I can give, says Colden, in his history of the five Indian Nations, two
strong instances of the hospitality of the Mohawks, which fell under my
own observation; and which will show, that they have the very same notion
of hospitality which we find in the ancient poets. When I was last in the
Mohawk’s country, the sachems told me that they had an Englishman among
their people, a servant who had run away from his master in New York. I
immediately told them they must deliver him up. ‘No,’ they answered, ‘we
never serve any man so, who puts himself under our protection.’ On this
I insisted on the injury they did thereby to his master: they allowed it
might be an injury, and replied, ‘Though we will never deliver him up,
we are willing to pay the value of the servant to the master.’ Another
man made his escape from the jail in Albany, where he was in prison on
an execution of debt: the Mohawks received him, and, as they protected
him against the sheriff and officers they not only paid the debt for him,
but gave him land over and above, sufficient for a good farm, whereon he
lived when I was last there.