Wesley Corpus

22. Of the Georgian Indians in general it may be observed, that they are not so properly nations, as tribes or clans, who have wandered thither at different times; perhaps expelled their native countries by stronger tribes ; but how or when they cannot tell, being none of them able to give any rational account of themselves. They are inured to hardships of all kinds, and surprisingly patient of pain. But as they have no letters, so they have no religion, no laws, no civil government. Nor have they any kings or princes, properly speaking ; their meekos, or headmen, having no power either to command or punish, no man obeying them any further than he pleases. So that every one doeth what is right in his own eyes ; and if it appears wrong to his neighbour, the person aggrieved usually steals on the other unawares, and shoots him, scalps him, or cuts off his ears: having only two short rules of proceeding,--to do what he will, and what he can. 23. They are likewise all, except, perhaps, the Choctaws, gluttons, drunkards, thieves, dissemblers, liars. They are implacable, unmerciful; murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, murderers of their own children: it being a common thing for a son to shoot his father or mother, because they are old and past labour ; and for a woman either to procure abortion, or to throw her child into the next river, because she will go with her husband to the war. Indeed, hasbands, strictly speaking, they have none; for any man leaves his wife (so called) at pleasure, who frequently, in return, cuts the throats of all the children she has had by him. Whoredom they account no crime, and few instances appear of a young Indian woman’s refusing any one. Nor have they any fixed punishment for adultery; only, if the husband take his wife with another man, he will do what he can to both, unless speedily pacified by the present of a gun or a blanket.