Bonnefoy – The next day we got together again and I began to ask him where he had learned French, which he spoke quiet fluently. He told me that, being of good family, he had been instructed in all that a man ought to know; that after having completed his studies, he had learned English and French; that he spoke these two languages with a little difficulty as far as pronunciation was concerned, but that he wrote German, Latin, English and French with equal correctness; that for twenty years he had been working to put into execution the plan about which he had talked to us; that seven or eight years before he had been obliged to flee from his country, where they wished to arrest him for having desired to put his project into execution; that he had gone over to England, and from there to Carolina, and had also been obliged to depart thence for the same reason, 18 months after having arrived there; that having found among the Cherakis a sure refuge he had been working there for four years upon the establishment which he had been planning for twenty; that the Governor of Carolina having discovered the place of his refuge had sent a commissioner to demand him of the savages there, but that then he was adopted into the nation, and that the savages, rejecting the presents of the English, had refused to give him up; that he had 100 English traders belonging to his society who had just set out for Carolina, whence they were to return the next autumn, after having got together a considerable number of recruits, men and women, of all conditions and occupations, and the things necessary for laying the first foundations of his republic, under the name of the Kingdom of Paradise; that then he would buy us from the savages, of whom a large number were already instructed in the form of his republic and determined to join it; that the nation in general urged him to establish himself upon their lands, but that he was determined to locate himself half way between them and the Alibamons, where the lands appeared to him of better quality than those of the Cherakis. [i][8] Grant – I sometime after went up into the Townhouse with a Resolution to try what could be done, but I found that he was well apprized of my design and laughed at me, desiring me to try it, in so insolent a manner that I could hardly bear with it, and I told him although I knew the Indians would not permit me to Carry him down to be hanged, Yet they would not find fault I hoped if I should throw him into the Fire, which I certainly would do if he gave me any further Provocation.[ii][9] Bonnefoy – My comrades and I planned our flight, and agreed together to feign enthusiasm for the execution of the project of Pierre Albert, who had the confidence of the savages, and they left us at liberty with him. I noticed even, on different occasions, that he urged them to live peaceably and to ask peace from the French. The savage with whom I lived, who was one of the principal men of the nation and the other chiefs, sometimes asked me in what manner they could appease the French and bring them to their place to trade. I told them that it would be necessary for them to send a calumet of peace to the nearest post; that I supposed that would be the post of the Alibamons. They told me that they had already been there, but that they feared the savages of those regions, with whom they were not on good terms; that they did not wish to have any new war. . . . While Pierre Albert and I were working toward peace the three English traders were daily instigating the savages to continue to make war upon us. They were themselves working to enlist parties; which I saw them doing some days before my flight. After having their drum beaten by one of their negroes who was a drummer, and enlisted 70 men, they distributed among them, from their storehouses, the munitions necessary for going to the Outamons, as well as against the voyageurs of Canada. Of the 52 villages which compose the nation of the Cherakis, only the eight which are along the river are our enemies. The other villages remain neutral, whither because of their remoteness or their spirit of peace. Carolina is 15 days’ journey by land from the village where I was, Virginia 20, and the Alibamonts 10 to the south. . . . The 29th of April a day on which the savages had given themselves up to a debauch, was that which we chose for our escape. We had got together a sufficient amount of ammunition. We went out from the village at nine o’clock in the evening. Jean Arlas had his gun. Coussot was not armed, not having been able to take his from the cabin where he was. Guillaume Potier, who was in our plot, having got drunk with the savages, was not in condition to go with us and we could not wait longer for him without risk of being discovered. We marched until daylight, going to find two pirogues that were in a little river six leagues from the village. In one of these we embarked . . . [iii][10] Adair – Having thus infected them by his smooth deluding art, he easily formed them in a nominal republican government - crowned their old Archi-magus, emperor, after a pleasing new savage form, and invented a variety of high-sounding titles for all the members of his imperial majesty’s red court, and the great officers of state; which the emperor confered upon them, in a manner according to their merit. He himself received the honourable title of his imperial majesty’s principle secretary of state, and as such he subscribed himself, in all the letters he wrote to our government, and lived in open defiance of them. This seemed to be of so dangerous a tendency, as to induce South Carolina to send up a commissioner, Col. F-x, to demand him as an enemy to the public repose - who took him into custody, in the great square of their statehouse: when he had almost concluded his oration on the occasion, one of the head warriors rose up, and bade him forbear, as the man he entended to enslave, was made a great man, and become one of their own people.[iv][11] Grant – I was then deeply Engaged in Trade and saw the great ill conveniency of my Intermeddling any more in this matter upon which I wrote to the Government and represented to them the difficulty of doing it and that I was obliged for the reason above to decline it. Soon after which Coll: Fox was sent up on the same service with several persons to attend and assist him, and, having endeavoured by several letters & to decoy and draw him out of Town, but all in Vain He at Length laid hold of him in the Townhouse, for which he liked to have suffered. The Indians took it very much amiss and told him that the Country was their own and they might do what they thought proper, that they might receive any person and give him Protection, and would permit none others to force him away that whoever attempted it deserved punishment, But as this was the first fault of that kind it should be forgiven. Wishing him to get out of their Country directly.[v][12] Adair – An old war-leader . . . bade him to inform his superiors, that the Cheerake were as desirous as the English to continue a friendly union with each other, as “freemen and equals”. That they hoped to receive no farther uneasiness from them, for consulting their own interest, as their reason dictated.—And they earnestly requested them to send no more of those bad papers to their country on any account; nor to reckon them so base, as to allow any of their honest friends to be taken out of their arms, and carried into slavery. The English beloved man had the honour of receiving his leave of absence, and a sufficient passport of safe conduct, from the imperial red court, by a verbal order of the secretary of state, --who was so polite as to wish him well home, and ordered a convoy of his own life-guards, who conducted him a considerable way, and he got home safely.[vi][13] South Carolina Gazette, August 15, 1743 The Creek Indians have at last brought Mr. Priber prisoner here; he is a little ugly man, but speaks all languages fluently . . . he talks very prophanely against all religions, but chiefly the Protestant; he was for setting up a town at the foot of the mountains among the Cherokees, which was to be a city of refuge for all criminals, debtors, and slaves. . . . There was a book found upon him in his own writing ready for the press, which he owns and glories in and believes it is by this time printed but will not tell where, in which . . . he lays down the rules of government which the town is to be governed by, to which he gives the title of Paradise. He enumrates many whimsical privileges and natural rights . . . particulary dissolving marriages and allowing community of women and all kinds of licenciousness; the book is drawn up very methodically, and full of learned quotations; it is extremely wicked, yet has several flights full of invention, and it is a pity so much wit is applied to so bad a purpose. Adair – In the fifth year of that red imperial era, he set off for Mobille, accompanied by a few Cheerake. He proceeded by land, as far as a navigable part of the western great river of the Muskohge; there he went into a canoe prepared for the joyful occasion, and proceeded within a day’s journey of Alebahma garrison – conjecturing the adjacent towns were under the influence of the French, he landed at Tallapoose town, and lodged there all night. The traders of the neighbouring towns soon went there, convinced the inhabitants of the dangerous tendency of his unwearied labours among the Cheerake, and of his present journey, and then took him into custody, with a large bundle of manuscripts, and sent him down to Frederica in Georgia; the governor committed him to a place of confinement, though not with common felons, as he was a foreigner, and was said to have held a place of considerable rank in the army with great honour. Soon after, the magazine took fire, which was not far from where he was confined, and though the centinels bade him make off to a place of safety, as all the people were running to avoid danger from the explosion of the powder and shells, yet he squatted on his belly upon the floor, and continued in that position without the least hurt: several blamed his rashness, but he told them, that experience had convinced him, it was the most probable means to avoid imminent danger. This incident displayed the philosopher and soldier, and after bearing his misfortunes a considerable time with great constancy, happily for us, he died in confinement. . . . it is not to be doubted, that as he wrote a Cheerake dictionary, designed to be published in Paris, he likewise set down a great deal that would have been acceptable to the curious, and servicable to the representatives of South Carolina and Georgia; which may be readily found in Frederica, if the manuscripts have had the good fortune to escape the despoiling hands of military power. When the western Cherake towns lost the chief support of their imperial court, they artfully agreed to inform the English traders, that each of them had opened their eyes, and rejected the French plan as a wild scheme, inconsistent with their interest; except great Telliko, the metropolis of their late empire, which they said was firmly resolved to adhere to the French proposals, as the surest means of promoting their welfare and happiness. [vii][14] [i][8] Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1540-1800, 155-6. [ii][9] Grant, "Historical Relation of Facts Delivered by," 60. [iii][10] Williams, Early Travels in the Tennessee Country, 1540-1800, 157-9. [iv][11] Adair, Adair's History of the American Indians, 254-5. [v][12] Grant, "Historical Relation of Facts Delivered by," 60-1. [vi][13] Adair, Adair's History of the American Indians, 255-6. [vii][14] Adair, Adair's History of the American Indians, 256-7. Joyce Gaston Reece