In regard to the use of copper, and the mining of it, by the American aborigines, may be made the following quotations and references:
In the "Collections of the New York Historical Society," second series, vol. i, is given a translation of the Italian account of the voyage of John de Verazzano along the coast of North America, from Carolina to Newfoundland, a. d. 1524. When about at Narragansett Bay and Harbor he makes these notes: "We saw upon them [the aborigines] several pieces of wrought copper, which is more esteemed by them than gold, as this is not valued on account of its color, but is considered by them as the most ordinary of the metals, yellow being the color especially disliked by them; azure and red are those in highest esteem by them." Further on he says of another tribe: "In this region we found nothing extraordinary except vast forests and some metalliferous hills, as we infer, from seeing that many of the people wore copper ear-rings."
Henry Hudson's ascent of the river that bears his name is given in the same volume, in the form of a journal kept by Robert Juet, mate. Speaking of the natives, on page 323, Juet says: "They had red copper tobacco-pipes, and other things of copper they did wear about their necks"; also, "They have great tobacco-pipes of yellow copper"; also, on page 300, Hudson himself says, "The people had copper tobacco-pipes, from which I inferred that copper might naturally exist there."
Raleigh observed copper ornaments among the Indians on the coast of the Carolinas; Granville, in his voyage in 1580, observed copper in the hands of the natives of Virginia, and made an effort to reach the place where they said it was obtained. After a toilsome journey into the interior, of some days' duration, the attempt was abandoned. Heriot's "Voyage," in Pinkerton, vol. xii, p. 594, gives an account of copper found "in two towns one hundred and fifty miles from the main, in the form of divers small copper plates, that are made, we are told by the inhabitants, by people who dwell farther in the country, where they say are mountains and rivers which yield white grains of metal which are deemed to be silver. For confirmation whereof, at the time of our first arrival in the country, I saw two small pieces of silver, grossly beaten, about the weight of a tester [an old coin about the weight of a dime], hanging in the ears of a Wiroance. The aforesaid copper we found to contain silver." McKenzie found copper in use among some of the extreme northern tribes, on the borders of the Arctic Sea, according to his "Second Voyage," page 333, as quoted by Squier.[1] "They point their arrows and spears with it, and work it up into personal ornaments, such as collars, ear-rings, and bracelets, which they wear on their wrists, arms, and legs. They have it in great abundance, and hold it in high estimation." Alexander Henry,
- ↑ "Smithsonian Contributions," vol. ii, p. 117. Bancroft ("Races of the Pacific Slope") mentions the mining of copper on Coppermine River, by existing tribes.
