with me, I began to be uneasy, especially as we found the beavers become less plenty. The weather was uncommonly bad till the evening of the third of January, 1772, when it cleared up, and next morning 4th January, 1772, at a quarter before 11 o’clock, A. M. we proceeded in our new craft; and by half an hour past one, P. M. we had past high banks, and two islands: at this hour we had one of the savannahs on the west side, the bank being here about four feet out of the water: at a quarter before four we were at a considerable island, having gone since the last savannah between low banks; a quarter before ¤ve o’clock came to camp under a low bluff, on the east side. The canoe proves very leaky, and on unloading we ¤nd a great deal of our bread spoiled. This day came twenty-two miles and an half, the canes and timber are here exceeding large. 5th. At a quarter past ten embarked: high banks on both sides. At half an hour after eleven, past the mouth of a river from the east; this is called by the savages Nashebaw. The [323] land here is exceeding rich, the canes very large, and we saw a species of phaseolus, in great abundance, along the banks. About a mile and a quarter below the creek, we met four savages from Abeka, in the Chactaw nation, to whom Mr. Dow was known. This river has risen considerably since yesterday; the current has been for these two days almost uniformly at the rate of three miles per hour. It is remarkable, that though the velocity of our way was not much above two miles per hour, independent of the current, yet we had several instances of having evidently out-run the ®ood at night, in so much that it would scarce reach us again before morning. We came to camp near the savages above-mentioned, having come seven miles and an half; they had a good canoe which I intended to purchase. The weather was very cold to day. Lost a silver spoon at our last camp, which Mr. Dow proposed to go and fetch; but he found it impracticable to cross the Nasbehaw river. I agreed with the savages that they should hunt for us to procure provisions. At night it rained; our camp was on the east side, in a very rich spot. We have not yet seen any sand or gravel, except on the bars and islands in the river, the soil in general being clay, or loam, with a dry black mould. 6th. After a great deal of persuasion, I bought the canoe from the savages; and they brought me in two deer, and a turkey; for all which I gave them ¤ve yards of blue strouds, two powder horns, a knife, and some small shot. I described our last camp to them, and desired them to look for the abovementioned spoon, directing [324] them to leave it in their own country, with Mr. Dow’s partner, who lived just by their homes, and gave them a note to

him, desiring him to pay them for their trouble; but when they understood it to be the white stone (i.e.) silver, they declined going purposely for it; but promised, if chance led them to the place to carry it as directed, for they, not being able to work it, in case the trader refused to pay them, they would lose their labour; but had it been the fat of the earth (i.e.) lead or pewter, in that case they might make bullets, or ear-rings of it, and then they would not take pains in vain: towards evening they left us, and during night we barbecued our venison, to preserve it. 7th. At half an hour past seven o’clock A. M. embarked in our new craft; all day we past between high banks, some steep, some sloping; several as high as eighty feet above the surface of the water; one of these has an extensive savannah on the top. At the end of nineteen miles and an half, on the west side, we saw the mouth of the river Noxshubby, or Hatcha oose, its banks are high on both sides: here seems to be the true theatre of the war, for the bark logs are very numerous. The river is widened now from two hundred to two hundred and ¤fty feet. A mile and a half below the mouth of Noxshubby is the ¤rst bluff of arid ochre, like earth [a red ochre-like earth br], very high and steep; and about eight miles lower a white one, being a kind of stone almost as soft as chalk. Towards evening we met with several sand bars, and little isles. At four o’clock P. M. we came to camp on a low spot, on the east-side, having gone done [down br] the river forty-two miles [325] and a half; all day dull weather, and at night rain. 8th. Proceeded half an hour after 8 A. M. and having gone a little more than a mile, we reached the mouth of the creek called Ectombogue bé (i.e.) Crooked Creek, on the west side; from this creek’s name the French derive their Tombechbé, the name of the fort which stood here, and which has again given that name to the whole river.263 We went about half a mile further down, under a high and steep bank of chalky stone, and arrived at the ruins of the fort, by means of which the French kept all the savages in awe. I went ashore in the old ¤elds, and drew a view of the ruins; this is about forty miles east from the town of Abeeka. The river is not sixty feet wide here. About a mile and a half below these ruins is a pretty high, but sloping slaty bluff: having come about nine miles, we arrived at a hunting camp of Chactaws, on the west side; who invited us on shore, treated us very kindly, and spared us some venison, bear’s meat and oil. The afternoon being stormy, with hail and rain, we encamped at a small distance from them: the canes were not very plenty here, but the land rich: a great deal of the plant called Indian Hemp grows in this place; but the season deprived me of the satisfaction of knowing what genus it is of. 9th. At half an hour past eleven proceeded, and in an hour and a quarter

279


A Concise Natural History

280


Bernard Romans

we passed by Chickianoeé, a white bluff, with a savannah on its top, on the west side; it is upwards of seventy feet high above the water’s level: we past several high bluffs, among which one is yellow like Ochre. We saw many bars also, and lagoons: [326] having travelled twenty-four miles, came to camp at four o’clock P. M. on the east side, at the beginning of a steep slaty bluff. 10th. At half an hour past nine, A. M. proceeded; we went between high bluffs, and in two hours time came to the mouth of Tuscaloosa river from the east; and a little below it is the steep white chalky bluff, on whose top is a vast plain, and some remains of huts in it; the bluff is called the Chickasaw Gallery,264 because from here the savages used to annoy the French boats going up to the fort, or down from it. The river is hereabouts full of rapids, and bad passes: we came past a number of high bluffs, most of them chalky. At half an hour past three we past the mouth of Sookhanatcha from the west, and three miles below it came to camp, at four o’clock P. M. at the foot of the hill, where formerly the Coosadas were settled: this place is called Suktaloosa (i.e.) Black Bluff, from its being a kind of coal; it is a great thorough-fare for warring savages, therefore we took the usual precaution of large ¤res, and hanging our hats on stakes, which we had reason to think not in vain; for in the night we heard the report of small arms. This day we came thirty-six miles. It is worthy of remark, that although we have come near seventy miles from the ruins of Tombechbé, yet by land the distance is not above twentyfour, or twenty-¤ve miles. The land here is very ¤ne, and Mr. Dow told me, that he had lived here with the Coosadas, and that the common yield of corn was from sixty to eighty bushels per acre; that they increased horses and hogs to any degree [327] they pleased, and that venison, turkies, and ¤sh were uncommonly plenty. 11th. Last night and this morning, being rainy, we could not proceed till eleven o’clock. All this day we passed through the remains of the Coosada and Occhoy settlements,265 being all a ¤ne tract of ground, of which much had been cleared; but it is now again overgrown with reeds; the grand, or publick plantation in particular is an excellent tract. At four o’clock P. M. we encamped on a little plain, under a bluff, where was a large hunting camp, to appearance about two years old: here we saw some stones, having been deeply marked by the savages, with some uncouth marks, but most of them being straight lines and crossed, I have since been led to conjecture, whether they were not occasioned by these people grinding their awls on these stones; yet they do not ill resemble inscriptions: this place is a pretty situation, and is near two miles below the deserted Occhoy town, which stood likewise near a black coaly bluff; the distance we made this day is twenty one miles, we had ¤ne weather during the day; but the night was showery.

12th. At half an hour past eight A. M. proceeded. All this day we saw marks of great fertility of soil, and much tolerably high land: at half an hour past ten, we were at a creek called Abeshaï, at a quarter past eleven at the last Occhoy ¤eld, by a creek called Bashailawaw; at eleven A. M. at the hills of Nanna Falaya, on the east side; which rise steep out of the water, about ¤fteen, or twenty feet, then slope up into very high short pine hills. Some parts of the rock [328] are red, others grey. Here we were overtaken by very bad weather, from which took shelter; at half an hour past one, P. M. we encamped about three quarters of a mile below the hill, on the slope of a pretty high bank, where we found the remains of a camp, that had been occupied lately by white people; we came about eleven miles and an half this day; the rain continued till two o’clock A. M. next day, when the wind shifting to W. N. W, it grew excessively cold. 13th. At half an hour past ten A. M. proceeded; at one o’clock we came to a hill on the east side, with an old ¤eld on its summit; this hill is called Batcha-Chooka; here we found a notorious gang of thieves, belonging to the town of Oka Loosa, a town in the Chactaw nation; when we saw their raft, we took them to be a Creek war party, therefore, being hailed by them, and not choosing to be shot at, we went near the shore; but on discovering who they were I refused to land; they still insisted we must, but my obstinate persisting to the contrary, disappointed their sanguine hopes of plunder; and after some altercation I proceeded. This day the marks of fertility of soil are not so uninterrupted as on the former days. Our weather was clear, and a strong northerly wind prevailed;—we came nineteen miles since morning, and encamped on the west side, in a low spot of ground. 14th. Last night the frost was severe; at a quarter past nine, A. M. proceeded;—in half an hour’s time we saw very high hills, at a mile, or better, from the river, seemingly covered with pine timber; these hills the savages call Nanna Chahaws. Here is a steep place above forty feet [329] perpendicular out of the water, and another steep above it; the last is a grey slaty rock; this place is called Teeakhaily Ekutapa, and the people from Chicasahay had a settlement here before the war. About a mile and a quarter from hence is a remarkable white sand hill on the east side; four miles lower we came to Yagna-hoolah (i.e.) the Beloved Ground, which lies on the east side, and is very high, continuing above two miles along the river bank; its lower part is steep and of a whitish grey, and at the end above two hundred feet high, reckoning perpendicularly. A mile below this is a white sand hill on the west side; we saw the pine hills all this day, at various distances from the river, sometimes close to it, and the canes begin to diminish, and pine trees mix among the timber. The current for these two last days, is very considerably

281


A Concise Natural History

282


Bernard Romans

slackened, and the river widened to above ¤ve hundred feet. We came about thirty miles and an half this day, and encamped at four o’clock P. M. on the side of a kind of bluff, about six miles below a branch called Isawaya: all day cold, the latter part and night dull and hazy, at a quarter past nine proceeded. Eight miles below our camp we were at the mouth of Senti Bogue (i.e.) Snake Creek, having an island in its mouth, and coming from the westward. Two miles and a quarter lower is Atchatickpé, a large bay, or lagoon, on the same side: at this place is the beginning of our boundary with the Chactaws, running from the west till it strikes Senti-Bogue, and then follows the course of said creek, up to a certain sugar-loaf hill, and so over to Bogue Hooma, and Bakkatanè. A mile below this, at the bending of [330] the river is a bluff, but not very high, of a dark grey stone; above this it rises gradually sloping into a very high hill, variegated into small ridges. We saw many spots of pines, and some white sand hills; but in general the soil has a better appearance than yesterday. About an hour before we encamped, we came to the last rapids, or the ¤rst from below; here is a remarkable spot of yellow rocks in the western bank, beginning with a high, perpendicular, white rock, with some grass spots; it is above ¤fty feet above the present surface of the water; its top is level and shrubby; in the middle projects a remarkable lump, which, in coming down looks exactly like a buttress against a wall. At four o’clock P. M. we encamped on the east side in the low ground, above a mile below the rocks, having come thirty-one miles. The weather has been clear and cold all this day. Stout sloops and schooners may come up to this rapid; therefore I judge that here some considerable settlement will take place. 16th. Proceeded at half an hour past eight, A. M. Having come about ¤fteen miles, we saw the remains of the old Weetumpkee settlement: about seven miles below this, on the east side is an odd rocky bluff, appearing to be sandy, and is covered with cedar trees. The river here is very crooked, and about six miles below on the west side, we saw a spacious old ¤eld, and a smoak in one edge of it; but nobody near it, and two miles lower down, hearing a rustling in the canes, we looked that way, and saw a savage in a war dress, lying ®at; ¤nding himself perceived, he got up and beckoned to us; but although [331] we were within ten feet of him, we seemed not to have remarked him, upon which he lay down again: it is to be imagined that he was not alone, and that this was a war party, who had been at the smoak, in the old ¤eld, and having perceived us, had come to this place, knowing that here we must come near the bank; but seeing that we were no Chactaws, and thinking themselves undiscovered, they kept close. At a quarter past four o’clock, P. M. we came to a camp on the west-side, which we supposed by

the boats, &c. to be occupied by white people; in which opinion we were soon con¤rmed. When they invited us on shore, we found they were one Thomas Baskett, with two white hunters, and some Chactaws; we were here well regaled with excellent meat, and very good bread, which being prepared in an excellent manner, was a noble feast to us. I purchased some bear, bacon and venison hams of them, and staid all night at their camp; the distance we came this day was thirty-one miles. 17th. Embarked at half an hour past nine, A. M. and proceeded, accompanied by two canoes with savages: we soon past by some high pine hills on the east-side; and at their end, having come about two miles, we were at the little creek called Apé Bogue oosè, which is a spring so intensely salt, that the savages told us, three kettles of its water, yields one of salt. Having then proceeded for four hours through low land on each side, we arrived at the place called by the French, The Forks being a lagoon divided into three branches, whereof the ¤rst is called Apè Tonsa, the second Beelofa, and the third Caäntacalamoo: [332] here the savages left us; we still proceeded for half an hour more through low land, and then came to a large bay, at the end whereof begins the Tomeehettee bluff, where formerly a tribe of that nation resided; this is the ¤rst time we have the real pine barren butting on the river, it is very level. About ¤ve miles below this place, we came to the ¤rst islands that are of note; the land continues low and pretty rich: here we see the ¤rst summer canes[.] At six o’clock P. M. we came to the Coosadas bluff, having had the Naniabè (i.e.) Fish Killer’s island above an hour on our west side; this place was the last settlement of the Coosadas, after they left Sukta loosa; and in little more than half an hour we were at the mouth of the great Alibamo river. We past the Nita Abè, or Bear Killer’s Bluff on the left, and at nine o’clock P. M. we came to the north end of the island, which divides the branch called Dog River, from the west branch of the river. Here we staid all night at the plantation of the Chevalier de Lucere, but found only three or four old slaves and children, the whole of the able hands, and the overseer, being gone to make tar-kilns, so that we had but indifferent fare. We came this day forty-two miles and an half. N. B. Those islands are very fertile, and have a great many plantations on them, on the branches which lay out of our way, particularly on the Taënsa, and Dog Rivers. 18th. At a quarter past nine, A. M. proceeded, past several plantations,266 as well on the islands, as on the main, particularly Campbell’s, Stuart’s, Ardry’s, and M’Gillivray’s: at half an hour past eleven, A. M. arrived at Mr. Favre’s house, [333] where I staid in order to get some refreshment; this being the ¤rst Christian habitation I had been at since the 20th September, last year. Mr.

283


A Concise Natural History

284


Bernard Romans

Favre treated us in a most friendly, genteel and hospitable manner. At one o’clock some boats went up the river, which I heard were Mr. Stuart’s people, with a provincial deputy surveyor, going up to ascertain the boundary between us and the Chactaws. At two o’clock, some gentlemen, among whom was Major Dixon, of the sixteenth regiment, and Charles Stuart, deputy superintendant of Indian affairs (to whom I described Atchatikpè and Senti-Bogue, where they were to begin) followed them: they proceeded up to Mr. Stuart’s plantation, about three miles higher up the river. We had come seven miles and a quarter this day. In the afternoon it began to rain, and all night was a prodigious storm of wind and rain, which I had the pleasure of weathering out under a good roof: here we found several families of Chactaw savages. 19th. At a quarter past nine, A. M. we proceeded, went past Chastang’s, Strother’s, and Narbonne’s plantations, having chie®y pine land on the main, and the rich islands on our left all this day. Having gone ¤ve miles and three quarters, we passed by the ruins of Fort Condè, or old Mobile, and near six miles lower down we past by the ruins of a ¤ne plantation, formerly belonging to the French Intendant at Mobile, now to Mr. Lizars at the same place:267 4 miles and 3 quarters lower down we met with the ¤rst marsh, the river being very full, we could not learn how far the salt water had its effect, the bay itself being fresh and good at this time: but Mr. Dow, [334] who had been several times up and down this river, and had lived with the Coosadas for some years, assured me, that the tide was very visible at the old Wetumpkee settlements, and in extraordinary tides even as far as Seekta Loosa, where, during his residence on the spot, he has frequently seen it ebb and ®ow about an inch. We came this day thirty-¤ve miles and a half, and at nine o’clock P. M. we arrived at Mobile. N. B. It is to be observed that the general course of this river is from north to south; but it is very crooked. Journals are tedious, and I believe the above account will suf¤ciently give an idea of the country, else I might record more of this kind, especially a journey from Pensacola to Manchac, and down the Mississipi, from thence to the sea; but I will content myself with publishing a copy of a paper which was given me by Captain Rufus Putnam, with liberty to make what use I pleased of it. This gentleman was one of the committee appointed by the people of Connecticut, to explore the country about the Natchez.268 He sent a letter of the same contents to my very worthy friend Doctor J. Lorimer,269 at Pensacola; this paper will compleat the intention of my giving an idea of the country, and with it I will conclude this my ¤rst volume.

It Is As Follows: Sir! “According to my promise, when I left Pensacola, I now send you the observations which I made of the Mississipi country, more especially that part we were sent to [335] explore, and I choose rather to do it from extracts of the minutes I made in the woods, than by any general observation on them, and I am sure that your goodness will excuse every fault in my vulgar way of writing, since, if you have but the facts, you will be able to form a general account in such language as you please, and I shall begin my account ¤rst at the Natchez. “26th April, 1773, arrived at fort Rosalie, which is built on a high eminence, that overlooks the whole country, about two hundred yards from the river; it was built of a heptagon ¤gure, with one side fronting the river; each side, or angle, was about thirty yards clear, with two gates in the eastern angles. I took here the meridional altitude of the sun, by Davis’s quadrant, as I did again on my return, and I make the latitude of this place to be 31°15′ north;270 from hence I also saw the range of high lands from Loftus’s cliffs, and those on the east side of the Hooma-Chitto, which is near twenty miles distant, the lands hereabouts are very uneven, no creeks, and much worn out. “27th Visited St. Catharine’s creek; found the lands very good, timber walnut, hickory, oak, ash, &c. Mr. Thompson’s well was perfect good water, without stone or curve. “30th. On the point above Boyd’s creek travelled two or three miles into the country, found it mostly cane land, but subject to over®owing. “1st May. Arrived at Petit Goufre, where is a ¤rm rock on the east side for near a mile, [336] partaking (in my opinion) of the nature of lime stone, the land near the river is much broken and very high, perhaps three hundred if not ¤ve hundred feet high; about four miles farther up the river is a point of land somewhat low, but good, and stocked amazing thick with mulberry. “3d. About four miles up the bay one Pierre landed and spent some time in exploring the country, found the land to the N. N. W. and N. E. low, southerly the lands make higher; but broken into hills and vales, but then the low lands are not often over®owed,—white oak, live oak abound here, intermixed with copalm, and other timber, common on the Mississipi:—going up this to the fork, which is called seven leagues, we saw several stone quarries, in the bank some gravel bottom and sand banks, went unto a hill to view, found it broken as far as we could see, clay soil, and some gravel stones on the top of the ground.

285


A Concise Natural History

286


Bernard Romans

“4th. Arrived at the forks, where the river parts almost at right angles, and which is the biggest branch I cannot tell: travelled N. E about 3 miles and a half up, until we fell on a small creek that falls into the south fork of the Basoune Pierre, down which we came to our boat; this branch we found winding as the main creek; the lands we saw are clay and marl soil, not so uneven as we had before seen on the creek; arrived at the big black, (Petite riviere des Teaux) where part of our company set off by land to the Yasoo, and the rest of us by water, found many parts of the [337] bank high enough to build on before we came to the Yasoo cliffs, which are very high. Nine miles up the river Yasoo found Captain Enos, and those that went with him, at a place where it is said the French formerly had a fort and settlement; the bank on the right hand, going up at this place, is a high ridge of rocks, with a ¤ne spring of water, falling from the quarne, the Yasoo river is about four hundred, or ¤ve hundred feet broad, its course is east, about two miles and an half up N. E. to the above place, is a very dead, stagnated water, of bad colour, covered with scum, and abounds with aligators; its banks in some places are high, but cut through in many places, by the over®owing of the Mississipi; about two miles and a half from the mouth is a pleasant creek, comes in on the right, to which we returned and encamped, from whence we made several tours into the country, found all this point between the Yasoo cliffs and the river, low and full of ponds. “13th. Colonel Putnam, Mr. Lyman and myself set out about ten o’clock A. M. for the purpose of farther reconnoitring the lands between the old ¤elds, on the Yasoo cliffs, we went up the Yasoo, near the old ¤eld, or French settlement, steering south; in about two miles, came to a dead creek, which we traced eastward, till we found it came out of the high lands; we then bore southward two or three miles, travelling by some cypress swamps, some lands not over®owed by the Mississipi, keeping the highlands in sight on our left; this brought us into an excellent ®at [338] piece of land, full of grass, and some cane, with oak, walnut, and other wood, common in the country, we discovered signs of water spreading over this land from the hills in several places, we steered east as we found the highlands bore farther off, but was soon taken up with a mighty cane break; Colonel Putnam here climbed a tree, discovered highland at about a hundred rod distance, we travelled for it and arrived at it, in about two hours, with the utmost dif¤culty, in our way found a ¤ne running spring of water; ascending the highest part of the hill I climbed a tree, from which I had a ¤ne prospect, found the lands N. E. and S. to be hilly, but not mountainous, nor much broken, then returned to the spring aforementioned and encamped. “14th. Arrived at the Yasoo cliffs, on the Mississipi, where we met the rest

of our company, we came down under the high lands all the way, found the country good. “15th. Mr. Lyman, and myself, went unto the cliffs, which shut quite down the river, on these hills I climbed two trees, and found the land make high north eastward, and S. S. eastward, bearing off from the river, but somewhat uneven, full of cane and rich soil, even on the very highest ridges, just below the cliffs, the bank is low, by which means the water on the Mississipi ®ows back and runs between the bank and high land (which range near north and S. S. E. to the Loosa-chitta, forming much low land, cypress swamp, and dead ponds, without one brook, or running stream, as Capt. [339] Enos informed me, who went up that way by land. “17th. Went up the big Black (Loosa Chitto) which is at the mouth about eighty feet wide, but within, from eighty to a hundred and forty; in about a mile and a half came to high land on the right, but broken, a mile and a half further, the high lands make again on the right; spent much time in reconnoitring the country, saw several springs of water on the right, but none on the left; at eight miles past Mr. Cluere, an Indian trader; here the high lands come near the river on the left, and appear to be the same range that comes from the Yasoo cliffs. “18th. Being fourteen miles up, lands make high near the river for two or three miles, but broken, though good and full of springs of water: in the afternoon made high level land on the left, (which is now reserved for the capital:) after reconnoitring the country round (which we found very good for a settlement, or building a town) we encamped. “19th. Set out in the morning, up the river, reconnoitring both sides for four or ¤ve miles from the river, found the land good, not so much drowned, nor so uneven; after rowing the boat about six miles and a half further, we came to a rapid water, stone or gravel bottom, twenty or thirty rods, and in one place a ¤rm rock, almost across the river, and much of it bare at this season (which is neither low nor high water) as con¤nes the water to nearly twenty feet, and the channel about four feet deep.——I shall add no more by way of extract, and shall observe only, that I [340] have said little about the Mississipi, as it is so generally known that I could afford you but little light in the matter; but have con¤ned my extracts to the more unknown parts; one thing I would observe about the postage of the cross, above point coupé, which is, that I do not believe any such thing, as a communication across here, in high water. I spent two days up that creek, found it grow less and less, by branching out into small rivulets, coming from high lands, and not the least appearance of lakes, or drowned lands.” It may, perhaps, be agreeable to the inhabitants of East and West-Florida,

287


A Concise Natural History

288


Bernard Romans

who become purchasers of this work, to have a copy of such articles of the late treaty of peace, in 1762, as immediately concern them. I have therefore subjoined, by way of appendix, to this volume, the subsequent extract from the preliminary articles of peace between his Britannick Majesty, the Most Christian King, and the Catholick King; signed at Fontainbleau, the 3d day of Nov. 1762.271 Article II. His Most Christian Majesty renounces all pretensions, which he has heretofore formed, or might have formed to Nova Scotia, or Acadia, in all its parts, and guaranties the whole of it, with all its dependencies, to the King of Great-Britain: moreover, his Most Christian Majesty cedes and guaranties to his said Britannick Majesty, in full right, Canada, with all its dependencies, as well as the island of Cape Breton, and all the other islands in the gulph and river of St. Laurence, without restriction, and without any liberty to depart from this cession and guaranty, under any pretence, or to trouble GreatBritain in the possessions abovementioned. [341] His Britannick Majesty, on his side, agrees to grant to the inhabitants of Canada, the liberty of the Catholick religion, he will in consequence give the most exact, and the most effectual orders, that his new Roman Catholick subjects may profess the worship of their religion, according to the rites of the Roman church, as far as the laws of Great-Britain permit. His Britannick Majesty further agrees, that the French inhabitants, or others, who would have been subjects of the Most Christian King in Canada, may retire in all safety and freedom, where ever they please, and may sell their estates, provided it be to his Britannick Majesty’s subjects, and transport their effects, as well as their persons, without being restrained in their emigration, under any pretence whatsoever, except debts or criminal prosecutions; the term limited for this emigration being ¤xed to the space of eighteen months, to be computed from the day of the rati¤cation of the de¤nitive treaty. Art. VI. In order to re-establish peace on the most solid and lasting foundations, and to remove forever every subject of dispute, with regard to the limits of the British and French territories on the continent of America; it is agreed, that for the future the con¤nes between the dominions of his Britannick Majesty, and those of his Most Christian Majesty, in that part of the world, shall be irrevocably ¤xed, by a line drawn along the middle of the river Mississipi from the source, as far as the river Iberville, and from thence by a line drawn along the middle of this river, and of the lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain to the sea, and to this purpose the Most Christian King cedes in full right, and guaranties to his Britannick [342] Majesty, the river and port

of Mobile, and every thing that he possesses, or ought to have possessed, on the left side of the river Mississipi, except the town of New Orleans, and the island in which it is situated, which shall remain to France; provided, that the navigation of the river Mississipi shall be equally free, as well to the subjects of Great-Britain as to those of France, in its whole length and breadth, from its source to the sea, and that part expressly, which is between the said island of New-Orleans, and the right bank of that river, as well as the passage both in and out of its mouth: it is further stipulated, that the vessels belonging to the subjects of either nation, shall not be stopped, visited, or subject to the payment of any duty whatsoever. The stipulations in favour of the inhabitants of Canada, inserted in the second article, shall also take place, with regard to the inhabitants of the country, ceded by this article. Art. XIX. His Catholick Majesty cedes and guaranties in full right to his Britannick Majesty, all that Spain possesses on the continent of North-America, to the east, or to the south-east of the river Mississipi, and his Britannic Majesty agrees to grant to the inhabitants of this country above ceded, the liberty of the Catholic religion: He will in consequence give the most exact, and the most effectual orders, that his new Roman Catholick subjects may profess the worship of their religion, according to the rites of the Roman church, as far as the laws of Great-Britain permit. His Britannick Majesty further agrees, that the Spanish inhabitants, or others, who would have been subjects to the Catholick King, in the said countries, may retire in all safety and freedom, &c. FIN IS.

289


A Concise Natural History

A List of Subscribers, whose Names came too late to be pre¤xed to the Work.

B Mr. Elias Beers, New-Haven, Book only. Capt. Nathan Briggs, Newport, R. Island. C Mr. Christopher Champlin, Newport, R. Isl. Mr George Champlin, Ditto. Honorable John Collins, Esq; Ditto. D Benjamin Douglas, Esq; New-Haven. E Capt. Robert Elliot, Newport, Rhode Island. F Mr. Samuel Fowler, Newport, Rhode Island. Capt. Laurence Furlong, Newbury-Port. G Capt. Caleb Gardner, Newport, Rhode Island, Capt, George Gibbs, Ditto. Capt. Robert Grant, New-Haven. H James A. Hillhouse, Esq; New-Haven. Henry Hunter, Esq; Newport, Rhode Island.

M Francis Malbone, Esq; Newport, R. Island. Col. John Malbone, Ditto. Henry Marchant, Esq; Ditto. John Mawdsley, Esq; Ditto. Capt. Charles Moore, Ditto. Capt. William Morony, Ditto. Thomas Mumford, Esq; New-London. P Samuel Holden Parsons, Esq; New-London. Mr. Henry Pelham, Boston. R Mess’rs Reak and Okey, Newport, R. Island, (25 Copies of the Book. Abraham Redwood, Esq; Newport, R. Island. Capt. James Rice, New-Haven. Mr. James Rodman, Newport, Rhode Island. S Capt. Thomas G. Stelle, Newport, R. Island. Mr. Robert Stoddard, Ditto. Mr. Thomas Stewart, New-York. T John Tillinghast, Esq; Newport, R. Island. Mr. Nicholas P. Tillinghast, Ditto. Mr. William Tweedy. Ditto.

291


A Concise Natural History

Appendix

[i]The following directions to navigators were originally intended as an appendix to the whole work; but I have since found it requisite to publish them sooner; and therefore end this ¤rst volume with that necessary part of my work. These directions I beg leave to af¤rm, are entirely founded on my own experience; the ¤rst spur to this undertaking was the loss of a vessel in 1766, on the coast of Florida: by which I received a wound in my circumstances, which is as yet far from being healed. I had before this, in the same vessel, at a time when I was myself on board, struck on the south part of the Dry Tortugus, when having accidentally a tolerable pilot with me, I passed for the ¤rst time, in-side of the reef; and made my ¤rst observations towards this present work: Since that I have pursued it partly during the opportunities I had at the time when I was a provincial deputy surveyor, and partly when I was appointed deputy for the southern district of America; and had the honor of commanding the vessels on that service. Likewise, while employed by the superintendant in West-Florida; but far most at my own great expence, and fatigue. For even when I was employed, I can safely af¤rm, that when I could do it without detriment to the service, and at times when I did that business, in a manner which is vulgarly called by the jobb, I have done more than was desired of me: which, however, has never [ii] been the occasion of any favor being bestowed on me, any more than you did well, and I am glad you did it. Therefore I am under no manner of obligation to any of the little great ones, who have occasionally used me, (sometimes as the monkey did the cat) and this production being undoubtedly my own, as such I have a right to publish it. Thus having shewn how I got my information, I declare myself free of copying or compiling from prior works, except in that part lying west from the Missisippi, which is taken from French manuscript draughts; and the shape of the coast and bays eastward from Pensacola, to Cape St. Blas, which I have

followed from draughts occasionally seen in the hands of Mr. Stuart, (the super-intendant) and my good friend Dr. J. Lorimer, which draughts I take to be the work of Mr. Gauld, a very able and accurate observer;272 but though I kept the shape, the distances are different from his; and are such as I have reason to believe nearer the mark, during a long and tedious cruize I made on this coast in 1771. As for the soundings, I never had his draughts long enough, to have an opportunity of perusing them, but they are such as I have obtained during the same tedious cruize; as for those from Cape St. Blas, round to St. Mary’s, I have obtained them during the regular pursuit of gaining surveys of the coast for above seven years. And as I have in the opinion of many of my friends in my proposals published before I begun this work, re®ected a little too severely on the wretched map-makers who have attempted to explain [iii] this so intricate navigation, it is still my opinion, that such exhibitions can not be too much despised, when attempted on so loose a foundation, as has been generally done; and we must still form a worse idea of those who impose on the public against their better knowledge. Both the one and the other has been done. I therefore publish the present work with no other view than that of pointing out the sad mistakes of the scandalous maps daily published by persons who either not at all, or at best scarce ever saw the ground they treat of, and thus merely for the sake of catching a penny, endanger such numbers of lives, and such a vast deal of property;--such imposters are the shame of the nation to which they belong. I have carefully avoided the change of well-known names of places; but preserved the old ones, except only in two or three places where the name was not well known, or where there was none at all.273 Nothing can be more absurd, or productive of confusion, than the assuming new and fantastical names in places of so much d[a]nger; yet the author of a certain pamphlet, published two years ago, has done this at no small rate. And for the safety of navigation, I think it a duty incumbent on me, to declare that the soundings of what the said author calls the Newfound passage or channel (altho the knowledge thereof is as old as that of America itself ) are marked much deeper than they really are; and whoever depends on that pamphlet, will ¤nd himself much imposed upon;274 nor do I think my work to be absolutely clear of faults; no, but I venture to say, that the errors are very few; and as they are unknown [iv] to me, therefore, whatever mistakes may be discovered, if communicated by men of knowledge, I shall gladly receive, and willingly amend them. Vessels bound from Europe to St. Augustine, Georgia, or South-Carolina, would (in my opinion) shorten their passages considerably, by making the

293


A Concise Natural History

294


Bernard Romans

south end of Abaco, or the Hole in the Rock, in lat. 26°4′ and from that run W b S to make the Berry-Islands; from thence W b N, or W N W, till they get into the gulph stream; the only precaution to be observed is to steer to the westward of north, after you are clear of the Grand Bahama island, because the bank stretches N b W nearly, and the current sets partly on the N W part of the bank; particularly near the member or memory rock. You may, in case of necessity, venture on the bank, to the south of the rock, and beat up to the eastward, till you bring the rock to bear W N W, and you will not ¤nd less than ¤ve fathoms water:--The tide ebbs and ®ows here about ¤ve feet, but you cannot come out on the north of the rock; however, by keeping in the stream, I dare venture to say you will ¤nd a visible bene¤t in coming this way. Descr iption of the stations for Cr uizer s, within the Flor ida Reef . The ¤rst of these is at Ceyo Biscayo, in lat. 25° 35 N. Here we enter within the reef, from the northward; directions for an easy approach to the entrance will be given hereafter: Suf¤ce it now to speak of the entrance itself;---for about ¤ve leagues north of the key, the ground is very foul, and looks frightful, but there is no where [v] less than 3 fathoms, though by keeping out about 5 or 6 miles from the shore, you will ¤nd generally 5 or 6 fathoms, on a ¤ne sandy bottom; and when you approach the reef, you may haul in, observing to leave the reef a large piece without you, for it has many bad sand bars just on its inner edge: you will not ¤nd less than 3 fathoms, any where within, till you come abreast the south end of the key, where there is a small bank of 11 feet only, give the key a good birth, for there is a large ®at stretching off from it. At the south end of the key, very good water is obtainable by digging, but at a time when by accident of drought or otherways, the wells yield none, then the watering places either in the grand marsh, about 10 miles to the W by S; or the river Ratones, about as far to the N W of the key, may be always depended upon; at the watering place on the key, is also an excellent place for careening of vessels, not exceeding ten feet draught. All these advantageous circumstances, joined to some of the same kind at the Bemini islands, make this an excellent station for cruizers to watch every vessel bound northward; on the bank without the Bemini harbour is good anchorage for large vessels. The method I would recommend, is to have two vessels, one to serve as a tender to the larger one, and while the one is on the Bemini side, the other ought to be on the Florida side; by this means (the passage being only 15 leagues wide) no vessel could come

through during day, without being seen by one or the other; and as it is always possible to get out-side of the reef, except with a strong N, or N E wind and ®ood tide; I [vi] need not direct seamen how to proceed, in order to speak with any vessel they chance to see. The many breaks that are in the reef, make it not improbable that a passage might be found through even with a N or N E gale. As for the safety in laying within side, every seaman knows that a reef makes a safe harbour; good ground-tackling is the principal point; should a chace lead you far north in the stream, there is no dif¤culty in reaching your station again; all that’s necessary, is to make the land as soon as you can, only avoid Cape Canaveral, in lat. 28°:30′; to the south of it, you may make pretty free with the shore, except in the bight north of Rio d’ais, where there is but 12 feet a league off. To the south of 26°:50′, to about 26 there is 7 fathoms at the very beach: here you must hug the shore close, because the stream almost touches the beach: I was once in great danger hereabouts, by the ill working of the vessel I was in, and had just time to let go an anchor in 9 fathoms, and when the vessel rode to it, it would have been an easy matter for a man to have jumped off from the tafferel on the beach; the beach here is for the most part smooth enough for a canoe to land; there being little or no surf on it in good weather. In the year 1773, I came a passage from Mississippi, on board the schooner Liberty, commanded by capt. John Hunt, we had the misfortune to be over-set at sea, and I conducted the wreck into this place, when having lost our boats and caboose, with every other thing from off the deck, we nailed together three half hogsheads, in which a man and a boy went on shore, and brought us [vii] sand off, to make a kind of caboose. I mention this the more, because there is water obtainable in almost every place on this beach, in case of necessity. But to return to my subject, to keep the shore on board is the way to get to the southward here; and as on the soundings, the current is chie®y ruled by the wind, it is preferable to come to an anchor with a southerly wind, instead of standing out; for the stream will run you out in such a manner, that you will ¤nd it dif¤cult to regain in four or ¤ve days, the ground you lose in one. Yet I would avoid anchoring as much as possible, because the ground to the south of 27° is almost every where very foul, particularly, if you cast deeper than 15 fathoms: by observing this method, you will ¤nd it an easy matter to regain your station to the southward. At this place there is vast abundance and variety of ¤sh, both in the creeks, and out-side at sea, particularly groopers are in great plenty, king-¤sh, Spanish mackrel and Barrows are also often caught towing; and if you have one or two good hunters on board, you may always be provided with plenty of venison, turkies and bear meat, which are all excellent refreshment, There are

295


A Concise Natural History

296


Bernard Romans

for the most part deer on the key, and sometimes bear; but by sending to the main, you may depend on ¤nding every kind; in winter, duck and teal abound in the creeks; turtle is very plenty; in short, I know not any place better calculated for a cruizer, than the spot I have now described; add to this, that no ¤sh is poisonous on the Florida shore, not even the amber-¤sh; but on the Bahama side, precaution is necessary; and the loggerhead [viii] turtle is never rank of taste here. The watering place on Bemini, is near the east end. The second place is at the south end of Key-Largo, near Sound-point, Tabona, and Rodriguez; in lat. 25°:3′. N. Here is the eastermost pitch of the reef, as Sound-point, is of the land, and therefore more proper to be called Cape Florida, than any other part of the shore, particularly as Sound-point is a part of the main land. Key-Tabona is a small low key, lying about one mile and a quarter without the main keys; and two miles and one quarter north of this, lies another something larger, called Key Rodriguez; these two keys are a good mark to know the entrance by, they being both overgrown with mangroves, appear of a darker color than the land before which they lie. When the southernmost or Key Tabona bears W. 32 leagues off, then you are near the south part of the outermost reef, which is in general almost dry, and in a few spots entirely dry; run within musket shot to the southward of this dry reef, and then steer east, as you go in, and you will have 5 fathoms and upwards; run in on your lead till you begin to see the inner heads, and then draw northerly till you shoot within the outer reef; where you may lay pretty safe; however, I would recommend to have a pilot for the ¤rst trial of this entrance, among the Providence people such may be had; yet it looks more frightful than it is dangerous; at this place, nine vessels out of ten, that come through the gulph heave in sight, by reason that this is the land people generally strive to make, coming from Cuba; on this account also, nine out of ten, that are cast away [ix] are lost here; if you have a tender, she may sometimes steer over to the bank, about the riding rocks, or Orange-Key; yet I think it can be but of little use, except when the season of westerly winds is. The channel from bank to bank, is here about 14 leagues a-cross; but to reach the bank, you ought to steer S. E. over from this station. If from this place a chace should lead you northward, your endeavours ought to be to make Isaac’s Rocks, or from Key-Biscayno, above described, to fall in with the Bemini, which is by no means dif¤cult; the last is the most eligible, because the bank is broad, whereas at Isaac’s Rocks you have no soundings in less than a cables length from the shore, and consequently if you cannot make good a south course, you will be obliged to anchor on the north side of the rocks, and thus delay much time; but in making the Bemini, which lies nearly south 7 leagues from the rock, you may keep on soundings

on the bank; the sounding however, as far as Beak’s-Key, is not very wide. Beak’s-Key lies S 2 E 72 leagues from Bemini; from Beak’s-Key, to the Riding Rocks, and Roques, there is working room plenty, and good anchorage; at Orange-Key is a good road to the S and S W of it; this key lies S S E 8 leagues from Beak’s-Key; from Orange-Key it is an easy matter to get to the DoubleHeaded-Shot; the way is to sail early in the morning, steering S W; when you have run about 10 leagues on that course, you may begin to look out for Key-Sal bank; where, in case of need, you may anchor any where; the DogKeys, and Dead-man’s-Keys, [x] shew themselves easily, lying on the N W and W part of this bank; they are bold too, yet dangerous; the soundings are narrow near them from here you may either make the Cuba shore, or run a-cross W N W, about 14 or 15 leagues, which will bring you in with the Florida reef, to the southward of your former station. You may from Key-Biscayo, come southwards along the Florida shore, on the out-side of the reef; but as the sounding is very narrow, this way is by no means adviseable; except in ¤ne and moderate weather, when you may keep your boats out, for the winds hereabouts being chie®y in the eastern quarter make the reef a very dangerous lee; whereas the Bahama side is perfectly safe. From Key-Tabona, to the N W about a mile lies a very small key called KeyPalombo or Dove-Key; which in many [wet br] seasons affords good water, but that is seldom; at about ten miles S W from Key-Tabona is Matacombe, here are several never-failing wells of excellent water in a rock; whether these are natural, or arti¤cial is hard to tell: should these wells by accident of extreme drought happen to fail, which I believe next to impossible, you would in that case be obliged to send for water to Key-Biscayo; which is near 20 leagues from here. Fish and turtle are in as great plenty here, as at Biscayo. Matacombe yields a few deer of a small kind; but large deer, bear, and turkeys are not to be had without going to the main for them. I was once in great want of provisions at Matacombe, and sent a hunter with a boy in a skiff to the westward, at Sandy-point or Cape-Sable; whence he returned in a few [xi] days, with thirteen large and very fat deer, properly salted and cured, which were excellent provisions for us for several days. The third station is at Cayo-Huesos, commonly called Key-West; this place is best calculated to watch those vessels which come from La Vera Cruz, Campeche, Sisal, &c Few of those that are bound through the gulph come this way. There is a harbour, or rather a road stead inside of the westermost point of the key; but it is very unsafe in northern and western gales; and the ground is foul; so that in case of notherly [sic] or northwesterly winds, it is best to lay out-side; therefore at the season when Norths are frequent, it is not adviseable to lay within side, except for the purpose of hiding yourself: there

297


A Concise Natural History

298


Bernard Romans

is 20 to 24 feet going in to this place; and the way in, is to keep close on board the west side of the sandy key, which lies about 9 miles to the S E of the west point of the key; draw close enough along-side of it to chuck a biscuit ashore; and then steer directly for the west point of the great key, which point is bare, except one bush of trees which you will see on it: when you come close in, give it a birth, on account of a small bank lying on the out-side of it; to go further in you will see a black spot, being a small reef to the north of you, avoid this and shoot in to the eastward; your eye will be your guide; on the point are wells, but the water is indifferent; half a mile to the eastward is a path leading to very good water; on this key we ¤nd numbers of deer (of the small kind) generally very good: this place lies right in the way of the Spanish ships, from the westward; on account [xii] that these ships in coming from the western part of the Mexican gulph, chuse to run out of the way of the eastern or trade wind, and for that reason must go as far north as the coast of West-Florida will allow them; thus they are forced on an attempt to make the Tortugas; which often leads them further east, and then the currents generally render it dif¤cult for them to get out, unless they know Boca Grande passage: for this reason a vessel in the proper season, cruising to the north of this key, and those that lay to the westward of it, can hardly fail of meeting them, and the ground is as safe as can be wished for; there being as regular soundings just north of those keys as are to be found in any part of the world; one may perfectly trust to his lead: The Spanish ¤shermen on the Florida shore all touch here in their way home: This key lies in lat. 24°:29′ N: long. 81°:15′ W: from London. In treating of the navigation within the reef, I shall repeat this account somewhat more at large. But will now proceed to give an account of the Cour ses along the easter n shore of East-Flor ida. From the mouth of St. Mary’s, to the mouth of Nassau river lies the island Amelia, which is a low even coast with sand-hills, and to be known by a detached hummock of trees on the south end; the shore is pretty bold too, except at the two ends, where the bars of said two rivers trench off a great way; the course is S b E, and N b W, the distance about 4 leagues; the bottom is a sand ground, the harbours on both ends [xiii] are spacious, but St. Mary’s is the safest; there is also a passage within, ¤t for small craft only; the bar at St. Mary’s has 9 feet of water at low spring tides, and in going in the south shore is the safest, and best to be trusted; the bar at Nassau has generally about 8 foot water on it, but is subject to shifting; the tides rises about 7 feet, and an ESE moon makes high water here as well as in most places along this coast;

a plan of these two inlets taken exactly from my original survey of this island, was sometime ago published by Capt. Fuller,275 who sounded the bars; but he has placed the soundings rather too deep, both within and without. From the mouth of Nassau, or south end of Amelia, we proceed S S E, along the shore of Talbot island, which forms a bay; the distance is nearly a league and a half to a narrow inlet, between Talbot and Fort-George islands; this is scarce ¤t for boats:---Continuing our course S S E along Fort-George island one league more, we arrive at St. John’s river’s mouth; there are likewise two passages from Nassau in land, going by Sawpit-Bluff, and Cedar-point into St. John’s; but will not at common tides allow of any thing more than 4 foot draught of water to pass; one of these is called the Two Sisters, the other Hannah Mills’s Narrows; some spots in these run quite dry; this mouth of St. John’s river is easily known by a remarkable sand-hill, called the General’s Mount, a little to the south of it; there is at this inlet a dangerous bar, never at the highest tide (in moderate weather) admitting of any vessel drawing more than 9 feet; this bar is very subject [xiv] to shift, so that directions for entering here might tend to endanger the vessel, whose master should attempt to follow them; the best direction therefore, which I shall attempt to give, is to send a boat in to sound the bar, unless a pilot chance to come off; from this entrance, to about one hundred miles up this river, (of which 30 go to the westward, and the rest to the south;) you may go in any vessel which the bar will suffer to enter. Still going S S E from here, for 102 leagues, (equal to 36 statute miles) the distance measured on the land, we meet with the bar of St. Augustine; this bar is of the same kind as that at St. John’s; therefore my best advice is to wait for a pilot, and trust to him; when the southern channel is open (such as it is laid down in the map) it is deepest, safest and easiest of access; there being near 18 inches difference in depth, between this channel and the northern one, when that is open; the beach between St. John’s and St. Augustine, is even and strait, except a hill about 5 leagues S S E from St. John’s (where we ¤nd three springs of ¤ne fresh water,) which is a little higher than the rest of the sand hills; this place is called the Horse-Guards,276 from General Oglethorp’s posting a command of horse here, during his expedition against this country. This is the ¤rst place from Long-Bay, in South-Carolina southwards, where the inland navigation is interrupted; we may however by going up St. Pablo’s creek, in St. John’s arrive near the head of the North-River, I think within four miles; and a small boat may with little dif¤culty be hauled over from one to the other. St. Augustine bar, is readily known [xv] from sea by the signal house on St. Anastasia island. This Beach of St. John’s is tolerably bold, the soundings are regular; and the bottom is generally a ¤ne white sand: but

299


A Concise Natural History

300


Bernard Romans

when you approach the south end, be sure of giving it a good birth, on account of the bar, which tends a long piece, (at least one league) north, and east of. Time of high water a full and change here is half past 7 A. M. or in other words, an E S E, or W N W moon makes high water. From the bar of St. Augustine, to the bar of Matanca is near 6 leagues the course S E b S, the soundings, beach and bottom similar to the above. Matanca bar will allow a vessel of 7 foot draught to come over: but as there is an inside passage from St. Augustine, for 5 foot draught, all the business is done that way, and scarce ever a vessel is bound in here. Matanca bar is known from sea by the fort, which shows white in a clear day, when the inlet bears W 3 leagues off. Not much above half a league S E b S from Matanca is el Penon, a small inlet, scarce ¤t for boats to enter. Continuing the same course for somewhat more than 16 leagues (the measured distance is nearly 57 statute miles on the land) we fall in with the entrance to New-Smyrna, or Muskeeto Lagoon; the map shews how far an inland passage is here practicable; the beach is much the same in appearance, the coast middling bold too, the soundings regular, and the bottom sand; with now and then some shells, and sometimes green mud. [xvi] The following are the position of the above places on the globe, according to my observations, mensuration and calculations. lat. St. Mary Inlet. Nassau Inlet, St. John’s Inlet, St. Augustine Bar, Matanca Bar, Muskeeto Bar,

30° 30° 30° 29° 29° 28°

W fr. London

lon. : : : : : :

43′ 30′ 20′ 52′ 37′ 55′

: : : : : :

82° 81° 81° 81° 81° 80°

: : : : : :

57′. 53′. 35′. 28′. 59′.

Next we meet an even smooth beach, from here to Caneveral, excepting Mount Tucker, which lies about 5 leagues south of the entrance of Muskeeto River; this beech extends for 52 statute mile (equal to 15 English leagues) on a course S E b S: and here we ¤nd regular soundings as above, until we come to the cape which lies within a large and dangerous shoal, leaving a small channel between it and the land, as the draught expresses; the outer pitch of this head land lies in latitude 28° 16, and longitude 80°28′ W. from London; and the pitch of the shoal extends 8 leagues east from it: in so much

that when you are on the outer breaker, land is scarce visible from it; this remarkable shoal was never heretofore laid down in any map or chart for marine use, yet I am sensible that it is very dangerous; and I believe many vessels have been lost on it, the circumstances of whose misfortunes were never heard of; the wind on blowing a long and violent gale from ENE to SE makes this shoal almost unavoidable, to a vessel sailing in this latitude, not having a very large of¤ng. [xvii] From this cape the shore stretches nearly south, to opposite the mouth of Saint Sebastian river in lat. 27° 56, then S E b S 82 leagues to the Tortolas, (some hilly knowls so called) in lat. 27° 33; off this are some heads of rocks under water; 82 leagues further (7 of which continue in a S E b S course, the other 12 about S b E 2 E) we ¤nd the entrance of Aisa Hatcha or Indian River, from the shoal of Caneveral to within 2 leagues north of this river the coast is ®at and treacherous; it is remarkable on account of the immense number of palm trees whence it has acquired the name of Palmar de Ais, or the palm grove of Ais: this inlet is the mouth of a lagoon lying north of it, communicating with a sound to the southward; this entrance lies in lat. 27°:15, long. 79°:56, and has a very shifting bar, sometimes not admitting a boat, and at other times 6, 8 or even 10 feet water has been found on it: therefore whoever has business here must send a boat to visit the bar, before he runs in, when in, it is a safe harbour; but a vessel must be moor’d, the tide ebbs and ®ows 5 foot, and runs with violence; the Spaniards come here for the purpose of ¤shing, and the quantity of ¤sh and oysters found here is amazing;277 off this bar the sand has a peculiar quality of rubbing cables to pieces in the bent, insomuch that I never lay 24 hours off this place at an anchor, without wholly or nearly losing an anchor; though the weather was ¤ne, nay I have often in less time found one or two strands quite chaffed off, I could never ¤nd what this was owing to, the sand is a very ¤ne quicksand, nor do I remember ever to have found the [xviii] ground foul, except close in, where there are some stones, and the remains of a wreck; in this lagoon and sound many streams of ¤ne fresh water empty themselves; the principal are the rivers St. Sebastian and St. Lucia as the map shews. From the entrance of Indian river the coast stretches S 26 E or nearly S E b S 2 S 114 leagues, (answering to nearly 39 statute miles as measured on the beach) it makes an island, at whose South end is an inlet into the above sound, the Spaniards call it Hobe; it will only allow of ¤ve foot draught, this inlet lies in lat. 26°46′ long. 79°40′ west from London: to the north of it, on the point at its entrance, lies a remarkable spot of rocks on the beach, as there is also at 12 leagues to the northward of said entrance, and 3 leagues further north are several high blue or black rocks standing on the beach, these rocks

301


A Concise Natural History

302


Bernard Romans

make this part of the coast remarkable, as does likewise a hill inland full of white spots, a little to the north of the rocks inland; this hill is called the Bleech-Yard. A small reef just under water about half a mile from the shore abreast of the high rocks, forms here a convenient little harbour for boats, there are two wells of excellent water in a little meadow, back of the sand hills near a mile to the south of the high rocks; the river St. Lucia likewise shews its mouth over the sound, when you stand on the northermost high rock: the wells have casks in them, & this is in my opinion a very good watering place for vessels who having had a tedious passage through the gulph, are in want of a supply of this necessary article; this island affords abundance of turtle, venison, and bear; as [xix] likewise numerous quantities of wild ducks, each in their season, besides cocoplumbs and palm cabbage; and on the main opposite, turkeys are abundant. The northermost of the high rock lies in lat. 26° 56. N. the coast is even, bold too; and the soundings regular. We have now reached the southern extremity of the great bank of regular soundings which lies before the coast of America, and here the gulph stream comes very near the beach; the color of the water changes from a muddy green, to a beautiful saxon blue. From Hobé inlet we ¤nd the coast trenching about S 20 E or nearly S S E for about 32 leagues to a high ledge of rocks, out of which a large stream of fresh water rushes into the sea, a little to the north hereof is a small reef with about 2 fathoms water on it, where vast quantites of groopers, snappers, amber-¤sh, porgys, margate-¤sh, rock-¤sh, yellow-tails, Jew-¤sh, &c. may be taken; from this reef you see a high mount of sand & rocks a little to the north of you, three miles to the north of which is good fresh water, at the back of an high sand hill; as there is also a little more than half a mile to the southward of said rocky mount, this mount we called Grooper-Hill, it is a remarkable land, cabbage trees, cocoplumbs, and sea grapes are here in abundance, as are venison and other meat; so that in fair weather a vessel may refresh here agreeably; the soundings along all this coast are plainly and truly marked in the map: the coast from here runs very nearly south, & the beach is bold too, to within 2 leagues of Rio Del Medio, it does not vary above half a [xx] point either way from this general south course all the way to Cayo Biscayno in lat. 25° 35. lon. 79° 36 W from London; as it is necessary for vessels bound southward to keep this beach close on board, I shall discribe it particularly, in hopes that this treatise may prove a certain guide in every part of this dif¤cult navigation. Five leagues to the south of the above point or ledge of rocks, out of which a large spring of water issues; there is another ledge of rocks, and 12

mile to the north of it stands a very tall tree by some fresh water, a large quarter of a mile to the south of this tree is a low sand hill, full of dry trees, whereby it may be known. This last ledge of rocks is 12 miles in length, somewhat more than 2 miles south of these, is another point of rocks, these are very low; 12 miles further is a high cabbage grove, and about 3 1-2 miles further south is a point of high rocks near 3 of a mile long, 23 miles further yet is another high point of rocks about 4 of a mile long, & half a mile south of this is the mouth of Rio Seco which is very seldom open, having a narrow bar of dry sand before it, the coast forms here a small kind of cove, which makes a good road stead for small craft, this river is in lat. 26° 16 N long. 79° 35; 5 miles to the south of Rio Seco is another point of rocks, and south of it a small bite, and half a mile further is the mouth of Rio Nuevo, which is about 4 of a mile wide and generally open but shallow, here Jew-¤sh are very abundant both within and without the river; 24 miles south of this river’s mouth are ¤ve tall cabbage trees on the pine land; and 42 miles further is a [xxi] thick scrubby point, and the sand hills in general are high and covered with thick bushes; here the shore is no longer so bold as before, but a bank of soundings about 5 leagues broad begins to cover the beach, and this (in my opinion) is the true beginning of the great Florida reef, 5 miles S of this is the north end of a marshy point which extends 4 of a mile to the mouth of Rio Del Medio, which is likewise a quarter of a mile across and shallow but very full of Jew-¤sh. From this river the beach has nothing observable on it except that its hills are higher than further north, and are covered with shrubs and trees. At 10 miles south of the river, is a remarkable spot of palm-trees. We see water over the land, and the coast is ®at, there being not above 12 foot within a mile and more of the coast & the bottom solid rocks, about 8 miles south of the aforesaid palm trees is the mouth of Boca Ratones which will admit small craft, but has a reef stretching a considerable way to sea. South of Boca Ratones about 5 miles, is the south point of an island, which has sillily been called Cape Florida, but since has acquired the name of Fools Cape,278 south of this point is a channel of a mile in width, having 6 foot water at the best of times, the opposite land on the south of said channel is the north point of Key Biscay, which is near 5 miles long from north to south; this key is particularly described in the beginning of this tract, as is also the entrance into its harbour, and its advantagious situation for cruizers, likewise the watering places on and near it; directly east from it 6 miles lie the Fowey rocks, which are the ¤rst dry spot on the reef, and have many bad bars within them, the key has [xxii] likewise a bank lying off of it, but by

303


A Concise Natural History

304


Bernard Romans

good management in giving the key about 1 1-2 or 2 miles birth you are sure to keep in a good channel, and till you come abreast the Soldier Keys or La Parida you will not have less than 16 foot water. La Parida y su Jiguelo, or as we call them Soldiers Keys are two low spots of mangrove on a bank, their distance from the south end of Key Biscay is 3 miles and they are inaccessible to any thing but a boat, the map will clearly shew their situation. Let it be observed that besides the watering places above mentioned, there are many more and that the beach will almost in every part yield good drinkable water for digging, provided the sand does not cover clay, wherever clay appears on the beach the labour would be needless. Having now particularly and minutely described the shore, and the manner of going close along it, in order that this little tract may be as much as possible a perfect coasting pilot in this part of the world. I shall subjoin some Directions to sail from St. Augustine directly to the entrance into the inside of Flor ida or Mar tyr Reef , at Fool’s Cape. As soon as you are clear of the bar of St. Augustine, steer SE easterly, the distance of 8 leagues on this course will bring you within about 4 leagues right abreast the Matancas, in 10 fathoms water, upon a bottom of ¤ne dark grey sand. In continuing from here S E b S you will go along shore at an of¤ng of 4 or 42 leagues; in your way you will meet with soundings from [xxiii] 10 to 15 fathoms, chie®y on various kinds of sand, as the charts fully shew; and sometimes you will meet with a very soft greenish mud, in which the lead will sink to over the strap. All the soundings are in the charts laid down in feet, my lines of which I made use, being all marked with that measure. The above of¤ng you may with safety keep in with vessels of any draught for 25 leagues to the S E ward of the Matanca; you will begin to get shells among your soundings at 20 leagues, chie®y white and black, sometimes mixed with black and grey sand, but mostly the shells by themselves, very seldom sand alone, if you chance to ¤nd sand only, it will be a coarse grey kind; at 25 leagues as above, you will begin to get red shells, this is a true sign that you approach the Cape Canaveral shoal, there being no red shells far to the north of it; now you may begin to haul off, tho’ you might continue safely until 7 fathoms, or in the day time even in three; that being the depth half a mile without the outer breaker: in hauling off, you will ¤nd from 10 to 12 fathoms sand & shells, and if you come near to the north east end of the shoal, you will often ¤nd live cockles, on a black sandy bottom,

in 10 or 11 fathoms; your of¤ng will be made good on a course S E b E from the ¤rst cast on red shells, till you judge yourself about 9 leagues off, then if you chuse to make Indian River in lat. 27°:15 run south. But if you are bound directly to the reef, steer S 4 E, which will bring you in with Hobe inlet, where the soundings are become quite narrow. In running south from the outermost [xxiv] part of the shore, observe when you begin to get very coarse black sand: and black shells, for soon after you will ¤nd your bottom changed to white sand, and your water to deepen; when you ¤nd 16 fathoms on white sand, you begin to run clear of it, and in 20 or 21 fathoms, you are quite clear, then in continuing the same course your water again shoals, and in a run of about three leagues you once more ¤nd red shells, mix’d with black, and red sand, continuing a great way; you still shoal your water, and when you come in about 11 fathoms, you will have shells alone, without sand:---all this while you see no land, it making a bay to the south of the cape, till you come into about 9 fathoms, when you can just see the Tortolas, some hills so called, in lat. 27°:35 N. If you want to call at Indian River inlet; it is now time to haul in a little for the land; from the Tortolas southward you will again ¤nd sand, sometimes without shells; from the 9 fathoms above mentioned, it is 8 leagues to the river’s mouth. Here observe, that between this inlet, and the Cape Canaveral, the coast is ®at, and not to be trusted so much as the shore north of the cape. Likewise observe that the red shells extend no further south than this inlet, and but a little way north of the cape shoal; whereby you have an infallible mark in coming well in upon soundings, either from the southward or northward, whereby to know that you are in with, or near to the cape shoal, if even you should chance to have been without any observation for several days. [xxv] If you intend to anchor off the river’s mouth, take care to run no nearer in than 4 1-2 to 5 fathoms, and chuse a spot of shelly bottom, as being safer for your cable than the sand is here. In going from the mouth of Indian River to the southward, the coast is pretty bold, and your course is S S E 2 E towards Hobe: at near 7 leagues from the inlet we meet with some high rocks on the edge of the beach, which are an excellent mark whereby to know this place; and 4 1-2 leagues further is Hobe or the Southern entrance of St. Lucia sound, this coast is so particularly described that further directions to the Fowey Rocks are almost unnecessary. I will however make a few remarks upon the soundings, &c. When you begin to see the above rocks of St. Lucia, you will also perceive a change in the colour of your water, the soundings are here no more then about 5 or 6 leagues broad, and I have been at an achor in 12 or 13 fathoms

305


A Concise Natural History

306


Bernard Romans

water, 3 leagues from the shore, when upon trying the current with our log it was found to set to the N E at the rate of 3 1-2 miles per hour, and our water was almost blue in that depth, therefore it is best to keep the shore on board, at least exceed not 2 leagues from it, your sounding will be various on sand, green owze, and shells, as marked in the map; avoid the little reef of Grooper Hill a little north of the spring in the rock, which spring is in lat 26° 46. N. now it is necessary to keep close along the shore, within the distance of from half a mile to a mile, and you will ¤nd deep water close in; the bottom in many places coral and gravel, sometimes rocks, and notwithstanding the foulness of the [xxvi] ground it is yet highly necessary to come to an anchor if it should fall calm, or else you will loose as much ground in three hours calm as may cost you three days to recover. In lat. 26°:5 is a reef of rocks near the shore, having from 12 to 20 feet of water on it, this reef you must give a birth, and at its south end you will ¤nd the mouth of Rio Del Medio nearly in lat. 26, from the north end runs off a bank of soundings 5 leagues broad, reaching to the Fowey Rocks; this reef and bank I have before observed is in my opinion the beginning of the Martyr reef; the soundings on this bank vary from 2 to 25 fathoms, according to your distance from the shore, and the bottom is chie®y sand; about 22 leagues S of Rio Del Medio is a pretty broad ledge of ¤rm rocks joining the beach under water, which continues to Boca Ratones, and is not to be trusted; abreast of this ledge you will meet with many spots of coral, spunges, rocks, and grass, which through the clearness of the water look frightful to the stranger, but have no where less than 3 fathoms water on them; here ¤sh is in great plenty. When you are got south of Boca Rattones the bottom is again clear sand, and now observe to give Fools Cape and Bear Cut a good birth, on account of some ®at bars and heads, when you are abreast Bear Cut, keep Key Biscay nearest on board----take care to avoid the ®at off of it, which runs about 1 1-2 mile off; your course is S or S b E till you are abreast of the Soldiers, & as far as them you will at least have 15 foot on a clear white sandy bottom; Key Biscay affords venison, and some times bear, [xxvii] likewise racoons and doves. It is mentioned at the beginning of this tract. Directions for the navigation within the Flor ida Reef . The next keys to La Parida y Su Jiguelo, or, as we stile them, the Soldiers Keys, are 7 rocks called †Mascaras; the meaning of which word is, that they are but †This word has been in all the English maps ill copied, and transformed into Mucares, a sound without meaning.

just above water. There are some mangrove and blackwood bushes on them. Their trenching is nearly to S S W. Next to these is a small island, on which are two small hills, whence the Spaniards have called it Las Tetas, or the Paps; but the Providence people have stiled it Saunders’s Key, and the inlet to the south of it Saunders’s Cut, where a small vessel drawing about 4 foot, may enter into the wide sound between these keys and the watering places on the main. Near 5 miles S S W of this is an inlet called Black Cæsars Creek, made by the south end of *Ledbury Key; this will likewise admit small craft into the above sound. Next is a small key which does not exceed two miles in length, at its south end is an inlet known by the name of Angel Fish Creek; to the south of this are two very small keys, and the next is an island about 5 miles in length, to which no particular name has yet been given. At the south end of which is again a very small shallow inlet, and from this the course and distance to Sound [xxviii] Point is directly south 2 leagues. Sound Point is the eastermost part of the land called Key Largo, though in reality it is no island, but a peninsula joined by a narrow isthmus to the main, as the maps accurately shew.279 This place was till 1769, always taken for an island, and together with all the keys from Las Tetas, and the two next to the S W of this peninsula, been known by the Spaniards under the appellations of Cayo De doze Leggas and Cayo Largo, which last name we have adopted, and by it, it is known to every one. The general rule to sail w[i]thin the reef from the Soldiers Key to the southward is, to have a careful man at masthead to look out, he will see all the heads and other shoals a good way off in a clear day, at least a mile; thus making the eye your pilot, come no nearer to the Soldiers Key than 12 foot, nor no farther E from them than 18 foot. About E S E a mile outside of Saunders’s Cut lies a small round bank with only 9 foot on it, from this place to Black Cæsar’s Creek, the sunken heads are very frequent, and the bar of said Creek reaches a great way out. A little north of this inlet the snow Ledbury was burnt, after a vast deal of trouble, expence and pains taken to get her off. Right a breast of this spot, and north of the bar, is very ¤ne anchorage in 12 foot close to the back of the reef, which makes the inlet aforesaid. On the point of this reef lies the remains of the ship Hubbard, cast away in 1772. From Saunders’s Cut to Sound Point280 there is only 11 foot of water to be depended on if you keep in that part of the channel which is clearest of *Ledbury Key, so called from the snow Ledbury, commanded by Capt. John Lorain, cast away here Anno 1769.281

307


A Concise Natural History

308


Bernard Romans

rocks: you may carry more by going out further towards [xxix] the reef: but the care necessary to be taken for the avoiding of the heads, is inconceivable. The bottom to Black Cæsar’s Creek is sand, but from thence to the S W ward it gradually changes into a kind of soft marl of the consistence of dough. When you are well clear of Angel Fish Creek to the south, the same rule of keeping within 18 and 12 feet depth for the channel is to be observed; but after all a careful inspection of my charts, together with a comparison of them with the course of the land you sail by, and especially a good look out, will constitute you as better pilot than any directions that can be given for this navigation. The latitude of Sound Point is 25°:11′ ascertained by several good observations. It is needless to mention that the long disputed situation of Cape Florida, is obviously ¤xed in this point; any mariner that sails along this coast, will by the smallest attention to the changes of his courses, ¤nd that it is the only spot that forms a true promontory, from the Spring in the Rock in lat. 26° 46, down to here, in the manner as my charts shew. It is on this promontory that almost every vessel that is cast away meets her fate, I mean on the large reef that lies before it; the south point of which is dry, and forms a deep channel to go in towards two little keys called Rodriguez and Tabona; and its north point extends as far north as Angel Fish Creek. The people who watch those misfortunes to make a bene¤t by them, know this so well that during the summer months, the season for the return of ships from Jamaica, they station themselves at anchor a little south of the [xxx] point from whence they can with certainty wait for the sight of any ship that is unhappy enough to be drove on shore on this reef. Since I have mentioned these people I cannot forbear taking notice of the abuse generally thrown upon them very undeservedly. I know of more instances than one, where they have been ill treated for their services. What the behaviour of the wreckers is in the windward passage, I cannot determine; but I appeal to every candid man, who has been so unfortunate as to have occasion for the help of the turtlers and wood-cutters, who frequent this coast from Providence, whether they have not always yielded their assistance with greater expedition and regularity, and with more disinterestedness than could be expected? And as for the idle tale which we are told of their making false lights on the shore, I can, from many years experience, assure it to be an untruth. Those ¤res are occasioned by the hunters and timber-cutters, who burn the woods to clear them of under-wood, and to procure fresh pasture for the deer. Lightning also often sets ¤re to trees; and I have frequently, in very dry seasons, seen spontaneous ¤res arise in marshy places. But after all what business has a mariner (who knows the course he must

steer) to follow any light out of that course? And I would just hint to every one who passes along this coast, that on seeing a light to the westward, it behoves him to look out for breakers if he stands in for that quarter. This promontory is a peninsula, though it has till lately past for an island. Anno 1769, I with [xxxi] great labour, fatigue, the inconvenience of musketoes, and a total want of fresh water for 4 or 5 days, explored its inside waters. I was stimulated to this enterprize by the reports of the Providence and Spanish ¤shermen, who told me unanimously that they had often essayed to enter at Angel Fish Creek, and come out at Boca Herrera, the creek opposite Key Tabona, or the contrary, but always in vain; nor did any of them know an instance of its being done. I then entered at Angel Fish Creek, and after a great deal of time spent and no passage found. I at last entered into the lake speci¤ed in the chart, by drawing the boat over dry ground for above six times her own length. Out of this lake I found my way by a very warrow [narrow] passage at its south end; but as no part of Key Largo yields any fresh water, and after we got into the above named lake, all the ground around us was mangrove swamp, we were unable to ¤nd any; two of my people were nearly exhausted and spent by thirst, which we could not possibly alleviate until we reached the watering place at Matacombe. This by way of caution if any stranger might come here. And after ¤nding abundance of fresh water on every part of the coast, he may not venture to be out for any purpose, within this peninsula for above half a day, without a store of that invaluable necessary. From Cape-Florida, or Sound-Point to Key-Rodriguez, the course and distance is S W six miles; there is a good harbour for small craft to the NW part of the island, made by a reef running off from its N E end, and another good sheltering [xxxii] place to the S W of it, but neither has a greater depth than 9 feet at low water. This island is only a large thicket of mangrove, without a foot of dry soil on it, and affords only some Aquatic birds and their eggs. Between Sound Point or Cape Florida, (by which last name I shall henceforth call it,) and this last island is another sheltering place, or roadstead, for small vessels, within a ridge or reef on which we generally see some turtle crawls, but it is seldom occupied except by the timber-cutters, the peninsula affords in this place Lignum-Vitæ, Mastick and Mahogany, the two last are indeed found on every part thereof, but on none of the keys north of Saunders-Key or Las-Tetas nor on none to the south of the last key north of young-Matacombe, all these timbers are however now nearly cut off. This peninsula affords no living creature except racoons and insects, especially those troublesome ones, musketoes and scorpions.

309


A Concise Natural History

310


Bernard Romans

From the Cape or Sound Point, the direction of the coast alters to S W; and the distance to the southern extremity of this peninsula is 10 or 11 miles. Besides Key Rodriguez we meet with Key Tabona, 2 1-2 miles from Rodriguez, on a S W course; in going S W ward from the Cape, the same rule as above directed for keeping within 18 and without of 12 foot, must be observed. The channel here is pretty wide; but a man must be kept at mast head to discover heads, as some rocks lie in this tract; especially near Key Tabona. This Key Tabona has just such a small harbour within a reef as Key Rodriguez. This key has little or [xxxiii] no high ground on it; it affords land crabs, a few doves, and other birds. One mile to the west of this key the south point of the peninsula makes a creek scarce a musket shot wide, admitting only of boats: This creek is by the Spaniards called Boca Herrera; the bay within abounds with Red Drum and some other ¤sh, and a great deal of green and loggerhead turtle; lobsters likewise are in vast plenty between the cape and this creek. Within and between the above two keys lies a third called Dove-Key, it is very small, gravelly and rather high, with very few bushes on it; during rainy seasons it affords good fresh water and a few doves: we also ¤nd purslain growing on it. From Key Tabona due east lies the southern point of the great reef making a wide channel, this south point is dry, the channel is 5 fathoms deep, and ships in distress may ¤nd shelter under this point; it is almost impossible to point out any leading mark as the reef lies 10 or 11 miles from the land; but my chart shews it plain, and a good look out for heads is the most essential pilotage here. From the southwest part of the Peninsula the course is S W distance 6 or 7 miles, past two more keys of no note, still belonging to the Groupe of isles called Key Largo, we then come to an island of some note called Young Matacombe, it is 4 miles long, trending S W; it has nothing remarkable on it except a well of good fresh water on its east end, this however is known to few and consequently little frequented; off the S W end of this key lies a small drowned mangrove island, and a channel 10 foot deep runs in to the south of it and shoots [xxxiv] up to within the great key, but there being nothing on the key to attract much notice it is seldom visited. In coming this way from Key Tabona the channel is in general deeper than before, but the same rule of keeping without 12 and within 18 feet still holds good; directly abreast of Young Matacombe, 12 miles E from the land are a parcel of dangerous sunken heads called the Hen and Chickens, which require a good look out to be kept. Next is Old Matacombe, remarkable for being the most handy and best watering place on all this coast, on its east end are 5 wells in the solid rock,

said to be cut by the savages, but to me they appear natural chasms, they yield excellent water in abundance, and some ponds near it likewise afford some, insomuch that in a wet season all the east end of the key is over®own, and water enough to be had for to supply the necessity of a ®eet; the key is 4 miles long, and at its west end are likewise some ponds and wells, but the water is of a much inferior quality. This key was one of the last habitations of the savages of the Coloosa nation: about a mile to the east of the N E end of Matacombe lies a small bushy, gravelly key on the extremity of a reef, this key is called Matanca, i.e. Murder, from the catastrophe of a French crew said to have amounted to near three hundred men, who were unfortunate enough to fall into the hands of the Coloosas, which savages destroyed them to a man on this spot. This Key Matanca lies SSW 2 miles from the small man-grove key & is the leading mark for ¤nding the watering place on Matacombe, for come from whatever quarter you [xxxv] please, the way is to run boldly up to within pistol shot of the N E part of this small key, when you will ¤nd yourself at the chops of a channel which leads up to the watering place; it admits of 10 foot and is bounded on its N side by a very shallow reef which divides this channel from the channel to the south of Young-Matacombe, the channel is so plain that the best direction is the eye; the tides are very rapid, consequently require to be consulted both in coming in or going out, the channel is very narrow having only just room enough for a small vessel to turn to windward. From the south end of the great reef of Tabona it is no longer a continued reef, but all in divided spots as the chart shews, and the channel within them is likewise wider and deeper, but you will ¤nd less smooth water than from Key Biscay to Key Tabona. To the west end of Matacombe is another channel which is the ¤rst that opens (for a vessel of 6 foot draught) into the gulph of Mexico. To sail into this channel you must borrow pretty near to the key at its west end, where you will have 10 foot water, then steer in north towards a cluster of small mangrove keys for about a league; when you are within half a mile of the bank of said keys you alter your course to WNW and you will soon ¤nd yourself between two very shallow banks, and shoal your water to 6 foot; now you will see many points of banks which will oblige you frequently to loof [luff ] and bear away between the W, WSW, & WNW, the banks are almost dry, but the channel of an even depth shows blue; so that a careful eye cannot miss it [xxxvi] These courses continue for 4 leagues, when you will ¤nd your channel to widen very much. Now steer NNW 3 miles and you will see Cayo Axi, or Sandy Key in the NW about 12 leagues off; then alter your course to west, come no nearer than within a league of

311


A Concise Natural History

312


Bernard Romans

the key, and in ¤ve miles you will deepen your water to 9 feet, continue your course W till the key bears ENE and you have sea room into the Gulph of Mexico, but the soundings deepen very slowly to the westward and northward; take care never to attempt this passage without a leading wind. N. B. Sandy Key is a low key covered with some bushes and prickly-pears; there are rabbits on it, and always plenty of ®amingoes, plovers, and other excellent water fowl to be had. NW four miles from this key is Punto Tancha, or Sandy Point; here was anciently a settlement of Coloosa savages. Tolerable water, and excellent venison are to be had here. From the SW end of Matacombe to the west end of *Cayo Vivora, the course is SW, and the distance 4 miles, the depth of water 17 or 18 feet on a sandy bottom, give the key a birth of at least 2 miles. At the SW end is a channel of 9 foot depth into the Gulph of Mexico, plainly marked on the map, for which a good and careful look-out is the best director. From Cayo Vivoras S W b W 10 miles brings you to a remarkable contraction of the channel between the outer reef and the keys, your depth is generally 18 foot, the bottom sandy, and a considerable broad bank runs off from the islands, [xxxvii] which are the Cayos Vacas, i.e. Cow Keys. At this contraction of the channel your course alters to W S W, and you go through the like draught of water for 5 leagues, then the reefs are again farther off, and you are come to the westermost of the Cow Keys, in lat 24°:41, where another channel of 6 or 7 foot deep goes into the Mexican Gulph. On these keys is tolerable water and plenty of deer. The next islands are called the Bahia Honda keys, extending E and W for 5 leagues, your course is W: and your depth of water 17 or 18 feet; at the east end of the westermost key is another channel 8 feet deep, opening the gulph of Mexico, and leads as the chart explains; but being dif¤cult, it is seldom attempted. Midway before these islands 2 leagues to the south is a dry sand-bar, on which, in the season, the sea-fowl lay a great quantity of eggs. Five leagues W b S from this, and directly south from new-found harbour, 3 leagues off is another, on which his majesty’s ship the Loo was lost, from which accident it has acquired the name of Key-Loo. From here to †Cayo-Hueso, vulgarly called Key-West, the course is W b S, and the distance about 62 leagues. At a little more than 2 leagues you ¤nd a harbour called Newfound-Harbour; it is safe, but the bottom foul in many places. The depth of water in this course is from 17 to 23 feet. About half way between New*Spanish for Rattle Snake Key. †Spanish for Bone Key.

found-Harbour and Key West, are some heads of rocks, as laid down in the chart, but they are easily discovered in fair weather. All these keys abound in venison [xxxviii] and water; especially the Pine Keys, on which there is likewise some honey found. At the west end of Cayo Hueso, is a passage into the Gulph of Mexico, this key, or rather these keys (being made up of several) extend about SW and NE for 10 miles, having a shallow bank before it. The S W end lies in lat. 24°.N long. 81°:15 west; it has a shallow ledge close to it on the south, and the point is a low kind of savannah, on which one or two single trees appear; near which is a well of very ordinary water. The way into the channel is to give the south point a birth till you have the channel well open to the north of you, then steer in and keep the key close on board within 15 or 20 fathoms, you will ¤nd from 24 to 16 foot water, run in till you bring the NE end of a shoal on your larboard hand to bear near WNW, then double the point of the island to the westward, and you may anchor in 16 or 18 foot water, but the bottom is foul and the roadstead unsafe, especially in N and NW winds. Round the shoal to the westward is another channel rather deeper, but not so direct; and half a mile to the north of the shoal is a bar having scarce 14 foot on it; after passing which you may steer N 2 W and you will in a run of 22 leagues clear the eastern bank, gradually deepening your water, as the map shews. The tide here runs violently. Within the anchoring place eastward of the point, is a path leading to a well or pond of excellent fresh water; round which a low kind of stone wall is placed, and the trees are marked with many names; the ground is trodden like a sheep crawl, occasioned by the deer who [xxxix] resort here to drink, of which a patient man may here shoot 5 or 6 in a day; they are very small, but of excellent ®avor. Doves likewise abound here. This watering place is 4 of a mile from the beech. If you are bound to sea from this key, sail from the SW end directly for a sandy key, which you will see in the SE near 3 leagues off, and you will have generally about 23 or 24 foot depth, borrow close on the west end of this sand so as you might chuck a biscuit on shore, and you will ¤nd 5 fathoms, which suddenly deepens, and two miles carry you off of the bank into the gulph stream. 3 leagues west from this sandy key lies another similar to it, being the last part of the reef, the Havana bears from here nearly S 2 E, and is about 20 leagues off; but vessels bound there will do well in steering higher up, if possible, on account of the currents. The tide ebbs & ®ows here regularly 6 foot, and the time of full sea at full and change of the moon is 8 o’clock, as it is every where from Key Vacas to the Dry Tortugas, the tides setting as the darts describe. The tides from Key Vacas northeastward rises not

313


A Concise Natural History

314


Bernard Romans

quite so high, and the time of full sea is from 7 to 8 o’clock, being later as you come westward; the darts shew the setting of the tides: to the northward of Key Biscay the current on soundings is much governed by the wind; but when the wind has little in®uence the ebb sets north, and the ®ood southward. A due attention to this will much shorten a passage over soundings to the reef. Next are the Cayos Mulas, to the westward of Cayo Hueso, trending east and west for 6 leagues; [xl] at whose west end we ¤nd the principal passage out of the Gulph of Florida into the Gulph of Mexico, by the Spaniards called Boca Grande, which I have never passed, but such as it is marked in the map, I have taken it from a Spanish manuscript, which bore more marks of genuine accuracy than most of the paltry draughts used by that nation. It was communicated to me by a gentleman whose name was Dn Manuel Hidalgo, a very experienced commander, who assured me that the Spanish gallons from La Vera Cruz in order to avoid the east winds keep far enough north to make the Bay of Tampe, from which they shape their course so as here to disembogue out of the Gulph of Mexico into that of Florida, passing a little east of the Key Marques. I have seen two of these ships on the coast of WestFlorida, not far south of Cape Blas; which circumstance and that of three galleons being cast away near the bay of St. Bernard, seem to con¤rm that gentleman’s information. The sounding on the outside upon the bank are taken by myself. The bank of Marques extends east and west for 6 leagues, then NW ward for near 6 more, having no reef before it. From here to the Dry Tortugas the course is W2S, and the distance 44 miles, to reckon from two miles south from the middle of Key Marques; water of various depth: the southern part of the rocks lie in lat. 24. 24. but a round bank with about 62 fathom on it lies before it in lat. 24. 18°: the longitude is 82°:18 west from London. In August of the year 1766, I was becalmed near this place, and drifted for 3 days, not having had [xli] an observation for 5 days before on account of fogs. I was very uneasy especially on the appearance of a dove on the evening of the last day, this kept us all night (more than common) watchful; and at the break of day next morning we sounded in 30 fathom. We kept the lead going, and shoaled our water gradually to 20 fathoms, when it was full day, but still foggy, on which I gave orders if the water shoaled to 12 fathom to come to an anchor (our drift was then with the current, which I afterwards found to be the tide of ®ood setting to the northward on the bank) and I left the deck; but had scarce sat down in the cabin when the vessel which drew between 8 and 9 foot water struck, and as it were dragged over a coral bank, I started up and hove the

lead overboard, when I found 18 foot water on sand, and saw a dry bank or key close too to westward, the currant still running with violence. We came immediately to anchor, and threw the boat out, in order to examine the place where we were, we found ourselves surrounded by three very small low sand keys (full of prickly pears) on the west, and a reef every where else. About 9 o’clock the tide began to ebb, setting violently over the reef to S E of us; at 10 the weather became clear, and we saw bushy islands to the N & N N W about 42 leagues off. I had a good observation at noon, and found the lat 24°. 25. The two following days we were employed in looking for a passage out, through which on the morning of the third day we warp’d out to the east. It was on the day following the full moon in August when we struck, we observed the tide [xlii] to rise and fall full 6 foot, and the place where we struck at ¤rst to have between 6 and 7 feet of water on it, when the tide was out, it being 9 o’clock when it began to ebb; I thence ¤xed the full sea at about 8 o’clock on the full or change or a S E b E 2 E moon. All these observations I have since been con¤rmed in by a more frequent experience. This adventure was my ¤rst knowledge of the Martyrs, and was the raising of the ¤rst idea in me of publishing this work. The calms continuing I tided it up within the reef as far as Matacombe, where we watered and proceeded out into the stream; I became very sensible of what a great bene¤t the knowledge of this reef is to all people, who by means of calms, or otherwise have a long passage from Cape Antonio up; especially on account of refreshing. I was then bound from the Isle of Pines to Georgia, with mahogany on board. The soundings, as I have marked them, were obtained at several times passing near and round this shoal, they are remarkable, and for them you may rely on the draught. I observed the variation of the compass to be 5°:47′ east. On the NW corner of the bank is a harbour where I have made the observations that are laid down in the draught, at three or four different times; but as it is only planned by the eye, never having had an opportunity to make a circumstantial survey I shall forbear saying any more about it than that the northermost part of the bank lies by good and repeated observations taken by myself in lat 24° 48.N. Before I proceed into the Gulph of Mexico I shall [xliii] say something more concerning the reef, and give my advice to such as are bound through the gulph of Florida. Many people talk about going southward thro’ the Gulph of Florida by keeping upon soundings outside the reef, but it is a navigation so dangerous, that I would wish every body (except in cases of necessity) to avoid it. I will however, transcribe the remarks of Robert Bishop on this navigation, and add a few observations of my own on them.282

315


A Concise Natural History

316


Bernard Romans

“When we were sailed out of Port Royal Harbour, we kept upon soundings, till we came as far to the southward as Tybee, and then we stood to the E and afterwards to the S till we were got into the lat. of 26 d N and then run down in that parallel, and made the S end of Abaco, or The hole in the wall, and N W by W dist. 5 or 6 miles from it, we anchored in white water, of about 7 fathom, off a point where the key falls in, & there we got ¤sh in plenty, for which purpose we anchored, as also to delay time for 4 or 5 hours. At 2 P M we weighed, and stood S W for the Berry Islands, which we made and came upon soundings at 8 ditto. The course is S W distance 8 leagues; and from those islands to Providence, the course is S S E distance 12 leagues. “When we got soundings, we kept our lead going, & we laid by it all night, keeping in, or out, as we deepened or shallowed our water; but our course was between the W and W by N and our dist. 15 leagues. “The breadth of soundings (at least from the Berry to Isaac Rock) is from 3 to 5 miles [xliv] from the banks, being broadest at the rock. Upon the bank’s edge are two small rocks, between the Berry Island and Isaac Rock, which terminates the N W corner of the bank. At a cables length off the W side of Isaac Rock, you have no soundings: So that as you come round it, you immediately get into ocean water, and consequently into the current of the Gulph. But if it should happen that the wind be at S S E and you cannot lie S or S by E so as to take the current under your lee, and keep the bank on board, your best way will be to anchor, or keep in upon soundings to the northward of Isaac Rock, till the wind come favourable. “By this will appear the necessity of getting to Isaac Rock by morning; for then you get round and keep in on the edge of the sounding, by which you will plainly discern the bank, the water being clear, and the bank white, with two small rocks between Isaac Rock and the island of Bimina; the distance between being 4 or 5 leagues almost N and S. “At Bimina there is a harbour of 9 feet water and anchorage in the opening, with a well of water on the E point. The harbour lies is lat. 25 d. 30 m. N. “From the island of Bimina S. dist. 8 or 9 leagues, is Cat Key Harbour, or the beginning of the Rocqueses. From Bimina the sounding is narrow, and, consequently the current strong. From hence over to the Florida shore, the breadth is no more than 15 or 16 leagues. From Cat Key abreast of the Rocqueses, the [xlv] sounding is pretty broad, with good anchorage, and less current, as you come to the S E and S E b S. “From the second or Cat Key, the course S E by S dist. 12 or 13 leagues, is Orange Key, having good anchorage to the S W of it 5 or 6 miles, in 20 fathoms water. When we get upon this slat, we think we have secured our

passage through the Gulph, this way; for then you may make sail either in the morning, or at midnight, steering S W dist. 10 11 leagues, and so you will fall in with Key Sel Bank, which for ten leagues on the north side stretches E and W and consequently the current sets stronger as you come to the westward. When you come over, there is good soundings all along by it, and you may discern by the bank how far you are to the eastward of the DoubleHeaded Shot: For as my draught shews, the number of rocks on the bank, there is anchorage by spots all the way in; but the soundings are narrow at the Double-headed Shot, the middle of which lies in lat. 23 d 57 m N and S S E is Key Sel, where there is water, distance 4 leagues. Here the Spaniards make salt. “From the Double-headed Shot to the edge of the soundings a little to the W of Cape Florida, is N W by N 15 leagues. “From the Double-headed Shot to the Metances, the course is S W by W dist. 23 or 24 leagues, and from the Metances to the Havanna W much the same distance; off of which we cruised 5 or 6 weeks, and almost every day gave chace. The ¤rst that gave us a jaunt for the Gulph, [xlvi] was a ship from Jamaica bound for South Carolina; We followed her in a dismal dark night, and at one or two in the morning had like to have run her down. There was a constant order on board, to heave the lead every half hour, the whole cruize; and when we brought the ship to, we had 70 fathom water. As our pilots were no way concerned, we lay there all night, and fell off to 100 fathom in the mornning; at day-light we could but just see the bushes of the key off the cape from the poop, and it falling calm, we drove off soundings, and so got into the current, which carried us as far as 25 d 30 m N when the easterly wind sprung up, and we went into soundings and out of the current; so hoisted our boats out, and made them keep by the outside of the reef. Whilst the ship went upon the edge of soundings, we did not only know the breadth of sounding by the distance the boats were from the ship, but they besides supplyed the ship’s company with ¤sh in great plenty, and so for 23 leagues, 15 of which to the N E of Cape Florida, and 8 to the W S W till at last we arrived at a sandy key, where the Looe was cast away. At that key is the going into the inside of the reef, or the channel, through which all the Spanish vessels pass, that go from the Havanna to St. Augustine. In this channel there is 4 and 5 fathom water, but in some particular places it is shallower. The channel continues as far as lat. 26 d N or as far as the reef runs. Off Cape Florida, is the broadest sounding, where we met with 100 fathom, with the bushes just [xlvii] in sight from the poop of a 40 gun ship, and distant from the reef 6 or 7 miles. But in lat. 25 d 30 m are other rocks, where the Fowey was lost: At this place there is sounding two hawsers length off the reef in

317


A Concise Natural History

318


Bernard Romans

30 fathom; but one mile further it is not so broad; so that I judge the Looe Key to be the beginning of the sounding off Cape Florida, and the Fowey Rocks the ending. “In consequence of the foregoing observations, when we chaced we had no dif¤culty in going back. If we chanced to chace but as far as 25 d 25 m N we went immediately in upon sounding, and up to Looe Key. Then we could be off the Havanna the next day in our station; so that now we had not near so much trouble as we had at our ¤rst coming on our station; for then between Isaacs Rock and the two Keys of the Rocqueses, we were always afraid of driving quite through the Gulph; but on this side, if we could but keep in upon sounding, we were safe. “Indeed most men who have been through the Gulph, when they come so far to the northward as 24 d 30 m N must be sensible that they meet with a strong current, with the rippleing and boiling of the water; which current sets between the N E and E N E and is occasioned by the edge of sounding that comes from Looe Key. “The Florida shore does not go north as has been formerly imagined, till you arrive in the lat of 25 d 40 m N I could hartily wish that the Old Streights of Bahama were thoroughly rummaged; [xlviii] for by what I have seen and heard, it is not so bad a navagation as many now think it to be. I believe it to be an easy way to go to the Missisippi, by crossing over to the Florida shore, and so round the Tortudas Bank.” These remarks of that gentleman are very judicious, and indeed most of his performance tho’ strangely unconnected is generally pretty just, but his charts bad. I will however (after asking his pardon) endeavour to rectify a few of his annotations, which seem rather crude or too hastily penned down.---The S W course which he mentions from the Hole in the Rock, will carry you to the Berry Islands, as he says, but so low down as below Little Harbour which is at least 6 leagues too far to the S E I would advise running W b S or at most W S W half W 13 or 14 leagues, which will bring you to Stirrup’s Key or Money Key being the N W part of the Berry Islands. To the westward of Stirrup’s Key is a tongue of ocean water shooting into the bank, across which your course is W half N or W b N for 10 leagues scarce, to the little Isaacs Rocks; which rocks I suppose he means when he mentions two little rocks between Berry Island and Isaacs Rocks, from these to great Isaacs Rocks, the course is about W and the distance between 9 and 10 leagues. What he says of great Isaacs Rocks and the getting round them is very just; but the distance from great Isaacs Rocks to Bemini is near 7 leagues, Mr. Bishop says but 4 or 5.

The harbour of Bemini is well described. From Bemini to Beaks Key is S half E 7 1-2 leagues [xlix] Beaks Key is the southermost of the Cat Keys and affords some shelter. A little less than a league from Beaks Key begin the Riding Rocks, being rocks bare of bushes, and looking like wrecks, the Spaniards call them Los Membros. S W b S about 7 miles from the southermost Riding Rock is a shoal on which a very rich Spanish galloon struck in 1765, her bottom beat over, and pieces of her were found every where as far as Money Key to the eastward; the loss of this vessel was a pro¤table ill luck to the people of Providence, the bottom lies now about E or E b S 7 or 8 miles from the shoal in 17 feet water, and is yet supposed to contain some treasure. S S E from the shoal 32 leagues is Orange Key & the Rocquesses, here the anchorage &c. is as Mr. Bishop describes them, and his directions to Deadmans Keys, or the west end of the Double-headed Shot, are to be depended upon. His relation of going southward upon soundings near the reef is very just, and the method of keeping a boat on the reef a very proper one; but this is too dangerous a navigation to be attempted by most people, yet if a gale should come on from the eastward, I do not apprehend the risk to be so great as might be at the ¤rst thought imagined, nor to be so much dreaded as by a person coming from the southward and bound through the Gulph, who must needs be more uncertain of his ships place, than him that is bound southward on soundings, for the nearness of the very rapid current of the gulph, will always enable the latter to take the proper precautions for clawing off with certainty of success. [l] The distance from the Fowey rocks to Cape Florida is 15 leagues, as Mr. Bishop observes, but he makes an egregious mistake in calling it only 8 from the Cape to Key Loo; for upon supposition that the south end of the reef before the Matacombe islands, be the true cape, (which indeed it is of the reef, though not of the land) the distance from there to Key Loo is above 20 leagues on a W S W course; and from the south part of the true Cape Reef to the south end of Matacombe Reef is more than 4 leagues more; I therefore guess him to have been misinformed with respect to the local situation of the loss of the Loo, and that he mistook the small dry sand-bar upon a reef before Key Vacas for Key Loo; this sand-bar being the ¤rst on the reef, and lies 11 leagues to windward of Key Loo. There are ¤ve of these dry sandy islands of which Key Loo is the middlemost. There are many inlets into the reef, but to attempt describing them each apart, would be to throw more obscurity on the matter, and to open a way to more danger, which has already been too much done by the absurd author

319


A Concise Natural History

320


Bernard Romans

of that paltry pamphlet, called the Atlantic Pilot. I shall content myself by telling my reader, that the necessary precaution of keeping a boat on the reef, will always point out to him these cuts in such a manner that he may safely enter any one of them in moderate weather, if want of water, contrary wind, or any thing else make it necessary for him to take shelter under the reef. Two of these entrances however require a little more to be said of them, one is at the south end of the [li] Cape Reef in lat. 25°2′ directly east of Key Tabona,* the other at the south end of Matacombe reef; E S E from the north east end of Matacombe in lat. 24°52′: The ¤rst has got a dry knowl of rocks above water on the S E point of the reef, directly on the edge of the channel, whereby it is easily known; the other has no such visible marks, but the eye will guide you for both, especially the northern one, where the land may also help a little, as the two small mangrove keys Tabona and Rodriguez, lie a good way from the land, nearer to the reef, and consequently shew themselves plainer in the west; for the rest all the land appears so much alike, that it requires years of experience to learn to know it. The soundings in, &c. are as my chart directs, and I need not to any person (who knows that in a gale by reason of a reverting current, anchoring is full as safe under a reef as under land) to enlarge much about the utility of the knowledge of the channels, much less to a man who is either in want of water, or who upon falling in with these shoals and thinks himself in danger, has manly courage enough not to suffer his fright to overcome his reason: And whoever happens to be overtaken by the vehemence of gales, when too near in upon these reefs, may be happy in knowing that there are such entrances into safety. Mr. Bishop mentions the depth within the reef at 4 or 5 fathom, which is more than double the quantity found. This is, I suppose, an error of the press. N. B. Wherever I have occasion to mention [lii] soundings, they are meant at spring-tide, low-water, and all the soundings are laid down on my maps in feet, to avoid confusion, occasioned by marking feet in one place, and fathoms in another. The Roman capital ¤gures denote the time of full sea at the respective places (where they are marked) on the full or change of the moon. The quantity of ¤sh & turtle to be caught here is really amazing, which, joined to the many watering places, with the plenty of venison, and bearmeat, make this coast a valuable rendezvous for cruizers in time of war: spars may be had here at all times, either out of the pine woods, back of the keys, or among the drift on the beeches, which is no small inhancement of the value of the coast to such vessels; because they are not seldom in the want of them; at least they are more liable to such losses than merchantmen are. *Tabona is Spanish for a whame or horse®y.

The ¤sh caught here are in such variety, that a bare catalogue of them would take up pages. These most commonly caught are such as seamen know by the following names, viz. King-¤sh, barracoota, tarpom, bonita, cavallos, amber¤sh, pampus, silver-¤sh, jew-¤sh, rock ¤sh, groopers, porgys, margate-¤sh, French margate-¤sh, hog-¤sh, angel-¤sh, yellowtails, red, grey and black snappers, dog snappers, mutton-¤sh, grunts, murenas or muray, mullets, sprats, mangrove snappers, parrot-¤sh, red and black drum, bone-¤sh, stingrays, sharks, lobsters, and an immense variety of others, all excellent in their kinds, and what renders this plenty of more worth is, that we may with safety eat of all ¤sh caught on the Florida shore, unless it should be of hog-¤sh taken [liii] on the very outer reef; for I have heard of an instance of one of this kind having sickened some people, but of my own experience I can say that I have always eaten that delicate ¤sh with safety, and even the amber-¤sh, and yellow billed sprats. The worst, or most violently deleterious ¤sh in places where ¤sh are poisonous, is here always eaten with safety: On the contrary, on the Bahama Banks it is requisite to be cautious what ¤sh we eat before trying, which is most conveniently done by cutting the heart out of the ¤sh as soon as caught, and to bite in it, when if the ¤sh be bad, it will leave a very nauseating, bitter, astringent taste on the tongue; but if good, no such taste will be perceived. The method of boiling silver with the ¤sh is not so certainly to be depended upon. I judge now that I have said enough about this mazy navigation; and will therefore proceed to give some Directions for coming round Cape St. Antonio, through the Gulph of Flor ida. It is suf¤ciently known that from the south point Negril in Jamaica to the Grand Cayman Island, the course is W N W somewhat westerly, and the distance 53 leagues, that off the S W point of the island a ledge of rocks extends almost a league into the sea, and from said island to Cape St. Anthony the course is NW b W 87 leagues, but it is adviseable to take rather a little more westing for fear of falling in with the island of Pines or the Jardins, which reach eastward and southward, or more properly on a course E by S half S from said island of Pines for 25 leagues, and are dangerous; should you fall in with this island, its shore to the southward may be made pretty free with, the [liv] course and distance from the Grand Cayman to this is N W somewhat westerly, 50 leagues, and from the S W end of the Isle of Pines to Cape Corientas is W half N 24 or 25 leagues; at the S W point of the Isle of Pines I once put in for wood and water, and found mahogany growing so handy

321


A Concise Natural History

322


Bernard Romans

that I took in about 4000 feet of it in a very few days; but the water was dif¤cult to get, though good; we got it in wells in a savannah at some ¤shermen’s huts, near the very S W pitch of the point; this place is however only ¤t for small vessels to call at: there is a Bay to the northward of where we lay, in which I was told that a channel of 18 or 20 feet depth might be depended on; we got plenty of ¤sh and turtle while we stayed here: off the S W end of the island are two very small keys, which are very shoal all round. At Cape Corientas is anchorage in 5 or 6 fathom about 2 miles to the NW by N or NNW of the cape, but you must be careful in going into this bay to give the cape a birth of a league at least, on account of a shoal that runs to the SW off from the pitch of the cape; the water in the wells is indifferent, but easy enough to come at. From Cape Corientas to Cape St. Anthony the course is W a little northerly distant 12 or 13 leagues; round the cape under the W end of Cuba is anchorage in 5 fathom almost every where; to the north of the cape between it, and a mangrove point about 22 leagues from it: and about half way between them are some wells of indifferent water. If you are bound through the Gulph of Florida [lv] steer from Cape St. Anthonio N b W half W or NNW and after a run of about 5 leagues you will ¤nd yourself in 15 or 16 fathom water, the south point of the Colorados then bears E b N 5 leagues off; this point of the reef I observed in lat 22° 56 and the Cape St. Anthonio lies in lat. 22° 36 long. 83 52. I could say more on this subject, but a small matter of inspection into my maps will shew that there is a vortex of current near and within these shoals: I therefore judge it recommendable to any person bound round this cape, to keep a N N W course for about 8 or 10 leagues to avoid them, and when you come as far to the northward as the lat. 24°:00 N, by all means keep a good look-out, for in this passage you will nine times in ten meet with a strong current out of the Mexican Gulph setting eastward, sometimes at the rate of 22 knots; this current will set you on soundings on the Tortuga bank before you are aware thereof. In foggy weather these soundings may be a guide, my charts mark them properly. You do not change the colour of your water till you get well in with the shoal, but there is generally an eddy current as soon as you are on soundings. The south part of the shoal whereon I struck, as related page xli lies in lat. 24°:23′ N, and the southernmost dry island in lat. 24°:25. Therefore if you stand over to the Florida shore, as soon as you are up to the lat. 23:25, keep as much to the eastward as N N E, or N E b N till you get soundings. And whatever terrible idea people have of that shore, if the wind will allow you, keep it on board, especially in the autumn and winter season, [lvi] when the N and N W winds are frequent,

and the current often runs to leeward. In that season you may take an advantage of the tides on soundings, by carefully observing their times & this conduct will tend to shorten your passage: When, however, you are got as far windward as the south end of the Matecombe reef, in lat. 24°:52, long. 79°:50 W from London, endeavour to get all the easting you can possibly acquire, in order to get the Bahama shore on board; which I shall hereafter, by pointing out the soundings, shew to be by much the most eligible for safety in going northward. If you intend to beat up on the Cuba side, which is the safest on account of its bold shore, and perhaps the most expeditious in case of a weather current, (which runs here with the most amazing velocity) you had best not go further north than the lat. 24°:00, and on your ¤rst tack you will know whether the current is favorable or not, for if you make not at least the Bay of Honda you may be certain there is a lee stream, & in that case an attempt to beat up under Cuba will be nothing better than kicking against the pricks, and the Florida shore ought to be attempted. Those unlucky persons who tell the dreadful stories of being 5 or 6 weeks, and even more, in getting from Cape Antinio through the Gulph of Florida, which is but too frequently true, have met with such a current, and through fear or ignorance of the north shore, have lain that long spell wearing and tearing vessels and rigging, expending their provisions and water, and fatiguing their men to no purpose. [lvii] When you are up to the Coloradas, the high land of Punta Abatas, or Cape Bonavista, shews itself remarkable, as drawn in the map: It is seen to the E 23 or 24 leagues off, which may be of use to know when you are near that dangerous reef. The Coloradas are the west end of the reef of St. Ysabella, a steep dangerous shoal extending a length of 27 leagues from Porto Puercos, or Hog-Harbour, to the aforesaid Coloradas, on a course chie®y W b S, and on the edge of the reef nearly half way between these two extremes, lies an island called Key Lavasa, from whence you see the notch of the Cox Combs, nearly ESE ward 6 or 7 leagues off. At this key is anchorage. The entrance of Porto Puercos is readily known by two bluff islands at its mouth, and the notch of the Saddle-Hill, which in the charts is marked * bearing south over it. The Table Land and the Saddle Hill over it, shew as I have delineated them. When you bring it to bear about E, and the western part of Punta Abates about S E, you will then be within less than a league off from the reef, and in standing northward again, you will soon open the Saddle Hill from the Table Land, which is a certain mark for keeping clear of the reef of St. Ysabella, and may be made use of in beating up under the reef, which method is however not to be advised.

323


A Concise Natural History

324


Bernard Romans

N. B. This Table Land is called Mesa Maria, but must not be confounded with another of the same name 8 leagues to the leeward of the Havana. Mr. Bishop remarks, that keeping the Saddle Hill open with the notch of the Cox-Combs, will likewise serve as a mark for working to windward [lviii] under said reef, but I never saw his performance till after I had been the last time here; thus I could not compare it on the spot, nor do I remember exactly to have taken notice of this. He also says, that if you bring the Saddle-Hill on S W b W, and keep that bearing, it will lead you into the harbour of Bahia Honda, where he says there is a little island in the middle of the bay with a good well on it; and S E from this island is the Rio Honda, a fresh river. These remarks I never had an opportunity to experience, but being of importance, I have inserted them here on his credit. This Bahia Honda lies near 6 leagues east of Porto Puercos and the Havana 19 leagues to windward of Bahia-Honda. I have given as near as I could, a representation of the land from Havana to Pan de Matanca, the paps are very easily known, and by bringing them to bear S, or S 2 E, then running for them, it will lead you into the port of Havana. This place, by my observations, lies in lat. 23°:20, and its long. I judge to be nearest 81°: west from London. From the Havana to Punto §Ycaco is 23 leagues, the course is E 2 S nearly. From this point we see the Pan de Matanca to the W S W of us. I have always observed that a lee current does not extend eastward of Bahia Honda, at least I have found it so during 5 or 6 times that I met the current setting westward; but at those times and in 8 or 10 other passages along this coast have [lix] always found a strong windward current east of that place, so that if I once weathered it, I was seldom more than 12 hours in getting up to Punta-Guana, being the west point of the Bay of Matanca. From this point most people chuse to stretch over, and Mr. Bishop advises the bringing of the Pan de Matanca S, or S b E, before one puts over for the gulph, and then to steer N N E; both are right enough; but I shall endeavour to point out a safer way. From Punta Guanos to Key Sal, the course is E N E somewhat easterly 23 leagues. From the small key of Punta Ycaco to Key Sal, is N E b E near 13 leagues. §Mr. Bishop calls this point Jacko.Ycaco is Spanish for Coco Plumb, of which fruit there is abundance on the point.

From Key Sal to Deadmans Keys, on the Double-headed-shot bank, is N b W 5 leagues. And, From Deadmans Keys to the south point of the Cape Reef, is N W b N 19 or 20 leagues. From the same Deadmans Keys to the Riding Rocks, is N E b N 23 leagues. And the Riding Rocks lie E b N 19 leagues from the south point of the Cape Reef. Hence it follows, that from PuntaYcaco to the south point of the Cape Reef, the course is nearly N, and the distance 29 leagues. It is hardly possible that a vessel should falls so far leeward as the sand bar of Key Vacos, or Key Loo, unless that supine carelessness and drowsy humor too common among the greatest part of the English sailors, might cause the crew to let her run 4 or 5 points leeward of her course. For those, however, that may meet with such an accident, I will point out the situation of those keys. [lx] Mr. Bishop has evidently mistaken the sand bar of Key Vacas for Key Loo, which may easily be the case without my impeaching his judgment, for they look exactly alike: I am led to think so when he says, “from the Havana to---Looe Key, is N E b N, distant 32 leagues.” And again, “from the Metances to Looe Key is N westerly, distance 25 leagues.” Whereas the true bearing is from the Havana to Key Loo N b E 21 leagues, and from Punta Guanos, or the west point of Matanca Bay, to the same key, the course is NNW 24 leagues. But from the Havana to the sand bar of Key Vacas is N E northerly 32 leagues. And from Punta Guenos to the said sand bar, it is North about 24 leagues. From the foregoing Courses and distances the Intelligent mariner will easily see, that Punta Ycaco is the most eligible place from whence to take his departure when bound through the Gulph of Florida. My advice therefore is, that if he makes the keys of Punta Ycaco early in the day, to delay time till 3 o’clock P. M. at least, or rather 4, his time may be usefully employed in ¤shing on the reef north of the point; for his labour and delay will be amply compensated by the excellent refreshment and store of ¤ne ¤sh it will afford him. The depth of water is from 4 to 14 fathom; but venture no nearer than 4 fathom, and beware of a sunken rock lying about a mile westward from the westernmost key. By doing this, and towards evening taking your departure from here, & steering NbE, or rather NNE, if you are to see land on the western shore, you will see it early in the morning, (provided you [lxi] have wind enough) & thus your safety through is secured, but by all means endeavour to get

325


A Concise Natural History

326


Bernard Romans

as much easting as you can, (unless in winter when the winds hang to the westward, for in that case Florida is safest) to get next to the Bahama Bank, for here you ¤nd pretty broad regular soundings, and have a weather shore, whereas Florida has little or no soundings and is a lee shore. For nine tenths of the year, you may venture on the Bahama Bank always safely as far as in 6 or 7 fathom, which circumstance will acquaint you of your safety in the night, should you be more than one day getting through, and be on the weather side of the passage: Let me however caution you to get off the bank before you pass the lat. 25°:30′ to the N ward for fear of Isaacs Rocks. During my several cruizes within the Martyr reef, I have seen a great number of vessels borrow so close on the reef, as that they appeared to be within it, and sometimes I could even see the people with help of a glass, such I suppose are well acquainted, or very bold: but be the man who does this never so experienced, he must be careful to keep a strict look-out; for my part I would not come nearer than just to raise the land, especially as tides may have their in®uence further off than we are aware of.* The Florida shore does not run north till you are past the Fowey rocks in lat. 25°:35 N; to say more about it would be no better than needless repetition, as I have already so amply treated of it. But as most people, even at this day, imagine it to run N from the lat. 25°:00 N. The night leads too many into a voyage to eternity, by depending [lxii] too much on this falacious information; I could therefore not forbear again hinting at it in this place. Nor can we in the very instance under the present consideration, too much admire the extensive goodness of the All-gracious Ruler of the universe towards us weak mortals, by providing so facile a navigation for the regions of the west, by means of a velocious current, and by so disposing the several shores of this mazy labyrinth of reefs and keys, as to cause this useful current to run in a direction N E, and at so great a rate as 3 or 32 miles an hour, by which means we are enabled better to avoid the eminent dangers of this reef, when it becomes a lee shore, for the violence of the easterly gales beats the gulph water over the reef, so as to destroy the effects of the ®ood tides, by causing a constant reverberating current from the shore over the reef, insomuch that a vessel riding under the reef will lay with her stern to windward. I once came out from Matacombe, and was scarce clear of the reef before I was overtaken by a gale from the eastward, which was very violent; it was 5 o’clock in the evening, and it being too dark to attempt a re-entrance of the reef, I was forced to heave the vessel too, which I did under her balanced mainsail; she was a heavy schooner of about 70 tons, and a dull sailor: the *See the end of this appendix.

succeeding night I passed in the deepest distress of mind, seeing the burning of the breakers in constant succession on the reef till past 1 o’clock; the storm continued till 10 next morning, when I made sail to the northward, and at noon to my utter astonishment, I had an observation of the sun’s altitude, which proved me to be in lat 26°: [lxiii] 50′, by which I had made a difference of lat. of 118 minutes in the short space of 19 hours (17 of which I lay too.) I think this so extraordinary an instance of the rapidity of this current, and so evident a proof of the reason of the increased velocity thereof, that I could not omit relating it. When I treat of the Behama bank, it will however appear, that on that side the shore is not so steep, and therefore not so dangerous. I am an utter enemy to all theoratical systematic positions, which has caused in me an indefatigable thirst for ¤nding in my experience, causes for all extraordinary appearances, be they what they will. And my experimental position of the cause of the increase of the velocity of this current, during the gales that blow contrary to its direction, is no other than the reverberating current, occasioned by the swelling of the water within the reef, which in the memorable gale of October, Anno 1769, when the Ledbury was lost, was no less than 30 feet above its ordinary level; which height will appear the more surprizing when we come to consider the spacious surface of the sounds that were ¤lled by it. Having thus led the careful mariner through the reefs into the open gulph, there only remains for me to give a caution against the Memory Rock, for which ample instructions are given in a hint at the very beginning of this tract. My next care will be to give some Instr uctions to people bound from the eastward over the Bahama bank into the Gulph of Mexico. First take care to make the south end of Abaco, commonly called the Hole in the Rock, [lxiv] in lat. 26° 4, from thence steer W b S 13 or 14 leagues, which course and distance will carry you to Stirrups Key, being the N westernmost of the Berry Islands, then run S W till you can but just see it off the deck of a vessel of about 100 tons burthen, you will then be in 8 or 9 fathom water, and by my calculation 7 leagues from it; next hawl up S W b S, and keep no nearer to the southermost Berry Islands than in 3 fathom, which will be when you have run on that course 12 or 13 leagues; you will then begin to come on the middle of the bank, where you may depend on ¤nding no where less than 15 foot. Both on coming on to the bank, and in going off from it, you will ¤nd

327


A Concise Natural History

328


Bernard Romans

a very strong tide, which sets right on or right off: it is easily observed to go along by the ground, the water being very clear and transparent; on the middle of the bank you will ¤nd little or no tide. If the wind hangs too far to the southward, it will follow that you are forced to the westward; in that case make no delay in coming to an anchor, lest you fall in with the bars that lie to the south and westward of the Bemini’s, and extend near three leagues; get under way as soon as you can steer south; you must see no land after you leave the Berry Islands, till you make the Roques, or Orange Key; the Roques are four in number, without bush or shrub on them; from the Roques to the Dog Keys, which are the westermost of the Double-Headed-Shot, the course is SSW, and distance about 17 leagues, yet the current will sometimes force you on them in steering SW. Should you sail for the Dog Keys in the night, [lxv] by all means keep clear of them, they and the Deadman’s Keys are a number of bare rocks, perhaps an hundred, or an hundred and twenty, about the size of a vessel, and some less, but in general there is water plenty between and about them; S b E about 5 leagues from the Deadman’s Keys is Key Sal; here are some sunken rocks; the best way is to run SW from the Roques, and not to run the 22 leagues before morning; if in the morning you ¤nd yourself in ocean water, run SW b S for the Matancas, if not keep down west till you be in ocean water, then hawl up for the coast of Cuba, & run down it till you are abreast of the Bay of Honda, from whence you must steer over NW, or thereabouts, which will carry you clear of every thing into the Gulph of Mexico. Directions for going to the Missisippi. If you are bound into this river keep the NW course till you are in lat. 29° 10 N, then run down for the river on a W course; if you happen to fall in to the northward of the mouth, come no nearer than 15 fathom, when you will have coarse brown sand; then run S, or S half W, keeping your lead going, till you come on soundings so soft that the lead will bring none of the mud up, unless it be woolded with canvass; if then the wind be free, run the above course or rather more westerly; but by all means take care you are not to the southward of the last mentioned latitude when you run down on a W course, for fear of falling in to the south of the river: When you approach the rivers mouth, which you will by running about 4 miles on the above soft [lxvi] soundings, you will see the color of the water alter, and it will appear like a shoal; this is occasioned by the current of the river mixing with the sea; but you need apprehend no danger, for there is from 25 to 30 fathom water, therefore run boldly in till you have about 8 fathom, the bank is pretty steep;

when you are in this depth, you will see some mud islands about as large as a vessel of 150 or 200 tons; from among which you will perceive the river’s mouth; the opening between these islands is about 100 fathoms wide: there are some Spanish pilots kept at Fort Balize, who give a very indifferent attendance; but if you see a launch coming out, you may depend on its being them, and your best way is to run directly for them, keeping off and on when you think yourself too near. If no launch come out, and the weather ¤ne, come to an anchor, there is little or no danger; and if need the current will always carry you out again, provided you keep opposite the channel. In going up the river it is necessary to keep within about 20 feet of the land, or of the drift wood that lies along it, except when you ¤nd it lodged on points or banks, in such places give it a reasonable birth. Observe also where you see the timber of a dwarfy and shrubby growth, or where willows grow, on the points in such places the water is shoal, and it is requisite to give the land a birth of about 100 feet. There are however no shoals of any consequence, till you are about 10 miles past the Detour aux Anglois, (Anglice English reach,) here [lxvii] one Mr. Mc Carty has got a plantation on the larboard side, where is a point called Mc Carty’s point; from this a shoal runs off near one third of the way over. It is almost needless to mention that in this (as in all other rivers) vessels ought to keep on the lee side, for on the other side they would be becalmed. Unless in a case of the utmost necessity, (such as fears of seizure at Orleans or otherways) let not go an anchor, for it’s a thousand to one but you will loose it if you do; the appearance of the shore will however tell you whether the logs are numerous or not at the bottom: a buoy will not watch. Directions for vessels who are bound to Pensacola, and have r un down by Jamaica, or on the South side of Cuba. After making Cape Anthony, your course for Pensacola, is N W b W 2 W, the distance is 178 leagues, go nothing to the westward of this course, and if there be no currents to deceive you, it will carry you about in with the middle of St. Rosa Island; currents are here frequent, and they often change suddenly; in which case you may be carried many leagues either eastward or westward of the cape. When you come as far North as the lat. 24° 00 N, keep a good look out for the Dry Tortugas, in order to avoid that danger, if you see them not, till you pass the lat. 24° 4 N, I would advise you to keep as far up as NNE or even NE b N if the wind allows, till you get soundings; and depend

329


A Concise Natural History

330


Bernard Romans

[lxviii] on it, if you are to the eastward you will strike soundings in about 40 fathom, in lat 25° 00 N; from hence you may steer NNW: it is a sure sign, that the sooner you strike soundings, the more easting you have made; and the longer you run without soundings, the further you are westward. If you fall in as far eastward as Cape St. Blas, you will strike soundings above the lat. 29° 00 or 29 5 N, your ¤rst soundings will be in about 90 fathom, on a muddy or oozy bottom, which is the same every where on the edge of the bank; the bank being pretty steep, you will soon be in 60 and 40 fathom, coarse blackish sand, and a few shells in spots: further in your soundings will decrease rather irregularly, on account of some knolls; one of these which lies about 3 leagues south of the cape, has only 18 feet water on it, the depth all around it is about 4 fathom; the pitch of the cape shoal lies in lat. 29° 38 N, about 5 miles out from the land, and the extreme depth of water on it is only 14 or 15 feet: the soundings continue however to the shoal pretty regularly as you go in, till about 42 or 5 leagues from the pitch of the cape; therefore if you come in upon this part of the land during night, you may run in boldly upon 11 fathom, a hard sandy bottom with broken shells, all the knolls lie within this, they are however only to be dreaded by large ships; this bank is most plentifully stored with ¤sh, especially dolphin for the tow-line-sport; the pitch of the cape is known by the appearance of a gap in the land about 12 or 2 leagues to the eastward of it, in which gap [lxix] stands a very large single live oak tree; about 4 leagues to the NW of the cape is a middling good roadstead, where in case of easterly winds it is safe riding in 4 or 5 fathom, black mud and shells; and about 3 leagues further north is the bar of St. Joseph, the entrance into which harbour will be hereafter described. If you fall in still more to the eastward, you will ¤nd the water clearer, and even in 12 or 13 fathom, it is of a dark blue like the ocean; the soundings begin in 28° 30, or even sooner, and the bottom is ¤ne sand, mixed with coral, shells, and some spunges. In case you fall in with the coast of St. Andrews, you will not strike soundings before you be in lat. 29° 15, or 29° 20 N, same ground as off the cape; but as you advance towards the land you will in many places meet with coarse, muddy grey sand, mixed with black specks, and at some casts the lead will bring up fragments of coral; about the lat. 29.30N you will ¤nd 18 fathom, sand with small shells; and you may then just see the land of St. Andrews, to the westward [o]f the inlet; which land has a woody ®at appearance, with an even white beach, and a bold shore, so as to have 10 or 11 fathom water within a mile, or a mile and a half from the strand; the coast trenches nearly W by N and E b S.

But if you fall in so far to the eastward as to be right off the entrance of the bay of St. Andrews, or between that and St. Joseph, the coast is not quite so bold, and the depth of 10 or 11 fathom is but just in sight of land, the bottom is sand and small shells. [lxx] The entrance of St. Andrews bay lies in lat. 29° 49 N, and admits only of small vessels. If your landfall be any where between the coast and bay of St. Andrews, and the bay and island of St. Rosa, you will strike soundings from lat. 29° 20 to lat. 29 45; the farther north you run without sounding the farther westward you are; the land here stretches E half N and W half S, all these are marks by which the mariner may know the true place of his vessel on this coast, which is too level to distinguish particulars thereon at a distance: if you strike no soundings till lat. 29° 55 it is a sure mark that you are abreast of some part of St. Rosa island, which is easily known when you come near, being no more than a long and narrow slip of sand-hills, with here and there some groves of pine trees scattered on it; towards the west end the beech is exceeding white, and some of the sand-hills loom like lofty white buildings, or vessels under sail, especially when not too near; the bottom here is a white sand, with here and there a spot of coral, it shoals very gradually; within the island is a sound which is from 1 to 3 miles wide, narrowest at the east end, so that if you fall in towards that end it is dif¤cult to know it to be an island, though you are within 3 miles of it; the shore is so bold that you may run down along by it at 12 or two miles off, where there is generally 10 or 11 fathom; to the eastward you can only see the water over the land in spots, though you are at masthead. From Cape Blas to St. Rosa bay the course and distance is about N W b W 27 leagues; from that to Pensacola bay is W half S between 16 and [lxxi] 17 leagues; and from that to Mobile bar W between 14 and 15 leagues: Cape St. Blas being so surrounded with rocks and shoals, I would advise by all means to avoid falling in with it, a large ship ought by no means to come nearer than within 6 leagues of it. For the better knowing of this coast, I shall make some further remarks, because the coast’s running so nearly E & W, and being every where so nearly alike in its level & woody appearance; the most skilful and experienced pilot may here be deceived, especially as the advantage of observations, which is so great a help on a N & S coast, fail here totally. In coming on this coast, if your land-fall be off the island St. Rosa, your ¤rst soundings will be about 80 fathom (little more or less) oozy ground, this depth and bottom is about 15 or 16 leagues from the land. If you fall in about 10 leagues eastward of St. Rosa bay, you will see the

331


A Concise Natural History

332


Bernard Romans

beech very white, and no sand hills on it, which last circumstance distinguishes it from the land further westward; near the beech is very little growth, besides shrubs, and brushy plants; if you stand pretty well in, you may, from the masthead see that an extensive Savannah (or plain) is situate within this shrubbery; which is an other mark to distinguish it from the land to the westward, which being an island, water is seen over it. The bar of St. Rosa only admits craft of 6 foot draught. As you come near this inlet or the east end of St. Rosa island, it is dif¤cult to know that it is an island; the woods grow close to the beach, [lxxii] which is likewise very white, and full of sand-hills, these being contrasted by the dark green of the bushes, are of as dazzling a white as snow: the island as before observed is a narrow slip of sand-hills, with a very few trees scattered over it, mostly towards the west end, and from masthead seems about a cables length over, within appears the sound; the wood-land on the north shore of it is of a middling stout growth, and the trees stand pretty close to the water-side; having run down about two thirds of the length of this island, (in other words) about 12 leagues or upwards, you will see several of those remarkable sand-hills above mentioned which appear at a distance like buildings or vessels; approaching the bar of Pensacola still nearer, you will see a pretty high bluff point of a redish colour; about 3 or 32 miles north of the island, on the main land, this point is called Deer-Point; when you come abreast of this, you will see the vessels (if any there are) riding at anchor before the town of Pensacola, and a watch-house (nick-named a fort,) on St. Rosa Island. If a guard is kept here, which is commonly the case, you will see a ®ag hoisted on it if your vessel is a topsail vessel, or a pendant, if she be boomsailed, and a gun ¤red; which signal is made on account of your approach: if the weather is good, (and the attendance a little better than it was during the time of my residence there) a canoe or barge will come off with a pilot; if none comes off, you may freely venture with a leading wind to run in by my plans. Off of the Look-out on St. Rosa Island lies a spit, which you must avoid by not bringing the watch [lxxiii] house more northerly than N N W, till you run off in 5 or 6 fathom water, then by all means keep that depth, until you bring the middlemost or highest red cliff, which opens with the west end of St. Rosa island, to bear N 4 E by the compass, and steer directly for it; this course will carry you over the bar in 20 or 21 foot water. The tops of these cliffs are built full of barracks, block-houses, and other military works; so as to appear like a small town. When you are over the bar steer N b W, or N N W, to clear a shoal that stretches near two thirds over from the west end of St. Rosa island, on which is 10 foot water, hence it is called the 10 foot bank. The lat. of this bar is 30°:19′ N.

If you fall in to the westward of Pensacola, on the Mobilian coast, you will get no soundings till you are near or in lat. 30°: N, the edge of the bank is 80 or 90 fathom deep, on a soft muddy and oozy bottom; but it is steep and shoals suddenly, and by the time you run about 2 leagues, you will not have more than 30 or 40 fathom on a soft bottom of very ¤ne white or grey sand, mixed with mud and shells, and you will be in 8 or 9 fathom when 3 or 4 leagues from the land. The coast runs due E and W; large trees come close down to the water side; the beach is not so white; the sand-hills few, and neither water nor savannah to be seen within land; all which circumstances suf¤ciently distinguish it from the eastern coast. Observe also that the further you go westward the softer the bottom is. West of Mobile the coast is lined with islands, as represented in the map; the bank is steeper, the [lxxiv] ground softer, and the land in sight almost as soon as you strike bottom, at least when you are not above 5 or 6 miles on upon soundings. The principal harbour here is between Cat Island and ShipIsland. The whole of the navigation in and about those islands, through the Rigolets, and by the lakes to Manchac, is so plainly laid down in my map, that any wordy elucidation of so minute a matter, chie®y for the use of boats, would be prolixity in me. I will therefore ¤nish this account of the coast of West-Florida, by informing my reader that the Chandeleur or Candlemas islands, were formerly only two islands; but the hurricane of 1772 has cut them into so many parts, that they lie, or at least did lie in near the same number and form as in the map is represented, the channels between them are deep, but barr’d at each end. Just within the north end of these islands, about 5 miles north of the Free-Masons islands is a good road, as there is also between Breton island and the back of the Grand Gozier, a land of islands about 12 miles S S W from the southernmost of the Candlemas islands; Breton island lies about 3 leagues W from Grand Gozier, and this last about 8 or 9 leagues north of the entrance of Missisippi river. The depth of water in both these roads is from 20 to 24 feet, and the bottom a ¤ne sand. If you are bound out of the Missisippi eastward, to go through the gulph of Florida, you ought to endeavour to make the Tortugas, in order for this steer E S E from the Balize, run that course till you come on the edge of soundings, between lat. 26°: and 27° N, by this means you will not be [lxxv] plagued with the trade wind, in the way of which you would fall too soon, before you got your easting. I remember a vessel bound from Pensacola to Carolina, who was drove as far to leeward as Cape Catoche, and after being a long while (I think 4 or 5 weeks) out, was obliged to return to recruit her stock of provisions; this was doubtless occasioned by not getting her easting

333


A Concise Natural History

334


Bernard Romans

while she was out of the way of the trade. After you are on this edge of soundings, direct your course more southward, you will ¤nd very regular gradations of the depth, such as my map lays them down, you may depend on them. It frequently happens that vessels fall too far to the westward, as was the case with one from North-Carolina some four or ¤ve years ago, who was either lost or taken near the bay of St. Bernard and the people underwent numberless hardships, as well among the Spaniards as savages; I will for the sake of such who will at any rate avoid this danger set down some Instr uctions to go to Pensacola, on a rout differ ing from the for mer. The Dry Tortugas lie in lat. 24°:25′ and stretch northward as far as lat. 24°:43′ N. the south end lies N 40°: W. 31 leagues from the Havana, or N 2 W 22 leagues from Bahia Honda, the direct course from the Tortugas to Pensacola is N 34° W, and the distance 142 leagues. But the safest way is to run N 2 E 35 leagues, by which means you will make the land in lat. 26° 46 N; where is a large harbour called Charlotte harbour; here, in case of necessity, you may refresh, [lxxvi] as it affords excellent water in many places, especially on a high island, whose north end is a broken bluff, and which shews itself very remarkable as soon as you are well shot in; there is likewise plenty of ¤sh, and the islands are stocked with large herds of deer; there are 4 or 5 inlets into this bay; but the one that lies in the above latitude is deepest, it has 15 or 16 feet water on its bar; the southernmost is the next best, and has 14 feet on its bar; this lies in lat. 26° 30, and is remarkable for the coast taking a sudden turn from N N W, to directly west, only for about 9 or 10 miles; when it again resumes its former direction: this nook in the land, forms what the Spaniards call Ensenada de Carlos, i.e. Charles’s-Bay, the piece of coast that trends E and W, is the beach of an island called Sanybel, this place is further remarkable for a great number of pine-trees without tops standing at the bottom of the bay, there is no place like to it, in the whole extent of this coast; the northernmost entrance is likewise remarkable for a singular hommock of pine-trees, or a grove standing very near the beach, than which there is none like it any where hereabouts; the course and distance from this place to Pensacola is N 49° W 109 leagues; N 36° W about 20 leagues from this place is the bay of Tampe or Spirito Santo, from whence to Pensacola the course and distance is N 52 W 80 leagues, either of these courses will steer clear of Cape St. Blas shoals, and you may in case of currents humour your course so as to have easting enough. The navigation in and through the bay of Juan Ponce de Leon, to Punta

Largo, or Cape Roman, [lxxvii] and as far as Charlotte harbour, being ¤t only for turtlers, ¤shermen, and other small craft, I will not say much about it; inspection of my charts, where that part of the coast is very faithfully laid down, will suf¤ce such small fry. Juan Ponce de Leon, was one of the ¤rst discoverers and explorers of Florida, and some remarkable transactions between him and the Coloosa savages at this place, have given occasion to the bay being called after that adventurer. But our wise map-makers, from the compilers of the quarter waggoners, down to the sagacious William Gerrard de Brahm, Esq; have corrupted it into Ponio bay; tho’ the latter has not forgot to change it into Chatham-bay; but what connexion the earl or the fort of that name have, or had with this place, is to me a secret; Mr. de Brahm does little honor to either, in calling this ®at after them. The fort at Apalache being deserted, the coast very ®at, and the bay inconsiderable; I shall omit saying any thing about it, as my maps shew with suf¤cient accuracy what may be expected and done by such small craft, as may have occasion to call there.283 Having already said what was most wanted of the passage over the Bahama banks, and having nothing material to say concerning the old streights of Bahama: I shall end this general account of the coast, with some further Remarks concer ning New Providence, and the Bahama Banks. This island is (by some mistake) laid down in my map, about 5 or 6 miles further northward [lxxviii] than it ought to have been; my observation of lat. in the harbour was lat. 25°:4′ N and I rekon its long. about 77°: W from London. From Providence to the S Eastermost key of the Berry Islands the course and distance is about N W 11 leagues. From this key to the entrance on upon the bank between the Blackwood Bush and Joulter Keys, at the North end of Andros island, is about W 8 or 9 leagues: as the bank is bound with a reef here, you must pick your way through that, which you may, as there are several swashes, which though they are narrow, have no less than 11 or 12 feet thro’. The water being very clear in this part of the world, this picking ones way through a shoal, is attended with little or no dif¤culty. When you ¤rst come on upon the bank, you will see some scattered heads of rocks and spunges; but there being no danger, except what is very visible, I need only tell, that by running W S W about 12 or 13 leagues you

335


A Concise Natural History

336


Bernard Romans

will come out 12 leagues to the southward of the Riding Rocks, on the west part of the bank; from whence by inspection of the charts, and some attention to former remarks, you may easily ¤nd your way either to Cuba, or the Florida shore. N. B. In coming from the Florida shore this way, by the Riding Rocks, you ought to endeavor the making of the South Eastermost Berry Island, early in the morning, which precaution will give you a great bene¤t with regard to safety in your run to Providence. I need not tell how great the danger is of coming among shoals and broken land during night. [lxxix] I would say something with regard to the passage by Bemini, but it being the shoalest, and the bars to the Eastward of Bemini making it very dangerous, I think no new comer ought to go there, without a pilot; I shall therefore say nothing of it. There are several small harbours on the N E part of the Berry where water and other refreshment may be had; but as they are seldom frequented, but by the people of Providence, it may be super®uous to say any thing about them; the maps shew their situation. From Providence to the Hole in the rock, South end of Abaco, is N about 20 leagues. The North, or Grand Bahama bank, is little frequented but by whalers and turtlers; and on account of its iron bound reefs is dangerous to approach. The passage from the Hole in the Rock, towards the Gulph of Florida, is already explained; yet I will here add, that it is necessary to give the West end of the Grand Bahama Island a birth; both on account of its shoals, and if the wind should hang Southwestward you might be imbayed. I shall conclude this part of the work, with some directions for the entrances of particular places; and begin with Directions for the harbour of Spir ito Santo, or Tampa Bay. This harbour which is very capacious, will admit large ships and is extremely well calculated for a place to refresh at; here is abundance of wood, water, ¤sh, oysters, clams, venison, turkies, [lxxx] large and small water-fowl, &c. The harbour is made by a range of islands lying before it; the southernmost of which is called Long-Island; its North end is called Grant’s point, in honor of governor Grant; the next lying about a mile North of it, is called Pollux Key; another about 14 mile to the N W b N of that is named Castor Key, in honor of two privateers, one of which was commanded by the late Capt. Braddock of Georgia: these two vessels cruized in those seas about the

16. Entrances of Tampa Bay (original faces page lxxix). 337




A Concise Natural History

!

i

i

I~

,

!~ ~

~

~

338


Bernard Romans

year 1744 or 1745; and Capt. Braddock was generally acknowledged the ¤rst Englishman who explored this bay. I have seen his original draught which (considering the circumstances under which it was taken) was pretty exact. Next is a cluster of keys called Mullet keys, lying between 2 and 3 miles E b N 3 N from the north end of Castor key; a shoal runs off from each of these to the westward, to that which runs off from the Mullet keys the Spaniards give the name of Restingo Largo. On the Mullet keys are huts built by the Spaniards, who resort here for the purpose of ¤shing. Grant’s point lies in lat 27, 44, and the south end of the Mullet keys in lat. 27°:48 N. The coast, as has been already observed, has pretty regular soundings, but none very deep; to enter this bay by either of its inlets, observe the following directions, and they can hardly fail of carrying you safe. The land is low and not visible till you are within about 8 miles from it, where you will have 6 or 62 fathom water; the chief growth on the keys are mangrove and blackwood bushes. To run in by Grant’s point, bring that to bear [lxxxi] N E 3 E, then run in on that course till the south end of Pollux key bears N E 2 N, when you will be on the bar of this inlet, where you will ¤nd 16 foot water; the bar is short, you must run in on the same course till you are nearly abreast Pollux key, and you will have 3, 4, and 5 fathoms; when you be almost abreast of the key, steer E, and you may run in as the draught shews. To run in between Castor & Pollux keys, keep in about 5 fathom, till you bring the north end of Pollux to bear about E b N 4 E, then run in on that course till the south end of Castor bears N E b E 2 E, and you will presently be in about 17 feet, then steer about E N E directly for the midway between the two keys, and you will continue for about 3 of a mile in 16 or 17 foot, shoalest under the north bank; when you are over this you will have 32 or 4 fathom, and by keeping a little to the northward of your last course after you have cleared the keys, you may run up the bay without scruple. To go in between Mullet keys and Castor key, which is the principal inlet, and by the Spaniards called Boca Grande, you must run in about 5 fathoms, till you bring the south part of the Mullet keys to bear E 2 S, then sail on that course till the north end of Castor key bears EbS2S, and you will ¤nd 22 or 23 foot water, steer that course till you deepen your water to 6 fathom, then run E inclining rather to the south shore, if any; as soon as you have doubled Castor key you may anchor under it, or run up by the Mullet keys, or farther in, as the draught points out. Small vessels need not be so scrupulous in regard [lxxxii] to these marks, the banks or shoals themselves are pretty deep, as the draughts point out. A.D. 1769, I was employed above 6 weeks in surveying this bay, and after sinking

my boat in Manatee river, where I suppose she lays now, I went across the Peninsula to St. Augustine on foot. Directions to sail into Charlotte Harbour The northernmost inlet to this harbour is in lat. 26, 46 N; the surest mark to ¤nd it by, is the clump or hommock of pine trees standing near the north end of the island, as mentioned page lxxvi; bring those trees to bear E S E, and run in for them till you are in 15 foot water, which is the bar, then change your course to E N E, and you will presently deepen your water to 4, 5, 6, and even 10 fathom, with working room between the banks for a ®eet; keep the north-breaker on board, and run in close to the north shore, which is the south end of Gasparilla island, when in, you may pick your anchoring ground; but the bay is ®at when in, and the further you go in the less water you will ¤nd. Directions for St. Joseph’s Bay. The best way in coming either from the southward or westward, is to make the coast to the northward of Cape St. Blas, which lies in lat. 29, 42 N, about 10 miles from the cape, where you will ¤nd 6 or 7 fathom, within about 2 miles from the shore, and 4 fathom within a mile or less. This coast is a narrow slip of land, with some bushes and very few trees on it, it trenches N b W and S b E, up to the place I advise to make, and [lxxxiii] from there almost due N and S. At this place where it changes its direction, are two remarkable trees on a very narrow neck of land; the water in the bay may be seen in many places over this slip of strand. From these two trees you may coast it to the northward within a mile of the shore; and when you have run about two miles you will see two more remarkable trees standing a little further in land; you will then continue about a mile or a little more, and you will have the depth of 4 or 42 fathom water, but here a narrow spit runs off for a mile, on which is only 12 foot, therefore keep your lead going, and when you once lessen your depth to 32 fathom, draw off, steering N W or W N W till you deepen again to 5 fathom; you will then open a large red bluff on the main land in the N E quarter, bring the east end of it to bear N E b N, and then run on that course till you deepen your water to 6 fathom, and you will see two trees, one large the other small, close together; to the eastward of the bluff steer eastward till you bring these on with the east end of the bluff, keep them so and you will be in the best channel. In running on this course about 2 miles or 22, you will be on the bar, which

339


A Concise Natural History

IIi I.

I

18. Map of Pensacola Bar (original faces page lxxxiv).




340

Bernard Romans

~ I I

~

I .~ ~

.

has 17 foot water on it in spring tides at low water; as soon as you are on this bar hawl round to the eastward with an easy sweep, and you will presently be in 5 or 6 fathom: by degrees draw round to the southward, and you may anchor any where in that depth, near the west shore. To know exactly when you are on the bar, take notice of four clumps of trees on the eastern shore, and bring the third (counting from [lxxxiv] the northward) as marked in my draught, to bear S 40 E, in one with the point of St. Joseph’s, when you have this mark on, you are on the bar. Directions for Pensacola Harbour. Having, as before directed, brought the highest or middlemost red cliff to bear N 4 E, you will see a clump of trees (in land) on with that part of the cliff; this is the best mark to lead you over the bar in the best water, being no less than 20 foot. When you are over the bar, you will have from 4 to 6 fathom within a cable’s length and an half off the western breakers; these shew themselves very plain in ¤ne weather; and at their north end is a small dry sand bar. When you are over the bar, run west till you bring the aforesaid trees in one with the hollow between the high cliff and the west cliff, by this means you will avoid the 10 foot bank before taken notice of on page lxxiii. To know when you are up with this bank, observe when you open the straggling woods of Deer Point, with the west end of St. Rosa island; when this mark is well open, you may hawl eastward for Tartar Point. Take care not to approach the starboard shore nearer than 32 fathom, nor the larboard shore more than 4 fathom. In mid channel you will have 5 or 6 fathom. The bottom is a regular hollow, therefore you may depend on your soundings shoaling gradually down to the above depths on each side. In working up after you are within the 10 foot bank, keep the blockhouse, or fort, open with St. Rosa Point, by this means you are in no danger [lxxxv] from the ten feet bank, and in standing northward keep Deer-point open with Tartar-point; off this last point you will have three fathom within less than a cable’s length of the beech, in standing for St. Rosa island, you have no danger but what is visible. After you have doubled Tartar-point, your course up to town is NNE2E; mid channel you have 6 fathom, and it shoals gradually down to 4 on each side; in beating up, come no nearer the west shore than to bring a large white-house (the highest in town) to bear NNE, and in standing over to the east shore, bring it no further west than N 2 W; this house was the government house, and stands at the east end of the garrison. The best anchorage is

341


A Concise Natural History

19. Map of Mobile Bar (original faces page lxxxv).




342

Bernard Romans

to bring the above house to bear N 2 E, English-point NEbN, and Deer-point SEbE2E; at the distance of about a mile from the shore, the depth is about 4 fathom. Directions for Mobile Bar. In going westward from Pensacola, come no nearer than within 5 miles from Mobile-point, and when that bears N, run till you bring the east end of the Sand-key to bear N 27°: W in one with the east end of Dauphin-island; then you will be on the bar in 13 or 14 feet, run up on said course, and you will soon have 18, 24, 30, 40 feet; the bar is short: continue to go so till you are abreast & pretty near the Sand-Key, then haul up N 3 E, and run in, observing not to borrow too nigh on the starboard breakers; after you are abreast Mobile-point, you may gradually haul up more eastward; then bring the point to [lxxxvi] bear about SW, or SWbS 2 or 22 miles off, and you may anchor in from 3 to 42 fathom depth. Or you may bring the south end of the sand key just shut in with the S E end of Pelican key, and run in till you are in 15 foot, which is the bar; then steer W, or W 2 N, till you bring the ¤rstmentioned marks on, & run in as before directed: This way is deeper, but not so certain. There are two swatches thro’ the east breaker, and the old harbour (which according to Charlevoix, was ruined by an earthquake) lies back of Pelican Island, and the west breaker; the draught explains them. On shore, are the ruins of the French settlement, which formerly was on that island; what is left most perfect, is the remains of a guard-house, in the sand-hills, and a remnant of a salt-work on the beach, all the rest has been swallowed by the sea; after great storms, it is not uncommon to ¤nd numbers of human bones at this place. Being got into this bay, the way up to town is easy, but the whole of the way is shallow, no where exceeding 16 feet; there are no shallows, except between Point Claire and Roebuck river; where is an oyster-bank, which is easily avoided by keeping nearest to the larboard or west shore. Having been pretty explicit about the tides on the eastern coast, it may naturally be expected that I should say as much about the tides in the Gulph of Mexico; but little or nothing can be said about so unstable a matter, from Sandy-Key and Sandy-Point, or Punta Tancha, through the whole bay of Juan Ponce de Leon, up as far as Punta Largo or Cape-Roman, it runs tide and half tide in the [lxxxvii] same manner as at Plymouth, the Needles and Wight, in England; that is to say, three hours ®ood, then three hours ebb, next nine hours ®ood, and lastly nine hours ebb, it does not rise to an equal height in all places, nor does it run equally rapid in every part; in some narrow places,

343


A Concise Natural History

344


Bernard Romans

I have met it a mere fall, and in almost every gut among the many islands in this bay, I have found it as much as four stout men could do, to stem the current in a Moses. From Cape-Roman northward and westward in every part of the Mexican Sea, the tide seems to ebb and ®ow once in 24 hours; but it being very much governed by the winds, this circumstance happens very irregular; for with a S or SW and W wind, it will ®ow much longer than it will fall; whereas with a N or NE and E wind, it will ebb much longer than it will rise; consequently, it happens frequently that at the time of springs, we ¤nd less water on a bar than at neap times, and vice versa. I never could observe it to rise above two feet any where at the highest times; yet its effect on the current of the rivers, is in dry summers very visible, a great way from the sea; and I have been told that instances are not wanting, when the water of Missisippi, was brackish above the town of Orleans. There is a constant current in the open Gulph, setting ESE, or thereabouts, at the rate of 1 or 12 knot per hour, of which all observing people coming through that sea are very soon sensible. The passage to the eastward of the Tortugas, is to be depended upon as laid down in my maps; coming through it from the northward, you will [lxxxviii] see a rip appear like breakers; but in the rip is 18 or 20 fathom, and the moment a ship gets into this rip, she jumps out of soundings. A note in page lxi of the appendix, refers to the end; the note was accidentally omitted, and intended to be as follows,--Besides this reason for standing longer off than in, there is one still greater. Every experienced mariner knows, that a vessel will run a distance towards shore in much less time, than she can run the same distance from it; and that the higher the land is she works under, the quicker she runs in, consequently the slower off; hence almost every one in beating upon a lee-shore, will stand out a longer time than in; but few even among the most experienced know the philosophy of this phœnomenon; against which they so carefully guard. It is that great law of nature whereby all light bodies must fall on the heavier ones, I mean attraction. To explain this by an experiment, take any vessel, ¤ll it almost with water, put a cork or chip in it, while that remains in the center, it is attracted from ever side alike, and therefore stands ¤xed, but no sooner is it thrown out of the center, than it will begin to approach the side, and as it draws near, attraction is increased, till at last the velocity of the chip becomes so great, as to run with a considerable violence against the vessel, where it remains ¤xed; and if it is an oblong piece in shape of a vessel, the same will happen, as when a ship runs ashore stem on, viz. it will wind broad-side too. The explanation of this affair, I am indebted for to the

[lxxxix] hon. John Collins Esq; of Newport, Rhode-Island, ¤rst counsellor of the colony, and an experienced commander. It may not be amiss to conclude this appendix with an answer to a question which has been very often put to me, viz. Why are books intended to elucidate navigation on any coast called Waggoners? What connection is there between a waggoner and any thing that concerns the sea, or a ship? In answer to this, I say from the best authority, that the ¤rst book of the kind ever published, called the Mirror of Navigation, was wrote and printed at Enkhuyzen, the author’s name was Lucas Jansen Wagenaar;284 and his book remaining a very long while the only one of that sort, it was usually enquired for by that name, and in course of usuage the name ¤xed on all that followed it. FIN IS.

Erratum in Appendix—Page x, line 18, for many, read wet

345


A Concise Natural History

E R R ATA Page

3 Line 16 17 18 do 5 7 10 5 14 12 20 15 17 16 26 31 13 do 24 37 19 46 2 49 23 — 31 80 17 88 last, 91 34 94 20 112 33 115 18 116 22 154 7 — 10 173 7 216 25 26

for was, read is. 1771. I felt, read 1771, i felt after Nassau, a full stop. dele and. for vegitables, read vegetables. regad, read regard. unweary, read unwary: penetrates pervades. mud, read ef®uvia of small animals. dele fo. this, the. the best very good. after the above named, add bituminous one. for seperation, read separation. America joins, America nearly joins. dele by land. for caly, clay. voyage, voyages. Galphus, Galphin. or the, of the. temporary, temporal. leaks, leeks. of the art, for the art. Cortex Eleuthera, r. Cassia Cinnamomia. Cascarilla, read Cinnamon. the same, a small. form, forming. and thus form, read erect.

Pg.

221 — 252 276 280 281 283 284 286 287 290 293 296 — 297 302 304 319 — — 321 324

line 3 for a period, read a long period. note, combenaisones, combinaisons. note, Chryso Calanus, read Chrysobalanus. line 20 course, read coast. last, after river, add, Apalachicola. 13 for maintain, read mention. 21 Bromelia,Tillandsia. 19 NW [sic] N 12 stumps swamps. 32 after page add 274 15 for cultivated, read cultivable. 18 Panao, read papao. 10 Black, read bark. 12 dele 12 [sic] 11 for grand, read Grant. 21 Matto Chatto. 19 Bean camp, read Bear Camp. 24 Chicasaws;—crossed, r. Chicasaws crosses. 32 after trickling down, put ; 33 after length, dele : 10 for cones, read canes. 29 arid ochre, like earth, r. a red ochre—like earth. 35 done, read down.

In the Subscribers Names, after William Vassal Esq; for ditto, read Boston. For Robert William Yates, read Robert Waldron Yates. [Editor’s note: These corrections have been included in the text at the appropriate place in square brackets. They are denoted with the initials br.]

Advertisement

The map of the country of the savage nations, intended to be put, facing page 72, was engraved by a Gentleman who resides in the country 60 or 70 miles from NewYork,285 to whom the plate was sent; but when it was sent back, it miscarried, through the carelesness of the waggoner; and though the publication has been delayed some time on that account, it is not yet come to hand; the reader will therefore please to expect said map with the seond volume. At the ¤rst planning of this publication, it was intended only to be a single volume, not exceeding 300 pages, appendix and all; but at the request of some Gentlemen, my friends, I have subjoined so many articles, that it swelled imperceptibly to about 800 pages, which made it necessary to print it in two volumes; and as some unexpected accidents, especially the want of a copper-plate printer, have occasioned delays; I will therefore, to atone in some measure ( for said delays) to those kind Gentlemen who favoured me with their subscriptions for the maps, deliver them the second volume gratis, as soon as it is published: It is now in the press.286 I return my most sincere thanks for the liberal encouragement that has been afforded me; and hope my work will be deemed deserving it. B E R N A R D RO M A N S

Notes

Ber nard Romans: His Life and Works 1. Bernard Romans to Lord Dartmouth, November 6, 1773, in Great Britain, Public Record Of¤ce, Colonial Of¤ce, Series 5, America and West Indies, vol. 74, fol. 197. Hereafter, Colonial Of¤ce Series 5 material will be cited as CO5/volume, ¤rst page of the folio number. 2. There is one popular biography of Romans. See Lincoln Diamant, Bernard Romans: Forgotten Patriot of the American Revolution (Harrison, New York: Harbor Hill Books, 1985). This generally well-researched and well-written study concentrates on Romans’s Revolutionary War service, but does contain a number of factual errors and omissions. Philip Lee Phillips, Notes on the Life and Works of Bernard Romans, Publications of the Florida State Historical Society, no. 2 (Deland: Florida State Historical Society, 1924), is an edited collection of valuable primary source material. The work includes a reproduction on eleven large sheets of the two sheet maps that originally accompanied A Concise Natural History. The latest edition of Phillips, Notes, with an introduction by John D. Ware, was issued as part of the Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1975). Ware’s introductory essay contains additional information about Romans’s life. The 1975 edition is used throughout this study and is cited as Phillips, Notes, hereafter. Ware’s remarks are indicated by roman numeral pagination, whereas Phillips’s original material is indicated by arabic numeral pagination. Rembert W. Patrick’s introductory essay in A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, facsimile reproduction of the 1775 edition with introduction by Rembert W. Patrick (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), hereafter cited as Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, is also useful, though outdated and incomplete. More recently, Remo Salta, “Bernard Romans: Cartographer for the U.S. Continental Army,” Mercator’s World 1 (1996): 50– 55, provided a brief review of Romans’s career. 3. Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Romans, Bernard,” and Dictionary of American Biography, s.v. “Romans, Bernard,” as well as most secondary sources, list 1720 as his date of birth, although there is no evidence given to support the date. Family tradition holds that Bernard Romans was born in Amsterdam. Letter from Priscilla Romans Hester, February 8, 1998, in the author’s possession. Some family papers and possessions concerning Bernard Romans were lost in a ¤re in Brewster,

350


Notes to Pages 2–3

New York, in 1918. Letter from Peter Romans, January 29, 1998, in author’s possession. 4. Phillips, Notes, pp. xl–xli. 5. Annals of the Troubles in the Netherlands . . . , vol. 1 (Hartford: Watson & Goodwin 1778). Reprinted in Phillips, Notes, pp. 94–95. Romans prefaced A Concise Natural History, hereafter cited as CNH, with the same assertion; see p. 4. All page references to CNH refer to original pagination, shown in brackets in the text. 6. For example, on the last page of CNH, appendix, p. lxxxix, Romans explained why books of navigational charts were termed waggoners, and he is cited by the Oxford English Dictionary for this word. 7. Another leading surveyor in America about the same time was Samuel Holland, whose work centered in Canada. Believed to have been born in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Holland served in the Dutch army prior to joining the British army around 1754 and arriving in America in 1756. This may very well have been the manner in which Romans found employ in the British service. Encyclopedia Canadiana: The Encyclopedia of Canada, s.v. “Holland, Samuel.” For information on Holland’s scienti¤c career, see Brooke Hindle, The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), pp. 174–76. 8. Bernard Romans to Lord Dartmouth, November 6, 1773, CO5/74, fol. 197. 9. Romans to Commissioners for Forti¤cations, Martelaer’s Rock, November 16, 1775, in Peter Force, American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and other Notices of Public Affairs . . . (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1837–1853), 4th series, vol. 3, p. 1367. Also quoted in Phillips, Notes, p. xlii. 10. The mention of fourteen years in the letter to the Commissioners for Forti¤cations could simply be a transcriber’s error. The other two sources, one in Romans’s hand and the other his published work, should be considered reliable. 11. Romans discussed the Indians of Labrador with Ezra Stiles. He described them as white-skinned Indians with large beards whose curly hair was “of a dusky or reddish Hue.” The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles edited under the authority of the Corporation of Yale University by Franklin Bowditch Dexter (New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1901), vol. 1, pp. 524–5; the portion of Stiles’s diary relating to Romans is reproduced in Phillips, Notes, p. 51. If he did reach Labrador, it might very well have been as part of a surveying expedition for Lord Egmont, who owned considerable property there. Alternatively, he could have been involved in trade between the cod ¤sheries of the region and the West Indies. 12. CNH, p. 246; Bernard Romans to John Ellis, “Some Observations on a Catalogue of Plants Publishes [sic] by John Ellis Esqre F.R.S.,” August 13, 1772, in John D. Ware, “The Bernard Romans–John Ellis Letters, 1772–1774,” Florida Historical Quarterly 52 ( July 1973): 57. 13. I was able to locate Peter Milo Romans’s descendants, Peter Romans and Priscilla Romans Hester, through John Inskeep and his Bernard Romans web site. Both graciously shared their knowledge of their family history with me. Letter dated February 8, 1998, from Priscilla Hester in the author’s possession. Letter dated March 6, 1998, from Robert S. Alexander, Historian, First Church in Albany, in the author’s

possession. Hester speculates that Peter Milo may have remained in New York with his mother’s family when Bernard Romans ventured south. 14. Notice by Bernard Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774, no. 43. This lengthy notice is reproduced in Phillips, Notes, pp. 27–30. See CNH, appendix, p. xl, for the date of August 1766. The full title for this newspaper was Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, or the Connecticut, New-Jersey, Hudson’s River, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser. The tone of the statement does not suggest that Romans was employed in government service on this voyage. 15. CNH, appendix, p. xlii. In another passage, Romans related that on one occasion, presumably the same one mentioned previously, he put in at the Isle of Pines “for wood and water, and found mahogany growing so handy that I took in about 4000 feet of it in a very few days” (appendix, liv). Phillips, Notes, p. xliii. 16. CNH, appendix, pp. xli–xlii. 17. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774, in Phillips, Notes, p. 29. See also CNH, appendix, p. i. 18. The wording Romans uses in describing this wreck would seem to indicate he was not aboard the ship at the time it was lost. 19. Phillips, Notes, p. xliii. The exact date of Romans’s appointment has not been determined. De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America, edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971), p. 33. 20. Phillips, Notes, pp. 45–46; Rembert Patrick ¤gured Romans’s total landholdings at more than 1050 acres in Georgia and East Florida. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. xiii. 21. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 22. Egmont also had considerable Canadian holdings. In addition to developing a 22,000-acre grant near Halifax, he claimed an additional 100,000 acres in that province. See Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), pp. 364–72, for Egmont’s Canadian plans. It is unclear whether Romans participated in surveying any of Egmont’s Canadian holdings, but the possibility exists. 23. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, p. 438. For information on the estate, see Daniel L. Schafer, “Plantation Development in British East Florida: A Case Study of the Earl of Egmont,” Florida Historical Quarterly 63 (1984): 172–83. 24. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 25. Kathryn E. Holland [Braund], “The Path between the Wars: Creek Relations with the British Colonies, 1763–1774” (Master’s thesis, Auburn University, 1980), pp. 108–9. The de¤nitive study of the Indian boundary line is Louis De Vorsey, Jr., The Indian Boundary in the Southern Colonies, 1763–1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 152–60. 26. Lachlan McGillivray to John Stuart, December 14, 1768, CO5/70, fol. 73. 27. Phillips, Notes, p. xcii n. 56. The correct title of Romans’s map is “Sketch of the Boundary Line as It Is Now Mark’d Between the . . . Province and the Creek Indian Nation (a certi¤ed copy).” It is dated 1769 and is located in the British Public Record Of¤ce, MPG 337. See De Vorsey, Indian Boundary, p. 258; Edward J. Cashin,

351


Notes to Pages 3–4

352


Notes to Pages 4 –6

Lachlan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992), pp. 242–43. 28. Georgia Gazette, January 6, 1768, p. 2, col. 2, and July 13, 1768, p. 2, col. 1. 29. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. xii; De Brahm’s Report, pp. 40–41. Quotation from Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 30. De Brahm’s Report, p. 185. 31. Georgia Gazette, April 12, 1769, p. 2, col. 1. Phillips, Notes, pp. xliii–xliv. 32. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 33. CNH, pp. 2, 287, and appendix, p. lxxxii. Regrettably, his journal of the trip was lost and Romans does not elaborate on this journey. 34. Bernard Romans to Dr. Williamson, December 20, 1773, Dartmouth Papers, County Record Of¤ce, Stafford, England. Romans also mentions De Soto’s route in CNH, p. 99. For a good summary of the latest ¤ndings on Hernando de Soto’s route, see Charles Hudson, “The Hernando de Soto Expedition, 1539–1543,” in The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521–1704, edited by Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994), pp. 74–103. 35. At this time, Romans stated he had a crew of twenty-three men. “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida by [Bernard Romans], July 1773,” in Kenneth G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, 20 vols. (Dublin, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972–1979), 6:192; hereafter cited as Davies, DAR. CNH, p. 273. 36. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:192. He does not mention how he disposed of the runaway slaves. Presumably he was either rewarded by their owners for their return or sold them at market price to his pro¤t at a later date. 37. Wilbur Henry Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida, 1774 to 1785: The Most Important Documents Pertaining Thereto. Vol. II: Records of Their Claims for Losses of Property in the Province (Deland: Florida State Historical Society, 1929), p. 117. 38. De Brahm’s Report, p. 43. 39. De Brahm’s Report, pp. 42, 299 n. 65 (quotation from p. 271 n. 188). 40. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. De Brahm’s dispute with Governor Grant is fully described in De Brahm’s Report, pp. 40–43. 41. De Brahm’s Report, p. 43. 42. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. In Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, the size of Touchett’s grant is given as 2000 acres. This is an obvious misprint; the actual size of the grant was 20,000 acres. Romans’s certi¤cation of his survey map stated that the tract consisted of 20,000 acres. Likewise, Phillips, Notes, p. 29, reprinted 2000 acres. For information on the survey, see James C. Frazier, “The Samuel Touchett Plantation, 1773,” Tequesta 35 (1975): 75–88. Touchett made his fortune as a textile merchant, and by the early 1770s was a slave trader, sugar planter, and ship owner and had business contacts in the Far East, the West Indies, and America. He obtained his East Florida grant in 1766, but by the

1770s, he was in dire ¤nancial straits. He proposed to locate a large plantation in the region. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, p. 466. 43. Frazier, “Samuel Touchett’s Florida Plantation.” The manuscript survey by Romans is in the Map Collection of the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University, call number *792M58+1771. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, p. 466. The grant was never developed, and Touchett committed suicide in 1773. For his career, see Frazier, “Samuel Touchett’s Florida Plantation.” 44. Frazier, “Samuel Touchett’s Florida Plantation,” appendix B. According to Romans, he should have been paid £70 sterling, but Mulcaster refused to honor his request for payment, since he did not return the survey in person. Said Romans, “Thus I never had one farthing of this pittance, which would have scarcely paid for provisions.” Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 45. Quotations from Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. CNH, pp. 2, 276. 46. CNH, p. 2. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 47. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 48. John Stuart to Earl of Hillsborough, February 6, 1772, CO5/73, fol. 46. At the time, there was no commissary among the Creeks as there was among the other three major tribes under Stuart’s jurisdiction. Taitt was paid ¤fteen shillings sterling per day plus expenses. Taitt proved a very able man and eventually was given a permanent place in the Southern Indian Department. 49. John Stuart to David Taitt, January 20, 1772, CO5/73, fol. 59. 50. Stuart enclosed Taitt’s two journals in a letter to the Earl of Hillsborough, July 19, 1772. The manuscript journals can be found in CO5/73, fol. 276. They have been published in Davies, DAR, 5:251–82. An earlier published version appeared in Newton D. Mereness, ed., Travels in the American Colonies (New York: Antiquarian Society, 1916), pp. 493–565. For information on Taitt’s career, see The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., edited by Richard L. Blanco (New York: Garland, 1993), s.v. “Taitt, David.” 51. CNH, p. 305. 52. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:194. 53. CNH, p. 82. 54. CNH, pp. 333–34. Charles Stuart, the deputy superintendent, and thirty Choctaws, in addition to the surveyor, left Mobile on January 16, 1772. De Vorsey, Indian Boundary, p. 222. 55. CNH, p. 334. 56. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:194. Romans’s journey is covered in CNH. See also Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile: An Historical Study, edited by Charles G. Summersell (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976), pp. 275–76. 57. Peter Chester to Hillsborough, October 7, 1772, Davies, DAR, 4:682. The manuscript copy of the essay that accompanied the map, found in CO5/590, fol. 299, carries the following information at the end: “Copied from the original and general map of West Florida drawn by B. Romans, July 22, 1773. Endorsed, Q. If this is not

353


Notes to Pages 6 –8

354


Notes to Pages 8 –10

Mr. Romans’ performance.” According to a note that accompanies the version published in Davies, DAR, “the map to which the writer refers is not now in the Public Record Of¤ce and appears never to have been transferred there.” Davies, DAR, 6:186. Repeated searches have failed to produce the map, and it is currently listed by the Public Record Of¤ce as “wanting.” However, Phillips evidently found the map when he researched Romans’s career in the early part of this century. In his Notes, he lists the map’s location as Maps. Florida, no. 52, London. See pp. 74–75. Jack D. L. Holmes, in “A Mystery Map of West Florida: A Cartographical Puzzle,” in Threads of Tradition and Culture along the Gulf Coast, edited by Ronald V. Evans (Pensacola: Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference, 1986), pp. 216–29, discusses a map of West Florida that is almost certainly based on the one prepared by Romans. The map is titled “A New Map of West Florida, including the Chactaw, Chicasaw, & Upper Creek Nations, with a large Part of the Spanish Dominions, West of the Mississippi, & a part of East Florida. From different actual Surveys & the best other Authorities.” Included on the unsigned map is an unidenti¤ed catalog number: No. 1294 1/2. The copy also has the following inscription: “Boundary Line between the United States & Spain, as settled by Ellicott 31°.” This, as well as other evidence, leads to the conclusion that a revised copy of the eighteenth-century map was used as a guide by the Americans during boundary negotiations with Spain. Copies of the map are located at the Birmingham Public Library and the Auburn University Archives. 58. This map now resides among the Gage Papers, William L. Clements Library. See Christian Brun, comp., Guide to the Manuscript Maps in the William L. Clements Library (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959), pp. 160–61. The full title of the map is “A Map of part of West Florida done under the direction of the Honourable John Stuart Esq.e & by him humbly inscribed to his Excellency Thomas Gage Esquire General and Commander in Chief of all his Majesty’s Forces in North America—Survey’d and drawn by Bernard Romans, between The Month of June 1772 & January 1773.” A copy of the map is printed in the guide. There are signi¤cant differences between this map and “A New Map of West Florida . . . ,” discussed in Holmes, “A Mystery Map of West Florida: A Cartographical Puzzle.” 59. Romans’s essay has been published by Phillips, Notes, as the appendix. It also appeared in Mrs. Dunbar Rowland, Peter Chester: Third Governor of the Province of West Florida, Mississippi Historical Society Publications, Centenary series, vol. 5 ( Jackson: Press of Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1925), pp. 171–83. It can also be found in Davies, DAR, 6:186–95. 60. Phillips, Notes, pp. lii–liv. 61. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:188. Romans suggested New Augusta since Augusta, Georgia, was the center of the trade with the southeastern Indians from Georgia and South Carolina. 62. Romans left the colony before the Council could rule on Simpson’s petition. Phillips, Notes, pp. liii–iv. 63. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:194. Robert R. Rea and Jack D. L. Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer and the Natural Sciences in British West Florida,” Southern Humanities Review 4 (Fall 1970): 363–72. 64. Rea and Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer,” p. 369.

65. While latitude was relatively easy to ascertain, longitude was more dif¤cult. Lorimer determined the longitude of Pensacola Harbor by observing the eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites in 1766. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:194. 66. Rea and Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer.” 67. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. Romans and Gauld never met face to face because Gauld was at sea the entire time Romans was in West Florida. John D. Ware and Robert R. Rea, George Gauld: Surveyor and Cartographer of the Gulf Coast (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982), pp. 194–98. 68. “Extract of a Letter from Dr. Lorimer, of West Florida, to Hugh Williamson, M.D., Read before the Society, 21st April, 1769,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for promoting Useful Knowledge, vol. 1 (Philadelphia: William and Thomas Bradford, 1771; reprint, New York: Kraus, 1966), pp. 250–51. William Bartram visited Pensacola on September 5, 1775, and Dr. Lorimer was one of the ¤rst to welcome him. Bartram, for unknown reasons, attempted “to conceal my avocations” and thus avoid being detected. Lorimer wished to introduce Bartram to Governor Chester, but Bartram refused. He was later introduced to Chester in any case. Chester also offered Bartram support for his botanical studies in the colony. For this curious episode, see Francis Harper, ed., The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist’s Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 414–15. 69. Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), chapter one. Joyce E. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730–1815 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), pp. 68– 71. Sarah P. Stetson, “The Traf¤c in Seeds and Plants from England’s Colonies in North America,” Agricultural History 23 (1949): 45–56. 70. Romans, “Some Observations on a Catalogue of Plants Publishes [sic] by John Ellis Esquire, F.R.S.,” in Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 57. 71. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:190. 72. Extract of a letter from Doctor Lorimer at Pensacola dated the 13th of August 1772 to Mr. Gauld at Port Royal, Jamaica. American Philosophical Society Library, Philadelphia. 73. Robert R. Rea, “The King’s Agent for British West Florida,” Alabama Review 16 (April 1963):151. 74. Peter Chester to Lord Hillsborough, August 14, 1772, in Davies, DAR, 5:168–69. 75. Rea, “King’s Agent,” p. 142. 76. Among his other publications was a paper on the methods of transporting seeds and botanical specimens long distances. These instructions were passed along by Dr. John Fothergill to William Bartram, whose outstanding collection of eighteenthcentury specimens is still preserved in the British Museum (Natural History). Roy A. Rauschenberg, “John Ellis, Royal Agent for West Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 62 ( July 1983): 17–18. 77. “A Catalogue of such FOREIGN PLANTS, as are worthy of being encour-

355


Notes to Pages 10 –12

356


Notes to Pages 12 –13

aged in our American Colonies, for the Purposes of Medicine, Agriculture, and Commerce,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1:255–66. For information on Ellis and his scienti¤c work, see Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters”; Rauschenberg, “John Ellis”; and Rea, “King’s Agent.” 78. Bernard Romans to John Ellis, August 13, 1772, in Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” pp. 58–59 (all quotations are from p. 58). It is interesting, especially regarding his view of the stamina of white laborers, that Romans proposed to hire wage labor for his garden—presumably white—rather than buy slaves for that purpose. 79. Ibid. (quotation from p. 59). 80. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774, no. 43. 81. Bernard Romans to John Ellis, March 1, 1774, in Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 60. Six hundred casks of indigo seed were also on board, which would have been, according to Romans, “the most pro¤table article, by far of any we had with us.” Letter to the editor of the Royal American Magazine, January 15, 1774, p. 13. 82. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774, no. 43. 83. There was one potential vacancy in Stuart’s department, that of deputy superintendent to the Small Tribes on the Mississippi. In June 1772, Stuart had dismissed his troublesome agent, John Thomas. However, had Stuart mentioned that position to Romans, there would have been no need for him to travel to South Carolina. Rather, he would have been expected to take up duties along the Mississippi River. Thomas was later reinstated. For information on the Thomas episode, see Robert R. Rea, “Redcoats and Redskins on the Lower Mississippi, 1763–1776: The Career of Lt. John Thomas,” Louisiana History 11 (Winter 1970): 5–35. Stuart’s department is covered in more detail in John R. Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier: A Study of Indian Relations, War, Trade, and Land Problems in the Southern Wilderness, 1754–1775 (Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1944; reprint, New York: Gordian, 1966), pp. 318–19, 329–33. Given Romans’s views on the of¤ce of commissary, whose main duty was to keep an eye on the deerskin traders, it seems unlikely that Stuart would have appointed him in that capacity. See CNH, p. 69, for Romans’s views on the of¤ce of commissary. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 24, states that the position tendered by Stuart was that of “King’s botanist.” The records do not support this statement and, indeed, it was outside Stuart’s authority to make such an appointment. George III, who had a decided lack of interest in botanical sciences, had been persuaded by advisors in 1765 to make a modest £50 allowance to Philadelphia botanist John Bartram for an expedition into East Florida, but failed to make a permanent appointment. 84. On June 13, 1772, Stuart informed Hillsborough that the map for West Florida and the Choctaw and Chickasaw country—Romans’s work—would be sent to London as soon as David Taitt’s observations could be added to it. David Taitt had arrived in Charleston from the Creek country the previous day. John Stuart to Hillsborough, June 13, 1773, CO5/73, fol. 73, and “David Taitt’s Journal to and through the Lower Creek Nation,” Davies, DAR, 5:282. Thus it seems obvious that Stuart carried a copy of Romans’s West Florida work back to Charleston with him. When Taitt arrived in Charleston, it was Purcell who combined the results of these two historic surveys into the famous map now known as the Stuart-Gage map. John Stuart’s efforts toward mapping the southeast are discussed in Louis De Vorsey, Jr., “The Co-

lonial Southeast on ‘An Accurate General Map,’ ” Southeastern Geographer 6 (1966): 20–32. 85. The fact that John Stuart employed two of his former employees irked De Brahm enormously and points to the ¤erce competition among British cartographers during this phase of British expansion, exploration, and settlement in the Floridas. In late October 1773, De Brahm wrote to Lord Dartmouth that Purcell had “secretly” taken copies of his surveys and joined Stuart. He noted Romans, who had already worked for Stuart in West Florida, had “made himself guilty of the same in¤delity.” Moreover, De Brahm claimed that Stuart’s appointment was entirely due to his own recommendation. William Gerard De Brahm to Lord Dartmouth, October 23, 1773, Dartmouth Papers. 86. Both maps are part of the Gage Papers, William L. Clements Library. See Brun, Guide to the Manuscript Maps in the William L. Clements Library, pp. 160–61. An early analysis of the map, as it related to the Choctaw villages, was done by H. S. Halbert, “Bernard Romans’ Map of 1772,” Mississippi Historical Society Publications, vol. 6 ( Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1902), pp. 415–39. A more recent examination of this map in regard to the location of Choctaw villages is Kenneth Hoffman Carleton, “Eighteenth-Century Trails in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi and Alabama” (Master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 1989). 87. The Stuart-Gage map, so named because it was forwarded by John Stuart to General Thomas Gage, resides in the Clements Library. See Brun, Guide to the Manuscript Maps in the William L. Clements Library, pp. 160–61. The starting place for research on early maps is William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, 3d rev. ed., edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998). See pp. 325–26 for a discussion of the Stuart-Gage map. A large cession of Creek land in mid-1773 to Georgia soon rendered the Stuart-Gage map outdated, and so John Stuart authorized a revision of the 1773 map. This map too was a composite of the work by Romans, David Taitt, Charles Stuart, and others, but shows the boundary of the New Purchase Cession of June 1, 1773. Completed in 1775, by Joseph Purcell, it is generally known as the Stuart-Purcell map. Manuscript copies of this map are found in the Public Record Of¤ce and the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library. De Vorsey, “Southeast on ‘An Accurate General Map,’ ” discusses the Stuart-Purcell map in detail. See also Cumming, Southeast in Early Maps, 3d rev. ed, pp. 323 and 24. Carleton, “Eighteenth-Century Trails,” p. 112, believes that the 1773 map is more accurate in regard to the Choctaw town sites, as he was able to trace Romans’s journal, published as part of CNH, on the 1773 map but not on the 1775 map. 88. Fothergill was a famous London physician who, like Garden, was a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He owned one of the largest private botanical gardens in England. He was also a member of the Society of Friends, or Quakers. 89. Hindle, Pursuit of Science, pp. 52–58. 90. Alexander Garden to John Ellis, May 15, 1773, in Sir James Edward Smith, A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and other Naturalists, from the Original Manuscripts (London: Longman, 1821), vol. 1, p. 597. 91. William Bartram also mentioned wild jalap (Convolvulus pandurata or Ipomoea

357


Notes to Pages 13 –15

358


Notes to Pages 16 –17

pandurata L.). Waselkov and Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 163 and 275 n. 59. Virgil J. Vogel, American Indian Medicine (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), pp. 324–25. 92. Garden to Ellis, May 15, 1773, in Smith, Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. 1, p. 596. 93. Ibid., p. 597. 94. Ibid., pp. 597–98. 95. Romans to Ellis, March 1, 1774, in Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 60. 96. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. xxxii. 97. Boston Gazette, January 10, 1774, no. 979, reproduced in Phillips, Notes, pp. 25–26 (quotations are from p. 26). 98. John Stuart to Thomas Gage, April 22, 1773, Gage Papers. 99. Thomas Gage to John Stuart, June 3, 1773, Gage Papers. 100. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. Romans arrived in Pensacola in August 1771. Thus, if his statement is correct, he would have forwarded his work on the East Coast of Florida and the Bahama Banks to New York in 1769. 101. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 26 and 28. 102. Phillips, Notes, p. 48. 103. Although there is some doubt as to the actual publisher of the work since the title page simply states that the book was printed for the author, overwhelming evidence points to James Rivington of New York. Phillips, Notes, p. 38. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer carried advertisements for the book, as did other papers, but it was in Rivington’s paper that Romans placed a long defense of his forthcoming work when charges of pirating arose. In his printed defense, dated February 3, 1774, he stated that Mr. Rivington and Mr. Hazard were the only two people who had, to his knowledge, seen his unpublished manuscript. Mr. Hazard was almost certainly a partner of Noel and Hazard, booksellers. See Notice by Romans, Rivington’s NewYork Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 39, identi¤es Mr. Hazard as Ebenezer Hazard, as does Phillips, Notes; see index, p. 5. However, judging from subsequent statements by Ebenezer Hazard, it seems unlikely Romans would have called upon him to defend his honor. See Hazard’s statements regarding Romans and his work in Phillips, Notes, p. 72. By the date of the advertisement, publication was well along, making it almost certain that Rivington was indeed the printer of the book. 104. Catherine Snell Crary, “The Tory and the Spy: The Double Life of James Rivington,” William and Mary Quarterly 16 (1959): 66. 105. “No. XLV. Extract of a Letter from Bernard Romans, of Pensacola, dated August 20, 1773,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 2:396–97; Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge . . . from the Manuscript Minutes of its Meetings from 1744 to 1838 (Philadelphia: McCalla & Stavely, 1884), p. 82. Romans’s knowledge of this type of compass was doubtless improved by his association with Dr. Lorimer. After years of study, Lorimer published A Concise Essay on Magnetism; with an Account of the Declination and Inclination of the Magnetic Needle; and an Attempt to Ascertain the Cause of the Variation thereof (London: Printed for the Author, 1795). See Rea and Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer,” pp. 369–70.

Hindle, Pursuit of Science, pp. 178–79, speculates that Lorimer and Gauld sent their letters to the American Philosophical Society in anticipation of Romans’s visit. According to Hindle, “they were probably anxious that he not assume the sole scienti¤c merit of the Florida group.” The last communications from Lorimer and Gauld were dated February 1773; Romans had left West Florida the month before. While Hindle may be correct in his ideas regarding the motives of Lorimer and Gauld, it is equally plausible, and indeed more likely, that it was Lorimer who encouraged Romans to solicit the society’s aid. 106. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. William and Thomas Bradford were the publishers of the Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. William Bartram later published a description of the Florida kalmia in his Travels. Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, p. 13. 107. Phillips, Notes, pp. 48–49. The ¤rst West Florida member of the society was Dr. John Lorimer, who was elected to membership in 1769. Other members connected with the colony, besides Romans, included George Gauld, Thomas Hutchins, and John Ellis. Rea and Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer,” p. 369. 108. Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, p. 90. 109. Hillsborough to Chester, December 9, 1772, Davies, DAR, 4:215; William Knox to Chester, March 3, 1773, Davies, DAR, 4:271 (quotation); “Estimate of Civil Establishment of West Florida, 24 June 1773–24 June 1774,” Davies, DAR, 7:95; and “Estimate of Civil Establishment of West Florida for 1774–1775,” Davies, DAR, 7:318; Cecil Johnson, British West Florida, 1763–1783 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), pp. 21–22. 110. Bernard Romans to John Ellis, November 6, 1773, in Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” pp. 59. 111. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 30. The description followed his name in the subscriber list for Rivington’s edition of John Hawkesworth’s A New Voyage Round the World in the Years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771 . . . 2 vols. (New York: J. Rivington, 1774). In Rivington’s New-York Gazette, in September 1773, he was identi¤ed as “Botanist for East and West Florida.” Kenneth Scott, comp., Rivington’s New York Newspaper: Excerpts from a Loyalist Press, 1773–1783 (New York: New York Historical Society, 1973), p. 43. 112. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, New York, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. 113. The quote by Linnaeus appears with others by Isaac Biberg and Frances Bacon in CNH, opposite the dedicatory page to John Ellis. 114. Hillsborough resigned in August 1772, but had nonetheless approved Romans’s allowance in December of the same year. 115. Bernard Romans to Lord Dartmouth, November 6, 1773, CO5/74, fol. 197. His biographers have not failed to note his interest in botany. It is of interest that Henry R. Stiles, ed., The History of Ancient Wethers¤eld, Connecticut . . . (New York: Grafton Press, 1904), vol. 2, p. 587, in describing Romans, wrote, “Capt. Romans was evidently a man of ¤ne education, and scienti¤c attainments, and a diligent observer of Nature—especially in the dep’t of Botany.” 116. Romans to Dartmouth, November 6, 1773, CO5/74, fol. 197.

359


Notes to Pages 17 –18

360


Notes to Pages 18 –21

117. Romans to Dartmouth, November 6, 1773, CO5/74, fol. 197. The poor copy of the original makes it impossible to determine exactly what Romans sent with the proposal. Most likely, he included copies of the drawings of the two Florida plants that he had earlier sent to the American Philosophical Society. 118. Rea and Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer,” p. 366, discuss Lorimer’s views. Lorimer acquainted the American Philosophical Society with his views on the matter in “Extracts of a Letter from Dr. Lorimer, of West Florida, to Hugh Williamson, M.D. Read before the Society, 21st April 1769,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1:250. Diamant speculates he was “inspired by his engraving of Cook’s circumnavigation.” Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 33. This is incorrect, as the engraving was not done until 1774, and Romans’s proposals came at the end of 1773. The impetus for the journey most certainly was Dr. John Lorimer. Other theorists attributed the similarities of climate to the fact that parts of China and Japan shared the same latitude of the Americas. This belief is what prompted the Trustees of Georgia to pursue silk production in the early days of Georgia’s settlement. 119. Williamson also sponsored Lorimer and George Gauld for membership in the prestigious Philadelphia society. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 33. 120. B. Romans to Doctor Williamson, December 20, 1773. Dartmouth Papers. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 36–37. Peter Romans would have been twelve years old at the time. In his letter to Dartmouth, Romans indicated that he had a “more Compleat” plan for the expedition in New York. This document has not been located. It is of interest that Romans was so vague in relating how he would cross the Paci¤c. The construction of a sailing vessel for a direct ocean voyage would have been out of the question, leading to the conclusion that Romans planned to construct craft suitable for travelling along the coast. Perhaps he sought the illusive land bridge between the Americas and Asia. 121. Although the lengthy poem has been attributed to Romans by some, this is doubtful, given that in the letter in which he submitted the poem to the editor of the magazine, Romans declared that the poem showed that “its author had a true idea of the Worth of AMERICA.” There seems little doubt that had he been the author, he would have noted the fact in his letter. The poem appeared in the January 1774 issue, pp. 32–33. 122. Bernard Romans to John Ellis, March 1, 1774, Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 60. 123. Bernard Romans to John Ellis, May 14, 1774, Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 61. 124. The map, which showed Cook’s route, appeared in volume 1 of John Hawkesworth, A New Voyage. Rivington’s edition of Hawkesworth’s work, which included an erroneous “e” at the end of Cook’s name (Cooke) in the title page of volume two, is now very rare and expensive. Phillips, Notes, p. 76. The original edition of the book was published in London in 1773. 125. Cook had been dispatched by the English Admiralty to observe the transit of Venus in Tahiti. The discovery of the new continent, ¤rst called New Holland, now Australia, was a happenstance. Hawkesworth’s book was based on the papers of Joseph Banks, a highly respected botanist. The botanical specimens from Australia electri¤ed

the scienti¤c community, and the classi¤cation of these entirely new species busied the scientists at Kew Gardens for years. 126. Royal American Magazine, January 15, 1774. Although he is frequently credited as the author of the piece, he did not actually claim to be the author. 127. Royal American Magazine, April 1774. 128. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 150, provides a list of newspapers in which he advertised. 129. Boston Gazette, January 10, 1774, no. 979, reproduced in Phillips, Notes, pp. 25–26 (quotation is on p. 26). 130. Ibid. 131. The 1775 edition of CNH contains three subscriber lists; a list of those who subscribed to the “work,” meaning the book and maps; a list of those who ordered the book only; and a list, preceding the appendix, of late subscribers. Most of the names on the last list were from Rhode Island. Phillips, Notes, pp. 49–50. 132. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. 133. “Huybertus Romans, Amsterdam,” is listed as a subscriber in the ¤rst edition of CNH. Many scholars render the spelling as Hubertus. Phillips, Notes, p. lxxxv, identi¤es Hubertus Romans as Bernard’s brother, but gives no reason for this designation. Romans’s descendants likewise believe that Huybertus was Bernard’s brother, citing long-standing family tradition. Letter from Priscilla Hester, February 3, 1998, in the author’s possession. 134. Stiles, Literary Diary, vol. 1, pp. 524–25. See Phillips, Notes, p. 51. For biographical information on Stiles, see Hindle, Pursuit of Science, pp. 119–20. In his diary, Stiles noted that Romans estimated the total Indian population “between Mississippi [River] & the Atlantic, & from Florida to the Poles to be fewer than One hundred Thousd Souls.” According to the diary, Romans reported the following number of gunmen for the southeastern tribes: Cherokees, 1000; Choctaws, 5000; Lower Creeks, 1160; Upper Creeks, 1200; Chickasaws, 250; and Catawbas, 50. His ¤gures varied considerably from those of Georgia Governor James Wright, who in 1773 set the number of gunmen for the tribes as follows: Cherokees, 3000; Choctaws, 2500; Upper and Lower Creeks, 2500; and Chickasaws, 450. Wright’s ¤gures were more likely to have re®ected actual population numbers. To obtain total population ¤gures (for all members of the tribes rather than simply gunmen), eighteenth-century counters generally multiplied the number of gunmen by a factor of three to ¤ve. Modern scholars generally believe that the higher ratio of noncombatants to gunmen provides a better indication of actual Indian populations. For a discussion of this matter, see Kathryn E. Holland Braund, Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with AngloAmerica, 1685–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), pp. 9 and 197– 99. A general discussion of population trends in the South during this period can be found in Peter H. Wood, “The Changing Population of the Colonial South: An Overview by Race and Region, 1685–1790,” in Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, edited by Peter H. Wood, Gregory A. Waselkov, and M. Thomas Hatley (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989), pp. 35–103. 135. The list of late subscribers is placed opposite the ¤rst page of the appendix.

361


Notes to Pages 21–23

362


Notes to Page 23

136. Phillips, Notes, p. xxxv. 137. The captain of the ship that took the exploring party to West Florida was a Wethers¤eld, Connecticut, native. The exploring party reached West Florida after Romans had left the province. For an account of the expedition, see Robin F. A. Fabel, “Encounters up the Mississippi, Yazoo, and Big Black Rivers: The Explorers of the Company of Military Adventurers,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 95– 103. In CNH, Romans reported that Putnam also provided a copy of the diary to Lorimer. Perhaps Lorimer informed Romans of the Adventurers’ plans. Of interest is a letter, dated October 23, 1774, from E. Lyman to Peter Verstrille concerning one “romans or Romain” who was then in Boston “at ye sign of Olvr Cromwell” and “his business is Surveying and taking a Plan of all your Ports and harbours.” The hastily composed letter relates that Romans had reported “throu the Country that Mr. Lyman is Dead and that he was there when he died and it was the 7th July and that he Romain Survey’d his Pattent of Land for him.” E. Lyman believed that the man was an agent of the Ministry sent to “Trick” them and “check that Infant Settlement.” In the letter, E. Lyman also noted that Phineas Lyman had been alive on July 7. The letter also stated that “romans” had arrived in Connecticut some four weeks earlier “by Land from Carolina.” E. Lyman to Peter Verstrille, October 23, 1774, Hoadly Collection, Box 8, Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford, Connecticut. E. Lyman was most likely Eleanor Lyman, the wife of Phineas, who was still in Connecticut in 1774. According to Robin Fabel, the historian of the Company of Military Adventurers, while the family home was in Middletown, Connecticut, En¤eld (End¤eld), where the letter was written, was not far away. Correspondence with the author, January 17, 1996. It seems apparent that E. Lyman had heard a garbled account of Phineas Lyman’s death. Phineas Lyman, Sr., died on September 10, 1774. His eldest son, also named Phineas, died a few days previous to his father. The exact date of Phineas Junior’s death is not known, but perhaps it was the seventh of the month. In either case, there would have been adequate time for the news to reach Connecticut from West Florida by the time of E. Lyman’s letter. Romans’s exact whereabouts during 1774 are impossible to state, but he was traveling around at the time attempting to procure subscriptions for his work. He could not have been in West Florida at the time of Lyman’s death. He was visiting New York City in August 1774 and most probably already residing in Connecticut at that time. Phillips, Notes, p. 51, cites a promissory note from Romans to Benjamin Hildreth, dated August 10, 1774, from the New York Historical Society. Perhaps Romans had received word from West Florida of Lyman’s death. Prior to leaving West Florida, Romans had surveyed the general area of Lyman’s claim. In any case, the letter does indicate that the people in Connecticut, particularly E. Lyman, were not acquainted with Bernard Romans until late 1774. It is of interest that apparently Bernard Romans learned of Lyman’s fate before other members of the general’s family received the news. 138. George S. Roberts, Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley (Schenectady, New York: Robson & Adee, 1906), p. 147. 139. Ware, “Romans-Ellis Letters,” p. 55.

140. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. Gauld’s biographers were not overly impressed by Romans’s defense and believed he might have borrowed more from Gauld than he admitted. They noted that the “precise extent of Romans’s borrowing would be almost impossible to determine” and concluded that their doubts were not meant to “discredit Bernard Romans’s undoubted contributions to cartography but to emphasize the fact that he was not a man to state the truth simply and plainly.” See Ware and Rea, George Gauld, pp. 195– 98 (quotations from pp. 195 and 196). 141. William De Brahm to Lord Dartmouth, October 23, 1773, Dartmouth Papers. 142. The ownership of charts, nautical surveys, and maps was problematic at best, especially in regard to composite maps commissioned by various British colonial departments. The same was true of published navigator’s charts, which were often based on the collective observations of numerous ship captains. Ship captains routinely kept “remarks books,” and naval captains were under orders to do so. These remarks books included port descriptions, locations of fresh water, anchoring locations, and other information valuable to navigators. While the navy was understandably reluctant to divulge information gathered by its men that might bene¤t the enemy in time of war, commercial navigators were eager to obtain such information, and printed charts and “sailing directions” were eagerly sought after and printed regularly. For a discussion of this topic, see Robert R. Rea, “Royal Navy ‘Remarks Books’ and Charles Roberts’s ‘Observations.’ ” Alabama Review 41 ( July 1988): 163–78. See also Ware and Rea, George Gauld, pp. 195–98. 143. The decision to split the work into two volumes came in early 1774. In the January 10, 1774, edition of the Boston Gazette, he advertised a book of ¤ve hundred pages. Phillips, Notes, p. 25. By the end of the month, January 27, 1774, an advertisement in the Massachusetts Gazette and the Boston Weekly News-Letter stated that the work would consist of two volumes, of three hundred pages each. Phillips, Notes, p. 37. 144. The announcement that explained this to subscribers in an “Advertisement,” was inserted as the last page of the original 1775 edition, opposite an errata list. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, pp. xxxii and li n. 67. The announcement is printed in Joseph Sabin, A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, From Its Discovery to the Present Time, vol. 17 (New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1888), pp. 532–33. It is also included in the present edition. 145. “Advertisement,” CNH; Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 41–44. 146. Boston Gazette, January 10, 1774, in Phillips, Notes, p. 26. 147. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, April 27, 1775, no. 107. 148. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 41. 149. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 41. 150. Phillips, Notes, p. 24. 151. Sabin, Dictionary of Books, 17:533. 152. Bernard Romans to Christopher Lef¤ngwell, March 13, 1776, Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the time of the letter to Lef¤ngwell, Romans was captain of a Pennsylvania artillery company and was on

363


Notes to Pages 24 –29

364


Notes to Pages 30 –31

his way to Canada. Few students of Romans’s career have noted the impact of publication timing on the sale of A Concise Natural History. Although he does not cite Romans’s letter on his fears of unful¤lled subscriptions, James H. O’Donnell did brie®y address the subject in his “Armchair Adventurers and Horseback Botanists: Explorations of Florida’s Natural History, 1763–1800,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 92. 153. Phillips, Notes, pp. 49–50. 154. See CNH, pp. 167–71. James Adair, without outright condemnation of the Tea Act, noted in his 1776 book that “East India insipid and costly tea” frequently had a “noxious quality.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, edited by Samuel Cole Williams (New York: Argonaut Press, 1966), p. 88. 155. Deane, one of the more unsavory and greedy public of¤cials of the day, was party to the unauthorized withdrawal of $300 from the colony’s treasury to ¤nance the raid. Though the legislature later approved the action, the motives of the organizers, in addition to securing the major New England waterway and procuring cannon and arms for the Continentals around Boston, seem likely to have been ¤nancial. Romans was not one of those who pro¤ted unfairly from this incident. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.v. “Deane, Silas.” 156. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 51; Phillips, Notes, p. 52. 157. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 50–55; Phillips, Notes, pp. 53–54. Quotation from Benedict Arnold to Massachusetts Committee of Safety, Crown Point, May 19, 1775, Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 2, p. 645. 158. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.v. “Fort Ticonderoga, New York, Capture of (May 10, 1775).” 159. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 54. 160. Great Britain, Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, The Fourteenth Report, Appendix, Part X: The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, Vol. II: American Papers (London: HMSO, 1895), p. 314. 161. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.v. “Putnam, Israel (1718–1790).” Robin F. A. Fabel, The Economy of British West Florida, 1763–1783 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988), p. 171. 162. The quote is also attributed to William Prescott. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3d ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), p. 403. 163. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 61–66 (quotation from p. 62). The “Exact View” is reproduced on pp. 64–65. 164. American Printmaking: The First 150 Years (New York: Museum of Graphic Art, 1969), p. 35. This source states that the ¤rst advertisement for the print was in the September 20, 1775, issue of the Pennsylvania Gazette. 165. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 61–63. 166. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, August 31, 1775, reprinted in Phillips, Notes, pp. 82–83. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 62, without giving his reasons, states that Romans “was present at neither battle.” 167. Peter J. Guthorn, American Maps and Map Makers of the American Revolution (Monmouth Beach, New Jersey: Philip Freneau, 1966), p. 32. For Romans’s maps used by the British, see Peter J. Guthorn, British Maps of the American Revolution (Monmouth Beach, New Jersey: Philip Freneau, 1972), p. 41.

168. The American Military Pocket Atlas; being an Approved Collection of Correct Maps, both General and Particular; of the British Colonies; Especially those which now are, or probably may be the theatre of war; taken Principally from the Actual Surveys and Judicious Observations of Engineers De Brahm and Römans; Cook, Jackson, and Collet; Maj. Holland, and other Of¤cers, employed in His Majesty’s Fleets and Armies (London: R. Sayer and J. Bennet, 1776). 169. There is no account of the contents of Rivington’s print shop, but this seems the most likely explanation for the disappearance of Romans’s second volume. Rivington ®ed the city in January 1776, but later returned and was appointed King’s Printer. Rivington led a double life, and even as he printed Loyalists pamphlets, he sent information to George Washington regarding British troop strength. Crary, “The Tory and the Spy,” pp. 61–72, and The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.v. “Rivington, James.” Leroy Hewlett, “James Rivington, Tory Printer,” in Books in America’s Past: Essays Honoring Rudolph H. Gjelsness, edited by David Kaser (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1966), pp. 166–93, disputes the claim that Rivington was a spy. 170. The 1776 edition fails to name the printer, but simply notes it is “NewYork Printed: Sold by R. Aitken, Bookseller.” Sabin, Dictionary of Books, 17:533. 171. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 57–70. 172. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, p. 1285. His service in the rebellion did indeed cost him his Crown “pension.” By April 10, 1776, Peter Chester, in a report to Lord Dartmouth, noted that Romans was believed to be in the “service of the rebels.” Fittingly, he recommended that Dr. John Lorimer receive the allowance for “botanical discoveries.” This was done by August of the same year. Davies, DAR, 10:264. By October 1, 1776, John Ellis, Agent for West Florida, was instructed not to pay Romans, since he had joined the rebels. Davies, DAR, 10:382. 173. Guthorn, American Maps, p. 30. Quotation is from Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, p. 736. J. B. Harley, Barbara Barta Petchenik, and Lawrence W. Towner, Mapping the American Revolutionary War (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), plate 4, reproduces Romans’s “Plan of a part of Hudson’s River Near & about the Forti¤cations now erecting in the highlands.” A copy of the “Plan,” with a cover letter by Jared Sparks, can be found in the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. Both Romans’s original sketches and those engraved by Peter Force are reproduced in Diamant, Bernard Romans. 174. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, p. 1285. 175. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, p. 796; Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 78–79. 176. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, p. 1355. 177. Phillips, Notes, p. 57. 178. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 3, pp. 1364–67. 179. The New York Committee was exceedingly slow in forwarding Romans’s pay. Bernard Romans to Committee of Safety of New York, March 18, 1776, Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 5, p. 405; Phillips, Notes, p. 62. 180. Diamant, Bernard Romans, details the complicated wrangling associated with Romans’s Highlands adventure. 181. Force, American Archives, 4th series, vol. 6, p. 673.

365


Notes to Pages 31–35

366


Notes to Pages 35 –40

182. Francis B. Hietman, Historical Register of Of¤cers of the Continental Army (Washington, D.C. [Baltimore]: Nichols, Killam Maf¤tt, 1893). Hietman named the company the Independent Pennsylvania Artillery Company. 183. Letter from Bernard Romans, April 25, 1776, New York Public Library, negative photostat courtesy of the Library of Congress. The copy at the Library of Congress bears the following notation, in pencil: [Note: This letter is possibly to Gov. George Clinton]. This letter is also published in Phillips, Notes, pp. 64–66. 184. Bernard Romans to General Philip Schuyler, April 25, 1776, Emmet Collection (EM 5456), New York Public Library. A negative copy of the letter is in the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. 185. Ibid. Mr. Jones was the captain lieutenant in question. 186. Diamant, Bernard Romans, p. 126. Phillips, Notes, p. 63. 187. John Dewitt to General Gates, July 29, 1776, in Phillips, Notes, p. 63. Phillips identi¤es Dewitt as John Druitt, a third lieutenant who was promoted to lieutenant on May 15, 1776. See Notes, p. 64. 188. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.vv. “Valcour Island, New York, Battle of (October 11, 1776)” and “Skene, Philip.” 189. Bernard Romans to Isaac Beers, October 15, 1776, New York Public Library, photocopy courtesy of the Library of Congress. 190. Bernard Romans to Mr. Isaac Beers of New Haven, Fort Ticonderoga, October 15, 1776. The original letter is in private hands; a typewritten copy is in the Collections of the Manuscript Division, Library of Congress. One of the gondolas that sank during the battle, the Philadelphia, was raised in 1935 and is on display at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. 191. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, s.v. “Valcour Island, New York, Battle of (October 11, 1776). 192. Bernard Romans to General Gates, November 8, 1776, in Force, American Archives, 5th series, vol. 3, pp. 606–7. 193. Bernard Romans to Isaac Beers, October 15, 1776, Library of Congress. 194. Force, American Archives, 5th series, vol. 3, p. 194. 195. Hietman, Historical Register. 196. Guthorn, American Maps, p. 32. 197. Diamant, Bernard Romans, pp. 132–35. 198. Bernard Romans to Isacc Beers, October 15, 1776, Library of Congress. 199. Preface to Romans, Annals, vol. 1, in Phillips, Notes, pp. 94–95. 200. Advertisement in Connecticut Courant, and the Weekly Intelligencer, January 5 and 19, 1779, in Phillips, Notes, p. 93. 201. Romans, Annals, title page, vol. 2. 202. Advertisement in Connecticut Courant, and the Weekly Intelligencer, January 5 and 19, 1779, in Phillips, Notes, p. 93. 203. Preface to Romans, Annals, vol. 1, quoted in Phillips, Notes, p. 95. 204. Phillips, Notes, p. 68. 205. Pension record of Elizabeth Romans, in Phillips, Notes, p. 69. 206. Stiles, History of Ancient Wethers¤eld, 2:587. John D. Ware noted that these two versions were “at variance with the other and both inconsonant with logic.”

Phillips, Notes, pp. lxxxv–lxxxvi. Diamant, Bernard Romans, reviews some of the inaccurate accounts of Romans’s ¤nal years, pp. 142–43. That some accounts relate that Romans worked in Britain brie®y after the war might be a result of the fact that his nautical charts were republished there after his death. 207. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. ix. 208. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. xlii.

Romans’s History as a Source for Under standing the Eighteenth-Centur y South 1. James Adair, The History of the American Indians (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1775). The best modern version is Adair’s History of the American Indians, edited by Samuel Cole Williams (New York: Argonaut Press, 1966). Adair’s narrative is handicapped by the fact that he gives composite descriptions of Indian culture. 2. William Bartram, Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida . . . Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians (Philadelphia: James & Johnson, 1791). The best modern version is Francis Harper, ed., The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist’s Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958). An edited version of Bartram’s Indian writings is also available: Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995). James Adair left West Florida in 1768 and was in the northern colonies working toward the publication of his book by the time Romans arrived in that colony. In 1774, Adair left the colonies for London, where his book was published the following year. William Bartram began his tour of the South after Bernard Romans had left the region. There is no evidence that the three men ever met, but they certainly knew of each others’ work. Whether Romans ever obtained a copy of Adair’s work is unknown, and it is unlikely considering the state of affairs between England and the colonies in 1775. Dr. John Lorimer and other West Floridians, as well as John Stuart and members of the Indian Department would have discussed Adair’s proposed book with Romans when he was in West Florida. In addition, certainly Bartram, who attempted to avoid Lorimer when he brie®y visited Pensacola, would have heard of Romans both in the 1770s and later from their other mutual acquaintances, including Dr. Alexander Garden and members of the American Philosophical Society. Bartram does not speci¤cally refer to either Adair or Romans in his book, which was not published until 1790, but it is obvious that he had access to Romans’s work. 3. For an examination of the peace treaty, see Robert L. Gold, Borderland Empires in Transition: The Triple Nation Transfer of Florida (Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1969). Clarence W. Alvord, The Mississippi Valley in British Politics: A Study of Trade, Land Speculation, and Experiments in Imperialism Culminating in the American Revolution, 2 vols. (Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1917; reprint, New York: Russell & Russell, 1959) examines the political implications of the decision to retain the Floridas. 4. A facsimile of the 1770 London edition, with an introduction by Robert R. Rea, was produced by the University of Florida Press Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series in 1973.

367


Notes to Pages 40 –44

368


Notes to Pages 44 –46

5. A facsimile of the 1784 work, edited by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr., was produced by the University of Florida Press Floridiana Facsimile and Reprint Series in 1968. 6. Tregle introduction, Florida facsimile edition, Hutchins, An Historical Narrative, pp. xli–xlii. 7. The best study of Gauld, which includes a bibliography of his manuscript charts as well as his published works, is John D. Ware and Robert R. Rea, George Gauld: Surveyor and Cartographer of the Gulf Coast (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982). 8. While historians of Florida and the southeastern Indians have cited A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida more frequently since the 1960s, others, including historians of literature and the sciences, frequently overlook his contribution. For example, three leading sources dealing with American literature during the late eighteenth century fail to even mention Romans or CNH. Emory Elliott, Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic, 1725–1810 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982); American Literature, 1764–1789: The Revolutionary Years, edited by Everett Emerson (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977); Robert Lawson-Peebles, Landscape and Written Expression in Revolutionary America: The World Turned Upside Down (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988). 9. Louise Richardson introduction, A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, Pelican edition (New Orleans: Pelican, 1961). The introduction pages are not numbered; the quotations are taken from the last introductory page. 10. Rembert Patrick introduction to A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida, facsimile reproduction of the 1775 edition with an introduction by Rembert Patrick, Floridiana Facsimile and Reprint Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962), p. xxxiv. 11. James H. O’Donnell, “Armchair Adventurers and Horseback Botanist: Explorations of Florida’s Natural History, 1763–1800,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 93. 12. Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), p. 446. He notes the 1961 Pelican edition, but fails to mention the Florida facsimile edition. 13. Richardson introduction, Pelican edition, CNH, unnumbered pages. 14. Constantin-François Chasseboeuf Volney, A View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America: With Supplementary Remarks Upon Florida; on the French colonies on the Mississippi and Ohio, and in Canada; and on the Aboriginal Tribes of America, trans., with occasional remarks by C. B. Brown, introduction by George W. White, facsimile of the Philadelphia, 1804, edition, with plates and maps from the London, 1804, edition (New York: Hafner, 1968), p. 316. 15. Ibid, p. 273n. See pp. 269–316 for excerpts from CNH. Patrick introduction, Florida facsimile edition, CNH, p. x. 16. “Report of Buckingham Smith, June 1, 1848,” to the Senate committee, reprinted in Woodbury Lowery, The Lowery Collection: A Descriptive List of Maps of the Spanish Possessions within the Present Limits of the United States, 1502–1820, edited by Philip Lee Phillips (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1912), p. 371. 17. John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce,

1946; reprint, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969); Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile: An Historical Study, edited by Charles G. Summersell (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976). 18. Linnaeus, Biberg, and Bacon are quoted by Romans in the frontispiece of the book. The others listed are scattered throughout the text. For instance, Oldmixon (38), Emanuel de Moras (47), Grotius (48), Mr. Powell (49), Bossu (49), Pliny (56), Apollonios Rhodios (88), Hawkesworth (88), More (107), and Horace and Virgil (133). 19. CNH, p. 134. In 1774, he ordered Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae, as well as a copy of the ¤rst volume of the American Philosophical Society’s Transactions. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. A modern edition of the work is still available: Carl von Linné, Systema Naturae, facsimile reprint of the 1758–1759 edition, 2 vols. (New York: Stechert-Hafner, 1964). 20. Philip Lee Phillips, Notes on the Life and Works of Bernard Romans, facsimile reproduction of the 1924 edition with an introduction by John D. Ware, Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1975), p. 73. 21. George C. Rogers, Jr., “The East Florida Society of London, 1766–1767,” Florida Historical Quarterly 54 (April 1976):482–83. Stork’s unauthorized use of Bartram’s journal, actually a report he provided to Governor James Grant, caused him considerable grief, in addition to Romans’s published criticism. For more information, see Waselkov and Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 5. 22. A complete appraisal of the work can be found in William Gerard De Brahm, The Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by Louis De Vorsey, Jr., Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1974). For a fuller account of De Brahm’s life and works, see the introduction of Louis De Vorsey, Jr., to De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971). For information on the Tequesta chiefdom, see Jerald T. Milanich and Charles Hudson, Hernando De Soto and the Indians of Florida (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993), pp. 114–17. 23. The best modern edition of this work is Jean Bernard Bossu’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751–1762, edited and translated by Seymour Feiler (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962). Bossu’s memoir is actually a series of letters to the Marquis de l’Estrade de la Cousse. 24. Lincoln Diamant, Bernard Romans: Forgotten Patriot of the American Revolution (Harrison, New York: Harbor Hill Books, 1985), p. 8. After examining Romans’s career, Diamant revised his initial opinion of Romans. 25. Brooke Hindle, The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735–1789 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956), p. 177. 26. Hindle, Pursuit of Science, pp. 12–17. Daniel Boorstin, The Americans: The Colonial Experience (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958), provides a good overview of the intellectual background regarding the “Natural-History Emphasis,” p. 164ff. 27. “Some Account of the Designs of the Trustees for Establishing the Colony of Georgia in America,” quoted in Virgil J. Vogel, American Indian Medicine (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970), p. 72.

369


Notes to Pages 47–50

370


Notes to Pages 51–53

28. Joyce E. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730–1815 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993), p. 69. 29. Vogel, American Indian Medicine, pp. 72–73. The Apothecaries Company was interested in jalap, ipecac, sarsparilla, Peruvian bark, and cacti upon which cochineal insects fed. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, p. 31. Houstoun’s work was highly valued by the natural history community. 30. For a discussion of the idea, which persisted well into the twentieth century, see Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt, eds., Science and Medicine in the Old South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), particularly essays by James O. Breeden, “Disease as a Factor in Southern Distinctiveness,” pp. 1–28, and David K. Patterson, “Disease Environments of the Antebellum South,” pp. 152–65. 31. CNH, p. 225. Climate and disease—and culture—were frequent areas of discussion and speculation in the colonial period, especially along the torrid and swampy Atlantic coastal plain. See Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 78–80. For a general discussion of the subject, see Karen Ordahl Kupperman, “Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Colonial Experience,” William and Mary Quarterly, 3d series, 41 (1984): 213–40. 32. Much of Lind’s work has been reprinted in The Health of Seamen: Selections from the Works of Dr. James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane and Dr. Thomas Trotter, edited by Christopher Lloyd, Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 107 (London: Navy Records Society, 1965). 33. Romans’s discussion of Lind’s signs can be found in CNH, pp. 225–29. 34. The medical history of the Floridas, like that of other colonies, is grim. For information on West Florida, see the aptly titled article by Robert R. Rea, “ ‘Graveyard for Britons,’ West Florida, 1763–1781,” Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (April 1969): 345–64. 35. CNH, pp. 117–72. 36. “Some Observations on a Catalogue of Plants Publishes [sic] by John Ellis, 1772,” in John D. Ware, “The Bernard Romans–John Ellis Letters, 1772–1774,” Florida Historical Quarterly 52 ( July 1973): 56–57. Ellis’s catalogue was published in Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1:255–66. 37. For information on early cotton production, see Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 154 and 221; Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, pp. 43–44 and 484. For information on cotton exports from West Florida, see Robin F. A. Fabel, The Economy of British West Florida, 1763–1783 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988), pp. 123–24. 38. CNH, pp. 134–39. 39. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 200–206. According to Chaplin, the success of the indigo producers in East Florida lay in their improved production controls and the fact that they produced a highly concentrated product of excellent quality. Producers in South Carolina and Georgia, eager to take advantage of the bounty, opted instead for more dye per vat, thus making their dye weaker and inferior. See Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, pp. 112–15, for information on the crop in West Florida. 40. CNH, pp. 158–63.

41. CNH, p. 157; Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, p. 119, notes exports from West Florida in 1765 and 1772. William Bartram, as late as 1790, believed that production of the dye by Indians could be economically viable. See Waselkov and Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 198. For an interesting discussion of cochineal, see Thomas Eisner and Stephen Nowicki, “Red Cochineal Dye (Carminic Acid): Its Role in Nature,” Science 208 (1980): 1039–42. Romans incorrectly identi¤es the cochineal plant as Opuntia sp. 42. See Kathryn E. Holland Braund, Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993), chapter 6, for a discussion of attempts to regulate the deerskin traders. 43. CNH, pp. 185–88 and appendix, pp. lii–liii, lxxvii. In fact, East Florida Governor James Grant thought Romans’s ideas about dried ¤sh “visionary.” See “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida by [Bernard Romans], July 1773,” in Kenneth G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, 20 vols. (Dublin, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972–1979), 6:191; hereafter cited as Davies, DAR. 44. CNH, p. 174. Romans listed buffalo tongue as a Florida export, p. 203. James Adair also noted that the animal had become scarce because it was killed for the tongue. See Adair’s History of the American Indians, pp. 445–46 and 445 n. 256. Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the southern grasslands in both Georgia and the Floridas as well as elsewhere supported bison, although there is debate as to the number and range of the bison in the southeast. Erhard Rostland, “The Geographic Range of the Historic Bison in the Southeast,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 50 (1960): 395–407. 45. See CNH, pp. 202–4, for Florida exports. 46. CNH, p. 175. 47. CNH, pp. 175–76. 48. CNH, pp. 140–42. Early cotton gins from the West Indies were the prototypes for early American gins. These in turn had been adopted from East Indian gins. For a discussion of early cotton gins, see Daniel H. Thomas, “Pre-Whitney Cotton Gins in French Louisiana,” Journal of Southern History 31 ( January 1965): 135–48, and Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 154 and 214. 49. John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America, containing the history of the discovery, settlement, progress and state of the British Colonies on the Continent and Islands of America . . . Second edition, corrected . . . with the continuation of the history . . . from . . . 1710 to the present time, etc., 2 vols. (London: J. Brotherton, 1741) (quotation in vol. 1, p. 523). 50. CNH, p. 117. 51. Lord Adam Gordon to James Grant, May 15, 1766, Bundle 474, Ballindalloch Castle Muniments. Printed in The Papers of Henry Laurens, edited by Philip M. Hamer and George C. Rogers, 11 vols. (Columbia: South Carolina Historical Society and University of South Carolina Press, 1968–1981), 6:74 n. 9. Also quoted in George C. Rogers, “East Florida Society of London,” p. 483. 52. See Rogers, “East Florida Society of London,” pp. 479–96, for details. 53. Paul David Nelson, General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993), pp. 61–62. Among Stork’s

371


Notes to Pages 53 –56

372


Notes to Pages 56 –58

settlers were a number of female “reformed Penitents.” Unfortunately, Romans did not describe these women. After Stork’s death in 1768, his settlers returned home. 54. Charles L. Mowat, East Florida as a British Province, 1763–1784, University of California Publications in History, vol. 32 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943), p. 61. He provides a chart of grantees who settled their grants before 1776. Sections of De Brahm’s “A Plan of Part of the Coast of East Florida . . . ” indicating many of the largest grants have been published in Bailyn, Voyagers to the West. See pages 439 and 456. 55. De Brahm’s Report, pp. 106 and 186. When De Brahm described the settlement, he noted there were “1400 Minorcans, among whom were some French, and 75 Greeks.” He also noted the town had two churches, one Catholic and one Protestant. 56. Kenneth H. Beeson, Jr., “Janas [Strangers] in British East Florida,” Florida Historical Quarterly 44 ( July and October 1965): 125. 57. Mowat, East Florida, p. 27. Romans states the revolt occurred in 1769, but it actually took place in 1768. The grand jury that heard the case, and of which Romans was a member, most likely met in 1769. 58. Quote from Spencer Man to John Tucker, September 2, 1768, from Bundle 412, Ballindalloch Castle Muniments, printed in Papers of Henry Laurens, 6:74 n. 9. 59. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 203–4 (quotations from p. 203). 60. Wilbur Henry Siebert, Loyalists in East Florida, 1774 to 1785: The Most Important Documents Pertaining Thereto. Vol. II: Records of Their Claims for Losses of Property in the Province (Deland: Florida State Historical Society, 1929), 2:325–26; Gold, Borderland Empires, pp. 48–49. 61. CNH, p. 271. 62. CNH, p. 270. 63. See Phillips, Notes, pp. 40–44 and 103–12 (¤rst quotation, p. 106; second quotation, p. 109). Charles H. Lesser, a student of Purcell’s career, believes that the Purcell parents were Anglo-Irish and were already residing in Minorca when Joseph was born there in 1750. He also agrees with Turnbull’s statement that Purcell’s family were not indentured servants at the New Smyrna settlement. Personal correspondence with the author, August 14, 1995. Purcell remained in South Carolina after the Revolutionary War and continued his cartographic work there. He was in the city when Turnbull published his letter in the Columbian Magazine. No records have been found that indicate Purcell’s views on Turnbull. However, it is clear that relations between the two men were strained. In 1777, Purcell served as one of the translators of the depositions of the New Smyrna refugees that the governor of East Florida required prior to releasing them from their indentures. At the time, Turnbull accused Purcell of misrepresenting the situation in his translations. Patricia C. Grif¤n, Mullet on the Beach: The Minorcans of Florida, 1768– 1788 (Gainesville: University of North Florida Press, 1991), pp. 98–99. Given this, and the fact that the two men resided in the same city in 1788, perhaps it was Purcell who provided the Columbian Magazine with the excerpt from A Concise Natural History. Purcell died on June 2, 1807. 64. South Carolina Gazette, October 11, 1773. 65. Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, pp. 91–92.

66. Carita Doggett, Dr. Andrew Turnbull and the New Smyrna Colony of Florida (n.p. [Florida]: Drew Press, 1919). See Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, p. 453n. 67. Mowat, East Florida as a British Province, p. 72. Mowat noted that most early accounts of the settlement relied on Romans’s “one-sided testimony,” and credited Carita Doggett for the ¤rst full, and favorable, account of the settlement. He also noted that “new information from the Spanish sources is given by Michael J. Curley, Church and State in Spanish Floridas, pp. 23–41, who seems to support the charges of cruelty against Turnbull and his agents.” See pp. 189–90n. Michael J. Curley, Church and State in Spanish Floridas, 1783–1822 (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940). See Kenneth H. Beeson, Jr., “Janas in British East Florida,” pp. 121–32, for a more balanced view of the conditions faced by settlers at New Smyrna. 68. See Denys Rolle, To the Right honourable the Lords of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council. The Humble Petition of Denys Rolle. . . . , facsimile reproduction of the 1765 edition with an introduction by Claude C. Sturgill, Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1977), pp. xxvi– xxvii. When the colony was turned over to Spain at the close of the Revolutionary War, he received nearly £20,000 sterling as his loyalist compensation. 69. Under the terms of the Proclamation of October 7, 1763, which forbade settlement west of a line running roughly along the watershed of the Appalachian Mountains, those seeking new lands had only two choices, the Floridas or Canada. Romans opposed this policy for various reasons and urged that “the upper latitude of the Mississippi, and the banks of the Ohio” be “cultivated under the in®uence of a regular and civil government” (218). This would make free commerce along the Mississippi and a friendly port at New Orleans a necessity. In the meantime, he was more than willing to provide information on the Floridas. 70. Robin F. A. Fabel, “An Eighteenth Colony: Dreams for Mississippi on the Eve of the Revolution,” Journal of Southern History 59 (November 1993), pp. 652 and 657. 71. Rufus Putnam’s journal appears in various forms. The version in CNH, pp. 334–40, was heavily edited by either Putnam or Romans. A longer version of the journal appears in Albert C. Bates, ed., The Two Putnams, Israel and Rufus: in the Havana Expedition, 1762, and in the Mississippi River Exploration, 1772–73, with some Account of the Company of Military Adventurers (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1931), pp. 139–234. 72. Fabel, “Eighteenth Colony,” p. 667. 73. CNH, p. 222. The area between 31 and 46 degrees north latitude is basically the present United States, plus parts of southern Canada. Romans was not ignorant of the fact that settlers here were “at the risque of the dreadful situation of being exposed to savage incursions.” 74. Mowat, East Florida, p. 67. 75. Mowat, East Florida, p. 50. 76. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, examines the attitudes of early southerners to black slavery, p. 67. See Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, pp. 40–42, for a discussion of attitudes toward slavery in that colony. While Romans was engaged as an engineer at Martelaer’s Rock, his “new negro” was a cause of controversy. See Phillips, Notes, pp. 58–59. 77. Like many of his day, he believed that the Indians were born “white” (42)

373


Notes to Pages 59 –62

374


Notes to Pages 62 –66

and changed to their “copper” color after birth. For an examination of this theme, and a fuller discussion of the distinctions between racism and ethnocentric viewpoint, see Winthrop D. Jordan, White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968; reprint, New York: Norton, 1977), pp. 239–52, and Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978). 78. “Select Passages from New Publications,” Pennsylvania Magazine, January 1776, p. 33. 79. Charles Hudson, “James Adair as Anthropologist” Ethnohistory 24 (Fall 1977): 313; George W. Stocking, Jr., “Scotland as a Model of Mankind: Lord Kames’ Philosophical View of Civilization,” in Toward a Science of Man: Essays in the History of Anthropology, edited by Timothy H. H. Thoresen (The Hague: Mouton, 1975), pp. 67–89. 80. Bossu, Travels, p. 209, was among many who noted, “What a great resemblance there is in the religions, habits, and customs of the Indians and some of our ancient people!” He believed that the ancestors of the Indians had crossed a land bridge before the Flood of Noah, and he believed there were several possible areas, where Europe or Asia was relatively close to the Americas, that these people might have crossed. For his lengthy discussion on the issue, see Travels, pp. 207–17. 81. Hudson, “James Adair,” pp. 313–14. 82. The best discussion on the history of this topic is Robert E. Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian: The Early Years of the American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986; paperback ed., 1989). For Bieder’s discussion of Schoolcraft, see pp. 186–87. Many who accepted the theory of multiple creations also accepted as a corollary the implication that Indians were an inferior species. Though Romans held their culture in low regard, he did not state they were inferior to other races of men. 83. Cyrus Thomas, “Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology,” Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1890– 1891 (Washington, D.C.: General Printing Of¤ce, 1894). 84. Kathryn E. Holland Braund, “The Creek Indians, Blacks, and Slavery,” Journal of Southern History 57 (November 1991): 626–36; Theda Perdue, “Southern Indians and the Cult of True Womanhood,” in The Web of Southern Social Relations: Women, Family, and Education, edited by Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Frank Saunders, Jr., and Jon L. Wakelyn (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985), pp. 35–51. An excellent examination of American policy is Bernard W. Sheehan, Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973). 85. I have argued in “Guardians of Tradition and Handmaidens to Change: Women’s Roles in Creek Economic and Social Life during the Eighteenth Century,” American Indian Quarterly 14 (Summer 1990): 239–58, that refusal to abandon cherished cultural traditions strengthened Creek society and made it possible for this tribe to continue as a people despite the efforts of reformers and politicians to destroy them. 86. For example, Taitt took a trader with him on his survey “to watch the Indians while I took the course of the river and made necessary remarks.” “David Taitt’s

Journey to and Through the Upper Creek Nation,” in Davies, DAR, 5:255. Taitt related that when a leading Indian’s son was sent with him on part of his journey: “I made him ride on before and kept my servant between him and me, thereby preventing him from seeing me take observations of the course of the path and creeks as we passed.” Davies, DAR, 5:264. Taitt was unable to survey around the Creek town of Apalachicola “on account of ten or twelve Eutchie women who were gathering strawberries all over the old town.” “David Taitt’s Journal to and through the Lower Creek Nation,” Davies, DAR, 5:278. 87. For references to sodomy, see CNH, pp. 70 and 82–83. Most contemporary observers were silent on the subject. Bossu noted the practice, reporting that the Choctaws “are morally quite perverted, and most of them addicted to sodomy. These corrupt men, who have long hair and wear short skirts like women, are held in great contempt.” Bossu, Travels, p. 169. Unfortunately, categories of sexuality and gender among the southeastern Indians are not well understood. One look at this topic among Indians in the present United States is Walter Williams, The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992). For an attempt to clarify terminology, see Stephen O. Murray, “On Subordinating Native American Cosmologies to the Empire of Gender,” Current Anthropology 35 (February 1994): 59–61. 88. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 285 and 288. William S. Willis, “The Nation of Bread,” Ethnohistory 4 (1957): 125–49, dismisses Romans’s remarks concerning Choctaw agricultural productivity and questions his value as a reliable source of information. More-recent scholars have been generally inclined to accept Romans’s views on Choctaw agriculture. See James Taylor Carson, “Horses and the Economy and Culture of the Choctaw Indians, 1690–1840,” Ethnohistory 42 (Summer 1995): 507 n. 2. For a critical evaluation of Romans as a source on this topic, see Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), 16–33. 89. Kenneth Hoffman Carleton, “Eighteenth-Century Trails in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi and Alabama” (Master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 1989), pp. 110–11. Carleton analyzes Romans’s 1772 map as to its accuracy, and his is the best study to date on the subject. 90. For urination, see Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 9. Adair and Bartram corroborate most practices mentioned by Romans, including mercy killing and the manner in which women collected and then resold rum during drunken debaucheries, and Indian practices during the war between the Creeks and Choctaws. Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, provides an overview of Creek culture based on the writings of Romans, Adair, Bartram, Taitt, and other contemporary writers. 91. Romans, “Short Description of West Florida,” Davies, DAR, 6:193–94. 92. Notice by Romans, Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, February 10, 1774. 93. Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, pp. 134–37, details the hazards of navigation in the region. He states, “Until George Gauld’s widow published his cartographic surveys in 1790, there existed no accurate charts of Floridian waters” (p. 135), but he fails to take into account De Brahm’s Atlantic Pilot (1772) and Romans’s charts, which were published in 1775.

375


Notes to Pages 66 –68

376


Notes to Pages 68 –70

94. De Brahm, Atlantic Pilot, p. v. 95. De Brahm was only doing what countless other cartographers did both before and after his time. Bailyn, Voyagers to the West, p. 467n. 96. Boston Gazette, January 10, 1774. The entire advertisement is reprinted in Phillips, Notes, pp. 25–26. 97. Louise Richardson erroneously noted that “one could choose to subscribe to both book and map or to the map only.” Introduction, Pelican edition, CNH. 98. Boston Gazette, January 10, 1774. 99. Phillips, Notes, p. 25. A. F. Harley, “Bernard Romans’s map of Florida Engraved by Paul Revere, and Other Early Maps in the Library of the Florida Historical Society,” Florida Historical Quarterly 9 ( July 1930): 54. Bernard Romans to William and Thomas Bradford, February 28, 1774, American Philosophical Society Library. 100. William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, 3d rev. ed., edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p. 2. 101. Lowery, Lowery Collection, p. 370. Many modern historians are unaware of their existence as well. Probably the ¤rst chart of the Gulf waters off West Florida was done by James Cook, “A Draught of West Florida, from Cape St. Blaze to the River Iberville, with Parts of the River Mississippi, 1766.” For information on the map, see Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, 3d rev. ed., p. 299. See Robert R. Rea, “Master James Cook and Gulf Coast Cartography,” Florida Historical Quarterly 63 ( January 1985): 280–307, for a discussion of Cook’s career. 102. The Romans maps contained in the Lowery Collection were in three pieces. See Lowery, Lowery Collection, pp. 370–71, for details on the maps’ size and contents. James Clements Wheat and Christian F. Brun, Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800: A Bibliography (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), pp. 134– 35, lists only two sheets, not three. The map in the collection of the Florida Historical Society is composed of two parts, both roughly equal in size. Harley, “Bernard Romans’s Map,” p. 55. 103. Lowery, Lowery Collection, p. 370 (no. 566). 104. Richardson introduction, Pelican edition, CNH. 105. Both maps were reproduced, with extensive commentary, in Phillips, Notes. 106. Doubtless, it was the publication of these books, carrying Romans’s name in their full titles, that led some to believe Romans had survived the Revolution and worked in England after the war. For information on ships and life in the early maritime South, see William C. Fleetwood, Jr., Tidecraft: The Boats of South Carolina, Georgia and Northeastern Florida, 1550–1950 (Tybee Island, Georgia: WBG Marine Press, 1995). 107. Information on the 1715 treasure ®eet and salvage efforts can be found in Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology, edited by George F. Bass (London: Thomas and Hudson, 1988), pp. 95–96. 108. CNH, p. 300ff. For a modern assessment of Viaud, and an analysis of Romans’s view on him, see Shipwreck & Adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud, translated and edited by Robin F. A. Fabel (Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1990). 109. CNH, pp. 4–7; for Thomas Hutchins’s account of the storm, see Hutchins to Haldimand, October 25, November 13, 21, 1772, British Museum, Add. Ms. 21729. 110. Gregory A. Waselkov and Diane E. Silvia, Archaeology at the Krebs House (Old

Spanish Fort), Pascagoula, Mississippi (Mobile: University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies, 1995), p. 1. 111. CNH, appendix, p. lxxiv. In his Historical Narrative, Thomas Hutchins recorded that the Chandeleurs “were 5 in number, when I visited them in the year 1772.” Hutchins, Historical Narrative, p. 59. George Gauld likewise counted ¤ve in 1768—prior to the storm. Ware and Rea, George Gauld, pp. 109–10. The islands were so named because of the abundant wax myrtle shrubs that the French used to produce candles. 112. Charles L. Sullivan, Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast (Biloxi: Gulf Publishing, 1985), p. 5.

Romans’s Copper Plate Illustrations, Maps, and Table 1. William Bartram provided a sketch of the Seminole chief Long Warrior as the frontispiece in his Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida . . . Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians (Philadelphia: James and Johnson, 1791). William Bonar’s drawings, which adorned the margins of his 1757 map, have most recently been published in Kathryn E. Holland Braund, Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993). For von Reck’s drawings see Kristian Hvidt, ed., Von Reck’s Voyage: Drawings and Journal of Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck (Savannah: Beehive Press, 1980). Perhaps the most famous portrait of a Creek is that of Tomochichi, 1734, by William Verelst. 2. This engraving was ¤rst described in Evert A. Duyckinck and George L. Duyckinck, Cyclopaedia of American Literature; embracing personal and critical notices of authors, and selections from their writings. From the earliest period to the present day; with portraits, autographs, and other illustrations, 2 vols. (New York: C. Scribner, 1855), vol. 1, p. 303. 3. Roger Phillips, Wild Food (Boston: Little, Brown, 1986), pp. 161–62; Bradford Angier, Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1974), pp. 246–47; Lee Allen Peterson, A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America (Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1978), pp. 228. Romans speci¤cally states that the Indians used the grain for making bread; thus it is possible to correctly identify this inadequately detailed illustration as wild rice rather than bulrush, whose roots can be dried and pounded into ®our. Peterson, Field Guide, p. 230. 4. Adair’s History of the American Indians, edited by Samuel Cole Williams (New York: Argonaut Press, 1966), p. 180. For a complete discussion of the practice throughout the South, see John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1946; reprint, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), pp. 510–14. 5. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 532–36. Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 417. 6. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 725–27, discusses this practice.

377


Notes to Pages 70 –73

378


Notes to Pages 73 –96

7. Francis Harper, ed., The Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist’s Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), p. 318; Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 120–21; Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, p. 128. 8. See Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, pp. 133–35, for information on this war.

Annotations for A Conc ise Nat ural Histor y of East and West Flor ida 1. East Florida and West Florida. 2. The river St. Juan de Guacaro was the Rio St. Juan de Cuacara, known now as the Suwannee River. The river was also known to the British as Little St. John’s. 3. A snow is a type of small sailing vessel that resembles a brig. William Gerard De Brahm gives a fuller account of the misadventures of the snow, whose name he spells Litbury, and dates the events to September 1769. De Brahm, The Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with introduction by Louis de Vorsey, Jr., Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1974), pp. 9–10. 4. Joseph Krebs’s plantation was located in modern Pascagoula, Mississippi. The site is also known as the Old Spanish Fort. See Waselkov and Silva, Archaeology at the Krebs House (Mobile: University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies, 1995). 5. For the story of the rescue of members of the Sixteenth Regiment, see Robert R. Rea, “ ‘Lieutenant Hutchins to the Rescue!’ The Wreck and Recovery of the Mercury, 1772,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 5 (Spring 1990): 56–61. 6. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686–1736), who developed a temperature scale for a mercury thermometer using thirty-two degrees for the temperature at which water freezes, spent most of his life in The Netherlands. 7. Electrical conductors are lightning rods, an invention of Benjamin Franklin. 8. James Mackenzie, MD, of Worcester (1680–1761) authored two books that might have been used by Romans: The History of Health, and the art of Preserving it, Etc. . . . (Edinburgh: Gordon, 1758) and Essays and Meditations on various subjects: by a Physician, 2d ed. (Edinburgh: n.p., 1762). 9. See Concise Natural History (CNH), p. 13. 10. The ¤rst French fort on the Mobile River, built in 1702, was actually called Fort Louis de la Mobile. Because of ®ooding, the site was abandoned by 1711. The new fort, at the site of modern Mobile, was likewise named Fort Louis, but later renamed Condé. Colonial Wars of North America, 1512–1763: An Encyclopedia, edited by Alan Gallay (New York: Garland, 1996), s.v. “Fort Condé (Alabama).” 11. Romans refers to the Thirty-¤rst Regiment of Foot. Within one month of landing in Pensacola, the regiment lost four of¤cers, ¤ve of the six of¤cers’ wives who accompanied them, and nearly one hundred men. See Robert R. Rea, “ ‘Graveyard for Britons,’ West Florida, 1763–1781,” Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (April 1969): 345–64. 12. The pine barrens, home to longleaf pines and wiregrass, are aptly described

by Charles Hudson: “depressingly monotonous stands of widely spaced, immense pine trees, with very little foliage, except wiregrass growing underneath.” Charles Hudson, Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient Chiefdoms (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997), p. 146. 13. There was no standard system of botanical nomenclature until Carl von Linné, better known as Linnaeus, proposed a binomial system of classi¤cation based on plants’ sexual organs. His system, deemed “an event comparable to the American Revolution in general shock and subsequent intellectual in®uence,” ultimately became the eighteenth-century standard. Frequently, collectors and early writers, uncertain of classi¤cation, used long Latin descriptions, as Romans does here. The pitch pine, using the Linnaean system, is Pinus palustris. Quotation from Ann Leighton, American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: “For Use or for Delight” (Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1976), p. 87. For a discussion of the Linnaean system and its importance, see pp. 94–98. 14. William Clifton. For a brief synopsis of his career, see Robin F. A. Fabel, The Economy of British West Florida, 1763–1783 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988), p. 140. 15. Chickasaw Old Fields were located in northeast Mississippi, near the Tombigbee River in the vicinity of modern Tupelo. See John R. Swanton, “Social and Religious Beliefs and Usages of the Chickasaw Indians,” in Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1928), pp. 175–77, regarding migration legends in relation to the Old Fields. 16. The French village was on the eastern side of Mobile Bay, south of where the Apalache or Tensaw River enters Mobile Bay. Peter J. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile: An Historical Study, edited by Charles G. Summersell (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976), p. 316. 17. Ambergris, a waxy substance produced by sperm whales, is used in the perfume industry. 18. Asphaltum is a natural pitch from the ocean. In the eighteenth century, it was also known as Bitumen of Judea or Jew’s Pitch. Malachy Postlethwayt, The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce, 4th ed., Reprints of Economic Classics, reprint of the 1774 edition, 2 vols. (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1971). 19. Lake Okeechobee. 20. Most likely Blue Springs. This area of the St. John’s River, including its sulfur springs, was described by Dr. Daniel G. Brinton, A Guide-Book of Florida and the South, for Tourists, Invalids and Emigrants, with a Map of the St. John River (Philadelphia: George Maclean, 1869). This book was reprinted as part of the Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series by the University Presses of Florida in 1978 with an introduction by William M. Goza. 21. Denys Rolle was a member of Parliament who espoused settlement in East Florida. Rolles-Town was near modern-day Palatka, Florida. His own account of his experiences may be found in The Humble Petition of Denys Rolle, Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1977). 22. Now Cresent Lake. 23. For De Soto’s experience in the same region, see Hudson, Knights of Spain, pp. 95–96.

379


Notes to Pages 96 –108

380


Notes to Pages 108 –115

24. Ocklawaha River. 25. The Okefenokee Swamp. For an interesting look at this unique environment, see Francis Harper and Delma E. Presley, Oke¤nokee Album (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981). 26. For more information on the Horse-Guards, see Romans’s comments in his appendix, p. xiv. 27. John Oldmixon, The British Empire in America, containing the history of the discovery, settlement, progress and state of the British Colonies on the Continent and Islands of America . . . Second edition, corrected . . . with the continuation of the history . . . from . . . 1710 to the present time, etc., 2 vols. (London: J. Brotherton, 1741). 28. Dr. Blackwell is most likely Thomas Blackwell (1701–1757), the author of An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer (London, 1735); Memoirs of the Court of Augustus, 3 vols., 2d ed. (London: A. Millar, 1755–1763); and Letters Concerning Mythology (London: Thomas Blackwell, 1748). 29. “O God! You have created men and ‘men.’ ” Latin translations courtesy of Dr. Kyle G. Braund and Professors Marge Stevens and Mary Kuntz. 30. In using the phrase “meum and tuum” (roughly, “mine and thine”), Romans refers to notions of private property rights. Romans’s general observations on Indian life are con¤rmed by other contemporary writers, such as James Adair and William Bartram. 31. In addition to laying out many of the arguments used by theorists who believed that the American Indians were descendants of Phoenician voyagers, Romans lists three contemporary French writers whose works would have been familiar to his readers. Modern editions of all three authors are available: Jean-Bernard Bossu’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751–1762, translated and edited by Seymour Feiler (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962); Joseph François La¤tau, Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times, edited and translated by William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore, 2 vols. (Toronto: Champlain Society, 1974–1977); The History of Louisiana; translated from the French of M. Le Page du Pratz, edited by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr., Louisiana Bicentennial Reprint Series (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975). Romans (p. 49) indicates he used the 1771 Forster translation of Bossu: Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana . . . Translated from the French, by John Reinhold Forster . . . Illustrated with notes relative chie®y to natural history. To which is added by the translator a systematic catalogue of all the known plants of English North-America . . . , 2 vols. (London: T. Davies, 1771). 32. The origin of American Indians was widely argued throughout the eighteenth century by both American and European writers. While, as Romans points out, there were many notions of their distant ancestry, the prevailing theory held that the Indians were descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel. For a summary of the literature on Indian origins, see Richard Beale Davis, Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763, 3 vols. (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978), vol. 1, pp. 172–75. 33. See CNH, p. 64. 34. Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), an internationally known Dutch scholar, historian, poet, diplomat, and jurist.

35. Madoc or Madog was a Welsh prince who was supposed to have landed in North America in the twelfth century. In 1584, David Powel, in his history of Wales, repeated the story circulated by Richard Hakluyt in his famous 1582 compilation of voyages of discovery that related Madoc had landed in Florida. David Powel, The Historie of Cambria, now called Wales: a part of the most famous Yland of Brytaine, written in the Brytish language aboue two hundreth yeares past . . . Corrected, augmented, and continued out of records and best approoved authors by David Powel (London: Rafe Newberie & Henrie Denham, 1584). Hakluyt’s work is still available: Richard Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation. Imprinted at London, 1589, a photo-lithographic facsimile with an introduction by David Beers Quinn and Raleigh Ashlin Skelton, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society & Peabody Museum of Salem, 1965). For the latest on Madoc and his descendants, see Robert R. Rea, “Madogwyns Forever! The Present State of the Madoc Controversy,” Alabama Historical Quarterly 30 (Spring 1968): 6–18. Gwyn A. Williams, Madoc: The Making of a Myth (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), provides a fuller exploration of the topic. 36. Thomas Hutchins, a military engineer under General Thomas Gage. Hutchins was residing in Pensacola during Romans’s sojourn in the province. He served as geographer of the United States from 1781 until 1789. For information on his career, see John D. Ware and Robert R. Rea, George Gauld: Surveyor and Cartographer of the Gulf Coast (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982), pp. 198–200. 37. “Friends, check your laughter!” 38. The bones of neither elephants nor hippopotami, the enormous skeletal remains increasingly encountered in the Ohio Valley during this period were those of extinct mastodons. Discoveries of such prehistoric relics excited natural historians throughout the world, as was the case with John Bartram, who received the following notice from Henry Bouquet in July 1762: “I got, a few days ago, a very great curiosity, from about six hundred miles down the Ohio;—an elephant’s tooth, weighing six pounds and three quarters, and a large piece of one of the tusks; which puts it beyond doubt, that those animals have formerly existed on this continent.” Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley, eds., The Correspondence of John Bartram, 1734–1777 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992), p. 564. Bossu was also given a tooth of roughly the same weight. Like many others, he saw this as proof of a passage of peoples and animals from the Old World to the new via a land bridge from Asia: “This leads me to assume that Louisiana is joined to India and that the elephants came here from Asia through the west.” Bossu, Travels, p. 104. Thomas Jefferson discussed the matter at length in his Notes on the State of Virginia. See Thomas Jefferson: Writings, edited by Merrill D. Peterson, Library of America (New York: Viking Press, 1984), pp. 165–69. 39. The Choctaw people emerged from the earth at Nanih Waiyah, a mound, rather than a hole. John R. Swanton, The Indians of the Southeastern United States, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1946; reprint, New York: Greenwood Press, 1969), pp. 122–23. 40. Chickasaw, part of the Muskogean language family, is more closely related to Choctaw than to Muskogee, another language in the same family. Romans’s oblique reference to “western nations” having universally adopted the Chickasaw language

381


Notes to Pages 116 –122

382


Notes to Pages 122 –124

cannot be con¤rmed. Charles Hudson, Southeastern Indians (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976), p. 23. 41. Beginning in 1730, after virtually destroying the Natchez tribe, the French undertook to similarly crush the Chickasaws, whom they blamed in large part for the Natchez uprising against them. After several years of skirmishes and relatively indecisive action, the French engineered a massive assault on the Chickasaws. In 1736, Major Pierre d’Artaguette, moving south from Illinois with a combined army of four hundred Frenchmen and allied Indian warriors, was routed by the Chickasaws at the palisaded town of Ogoula Tchetoka. Most of the French were killed or captured. D’Artaguette, as were all the captives, was burned alive. Another French force, under Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, moving up from Mobile, was similarly defeated at the village of Ackia. In 1752, Bienville’s successor, Philippe de Rigault de Vaudreuil, sponsored two minor assaults against the Chickasaw towns. Though several villages and corn¤elds were burned, the French and their Indian allies were unable to subdue the Chickasaws. French activities against the Chickasaws continued through the Seven Years’ War. Arrell M. Gibson, The Chickasaws, Civilization of the American Indian Series, no. 109 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971), pp. 47–57; Patricia Dillon Woods, French-Indian Relations on the Southern Frontier, 1699–1762, Studies in American History and Culture, no. 18 (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980); and Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Ackia, Battle of 1736,” “Choctaw-Chickasaw War,” and “Ogoula Tchetoka, Battle of (1736).” Sieur de Regio was the commander of the Arkansas Post. Patricia K. Galloway, ed., Mississippi Provincial Archives: French Dominion, vols. 4 and 5, originally collected, edited, and translated by Dunbar Rowland and A. G. Sanders (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), vol. 5, p. 131. Benoist is most likely J-B Benoît de St. Clair, the commander at the Tombecbé post. Galloway, Mississippi Provincial Archives, vol. 4, p. 143. 42. The Chickasaw enemies listed here were usually referred to collectively as the “northern tribes” by the British during this period and included the Schaghticokes, Kickapoos, Piankashaws, Ouiatanons, Weas, Mesquakies, and Otos. For a description of the events in the region during the period, see Michael N. McConnell, A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its People, 1724–1774 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992). 43. The Arkansas Indians, living on the river of the same name, were staunch French allies, as were the Quapaws, whose villages were situated at the con®ux of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. With the ouster of the French from east of the Mississippi River and Canada following the Seven Years’ War, efforts were made to establish peace among all tribes by the British, who hoped to pro¤t by developing trade ties with France’s former allies. The Chickasaws, remembering the years of hostility by the Arkansas, and that tribe’s assistance to the French in their various expeditions against them, were reluctant to embrace their old enemies. 44. Chickasaw population had been severely diminished by the time Romans visited their towns, almost entirely as a result of constant harassment and warfare with enemies, both Indian and European. The survivors banded together for protection. As James Adair noted: “The superior number of their enemies forced them to take into this narrow circle, for social defense; and to build their towns, on com-

manding ground, at such a convenient distance from one another, as to have their enemies, when attacked, between two ¤res.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, edited by Samuel Cole Williams (New York: Argonaut Press, 1966), p. 378. 45. Romans’s list of surviving Chickasaw towns is one of the few from the late colonial period. In his report of 1755, Edmond Atkin provides an almost identical description of the Chickasaws: “These Indians live in 7 Towns, having each a Pallisade Fort with a Ditch, in an open rich Champain Plaine about ten Miles in Circumference, accessible only on one side, being almost surrounded by Swamps in a circular manner, about a Mile from any running Creek.” Atkin, The Appalachian Indian Frontier: The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755, reprint edition of Indians of the Southern Colonial Frontier, edited by Wilbur R. Jacobs (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1954; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967), p. 67. In 1708, Thomas Nairne reported eight villages. Thomas Nairne, Nairne’s Muskhogean Journals: The 1708 Expedition to the Mississippi River, edited by Alexander Moore ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988), p. 36. A list compiled by Frenchman Claude Delisle in 1702 listed eighteen villages, some of which contained only a few “huts.” This list is reproduced in Daniel H. Usner, Jr., Indians, Settlers and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, 1992), p. 21. 46. Payamattaha (or Paya Mataha), a staunch British ally and Great Medal Chief of the Chickasaws, was their leading spokesman during the 1760s and 1770s. 47. Romans errs in stating that menstrual seclusion was practiced solely by the Chickasaws. Rather, the practice was widespread and was linked to native beliefs concerning the spiritual power of blood as related to reproduction. Most contemporary writers, such as James Adair, mentioned these “lunar retreats.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, pp. 129–30. For more information on the practice among modern Creeks, see Amelia Rector Bell, “Separate People: Speaking of Creek Men and Women,” American Anthropologist 92 ( June 1990): 332–45, and Theda Perdue, “Writing the Ethnohistory of Native Women,” in Rethinking American Indian History, edited by Donald L. Fixico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997), p. 79. 48. Adair con¤rms this information: “When the crime is proved against the woman, the enraged husband accompanied by some of his relations, surprises and beats her most barbarously, and then cuts off her hair and nose, or one of her lips. There are many of that sort of dis¤gured females among the Chikkasah.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, pp. 149–50. This punishment was common among the Creeks as well, for both men and women, as Romans notes: CNH, p. 98. However, among the Creeks, loss of the ears was the usual punishment. Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund, eds., William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 101 and 128. 49. Botah kapussa. See Hudson, Southeastern Indians, pp. 306–7. 50. Paya Mingo Belizy, a rival of the well-known Chickasaw Medal Chief Paya Mataha. 51. John McIntosh served as the Chickasaw commissary through the American Revolution. McIntosh took a strong stand against trade violations, and that ultimately resulted in an attempt to undermine his authority. Here, Romans offers only part of the story. For the entire traders’ conspiracy and the role of Paya Mingo Belixy, see

383


Notes to Pages 124 –128

384


Notes to Pages 128 –130

J. Russell Snapp, John Stuart and the Struggle for Empire on the Southern Frontier (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996), pp. 97–98, in which the author attempts to place the incident in the context of the larger struggle between British authority and private trading interests. 52. Traders who attempted to maintain cattle herds in the Indian territory were frequently complained of by the various southeastern tribes, hence the reason for the Commissary’s dissimulation. Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, p. 75. 53. Commissaries for each Indian tribe were part of the larger “Plan for the Future Management of Indian Affairs.” Though the plan was never of¤cially authorized, John Stuart implemented many of its features, including appointing commissaries for the southern tribes whose duties included resolving disputes between traders and Indians and enforcing the trade regulations. Stuart’s commissaries were discharged in late 1768, after the Plan was rejected by the British government. Even so, there was hope among the Indians, as well as some in the government, that the of¤cers would be reinstated. For information on Stuart’s trade policies, see John R. Alden, John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier: A Study of Indian Relations, War, Trade, and Land Problems in the Southern Wilderness, 1754–1775 (Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1944; reprint, New York: Gordian, 1966), pp. 240–61, and Snapp, John Stuart and the Struggle for Empire, pp. 55–67. 54. In probably the most accurate population estimate for the late colonial period, James Wright of Georgia estimated the Chickasaw population at 450 gunmen. “Report of Sir James Wright to Lord Dartmouth on the Condition of the Province of Georgia, September 20, 1773,” in Letters from Governor Sir James Wright to the Secretaries of State for America, August 24, 1774, to February 16, 1782, Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, vol. 3 (Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1873), p. 169. 55. Romans provides virtually the only reference to what anthropologists term “punitive gendering behaviors,” which were meant to strip the dead warrior of his masculine or warrior identity, thus recasting him as a nonwarrior or woman: the supreme insult. The practice of homosexual rape—on both the dead and living—was not con¤ned to the New World. For an examination of the practice and its meaning, see Richard C. Trexler, Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 14 and 65. 56. Flatheads or Flats was a common appellation for the Choctaw Indians throughout the colonial period because of their practice of arti¤cial skull deformation. Romans brie®y describes the practice on p. 82. James Adair did not note that the practice was limited to males. Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 10. William Bartram con¤rms Romans’s observation that the practice was limited to males, and he provides the fullest description of the practice. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 129. 57. Unfortunately, Romans’s map of the Indian nations was not included with the ¤rst volume of CNH. The second volume was never published. It, and the map, remain lost. 58. Among the Choctaws, both Red Shoe, soulouche oumastabe, literally “red shoe killer,” and Red Captain, mingo ouma, meaning “red chief,” were titles for the village

war chief. See Patricia K. Galloway, “Choctaw Factionalism and Civil War, 1746– 1750,” in The Choctaw before Removal, edited by Carolyn Keller Reeves ( Jackson: University Press of Mississippi), p. 121. Thus, a number of “Red Shoes” and “Red Captains” populated the eighteenth-century Choctaw landscape. During the late British period, the two most respected Choctaw leaders, both pro-British, were known by these war titles. Here, Romans recounts an event from the Creek-Choctaw War. In late September 1767, both Red Captain and Red Shoe led war parties against the Creeks. See John Richy, Lieut. Commander at Fort Tombigby to General Frederick Haldimand, September 22, 1767, in Sir Frederick Haldimand, Unpublished Papers and Correspondence, 1758–1784, British Museum, London, England, micro¤lm copies of manuscripts by Micro¤lm World Publications, reel 5, fol. 243. In the engagement described by Romans, the Red Captain and forty-two of his men were ambushed near the Cahaba River in early October 1767 by about eighty Creeks, led by Emisteseguo, Duval’s Landlord, and Topulga or Molton, all leading Upper Creek war chiefs. The Choctaws fought “till all their ammunition was expended. They then rushed in among the thickest of their enemies, knocking them down with their tomahawks and the buttends of their muskets.” Pennsylvania Gazette, December 17, 1767. At least twenty-four Choctaws, including the Red Captain and his son, were killed. Other reports of the battle con¤rm that one of the captives was burned alive by the Creeks, as custom dictated. It was very likely Red Captain, as Romans relates, since the Creeks returned the British medals carried by the Red Captain to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs. Thirteen Creeks, including Topulga, were killed. The deaths of Red Captain and Topulga so excited the two nations that any chance of a reconciliation was dashed. See Roderick MackIntosh to John Stuart, November 16, 1767, in Mr. Stuart’s letter to General Thomas Gage, December 26, 1767, Papers of Thomas Gage Relating to His Command in North America, 1762–1776, William L. Clements Library, Ann Arbor, Michigan; Talk to John Stuart from Emisteseguo, July 12, 1769, Great Britain, Public Record Of¤ce, Colonial Of¤ce, Series 5, America and West Indies, vol. 70 (hereafter, Colonial Of¤ce Series 5 material will be cited as CO5/volume, ¤rst page of the folio number); Stuart to Hillsborough, December 28, 1768, CO5/70. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia, 2 vols., edited by Richard L. Blanco (New York: Garland, 1993), s.v. “Creek-Choctaw War.” 59. Here Romans lists the major components of the Choctaw peoples. These are the Okla Tannap (People of the Opposite Side) or the Eastern Choctaws, whose villages were on the western tributaries of the Tombigbee River, particularly the Sucarnoochee. The Okla Falaya (Long People) were often called the Western Choctaws. Their villages were concentrated at the head of the Pearl River near the famous Choctaw mound of origin, Nanih Waiya. The Okla Hannali or Sixtowns Choctaws resided on tributaries of the Chickasawhay River. The Chickasawhays’ towns were on the Chickasawhay River. Patricia Galloway, Choctaw Genesis: 1500–1700 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995), pp. 2 and 198–99, and Usner, Frontier Exchange Economy, p. 88. The Western Choctaws were occasionally called the Coosa Division by the British, after their leading town of Coosa, alternately spelled Coucha or Concha. Conchas is listed on a French census given to the British in 1763 as the largest town in the “Partie de L’oust.” Only two divisions—East and West—are given in this census. John Stuart to the Board of Trade, March 9, 1764, CO323/17,

385


Notes to Pages 130 –131

386


Notes to Pages 131 –137

fol. 241. In 1771, the British continued to use the Coosa designation, noting the presence of the leading men from “the Six Villages, East Party, & District of Coosa” at the 1771 Congress of Mobile. See “At a Congress Held at Mobile in the Province of West Florida . . . ,” CO5/73, fol. 67. Patricia Galloway identi¤es Coosa as the leading town of the Eastern Division. Galloway, Choctaw Genesis, p. 199. Though dated, John R. Swanton’s Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 103 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1931), contains an exhaustive list of Choctaw towns and information on each. For a more recent examination, see Kenneth Hoffman Carleton, “Eighteenth-Century Trails in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi and Alabama” (Master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 1989). The Choctaw Civil War lasted from 1746 to 1750, although Romans is correct in his assertion that con®icts between the factions ended only with the exit of the French in 1763. See Galloway, “Choctaw Factionalism and Civil War, 1746–1750,” and Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Choctaw Civil War (1746–1750).” 60. The Congress of Mobile with the Chickasaws and Choctaws began December 31, 1771, and ended January 6, 1772. Most of the discussion by both tribes centered on the abuses of British traders. See “At a Congress held at Mobile in the Province of West Florida . . . ,” CO5/73, fol. 67. 61. Louis Billouart de Kerlérec (1704–1770) served as governor of Louisiana from 1752 until 1763. Galloway, Mississippi Provincial Archives, vol. 5, p. 124 n. 1. 62. Positive identi¤cation of this bird is dif¤cult because of the lack of descriptive features provided. James Adair likewise recorded that a group of warriors, presumably Chickasaws, were “intimidated at the voice of a small uncommon bird, when it pitched, and chirped on a tree over their war camp.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 28. For the importance of birds as omens, see Hudson, Southeastern Indians, pp. 128–31. 63. The Jesuit mission at Chickasawhay was established in 1728 by Father Mathurin Le Petit. Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Choctaw.” 64. George Catlin left a remarkable portrait of Choctaw ball play. See Royal B. Hassrick, The George Catlin Book of American Indians (reprint, Secausus, New Jersey: Castle Books, n.d.), pp. 39 and 72. 65. Here, Romans provides an excellent description of chunkey, the most popular game among all the southeastern Indian tribes. Beautifully crafted, ¤nely polished chunkey stones can be seen at almost any museum exhibit of southeastern Indian artifacts. For a thorough discussion of the game, see Hudson, Southeastern Indians, pp. 421–25. 66. William Bartram reported a similar practice among the Seminole women. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 65–66. 67. John Stuart (1718–1779) served as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the Southern District of North America from 1762 until his death, at Pensacola, in 1779. For a look at his career, see Alden, John Stuart. 68. If by “fashionable disorder,” Romans meant syphilis, he was mistaken. Bartram reported it was “uncommon” among the southeastern Indians. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 162. In this paragraph, Romans

provides one of the few references extant to transvestites among the southeastern Indians. For a brief introduction to the subject among southeastern Indians in general, see Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present, Frederick E. Hoxie, ed. (Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1996), s.v. “Gender.” Charles Hudson addresses the matter among the southern tribes in his Southeastern Indians, p. 269. 69. The persimmon (Diospyros virginiana). 70. In addition to corn (Zea mays), Choctaws and other southeastern Indians relied on a variety of beans, both native (Phaseolus) and introduced. Dolichos is used elsewhere by Romans to refer to the soybean. It might also have referred to cowpeas (Vigna sinensis Endl.). See Francis Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist’s Edition (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), p. 451. John Swanton tentatively identi¤ed Dolichos as the hyacinth bean; however, Swanton’s plant identi¤cations are frequently unreliable. Native sun®owers (Helianthus annua) joined with corn, beans, and squash as the cornerstones of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. Guinea corn (Sorgum Drummondii and Panicum maximum) was introduced from Africa. Richard White, The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983), pp. 19–20. The sweet potato, an import, was also known as Spanish potato. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, p. 288, identi¤es Romans’s Convolvulus as the wild sweet potato. However, Romans seems to be implying the true sweet potato in this case. See Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 164–66, for a similar list by Bartram of Creek foods, including the Spanish or sweet potato. 71. Here, Romans points out the many wild foods that supplemented the Choctaw diet. Fagus, according to research by John Swanton, implied not only nuts from the beech family, but also the chestnut and chinquapin. Persimmons, wild sweet potatoes, smilax, and plums were also staples in the event of crop failure. See White, Roots of Dependency, p. 30. 72. John R. Swanton identi¤ed these tobacco additives as sumac (Rhus coriaria) and sweetgum (Liquidambar styraci®ua). See Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 381–86, for a discussion of tobacco use among the southeastern Indians. 73. Red mulberry (Morus rubra L.). See Hudson, Southeastern Indians, p. 267, for the method of preparing mulberry ¤bers into cloth. See CNH, p. 148, for Romans’s comments on the potential commercial value of mulberry ¤ber. 74. James Adair provides a description of rainmakers, but fails to mention this herb. Adair’s History of the American Indians, pp. 89–95. 75. Richard White, skeptical of Romans’s statement regarding the swimming ability—or lack thereof—of Choctaw horses, opines that a good deal of Romans’s information on the Choctaws should also be regarded with suspicion. White, Roots of Dependency, p. 17. However, it was widely reported by the British that the Choctaws were poor swimmers while the Creeks excelled. Perhaps Choctaw men, who valued their stock as well as their lives, seldom led their horses to water unless to drink. During the height of the Creek-Choctaw War, the Pennsylvania Gazette, which kept the eastern colonial seaboard informed of affairs in West Florida, reported that the

387


Notes to Pages 137 –139

388


Notes to Pages 140 –142

Creeks were doing very well against the Choctaws during the early part of the year, but that “it is thought that in the summer, when the rivers are low, the Choctaws will have an equality with the Creeks, for as there are very few rivers in the Choctaw nation, the inhabitants are but little acquainted with swimming, which prevents them from venturing far to war until the rivers are low and gives the Creeks a great advantage over them.” Pennsylvania Gazette, July 6, 1769. For the changes wrought in Choctaw life by their acquisition and increasing dependence on horses, see James Taylor Carson, “Horses and the Economy and Culture of the Choctaw Indians, 1690–1840,” Ethnohistory 42 (Summer 1995): 495–513. 76. For a fuller account of Choctaw mortuary practices, see Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 725–27. 77. Apollonios Rhodios (b. ca. 295 b.c.) was the author of a classical Hellenistic poem, The Argonautika, the tale of Jason and the Argonauts. See The Argonautika: The Story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece by Apollonios Rhodios, translated, with introduction and glossary, by Peter Green (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). 78. Edward Ives, A Voyage from England to India, in the year 1754, and an historical narrative of the operations of the squadron and army in India, under the command of ViceAdmiral Watson and Colonel Clive, in the years 1755, 1756, 1757. . . . Also a journey from Persia to England by an unusual route (London, 1773). 79. Doubtless, Romans used the American edition that he had helped produce: John Hawkesworth, A New Voyage, round the world, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771: undertaken by order of his present Majesty, performed by, Captain James Cook, in the ship Endeavour, drawn up from his own journal, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq. F. R. S: and published by the special direction of the Right Honourable the Lords of the Admiralty. By John Hawkesworth, L. L. D. and late director of the East-India Company; In two volumes: with cutts and a map of the whole navigation (New York: James Rivington, 1774). 80. This list of Creek tribal entities is confused, but fairly complete. The Muscogulge or Creek peoples were a confederation of related tribes and consisted of three geopolitical divisions: Upper Creeks, Lower Creeks, and Seminoles. The Upper Creeks consisted of three main components: the Tallapoosas (Talepoosas), Abeikas (Abekas), and Alabamas (Alibamons). During the late eighteenth century, there were eight major Tallapoosa towns, six major Alabama towns, and twelve major Abeika towns. For the Abeika towns, Romans lists Coosa (Coosas), Okchai (Okchoys), and Natchez, peopled by refugees from the Natchez nation who lived among the Abeikas in their own town. Romans gives no Tallapoosa towns. For the Alabama towns, he provides Wetumpka (Weetumkees) and Pukana (Pakanas). The primary Lower Creek town was Coweta (Cowittas). Other Lower Creek towns listed by Romans were Apalachee (Apalachias), Okmulgee (Oakmulgis), and Oconee (Oconis). Braund, “Classi¤cation of Upper Creek Indian Towns,” paper presented before the Society of American Archaeology, Nashville, Tennessee, April 2–6, 1997. The Tensaws (Taensas) and Chakchiumas (Chacsihoomas) were also remnant tribes and are usually identi¤ed by other authorities as living among the Choctaws and Chickasaws, respectively. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 105–7 and 188–89.

81. Romans is referring to the Seminole settlements at the Alachua Savannah, East Florida, near modern-day Gainesville, Florida. 82. In 1773, Governor James Wright of Georgia estimated 4000 gunmen for the Creeks, with only 2500 for the Choctaws. This was most likely the most accurate population estimate for both tribes for the late colonial period. “Report of Sir James Wright to Lord Dartmouth,” in Letters from Governor Sir James Wright, p. 169. 83. George Galphin and John Rae were among the most respected and successful traders of their day. The Creeks complained bitterly of the cattle drive, claiming it disrupted the deer upon which they depended. Other cattle drives were forbidden. Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, pp. 50–51. 84. See Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, pp. 15–16, for a fuller description of the Creek town square. 85. James Adair observed that Indians “make salt for domestic use, out of a saltish kind of grass, which grows on rocks, by burning it to ashes, making strong lye of it, and boiling it in earthen pots to a proper consistence.” Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 122. See also William W. Winn, The Old Beloved Path: Daily Life among the Indians of the Chattahoochee River Valley (Eufaula, Alabama: Historic Chattahoochee Commission, 1992), p. 66. 86. Chamaerops is the fruit of the saw palmetto (Serenoa repens [Bartram] Small), whose fruit likewise appeals to bears. See Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, pp. lvii and 469. William Bartram provided similar, though more detailed, descriptions of Creek and Seminole foods. For comparison, see Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 164–66 and 236–39. 87. The maypop or passion ®ower (Passi®ora incarnata L.). William Bartram provided a fuller account of its use: “When ripe they gather great quantities & throw in heaps, to mellow. when they get yellow & begin to shrivell they spread them about to air[,] then beat them with parch’t corn ®ower, in a Mort[ar], which soon becomes like dough but continue beating till the whole is dry as ®ower[,] th[en] they sift it. to clear out the seeds & skins whiche being too hard & tough to marsh up with the rest[.] this ®ower has an agreable smell & taste, & by mixing a ve[ry] little of this meal or ®ower with warm water make an agreeable whole[some] kind of jelly. They like wise make Cakes or fritters of it.” Quoted in Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 236. 88. Romans’s “common esculent convolvulus” is the sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas [L.] Lam.). Romans was most likely referring to swamp potatoes, as the roots of arrowhead (Sagittifolia L.) are known, when he mentions those found in low woods. Merritt L. Fernald and Alfred C. Kinsey, Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America (New York: Harper Brothers, 1958), pp. 86–89 and 326. John R. Swanton erroneously identi¤ed the sort “found in low woods” as the wild sweet potato (Ipomoea pandurata L.), more commonly known as wild morning glory, whose tap root can weigh up to thirty pounds. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, p. 286; Hudson, Southeastern Indians, p. 285. However, Ipomoea pandurata prefers light, dry alluvial soils. 89. Bartram also noted that “all the species of Phaseolus & Dolichos in use among the Whites are cultivated by the Creeks, Cherokees &c: and make up a great part of their food.” Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 165.

389


Notes to Pages 142 –145

390


Notes to Pages 145 –148

John R. Swanton speculated that by Panicum (a genus of grasses), Romans might have meant sorghum, wild rice, and cockspur grass. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, p. 286. 90. Romans also made reference to hickory milk among the Choctaws, see CNH, p. 84. In his “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida,” Romans noted that it “does not ill resemble the milk of almonds.” Kenneth G. Davies, ed., Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, 20 vols. (Dublin, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972–1979), 6:191. For a fuller description of the production and use of hickory milk among the Creeks, see Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 39 and 238. 91. Cassine or black drink is a tea made from Youpon holly (Ilex vomitoria Ait.). For a full discussion of all aspects of black drink, including its production and ceremonial uses, see Charles M. Hudson, ed., Black Drink: A Native American Tea (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979). 92. Some were clearly circular, but Romans’s description con¤rms the observations of David Taitt, who wrote that the winter council house at Tuckabatchee was “a square building about 30 feet diameter rounded a little at the corners.” “David Taitt’s Journal to and through the Upper Creek Nation,” in Davies, Documents of the American Revolution, 5:254. William Bonar’s 1757 sketch of a Creek “Hott House” shows a square building. See Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, illustration no. 3, fol. p. 108. Craig Sheldon presents unequivocal evidence that Creeks built both round hot houses as well as squared ones with clipped corners. For an excellent discussion of Creek architecture, see Craig T. Sheldon, Jr., “The Council Houses of Fusihatchee,” in Archaeological Excavations at the Early Historic Creek Indian Town of Fusihatchee (Phase I, 1988–1989), edited by Gregory A. Waselkov, John W. Cottier, and Craig T. Sheldon, Jr. (Report to the National Science Foundation, 1990, grant no. BNS-8718934), pp. 45–76. 93. Romans correctly distinguishes the difference between “wet” scratching, used as a curative, and “dry” scratching, a punishment. See Hudson, Southeastern Indians, p. 344, for information on wet scratching. Caleb Swan also reported the use of gar ¤sh for dry scratching of unruly children. Caleb Swan, “Position and State of Manners and Arts in the Creek, or Muscogee Nation in 1791,” in Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, ed., Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, 6 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1852–1857), 5:273–74. 94. For a fuller description of the Creek Busk, or Green Corn Dance, see David H. Corkran, The Creek Frontier: 1540–1783, Civilization of the American Indian Series, no. 86 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967), pp. 36–39. 95. There was minimal contact between British West Florida and these tribes. The Quapaws were Sioux speakers whose settlements were near the junction of the Mississippi and Arkansas rivers. See David W. Baird, The Quapaw Indians: A History of the Downstream People (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980). 96. Hernando de Soto (ca. 1500–1542), the ¤rst European to extensively explore the interior South (1539–1542), is credited with the discovery of the Mississippi River. His exact route through the southeast is still a matter of debate. The most comprehensive account of his route to date is Hudson, Knights of Spain. An excellent

modern biography of the explorer is available: David Ewing Duncan, Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas (New York: Crown, 1995). The account read by Romans was almost certainly that by Garcilaso de la Vega, the Inca, who was also cited by De Brahm. De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America, Louis De Vorsey, Jr., ed. (Columbia, South Carolina, 1971), p. 171. 97. René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687), ¤rst explored the Mississippi River valley in 1682, discovered the mouth of the Mississippi River, and claimed the entire river basin—Louisiana—for France. As Romans relates, in a subsequent attempt to reach the mouth of the river by sea, La Salle overshot the Mississippi River and landed in what is today Texas, where attempts to reach the Mississippi River by land proved fruitless. Romans’s remark that La Salle had ascertained the latitude of the mouth of the Mississippi River upon its discovery is instructive, and the signi¤cance of the remark may be lost on modern readers, for La Salle did not ascertain the longitude. As a navigator, Romans was well aware of the dif¤culty of determining longitude prior to the invention of a reliable chronometer, and this indeed was La Salle’s problem. Though he reached the correct latitude by sea, La Salle was unable to distinguish the mouth of this famous river by sight alone and sailed along the confusing coast, hopelessly lost. He was killed by his own men near the Brazos River in 1687. Henri Joutel’s account of the expedition was published in France in 1713, and the ¤rst English edition appeared in 1714. A modern version of his work is available: Henri Joutel, A Journal of La Salle’s Last Voyage, introduction by Darrett B. Rutman (New York: Corinth Books, 1962). The Discoverers: An Encyclopedia of Explorers and Exploration, edited by Helen Delpar (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980), s.v. “La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de,” and Alexander B. Adams, Sunlight and Storm: The Great American Plains (New York: G. P. Putnam, 1977), pp. 65–69. 98. These remnant tribes were usually referred to collectively as the Small Tribes on the Mississippi River during the British period. John Stuart listed the following small tribes “inhabiting the Eastern shore of the Mississippi below its con®uence with the Ohio. Vist. the Beluxis, Huma, Attucapas, Bayuglas, Tunicas, Peluches, Tugulas, and the Querphas.” John Stuart to the Board of Trade, March 9, 1764, CO323/17, fol. 241. For information on the various tribes listed, see John Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States. 99. John Reynolds, Georgia’s ¤rst governor following the Trustee period, served in that of¤ce from 1754 to 1757. 100. James Edward Oglethorpe (1696–1785) is today considered the “Founder of Georgia.” Oglethorpe was a member of the Board of Trustees set up to oversee the development of the colony and he was the only one to actually reside in the colony. See Phinizy Spalding, Oglethorpe in America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), and Phinizy Spalding and Harvey H. Jackson, eds., Oglethorpe in Perspective: Georgia’s Founder after Two Hundred Years (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989). 101. Benjamin Rush, An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America upon Slave Keeping (Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1773). 102. Phillis Wheatley was an African-born slave whose volume of poems, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral By Phillis Wheatley, Negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New England (London: A. Bell; sold by Messrs. Cox and Berry,

391


Notes to Pages 148 –152

392


Notes to Pages 152 –160

King-street, Boston, 1773), went through ¤ve editions. Wheatly became, as Winthrop D. Jordan wrote, “antislavery’s most prized exhibit, her name virtually a household term for the Negro’s mental equality.” Jordon, White over Black, p. 284. 103. Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689–1755), was among the leading political theorists of the eighteenth century and particularly known for his De l’esprit des lois . . . (The Spirit of Laws), which originally appeared in 1750. 104. Pierre Poivre, Travels of a Philosopher; or, Observations on the Manner and Arts of various Nations in Africa and Asia; Translated from the French of M. Le Poivre, late envoy to the king of Cochin-China, and now intendant of the isles of Bourbon and Mauriturs (London: T. Bechet & Co., 1769). 105. James Harrington (1611–1677), was the author of Commonwealth of Oceana (London, 1656). Sir Thomas More (1478–1535) originally published Utopia in Latin in 1516. An English translation was published in London by R. Chriswell in 1685. The work has remained widely available, in English, since that time. For a look at the idea of “utopia,” see Hugh Francis Russell-Smith, Harrington and His Oceana: A Story of a Seventeenth Century Utopia and Its In®uence in America (New York: Octagon Books, 1971). 106. Albinism—its cause and occurrence among various races—was a point of inquiry among leading European and American thinkers. Benjamin Smith Barton, himself a leading contributor to the debate over the causes of albinism, queried William Bartram on the subject: “We hear much, in writers, of white, and spotted, Indians, as at the Isthmus of Darien;—have you ever seen, or heard of, such white or spotted Indians, among any of the tribes, with whom you are acquainted?” Bartram, in his answer, noted he had neither heard of nor seen the condition in the southeast. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 150–51 (quotation on p. 150). In his own work, New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America (Philadelphia, 1798), Barton cited Lionel Wafer, A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, giving an account of the author’s abode there . . . with remarkable occurences in the South Sea (London: James Knapton, 1699), for much of his information on the Indians of that region of the world. However, he also cited CNH, and there is little doubt Romans is one of the writers to whom Barton referred in his query to Bartram. For a brief introduction to the topic, especially as related to black persons, see Jordan, White over Black, pp. 249–52. 107. In theory, English currency was the medium of exchange, but in reality, most colonies issued their own currency, making it dif¤cult at best to compare price lists as they all used the same units: pounds (£), shillings (s), and pence (d). For an introduction to the topic, see John J. McCusker, Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775: A Handbook (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978). 108. “Here spring is eternal, summer is in winter months; twice do the cattle bear young, twice do the trees give fruit.” Virgil, Georgics 2. 149–50. Identi¤cation and translation of this passage courtesy of Professor Mary Kuntz. 109. Dr. William Stork was one of the most ebullient promoters of East Florida. His An Account of East-Florida, with remarks of its future importance to trade and commerce, was published in London in 1766. The “self-taught Pennsylvania philosopher” is John Bartram, who was engaged by the government of George III to make a botanical

survey of East Florida. Bartram visited the colony in 1765–1766. He was accompanied by his son, William, who later became even more famous for his own expedition into the southern frontier. The second edition of Stork’s book contained John Bartram’s account of his travels in East Florida—part of which Stork published without Bartram’s knowledge. Bartram had sent the report to Governor James Grant, who forwarded it to the Board of Trade, where those supportive of East Florida colonization forwarded it to Stork. William Stork, An Account of East-Florida, with a Journal, kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia, Botanist to His Majesty for The Floridas; upon a Journey from St. Augustine up the River St. John’s (London: W. Nicoll and T. Jefferies, 1769). Bartram’s entire journal has been published: “Diary of a Journey Through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766,” annotated by Francis Harper, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 33 pt. 1 (December 1942): 1–120. 110. Isaac Young was a prominent Georgia landowner and member of the Georgia Commons House of Assembly. 111. For an examination of the importance of corn in the early South and expansive discussion of its preparation, including hominy, see Nicholas P. Hardeman, Shucks, Shocks, and Hominy Blocks: Corn as a Way of Life in Pioneer America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981). 112. Guinea corn or panicum is a tall African grass (Panicum maximum). It has been introduced into tropical America and the southern United States. 113. See CNH, p. 264. The “grand marsh” is the Everglades. 114. See Manual of Grasses, edited by Rick Darke, New Dictionary of the Royal Horticultural Society, Mark Grif¤ths, series ed. (Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1994), for identi¤cation and information on the grasses mentioned in CNH. 115. Edmund Rush Wegg was the attorney general for West Florida. 116. Romans was most likely recommending Zamia integrifolia Ait., known in both the West Indies and Florida, where it was used by the Seminoles. Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World, edited by U. P. Hedrick (reprint, New York: Dover, 1972), p. 607. 117. Perhaps Patrick Mackay. See Betty Wood, Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730– 1775 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984), p. 189. 118. The ground nut (Arachis hypogaea) is actually not a nut, but a legume. More commonly known today as the peanut, it was native to tropical South America, introduced into Africa, and ultimately brought into what is now the southeastern United States from there. Today, the Lower South is one of the nation’s major peanut-producing regions, especially southeast Alabama, southwest Georgia, and north Florida, areas known for their sandy soils. 119. Romans identi¤ed the “grand marsh” (Everglades) and Rio Rattons (at or near modern-day Boca Raton) on the large map that accompanied the original edition of his work. 120. William Lewis, The Chemical Works of Caspar Neumann: abridged and methodized, with large additions: containing the later discoveries and improvements made in chemistry and the arts depending thereon (London: W. Johnston, G. Keith, A. Linde, P. Davey, B. Law, T. Field, T. Caslon, and E. Dilly, 1759). 121. There were many early cotton varieties, but the two main types were sea

393


Notes to Pages 160 –173

394


Notes to Pages 175 –181

island and green or upland cotton. Sea island cotton is today known as Gossypium barbadense L. while upland cotton is known as Gossypium hirsutum L. Both these names follow the Linnaean classi¤cation system. Romans’s designation of these plants predates the international adoption of that system, but his names follow the Linnaean binomial scheme. His designation Gossypium Anniversariuym or Xylon Herbaceum implies the annual green seed cotton, rather than the perennial West Indian or sea island cotton. Chaplin, An Anxious Pursuit, pp. 154 and 221. 122. One ¤lature was at Savannah, but the most productive ¤lature in Georgia was located at Ebenezer. For a discussion of silk culture in colonial America, see Hindle, Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, pp. 200–4. Purrysburg, South Carolina, was settled by the Swiss on the Savannah River in 1732 and likewise was known for its ¤lature. Robert L. Merriwether, The Expansion of South Carolina, 1729– 1765 (Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1940), p. 37. 123. Saf®ower ®owers are used in the production of red and yellow dyes. 124. A Citizen, Thoughts on the Times, and the Silk Manufacture; shewing its utility, and the great loss that is occasioned by the importation of French and Italian wrought silks. With the cause of the weavers’ dissatisfaction, and a remedy, etc. (London: J. Wilkie, 1765). 125. Arthur Young, Political essays concerning the present state of the British Empire; particularly respecting I. Natural advantages and disadvantages. II. Constitution. III. Agriculture. IV. Manufactures. V. The colonies. And VI. Commerce (London: W. Strahan & T. Cadell, 1772). 126. Museum Rusticum et Commerciale; or, select papers on agriculture, commerce, arts, and manufactures . . . Revised . . . by several members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, 3d ed., 6 vols. (London: R. Davis, 1766). 127. Members of the Pistacia family are not known in Florida. Here, Romans refers to the witch hazel tree (Hamamelis virginiana L.), which was called pistachio in the eighteenth-century South because of the small oily seeds that were deemed edible. Arnold Krochmal and Connie Krochmal, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants (New York: Times Books, 1984), p. 114; Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World, p. 297. 128. Balsam poplar (Populus balsamifera L.) is variously called Balm-of-Gilead or Tacamahac. The tree is known for its aromatic buds that produce a resin used in ointments and tinctures for a variety of wounds and for pain relief. Steven Foster and James A. Duke, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central North America (Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1990), p. 292. 129. The American sweet gum (Liquidambar styraci®ua L.). The resin from the tree has been used as a cure for such diverse ailments as sore throats, diarrhea, and ringworm. Foster and Duke, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 280. 130. Cascarilla is derived from the aromatic bark of Croton eleuteria, a shrub native to the Bahamas. It is used as a tonic and in incense and bitters. With his correction, Romans appears to be incorrectly identifying cascarilla with cassia (Cinnamomum cassia), a source of cinnamon indigenous to China. 131. Balaustian or balaustine, dried pomegranate ®owers, is an astringent. 132. By China root Romans meant the various vines of the genus Smilax, the roots of which are used to produce sarsaparilla, a ®avoring and tonic. He may have meant Hellfetter greenbrier (Smilax tamnoides L.), usually identi¤ed as China root. Virgil J. Vogel, American Indian Medicine (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,

1970), p. 51 n. 47, and George A. Petrides, A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, 2d ed., Peterson Field Guide Series (Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1978), pp. 182–3. Krochmal and Krochmal, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 88, note that Atlantic yam or wild yam (Dioscorea villosa L.) is also called China root, but this is not the plant referred to by Romans. See also Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, p. 271. 133. Wild ipecac (Euphorbia ipecacuanhae L.) generally grows in sandy soil along the coast. The roots of the plant act as a strong laxative and emetic. Foster and Duke, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 206. Bartram claimed that the swamp lily and mayapple were superior to true Spanish ipecacuanha. See Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 163. 134. Jalap (Ipomoea purga) is native to Mexico. One of the most popular purgatives of the eighteenth century was produced from the roots of this plant. Dr. William Houstoun was appointed by London’s Worshipful Society of Apothecaries to identify medicinal plants that might be produced in Georgia. His particular interest was jalap. 135. Scammony is a purgative drug obtained from the rhizomes of Convolvulus scammonia. In his comments on John Ellis’s Catalogue of Such Foreign Plants, as are worthy of being encouraged in our American colonies . . . , Romans wrote: “This I ®atter my Self to have discovered Naturally growing in W. Florida, but till a farther Examination I chuse to be Silent on that article.” John D. Ware, “The Bernard Romans– John Ellis Letters, 1772–1774,” Florida Historical Quarterly 52 ( July 1973): 57. 136. Rhei, the dried rhizome and roots of Chinese rhubarb, was a popular cathartic. J. Worth Estes, “Pattern of Drug Usage in Colonial America,” in Early American Medicine: A Symposium, edited by Robert I. Goler and Pascal James Imperato (New York City: Fraunces Tavern Museum, 1987), p. 31. 137. Arnotto, variously spelled annatto or anatta (Bixa orellana L.), produces a fruit from which a bright orange dye is produced. Arnotto was used by the Indians of South America as a body colorant. 138. Lichens from the species Roccella produce orchil, a red or violet dye particularly good for wool and silk textiles. 139. Carmine is the red or purple dye derived from the bodies of cochineal insects found in tropical and subtropical regions of the Americas. 140. Romans is likely referring to staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina L.), a tree or shrub reaching ¤fteen feet high whose leaves and bark are high in tannin. He is correct in identifying low, swampy areas as the habitat for poison sumac (Rhus vernix L.). Petrides, A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs, p. 134. 141. Common madder (Rubia tinctorum) was cultivated for red dye, which was derived from the ground roots of the plant. 142. William Bartram described this plant as well: “They have likewise, another species of the esculent Arum, called Tannier, which is a large and beautiful plant, and much cultivated and esteemed for food, particularly by the Negroes.” Francis Harper identi¤ed tannier as the edible root or stem of any of the related aroids, including the taro (Colocasia antiquorum Schott). Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, pp. 297, 444, and 497. These were introduced from the West Indies. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 237. 143. The Tea Act of 1773 awarded the East India Company a monopoly on the

395


Notes to Pages 181 –189

396


Notes to Pages 189 –198

trade in tea with the North American colonies and preserved the small duty on tea imposed by the Townshend Acts. The act was intended as a way to help the East India Company. The Tea Act galvanized the American public in opposition to not only tea, but also the British government. For an examination of American reaction to the Tea Act, see Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, The Oxford History of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), pp. 219–27. 144. Carolus Linnaeus (1707–1778), the best-known botanist of his age, developed the binomial system of nomenclature used to name both plants and animals. His best-known work was Systema Naturae. Engelbert Kaempfer lived from 1651 to 1716. His best-known work, originally published in 1727, continues in print: History of Japan: together with a description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–1692, 3 vols., translated by J. G. Scheuchzer (Richmond: Curzon Press, 1993). His Amohnitatum exoticarum . . . (Lemgoviae: H. W. Meyeri, 1712) was frequently quoted by eighteenthcentury naturalists. 145. John Coakley Lettsom (1744–1815), The Natural History of the Tea-tree with Observations on the Medical Qualities of Tea, and Effects of Tea-drinking (London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1772). 146. Barilla, a sodium carbonate derived from various plant ashes, is used in soap making as well as in soda and glass production. Salsola kali is saltwort. See De Brahm’s Report, pp. 74 and 232, for a description of barilla production. 147. Romans’s Nadouessin is actually Nadouessioux, the standard French spelling of the Ojibwa word for enemies (literally a derogatory epithet meaning “little snakes”), designating, in this case, those tribes we know in English as the Sioux Indians. These people were in reality the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires, composed of three primary divisions: the Dakotas, Nakotas, and Lakotas. The Dakota economy centered around ¤shing and harvesting wild rice. Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Hoxie, ed., s.v. “Sioux.” 148. John Mitchell, The Present State of Great Britain and North America, with regard to Agriculture, population, trade and manufactures, impartially considered. . . . (London: T. Becket & P. A. Hondt, 1767). 149. The Interest of Great Britain considered, with regard to her Colonies, and the acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe. To which is added, Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, &c [by Benjamin Franklin], 2d ed. (Boston: B. Mecom, 1760). 150. Those who negotiated and rati¤ed the Treaty of Paris, 1763, which ended the Seven Years’ War—speci¤cally, the ministry of Lord Bute. Romans was not alone in condemning various aspects of the treaty. See CNH, p. 340 for extracts of the treaty by Romans. 151. This seems to be a reference to the work of Thomas Stephens, a potash manufacturer. See The method and plain process for making pot-ash, equal, if not superior to the best foreign pot-ash. Published in consequence of the late encouragement granted by Parliament for that purpose (London: R. Grif¤ths, 1755). 152. Lynn, Massachusetts, was the ¤rst center of shoe production in the Americas. 153. Following the British conquest of Acadia in 1755 during the Seven Years’ War, those French Canadians who refused to swear allegiance to Britain were expelled and sent to French Louisiana. Their descendants, today known as Cajuns, still

celebrate their French heritage and remain one of the best-known ethnic groups in the modern South. 154. The Indian River, where the Ais tribe had been located. See Jerald T. Milanich, Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995), pp. 65–68, for information on the Ais peoples. Swanton, Indians of the Southeastern United States, pp. 84–85. See CNH, p. 273. De Vorsey identi¤es De Brahm’s North Hillsborough River as modern-day Indian River. See De Brahm’s Report, pp. 206 and 297 n. 49. 155. Sir James Wright served as the royal governor of Georgia from 1760 through the American Revolution. The lands to which Romans refers are the lands ceded to the Crown by the Creeks and Cherokees at Augusta in 1773. Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, pp. 150–52. 156. Elias Durnford, surveyor general of West Florida, also served a brief term as acting governor of the province prior to the arrival of Governor Peter Chester. 157. A buck is a dandy: a dashing fellow. “Jockey” implies one who behaves shrewdly or fraudulently and, of course, could also imply one who is fond of horseracing. “Vauxhall” refers to Vauxhall Gardens, an amusement resort on the south bank of the Thames in London, which was popular from the seventeenth until the nineteenth century. Renelagh’s Gardens was an area in London famed for its carnivals and prostitutes. New Market, east of Cambridge, was famous for its horseraces. For a lively look at these and other eighteenth-century slang terms, see A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose, edited with a Biographical and Critical Sketch and an extensive Commentary by Eric Partridge, M.A., B. Litt. (Oxon.), 3d ed. (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1963). 158. Carravances or calavances indicate any variety of pulse. John Ellis speci¤cally identi¤ed them as soybeans. See John Ellis, Directions for Bringing over Seeds and Plants . . . together with a Catalogue of Such Foreign Plants as are worthy of being Encouraged in our American colonies . . . (London: Davis, 1770), for a recipe for making “Indian ketchup” (soy sauce) from calavances. 159. Young, Political Essays concerning the present state of the British Empire. . . . 160. Fort Toulouse was established by the French in 1717 at the con®uence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. When France withdrew from the region in 1763, the British did not occupy the crumbling fortress. Tombecbé was built in 1736, near the eastern Choctaw villages, as a staging point for the French war against the Chickasaws. It also served as a center for French trade with the Choctaws. It was brie®y occupied by the British from 1766 to 1768. Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Fort Toulouse (Alabama)” and “Fort Tombecbé (Alabama).” 161. Here, Romans refers to the Hudson’s Bay Company, which was incorporated in 1670 with the speci¤c purpose of searching for a northwest passage to the Paci¤c Ocean, as well as settling lands around Hudson’s Bay and carrying on trade with the Indians of the region. Many American colonists thought the company behind the restrictive clauses of the Proclamation of 1763, which hampered settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains. “Regrater,” now an obsolete term, implies an individual or company who buys up goods, usually staple commodities, in a speci¤c locale, in order to resell them at a higher price. “Mangonizers,” used as an epithet in

397


Notes to Pages 198 –212

398


Notes to Pages 212–220

the next paragraph, usually implies a trader who attempts to refurbish or otherwise disguise inferior goods before offering them for sale. 162. Romans states the view held by Superintendent John Stuart and by the governors of East and West Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, as well as by the leading merchants and traders to the southern Indians; namely, that individuals be licensed to trade to speci¤c Indian towns only, that they be required to post bond for their good behavior, and that they abide by established regulations. The Proclamation of 1763 hampered the efforts of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs to restrict trade with the tribes by allowing anyone who could post a small bond to trade with the tribes without restriction to a speci¤c location or town. For more on the topic, see Braund, Deerskins and Duffels, pp. 103–18, and Alden, John Stuart, pp. 240–61. 163. Jan De Witt (1625–1672) continues to be recognized as one of Europe’s leading statesmen of the seventeenth century. As Holland’s councillor pensionary, or political leader, he oversaw his nation’s ascent to international importance as a naval power. 164. Originally published in London in 1672, Sir William Temple’s work is still available: Observations upon the United Provinces of The Netherlands, edited by George Clark (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972). 165. Sir Josiah Child, A New Discourse of Trade, wherein is recommended several weighty points relating to companies of merchants. The Act of Navigation. Naturalization of strangers. And our woollen manufactures, etc., 2d ed. (London, 1693). 166. John Campbell, LL.D., Candid and impartial considerations on the nature of the sugar trade; the comparative importance of the British and French islands in the West-Indies: with the value and consequence of St. Lucia and Granada, truly stated, etc. (London: R. Baldwin, 1763). 167. In 1749, the Ohio Company, created by a group of prominent Virginians, received a 200,000-acre grant in the Ohio River Valley from the British government for the express purpose of facilitating settlement in the region. Their exploration of the region and fear on the part of the French over British expansion led directly to the Seven Years’ War. Members of the company reorganized as the Mississippi Company after the war and sought a grant of 2.5 million acres between the Appalachians and the Ohio River for speculation and settlement. The aims of the company were in direct con®ict with the Proclamation of 1763. Kenneth P. Bailey, The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748–1792: A Chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier (Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark, 1939); Shaw Livermore, Early American Land Companies: Their In®uence on Corporate Development (New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1939). 168. See CNH, p. 204. 169. Christian Gottlieb Priber, a German Jesuit, was sent to Georgia in 1735 by the Trustees. He eventually settled among the Cherokee Indians, where he learned their language and attempted to set up an autonomous state within their territory. He sought French aid in 1743 to carry out his anti-English schemes and was captured by the Indians and turned over to Georgia. John Pitts Corry, Indian Affairs in Georgia, 1732–1756 (Philadelphia: G. S. Ferguson, 1936; reprint, New York: AMS Press, 1980), pp. 109–10. Romans mistakenly places Priber among the Creeks. 170. The Proclamation of October 7, 1763, issued by Great Britain following the

Seven Years’ War, created the new colonies of East and West Florida and Quebec from territories won from Spain and France. Additionally, it established an Indian boundary line to delineate Indian territory from areas open to white settlement. The purpose of the proclamation was twofold: to divert settlers from encroaching on Indian lands in order to prevent Indian trouble while at the same time funneling land seekers into the new colonies. The decree was important in that it recognized Indian title to land and prohibited the sale of Indian lands unless the title was ¤rst extinguished by treaty or purchase under the authority of the Crown. Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Proclamation Line of 1763.” 171. Major Francis Ogilvie served as head of the government of East Florida until the arrival of the ¤rst civil governor in 1764. In an outdated but still useful work, Charles L. Mowat provides information on the transfer of power from Spain to Great Britain: East Florida as a British Province, 1763–1784, University of California Publications in History, vol. 32 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943). 172. James Grant (1720–1806), British governor of East Florida, 1764 to 1771. He came to America in 1757 during the Seven Years’ War as an of¤cer in the Seventy-seventh Montgomery Highlanders Regiment. After a disastrous encounter with the French at Fort Duquesne, he was captured and later exchanged. He was then promoted to lieutenant colonel of the Fortieth Regiment of Foot, which he led into action against the Cherokees during the Anglo-Cherokee War, destroying ¤fteen Middle Cherokee towns. For a short survey of Grant’s career, see Paul David Nelson, General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993). For the Cherokee War, see Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Cherokee War (1759–1761).” 173. John Moultrie, one of the colony’s wealthiest and best-known planters, served as Florida’s acting governor from 1771 to 1774. See Mowat, East Florida as a British Province, for details of his career. 174. Patrick Tonyn served as the last governor of British East Florida, from 1774 to 1783. 175. The dates of of¤ce for the governors of West Florida are as follows: George Johnstone (1763–1767), Lt. Gov. Montfort Browne (1767–1769), John Eliot (1769), Lt. Gov. Elias Durnford (1769–1770), and Peter Chester (1770–1781). Though dated, Cecil Johnson, British West Florida, 1763–1783 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943), remains a good source for West Florida political history. 176. The writs were issued March 9, 1772. For a concise account of the proceedings, see Robert R. Rea and Milo B. Howard, Jr., eds., The Minutes, Journals, and Acts of the General Assembly of British West Florida (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1979), pp. 272–3. 177. Dr. James Lind (1716–1794) is widely regarded as the father of British naval medicine. His works on scurvy and naval medicine recommended adding citrus to navy rations, which, when ultimately adopted by the Royal Navy in 1795, ended the scourge of scurvy in the Royal Navy. His other advice included the use of hospital ships, delousing procedures, and a more effective method of procuring fresh water while onboard ship. See A Treatise on the Scurvy in three parts: Containing an Inquiry into the Nature, Causes, and Cures of that Disease . . . (Edinburgh, 1753); An Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy: and a Disser-

399


Notes to Pages 220 –222

400


Notes to Pages 225 –230

tation on Fevers and Infection: together with Observations on Jail Distemper, and the Proper Methods of Preventing and stopping its Infection (London: D. Wilson and G. Nicol, 1774). Romans cites and uses Lind’s An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates: with the Method of Preventing their fatal Consequences: to which is added an Appendix concerning Intermittent Fevers: to the whole is annexed, a simple and easy way to render salt water fresh, and to prevent a scarcity of provisions in long voyages at sea, 2d ed. (London: T. Becket and P. S. DeHondt, 1771). 178. The simoom, a hot, ¤erce, sand-laden wind, frequents the deserts of Africa and parts of Asia during the spring and summer. 179. In the eighteenth century, as now, medicine was often an inexact science. Surgery was limited, and most cures revolved about purging the body in one fashion or another to remedy the “imbalance” of humors believed to be the cause of disease. Hence, recommendations for various emetics, cathartics, and diuretics were very common, as was the practice of bleeding. For an excellent introduction to the topic, see Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, 1620–1820, Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. 57 (Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts by the University Press of Virginia, 1980), which includes essays on botanical remedies as well as appendixes of common drugs and instruments. 180. An Inquiry into the Cause of the Pestilence. In three parts. With an Appendix, containing some facts taken from History, the Works of Physicians, &c. relating to the Subject (London: A. Millar; Edinburgh: A. Kincaid & J. Bell, 1759). This work is attributed to Alexander Bruce. 181. Glauber salt is sodium sulfate. By kermes mineral, Romans meant cochineal, which was used in a number of medicinal formulas in the eighteenth century. Cochineal is derived from the female bodies of scale insects of the genus Kermes. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, pp. 372, 373, and 377. 182. Lonicera is a member of the honeysuckle family (Caprifoliaceae) of bushy or climbing shrubs. Indian pinkroot or Carolina pinkroot (Spigelia marilandica L.) is a member of the Loganiaceae family and was used as an emetic and cathartic as well as an anthelmintic. Estes, “Pattern of Drug Usage,” pp. 32–35; Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, pp. 375–77; Krochmal and Krochmal, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 208. 183. Nitrous acid salts, used as a cathartic. Estes, “Pattern of Drug Usage,” p. 31. 184. Louis Rouppe, De morbis navigantium: liber unus; Accedit observatio de effectu extracti cicutae Storkiano in Cancro (Lugduni Batovorum: Apad T. Haak, 1754). 185. Malarias. 186. Dr. James’s Powder, an emetic, contained antimony. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, p. 382. An antimonial is a medical preparation containing antimony. Most antimonials are toxic and were used as emetics, diuretics, or expectorants. 187. The Magnolia major is the Cucumber magnolia (Magnolia acuminata L.), a deciduous tree whose bark was traditionally used as a cinchona substitute. The sweet bay (Magnolia virginiana L.) was also used for malaria and typhoid fevers. Foster and Duke, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 292. Jesuit’s bark, also known as Peruvian bark (Cinchona of¤cinalis) or cinchona, contains quinine, the usual recommendation for malarial fevers. Virginia snakeroot or serpentaria (Aristolochia serpentaria) and Peruvian bark were also often prescribed as tonics. Estes, “Pattern of Drug Usage,”

pp. 32–35; Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, pp. 375–77; Krochmal and Krochmal, A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants, p. 208. Sal absinthum or salt of tartar is a diuretic. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, p. 367. 188. A panada is a paste of ®our or bread crumbs and liquid used as a binder in recipes or, as Romans directs here, a concoction for invalids. In both the sago preparation and the panada, a thick pasty mixture is the result. 189. Dysentery. 190. Sir Edward Barry, A Treatise on the Three Different Digestions and Discharges of the Human Body. And the Diseases of their Principal Organs (London: A. Miller, 1759; 2d ed., 1763). 191. Dragon’s blood was also known as balsam of locatelli and was derived from the Dragon tree (Dracaena draco). Armenian bole was earth imported from that country. Both are astringent. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, pp. 369 and 374. 192. Thebaic tincture is liquid laudanum, a narcotic, used, in this case by Romans, as a clyster or enema. Senna (Cassia acutifolia or C. angustifolia) is a cathartic and diuretic. Manna, a cathartic, is the resin of Fraxinus ornus. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, pp. 374–78. 193. The Palma Christi was called the Negro Oil-Bush. For a description of the plant, see Grif¤th Hughes, The Natural History of Barbados (London, 1750; reprint, New York, Arno Press, 1972), pp. 116–17. 194. This refers to the bulb of sea onion (Urginea maritima), a diuretic and cathartic. 195. During the eighteenth century, opium was more commonly prescribed for relief of chronic diarrhea than as a pain killer. John Duffy, From Humors to Medical Science: A History of American Medicine, 2d ed. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), p. 15. 196. Coco plum (Chrysobalanus icaco). 197. Terra japonica is gambier. The leaves of Uncaria gambir and Uncaria acida are used medicinally as an astringent. Semi-ruba is likely a member of the cinchona genus, a member of the madder family (Rubiaceae), that is native to South America. The bark of some species are used to produce quinine. 198. Elixir Vitrioli was a common tonic composed of vitrioli or sulfuric acid, cinnamon, and ginger root. As Romans suggests, it was usually taken in alcohol. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, p. 379. 199. Romans is here implying the use of Aloe barbadensis, a cathartic. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, p. 368. 200. Jerusalem oak or stinking weed is also known as Mexican tea (Chenopodium ambrosioides L.). The highly toxic chenopodium oil is used to treat intestinal worms in humans and cattle. 201. Grif¤th Hughes, The Natural History of Barbados. 202. Body yaws is commonly known as frambesia. It is a contagious disease of tropical regions caused by a spirochete like that which causes syphilis and can cause deformations of bones. Unlike syphilis, sexual contact is not the primary method for spread of the disease. 203. See note 109, above. 204. John Mitchell.

401


Notes to Pages 232–242

402


Notes to Pages 243–248

205. During the War of Jenkins’ Ear (the Anglo-Spanish War of 1729–1744), General James Oglethorpe commanded the British forces that attacked Spanish Florida, intent on capturing St. Augustine. In May 1740, Oglethorpe captured Fort Mose, a small fort roughly two miles from the town, with his force of British regulars, provincial troops, and Indian allies. However, after besieging St. Augustine, Oglethorpe failed to capture the Castillo de San Marcos, which guarded the town. The Spanish were able to liberate Fort Mose in June and Oglethorpe’s army was forced into an ignominious retreat. Romans has confused Mose with the Castillo in regard to its ability to withstand the British assault. Fort Mose was largely defended by free blacks, former runaway slaves, living at the town. For information on the war and Fort Mose, see Spalding, Oglethorpe in America, pp. 98–126, and Jane Landers, “Garcia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida,” American Historical Review 95 (February 1990): 9–30. 206. William Hayne Simmons, in his early nineteenth-century work, described the swamp as running “nearly parallel with the coast, and . . . distant about fourteen miles from St. Augustine. This is a very fertile tract, overshadowed with a rich growth of the various species of laurel, oak and bay, and cypresses of extraordinary girth and altitude. By means of St. Sebastian’s Creek, which heads near it, it might be easily connected by navigation with St. Augustine; and its produce thus, at once, conveyed to a market, or to a point where it might be conveniently shipped.” Notices of East Florida, with an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians (Charleston: A. E. Miller, 1822), p. 6. A reprint of this work was edited by George E. Buker in 1973 as part of the Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. 207. Jesse Fish, a British factor and merchant, lived in Spanish St. Augustine prior to the transfer of the province to Britain. He acquired by purchase, or in lieu of debts due him, most of the property and land of the departing Spaniards. For a list of his claims, see James W. Covington, ed., The British Meet the Seminoles: Negotiations between the British Authorities in East Florida and the Indians, 1763–1768, Contributions of the Florida State Museum, Social Sciences, no. 7 (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1961), pp. 15–16. 208. Lt. Gov. John Moultrie’s plantation of Bella Vista was south of St. Augustine, on the Mantanzas River. Moultrie had several other plantations as well. 209. William Gerard De Brahm (1717–1799) was born in Germany and arrived in Georgia in 1751 with the Salzburgers. He was appointed surveyor general for the Southern District in 1764, in which capacity he served as Romans’s superior. For information on De Brahm’s life, see De Brahm’s Report. 210. James Penman, a planter and merchant and political ally of William Drayton, East Florida’s chief justice. 211. Dr. Andrew Turnbull. New Smyrna was located on the Mosquito Inlet, south of St. Augustine. See the second section of this book, “Romans’s History as a Source for Understanding the Eighteenth-Century South,” for a discussion of New Smyrna and Romans’s views on the settlement. 212. Tar is an eighteenth-century slang word for sailor. 213. Joseph Purcell (1750–1807), the chief cartographer in John Stuart’s employ. See the ¤rst section of this book, “Bernard Romans: His Life and Works,” for more information on his career.

214. During the 1768 uprising, Cutter was seized by the rebels. Giuseppe Massiadoli, who stabbed and mutilated Cutter by cutting off his ears and nose, was executed for his role in the revolt. Epaminondes P. Panagopoulos, New Smyrna: An Eighteenth Century Greek Odyssey (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966), pp. 60–61. 215. This ®eet of eleven ships was wrecked by a hurricane in 1715. In addition to the amount of contraband gold that was doubtless on board, the ®eet was known to have been carrying nearly seven million gold coins. Today, the area around Sebastian Inlet, the site of the wrecks, is known as the Treasure Coast, following the modern-day rediscovery of the wreck sites. Roger C. Smith, James J. Miller, Sean M. Kelley, and Linda G. Harbin, An Atlas of Maritime Florida (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997), p. 36. 216. Modern-day Tampa Bay. 217. Here, Romans lists a number of old Spanish settlements and plantations, as well as the forts Picolata and Pupo. For a brief discussion of the Spanish mission system, see Jerald T. Milanich and Charles Hudson, Hernando De Soto and the Indians of Florida, Ripley P. Bullen Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993), pp. 243–54. John H. Hann, Apalachee: The Land between the Rivers, Ripley P. Bullen Monographs in Anthropology and History, No. 7 (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1988), provides an in-depth look at the Apalachee missions. 218. The Santa Fe River, a tributary of the Suwannee River, ®ows underground for more than three miles. Much of it is located in O’Leno State Park, near High Springs, Florida. 219. St. Mattheo, a Spanish settlement, was located on the overland road between St. Augustine and St. Marks. William Roberts, An Account of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida with a Particular Detail of the several Expeditions and Descents made on that Coast, facsimile reproduction of the 1763 edition with introduction by Robert Gold, Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1976), pp. 14–15. 220. Natural Bridge Battle¤eld State Historic Site, near modern-day Tallahassee, is perhaps now most famous for the civil war battle fought there in 1865. 221. “So great are the sufferings of those who dwell on earth!” 222. Not all “tumuli” or mounds were burial mounds, as Romans supposes here. Indeed, some were raised platforms designed speci¤cally to accommodate public buildings. William Bartram described the orange groves and “tumuli” or Indian mounds of East Florida in much more detail. For his descriptions and information on East Florida mounds, see Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 45–49, 130–31, 176–80, and 210. 223. This town was an offshoot of the Upper Creek town, sometimes rendered Eufaula or Ufale. There was also a settlement of these people among the Lower Creeks, at Lower Eufaula on the Chattahoochee River. 224. From eighteenth-century maps, Francis Harper identi¤es Romans’s “Taloffa Ockhasé” with Bartram’s Talahasochte. However, Bartram’s town of that name was on the Suwanee River. Harper, ed., Travels of William Bartram, p. 641. 225. Romans’s Alacua is most likely Alachua, or Cuscowilla, the primary town of the East Florida Seminoles, located near present-day Gainesville, Florida, in what is

403


Notes to Pages 248 –254

404


Notes to Pages 254 –255

today known as the Paynes Prairie State Preserve. Sante Fé and St. Mattheo were old Spanish sites on the overland road between St. Augustine and St. Marks. 226. The Spanish name for the fort was San Marcos de Apalache. The English simply referred to the fort, trading store, and Indian town there as either St. Mark’s or Apalachee. For life there during the British period, see Robin F. A. Fabel, “St. Mark’s, Apalache and the Creeks,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 1 (Spring 1986): 4–22. 227. The Chattahoochee River. Romans’s contemporaries, including William Bartram, frequently referred to the Apalachicola or Chattahoochee River. Romans has confused the town, however. Apalachicola was considered by the Lower Creeks as one of their oldest, or mother, towns. It was located across the Chattahoochee River from the modern-day city of Columbus, Georgia, and was not generally known by the name Chatahoochas. 228. Romans’s list of Lower Creek towns is very incomplete. Modern spellings for the Lower Creek towns listed are Coweta, Yuchi, Oakmulge, Tuskegee, and Cussita. Tuskegee was an Alabama town near the con®uence of the Coosa and Tallapoosa rivers. The town given by Romans is apparently an offshoot of that Upper Creek town. Bartram lists a Hothletega on the Chattahoochee River. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 109. For more information on Cherokee Lousitsa (Cherokeeleechee), see Hann, Apalachee, p. 288. Spelling of this town varied considerably during the late British period. For a list of prominent Lower Towns during the period Romans was in the Floridas, see Covington, The British Meet the Seminoles, p. 39. There is no comprehensive modern study of Creek towns. The best single source, though dated, is John R. Swanton, The Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors, Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73 (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1922; reprint, New York: Johnson Reprint Co., 1970). 229. Romans refers to the mission built and brie®y occupied by the Spanish in the late seventeenth century. The Spanish called all Lower Creeks Apalachicolas. The Apalachicola town was sometimes called Sábacola. The mission was called Santa Cruz de Sábacola. Verner W. Crane, The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1929; reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), p. 34. 230. For more information on the range of bison in the region, see Brian R. Rucker, “Where the Buffalo Roamed: American Bison on the Gulf Coast during the Age of Exploration,” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 115–26; Robert W. Neuman, “The Buffalo in Southeastern United States Post-Pleistocene Prehistory,” in Southeastern Natives and Their Pasts, edited by D. G. Syckoff and J. L. Hofman, pp. 261–80, Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, Studies in Oklahoma’s Past, no. 11 (Norman: OAS, 1983); Erhard Rostland, “The Geographic Range of the Historic Bison in the Southeast,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 50(1960): 395–407; and Hann, Apalachee, p. 186. The Amaxura or Amasura River is now known as the Waccasassa River. The “mouths of the Amasura” is shown on George Gauld’s contemporary map of the region. See Ware and Rea, George Gauld, p. 133. The Manatee River empties into Tampa Bay. CNH, 2. Romans’s poor description, combined with a faulty notion of the Manatee River’s course, makes it dif¤cult to ascertain precisely where he saw the bison tracks. 231. Named for the Hobe or Yobe Indians. See Milanich, Florida Indians, p. 40.

232. Loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta) nesting grounds are still located along the coast of the southeastern United States, particularly along the section of the Florida coast described by Romans. Loggerheads nest in Florida from April through September. Loggerheads can reach a length of approximately forty inches and weigh, on average, between 150 and 225 pounds. Humans, not bears, are now the major land hazard for sea turtles. 233. Lake Okeechobee. 234. The Calusa Indians claimed the territory south of Charlotte Harbor. Their principal town was known as Carlos and was most likely located at Mound Key. Romans’s reference to “old ¤elds” is interesting, as the Calusa are usually considered a nonagricultural people. Randolph J. Widmer, The Evolution of the Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988). 235. Allen Morris, in “Names under the Florida Sun,” 2 vols. (manuscript, Tallahassee, Florida, 1973), 1:88, believes that Romans named the cape. A copy of the Morris manuscript is located at the P. K. Younge Library, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida. I wish to thank Ms. Helen Twedell, University of Florida Coastal Engineering Archives, who provided this reference. The modern spelling is Romano. See also Allen Morris, Florida Place Names: Alachua to Zolfo Springs (Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 1995), p. 43. 236. De Brahm relates the same story: “Matance, (signifying Massacre, from an unhappy French crew, wrecked on Matacombe, and said to have been masacred thereon by the Caloosa Indians).” De Brahm, Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, p. 5. This key is today known as Indian Key, Atlantic Pilot, p. xlv. Romans gives the number of victims as “near three hundred” in his appendix, p. xxxiv. 237. The ¤rst of the “two curious productions” by William Gerard De Brahm referred to here is a brief part of one of De Brahm’s reports to the Board of Trade that was quoted by William Stork in his work on East Florida. De Brahm’s observations, which Stork noted “are the only hints to be depended upon” relative to the southern part of East Florida, appear on pages 11 through 13 of the 1769 edition of Stork’s A Description of East-Florida. The second “production” is De Brahm’s 1772 book, The Atlantic Pilot. See chapter 2 of The Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, for an analysis of Romans’s criticisms of this work. 238. Bedlam was the popular name for the Hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem, an infamous London insane asylum. Thus, a bedlamite is a lunatic or deranged person. 239. De Brahm took the name from the Tequesta Indians. For information on the Tequesta, see Milanich, Florida Indians, pp. 52–56. 240. See Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, pp. xlvi–xlvii, for a discussion of De Brahm’s writings on the Gulf Stream. 241. Het Loo was the royal palace built by William III in 1686. 242. De Brahm’s nomenclature for the Florida Keys did not stand the test of time. In the reprint edition of Atlantic Pilot, De Vorsey provides a chart with the names used

405


Notes to Pages 256 –264

406


Notes to Pages 264 –268

by De Brahm and the current name of each key as well as current names for many other locations mentioned by both De Brahm and Romans. Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, p. xiv. 243. Romans is referring to the variation or deviation of magnetic north and true north. This in turn was related to ascertaining longitude and latitude. For a discussion of this topic, see W. F. J. Mörzer Bruyns, “Longitude in the Context of Navigation,” in The Quest for Longitude, edited by William J. H. Andrewes, Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 4–6, 1993 (Cambridge, 1996), pp. 45–47. See De Brahm’s Report, p. 35, for a discussion of his methods. 244. “Oh exceptional philosopher!” 245. In early 1766, a storm wrecked the Le Tigre near Dog Island, in West Florida. In 1768 Pierre Viaud, one of the survivors, published in Paris an account of the survivors’ ordeal as Naufrage et Aventures de M. Pierre Viaud, Natif de Bordeaux, Capitaine de Navire: Histoire véritable, véri¤ée sur l’Attestation de Mr. Sevettenham, Commandant du Fort St Marc des Appalaches. Viaud’s comrades in adventure were Madame La Couture, the wife of the ship’s captain, her ailing son, and a black slave. Unable to ¤nd subsistence, Viaud and Madame La Couture killed and ate the slave prior to their rescue by the British navy. The lurid tale proved highly popular and was quickly translated into English, Italian, and German. Elizabeth Grif¤th translated the book for the ¤rst English language edition: Jean Gaspard Dubois-Fontanelle, ed., and Elizabeth Grif¤th, trans., The Surprizing yet Real and True Voyages and Adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud, a French Sea Captain. This edition was published in London in 1771, and an American edition was published in 1774, in Philadelphia, where Romans’s own book was in production at the time. It is obvious from his comments that Romans had read the translation of Ms. Grif¤th, whose French he was ostensibly loath to correct. See his footnote on p. 302. For the entire story, see Shipwreck & Adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud, translated and edited by Robin F. A. Fabel (Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1990). 246. John Simpson, an Indian trader and resident of West Florida. 247. It seems clear that Romans had not read the original book in French: if he had, he would have realized that Viaud did indeed mean a turkey. The original edition called the animal captured by Madame La Couture la poule d’Inde. Shipwreck & Adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud, Fabel, trans. and ed., p. 7 n. 13. 248. For Romans’s description of the cabbage palm, see CNH, p. 20. De Brahm described the tree (Sabal palmetto) in this manner: “a Species of Palma, they bear about a bushel of small Cacao Nuts, all in one heap, shaped as a Piramid upon the top of the Trunk between the Leaves covered and interwoven with a rough brown Net. Each Nut receives its Nourishment thro’ a ¤ne string from the Tree, whose Heart near the Top is upwards of 30 inches long and 4 in diameter, consisting of young tender Leaves; this Heart is taken out of the Tree when cut down and is eatable boiled or raw, has much the Taste of young Wallnuts. I have met with cabbage Trees near 100 feet in heighth, and 12 inches in Diameter.” De Brahm’s Report, p. 212, footnote a. The tender heart of the cabbage tree is still beloved by modern-day Floridians, who call it swamp cabbage. Twentieth-century distributors of the canned product prefer to sell it as heart of palm.

249. Romans is referring to a letter from Captain Thomas Robinson to George Lookup in which Robinson describes the coast of Florida as he observed it in 1754. Coasting offshore forty miles east of Pensacola, Robinson remembered: “The shore level, rising gradually into eminencies, cloathed with the ¤nest verdure, and spontaneous productions, interspersed promiscuously, as mulberry, cedar, cocoa, vanilla, moho, and cabbage-trees, Etc. the last towering their round tops above the rest, as if conscious of its sovereign dignity.” The letter was printed in Roberts, First Discovery and Natural History of Florida, pp. 95–102 (quotation on p. 96). 250. Romans undertook this survey under the employ of Superintendent of Indian Affairs John Stuart in order to survey the territory of the Choctaws and Chickasaws. Virtually no Choctaw towns have been located archaeologically. For a discussion of the probable town sites and the meaning of Choctaw names, as well as an examination of Romans’s journey through the towns, see Carleton, “EighteenthCentury Trails in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi and Alabama,” and H. S. Halbert, “Bernard Romans’ Map of 1772,” Mississippi Historical Society Publications, vol. 6 ( Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1902), pp. 415–39. Romans’s journal was analyzed by Carleton as to travel times and method of travel; see pp. 36–39. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, reproduced most of Romans’s journal, suggesting locations for most sites mentioned in the text; see pp. 275–87. Halbert, Bernard Romans’ Map of 1772, includes a copy of the map attributed to Romans. 251. William Bartram reported similar practices among the Creeks: “They use Phlebotomy, by Scratching, & I believe Cuping, or at least sucking the blood out of the scari¤cations.” Letter to Benjamin Smith Barton, December 29, 1792, in Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, p. 276 n. 63. 252. Pascagoula River. 253. William Bartram used the same term to describe the art he observed on the walls of Creek council houses. He took the paintings he saw to be “hieroglyphic, and as an historic legendary of political and sacerdotal affairs.” He also noted that hunting and battle scenes were used as body tattoos. Waselkov and Braund, William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians, pp. 105 and 143–4 (quotation on p. 105). 254. According to the terms of the 1765 Treaty of Mobile between the British and the Choctaws, which established the West Florida–Choctaw boundary, “none of His Majesties White Subjects shall be Permitted to Settle on Tombeckby River to the northward of the Rivulet called Centibouck.” Dunbar Rowland, ed., Mississippi Provincial Archives, English Dominion, 1763–1766: Letters and Enclosures to the Secretary of State from Major Robert Farmar and Governor George Johnstone, vol. 1 (Nashville: Brandon, 1911), p. 252. The treaty line extended westward past the headwaters of Santa Bogue Creek through Bogue Hooma Creek (modern-day Red Creek), a tributary of Buckatunna Creek. For more information, see Louis De Vorsey, Jr., The Indian Boundary in the Southern Colonies, 1763–1775 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966), pp. 209–12. 255. Romans is referring to the Creek-Choctaw War. War sticks, or poles, painted red and festooned with feathers, ®ags, and other ensigns, as well as scalps or heads of slain enemies, were common among southeastern tribes. See Hudson, Southeastern Indians, pp. 242–51. 256. Buckatunna Creek.

407


Notes to Pages 268–269

408


Notes to Pages 270 –284

257. Perhaps John or Samuel Brown. See John Brown’s will in William E. Wight, Abstracts of Georgia Wills of the State of Georgia, 1733–1777 (Atlanta: Town Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Georgia for the Department of Archives and History, 1962; reprint, Spartanburg, South Carolina: Reprint Co., 1981), p. 18; William L. McDowell, Jr., ed., Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1754–1765, Colonial Records of South Carolina, series 2 (Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1970), p. 301; Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 394 n. 216. 258. William Hewitt, among the earliest British traders to the Choctaws, led a trade caravan to the Choctaw towns in 1759, following negotiations with factions of that tribe with Superintendent of Indian Affairs Edmond Atkin. Alden, John Stuart, p. 98. 259. John Buckles. For information on Buckles’s activities, see Snapp, John Stuart and the Struggle for Empire, pp. 91, 97, and 98; Adair’s History of the American Indians, p. 394 n. 216 and 402 n. 224. 260. John McIntosh was the Chickasaw commissary. His counterpart among the Choctaw Indians was Elias Legardere. For biographical information, see Alden, John Stuart, pp. 212–13. 261. The expression “Hobson’s choice” was derived from the practices of Thomas Hobson (d. 1631), an English liveryman who required that his customers take the horse stabled nearest the door or do without. Hence, he gave his customers no choice at all. 262. Barton’s Bluff, near modern-day Columbus, Mississippi. Hamilton, Colonial Mobile, p. 277. 263. The French outpost established on the Tombigbee River east of the Choctaw villages. After the transfer of West Florida to the British, the fort was brie®y occupied by the British and then abandoned in 1768. Colonial Wars of North America, s.v. “Fort Tombecbé (Alabama).” 264. The Tuscaloosa River is the modern-day Black Warrior. The city of Demopolis now occupies the area at the junction of the Black Warrior and Tombigbee rivers. 265. The Coosada, Okchai, and Wetumpka Indians were part of the Alabama component of the Upper Creek Indians. They abandoned their settlements on the Tombigbee River due to the hostilities between the Creek and Choctaw Indians. Swanton, Early History of the Creek Indians, pp. 201–07. 266. For a brief look at plantation life in West Florida, see Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, pp. 110–25. Some of the plantations named were those of John McGillivray, John Campbell, Charles Stuart, Arthur Strother, and Louis Favre. 267. Henry Lizars. 268. The journal represents part of the record of the exploratory party sent by the Company of Military Adventurers, most of whom hailed from Connecticut. The members of the party were Colonel Israel Putnam, Roger Enos, Thaddeus Lyman, Rufus Putnam, and Daniel Putnam. See Fabel, Economy of British West Florida, pp. 153–97. A longer version of Putnam’s account may be found in Albert C. Bates, ed., The Two Putnams, Israel and Rufus: in the Havana Expedition, 1762, and in the Mississippi

River Exploration, 1772–73, with some Account of the Company of Military Adventurers (Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1931), pp. 139–234. 269. John Lorimer (ca. 1732–1795), a military surgeon, arrived in West Florida in August 1765 and quickly became one of the colony’s leading citizens. In addition to his duties as military physician, he served in the assembly and was an ardent student of the sciences who actively assisted Romans and others in the colony. His career is covered in Robert R. Rea and Jack D. L. Holmes, “Dr. John Lorimer and the Natural Sciences in British West Florida,” Southern Humanities Review 4 (Fall 1970): 363–72. 270. John Davis (1552–1605) was a famous English navigator who fought against the Spanish Armada, discovered the Falkland Islands, and attempted to ¤nd the Northwest Passage. He invented a quadrant that was used throughout the eighteenth century. He published directions for ¤nding the declination of the sun using his quadrant in The Seamans Secrets (London, 1595). Fort Rosalie, built by the French in 1716 among the Natchez Indians, was abandoned in 1763. 271. The articles reprinted here are the preliminary articles, signed in Paris, February 10, 1763. The article concerning Canada was Article IV in the ¤nal version of the treaty. The article given by Romans as Article VI appeared as Article VII in the ¤nal version of the Treaty. Article XIX in CNH appeared, with modi¤cations, as Article XX in the ¤nal treaty. The original treaty was, of course, in French. For a detailed study of the treaty, see Zerrab Esmat Rashed, The Peace of Paris, 1763 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1951). 272. George Gauld. For more information on the accusations that Romans had pirated Gauld’s work, see the second section of this book, “Romans’s History as a Source for Understanding the Eighteenth-Century South.” 273. Since the eighteenth century, many of the geographic features mentioned by Romans in his sailing directions have been altered by both nature and man. In addition, while many of the geographic names have been retained, there have been numerous changes. Those interested in tracing the modern names of sites mentioned in the text should consult the U.S. Geological Survey’s Geographic Names Information System (GNIS), a searchable online database, which includes alternate and obsolete geographic names. 274. A reference to De Brahm’s Atlantic Pilot. The passage in question is the New Bahama Channel, now the Florida Straits. 275. William Fuller, A Chart of the Entrance into St. Mary’s River taken by Captn. W. Fuller in November 1769 (London: T. Jefferys, 1770). This chart was one of the maps published on a sheet of three East Florida maps dedicated to the Earl of Egmont. The “View of the Entrance into St. Mary’s River” that appeared on this map was reproduced by Romans on one of the sheet maps that accompanied CNH. For more information on the map, see William P. Cumming, The Southeast in Early Maps, 3rd rev. ed., edited by Louis DeVorsey, Jr. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), p. 308. 276. Romans placed the Horse-Guards on the map that accompanied the original edition of CNH. 277. For information concerning the Spanish ¤sheries off Florida, see James W.

409


Notes to Pages 284 –301

410


Notes to Pages 303–347

Covington, “Trade Relations between Southwestern Florida and Cuba, 1600–1840,” Florida Historical Quarterly 38 (October 1959): 117–20. 278. Another veiled reference to De Brahm. Cape Florida, according to De Brahm, would have been the southern end of modern-day Miami Beach. Romans located the cape at Sound Point. For the story behind this difference of opinion, see Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, pp. xl–xli. 279. See CNH, p. 4. 280. See Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, p. xliv, for a discussion on Key Largo. 281. De Vorsey places Romans’s Sound Point, his location of the cape of Florida, at modern-day Upper Sound Point on Rattlesnake Key, off the eastern shore of Key Largo. Atlantic Pilot, facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with an introduction by De Vorsey, p. xl. 282. Robert Bishop, Instructions and Observations relative to the Navigation of the Windward and Gulph passages: as laid down in two large charts, dedicated, by permission, to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty (London, 1761). 283. Romans included a sketch of the fort as an illustration on one of the maps that accompanied the original edition of CNH. 284. Lucas Janssen Waghenaer, Spieghel der Zeevaerdt (Leyden: n.p., 1584). The English translation, by Sir A. Ashley, was titled The Mariners Mirrour and was published in London in 1588. 285. Abel Buell. Philip Lee Phillips, Notes on the Life and Works of Bernard Romans, facsimile reproduction of the 1924 edition with an introduction by John D. Ware, Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1975), pp. 31–34. 286. Unfortunately, both the map and the second volume were never published.

Bibliography

Manuscr ipt Sources American Philosophical Society Library. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Collections of the Society. Birmingham Public Library. Birmingham, Alabama. A New Map of West Florida, including the Chactaw, Chicasaw, & Upper Creek Nations, with a large Part of the Spanish Dominions, West of the Mississippi, & a part of East Florida. From different actual Surveys & the best other Authorities. Copy. British Museum. London, England. Sir Frederick Haldimand, Unpublished Papers and Correspondence, 1758–1784. Micro¤lm copies of manuscripts by Micro¤lm World Publications. Connecticut Historical Society. Hartford, Connecticut. Hoadly Collection. County Record Of¤ce, Stafford, England. Dartmouth Papers. Library of Congress. Collections of the Manuscript Division. London. Public Record Of¤ce. Colonial Of¤ce, Series 5, America and West Indies. New York Public Library. Manuscript Collections. Rosenbach Museum and Library. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Manuscript Collection. Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University. Map Collection. William L. Clements Library. Ann Arbor, Michigan. Papers of Thomas Gage Relating to His Command in North America.

Newspaper s & Per iodicals Boston Gazette, 1774. Georgia Gazette, 1768–1769. Pennsylvania Gazette, 1767–1769. Pennsylvania Magazine, 1776. Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, or the Connecticut, New-Jersey, Hudson’s River, and Quebec Weekly Advertiser, 1774. Royal American Magazine, 1774.

Published Pr imar y Sources Adair, James. Adair’s History of the American Indians. Edited by Samuel Cole Williams. New York: Argonaut Press, 1966.

412


Bibliography

American Military Pocket Atlas; being an Approved Collection of Correct Maps, both General and Particular; of the British Colonies; Especially those which now are, or probably may be the theatre of war; taken Principally from the Actual Surveys and Judicious Observations of Engineers De Brahm and Römans; Cook, Jackson, and Collet; Maj. Holland, and other Of¤cers, employed in His Majesty’s Fleets and Armies. London: R. Sayer and J. Bennet, 1776. American Philosophical Society. Early Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society for the Promotion of Useful Knowledge . . . from the Manuscript Minutes of its Meetings from 1744 to 1838. Philadelphia: McCalla and Stavely, 1884. 1. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, held at Philadelphia, for promoting Useful Knowledge. 6 vols. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1771– 1809. Reprint. New York: Kraus, 1966. Apollonios Rhodios. The Argonautika: The Story of Jason and the Quest for the Golden Fleece by Apollonios Rhodios. Translated, with introduction and glossary, by Peter Green. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Atkin, Edmond. The Appalachian Indian Frontier: The Edmond Atkin Report and Plan of 1755. Reprint edition of Indians of the Southern Colonial Frontier. Edited by Wilbur R. Jacobs. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1954. Reprint. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1967. Barry, Edward. A Treatise on the Three Different Digestions and Discharges of the Human Body. And the Diseases of their Principal Organs. London: A. Miller, 1759; 2d ed., 1763. Barton, Benjamin Smith. New Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America. Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1798. Reprint. Millwood, New York: Kraus, 1976. Bartram, John. The Correspondence of John Bartram, 1734–1777. Edited by Edmund Berkeley and Dorothy Smith Berkeley. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1992. 1. “Diary of a Journey Through the Carolinas, Georgia, and Florida from July 1, 1765, to April 10, 1766.” Annotated by Francis Harper. Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, n.s., 33, pt. 1 (December 1942): 1–120. Bartram, William. Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida . . . Together with Observations on the Manners of the Indians. Philadelphia: James and Johnson, 1791. 1. Travels of William Bartram: Naturalist’s Edition. Edited by Francis Harper. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958. 1. William Bartram on the Southeastern Indians. Edited and annotated by Gregory A. Waselkov and Kathryn E. Holland Braund. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Bates, Albert C., ed. The Two Putnams, Israel and Rufus: in the Havana Expedition, 1762, and in the Mississippi River Exploration, 1772–73, with some Account of the Company of Military Adventurers. Hartford: Connecticut Historical Society, 1931. Bishop, Robert. Instructions and Observations relative to the Navigation of the Windward and Gulph passages: as laid down in two large charts, dedicated, by permission, to the Right Honourable the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. London, 1761. Blackwell, Thomas. An Enquiry into the Life and Writings of Homer. London, 1735. 1. Letters Concerning Mythology. London: Thomas Blackwell, 1748.

1. Memoirs of the Court of Augustus. 3 vols. 2d ed. London: A. Millar, 1755–1763. Bossu, Jean Bernard. Jean Bernard Bossu’s Travels in the Interior of North America, 1751– 1762. Edited and translated by Seymour Feiler. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1962. 1. Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana . . . Translated from the French, by John Reinhold Forster . . . Illustrated with notes relative chie®y to natural history. To which is added by the translator a systematic catalogue of all the known plants of English North-America. . . . 2 vols. London: T. Davies, 1771. Brinton, Dr. Daniel G. A Guide-Book of Florida and the South, for Tourists, Invalids and Emigrants, with a Map of the St. John River. Facsimile reproduction of the 1869 edition with introduction by William M. Goza. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1978. [Bruce, Alexander?]. An Inquiry into the Cause of the Pestilence. In three parts. With an Appendix, containing some facts taken from History, the Works of Physicians, &c. relating to the Subject. London: A. Millar; Edinburgh: A. Kincaid and J. Bell, 1759. Campbell, John. Candid and impartial considerations on the nature of the sugar trade; the comparative importance of the British and French islands in the West-Indies: with the value and consequence of St. Lucia and Granada, truly stated, etc. London: R. Baldwin, 1763. Child, Josiah. A New Discourse of Trade, wherein is recommended several weighty points relating to companies of merchants. The Act of Navigation. Naturalization of strangers. And our woollen manufactures, etc. 2d ed. London, 1693. A Citizen. Thoughts on the Times, and the Silk Manufacture; shewing its utility, and the great loss that is occasioned by the importation of French and Italian wrought silks. With the cause of the weavers’ dissatisfaction, and a remedy, etc. London: J. Wilkie, 1765. Covington, James W., ed. The British Meet the Seminoles: Negotiations between the British Authorities in East Florida and the Indians, 1763–1768. Contributions of the Florida State Museum, Social Sciences, no. 7. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1961. Davies, Kenneth G., ed. Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783. 20 vols. Dublin, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972–1979. De Brahm, William Gerard. The Atlantic Pilot. Facsimile reproduction of the 1772 edition with introduction by Louis de Vorsey, Jr. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1974. 1. De Brahm’s Report of the General Survey in the Southern District of North America. Edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971. Ellis, John. “A Catalogue of such FOREIGN PLANTS, as are worthy of being encouraged in our American Colonies, for the Purposes of Medicine, Agriculture, and Commerce.” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 1 (1771): 255–66. 1. Directions for Bringing over Seeds and Plants . . . together with a Catalogue of Such Foreign Plants as are worthy of being Encouraged in our American colonies. . . . London: Davis, 1770. Force, Peter. American Archives: Consisting of a Collection of Authentick Records, State Papers, Debates, and Letters and other Notices of Public Affairs. . . . Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1837–1853. [Franklin, Benjamin]. The Interest of Great Britain considered, with regard to her Colonies,

413


Bibliography

414


Bibliography

and the acquisitions of Canada and Guadaloupe. To which is added, Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind, &c. 2d ed. Boston: B. Mecom, 1760. Galloway, Patricia K., ed. Mississippi Provincial Archives: French Dominion, vols. 4 and 5. Originally collected, edited, and translated by Dunbar Rowland and A. G. Sanders. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984. Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts. The Fourteenth Report, Appendix, Part X: The Manuscripts of the Earl of Dartmouth, Vol. II: American Papers. London: HMSO, 1895. Hakluyt, Richard. The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoueries of the English Nation. Imprinted at London, 1589. Photo-lithographic facsimile with introduction by David Beers Quinn and Raleigh Ashlin Skelton. 2 vols. Cambridge: Hakluyt Society and Peabody Museum of Salem, 1965. Harrington, James. Commonwealth of Oceana. London: J. Streater for Livewell Chapman, 1656. Hawkesworth, John. A New Voyage, round the world, in the years 1768, 1769, 1770, and 1771: undertaken by order of his present Majesty, performed by, Captain James Cook, in the ship Endeavour, drawn up from his own journal, and from the papers of Joseph Banks, Esq. F. R. S: and published by the special direction of the Right Honourable the Lords of the Admiralty. By John Hawkesworth, L. L. D. and late director of the East-India Company; In two volumes: with cutts and a map of the whole navigation. New York: James Rivington, 1774. Hutchins, Thomas. An Historical Narrative and Topographical Description of Louisiana, and West-Florida. . . . Facsimile reproduction of the 1784 edition with introduction by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. Floridiana Facsimile and Reprint Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1968. Hvidt, Kristian, ed. Von Reck’s Voyage: Drawings and Journal of Philip Georg Friedrich von Reck. Savannah: Beehive Press, 1980. Ives, Edward. A Voyage from England to India, in the year 1754, and an historical narrative of the operations of the squadron and army in India, under the command of Vice-Admiral Watson and Colonel Clive, in the years 1755, 1756, 1757. . . . Also a journey from Persia to England by an unusual route. London, 1773. Jefferson, Thomas. Thomas Jefferson: Writings. Edited by Merrill D. Peterson. Library of America. New York: Viking Press, 1984. Joutel, Henri. A Journal of La Salle’s Last Voyage. Introduction by Darrett B. Rutman. New York: Corinth Books, 1962. Kaempfer, Engelbert. Amohnitatum exoticarum . . . H. W. Meyeri, 1712. 1. History of Japan: together with a description of the Kingdom of Siam, 1690–1692. 3 vols. Translated by J. G. Scheuchzer. Richmond: Curzon Press, 1993. La¤tau, Joseph François. Customs of the American Indians Compared with the Customs of Primitive Times. 2 vols. Edited and translated by William N. Fenton and Elizabeth L. Moore. Toronto: Champlain Society, 1974–1977. Laurens, Henry. The Papers of Henry Laurens. 11 vols. Edited by Philip M. Hamer and George C. Rogers. Columbia: South Carolina Historical Society and University of South Carolina Press, 1968–1981. Le Page Du Pratz, Antoine. The History of Louisiana; translated from the French of M. Le

Page du Pratz. Edited by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. Louisiana Bicentennial Reprint Series. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975. Lettsom, John Coakley. The Natural History of the Tea-tree with Observations on the Medical Qualities of Tea, and Effects of Tea-drinking. London: Edward and Charles Dilly, 1772. Lewis, William. The Chemical Works of Caspar Neumann: abridged and methodized, with large additions: containing the later discoveries and improvements made in chemistry and the arts depending thereon. London: W. Johnston, G. Keith, A. Linde, P. Davey, B. Law, T. Field, T. Caslon, and E. Dilly, 1759. Lind, James. An Essay on Diseases Incidental to Europeans in Hot Climates: with the Method of Preventing their fatal Consequences: to which is added an Appendix concerning Intermittent Fevers: to the whole is annexed, a simple and easy way to render salt water fresh, and to prevent a scarcity of provisions in long voyages at sea. 2d ed. London: T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1771. 1. An Essay on the Most Effectual Means of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy: and a Dissertation on Fevers and Infection: together with Observations on Jail Distemper, and the Proper Methods of Preventing and stopping its Infection. London: D. Wilson and G. Nicol, 1774. 1. A Treatise on the Scurvy in three parts: Containing an Inquiry into the Nature, Causes, and Cures of that Disease. . . . Edinburgh, 1753. Linné, Carl von. Systema Naturae. 2 vols. Facsimile reprint of the 1758–1759 edition. New York: Stechert-Hafner, 1964. Lloyd, Christopher, ed. The Health of Seamen: Selections from the Works of Dr. James Lind, Sir Gilbert Blane and Dr. Thomas Trotter. Publications of the Navy Records Society, vol. 107. London: Navy Records Society, 1965. Lorimer, John. A Concise Essay on Magnetism; with an Account of the Declination and Inclination of the Magnetic Needle; and an Attempt to Ascertain the Cause of the Variation thereof. London: Printed for the Author, 1795. McDowell, William L., Jr., ed. Documents Relating to Indian Affairs, 1754–1765. Colonial Records of South Carolina, Series 2. Columbia: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 1970. Mackenzie, James, M.D. Essays and Meditations on various subjects: by a Physician. 2d ed. Edinburgh, 1762. 1. The History of Health, and the art of Preserving it, Etc. . . . Edinburgh: Gordon, 1758. Mitchell, John. The Present State of Great Britain and North America, with regard to Agriculture, population, trade and manufactures, impartially considered. . . . London: T. Becket and P. A. De Hondt, 1767. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat. The Spirit of the Laws. Translated and edited by Anne M. Cohler, Basia C. Miller, and Harold Samuel Stone. Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. More, Sir Thomas. Utopia. London: R. Chriswell, 1685. Museum Rusticum et Commerciale; or, select papers on agriculture, commerce, arts, and manufactures . . . Revised . . . by several members of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. 3d ed. 6 vols. London: R. Davis, 1766.

415


Bibliography

416


Bibliography

Nairne, Thomas. Nairne’s Muskhogean Journals: The 1708 Expedition to the Mississippi River. Edited by Alexander Moore. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1988. Oldmixon, John. The British Empire in America, containing the history of the discovery, settlement, progress and state of the British Colonies on the Continent and Islands of America . . . Second edition, corrected . . . with the continuation of the history . . . from . . . 1710 to the present time, etc. 2 vols. London: J. Brotherton, 1741. Phillips, Philip Lee. Notes on the Life and Works of Bernard Romans. Facsimile reproduction of the 1924 edition with introduction by John D. Ware. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1975. Pittman, Lieutenant Philip. The Present State of the European Settlements on the Mississippi. Facsimile reproduction of the 1770 edition with introduction by Robert R. Rea. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1973. Poivre, Pierre. Travels of a Philosopher; or, Observations on the Manner and Arts of various Nations in Africa and Asia; Translated from the French of M. Le Poivre, late envoy to the king of Cochin-China, and now intendant of the isles of Bourbon and Mauriturs. London: T. Bechet, 1769. Postlethwayt, Malachy. The Universal Dictionary of Trade and Commerce. 4th ed. Reprints of Economic Classics. Reprint of the 1774 edition. 2 vols. New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1971. Powel, David. The Historie of Cambria, now called Wales: a part of the most famous Yland of Brytaine, written in the Brytish language aboue two hundreth yeares past . . . Corrected, augmented, and continued out of records and best approoved authors by David Powel. London: Rafe Newberie and Henrie Denham, 1584. Rea, Robert R., and Milo B. Howard, Jr., eds. The Minutes, Journals, and Acts of the General Assembly of British West Florida. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1979. Roberts, William. An Account of the First Discovery and Natural History of Florida with a Particular Detail of the several Expeditions and Descents made on that Coast. Facsimile reproduction of the 1763 edition with introduction by Robert Gold. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1976. Rolle, Denys. To the Right honourable the Lords of His Majesty’s Most Honourable Privy Council. The Humble Petition of Denys Rolle. . . . Facsimile reproduction of the 1765 edition with introduction by Claude C. Sturgill. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1977. Romans, Bernard. “Advertisement.” In A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, From Its Discovery to the Present Time, by Joseph Sabin, vol. 17, pp. 532–33. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1888. 1. Annals of the Troubles in the Netherlands: From the accession of Charles V. Emperor of Germany. In four parts. A proper and seasonable mirror for the present Americans. Collected and translated from the most approved historians in the native tongue. 2 vols. Hartford: Watson and Goodwin, 1778–1782. 1. “An Attempt towards a Short Description of West Florida.” In Peter Chester: Third Governor of the Province of West Florida, edited by Mrs. Dunbar Rowland. Mississippi Historical Society Publications, Centenary Series, vol. 5. Jackson: Press of Mississippi Department of Archives and History, 1925.

1. “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida by [Bernard Romans], July 1773.” In Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, edited by Kenneth G. Davies, vol. 6, pp. 186–95. Dublin, Ireland: Irish University Press, 1972–1979. 1. A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida; Containing An Account of the natural Produce of all the Southern Part of BRITISH AMERICA, in the three Kingdoms of Nature, particularly the Animal and Vegetable . . . To which is added, by Way of Appendix, Plain and easy Directions to Navigators. . . . New York: Printed for the Author, 1775. Copy owned by Samford University Library, Birmingham, Alabama. 1. A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. Facsimile reproduction of the 1775 edition with introduction by Rembert Patrick. Floridiana Facsimile and Reprint Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1962. 1. A Concise Natural History of East and West Florida. Edited by Louise Richardson. New Orleans: Pelican, 1961. Rouppe, Louis. De morbis navigantium: liber unus; Accedit observatio de effectu extracti cicutae Storkiano in Cancro. Lugduni Batovorum: Apad T. Haak, 1754. Rowland, Dunbar, ed. Mississippi Provincial Archives, English Dominion, 1763–1766: Letters and Enclosures to the Secretary of State from Major Robert Farmar and Governor George Johnstone. Vol. 1. Nashville: Brandon, 1911. Rush, Benjamin. An Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America upon Slave Keeping. Philadelphia: John Dunlap, 1773. Scott, Kenneth, comp. Rivington’s New York Newspaper: Excerpts from a Loyalist Press, 1773–1783. New York: New York Historical Society, 1973. Simmons, William Hayne. Notices of East Florida, with an Account of the Seminole Nation of Indians. Reproduction of the 1822 edition with introduction by George E. Buker. Bicentennial Floridiana Facsimile Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1973. Smith, James Edward. A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and other Naturalists, from the Original Manuscripts. 2 vols. London: Longman, 1821. Stephens, Thomas. The method and plain process for making pot-ash, equal, if not superior to the best foreign pot-ash. Published in consequence of the late encouragement granted by Parliament for that purpose. London: R. Grif¤ths, 1755. Stiles, Ezra. The Literary Diary of Ezra Stiles edited under the authority of the Corporation of Yale University by Franklin Bowditch Dexter. 3 vols. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1901. Stork, William. An Account of East-Florida, with Remarks on its future Importance to Trade and Commerce. London: G. Woodfall, 1766. 1. A Description of East-Florida, with a Journal, kept by John Bartram of Philadelphia, botanist to His Majesty for the Floridas; upon a journey from St. Augustine up the river St. John’s as far as the lakes. London: W. Nicoll and T. Jefferies, 1769. Swan, Caleb. “Position and State of Manners and Arts in the Creek, or Muscogee Nation in 1791.” In vol. 5 of Information Respecting the History, Condition, and Prospects of the Indian Tribes of the United States, edited by Henry Rowe Schoolcraft, pp. 251–83. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1852–1857. Taitt, David. “David Taitt’s Journal to and Through the Upper Creek Nation.” In

417


Bibliography

418


Bibliography

Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, edited by K. G. Davies. Vol. 5, Transcripts, 1772, pp. 251–72. Dublin: Irish University Press, 1974. 1. “David Taitt’s Journal to and Through the Lower Creek Nation.” In Documents of the American Revolution, 1770–1783, edited by K. G. Davies. Vol. 5, Transcripts, 1772, pp. 273–82. Dublin: Irish University Press, 1974. Temple, William. Observations upon the United Provinces of The Netherlands. Edited by George Clark. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972. Viaud, Pierre. Shipwreck & Adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud. Translated and edited by Robin F. A. Fabel. Pensacola: University of West Florida Press, 1990. Volney, Constantin-François Chasseboeuf. A View of the Soil and Climate of the United States of America: With Supplementary Remarks Upon Florida; on the French colonies on the Mississippi and Ohio, and in Canada; and on the Aboriginal Tribes of America. Translated with occasional remarks by C. B. Brown. Introduction by George W. White. Facsimile of the Philadelphia, 1804, edition, with plates and maps from the London, 1804, edition. New York: Hafner, 1968. Wafer, Lionel. A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America, giving an account of the author’s abode there . . . with remarkable occurences in the South Sea. London: James Knapton, 1699. Waghenaer, Lucas Janssen. The Mariners Mirrour [Spieghel der Zeevaerdt]. Edited by Sir A. Ashley. London, 1588. Ware, John D. “The Bernard Romans–John Ellis Letters, 1772–1774.” Florida Historical Quarterly 52 ( July 1973): 51–61. Wheatley, Phillis. Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral. By Phillis Wheatley, Negro servant to Mr. John Wheatley, of Boston, in New England. London: A. Bell; sold by Messrs. Cox and Berry, King-street, Boston, 1773. Wright, James. Letters from Governor Sir James Wright to the Secretaries of State for America, August 24, 1774, to February 16, 1782. Collections of the Georgia Historical Society, vol. 3. Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1873. Young, Arthur. Political essays concerning the present state of the British Empire; particularly respecting I. Natural advantages and disadvantages. II. Constitution. III. Agriculture. IV. Manufactures. V. The colonies. And VI. Commerce. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1772.

Secondar y Sources Adams, Alexander B. Sunlight and Storm: The Great American Plains. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1977. Alden, John R. John Stuart and the Southern Colonial Frontier: A Study of Indian Relations, War, Trade, and Land Problems in the Southern Wilderness, 1754–1775. Ann Arbor: Edwards Brothers, 1944. Reprint. New York: Gordian, 1966. Alvord, Clarence W. The Mississippi Valley in British Politics: A Study of Trade, Land Speculation, and Experiments in Imperialism Culminating in the American Revolution. 2 vols. Cleveland: A. H. Clark, 1917. Reprint. New York: Russell and Russell, 1959. American Printmaking: The First 150 Years. New York: Museum of Graphic Art, 1969. The American Revolution: An Encyclopedia. 2 vols. Edited by Richard L. Blanco. New York: Garland, 1993.

Angier, Bradford. Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants. Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 1974. Bailey, Kenneth P. The Ohio Company of Virginia and the Westward Movement, 1748– 1792: A Chapter in the History of the Colonial Frontier. Glendale, California: Arthur H. Clark, 1939. Bailyn, Bernard. Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986. Baird, David W. The Quapaw Indians: A History of the Downstream People. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1980. Bass, George F. Ships and Shipwrecks of the Americas: A History Based on Underwater Archaeology. London: Thomas and Hudson, 1988. Beeson, Kenneth H., Jr. “Janas [Strangers] in British East Florida.” Florida Historical Quarterly 44 ( July and October 1965): 121–32. Bell, Amelia Rector. “Separate People: Speaking of Creek Men and Women.” American Anthropologist 92 ( June 1990): 332–45. Berkhofer, Robert F., Jr. The White Man’s Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1978. Bieder, Robert E. Science Encounters the Indian: The Early Years of the American Ethnology. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986; paperback ed., 1989. Boorstin, Daniel. The Americans: The Colonial Experience. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1958. Braund, Kathryn E. Holland. “Classi¤cation of Upper Creek Indian Towns.” Paper presented before the Society of American Archaeology. Nashville, Tennessee, April 2–6, 1997. 1. “The Creek Indians, Blacks, and Slavery.” Journal of Southern History 57 (November 1991): 601–36. 1. Deerskins and Duffels: Creek Indian Trade with Anglo-America, 1685–1815. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1993. 1. “Guardians of Tradition and Handmaidens to Change: Women’s Roles in Creek Economic and Social Life during the Eighteenth Century.” American Indian Quarterly 14 (Summer 1990): 239–58. 1. “The Path Between the Wars: Creek Relations with the British Colonies, 1763–1774,” Unpublished Master’s thesis, Auburn University, 1980. Brun, Christian, comp. Guide to the Manuscript Maps in the William L. Clements Library. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1959. Carleton, Kenneth Hoffman. “Eighteenth-Century Trails in the Choctaw Territory of Mississippi and Alabama.” Master’s thesis, University of Georgia, 1989. Carson, James Taylor. “Horses and the Economy and Culture of the Choctaw Indians, 1690–1840.” Ethnohistory 42 (Summer 1995): 495–513. Cashin, Edward J. Lachlan McGillivray, Indian Trader: The Shaping of the Southern Colonial Frontier. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1992. Chaplin, Joyce E. An Anxious Pursuit: Agricultural Innovation and Modernity in the Lower South, 1730–1815. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993. A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue by Captain Francis Grose, edited with a Biographical and Critical Sketch and an extensive Commentary by Eric Partridge, M.A., B. Litt. (Oxon.). 3d ed. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1963.

419


Bibliography

420


Bibliography

Colonial Wars of North America, 1512–1763: An Encyclopedia. Edited by Alan Gallay. New York: Garland, 1996. Corkran, David H. The Creek Frontier: 1540–1783. Civilization of the American Indian Series, no. 86. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967. Corry, John Pitts. Indian Affairs in Georgia, 1732–1756. Philadelphia: G. S. Ferguson. Reprint. New York: AMS, 1980. Covington, James W. “Trade Relations between Southwestern Florida and Cuba, 1600–1840,” Florida Historical Quarterly 38 (October 1959): 114–28. Crane, Verner W. The Southern Frontier, 1670–1732. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1929. Reprint. New York: W. W. Norton, 1981. Crary, Catherine Snell. “The Tory and the Spy: The Double Life of James Rivington.” William and Mary Quarterly 16 (1959): 61–72. Cumming, William P. The Southeast in Early Maps. 3d rev. ed. Edited by Louis De Vorsey, Jr. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998. Curley, Michael J. Church and State in Spanish Floridas, 1783–1822. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1940. Davis, Richard Beale. Intellectual Life in the Colonial South, 1585–1763. 3 vols. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1978. De Vorsey, Louis, Jr. “The Colonial Southeast on ‘An Accurate General Map.’ ” Southeastern Geographer 6 (1966): 20–32. 1. The Indian Boundary in the Southern Colonies, 1763–1775. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1966. Diamant, Lincoln. Bernard Romans: Forgotten Patriot of the American Revolution. Harrison, New York: Harbor Hill Books, 1985. Dictionary of American Biography. Edited by Dumas Malone. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1946–1958. Dictionary of National Biography. Founded in 1882 by George Smith; edited by Leslie Stephen and Sidney Lee; from the earliest times to 1900. 22 vols. London: Oxford University Press, 1917. The Discoverers: An Encyclopedia of Explorers and Exploration. Edited by Helen Delpar. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980. Doggett, Carita. Dr. Andrew Turnbull and the New Smyrna Colony of Florida. [Florida]: Drew, 1919. Duffy, John. From Humors to Medical Science: A History of American Medicine. 2d ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993. Duncan, David Ewing. Hernando de Soto: A Savage Quest in the Americas. New York: Crown, 1995. Duyckinck, Evert A., and George L. Duyckinck. Cyclopaedia of American Literature; embracing personal and critical notices of authors, and selections from their writings. From the earliest period to the present day; with portraits, autographs, and other illustrations. 2 vols. New York: C. Scribner, 1855. Eisner, Thomas, and Stephen Nowicki. “Red Cochineal Dye (Carminic Acid): Its Role in Nature.” Science 208 (1980): 1039–42. Elliott, Emory. Revolutionary Writers: Literature and Authority in the New Republic, 1725– 1810. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Emerson, Everett, ed. American Literature, 1764–1789: The Revolutionary Years. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1977.

Encyclopedia Canadiana: The Encyclopedia of Canada. Toronto: Grolier of Canada, 1968. Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present. Edited by Frederick E. Hoxie. Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1996. Estes, J. Worth. “Pattern of Drug Usage in Colonial America.” In Early American Medicine: A Symposium, edited by Robert I. Goler and Pascal James Imperato, pp. 29–37. New York: Fraunces Tavern Museum, 1987. Fabel, Robin F. A. The Economy of British West Florida, 1763–1783. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988. 1. “An Eighteenth Colony: Dreams for Mississippi on the Eve of the Revolution.” Journal of Southern History 59 (November 1993): 647–72. 1. “Encounters up the Mississippi, Yazoo, and Big Black Rivers: The Explorers of the Company of Military Adventurers.” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 95–103. 1. “St. Mark’s, Apalache and the Creeks.” Gulf Coast Historical Review 1 (Spring 1986): 4–22. Fernald, Merritt L., and Alfred C. Kinsey. Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America. New York: Harper Brothers, 1958. Fleetwood, William C., Jr. Tidecraft: The Boats of South Carolina, Georgia and Northeastern Florida, 1550–1950. Tybee Island, Georgia: WBG Marine Press, 1995. Foster, Steven, and James A. Duke. A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants: Eastern and Central North America. Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1990. Frazier, James C. “The Samuel Touchett Plantation, 1773.” Tequesta 35 (1975): 75–88. Galloway, Patricia K. “Choctaw Factionalism and Civil War, 1746–1750.” In The Choctaw before Removal, edited by Carolyn Keller Reeves, pp. 120–56. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. 1. Choctaw Genesis: 1500–1700. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1995. Gibson, Arrell M. The Chickasaws. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1971. Gold, Robert L. Borderland Empires in Transition: The Triple Nation Transfer of Florida. Carbondale: Southern Illinois Press, 1969. Grif¤n, Patricia C. Mullet on the Beach: The Minorcans of Florida, 1768–1788. Gainesville: University of North Florida Press, 1991. Guthorn, Peter J. American Maps and Map Makers of the American Revolution. Monmouth Beach, New Jersey: Philip Freneau Press, 1966. 1. British Maps of the American Revolution. Monmouth Beach, New Jersey: Philip Freneau Press, 1972. Halbert, H. S. “Bernard Romans’ Map of 1772.” Mississippi Historical Society Publications, vol. 6, pp. 415–39. Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1902. Hamilton, Peter J. Colonial Mobile: An Historical Study. Edited by Charles G. Summersell. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1976. Hann, John H. Apalachee: The Land between the Rivers. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1988. Hardeman, Nicholas P. Shucks, Shocks, and Hominy Blocks: Corn as a Way of Life in Pioneer America. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981. Harley, A. F. “Bernard Romans’s map of Florida Engraved by Paul Revere, and Other Early Maps in the Library of the Florida Historical Society.” Florida Historical Quarterly 9 ( July 1930): 47–59.

421


Bibliography

422


Bibliography

Harley, J. B., Barbara Barta Petchenik, and Lawrence W. Towner. Mapping the American Revolutionary War. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978. Harper, Francis, and Delma E. Presley. Oke¤nokee Album. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1981. Hassrick, Royal B. The George Catlin Book of American Indians. Reprint. Secausus, New Jersey: Castle Books, n.d. Hewlett, Leroy. “James Rivington, Tory Printer.” In Books in America’s Past: Essays Honoring Rudolph H. Gjelsness, edited by David Kaser, pp. 166–93. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1966. Hietman, Francis B. Historical Register of Of¤cers of the Continental Army during the War of the Revolution, April 1775, to December, 1783. Washington, D.C. [Baltimore]: Press of Nichols, Killam and Maf¤tt, 1893. Hindle, Brooke. The Pursuit of Science in Revolutionary America, 1735–1789. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956. Holmes, Jack D. L. “A Mystery Map of West Florida: A Cartographical Puzzle.” In Threads of Tradition and Culture along the Gulf Coast, edited by Ronald V. Evans, pp. 216–29. Pensacola: Gulf Coast History and Humanities Conference, 1986. Hudson, Charles, ed. Black Drink: A Native American Tea. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979. 1. “The Hernando de Soto Expedition, 1539–1543.” In The Forgotten Centuries: Indians and Europeans in the American South, 1521–1704, edited by Charles Hudson and Carmen Chaves Tesser, pp. 74–103. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1994. 1. “James Adair as Anthropologist.” Ethnohistory 24 (Fall 1977): 311–28. 1. Knights of Spain, Warriors of the Sun: Hernando de Soto and the South’s Ancient Chiefdoms. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1997. 1. The Southeastern Indians. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1976. Johnson, Cecil. British West Florida, 1763–1783. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943. Jordan, Winthrop D. White over Black: American Attitudes toward the Negro, 1550–1812. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968. Reprint. New York: Norton, 1977. Krochmal, Arnold, and Connie Krochmal. A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants. New York: Times Books, 1984. Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. “Fear of Hot Climates in the Anglo-American Colonial Experience.” William and Mary Quarterly 3d ser., 41 (1984): 213–40. Landers, Jane. “Garcia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose: A Free Black Town in Spanish Colonial Florida.” American Historical Review 95 (February 1990): 9–30. Lawson-Peebles, Robert. Landscape and Written Expression in Revolutionary America: The World Turned Upside Down. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Leighton, Ann. American Gardens in the Eighteenth Century: “For Use or for Delight.” Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1976. Livermore, Shaw. Early American Land Companies: Their In®uence on Corporate Development. New York: Commonwealth Fund, 1939. Lowery, Woodbury. The Lowery Collection: A Descriptive List of Maps of the Spanish Possessions within the Present Limits of the United States, 1502–1820, edited by Philip Lee Phillips. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1912.

McConnell, Michael N. A Country Between: The Upper Ohio Valley and Its People, 1724–1774. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1992. McCusker, John J. Money and Exchange in Europe and America, 1600–1775: A Handbook. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1978. Manual of Grasses. Edited by Rick Darke. New Dictionary of the Royal Horticultural Society, Mark Grif¤ths, series ed. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 1994. Medicine in Colonial Massachusetts, 1620–1820. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. 57. Boston: Colonial Society of Massachusetts by the University Press of Virginia, 1980. Mereness, Newton D., ed. Travels in the American Colonies. New York: Antiquarian Society, 1916. Merriwether, Robert L. The Expansion of South Carolina, 1729–1765. Kingsport: Southern Publishers, 1940. Middlekauff, Robert. The Glorious Cause. The Oxford History of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. Milanich, Jerald T. Florida Indians and the Invasion from Europe. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1995. Milanich, Jerald T., and Charles Hudson. Hernando De Soto and the Indians of Florida. Ripley P. Bullen Series. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1993. Morris, Allen. Florida Place Names: Alachua to Zolfo Springs. Sarasota: Pineapple Press, 1995. 1. “Names under the Florida Sun.” 2 vols. Manuscript. Tallahassee, Florida, 1973. Copy at P. K. Younge Library, University of Florida, Gainesville. Mörzer Bruyns, W. F. J. “Longitude in the Context of Navigation.” In The Quest for Longitude, edited by William J. H. Andrewes, pp. 44–47. Proceedings of the Longitude Symposium, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, November 4–6, 1993. Cambridge: Collection of Historical Scienti¤c Instruments, 1996. Mowat, Charles L. East Florida as a British Province, 1763–1784. University of California Publications in History, vol. 32. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1943. Murray, Stephen O. “On Subordinating Native American Cosmologies to the Empire of Gender.” Current Anthropology 35 (February 1994): 59–61. Nelson, Paul David. General James Grant: Scottish Soldier and Royal Governor of East Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1993. Neuman, Robert W. “The Buffalo in Southeastern United States Post-Pleistocene Prehistory.” In Southeastern Natives and Their Pasts, edited by D. G. Syckoff and J. L. Hofman, pp. 261–80. Oklahoma Archaeological Survey, Studies in Oklahoma’s Past, no. 11. Norman: OAS, 1983. Numbers, Ronald L., and Todd L. Savitt, eds. Science and Medicine in the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989. O’Donnell, James H. “Armchair Adventurers and Horseback Botanist: Explorations of Florida’s Natural History, 1763–1800.” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 85–93. The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. 3d ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980. Panagopoulos, Epaminondes P. New Smyrna: An Eighteenth Century Greek Odyssey. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966.

423


Bibliography

424


Bibliography

Perdue, Theda. “Southern Indians and the Cult of True Womanhood.” In The Web of Southern Social Relations: Women, Family, and Education, edited by Walter J. Fraser, Jr., Frank Saunders, Jr., and Jon L. Wakelyn, pp. 35–51. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985. 1. “Writing the Ethnohistory of Native Women.” In Rethinking American Indian History, edited by Donald L. Fixico, pp. 73–86. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1997. Peterson, Lee Allen. A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and Central North America. Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1978. Petrides, George A. A Field Guide to Trees and Shrubs. 2d ed. Peterson Field Guide Series. Boston: Houghton Mif®in, 1978. Phillips, Roger. Wild Food. Boston: Little, Brown, 1986. Rashed, Zerrab Esmat. The Peace of Paris, 1763. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1951. Rauschenberg, Roy A. “John Ellis, Royal Agent for West Florida.” Florida Historical Quarterly 62 ( July 1983): 1–24. Rea, Robert R. “ ‘Graveyard for Britons,’ West Florida, 1763–1781.” Florida Historical Quarterly 47 (April 1969): 345–64. 1. “The King’s Agent for British West Florida.” Alabama Review 16 (April 1963): 141–53. 1. “ ‘Lieutenant Hutchins to the Rescue!’ The Wreck and Recovery of the Mercury, 1772.” Gulf Coast Historical Review 5 (Spring 1990): 56–61. 1. “Madogwyns Forever! The Present State of the Madoc Controversy.” Alabama Historical Quarterly 30 (Spring 1968): 6–18. 1. “Master James Cook and Gulf Coast Cartography.” Florida Historical Quarterly 63 ( January 1985): 280–307. 1. “Redcoats and Redskins on the Lower Mississippi, 1763–1776: The Career of Lt. John Thomas.” Louisiana History 11 (Winter 1970): 5–35. 1. “Royal Navy ‘Remarks Books’ and Charles Roberts’s ‘Observations.’ ” Alabama Review 41 ( July 1988): 163–78. Rea, Robert R., and Jack D. L. Holmes. “Dr. John Lorimer and the Natural Sciences in British West Florida.” Southern Humanities Review 4 (Fall 1970): 363–72. Roberts, George S. Historic Towns of the Connecticut River Valley. Schenectady, New York: Robson and Adee, 1906. Rogers, George C. “The East Florida Society of London, 1766–1767.” Florida Historical Quarterly 54 (April 1976): 479–96. Rostland, Erhard. “The Geographic Range of the Historic Bison in the Southeast.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 50 (1960): 395–407. Rucker, Brian R. “Where the Buffalo Roamed: American Bison on the Gulf Coast during the Age of Exploration.” Gulf Coast Historical Review 8 (Fall 1992): 115–26. Russell-Smith, Hugh Francis. Harrington and His Oceana: A Story of a Seventeenth Century Utopia and Its In®uence in America. New York: Octagon Books, 1971. Sabin, Joseph. A Dictionary of Books Relating to America, From Its Discovery to the Present Time, vol. 17. New York: Bibliographical Society of America, 1888.

Salta, Remo. “Bernard Romans: Cartographer for the U.S. Continental Army.” Mercator’s World 1 (1996): 50–55. Schafer, Daniel L. “Plantation Development in British East Florida: A Case Study of the Earl of Egmont.” Florida Historical Quarterly 63 (1984): 172–83. Sheehan, Bernard W. Seeds of Extinction: Jeffersonian Philanthropy and the American Indian. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973. Sheldon, Craig T., Jr. “The Council Houses of Fusihatchee.” In Archaeological Excavations at the Early Historic Creek Indian Town of Fusihatchee (Phase I, 1988–1989), edited by Gregory A. Waselkov, John W. Cottier, and Craig T. Sheldon, Jr., pp. 45– 76. Report to the National Science Foundation, 1990, grant no. BNS-8718934. Siebert, Wilbur Henry. Loyalists in East Florida, 1774 to 1785: The Most Important Documents Pertaining Thereto. Vol. II: Records of Their Claims for Losses of Property in the Province. Deland: Florida State Historical Society, 1929. Smith, Roger C., James J. Miller, Sean M. Kelley, and Linda G. Harbin. An Atlas of Maritime Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997. Snapp, J. Russell. John Stuart and the Struggle for Empire on the Southern Frontier. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1996. Spalding, Phinizy. Oglethorpe in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977. Spalding, Phinizy, and Harvey H. Jackson, eds. Oglethorpe in Perspective: Georgia’s Founder after Two Hundred Years. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989. Stetson, Sarah P. “The Traf¤c in Seeds and Plants from England’s Colonies in North America.” Agricultural History 23 (1949): 45–56. Stiles, Henry R., ed. The History of Ancient Wethers¤eld, Connecticut. . . . 2 vols. New York: Grafton Press, 1904. Stocking, George W., Jr. “Scotland as a Model of Mankind: Lord Kames’ Philosophical View of Civilization.” In Toward a Science of Man: Essays in the History of Anthropology, edited by Timothy H. H. Thoresen, pp. 67–89. The Hague: Mouton, 1975. Sturtevant’s Edible Plants of the World. Edited by U. P. Hedrick. Reprint. New York: Dover, 1972. Sullivan, Charles L. Hurricanes of the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Biloxi: Gulf Publishing, 1985. Swanton, John R. The Early History of the Creek Indians and Their Neighbors. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 73. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1922. Reprint. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1970. 1. The Indians of the Southeastern United States. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 137. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1946. Reprint. New York: Greenwood Press, 1969. 1. “Social and Religious Beliefs and Usages of the Chickasaw Indians.” In Forty-fourth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, pp. 171–555. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1928. 1. Source Material for the Social and Ceremonial Life of the Choctaw Indians. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 103. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1931. Thomas, Cyrus. “Report on the Mound Explorations of the Bureau of Ethnology.”

425


Bibliography

426


Bibliography

Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology for the Years 1890–1891. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Of¤ce, 1894. Thomas, Daniel H. “Pre-Whitney Cotton Gins in French Louisiana.” Journal of Southern History 31 ( January 1965): 135–48. Trexler, Richard C. Sex and Conquest: Gendered Violence, Political Order, and the European Conquest of the Americas. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1995. Usner, Daniel H., Jr. Indians, Settlers and Slaves in a Frontier Exchange Economy. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, for the Institute of Early American History and Culture, Williamsburg, 1992. Vogel, Virgil J. American Indian Medicine. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. Ware, John D., and Robert R. Rea. George Gauld: Surveyor and Cartographer of the Gulf Coast. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1982. Waselkov, Gregory A., and Diane E. Silvia. Archaeology at the Krebs House (Old Spanish Fort), Pascagoula, Mississippi. Mobile: University of South Alabama Center for Archaeological Studies, 1995. Wheat, James Clements, and Christian F. Brun. Maps and Charts Published in America before 1800: A Bibliography. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969. White, Richard. The Roots of Dependency: Subsistence, Environment, and Social Change among the Choctaws, Pawnees, and Navajos. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983. Widmer, Randolph J. The Evolution of the Calusa: A Nonagricultural Chiefdom on the Southwest Florida Coast. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1988. Wight, William E. Abstracts of Georgia Wills of the State of Georgia, 1733–1777. Atlanta: Town Committee of the National Society of the Colonial Dames of America in the State of Georgia for the Department of Archives and History, 1962. Reprint. Spartanburg, South Carolina: Reprint Co., 1981. Williams, Gwyn A. Madoc: The Making of a Myth. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Williams, Walter. The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992. Willis, William S. “The Nation of Bread.” Ethnohistory 4 (1957): 125–49. Winn, William W. The Old Beloved Path: Daily Life among the Indians of the Chattahoochee River Valley. Eufaula, Alabama: Historic Chattahoochee Commission, 1992. Wood, Betty. Slavery in Colonial Georgia, 1730–1775. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984. Wood, Peter H. “The Changing Population of the Colonial South: An Overview by Race and Region, 1685–1790.” In Powhatan’s Mantle: Indians in the Colonial Southeast, edited by Peter H. Wood, Gregory A. Waselkov, and M. Thomas Hatley, pp. 35–103. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989. Woods, Patricia Dillon. French-Indian Relations on the Southern Frontier, 1699–1762. Studies in American History and Culture, no. 18. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1980.

Index

Abaco, 294, 316, 327. See also Hole in the Rock Abeeka (Abeika, Choctaw town), 271, 272 Abeshaï Creek, 281 Acadians, 157, 173, 198 Adair, James, 42, 367 (n. 2) “Address to the Inhabitants of the British Settlements in America upon Slave Keeping, An” (Benjamin Rush), 152 Ækanphanækin Swamp, 109 Africans. See slaves (African) agave (as fence), 244 agricultural implements and machinery, 45–55, 160, 173–74, 193–94, 203; Dutch plough, 193; suffolk plough, 193; threshing machines, 194; sawmills, 193; “sicle,” 194; scythe and hook, 194; windmills, 193. See also cotton gin agriculture, 159; food crops suited for production in the Floridas, 160–69; commercial crops suited for production in the Floridas, 169–78; dye plants suitable for production in the Floridas, 182–86; medicinal plants suitable for production in the Floridas, 180–82; tropical plants suitable for production in the Floridas, 186–91. See also names of individual crops Aïsa Hatcha River (Rio d’ais or Ais river), 88, 198, 243, 250, 254, 255, 295, 301. See also Indian River Aitheesuka River, 272

Alachua (region), 160 Alachua (Spanish settlement), 243, 251 albinos, 156–57 allied tribes (of Creek Indians), 142 alligators, 149 Amaxura River, 88, 254 ambergris, 107, 379 (n. 17) Amelia Inlet, 88 Amelia Island, 109, 241, 298 America: economic potential of, 177, 216; effect of Proclamation of 1763, 217–20; views on clearing of forests, 195 “American elk.” See moose American Indian origin theories, 110; Carthage theory, 115; Chickasaw account, 128; Chinese origin, 116, 119; Choctaw account, 121; Jewish origin theory, 114–15; Norwegian origin, 115–16; polygenesis, 119–21l; Tartar origin, 115–19 American Indian women, 131, 135–36, 137, 139, 145, 146, 147; childbirth, 111–12; gender-related work roles, 112, 125; method of carrying children, 112; menstrual seclusion, 114, 125, 384 (n. 47) American Indians: adultery, views on, 113; alcohol abuse, 128; appearance of, 112–13; burial practices, 112; character of, 113; foods, 72, 78, 106, 127, 138, 144; hieroglyphic paintings, 74, 150, 268; hoe, 160; hospitality, 113; hunting camp, 280; method of making ¤res, 112; mounds, 274; rituals, 112; origin of, 63–64, 114–

428


Index

21, 128, 129; physic, 133, 138, 147, 149; populations of southern tribes, 131, 143, 361 (n. 134); property rights, view on, 113; scalping, 149; sexual practices, 65, 113, 128, 147, 375 (n. 87), 384 (n. 55); tattoos, 73; tumuli, 253; urination, 112; war camps, 125; war tactics, 112, 149. See also names of individual tribes American Military Pocket Atlas, 31 American Philosophical Society, 10, 12, 17; West Florida members, 359 (n. 107) anagreeta (corn dish), 162 Andros Island, 35 Angel Fish Creek, 307, 308, 309 anise, starry, 182 Annals of the Troubles in the Netherlands (Bernard Romans), 2, 38–39 annona tree, 177 “anomalous beings.” See albinos Apalachia, 252 Apalachian (Apalachicola) River, 88 Apalachian Mountains, 253 Apalachicola River, 42, 43, 88, 241, 254, 265, 267 Apé Bogue oosè (creek), 283 Apè Tonsa (creek), 283 apples, 93, 168 Aquelon-Pissa Indians, 149 aquifers, 251 Ardry (settler), 283 Arkansas Indians, 123, 148, 382 (n. 43) Arnold, Benedict, 20 arnotto, 182–83, 395 (n. 137) Artaguette, Pierre de, 122, 382 (n. 41) arum. See eddo Ashuck hooma (Chickasaw town), 124 asphaltum, 107, 379 (n. 18) Atlantic Pilot (William Gerard De Brahm), 44, 48, 263, 320; assessment of by Bernard Romans, 263–65, 405 (n. 237) “Attempts towards a Short Description of West Florida” (Bernard Romans), 8 Avena aquatica sylvestris. See wild rice Ayomala Indians, 156 Ayovola (Spanish settlement), 251

Bague-aithé-Tannè River, 271 Bague-fooka (stream), 271 Bahama Bank, 321, 326 Bahama Channel, 255 Bahama Islands, 294. See also Grand Bahama Island Bahama Straits, 318 Bahia Honda, 324 Baires (or Bères) (mosquito nets), 220, 224 Bakkatané River, 269 balaustian, 181, 394 (n. 131) Balm-of-Gilead, 275. See also Tacamahaca barilla, 191 Barton’s Bluff, Mississippi, 276 Bartram, John, 11, 15, 48, 242, 369 (n. 21), 392 (n. 109) Bartram, William, 42, 58, 355 (nn. 68, 76), 367 (n. 2) Bashailawaw Creek, 281 Baskett, Thomas, 283 Batcha-Chooka (hill), 281 bay and cypress galls, 106–7. See also soil types Bay of Honda, 323, 328 Bay of Mantanca, 324 Beak’s Key, 297, 319. See also Cat Key beans, 166 Bear Cut, 306 Bear Killer’s Bluff. See Nita Abè bears, 256, 306, 320; bear fat oil, 127, 144; bear skin, 200 Beelofa (creek), 283 bees, 191 “belly-ach,” 234 Bemini Islands, 294, 295, 296, 316, 318–19 benni. See sesamen Bernard Romans Hurricane of 1772, 70, 90–91, 333 Berry Island, 294, 316, 327, 335, 336 Betsey (schooner), 4 Bible: account of creation, 119–21; Great Flood, 120–21; and slavery, 154–56 Bienville, Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de, 122, 382 (n. 41) Biloxi Indians, 149 birds, 132, 309, 310, 312

Biscayne Bay, 6 Bishop, Robert, 315, 320, 324 bison, 371 (n. 44). See also buffalo Black Bluff. See Suktaloosa Black Cæsar’s Creek, 308, 309 black drink, 144 black jack ridges, 182 Black Warrior River. See Tuscaloosa River Blackwell, Dr. (historian), 111 Blackwood Bush, 335 Bleach-Yard, 257, 302 Blue Springs, 379 (n. 20) Boca Grande (passage), 298, 309, 314, 338 Boca Herrera, 310 Boca Ratones, 303, 306 Bogue Chitto (creek), 271 Bogue Hooma Creek, 269, 282. See also Red Creek Bon Secour River, 267 Bone Key, 312. See also Cayo Hueso; Key West Boota Copassa, 127 Bossu, Jean Bernard: Biblical account of creation, 119–21; Great Flood, 121; jalap and rhubarb, 182; origin of American Indians, 117–18 Boston Marine Society, 29–30 Boyd’s Creek, 285 Braddock, Captain, 336–38 Breed Indians, 125. See Chickasaw Indians Breton Island, 333 Brewington’s plantation (Georgia), 106 Brown (Indian trader), 270 Browne, Montfort, 59, 222 Buckles, John, 273 buckwheat, 164 Buell, Abel, 28, 31, 347 buffalo, 193, 254, 371 (n. 44), 404 (n. 230) Bukkatanè Creek, 282. See also Bakkatané River Bunker Hill, Battle of, 30–31 Caäntacalamoo (creek), 283 cabbage palms, 267, 302, 303 cacao, 188–89 Caldwell (Chickasaw trader), 128

Caloosa Indians (Calusa), 256–57, 259, 260–61, 311, 312, 335 Caloosa River, 259 Campbell, John, 283 Campbell Town, 223, 230 Canada, 195 candleberry myrtle, 200 Candlemas Islands. See Chandeleur Islands Cape Anthony, 329. See also Cape St. Anthony Cape Antinio, 323 Cape Blas, 314, 331. See also Cape St. Blas; Cape Blaze Cape Blaze, 266 Cape Bonavista, 323 Cape Canaveral, 250, 295, 300, 304, 305 Cape Catoche, 333 Cape Corientas, 321, 322 Cape Florida, 258, 264, 296, 303, 308, 317, 319, 409 (n. 276). See also Sound Point; Fools Cape Cape Reef, 320, 325 Cape Roman, 259, 335, 344 Cape Romano. See Punta Largo; Cape Roman Cape Sable. See Sandy Point Cape St. Anthony, 321 Cape St. Blas, 330, 331, 339 Captain Hooma, 130, 384–85 (n. 58) Carlos Bay, 259 carmine (dye), 395 (n. 139). See also cochineal carpat. See Palmæ Christi cascarilla, 181, 390 (n. 130) cassine. See black drink Castillo de San Marcos, 402 (n. 205). See also Fort Apalache Castor & Pollux Keys, 338 Castor Key, 336 Cat Island, 333 Cat Key, 316. See also Rocquesses Catawba Indians, 123 cattle, 97, 127–28, 144, 163, 184, 192, 197, 242, 267; dairy, 192; milch cows, 162 Cayo Axi, 311. See also Sandy Key Cayo De doze Leggas. See Key Largo Cayo Hueso (Huiso), 260, 313. See also Key West

429


Index

430


Index

Cayo Largo, 259. See also Key Largo Cayo Tabona, 260 Cayo Vivora, 312 Cayos Mulas, 314 Cayos Vacas (Vacos), 260, 312. See also Cow Keys; Key Vacas cedar, 255 Cedar Point (East Florida), 299 Cedar River, 89 Ceyo Biscayo, 294 Chandeleur Islands, 91, 333 Charles’s Bay, 334 Charlotte Harbor, 6, 88, 197, 257, 258, 259, 334 Chatelaw (Chickasaw town), 124 Chatham Bay, 335. See also Juan Ponce de Leon Bay Cherokee Indians, 123 Cherokee River. See Tanasse River Chester, Peter, 10, 11, 222 Chester River, 267 Chicasaw Gallery, 280 Chicasawhay (Choctaw town), 133, 269, 272 Chicasaw-hay River, 272 Chickasaw Indians, 121–29; appearance of, 72–73; burial customs, 129; cattle among, 127–28; diet of, 127; disease, treatment of, 127; earlobe deformation, 72–73; enemies of, 122–23; horses of, 125; houses of, 127; hunting decoys of, 126–27; hunting grounds, 125; musical instrument of, 124; old ¤eld, 101; origin story, 128; swimming ability of, 125; tracking ability of, 125; sexual practices, 128; slaves among, 128; thieves, reputation as, 123; towns, 124–25, 273, 383 (n. 45); war tactics, 129; women, 125 Chickasaw Old Field, 101 Chickianoeé (bluff ), 280 Child, Josiah, 216 China root, 181, 240, 394 (n. 132) Chitimacha Indians, 149 Choctaw Indians, 129–42, 278–79; alcohol abuse, 135; appearance of, 135– 36; bandits, 281; beliefs of, 132, 137; blowguns, 132–33; burial practices, 73, 140–42; childbirth, 139; cloth-

ing, 138; concept of reciprocity, 140; diet, 137–38; gambling, 134; games, 132, 134–35; gender roles, 137, 139; hieroglyphic paintings, 74, 150, 268; horses, 137; hostilities with Creek Indians, 7, 130, 269, 270, 271, 273–74, 277, 282; hunting camp, 279; medical practices, 133, 140, 268; mercy killing, 140; missionary among, 133; mulberry cloth, 174; origin story, 121, 129; physic, 133, 138; political divisions, 130, 385 (n. 59); population, 131; portraits by Romans, 73; rainmakers, 138–39; relations with French, 130– 31; sexual practices, 137, 139; suicide among, 142; superstitions, 132; swim, inability to, 130, 139; tattoos, 137; treatment of captives, 132; war camps, 125; warfare tactics, 130, 132; women, 131, 135 Chooka-hoola (Choctaw town), 271 Chucalissa (Chickasaw town), 124 Chukafalaya (Chickasaw town), 124 chunké (game), 133, 134–35 clay pits, 107 Clifton, William (chief justice), 99 climate: effect on disease, 51–52, 222, 225–26; fear of hot climates, 222; in®uence on Europeans, 153, 154. See also weather cloth manufacture, 173 Cluere (Indian trader), 287 cochineal, 53, 183 coco plum, 238, 261, 302 coffee, 186–88 Colla-Pissa Indians, 149 Collins, John, 345 Collinson, Peter, 15 Coloosahatcha River, 88 Coloradas Islands, 323 commerce. See trade Commissary (Southern Indian Department), 128, 273, 383 (n. 51), 408 (n. 260) Commissioners for Forti¤cations at the Highlands, 32–35 Company of Military Adventurers, 23, 59 Concise Natural History of East and West

Florida: copper plate engravings, 26– 27; editions of, 44–45; maps, 28, 68– 69; production and delivery of, 23– 29; second printing, 28; second volume, 32; size of work, 26; subscribers, 22–23 Congress of Mobile, 1771, 131 convent, 241 Coosa (Choctaw town), 270 Coosada Indians, 280, 283, 284, 408 (n. 264) Coosadas Bluff, 283. See also Coosada Indians Coosak Baloagtaw (deserted old ¤eld), 271 cork, 183 corn, 160–62, 192, 194 Cortex eleuthera, 181, 390 (n. 130). See also cascarilla cotton, 172–74 cotton gin, 173–74, 371 (n. 48) Cow Keys, 312 Cox Combs, 323, 324 crab, 266 Creek Indians, 142–49; appearance, 143, 144; ball play of, 146; burial practices, 148; childbirth, 148; Choctaw hostilities, 7, 130, 269, 270, 271, 273–74, 277, 282; dances, 145–46; diet, 144–45; earlobe deformation, 73; ¤re making, 147–48; gender-related work roles, 145, 146; Green Corn Celebration, 147–48; hieroglyphic paintings, 74, 150, 268; hospitality to strangers, 144; hot houses, 146, 390 (n. 92); physic, 147; towns of, 404 (n. 228); medical practices, 146, 147, 390 (n. 93); mercy killing, 148; population, 143; sexual practices, 147; swimming ability, 144; treatment of prisoners, 147; treatment of visitors, 144; tribal components, 142, 388 (n. 80); views on cattle, 144; war with Caloosa Indians, 259, 260; women’s dress, 145 Crescent Lake. See Dun’s Lake crocodile, 262 Crooked Creek. See Ectombogue bè Creek Croton eleuteria. See Cortex eleuthera

Cuba, 296 cucumber magnolia. See Magnolia major Cunningham, Dr., 190 Curacoa, 227–29, 234 Cutter (overseer at New Smyrna), 248, 249–50, 403 (n. 214) Darien Indians, 151 Dartmouth, Earl of. See Legge, William Dauphin Island, 224, 343 Davis, John, 409 (n. 270) Davis’s Quadrant, 285 De Brahm, William Gerard, 4, 6, 24, 44, 48, 246, 257, 261, 335, 402 (n. 209) De Soto, Hernando, 148, 252 De Witt, Jan, 213 Deadman’s Keys, 297, 319, 325, 328 Deane, Silas, 23, 30, 364 (n. 155) deer, 254; small key deer, 262, 296, 297, 298, 306, 312. See also venison Deer Point, 332, 341 Deer River, 250. See Indian River deerskins, 146, 197 Detour aux Anglois, 329 Dewitt, John, 36 disease: causes and treatments, 225–41; diets for, 226–27, 230, 234–35, 236, 238, 239–40; effect of climate, 51– 52, 94, 222–25; effect of humidity, 95–96; effect of night air, 95; effect of personal habits, 94–95, 224, 230– 31, 235; environmental in®uences, 230–31. See also individual diseases; medical practices; medicinal plants; medical preparations diseases: angina suffocativa (putrid sore throat), 234; bloody ®ux, 232; body yaws, 240; catarrhal fever, 235; cholera, 233; chronic diseases, 236– 40; dropsy, 236; “dry belly-ach,” 234–35; elephantiasis, 240; fevers, 225–32; hæmorrhoidal ®ux, 237–38; leprosy, 240–41; locked jaw, 233–34; pleurisy, 235–36; ruptures, 239; sun stroke, 235; tetanus, 233–34; worm fever, 239; yellow fever, 227–30. See also medical practices; medicinal plants; medical preparations Dixon, Major, 284

431


Index

432


Index

Doctor James’s Powder, 230 Dog Keys, 297, 328 Dog River, 268, 283 Doggett, Carita, 58 dogwood, 215 Dolichos. See pease Double-Headed Shot, 297, 317, 319, 325, 328 Dove Key, 310. See also Key Palombo Dow, George, 271, 274, 284 Dry Tortugas, 264, 313, 314, 329, 334. See also Tortugas Duncan, Sir William, 247 Dun’s Lake, 108 Durnford, Elias, 8, 204, 222 Dutch colonies, 187–88, 227–29 Dutch traders, 216 dye plants, 53, 169–72, 182–86. See also arnotto; cochineal; indigo; madder; “mosses”; saf®ower; sumach East Abecka (Choctaw town), 270 East Congeto (Choctaw town), 131, 271 East Florida, 241–42; boundaries, 42– 43; climate, 92; exports, 209–10; frost line, 89; indigo production, 370; Indians, 256–57; Indian settlements, 254; land policies, 159–60; political history, 221–22; Spanish evacuation, 221, 245; Spanish settlements, 251; use of white laborers, 152 East Florida Society of London, 56 Ebeetap-Oocoola (Choctaw town), 271 Ectombogue bè Creek, 279 eddo (plant), 187, 395 (n. 142) Egmont, Earl of, 351 (n. 22) Eliot, John, 222 Ellis, John, 11–12, 19–21, 26, 52 emigrants, advice to, 201–10 English Point, 341 English Reach, 329. See also Detour aux Anglois Enos, Roger, 286 Ensenada de Carlos. See Charles’s Bay Escambia (Escambé) River, 8, 267 Eskimaux Indians, 116 Etuck chukké (Choctaw town), 270 Everglades. See Grand Marsh

“Exact View of the Late Battle at Charlestown, June 17th, 1775, An” (Bernard Romans), 31 Fahrenheit’s thermometer (scale), 92, 175, 186 Favre, Louis, 283–84 ferries, 242, 243, 246 First Discovery and Natural History of Florida (William Roberts), 268 ¤sh, 254, 258, 262, 265, 295–96, 301, 302, 303, 310, 316, 320–21, 325, 336, 371 (n. 43); ¤sheries, 198–200; ¤shermen’s huts, 198, 322, 338 Fish, Jesse, 245, 402 (n. 207) Fish Killer’s Island. See Naniabè Island ®amingoes, 312 Flathead Indians, 129, 384 (n. 56). See Choctaw Indians ®ax, 176 Flint River, 241 Florida: advice for settlers in, 201–10; climate of, 89–96; value of to Britain, 216–21; agricultural productions of, 158–59, 160–91 Florida keys, 259–61 Florida reef, 259, 294–98, 303, 315 Fools Cape, 303, 306. See also Cape Florida Forks, The, 283 Fort Apalache, 254, 335 Fort Balize, 329 Fort Condé, 93, 284 Fort George, 30, 242 Fort George Islands, 299 Fort Matanca, 246 Fort Mossa (Mose), 243, 244 Fort Picolata, 251 Fort Popa, 251 Fort Ticonderoga, 30 Fort Tombecbé, 93, 211, 215, 397 (n. 160) Fort Toulouse, 211, 397 (n. 160) Foster (Choctaw trader), 271 Fothergill, John, 15, 357 (n. 88) Fowey (ship), 317 Fowey Rocks, 303, 305, 306, 317–18, 319, 326 France: exploration of Gulf Coast, 148; forts, 211, 215; Indian allies of, 123;

missionaries, 133; New Orleans, control of, 157, 196; relations with Chickasaw Indians, 122; relations with Choctaw, 133; relations with Indians, 149; settlements by, 286, 343; settlers from, 94, 157, 159, 173; traders of, 216; trading houses, 274 François (French settler on Poule River), 94 Free Masons Islands, 91, 333 frost line, 89 fruit. See apples; orange groves; peaches; pears Fuller, William, 299, 409 (n. 273) Gage, Thomas, 16 Gage Hill, 267 Galphus (Galphin), George, 144 Garden, Alexander, 12, 15 Gasparilla Island, 339 Gates, Horatio, 36 Gauld, George, 8, 10, 17, 24, 293 Gauterais, Mons. de la, 215 General’s Mount (sand hill), 299 Georgia, 3, 50, 160; Trustees of, 50; value of exports, 152, 211. See also Table of exports from the Province of Georgia (following 147) German (among Indians). See Priber, Christian Gottlieb ginger, 191 Grand Bahama Bank, 336 Grand Bahama Island, 294, 336 Grand Cayman Islands, 321 Grand Marsh, 165, 169 Grant, James, 5, 221–22, 244, 249, 399 (n. 172) Grant Lake, 263 Grant’s Point, 336, 338 grasses, 166–67 Great Talbot Island, 242 Greeks. See New Smyrna settlement Greek settlers. See New Smyrna settlement Greene, Nathanael, 30 Grenville River, 257 Grooper Hill, 306 ground nuts, 168 guinea corn, 164 Gulph of Florida, 314, 315, 323

Gulph of Mexico, 311, 312, 314, 322, 343 Gulph stream, 255, 263 gum elemi, 180 Haänka Ullah (Choctaw town), 270, 271 Haldimand, Frederick, 5 Halifax River, 246. See also Musketo River; Musketo Lagoon hammock land, 97–100, 192. See also soil types Hannah Mills’s Narrows (pass), 299 Harrington, James, 153 Hatchatipke (stream), 270 Hattakappa Indians, 149 Havanna, 198, 226, 313, 317, 324 Hazard, Ebenezer, 358 (n. 103) hemp, 176 Hen and Chickens, 310 Hewitt, William, 270, 272, 408 (n. 257) hickory milk, 127, 138 Hidalgo, Manuel, 314 hieroglyphic paintings (by Indians), 150, 268 Hikihaw (Chickasaw town), 124 Hobé Inlet, 255, 258, 301, 305 Hog Harbour. See Porto Puercos hogs, 163, 193 Hole in the Rock, 294, 318, 327, 336. See also Abaco Holland, 184, 194 Holland, Samuel, 350 (n. 7) homany (hominy), 144 Home, Henry, Lord Kames, 63 honey, 144, 164, 191, 210, 234, 313; honey comb, 232. See also bees Hoola-tassa (Choctaw town), 271 Hooma Indians, 149 Hoopah Ullah (Choctaw town), 269 hops, 169 Horse-Guards, 109, 299 horses, 125, 242; of Choctaw, 137 Houstoun, William, 181 Hubbard (ship), 307 Hughes, Grif¤th, 240 Hunt, John, 295 hunters, white, 158, 256, 283 hurricane ground, 269, 272. See also hurricanes

433


Index

434


Index

hurricanes, 70, 90–91, 269, 333 Hutchins, Thomas, 44, 381 (n. 36) Hutchinson’s Island, 151 Illinois country, 195 Indian Key, 405 (n. 236). See also Matança Key Indian pink root, 227, 230 Indian River, 88, 107, 250, 255, 301, 305 Indian trade, 131, 212, 398 (n. 162) Indian traders, 123, 125, 145, 287 Indians. See American Indians; American Indian women indigo, 53, 169–72; cultivation of, 170; production of dye, 170–72 insects and arachnids: ®ies, 172, 223– 24; mosquitoes, 200, 224, 243; scorpions, 309; spiders, 237 ipecacuanha, 181, 232, 233, 395 (n. 133) iron, 197 Isaac’s Rocks, 296, 316, 318, 326 Isle of Pines (Isla de Pinos), 2, 3, 315 Isthmus of Darien, 121 Italian settlers. See New Smyrna settlement jalap, 11, 15, 21, 181–82, 395 (n. 134) Jamaica, 167, 226 James (Kickapoo prisoner), 123 James, Ben, 272 Jardins, 321. See also Isle of Pines Jerusalem oak, 239 Johnson, James, 211. See also Table of exports from the Province of Georgia (following 147) Johnston ( Johnstone), George, 222 Jones (Capt Lieutenant), 36 Jones ( Jamaican planter), 167 Joulter Keys, 335 journey cakes, 164 Joutel, Henri, 148 Juan Ponce de Leon Bay, 259, 334–35 Kæmpfer, Engelbert, 188–89 Kansas Indians, 148. See Arkansas Indians Kerlérec, Louis Billouart de, 182 Kew Gardens, 11

Key Biscay (Bascayno), 260, 297, 303, 304, 306, 314. See also Ceyo Biscayo Key Largo, 90, 296, 307, 309, 310. See also Cayo Largo Key Loo, 263, 312, 317–18, 319, 325 Key Marques, 314 Key Palombo, 297 Key Rodriguez, 296 Key Sal, 199, 297, 317, 324, 328 Key Tabona, 296, 297, 309, 310, 320 Key Vacas, 313 Key West, 297, 312 Kickapoo Indians, 122, 123 Krebs, Mr. ( Joseph), 174 Krebs, plantation of, 90 Kwappa Indians, 148 La Couture, Madame, 266 La Parida. See Soldier Keys La Parida y su Jiguelo (Iiguela) (keys), 263. See also Soldier Keys La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de, 148 labor gangs, 196 Lake George, 107 Lake Maurepas, 267 Lake Mayacco, 107, 256 Lake Okeechobee. See Lake Mayacco lamp black, 180 Las Tetas, 307, 309 Leather manufacturing, 184, 197–98; chamois leather, 198; turkey leather, 183 Ledbury (snow), 90, 307, 327 Ledbury Key, 307 Legge, William, second Earl of Dartmouth, 18, 21 Letsom, I. C. (Lettsom, John Coakley), 191 Lewis, William, 169 Liberty (schooner), 13, 295 Lichen Rocelia, 183 lightning rods, 92 lime tree, 177 Lind, James, 51, 399 (n. 177) Linnaeus, Carolus, 15, 189, 379 (n. 13) liquidambar, 181, 394 (n. 129) liquor, 168. See also rum; wine Litbury (snow). See Ledbury

Little Scambé River, 267 Little Seguana River (St. Juan de Guacaro), 88 Little Talbot Island, 242 Lizar, Henry, 266 Loftus’s cliffs, 285 Logan, Capt. John, 307 loggerhead turtles, 356, 405 (n. 232) Loo (frigate), 263, 312 Lookup, George, 267 Lorimer, John, 10–11, 18, 23, 284, 293, 365 (n. 172) Los Membros, 319. See also Riding Rocks Los Paradizos (key), 263 Lost Tribe theory, of American Indian origins, 114–15 Lower Creek Indians, 142, 144, 199. See also Creek Indians Lucere, Chevalier de, 94, 283 lumbering, 196, 214, 309. See also naval stores Lyman, Eleanor 362 (n. 137) Lyman, Phineas, 59, 362 (n. 137) Lynn, Massachusetts, 198 McCarty’s plantation, 329 McCarty’s Point, 329 McGillivray, John, 283 McGillivray, Lachlan, 4 McIntosh, John, 273, 383 (n. 51) M’Kay, Capt. P., 167 McKenzie, James, 92 madder, 53, 184–86, 395 (n. 141) Maddock the Welshman, 116 Magnolia major (bark), 230 mahoe tree, 177 mahogany, 3, 261, 309, 315, 321 maize. See corn Manatee River, 5, 88, 254, 258, 339 Manchac, 333 mangroves, 191, 307, 309 “Map of part of West Florida, 1772– 1773, A” (Bernard Romans), 9 Margot River, 125 Marine Society of the City of New York, 17 marsh land, 104–5. See also soil types Martelaer’s Rock, 32–35

Martyr Reef, 306, 326. See also Florida reef Martyrs. See Florida keys Mary (sloop), 3 Mascaras, 306 Massiadoli, Giuseppe, 403 (n. 214) mastodon bones, 118, 381 (n. 38) Matacombé Key, 259, 260, 297, 309, 320 Matanca Bar, 300 Matança Key, 260, 311 Matança River, 109, 245, 304 Matto Hatcha (island?), 266 medical practices: bleeding, 226, 227, 230, 236; blisters, 227, 230, 232, 236; Choctaw Indian, 133, 140; clysters, 232, 234, 236; Creek Indians, 146; cupping, 235, 268; emetics, 232, 234; environmental practices, 226, 237, 239; purges, 232; spiders, 237; vomits, 232 medical preparations, 227, 230, 232, 234, 238, 240; antinomial medicines, 227; Armenian bole, 234; bark, 177, 227, 230, 232, 236; diet drinks, 240; elixir aloes, 239; elixir vitrioli, 239; Glauber salt, 227; Jesuit’s bark, 230; kermes mineral, 227; laudanum, 227; mercurial medicines, 240; mint oil, 227; opiates, 233, 234, 238; Palmæ Christi (oil of ), 234; sal absynth, 230, 232; sal nitri, 227; semi-ruba, 238; spider nest, 237; syrup of squills, 236; terra japonica, 238; wormwood, salt of, 227. See also medicinal plants medicinal plants, 50–51, 180–82, 227, 230, 232, 233, 235, 238, 239 Melattaw (Chickasaw town), 124 Memory Rock, 294, 327 Mesa Maria. See Table Land Metacombe Reef, 319 Metances, 317. See also Matança Key Mexican Indians, 115, 151 Middle River, 8, 267 mineral springs, 108, 253 Minorcan settlers. See New Smyrna settlement Mirror of Navigation, 345

435


Index

436


Index

Mississippi lands, 170, 176, 198, 201, 219, 285–87 Mississippi River Indian tribes, 149 Mobile, 93–94, 158, 223, 230 Mobile Point, 343 Mobile River, 267 Mobilian Indians, 149 Moka-Lassa (Choctaw town), 271 Money Key, 318, 319. See also Stirrup’s Key monopolies, 211–14. See also trade; Indian trade Montesquieu, 152 moose, 193 More, Thomas, 153 mosquito nets, 200, 224 “mosses,” 183 motacilla (bird), 132 Motte, Jacob, 58 Moultrie, John, 222, 246, 399 (n. 173), 402 (n. 208) Mount Tucker, 300 mulberry cloth, 138, 174 Mulcaster, Frederick George, 6 Mullet Keys, 338 Musketo Lagoon, 88, 109, 246, 300. See also New Smyrna settlement Musketo River, 246 myrica (myrtle), 200 Nadouessin Indians, 195, 218 Nahoola Inalchubba (creek), 125, 273, 274 Naniabè Island, 283 Nanna Chahaws (hills), 281 Nanna Falaya (hills), 281 Nashebaw River, 278 Nashooba River, 272 Nassau Inlet, 300 Nassau River, 88, 107, 223, 241, 298 Natchez, 59 Native Americans. See American Indians natural bridge, 252 Natural History of Barbados (Grif¤th Hughes), 240 naval stores, 178–80, 215 navigation instructions. See sailing directions navigational charts, 363 (n. 142)

navigational techniques and tools: by sight, 297, 298, 303, 307, 310, 311, 326, 330, 341; “chuck a biscuit ashore,” 298, 313; condition of sea bottom, 294, 299, 300, 301, 304, 312, 313, 330; Davis’s quadrant, 285; glass, 326; ground-tackling, 295; haul in, 294, 304; observation (of latitude), 300, 305, 315; soundings, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299, 302, 306, 315, 316, 317, 318, 320, 326, 328, 329, 331, 333; taking the variation, 264 Negro Oil Bush. See Palmæ Christi Netherlands. See Holland New Augusta, 10 New Orleans, 43, 54, 157, 168, 196, 223, 329 New Providence Island, 335. See also Providence New Smyrna settlement, 56–58, 169, 247, 300, 372 (n. 55); conditions of settlers, 247–48; rebellion at, 248–50 New York Marine Society, 23 New Yufala (Creek town), 254 Newfound Harbour, 312 Newfound Passage, 293 Nita Abè (bluff ), 283 “noble savage” (concept), 64 Noel and Hazard (booksellers), 358 (n. 103) North Hillsborough River, 247 North West (Chickasaw Indian), 125 northwest passage, 211 Northwest River, 107 Noxshubby (Noxubee) River, 279 oak bark extract, 184 Oaktashippa Indians, 149 Oca Tibehaw River, 276 Occhoy Indians (settlements of ), 280, 281, 408 (n. 264) Oceana ( James Harrington), 153 Ocklaw-wawhaw River (Ocklawaha), 108, 253 Ogilvie, Francis, 221, 399 (n. 171) Oglethorpe, James, 151, 242, 299 Ohio River Valley, 217 Oka Loosa (Choctaw town), 271, 281 Oka tebbee haw River, 272

Oka-attakkala (Choctaw town), 271 Oka-hoola (Choctaw town), 271 Okchai Indians. See Occhoy Indians Okefenokee Swamp, 4, 109. See Ækanphanækin Swamp Oku Ullah Creek, 269 old ¤elds, 271, 272 Old Matacombe, 310 Old Mobile, 284 Old Town Creek, 276 Oldmixon, John, 55 olives, 169 Oopah Ullah (a brook), 151 Opaya Mingo, 268 Opaya Mingo Luxi (Paya Mingo Belizy), 128 orange groves, 89, 107, 169, 244, 253 Orange Key, 296, 297, 316, 319, 328 orchil (dye), 183, 395 (n. 138) Orchilla (island), 183 Oskaulaskna River, 88 Owhan lowy (creek), 272 Oxford English Dictionary, 2 oysters, 158, 258, 259, 265, 301, 336; oyster bank, 246, 343; oyster shells, 245, 252 Pablo River, 109 Palmæ Christi, 234 Palmar de Ais, 302 Pan de Matanca, 324 Pancha Waya Creek, 270 Paön titack (Chickasaw town), 273 Paonte (Choctaw town), 270 Paps, 324. See also Las Tetas Pasca Oocoloo River (Pascagoula), 90, 149, 268 Patrick, Rembert, 45 Paya Mingo Belizy. See Opaya Mingo Luxi peaches, 192 peanuts. See ground nuts pearl ash, 191 Pearl River, 224 pears, 93, 168 pease (peas), 162–63 Pelican Island, 343 Pelican Key, 343 Penman, James, 247, 402 (n. 210) Penon River, 107

Pensacola Harbor, 43, 158, 197, 223, 224, 267, 332, 355 (n. 65) Perceval, John, second Earl of Egmont, 3 Perdido River, 267 Petit Goufre, 285 Petite Riviere des Teaux, 286 Phaseolus. See pease Phillips, Philip L., 47 Phyllis of Boston, 152 Piankashaw Indians, 122, 123 Pierre (explorer), 285 pilots, 292, 296, 299, 329, 331 pimento, 191 pine barrens. See pine land pine land, 96–97, 192, 275. See also soil types pistachia, 180 pitch, 178, 179 Pittman, Philip, 44 Plan for the Future Management of Indian Affairs, 384 (n. 53) Point Claire, 343 Point Coupé, 287 Poivre, Pierre, 153 Pollux Key, 336 pome granate (pomegranate), 181. See also balaustian Pompey (Negro herbalist), 99 Ponce de Leon, Juan, 335 Ponce de Leon Bay. See Juan Ponce de Leon Bay Ponio Bay. See Juan Ponce de Leon Bay Poos coos Paähaw (savannah), 269 Pooscoos te Kalè (Choctaw town), 272 Pooscoos telake Hoca (deserted old ¤eld), 272 Pooscoos-Mingo, 272 Poreetamogue (creek), 271 Port Royal Harbor, 316 Porto Puercos, 323 potash, 191, 197 potatoes, 163 Poule River, 94 Powel, David, 116 Priber, Christian Gottlieb, 398 (n. 169) Princess Carolina (Dutch ship of war), 227 Proclamation of October 7, 1763, 220, 373 (n. 69), 398 (n. 170) Providence (island), 316

437


Index

438


Index

Providence people, 181, 260–61, 296, 307, 308–9, 319, 336 Puebla Nova Navala (Spanish settlement), 251 pumpkins, 168 Punta Abatas. See Cape Bonavista Punta Largo, 259, 334–35, 343. See also Cape Roman Punta Ycaco, 324, 325 Punto Tancha, 312. See also Sandy Point Purcell, Joseph, 13–14, 24, 68, 248, 357 (n. 85), 372 (n. 63) Purrysbury, South Carolina, 175 Putnam, Israel, 30 Putnam, Rufus, 23, 30, 284 Quapaw Indians, 123, 382 (n. 43) Queen Charlotte, 11 raccoons, 306, 309 Rae, John, 144 Rattle Snake Key. See Cayo Vivora Rattones (Ratones) River, 88, 169, 258, 294 Red Captain. See Captain Hooma Red Creek, 269. See also Bogue Hooma Creek Restingo Largo. See Mullet Keys Revere, Paul, 21 Reynolds, John, 151 rhubarb, 182, 233, 395 (n. 136) rice, 164–66 Richardson, Louise, 44–45 Riding Rocks, 296, 297, 319, 336 Rio d’Ais. See Aïsa Hatcha River Rio del Medio, 302, 303, 306 Rio Nuevo, 303 Rio Seco, 303 Riviere aux Boeufs, 224 Rivington, James, 17, 21, 31, 32, 358 (n. 103), 365 (n. 169) Rivington’s New-York Gazetteer, 17 roads: in Indian territory, 268, 275, 276; St. Augustine, 251 Robinson, Thomas, 268, 407 (n. 249) Rocquesses, 319. See also Roques Rodriguez Key, 308, 309, 320 Roebuck River, 343 Rogers, Captain, 250 Rolle, Denys, 48, 108

Rolles-Town, 59, 248 Romans, Bernard: assessment of works of De Brahm, 48, 261–65; assessment of Bossu, 48, 117–18, 182; assessment of New Smyrna settlement, 56–59; at Fort Ticonderoga, 36; at Martelaer’s Rock, 32–35; at Skenesborough, 36–37; Battle at Charlestown, illustration of, 31; botanical drawings of, 17; botanist for West Florida, 17–18; captain of First Pennsylvania Company of Artillery, 35; charges of plagiarism against, 23–26; death of, 39–40; deputy surveyor for the southern district, 292; deputy surveyor of Georgia, 3, 292; diseases of, 237–38; early career, 2– 3, 234–35; early life, 1–2; Earl of Egmont, surveys for, 3; education of, 2, 47; employed by John Stuart, 292; East Florida grand jury, served on, 249; essay on West Florida, 8–9; estimates of Indian populations, 361 (n. 134); expedition to Choctaw and Chickasaw country, 135, 268; explorations of the Floridas, 3, 6, 8, 108, 251, 252, 255, 258, 292–93, 295, 314–15, 321, 326–27, 309, 338– 39; ®uvial expedition on Tombigbee River, 274–84; in East Florida, 4–7; in Georgia, 3–4; in New York, 169; in West Florida, 7–13; John Stuart, appointment by, 356 (n. 83); justi¤cation of slavery, 152–56; land grant in West Florida, 8; maps by, 6, 8–9, 13–15, 16, 31, 38, 299, 351 (n. 27), 353 (n. 57), 354 (n. 58), 356 (n. 84), 357 (n. 87), 365 (n. 173), 376 (n. 101); marketing of Concise Natural History, 21–23; marriage to Elizabeth Whiting, 39; marriage to Maria Wendell, 3; navigational charts, 16, 17, 74; paper on sea compass, 17; poem submitted by, 19; principal deputy surveyor for the Southern District, 4; proposed expedition to Asia, 18–19; proposed provincial garden in West Florida, 12–13, 15–16; relationship with William Gerard De Brahm, 5–6;

Revolutionary War service, 29–40; sailing directions, value of, 67–68; scienti¤c method, 52, 192, 327; seeks help of John Ellis, 19–21; shipwrecks, 3, 5, 13; slaves of, 5, 274, 373 (n. 76); surveys Indian territory, 4, 7; views on Indian culture, 110– 12; views on Indians, 62, 64; views on machinery, 54–55; views on monopolies, 211–14; views on natural history writing, 49–51; views on slavery, 60–62 Romans, Hubertus (son), 39 Romans, Huybertus (brother), 22, 361 (n. 133) Romans, Peter Milo (son), 3 Roques, 328 Rosalie, Fort, 285 rosin (pine), 179 Rouppe, Louis, 227 Royal American Magazine, 19, 21 rum, 159, 233 Sablo River, 243 Saddle Hill, 323, 324 saf®ower, 176 sago, 167 sailing directions, 67–69; around Cape St. Antonio through the Gulph of Florida, 321–27; Bahama Bank to Gulph of Mexico, 327–28; different route to Pensacola, 334–35; eastern shore of East Florida, 298–404; for Tampa Bay, 336–39; Mobile Bar, 343–44; New Providence and the Bahama Banks, 335–36; Pensacola Harbor, 341–43; to Pensacola from Jamaica or Cuba, 329–34; to the Mississippi River, 328–29; St. Augustine to the Florida reef, 304– 6; St. Joseph’s Bay, 339–41; within the Florida reef, 294–98, 306–21 St. Anastasia Island, 245, 299 St. Anastasia’s Sound, 107 St. Andrew’s Bay, 224, 266, 330, 331 St. Augustine, 42, 243–45, 251, 299 St. Augustine (bar), 300 St. Bernard Bay, 314, 334 St. Cecilia River, 107, 246 St. Clair, Arthur, 36

St. Clair, J.-B. Benoît de, Sieur de Regio, 122 St. Eustatius, 227 St. George’s Islands, 265 St. George’s Sound, 224 St. John’s Inlet, 300 St. John’s River, 88, 107, 223, 242, 243, 250, 299. See also St. John’s Inlet St. Joseph Bar, 330, 341 St. Joseph Bay, 224, 266 St. Joseph Harbor, 197 St. Juan de Guacaro River, 88, 252 St. Lucia River, 88, 107, 256, 257, 301, 302 St. Lucia Sound, 305 St. Marks. See Fort Apalache St. Mark’s River, 243 St. Mary’s Inlet, 88, 300 St. Mary’s River, 42, 88, 107, 241, 298 St. Matheo (settlement), 251, 252, 254 St. Nicholas Creek, 246 St. Nicholas River, 107 St. Paul’s (St. Pablo) Creek, 243 St. Pedro (Spanish settlement), 251 St. Rosa Bay, 331–32. See also Santa Rosa Bay St. Rosa Island, 331, 332, 341. See also Santa Rosa Island St. Sebastian River, 245, 301 St. Sebastian’s Creek, 107 St. Taffy’s River. See Santa Fé River St. Ysabella Reef, 323 salsola, 191 salt: Spanish law, 199; vegetable salt (used by Indians), 145; works, 199, 343 San Marcos de Apalache. See Fort Apalache San Ybell Island, 259, 334 sand hills, 108. See also black jack ridges Sand Key, 343 Sandy Key, 311, 312 Sandy Point, 259, 297, 312 Santa Fé (Spanish settlement), 251, 252, 254 Santa Fé River, 251 Santa Rosa Bay, 224, 266. See also St. Rosa Bay Santa Rosa Island, 266. See also St. Rosa Island

439


Index

440


Index

Sapa-Pesah (Choctaw town), 270 sarsaparilla. See China root Saunders Key, 307, 309 Saunders’s Cut, 307 savannah land, 100–101. See also soil types sawmills, 193 Sawpit Bluff (East Florida), 299 scalping, 149, 151 scammony, 182, 395 (n. 135) Schoolcraft, Henry Rowe, 64 Schuyler, Philip, 35 Scott, John, 23 scratching. See Creek Indians, medical practices, 146 Seminole Indians. See allied tribes (of Creek Indians) Seminole towns, 254 Senti Bogue, 282 sesamen (sesame), 167, 192 settlers: advice to, 201–10; diet of, 158– 59; dress of, 157 Ship Island, 333 ships: Betsey (schooner), 4; Castor (privateer), 336; Fowey (ship), 317; Hubbard (ship), 307; Ledbury (snow), 90, 307, 327; Liberty (schooner), 13, 295; Loo (frigate), 263, 312; Mary (sloop), 3; Pollux (privateer), 336; Princess Carolina (Dutch ship of war), 227 shipwrecks, 3, 5, 13, 250, 260, 263, 265– 66, 295, 307, 308, 311, 312, 314, 317, 319, 403 (n. 215) silk, 174–76 silk ¤latures, 175 silk grass, 182 Simpson, John, 8, 266 sink holes, 251 Sioux Indians. See Nadouessin Indians Sixteenth Regiment, 91 Skenesborough, 36–37 slavery: Biblical justi¤cation of Negro slavery, 154–56 slaves (African), 171, 172, 173–74, 202; cost of, 202, 204; diet of, 165, 167, 187, 202; diseases, 236, 240–41; factor in successs of Georgia, 151–52; health care practices, 231; value of, 156, 201

Small Tribes on the Mississippi River, 149, 391 (n. 98) Snake Creek. See Senti Bogue soil types, 96, 159, 182. See also bay and cypress galls; hammock land; marsh land; pine land; savannah land; swamp lands Soldier Keys, 263, 304, 306, 397 Sonac Tocalè Creek, 276 Sookhanatcha River, 270, 280 Sound Point, 260, 296, 307, 308, 309, 310. See also Cape Florida South Carolina, 211 South Negril Point, Jamaica, 321 Southern Indian Department, 128 Spanish, 192–93; ¤shermen, 209, 198, 298, 301, 309, 338; fort (remains), 267; salt laws, 199; settlements, 241, 246, 251, 252; shipwrecks, 250; trade, 183, 216; trade routes, 298, 314, 317; treasure ®eet, 260 Spirito Santo. See Tampa Bay Spring in the Rock, 306, 308 springs, 107, 108, 109. See also water sources Spruce Creek, 107, 247 Stiles, Ezra, 22 Stirrup (West Florida resident), 107 Stirrup’s Key, 318, 327 Stork, William, 47–48, 55–56, 57, 242, 244, 249, 261 Stuart, Charles, 283, 284, 353 (n. 54) Stuart, John, 6–7, 13, 24 Stuart-Gage map, 13–15 Stuart-Purcell map, 357 (n. 87) Sucarnoochee River. See Sookhanatcha River sugarcane, 168–69 Suktaloosa (bluff ), 280 sumach, 183 Surinam, 213–15 surveying of land, 204–5, 207–8; methods and equipment, 273, 285 Suwannee River. See St. Juan de Guacara River swamp lands, 101–4; inland swamps, 104; river swamps, 101–4, 242. See also soil types Swayze, Samuel, 60

Swedish Academy, 179 Swedish Academy. See Transactions of the Swedish Academy Sweet potatoes, 163–64, 192 Systema Naturae (Linnaeus), 15, 18 Table Land, 323 Tabona Key, 308 Tacamahaca, 181, 394 (n. 128) Taënsa Indians, 149 Taënsa River, 267, 283 Taitt, David, 7, 8, 13–14, 66, 353 (n. 48), 374 (n. 86) Talbot Island, 299 Tallé Hatcha (stream), 272, 273 Tallé Katta (stream), 272 Taloffa Ockhasé (Creek town), 254, 257 Tampa Bay, 88, 251, 258, 314, 334 Tampa Harbor, 197 Tanasee River, 126, 253 tanier. See eddo tar, 178–79 Tartar Point, 341 tattoos, 73 tea, 189–91 Teeakhaily Ekutapa, 281 Temple, William, 213 Tennessee River. See Tanasee River Tequesta (peninsula), 263, 264 Thirty-¤rst Regiment of Foot, 95 Thomas, John, 356 (n. 83) Three Mile Swamp, 245 Tiaoux Indians, 149 timber trade, 214. See also lumbering tobacco, 144, 149, 177–78 Tombechbè Fort, 279, 280 Tombechbé River, 160, 267, 274–84 Tomeehettee Indians, settlement of, 283 Tomeehettee Bluff, 283 Tomoco Creek, 107, 246 Tonica Indians, 149 Tonyn, Patrick, 222, 399 (n. 174) Tortolas, 302, 305. See also Dry Tortugas Tortugas, 298. See also Dry Tortugas Touchett, Samuel, 6, 56, 352 (n. 42) Town Creek, 273. See also Nahoola Inalchubba trade, 211, 216; English imports, 180,

184, 189, 173, 176, 197; Florida exports, 209–10; monopolies, 211–24; shipping, 196–97; Spanish colonies, 183, 216, 298, 314, 317 Transactions of the Swedish Academy, 169 travel: hints to travelers, 183, 200–201, 277 Treaty of Paris, 1763, 196, 288–89 trees, 97, 98–100, 102–4, 106, 180–81, 196, 197, 200, 215. See also lumbering; mangroves; mahogany; naval stores; orange groves Tuckahaw (Chickasaw town), 124 Turnbull, Andrew, 56–59, 247, 402 (n. 211) turpentine, 179 Turtle River, 105 turtles, 261, 296, 302, 308, 309, 320, 322. See also loggerhead turtles Tuscaloosa River, 280 Twelve Mile Swamp, 165, 245 Twenty Mile Creek, 274 Twenty-¤rst regiment. See Thirty-¤rst Regiment of Foot Two Sisters (pass), 299 Tybee Island, 316 Tyger Islands, 241 underground river, 251 Upper Creek Indians, 142. See also Creek Indians Utoca (Spanish settlement), 251 Utopia (Thomas More), 153 Valcour Island, Battle of, 37–38 venison, 144, 157, 306 Vera Cruz, 297, 314 Viaud, Pierre, 265–66, 406 (n. 245) Village, The (on Mobile Bay), 107, 379 (n. 16) Von Linné, Carl. See Linnaeus, Carolus Wagenaar, Lucas Janse, 345 Waghenaer, Lucas Janseen, 345 Ware, John D., 1, 23 water sources (for ships and travelers), 107–9, 251, 252, 255, 260, 294, 296, 297, 298, 302, 303, 304, 307, 309, 310, 311, 313, 315, 321, 322, 336

441


Index

442


Index

waterfalls, 253 wax, 191, 200, 210. See also bees wax myrtle, 200 weather: fogs, 223; frost, 244; frost line, 89; gale of 1769, 327; gales, 297, 326; humidity, 92–93, 95–96; hurricanes, 90–91, 269; in®uence on disease, 225; night air, 95; signs of rain, 89, 93; temperatures, 92, 93; winds, 89–90, 93. See also Bernard Romans Hurricane of 1772 Weeoka Creek, 267 Weetumpkee Indians, settlements of, 282, 408 (n. 246) Wegg, Edmund Rush, 167 Wendel, Maria (Mary), 3 West Florida: boundaries of, 42–44; cost of settling in, 202–10; exports, 209; French settlers in, 94; plantations, 283–84; political history of, 222; potential exports, 210; potential for development, 159; prices of goods, 157, 205–6, 208; survey of land in, 204–205; trade path to Creek Indians, 267 Wethers¤eld, Connecticut, 23, 59. See also Company of Military Adventurers Wetumpkee Indian, settlements of, 284 wheat, 160 Wheatley, Phillis. See Phyllis of Boston white laborers, 201, 202

White Men’s Hard Labour. See Nahoola Inalchubba Whiting, Elizabeth, 39 wild oats. See wild rice wild rice, 72, 195, 396 (n. 147); Avena aquatica sylvestris, 28, 72, 105 Williamson, Hugh, 10, 18 windmills, 193 winds, 91–92, 225, 230 windward passage, 308 wine, 159, 168 wire grass, 97 witch hazel tree, 180, 394 (n. 127). See also pistachia women. See American Indian women Woolridge (sheriff ), 249 wreckers, 260–61, 301, 308. See also Providence people Wright, James, 204 Yagna-hoolah (Beloved Ground), 281 Yanatoe (Choctaw town), 271 Yasoo Cliffs, 286 Yasoo Indians, 149 Yasoo River, 125 Ybitoopa Indians, 149 Ylacco River. See St. John’s River Yoani (Choctaw town), 91, 268, 272 Young Metacombe, 309, 310, 311 Young, Isaac, 160 Zea. See corn Zeeland. See Holland