THE WAPANACHKI OR EASTERN ALGONKIN CONFEDERACY.
The Confederated Tribes--The Mohegans--The Nanticokes--The Conoys--The
Shawnees--The Saponies--The Assiwikalees
_The Confederated Tribes._
All the Algonkin nations who dwelt north of the Potomac, on the east
shore of Chesapeake Bay, and in the basins of the Delaware and Hudson
rivers, claimed near kinship and an identical origin, and were at times
united into a loose, defensive confederacy.
By the western and southern tribes they were collectively known as
_Wapanachkik_--"those of the eastern region"--which in the form
_Abnaki_ is now confined to the remnant of a tribe in Maine. The
Delawares in the far West retain traditionally the ancient confederate
name, and still speak of themselves as "Eastlanders"--_O-puh-narke_.
(Morgan.)
The members of the confederacy were the Mohegans (Mahicanni) of the
Hudson, who occupied the valley of that river to the falls above the
site of Albany, the various New Jersey tribes, the Delawares proper on
the Delaware river and its branches, including the Minsi or Monseys,
among the mountains, the Nanticokes, between Chesapeake Bay and the
Atlantic, and the small tribe called Canai, Kanawhas or Ganawese, whose
towns were on tributaries of the Potomac and Patuxent.
That all these were united in some sort of an alliance, with the
Delawares at its head, is not only proved by the traditions of this
tribe itself, but by the distinct assertion of the Mohegans and
others, and by events within historical times, as the reunion of the
Nanticokes, New Jersey and Eastern Indians with the Delawares as with
the parent stem.[17]
_The Mohegans._
The Mohegans, _Mo-hé-kun-ne-uk_, dwelt on the tide-waters of the
Hudson, and from this their name was derived. Dr. Trumbull, indeed,
following Schoolcraft, thinks that they "took their tribal name from
_maingan_, a wolf, and _Moheganick_ = Chip. _maniganikan_, 'country
of wolves.'"[18] They, themselves, however, translate it, "seaside
people," or more fully, "people of the great waters which are
constantly ebbing or flowing."[19] The compound is _machaak_, great,
_hickan_, tide ("ebbing tide," Zeis; "tide of flood," Campanius) and
_ik_, animate plural termination.
The Mohegans on the Hudson are said to have been divided into three
phratries, the Bear, the Wolf and the Turtle, of whom the Bear had
the primacy.[20] Mr. Morgan, however, who examined, in 1860, the
representatives of the nation in Kansas,[21] discovered that they had
precisely the same phratries as the Delawares, that is the Wolf, the
Turtle, and the Turkey, each subdivided into three or four gentes. He
justly observes that this "proves their immediate connection with the
Delawares and Munsees by descent," and thus renders their myths and
traditions of the more import in the present study.
Linguistically, the Mohegans were more closely allied to the tribes of
New England than to those of the Delaware Valley. Evidently, most of
the tribes of Massachusetts and Connecticut were comparatively recent
offshoots of the parent stem on the Hudson, supposing the course of
migration had been eastward.
In some of his unpublished notes Mr. Heckewelder identifies the
_Wampanos_, who lived in Connecticut, along the shore of Long Island
Sound, and whose council fire was where New Haven now stands, as
Mohegans, while the _Wapings_ or _Opings_ of the Northern Jersey shore
were a mixed clan derived from intermarriages between Mohegans and
Monseys.[22]
_The Nanticokes_.
The Nanticokes occupied the territory between Chesapeake Bay and the
ocean, except its southern extremity, which appears to have been under
the control of the Powhatan tribe of Virginia.
The derivation of Nanticoke is from the Delaware _Unéchtgo_,
"tide-water people," and is merely another form of _Unalachtgo_, the
name of one of the Lenape sub-tribes. In both cases it is a mere
geographical term, and not a national eponym.
In the records of the treaty at Fort Johnston, 1757, the Nanticokes are
also named _Tiawco_. This is their Mohegan name, _Otayãchgo_, which
means "bridge people," or bridge makers, the reference being to the
skill with which the Nanticokes could fasten floating logs together to
construct a bridge across a stream. In the Delaware dialect this was
_Tawachguáno_, from _taiachquoan_, a bridge. The latter enables us to
identify the Tockwhoghs, whom Captain John Smith met on the Chesapeake,
in 1608, with the Nanticokes. The _Kuscarawocks_, whom he also visited,
have been conclusively shown by Mr. Bozman[23] to have been also
Nanticokes.
By ancient traditions, they looked up to the Lenape as their
"grandfather," and considered the Mohegans their "brethren."[24] That
is, they were, as occasion required, attached to the same confederacy.
In manners and customs they differed little from their northern
relatives. The only peculiarity in this respect which is noted of
them was the extravagant consideration they bestowed on the bones of
the dead. The corpse was buried for some months, then exhumed and the
bones carefully cleaned and placed in an ossuary called _man-to-kump_
(= _manito_, with the locative termination, place of the mystery or
spirit).
When they removed from one place to another these bones were carried
with them. Even those who migrated to northern Pennsylvania, about
the middle of the last century, piously brought along these venerable
relics, and finally interred them near the present site of Towanda,
whence its name, _Tawundeunk_, "where we bury our dead."[25]
Their dialect varied considerably from the Delaware; of which it is
clearly a deteriorated form. It is characterized by abbreviated words
and strongly expirated accents, as _tah! quah! quak! su_, short; _quah!
nah! qut_, long.
Our knowledge of it is limited to a few vocabularies. The earliest
was taken down by Captain John Smith, during his exploration of the
Chesapeake. The most valuable is one obtained by Mr. William Vans
Murray, in 1792, from the remnant in Maryland. It is in the library of
the American Philosophical Society, and has never been correctly or
completely printed.
The Nanticokes broke up early. Between the steady encroachments of the
whites and the attacks of the Iroquois they found themselves between
the upper and the nether millstones.
According to their own statement to Governor Evans, at a conference
in 1707, they had at that time been tributary to the latter for
twenty-seven years, _i.e._, since 1680. Their last head chief, or
"crowned king," Winicaco, died about 1720. A few years after this
occurrence bands of them began to remove to Pennsylvania, and at the
middle of the century were living at the mouth of the Juniata, under
the immediate control of the Iroquois. Thence they removed to Wyoming,
and in 1753, "in a fleet of twenty-five canoes," to the Iroquois lands
in western New York. Others of their nation were brought there by the
Iroquois in 1767; but by the close of the century only five families
survived in that region.[26]
A small band called the _Wiwash_ remained on Goose creek, Dorchester
county, Maryland, to the same date.
_The Conoys._
The fourth member of the Wapanachki was that nation variously called in
the old records _Conoys_, _Ganawese_ or _Canaways_, the proper form of
which Mr. Heckewelder states to be _Canai_.[27]
Considerable obscurity has rested on the early location and affiliation
of this people. Mr. Heckewelder vaguely places them "at a distance
on the Potomac," and supposes them to have been the Kanawhas of West
Virginia.[28] This is a loose guess. They were, in fact, none other
than the Piscataways of Southern Maryland, who occupied the area
between Chesapeake Bay and the lower Potomac, about St. Mary's, and
along the Piscataway creek and Patuxent river.
Proof of this is furnished by the speech of their venerable head chief,
"Old Sack," at a conference in Philadelphia in 1743.[29] His words
were: "Our forefathers came from Piscatua to an island in Potowmeck;
and from thence down to Philadelphia, in old Proprietor Penn's time,
to show their friendship to the Proprietor. After their return they
brought down all their brothers from Potowmeck to Conejoholo, on the
east side Sasquehannah, and built a town there."
This interesting identification shows that they were the people whom
Captain John Smith found (1608) in numerous villages along the Patuxent
and the left bank of the lower Potomac. The local names show them to
have been of Algonkin stock and akin to the Nanticokes.
Conoy, Ganawese, Kanawha, are all various spellings of a derivative
from an Algonkin root, meaning "it is long" (Del. _guneu_, long, Cree
_kinowaw_, it is long,) and is found applied to various streams in
Algonkin territory.[30]
Piscataway, or Pascatoway, as it is spelled in the early narratives,
also recurs as a local name in various parts of the Northern States.
It is from, the root _pashk_, which means to separate, to divide. Many
derivatives from it are in use in the Delaware tongue. In the Cree
we have the impersonal form, _pakestikweyaw_, or the active animate
_pasketiwa_, in the sense of "the division or branch of a river."[31]
The site of Kittamaquindi (_kittamaque-ink_, Great Beaver Place,) the
so-called "metropolis of Pascatoe,"[32] was where Tinker's creek and
Piscataway creek branch off from their common estuary, about fifteen
miles south of Washington city.
The "emperor" Chitomachen, Strong Bear (_chitani_, strong, _macha_,
bear), who bore the title _Tayac_ (Nanticoke, _tallak_, head chief)
ruled over a dominion which extended about 130 miles from east to west.
The district was thinly peopled. On the upper shores of the west side
of the Chesapeake Captain John Smith and the other early explorers
found scarcely any inhabitants. In 1631 Captain Henry Fleet estimated
the total number of natives "in Potomack and places adjacent," at not
over 5000 persons.[33] This included both sides of the river as high up
as the Falls, and the shores of Chesapeake Bay.
Chitomachen, with his family, was converted to the Catholic faith
in 1640, by the exertions of the Jesuit missionary, Father Andrew
White, but died the year after. When the English first settled at St.
Mary's, the tribe was deserting its ancient seats, through fear of the
Susquehannocks, and diminished rapidly after that date.
Father White was among them from 1634 to 1642, and composed a grammar,
dictionary and catechism of their tongue. Of these, the catechism is
yet preserved in manuscript, in the library of the Domus Professa
of the Jesuits, in Rome. It would be a great benefit to students
of Algonkin dialects to have his linguistic works sought out and
published. How far his knowledge of the language extended is uncertain.
In a letter from one of the missionaries, dated 1642, who speaks
of White, the writer adds: "The difficulty of the language is so
great that none of us can yet converse with the Indians without an
interpreter."[34]
That it was an Algonkin dialect, closely akin to the Nanticoke, is
clear from the words and proper names preserved in the early records
and locally to this day. The only word which has created doubts has
been the name of "a certain imaginary spirit called _Ochre_."[35]
It has been supposed that this was the Huron _oki_. But it is pure
Algonkin. It is the Cree _oki-sikow_ (_être du ciel_, _ange_, Lacombe),
the Abnaki _ooskoo_ (_katini ooskoo_, Bon Esprit, _matsini ooskoo_,
Mauvais Esprit, Rasles).
It was nearly allied to that spoken in Virginia among Powhatan's
subjects, as an English boy who had lived with that chieftain served as
an interpreter between the settlers and the Patuxent and neighboring
Indians.[36]
The Conoys were removed, before 1743, from Conejoholo to Conoy town,
further up the Susquehanna, and in 1744 they joined several other
fragmentary bands at Shamokin (where Sunbury, Pa., now stands). Later,
they became merged with the Nanticokes.[37]
_The Shawnees_.
The wanderings of the unstable and migratory Shawnees have occupied the
attention of several writers, but it cannot be said that either their
history or their affiliations have been satisfactorily worked out.[38]
Their dialect is more akin to the Mohegan than to the Delaware, and
when, in 1692, they first appeared in the area of the Eastern Algonkin
Confederacy, they came as the friends and relatives of the former.[39]
They were divided into four bands, as follows:--
1. _Piqua_, properly _Pikoweu_, "he comes from the ashes."
2. _Mequachake_, "a fat man filled," signifying completion or
perfection. This band held the privilege of the hereditary priesthood.
3. Kiscapocoke.
4. Chilicothe.[40]
Of these, that which settled in Pennsylvania was the _Pikoweu_,
who occupied and gave their name to the Pequa valley in Lancaster
county.[41]
According to ancient Mohegan tradition, the New England _Pequods_ were
members of this band. These moved eastwardly from the Hudson river,
and extended their conquests over the greater part of the area of
Connecticut. Dr. Trumbull, however,[42] assigns a different meaning to
their name, and a more appropriate one--_Peguitóog_, the Destroyers.
Some countenance is given to the tradition by the similarity of the
Shawnee to the Mohegan, standing, as it does, more closely related to
it than to the Unami Delaware.
It has been argued that a band of the Shawnees lived in Southern New
Jersey when that territory first came to the knowledge of the whites.
On a Dutch map, drawn in 1614 or thereabouts, a tribe called _Saw
wanew_ is located on the left bank of the Delaware river, near the
Bay;[43] and DeLaet speaks of the _Sawanoos_ as living there.
I am inclined to believe that, in both these cases, the term was used
by the natives around New York Bay in its simple geographical sense of
"south" or "southern," and not as a tribal designation. It frequently
appears with this original meaning in the WALUAM OLUM.
_The Sapoonees_.
A tribe called the Sapoonees, or Saponies, is mentioned as living in
Pennsylvania, attached to the Delawares, about the middle of the last
century.[44]
They are no doubt the Saponas who once dwelt on a branch of the Great
Pedee river in North Carolina, and who moved north about the year
1720.[45]
They were said to have joined the Tuscaroras, but the Pennsylvania
records class them with the Delawares. Others, impressed by the
similarity of _Sa-po-nees_ to _Pa-nis_, have imagined they were the
Pawnees, now of the west. There is not the slightest importance to be
attached to this casual similarity of names.
They were called, by the Iroquois, _Tadirighrones_, and were distinctly
identified by them with the nation known to the English as the
Catawbas.[46] For a long time the two nations carried on a bitter
warfare.
_The Assiwikales_.
This band of about fifty families, or one hundred men (about three
hundred souls), are stated to have come from South Carolina to the
Potomac late in the seventeenth century, and in 1731 were settled
partly on the Susquehanna and partly on the upper Ohio or Alleghany.
Their chief was named Aqueioma, or Achequeloma.
Their name appears to be a compound of _assin_, stone; and _wikwam_,
house, and they were probably Algonkin neighbors of the Shawnees
in their southern homes, and united with them in their northern
migration.[47]
FOOTNOTES:
[17] Heckewelder, _History of the Indian Nations_, p. 60, and
_Narrative of Hendrick Aupaumut_, 1791, in _Mems. Hist. Soc. Pa._,
Vol. II. The latter, himself a native Mohegan, repeatedly refers to
"the ancient covenant of our ancestors," by which this confederacy
was instituted, which included the "Wenaumeew (Unami), the Wemintheew
(Minsi), the Wenuhtokowuk (Nanticokes) and Kuhnauwantheew (Kanawha)."
From old Pennsylvania documents, Proud gives the members of the
confederacy or league as "the Chiholacki or Delawares, the Wanami, the
Munsi, the Mohicans and Wappingers." _History of Penna._, Vol. II,
p. 297, note. Compare J. Long, _Voyages and Travels_, p. 10 (London,
1791), who gives the same list. Mr. Ruttenber writes: "In considering
the political relations of the Lenapes, they should be considered as
the most formidable of the Indian confederacies at the time of the
discovery of America, and as having maintained for many years the
position which subsequently fell to the Iroquois."--_Indian Tribes on
Hudson River_, p. 64.
[18] Trumbull, _Indian Names in Connecticut_, p. 31. Schoolcraft had
already given the same derivation in his _History and Statistics of the
Indian Tribes_.
[19] Capt. Hendricks, in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Colls._, Vol. IX, p. 101.
Lewis H. Morgan, _Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity_, p. 289.
[20] Ruttenber, _History of the Indian Tribes of Hudson's River_, p. 50.
[21] Morgan, _Ancient Society_, pp. 173-4.
[22] These opinions are from a MS. in the library of the American
Philosophical Society, in the handwriting of Mr. Heckewelder, entitled
_Notes, Amendments and Additions to Heckewelder's History of the
Indians_ (8vo, pp. 38.) Unfortunately, this MS. was not placed in
the hands of Mr. Reichel when he prepared the second edition of
Heckewelder's work for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
An unpublished and hitherto unknown work on the Mohegan language is
the _Miscellanea Lingua Nationis Indica Mahikan dicta, curà scepta à
Joh. Jac. Schmick_, 2 vols., small 8vo.; MS. in the possession of the
American Philosophical Society. Schmick was a Moravian missionary, born
in 1714, died 1778. He acquired the Mohegan dialect among the converts
at Gnadenhütten. His work is without date, but may be placed at about
1765. It is grammatical rather than lexicographical, and offers
numerous verbal forms and familiar phrases.
[23] J. Bozman, _History of Maryland_, Vol. I, pp. 112, 114, 121,
177. This laborious writer still remains the best authority on the
aboriginal inhabitants of Maryland.
[24] "The We nuh tok o wuk are our brothers according to ancient
agreement," _Journal of Hendrick Aupaumut_, _Mems. Hist, Soc. Pa._, Vol.
II, P. 77.
[25] Charles Beatty, _Journal of a Journey_, etc., p. 87. Heckewelder,
_Indian Nations_, pp. 90, et seq. Ibid. _Trans. Am. Phil. Soc._, Vol.
IV, p. 362.
[26] The authorities for these facts are Bozman, _History of Maryland_,
Vol. I, pp. 175-180; Heckewelder, _Indian Nations_, pp. 93, sqq.; E.
de Schweinitz, _Life of Zeisberger_, pp. 208, 322, etc.; the Treaty
Records, and MSS. in the library of the American Philosophical Society.
That the Nanticokes came from the South into Maryland has been
maintained, on the ground that as late as 1770 they claimed land in
North Carolina. _New York Colonial Documents_, Vol. VIII, p. 243. But
the term "Carolina" was, I think, used erroneously in the document
referred to, instead of Maryland, where at that date there were still
many of the tribe.
[27] _History of the Indian Nations_, Introduction, p. xlii.
[28] Ibid., pp. 90-122.
[29] _Minutes of the Provincial Council of Penna._, Vol. IV, p. 657.
Further proof of this in a Treaty of Peace concluded in 1682 by the New
York colonial government, between the Senecas and Maryland Indians. In
this instrument we find this tribe referred to as "the Canowes alias
Piscatowayes," and elsewhere as the "Piscatoway of Cachnawayes." _New
York Colonial Documents_, Vol. III, pp. 322, 323.
[30] I am aware that Mr. Johnston, deriving his information from
Shawnee interpreters, translated the name Kanawha, as "having
whirlpools." (_Trans. of the Amer. Antiq. Soc._, Vol. I, p. 297.) But I
prefer the derivation given in the text.
[31] Lacombe, _Dictionnaire de la Langue des Cris_, s. v. In Delaware
the root takes the form _pach_, from which are derived, by suffixes,
the words _pach-at_, to split, _pachgeechen_, where the road branches
off, _pachshican_, a knife = something that divides, etc.
[32] _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_, p. 63. (Edition of the Md.
Hist. Soc. 1874.)
[33] See his _Journal_, published in Neill's _Founders of Maryland_
(Albany, 1876). Fleet was a prisoner among the Pascatoways for five
years, and served as an interpreter to Calvert's colony.
[34] _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_, p. 84. The Rev. Mr. Kampman,
at one time Moravian missionary among the Delawares, told me that
even with the modern aids of grammars, dictionaries and educated
native instructors, it is considered to require five years to obtain a
sufficient knowledge of their language to preach in it. The slowness of
the early Maryland priests to master its intricacies, therefore, need
not surprise us.
[35] "Omni vero ratione placare conantur phantasticum quemdam spiritum
quem Ochre nominant, ut ne noceat." _Relatio Itineris in Marylandiam_,
p. 40.
[36] Bozman, _History of Maryland_, Vol. I, p. 166.
[37] "The Nanticokes and Conoys are now one nation." _Minutes of the
Provincial Council of Penna._, 1759, Vol. VIII, p. 176.
[38] On this tribe see "The Shawnees and Their Migrations," by Dr. D. G.
Brinton, in the _American Historical Magazine_, 1866; M. F. Force, _Some
Early Notices of the Indians of Ohio_, Cincinnati, 1879.
[39] See _Colonial History of New York_, Vol. IV. Index. Loskiel,
_Geschichte der Mission_, etc., p. 25.
[40] These names are as given by John Johnston, Indian agent, in 1819.
_Archæologia Americana_, Vol. I, p. 275. Heckewelder says they had four
divisions, but mentions only two, the _Pecuwési_ and _Woketamósi_.
(MSS. in Lib. Am. Philos. Soc.)
[41] "That branch of Shawanos which had settled part in Pennsylvania
and part in New England were of the tribe of Shawanos then and ever
since called _Pi'coweu_ or _Pe'koweu_, and after emigrating to the
westward settled on and near the Scioto river, where, to this day, the
extensive flats go under the name of 'Pickoway Plains.'" Heckewelder
MSS. in Lib. Am. Phil. Soc.
[42] In a note to Roger Williams, _Key into the Language of America_,
p. 22. The tradition referred to is mentioned in the Heckewelder MSS.
[43] Printed in the _Colonial History of New York_, Vol. I. Compare
Force, _ubi suprá_, pp. 16, 17.
[44] Rev. J. Morse, _Report on Indian Affairs_, p. 362.
[45] See Gallatin, _Synopsis of the Indian Tribes_, pp. 85, 86.
[46] See _New York Colonial Documents_, Vol. V, pp. 660, 673, etc.
[47] _Pennsylvania Archives_, Vol. I, pp. 299, 300, 302. Gov. Gordon
writes to the "Chiefs of ye Shawanese and Assekelaes," under date
December, 1731, "I find by our Records that about 34 Years since some
Numbers of your Nation came to Sasquehannah," etc. Ibid., p. 302.