Publications
OF THE
Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
HISTORY,
MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
OF THE
INDIAN NATIONS.
[Illustration: John Heckewelder]
HISTORY,
MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
OF
THE INDIAN NATIONS
WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND
THE NEIGHBOURING STATES.
BY THE
REV. JOHN HECKEWELDER,
OF BETHLEHEM, PA.
New and Revised Edition.
WITH AN
_INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM C. REICHEL,
OF BETHLEHEM, PA.
PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLICATION FUND OF
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
No. 820 SPRUCE STREET.
1881.
“The Trustees of the Publication Fund of the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania” have published nine volumes, viz.:
The History of Braddock’s Expedition.
Contributions to American History.
Record of Upland, and Denny’s Journal.
Reissue of Vol. 1 of the Memoirs.
Minutes of Defence of Philadelphia, 1814-1815.
Correspondence of Penn and Logan, Vols. 1 and 2.
History of New Sweden, by Israel Acrelius.
Heckewelder’s History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations.
The investments held by the trustees of the Fund now amount to
twenty-three thousand dollars, the interest only of which is applied to
publishing. By the payment of twenty-five dollars, any one may become
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Editors of the several works being alone responsible for the same.
JOHN JORDAN, JR., }
AUBREY H. SMITH, } Trustees.
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....................................................................
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
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PHILADELPHIA.
LIPPINCOTT’S PRESS.
MEMOIRS
OF THE
HISTORICAL SOCIETY
OF
PENNSYLVANIA.
VOL. XII.
PHILADELPHIA:
PUBLICATION FUND OF
THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA,
No. 820 SPRUCE STREET.
1881.
INTRODUCTION.
BY THE EDITOR.
John Gottlieb Ernestus Heckewelder, the author of “An Account of the
History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once inhabited
Pennsylvania and the neighboring States,” was born March 12th, 1743,
at Bedford, England. His father, who was a native of Moravia, a few
years after his arrival at Herrnhut, Saxony, was summoned to England
to assist in the religious movement which his church had inaugurated
in that country in 1734. In his eleventh year, the subject of this
sketch accompanied his parents to the New World, and became a resident
of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Here he was placed at school, and next
apprenticed to a cedar-cooper. While thus employed, he was permitted to
gratify a desire he had frequently expressed of becoming an evangelist
to the Indians, when in the spring of 1762 he was called to accompany
the well-known Christian Frederic Post, who had planned a mission
among the tribes of the then far west, to the Tuscarawas branch of
the Muskingum. Here Post, in the summer of 1761, had built himself a
cabin (it stood near the site of the present town of Bolivar), and
here on the 11th day of April, 1762, the intrepid missionary and his
youthful assistant began their labors in the Gospel. But the times
were unpropitious, and the hostile attitude of the Indians indicating
a speedy resumption of hostilities with the whites, the adventurous
enterprise was abandoned before the expiration of the year. Young
Heckewelder returned to Bethlehem, and the war of Pontiac’s conspiracy
opened in the spring of 1763.
In the interval between 1765 and 1771, Mr. Heckewelder was, on several
occasions, summoned from his cooper’s shop to do service for the
mission. Thus, in the summer of the first mentioned year, he spent
several months at Friedenshütten, on the Susquehanna (Wyalusing,
Bradford county, Pennsylvania), where the Moravian Indians had been
recently settled in a body, after a series of most trying experiences,
to which their residence on the frontiers and in the settlements of
the Province subjected them, at a time when the inroads of the savages
embittered the public mind indiscriminately against the entire race.
This post he visited subsequently on several occasions, and also the
town of Schechschiquanink (Sheshequin), some thirty miles north of
Wyalusing, the seat of a second mission on the Susquehanna.
A new period in the life of Mr. Heckewelder opened with the autumn
of 1771, when he entered upon his actual career as an evangelist to
the Indians, sharing the various fortunes of the Moravian mission
among that people for fifteen years, than which none perhaps in its
history were more eventful. The well-known missionary David Zeisberger,
having in 1768 established a mission among a clan of Monseys on the
Allegheny, within the limits of what is now Venango county, was induced
in the spring of 1770 to migrate with his charge to the Big Beaver,
and to settle at a point within the jurisdiction of the Delawares
of Kaskaskunk. Here he built Friedensstadt, and hither the Moravian
Indians of Friedenshütten and Schechschiquanink removed in the summer
of 1772. Mr. Heckewelder was appointed Zeisberger’s assistant in
the autumn of 1771, and when in the spring of 1773 Friedensstadt
was evacuated (it stood on the Beaver, between the Shenango and the
Slippery Rock, within the limits of the present Lawrence county),
and the seat of the mission was transferred to the valley of the
Muskingum, Mr. Heckewelder became a resident of the Ohio country.
Here in succession were built Schönbrunn, Gnadenhütten, Lichtenau and
Salem, flourishing towns of Moravian Indians, and here our missionary
labored with his associates hopefully, and with the promise of a great
ingathering, when the rupture between the mother country and her
transatlantic colonies, gradually involved them and their cause in the
most perplexing complications. On the opening of the western border-war
of the Revolution in the spring of 1777, the Moravian missionaries on
the Muskingum realized the danger of their position. Strictly neutral
as they and their converts were in reference to the great question at
issue, their presence on debatable ground rendered them objects of
suspicion alternately to each of the contending parties; and when, in
1780, the major part of the Delaware nation declared openly for the
British crown, it was evident that the mission could not much longer
hold its ground. It was for the British to solve the problem; and at
their instigation, in the autumn of 1781, the missionaries and their
converts in part were removed to Upper Sandusky, as prisoners of war,
under suspicion of favoring the American cause. Thence the former were
twice summoned to Detroit, the seat of British dominion in the then
Northwest, and arraigned before the commandant of that post. Having
established their innocence, and at liberty once more to resume their
Christian work, the Moravians resolved upon establishing themselves
in the neighborhood of Detroit, with the view of collecting their
scattered converts, and gradually resuscitating the mission. The point
selected was on the Huron (now the Clinton), forty miles by water
northwest of Detroit. Here they built New Gnadenhütten, in 1782. Four
years later, New Gnadenhütten was abandoned, and a settlement effected
on the Cuyahoga, in the present county of that name in northern
Ohio. It was here that Mr. Heckewelder closed his missionary labors,
and years memorable in his life, in the course of which he was “in
journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in
perils of his countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the
wilderness, in weariness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in
fastings often, in cold and nakedness,” and yet spared, as to his life,
to a good old age, in the quiet days of which, when resting from his
labors, he drew up a narrative of this remarkable period in his own
experience, and in the history of his church.
On severing his connection with the mission on the Cuyahoga, in the
autumn of 1786, Mr. Heckewelder settled with his wife (Sarah m. n.
Ohneberg, whom he married in 1780), and two daughters at Bethlehem.
This change, however, brought him no rest, as much of his time for
the next fifteen years was devoted to the interests of his church’s
work among the Indians, in behalf of which he made frequent and trying
journeys to the west.
In the summer of 1792, Mr. Heckewelder was associated by Government
with General Rufus Putnam (at that gentleman’s request), to treat for
peace with the Indians of the Wabash, and journeyed on this mission as
far as Post Vincennes, where, on the 27th of September, articles of
peace were formally signed by thirty-one chiefs of the Seven Nations
represented at the meeting. This was a high testimonial of confidence
in his knowledge of Indian life and Indian affairs. In the spring of
the following year, he was a second time commissioned to assist at a
treaty which the United States purposed to ratify with the Indians
of the Miami of the Lake, through its accredited agents, General
Benjamin Lincoln, Colonel Timothy Pickering, and Beverly Randolph.
On this mission he travelled as far as Detroit. The remuneration Mr.
Heckewelder received for these services, was judiciously economized
for his old age, his immediate wants being supplied by his handicraft,
and the income accruing from a nursery which he planted on his return
from the western country. In the interval between 1797 and 1800, the
subject of this sketch visited the Ohio country four times, and in 1801
he removed with his family to Gnadenhütten, on the Tuscarawas branch
of the Muskingum. Here he remained nine years, having been intrusted
by the Society of the United Brethren for Propagating the Gospel among
the Heathen, founded at Bethlehem, in 1788, with the superintendence
of a reservation of 12,000 acres of land on the Tuscarawas, granted by
Congress to the said Society for the benefit of the Moravian Indians,
as a consideration for the losses they incurred in the border-war of
the Revolution. During his residence in Ohio, Mr. Heckewelder was also
for a time in the civil service, being a postmaster, a justice of the
peace, and an associate judge of the Court of Common Pleas.
In 1810 he returned to Bethlehem, built a house of his own, which is
still standing, planted the premises with trees and shrubs from their
native forest, surrounded himself with birds and wild flowers, and
through these beautiful things of nature, sought by association to
prolong fellowship with his beloved Indians in their distant woodland
homes. He was called in 1815 to mourn the departure of his wife to the
eternal world.
At a time when there was a growing spirit of inquiry among men of
science in our country in the department of Indian archæology, it
need not surprise us that Mr. Heckewelder was sought out in his
retirement, and called upon to contribute from the treasure-house of
his experience. In this way originated his intimacy with Du Ponceau
and Wistar of the American Philosophical Society, and that career of
literary labor to which he dedicated the latter years of his life.
In addition to occasional essays, which are incorporated in the
Transactions of the Historical and Literary Committee of that society,
Mr. Heckewelder, in 1818, published under its auspices, the “Account
of the History, Manners, and Customs of the Indian Nations who once
inhabited Pennsylvania and the neighboring States.” His “Narrative
of the Mission of the United Brethren among the Delaware and Mohican
Indians,” appeared in 1820, and in 1822 he prepared his well-known
collection of “Names, which the Lenni Lenape, or Delaware Indians, gave
to Rivers, Streams, and Localities within the States of Pennsylvania,
New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia, with their Significations.” This
was his last literary effort; another year of suffering, and on the
31st of January, 1823, the friend of the Delawares having lived to
become a hoary old man of seventy-nine winters, passed away.
He left three daughters, Johanna Maria, born April 6, 1781, at Salem,
Tuscarawas county, Ohio--the first white female child born within the
borders of that State (she died at Bethlehem, September 19, 1868); Anna
Salome, born August 13, 1784, at New Gnadenhütten, on the River Huron
(Clinton), Michigan; she married Mr. Joseph Rice, of Bethlehem, and
died January 15, 1857; and Susanna, born at Bethlehem, December 31,
1786; she married Mr. J. Christian Luckenbach, of Bethlehem, and died
February 8, 1867.
Mr. Heckewelder was a fair representative of the Moravian missionaries
of the last century, a class of men whose time was necessarily divided
between the discharge of spiritual and secular duties; who preached the
Gospel and administered the Sacraments in houses built by their own
hands; who wielded the axe, as well as the sword of the Spirit, and
who by lives of self-denial and patient endurance, sustained a mission
among the aborigines of this country in the face of disappointments and
obstacles, which would have discouraged any but men of their implicit
faith in the Divine power of the Christian religion.
The subject of this notice made no pretensions to scholarship on
taking the author’s pen in hand. He was eminently an artless man, and
artlessness is his characteristic as a writer. The fascinating volume
to which this brief sketch is deemed a sufficient introduction, was
received with almost unqualified approbation on its appearance in 1818.
It was translated into German by Fr. Hesse, a clergyman of Nienburg,
and published at Göttingen in 1821. A French translation by Du Ponceau
appeared in Paris in 1822. True, there were those who subsequently took
exception to Mr. Heckewelder’s manifest predilection for the Lenape
stock of the North American Indians, and others who charged him with
credulity, because of the reception of their national traditions and
myths upon the pages of his book. Knowing, as we do, that even the
most prudent of men are liable to err in their search after truth,
it would be presumptuous to claim infallibility for our author. It
would, however, be as presumptuous to refuse his statements all
claim to respect. Hence it may not be denied that John Heckewelder’s
contributions to Indian archæology, touching their traditions,
language, manners, customs, life, and character, while supplying a
long-felt want, are worthy of the regard which is usually accorded
to the literary productions of men whose intelligence, honesty,
and acquaintance with their subject have qualified them to be its
expounders.
In the preparation of his account, Mr. Heckewelder acknowledges his
indebtedness to Moravian authorities, contemporaries, or colleagues of
his in the work of missions among the aborigines of this country. He
refers frequently to the Rev. J. Christopher Pyrlæus, and introduces
extracts from the collection of notes and memoranda made by that
clergyman during his sojourn in America. His references to Loskiel, the
historian of the Moravian mission among the North American Indians, are
more frequent. In fact, it is evident that he availed himself largely
of the introductory chapters of that history, the material of which was
furnished to Loskiel by the veteran missionary, David Zeisberger. In
this way then, Mr. Heckewelder supplemented his personal experience,
and the knowledge he had gained by intercourse with the Indians,
touching those subjects of which he treats in his charming narrative.
Both the text and the author’s footnotes, as found in the edition of
1818, are faithfully reproduced in the present issue; neither have been
tampered with in a single instance. Such a course was deemed the only
proper one, although it was conceded that the omission of occasionally
recurrent passages, and a reconstruction of portions of the volume
might render the matter more perspicuous, and the book more readable,
without detracting from its value as a repository of well authenticated
facts.[1]
AN ACCOUNT
OF THE
HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
OF THE
INDIAN NATIONS,
WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND
THE NEIGHBOURING STATES.
BY THE
REV. JOHN HECKEWELDER,
OF BETHLEHEM.
PHILADELPHIA:
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY ABRAHAM SMALL,
NO. 112 CHESTNUT STREET.
1819.
[Illustration: DEDICATION]
TO
CASPAR WISTAR, M.D.,
PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, ETC.
DEAR SIR.--Having, at your particular request, undertaken the arduous
task of giving to the Historical Committee of our Society an Account
of those Indian Nations and Tribes which once inhabited Pennsylvania
and the adjoining States, including those who are known by the name of
the “Six Nations;” I have now, as far as has been in my power, complied
with your wishes, or at least I have endeavoured so to do.
Foreseeing the difficulties I should labour under, in writing the
history of a people, of whom so many had already written, I could not
but consider the undertaking both as unpleasant and hazardous; being
aware, that it would be impossible for me in all respects to coincide
with those who have written before me; among whom there are not a
few, who, although their good intentions cannot be doubted, yet from
their too short residence in the country of the Indians, have not had
sufficient opportunities to acquire the knowledge which they undertake
to communicate. Ignorant of the language, or being but superficially
acquainted with it, they have relied on ignorant or careless
interpreters, by whom they have been most frequently led astray; in
what manner, this little work will abundantly shew.
The sure way to obtain correct ideas, and a true knowledge of the
characters, customs, manners, &c., of the Indians, and to learn their
history, is to dwell among them for some time, and having acquired
their language, the information wished for will be obtained in the
common way; that is, by paying attention to their discourses with each
other on different subjects, and occasionally asking them questions;
always watching for the proper opportunity, when they do not suspect
your motives, and are disposed to be free and open with you.
The political state and connexions of the two once great and rival
nations, the Mengwe, (or Six Nations) and the Lenape (or Delawares, as
we call them), being little, or but imperfectly known to many of us,
I have been at some pains in unfolding the origin and true cause of
their rivalship; and the means resorted to by the one nation, to bring
themselves into consequence with the white people, for the purpose of
subduing the other.
How far the Six Nations have succeeded in this, we know; at least, we
know so much, that they sold the country of the Lenape, Mohicans, and
other tribes connected with them, by piecemeals to the English, so that
they were finally obliged to wander to the West, while their enemies,
during all this time, remained in full and quiet possession of their
country.
If we ought, or wish to know the history of those nations from whom
we have obtained the country we now live in, we must also wish to be
informed of the means by which that country fell into our hands, and
what has become of its original inhabitants. To meet this object, I
have given their traditions respecting their first coming into our
country, and their own history of the causes of their emigrating from
it.
On all the subjects which I have treated respecting the different
tribes, I have endeavoured to be impartial. Yet, if I should still
be thought to have shewn some partiality for the Delawares and their
connexions, with respect to the affairs between them and the Six
Nations, I have only to reply, that we have been attentive to all the
Six Nations told us of these people, until we got possession of their
whole country; and now, having what we wanted, we ought not to turn
them off with this story on their backs, but rather, out of gratitude
and compassion, give them also a hearing, and acquit them honourably,
if we find them deserving of it.
What I have written, concerning their character, their customs,
manners, and usages, is from personal knowledge, and from such other
information as may be relied on; and in order to be the better
understood, I have frequently added anecdotes, remarks, and relations
of particular events. In some instances I have had reference to
authors, and manuscript notes taken down upwards of seventy years
since, by individuals well deserving of credit.
To you, Sir, I need not apologise for my deficiency in point of
style and language, which has been known to you long since. I have
endeavoured to make amends for this defect, by being the more careful
and correct in my narrations, so as at least to make up in matter what
in manner may be deficient.
I am, Sir, with great respect,
Your obedient humble servant,
JOHN HECKEWELDER.
_November, 1817._
Since the above was written, my excellent friend DR. WISTAR has
departed this life, lamented by the whole country, of which
he was an ornament. To me he was more than I can express;
he directed and encouraged my humble labours, and to his
approbation I looked up as my best reward. He is gone, but
his name and his virtues will long be held in remembrance. By
me, at least, they shall never be forgotten. This Dedication,
therefore, will remain, as a testimony of the high respect I
bore to this great and good man while living, and as a tribute
justly due to his memory.
J. H.
BETHLEHEM, _March, 1818_.
[Illustration: CONTENTS]
PART I.
AN ACCOUNT OF THE HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS OF THE INDIAN
NATIONS WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND THE NEIGHBOURING
STATES.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR vii
DEDICATION xvii
INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR xxiii
CHAPTER
I. HISTORICAL TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS 47
II. INDIAN ACCOUNT OF THE FIRST ARRIVAL OF THE DUTCH
AT NEW YORK ISLAND 71
III. INDIAN RELATIONS OF THE CONDUCT OF THE EUROPEANS
TOWARDS THEM 76
IV. SUBSEQUENT FATE OF THE LENAPE AND THEIR KINDRED
TRIBES 83
V. THE IROQUOIS 95
VI. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE INDIANS 100
VII. GOVERNMENT 107
VIII. EDUCATION 113
IX. LANGUAGES 118
X. SIGNS AND HIEROGLYPHICS 128
XI. ORATORY 132
XII. METAPHORICAL EXPRESSIONS 137
XIII. INDIAN NAMES 141
XIV. INTERCOURSE WITH EACH OTHER 145
XV. POLITICAL MANŒUVRES 150
XVI. MARRIAGE AND TREATMENT OF THEIR WIVES 154
XVII. RESPECT FOR THE AGED 163
XVIII. PRIDE AND GREATNESS OF MIND 170
XIX. WARS AND THE CAUSES WHICH LEAD TO THEM 175
XX. MANNER OF SURPRISING THEIR ENEMIES 177
XXI. PEACE MESSENGERS 181
XXII. TREATIES 185
XXIII. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS OF THE INDIANS ON THE WHITE PEOPLE 187
XXIV. FOOD AND COOKERY 193
XXV. DRESS AND ORNAMENTING OF THEIR PERSONS 202
XXVI. DANCES, SONGS, AND SACRIFICES 208
XXVII. SCALPING--WHOOPS OR YELLS--PRISONERS 215
XXVIII. BODILY CONSTITUTION AND DISEASES 220
XXIX. REMEDIES 224
XXX. PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS 228
XXXI. DOCTORS OR JUGGLERS 231
XXXII. SUPERSTITION 239
XXXIII. INITIATION OF BOYS 245
XXXIV. INDIAN MYTHOLOGY 249
XXXV. INSANITY--SUICIDE 257
XXXVI. DRUNKENNESS 261
XXXVII. FUNERALS 268
XXXVIII. FRIENDSHIP 277
XXXIX. PREACHERS AND PROPHETS 290
XL. SHORT NOTICE OF THE INDIAN CHIEFS TAMANEND AND TADEUSKUND 300
XLI. COMPUTATION OF TIME--ASTRONOMICAL AND GEOGRAPHICAL
KNOWLEDGE 306
XLII. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS AND ANECDOTES 310
XLIII. ADVICE TO TRAVELLERS 318
XLIV. THE INDIANS AND THE WHITES COMPARED 328
CONCLUSION 346
PART II.
CORRESPONDENCE RESPECTING THE INDIAN LANGUAGES.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 351
LETTER
I. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 9TH JANUARY, 1816 353
II. DR. C. WISTAR TO MR. HECKEWELDER (SAME DATE) 354
III. MR. HECKEWELDER TO DR. WISTAR, 24TH MARCH 356
IV. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 3D APRIL 358
V. MR. DUPONCEAU TO DR. WISTAR, 14TH MAY 359
VI. DR. WISTAR TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 21ST MAY 359
VII. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 27TH MAY 361
VIII. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 10TH JUNE 364
IX. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 13TH JUNE 369
X. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 20TH JUNE 371
XI. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 24TH JUNE 375
XII. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 13TH JULY 376
XIII. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 18TH JULY 379
XIV. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 22D JULY 380
XV. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 24TH JULY 383
XVI. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 31ST JULY 387
XVII. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 3D AUGUST 392
XVIII. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 12TH AUGUST 395
XIX. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 15TH AUGUST 399
XX. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 21ST AUGUST 403
XXI. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 26TH AUGUST 409
XXII. THE SAME TO THE SAME, 27TH AUGUST 414
XXIII. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 30TH AUGUST 416
XXIV. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 5TH SEPTEMBER 422
XXV. MR. DUPONCEAU TO MR. HECKEWELDER, 1ST OCTOBER 426
XXVI. MR. HECKEWELDER TO MR. DUPONCEAU, 10TH OCTOBER 430
PART III.
WORDS, PHRASES, AND SHORT DIALOGUES 437
[Illustration: INTRODUCTION]
The reader of the following pages, having already seen what has induced
me to come forward with an historical account of the Indians, after so
many have written on the same subject, will perhaps look for something
more extraordinary in this than in other works of the kind which he has
seen. Not wishing any one to raise his expectations too high, I shall
briefly state that I have not written to excite astonishment, but for
the information of those who are desirous of knowing the true history
of those people, who, for centuries, have been in full possession of
the country we now inhabit; but who have since emigrated to a great
distance. I can only assure them, that I have not taken the information
here communicated from the writings of others, but from the mouths of
the very people I am going to speak of, and from my own observation
of what I have witnessed while living among them. I have, however,
occasionally quoted other authors, and in some instances copied short
passages from their works, especially where I have thought it necessary
to illustrate or corroborate my own statements of facts.
In what I have written concerning the character, customs, manners,
and usages of these people, I cannot have been deceived, since it is
the result of personal knowledge, of what I myself have seen, heard,
and witnessed, while residing among and near them, for more than
thirty years. I have however to remark, that this history, like other
histories of former times, will not in every respect comport with
the character of the Indians at the present time, since all these
nations and tribes, by their intercourse with the white people, have
lost much of the honourable and virtuous qualities which they once
possessed, and added to their vices and immorality. Of this, no one can
be a better judge than a missionary residing among them. And if,[2]
what these people told us more than half a century ago; that lying,
stealing, and other vicious acts, before the white men came among them,
were considered as crimes, we may safely conclude--and we know it to
be fact--that from that time to this, and especially within the last
forty years, they have so much degenerated, that a delineation of their
present character would bear no resemblance to what it was before.--It
is therefore the history of early times, not of the present, that I
have written; and to those times my delineations of their character
must be considered to apply; yet, to shew the contrast, I have also
delineated some of their present features.
It may be proper to mention in this place, that I have made use of the
proper national name of the people whom we call _Delawares_, which
is: “_Lenni Lenape_.” Yet, as they, in the common way of speaking,
merely pronounce the word “_Lenape_,” I have, in most instances, when
speaking of them, used this word singly. I have also made use of the
word “_Mengwe_,” or _Mingoes_, the name by which the _Lenape_ commonly
designate the people known to us by the name of the _Iroquois_, and
_Five_ or _Six Nations_. I shall give at the end a general list of all
the names I have made use of in this communication, to which I refer
the reader for instruction.
As the Indians, in all their public speeches and addresses, speak
in the singular number, I have sometimes been led to follow their
example, when reporting what they have said; I have also frequently, by
attending particularly to the identical words spoken by them, copied
their peculiar phrases, when I might have given their meaning in other
words.
On the origin of the Indians, I have been silent, leaving this
speculation to abler historians than myself. To their history, and
notions with regard to their creation, I have given a place; and have
also briefly related the traditions of the Lenape on the subject of
their arrival at, and crossing the river Mississippi, their coming to
the Atlantic coast, what occurred to them while in this country, and
their retreat back again.
As the relation of the Delawares and Mohicans, concerning the policy
adopted and pursued by the Six Nations towards them, may perhaps appear
strange to many, and it may excite some astonishment, that a matter of
such importance was not earlier set forth in the same light, I shall
here, by way of introduction, and for the better understanding of the
account which they give of this matter, examine into some facts, partly
known to us already, and partly now told us in their relation; so that
we may see how far these agree together, and know what we may rely upon.
It is conceded on all sides that the Lenape and Iroquois carried on
long and bloody wars with each other; but while the one party assert,
that they completely conquered the other, and reduced them by force to
the condition of women, this assertion is as strongly and pointedly
denied by the other side; I have therefore thought that the real truth
of this fact was well deserving of investigation.
The story told by the Mingoes to the white people, of their having
conquered the Lenape and made women of them, was much too implicitly
believed; for the whites always acted towards the Delawares under the
impression that it was true, refused even to hear their own account of
the matter, and “shut their ears” against them, when they attempted to
inform them of the real fact. This denial of common justice, is one of
the principal complaints of the Lenape against the English, and makes a
part of the tradition or history which they preserve for posterity.
This complaint indeed, bears hard upon us, and should, at least,
operate as a solemn call to rectify the error, if such it is found to
be; that we, in our history, may not record and transmit erroneous
statements of those Aborigines, from whom we have received the country
we now so happily inhabit. We are bound in honour to acquit ourselves
of all charges of the kind which those people may have against us,
who, in the beginning welcomed us to their shores, in hopes that “they
and we would sit beside each other as brothers;” and it should not be
said, that now, when they have surrendered their whole country to us,
and retired to the wilds of a distant country, we turn our backs upon
them with contempt.
We know that all Indians have the custom of transmitting to posterity,
by a regular chain of tradition, the remarkable events which have taken
place with them at any time, even often events of a trivial nature, of
which I could mention a number. Ought we then, when such a source of
information is at hand, to believe the story told by the Six Nations,
of their having conquered the Lenape, (a powerful nation with a very
large train of connexions and allies) and forcibly made them women?
Ought we not, before we believe this, to look for a tradition of the
circumstances of so important an event; for some account, at least,
of the time, place, or places, where those battles were fought, which
decided the fate of the Lenape, the Mohicans, and of a number of
tribes connected with them? Are we to be left altogether ignorant of
the numbers that were slain at the time, and the country in which this
memorable event took place; whether on the St. Lawrence, on the Lakes,
in the country of the conquerors, or of the conquered? All these I am
inclined to call _first_ considerations, while a _second_ would be: How
does this story accord with the situation the first Europeans found
these people in on their arrival in this country? Were not those who
are said to be a conquered people, thickly settled on the whole length
of the sea coast, and far inland, in and from Virginia to and beyond
the Province of Maine, and had they not yet, at that very time, a great
National Council Fire burning on the banks of the Delaware? Does not
the joint tradition of the Delawares, Mohicans and Nanticokes, inform
us, that their great National Council House[3] then extended from the
head of the tide on the (now) Hudson river, to the head of the tide
on the Potomack? All this we shall find faithfully copied or written
down from their verbal tradition, and that this Council House “was
pulled down by the white people!”[4] and of course was yet standing
when they came into the country; which alone is sufficient to prove
that the Lenape, at that time, were not a conquered people; and if they
had been conquered since, we might expect to find the fact, with its
particulars, somewhere on record.
It is admitted, however, by the Lenape themselves, that they and their
allies were _made women_ by the Iroquois. But how did this happen?
Not surely by conquest, or the fate of battle. Strange as it may
appear, it was not produced by the effects of superior force, but by
successful intrigue. Here, if my informants were correct, and I trust
they were, rests the great mystery, for the particulars of which, I
refer the reader to the history of the Lenape and Mohicans themselves,
as related in part by Loskiel in his “History of the Mission of the
United Brethren among the North American Indians,”[5] and in this work.
In the first, he will find three material points ascertained, viz. 1st,
“that the Delawares were too strong for the Iroquois, and could not
be conquered by them by force of arms, but were subdued by insidious
means. 2d, that the making women of the Delawares was not an act of
compulsion, but the result of their own free will and consent; and 3d,
that the whites were already in the country at the time this ceremony
took place, since they were to hold one end of the great Peace Belt
in their hands.”[6] In the following History, which I have taken from
the relation of the most intelligent and creditable old Indians, both
Delawares and Mohicans, not only the same facts will be found, but
also a more minute account of this transaction; in which it will be
shewn, that the Dutch not only were present at, but were parties to
it, that it was in this manner that the Six Nations were relieved from
the critical situation they were in, at that very time, with regard
to their enemies, the Delawares, Mohicans, and their connexions, and
that the white people present coaxed and persuaded them to cause the
hatchet to be buried, declaring at the same time[7] that they “would
fall on those who should dig it up again;” which was, on the part of
the Hollanders, a declaration of war against the Delawares and their
allies, if they, or any of them, should attempt again to act hostilely
against the Six Nations. All this, according to the tradition of the
Lenape, was transacted at a place, since called “Nordman’s Kill,” a few
miles from the spot where afterwards Albany was built, and but a short
time after the Dutch had arrived at New York Island, probably between
the years 1609 and 1620.
The Rev. Mr. Pyrlæus,[8] who had learned the Mohawk language of Conrad
Weiser, and was stationed on the river of that name, for some time
between the years 1742 and 1748, has noted down in a large manuscript
book, that his friend there, the Mohawk chief, had told him, that at
a place about four miles from Albany, now called Nordman’s Kill,[10]
the first covenant had been made between the Six Nations and the white
people; which is in confirmation of the correctness of the above
tradition of the Mohicans.[11]
This was then, according to the best accounts we have, the time when
this pretended “conquest” took place; and the Delawares, (as the Six
Nations have since said) were by them _made women_. It was, however, a
conquest of a singular nature, effected through duplicity and intrigue,
at _a council fire_, not _in battle_. “And, (say the Delawares and
Mohicans, in their tradition,) when the English took the country from
the _Dutchemaan_, (Hollanders) they stepped into the same alliance with
the Six Nations, which their predecessors had established with them.”
Colden, in his “History of the Five Nations,”[12] informs us, page
34, that this took place in the year 1664; and in page 36, gives us
full proof of this alliance, by the following account--He says: “The
Five Nations being now amply supplied by the English with fire-arms
and ammunition, gave full swing to their warlike genius, and soon
resolved to revenge the affronts they had at any time received from
the Indian nations that lived at a greater distance from them. The
nearest nations, as they were attacked, commonly fled to those that
were further off, and the Five Nations pursued them. This, together
with the desire they had of conquering, or ambition of making all the
nations around them their tributaries, or to make them acknowledge the
Five Nations to be so far their masters, as to be absolutely directed
by them in all affairs of peace and war with their neighbours, made
them overrun great part of North America. They carried their arms as
far south as Carolina; to the northward of New England; and as far west
as the river Mississippi; over a vast country, which extends twelve
hundred miles in length, from north to south, and about six hundred
miles in breadth; where they entirely destroyed many nations, of whom
there are now no accounts remaining among the English,” &c.
To what a number of important questions would not the above statement
give rise? But I will confine myself to a few, and enquire first, for
what purpose the Five Nations were armed, and so “amply supplied with
ammunition?” and secondly, what use did they make of those arms? The
Delawares and Mohicans believed that the white people, first the
Dutch and then the English, did all that was in their power to make
the Mengwe a great people, so that they might rule over them and all
other nations, and “that they had done what they wanted them to do,”
&c. For an answer to the second question, we have only to believe what
Colden himself tells us, of what the same Mengwe or Iroquois did, after
having received arms and ammunition from the English, which it clearly
appears they could not have done before. Now, if we even were willing
to admit that they had only gone off, “to revenge the affronts they had
at any time received from the Indian Nations,” yet, we would be willing
to know, of what nature those affronts had been; otherwise we might
conclude, that they were no other than that those nations had refused
“to become tributary to them; would not submit to their mandates, nor
have them for their masters;” and therefore had beaten them off, when
they came into their country for the purpose of bringing them under
subjection, and perhaps also paid them a visit in return, after they
had murdered some of their people.
If we were permitted to omit the words, “revenge the affronts they had
received from other nations,” &c., we need not one moment be at a loss
to know precisely what they went out for, as the historian himself
tells us, that they, soon after receiving fire-arms and ammunition,
“gave full swing to their warlike genius, and went off with a desire of
conquering nations--of making all those around them their tributaries,
and compelling them all to acknowledge the Five Nations to be their
masters, and to be absolutely directed by them, in all affairs of peace
and war.” We then know with certainty, what the object was for which
they took the field.
We are here also told, of the vast tract of country over which the Six
Nations had carried their arms, subduing, and even “so destroying many
nations, that no account of them was now remaining with the English!”
In reply to this I might bring forward some sayings and assertions
of the Delawares and Mohicans, which would not comport with the
above story, nor apply to the great name the Six Nations have given
themselves, which, as Colden tells us, is _Ongwe-honwe_, and signifies
“men surpassing all others, superior to the rest of mankind:” but my
object here is merely to discuss the fact, whether, previous to the
white people’s coming into the country, and while unsupplied with
fire-arms, hatchets, &c., those Iroquois had done such wonders among
nations as they report; or, whether all this was done since that
time, and in consequence of their being put into possession of those
destructive weapons which they had not before; for how are we to judge,
and decide on the comparative bravery of two different nations, without
knowing whether or not the combatants were placed on an equal footing
with regard to the weapons they used against each other?
I might ask the simple question, whether the Dutch, and afterwards the
English, have favoured their “brethren,” the Delawares, Mohicans, and
other tribes connected with them, who lived between them and the Six
Nations, and on the land which they wanted to have, in the same manner
that they have favoured their enemies?
Colden, in his Introduction to the History of the Five Nations, page
3, says: “I have been told by old men in New England, who remembered
the time when the Mohawks made war on _their_ Indians,” (meaning here
the Mohicans, or River Indians, as they often were called,) “that as
soon as a single Mohawk was discovered in the country, _their_ Indians
raised a cry, from hill to hill, _a Mohawk! a Mohawk!_ upon which they
all fled, like sheep before wolves, without attempting to make the
least resistance, whatever odds were on their side,” and that, “the
poor New England Indians immediately ran to the Christian houses, and
the Mohawks often pursued them so closely, that they entered along with
them, and knocked their brains out in the presence of the people of the
house,” &c.
This is indeed a lamentable story! It might be asked, How could the
white people, whom those very Mohicans had hospitably welcomed, and
permitted to live with them on their land, suffer an enemy to come
into the country to destroy their benefactors, without making any
opposition? Why did these Indians suffer this? Why did they not with
spirit meet this enemy?
The answer to this last question will be found in their traditional
history of the great meeting at Nordman’s Kill, where they were
expressly told, after they had consented to bury the hatchet, wherewith
they warred against the Six Nations, “That whatsoever nation, (meaning
the Mohicans and Delawares) should dig up the hatchet again, on them
would the white people fall and take revenge!”
Thus, then, arms were put into the hands of the Six Nations, and with
them the Dutch, and afterwards the English, sided; but the Delawares
and Mohicans were compelled to remain unarmed, for fear of being cut up
by the white people, who had taken part with their enemies. May we not
conclude, that these poor New England Indians were placed between two
fires?
We do not, I believe, find that in the then middle colonies, the
Mohawks, or any of the Five Nations, had ventured so far in their
hostile conduct against the Delawares, as they had done to the Mohicans
of New England, though the alliance between the Dutch and the Five
Nations, and afterwards between the English and the latter, was much
against both, and indeed more against the Delawares than the Mohicans:
yet, by turning to treaties and councils, held with these nations
between the years 1740 and 1760, in Pennsylvania,[13] we find much
insolent language, which the Iroquois were, I will say, permitted,
but which, the people concerned say, they were “bid or hired to make
against the Delawares, for the purpose of stopping their mouths,
preventing them from stating their complaints and grievances, and
asking redress from the colonial government.”
The result of such high toned language, as that which was made use
of to the Delawares, by the Six Nations, at a council held at the
proprietors, in July, 1742, and at other times afterwards,[14] might
easily have been foretold. For although now, these defenceless people
had to submit to such gross insults, instead of seeing their grievances
redressed, yet they were not ignorant of the manner in which they one
day might take revenge, the door to the French, who were enemies
to the English, being always open to them; they had but to go “on
one side” (as they expressed themselves) to be out of the way of the
Iroquois, and they could obtain from the possessors of Canada, and
Louisiana, all that they wanted, fire-arms, hatchets, scalping-knives,
ammunition, &c. They did so, and withdrew to the Ohio country, whither
they were followed by others from time to time, and by the time the
French war broke out, they were in perfect readiness, and joining the
enemies of Britain, they murdered great numbers of the defenceless
inhabitants of Pennsylvania, laid the whole frontier waste, and spread
terror and misery far and wide by the outrages they committed; I
have been myself a witness to those scenes, and to the distresses of
hundreds of poor people, only in this one quarter.
A work, entitled: “An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the
Delaware and Shawanese Indians from the British Interest,” written by
Charles Thompson,[15] Esq., and printed in London, in 1759, which some
time since fell into my hands, well merits to be read with attention,
on account of the correctness of the information that it contains.
By this time, the Delawares were sensible of the imposition which had
been practised upon them. They saw that a plan had been organised for
their destruction, and that not only their independence, but their
very existence, was at stake; they therefore took measures to defend
themselves, by abandoning the system of neutrality into which they had
been insidiously drawn.
It was not without difficulty that I obtained from them these
interesting details, for they felt ashamed of their own conduct; they
were afraid of being charged with cowardice, or at least with want of
forethought, in having acted as they did, and not having discovered
their error until it was too late.
And yet, in my opinion, those fears were entirely groundless, and there
appears nothing in their whole conduct disparaging to the courage and
high sense of honour of that brave nation. Let us for a moment place
ourselves in the situation of the Delawares, Mohicans, and the other
tribes connected with them, at the time when the Europeans first landed
on New York Island. They were then in the height of their glory,
pursuing their successes against the Iroquois, with whom they had long
been at war. They were in possession of the whole country, from the sea
coast to the Mississippi, from the River St. Lawrence to the frontier
of Carolina, while the habitations of their enemies did not extend
far beyond the great Lakes. In this situation, they are on a sudden
checked in their career, by a phenomenon they had till then never
beheld; immense canoes arriving at their shores, filled with people
of a different colour, language, dress, and manners, from themselves!
In their astonishment they call out to one another: “Behold! the Gods
are come to visit us!”[16] They at first considered these astonishing
beings, as messengers of peace, sent from the abode of the Great
Spirit, and therefore, employed their time in preparing and making
sacrifices to that Great Being who had so highly honoured them. Lost in
amazement, fond of the enjoyment of this new spectacle, and anxious to
know the result, they were unmindful of those matters which hitherto
had taken up their minds, and had been the object of their pursuits;
they thought of nothing else but the wonders which now struck their
eyes, and their sharpest wits were constantly employed in endeavouring
to divine this great mystery! Such is the manner in which they relate
that event, the strong impression of which is not yet obliterated from
their minds.
It was the _Delawares_ who first received and welcomed these new guests
on New York Island; the Mohicans who inhabited the whole of the North
River above, on its eastern side, were sent for to participate in the
joy which was felt on being honoured by such visitants. Their tradition
of this event is clear and explicit. None of the enemy, say they,
(meaning the Five Nations[17]) were present.
It may possibly be asked, how the Dutch could favour the Five Nations
so much, when none of them were present at the meetings which took
place on their arrival in America? how they came to abandon their first
friends, and take part against them with strangers? and how the Dutch
became acquainted with those strangers? I shall simply, in answer,
give the traditional accounts of the Mohicans in their own words:
“The Dutch Traders (say they) penetrating into our country, high up
the Mohicanichtuck (the Hudson River), fell in with some of the Mingo
warriors, who told them that they were warring against the very people,
(the Delawares and Mohicans) who had so kindly received them; they
easily foresaw, that they could not carry on their trade with their
old friends, while this was the case; neither would the Mingoes suffer
them to trade with their enemies, unless they (the Dutch) assisted
them in bringing about a peace between them. They also made these
traders sensible, that they at that time, were at war with a people of
the same colour with theirs (meaning the French), who had, by means
of a very large river which lay to the North, come into the country;
that they (the Mengwe) were the greatest and most powerful of all the
Indian nations; that if the people they belonged to, were friends to
their enemies, and sided with them in their wars, they would turn their
whole force against them; but if, on the other hand, the Dutch would
join them in effecting a peace with them, so that their hatchet should
be buried forever, they would support and protect them in all their
undertakings;[18] that these traders being frightened, had returned
home, and having stated the matter to their chief (the Dutch Governor),
a vessel soon after went high up the river to an appointed place, where
meeting with the Maqua (Five Nations), a conference was held, at which
the Dutch promised them, that they would use their best endeavours to
persuade their enemies to give up the hatchet to be buried, which, some
time afterwards, actually took place.”
These are (as they say) the circumstances which led to the league
which was afterwards established between the white people and the Five
Nations, which was the cause of much dissatisfaction, injustice, and
bloodshed, and which would not have taken place, if the rights and
privileges of the different nations and tribes had been respected, and
each left to act for itself, especially in selling their lands to the
Europeans.
Having seen how the Five, afterwards Six Nations, rose to power, we
have next to state by what means they lost the ascendancy which they
had thus acquired.
The withdrawing of the principal part of the Delawares, and the
Shawanos, from the Atlantic coast, between the years 1740 and 1760,
afforded them an opportunity of consulting with the western tribes, on
the manner of taking revenge on the Iroquois for the many provocations,
wrongs and insults they had received from them; when _ten_ nations
immediately entered into an alliance for that purpose, the French
having promised to assist them.[19] In the year 1756, they agreed to
move on in detached bodies, as though they meant to attack the English,
with whom they and the French were then at war, and then turn suddenly
on the Six Nations and make a bold stroke. Though, for various reasons,
their designs could not at that time be carried into effect, yet they
did not lose sight of the object, waiting only for a proper opportunity.
It would, however, have been next to impossible, under existing
circumstances, and while the Six Nations were supported by such a
powerful ally as the English, for the Delawares and their allies, to
subdue, or even effectually to chastise them. These Nations, however,
at the commencement of a war between the English nation and the
Colonies, were become so far independent, that such of them as lived
remote from the British stations or garrisons, or were not immediately
under their eye, were at full liberty to side with whom they pleased;
and though the Six Nations attempted to dictate to the Western
Delawares, what side they should take, their spirited chief, Captain
White Eyes, did not hesitate to reply, in the name of his nation:
“that he should do as he pleased; that he wore no petticoats, as they
falsely pretended; he was no woman, but a man, and they should find him
to act as such.” That this brave chief was in earnest, was soon after
verified, by a party of Delawares joining the American army.
In 1781, when almost all the Indian nations were in the British
interest, except a part of the Delawares, among whom were the Christian
Indians between 2 and 300 souls in number,[20] the British Indian agent
at Detroit applied to the great council of the Six Nations at Niagara,
to remove those Christian Indians out of the country: the Iroquois upon
this sent a war message to the Chippeways and Ottawas,[21] to this
effect: “We herewith make you a present of the Christian Indians, to
make soup of;[22]” which in the war language of the Indians, is saying:
“We deliver these people to you to be murdered!” These brave Indians
sent the message immediately back again with the reply: “We have no
cause for doing this!”
The same message being next sent to the Wyandots, they likewise
disobeyed their orders, and did not make the least attempt to murder
those innocent people. The Iroquois, therefore, were completely at a
loss how to think and act, seeing that their orders were every where
disregarded.
At the conclusion of the revolutionary war, they had the mortification
to see, that the trade which they had hitherto carried on, and to them
was so agreeable and profitable, that of selling to the English the
land of other nations, to which they had no possible claim, was at once
and forever put an end to by the liberal line of conduct which the
American Government adopted with the Indian Nations, leaving each at
liberty to sell its own lands, reserving, only to themselves the right
of purchase, to the exclusion of foreigners of every description.
In addition to this, the bond of connexion which subsisted between
these Six Nations, if it was not entirely broken, yet was much
obstructed, by a separation which took place at the close of that war,
when a part, and the most active body of them, retired into Canada. No
nation then any more regarded their commands, nor even their advice,
when it did not accord with their will and inclination; all which
became evident during the whole time the Western Nations were at war
with the United States, and until the peace made with them in 1795.[23]
At last, being sensible of their humbled situation, and probably
dreading the consequence of their former insolent conduct to the other
Indian Nations, and principally the Delawares, whom they had so long
and so much insulted, were they not to make some amends for all this
contumely? They came forward, at the critical moment, just previous
to the Treaty concluded by General Wayne, and formally declared the
Delaware nation to be no longer _Women_, but MEN.
I hope to be believed in the solemn assertion which I now make: That in
all that I have written on the subject of the history and politics of
the Indian Nations, I have neither been influenced by partiality for
the one, or undue prejudice against the other, but having had the best
opportunities of obtaining from authentic sources, such information in
matters of fact, as has enabled me to make up my mind on the subject,
I have taken the liberty of expressing my opinion as I have honestly
formed it, leaving the reader, however, at liberty to judge and decide
for himself as he may deem most proper.
I wish once more to observe, that in this history it is principally
meant to shew, rather what the Indians of this country were previous to
the white people’s arrival, than what they now are; for now, the two
great nations, the Iroquois and the Delawares, are no longer the same
people that they formerly were. The former, who, as their rivals would
assert, were more like beasts than human beings, and made intrigue
their only study, have, by their intercourse with the whites, become
an industrious and somewhat civilised people; at least many of them
are so, which is probably owing to their having been permitted to live
so long, (indeed, for more than a century) in the same district of
country, and while the British possessed it, under the protection of
the superintendent of Indian affairs; while the latter have always been
oppressed and persecuted, disturbed and driven from place to place,
scarcely enjoying themselves at any place for a dozen years at a time;
having constantly the lowest class of whites for their neighbours,
and having no opportunity of displaying their true character and the
talents that nature had bestowed upon them.
My long residence among those nations in the constant habit of
unrestrained familiarity, has enabled me to know them well, and made
me intimately acquainted with the manners, customs, character and
disposition of those men of nature, when uncorrupted by European vices.
Of these, I think I could draw a highly interesting picture, if I only
possessed adequate powers of description: but the talent of writing is
not to be acquired in the wilderness, among savages. I have felt it,
however, to be a duty incumbent upon me to make the attempt, and I have
done it in the following pages, with a rude but faithful pencil. I have
spent a great part of my life among those people, and have been treated
by them with uniform kindness and hospitality. I have witnessed their
virtues and experienced their goodness. I owe them a debt of gratitude,
which I cannot acquit better than by presenting to the world this
plain unadorned picture, which I have drawn in the spirit of candour
and truth. Alas! in a few years, perhaps, they will have entirely
disappeared from the face of the earth, and all that will be remembered
of them will be that they existed and were numbered among the barbarous
tribes that once inhabited this vast continent. At least, let it not be
said, that among the whole race of white Christian men, not one single
individual could be found, who, rising above the cloud of prejudice
with which the pride of civilisation has surrounded the original
inhabitants of this land, would undertake the task of doing justice to
their many excellent qualities, and raise a small frail monument to
their memory.
I shall conclude with a few necessary remarks for the information of
the reader.
_Lenni Lenape_ being the national and proper name of the people we call
“Delawares,” I have retained this name, or for brevity’s sake, called
them simply _Lenape_, as they do themselves in most instances. Their
name signifies “_original people_,” a race of human beings who are the
same that they were in the beginning, _unchanged_ and _unmixed_.[24]
These people (the Lenni Lenape) are known and called by all the
western, northern, and some of the southern nations, by the name of
_Wapanachki_, which the Europeans have corrupted into _Apenaki_,
_Openagi_, _Abenaquis_,[25] and _Abenakis_.[26] All these names,
however differently written, and improperly understood by authors,
point to one and the same people, the Lenape, who are by this compound
word, called “people at the rising of the Sun,” or as we would say,
_Eastlanders_; and are acknowledged by near forty Indian tribes, whom
we call nations, as being their grandfathers. All these nations,
derived from the same stock, recognise each other as Wapanachki, which
among them is a generic name.
The name “_Delawares_,” which we give to these people, is unknown in
their language, and I well remember the time when they thought the
whites had given it to them in derision; but they were reconciled to
it, on being told that it was the name of a great white chief, Lord
de la War, which had been given to them and their river. As they are
fond of being named after distinguished men, they were rather pleased,
considering it as a compliment.
The _Mahicanni_ have been called by so many different names,[27] that I
was at a loss which to adopt, so that the reader might know what people
were meant. Loskiel calls them “Mohicans,” which is nearest to their
real name Mahicanni, which, of course, I have adopted.
The name “_Nanticokes_” I have left as generally used, though properly
it should be _Néntico_, or after the English pronunciation _Nantico_.
The “_Canai_,” I call by their _proper_ name. I allude here to those
people we call _Canais_, _Conois_, _Conoys_, _Canaways_, _Kanhawas_,
_Canawese_.
With regard to the Five, or Six Nations, I have called them by
different names, such as are most common, and well understood. The
Lenape (Delawares) are never heard to say “_Six Nations_,” and it is a
rare thing to hear these people named by them otherwise than _Mengwe_;
the Mahicanni call them _Maqua_, and even most white people call them
_Mingoes_. When therefore I have said the _Five_ or _Six Nations_, I
have only used our own mode of speaking, not that of the Indians, who
never look upon them as having been so many _nations_; but _divisions_,
and _tribes_, who, as united, have become a nation. Thus, when the
Lenape (Delawares) happen to name them as one body, the word they make
use of implies “the five divisions together, or united,” as will be
seen in another place of this work. I call them also _Iroquois_, after
the French and some English writers.
The _Wyandots_, or _Wyondots_, are the same whom the French call
_Hurons_, and sometimes _Guyandots_. Father Sagard, a French
Missionary, who lived among them in the 17th century, and has written
an account of his mission, and a kind of dictionary of their language,
says their proper name is _Ahouandâte_, from whence it is evident that
the English appellation Wyandots has been derived.
There being so many words in the language of the Lenape and their
kindred tribes, the sound of which cannot well be represented according
to the English pronunciation, I have in general adopted for them the
German mode of spelling. The _ch_, particularly before a consonant, is
a strong guttural, and unless an Englishman has the use of the Greek χ,
he will not be able to pronounce it, as in the words _Chasquem_ (Indian
corn), _Cheltol_ (many), _Ches_ (a skin), _Chauchschisis_ (an old
woman), and a great many more. Sometimes, indeed, in the middle of a
word substitutes may be found which may do, as in the word _Nimachtak_
(brethren), which might be written _Nemaughtok_, but this will seldom
answer. This is probably the reason that most of the English authors
have written Indian words so incorrectly, far more so than French
authors.
The Delawares have neither of the letters R, F, nor V, in their
language, though they easily learn to pronounce them. They have a
consonant peculiar to them and other Indians, which is a sibilant, and
which we represent by W. It is produced by a soft whistling, and is
not unpleasant to the ear, although it comes before a consonant. It is
not much unlike the English sound _wh_ in _what_, but not so round or
full, and rather more whistled. _W_ before a vowel is pronounced as in
English.
PART I.
HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
OF
THE INDIAN NATIONS,
WHO ONCE INHABITED PENNSYLVANIA AND
THE NEIGHBOURING STATES.
(NOTE.--In annotating this work, the editor consulted, among other
authorities, _The Life of John Heckewelder, by the Rev. Edward
Rondthaler_, _Heckewelder’s Narrative of the Mission of the United
Brethren among the Delaware and Mohegan Indians_, _History of the
Mission of the United Brethren among the Indians in North America_,
_The Life and Times of David Zeisberger_, _Memorials of the Moravian
Church_, _The Transactions of the Moravian Historical Society_, _The
Moravians in New York and Connecticut_, and _Butterfield’s Crawford’s
Campaign against Sandusky_.
He omitted to state, in the course of the introductory biographical
sketch of the missionary, that his Account of the History, Manners,
and Customs of Indian Nations has been translated into both French
and German. The French translation was published at Paris, in 1822;
it is entitled, “_Histoire, Mœurs et Coutumes des Nations Indiennes
qui habitaient autrefois la Pennsylvanie et les Etats voisins;
par le Révérend Jean Heckewelder, Missionnaire Morave, traduit de
l’Anglais, par le Chevalier Du Ponceau_.” The German translation,
published at Göttingen in 1821, is entitled, “_Johann Heckewelder’s
evangelischen Predigers zu Bethlehem, Nachricht von der Geschichte,
den Sitten und Gebräuchen der Indianischen Völkerschaften, welche
ehemals Pennsylvanien und die benachbarten Staaten bewohnten. Aus dem
Englischen übersetzt und mit den Angaben anderer Schriftsteller über
eben dieselben Gegenstände (Carver, Loskiel, Ling, Volney), vermehrt
von Fr. Hesse, evangelischen Prediger zu Nienburg. Nebst einem die
Glaubwürdigkeit und den anthropologischen Werth der Nachrichten
Heckewelder’s betreffenden Zusatze von G. E. Schulze_.”)
HISTORY, MANNERS, AND CUSTOMS
OF THE
INDIAN NATIONS.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL TRADITIONS OF THE INDIANS.
The Lenni Lenape (according to the traditions handed down to them by
their ancestors) resided many hundred years ago, in a very distant
country in the western part of the American continent. For some reason,
which I do not find accounted for, they determined on migrating to the
eastward, and accordingly set out together in a body. After a very
long journey, and many nights’ encampments[28] by the way, they at
length arrived on the _Namæsi Sipu_,[29] where they fell in with the
Mengwe,[30] who had likewise emigrated from a distant country, and had
struck upon this river somewhat higher up. Their object was the same
with that of the Delawares; they were proceeding on to the eastward,
until they should find a country that pleased them. The spies which
the Lenape had sent forward for the purpose of reconnoitring, had
long before their arrival discovered that the country east of the
Mississippi was inhabited by a very powerful nation, who had many large
towns built on the great rivers flowing through their land. Those
people (as I was told) called themselves _Talligeu_ or _Talligewi_.
Colonel John Gibson,[31] however, a gentleman who has a thorough
knowledge of the Indians, and speaks several of their languages, is
of opinion that they were not called _Talligewi_, but _Alligewi_, and
it would seem that he is right, from the traces of their name which
still remain in the country, the Allegheny river and mountains having
indubitably been named after them. The Delawares still call the former
_Alligéwi Sipu_, the River of the Alligewi. We have adopted, I know
not for what reason, its Iroquois name, Ohio, which the French had
literally translated into _La Belle Riviere_, The Beautiful River.[32]
A branch of it, however, still retains the ancient name Allegheny.
Many wonderful things are told of this famous people. They are said
to have been remarkably tall and stout, and there is a tradition
that there were giants among them, people of a much larger size than
the tallest of the Lenape. It is related that they had built to
themselves regular fortifications or entrenchments, from whence they
would sally out, but were generally repulsed. I have seen many of the
fortifications said to have been built by them, two of which, in
particular, were remarkable. One of them was near the mouth of the
river Huron, which empties itself into the Lake St. Clair, on the north
side of that lake, at the distance of about 20 miles N. E. of Detroit.
This spot of ground was, in the year 1786, owned and occupied by a Mr.
Tucker. The other works, properly entrenchments, being walls or banks
of earth regularly thrown up, with a deep ditch on the outside, were on
the Huron river, east of the Sandusky, about six or eight miles from
Lake Erie. Outside of the gateways of each of these two entrenchments,
which lay within a mile of each other, were a number of large flat
mounds, in which, the Indian pilot said, were buried hundreds of the
slain Talligewi, whom I shall hereafter with Colonel Gibson call
_Alligewi_. Of these entrenchments, Mr. Abraham Steiner, who was with
me at the time when I saw them, gave a very accurate description, which
was published at Philadelphia, in 1789 or 1790, in some periodical work
the name of which I cannot at present remember.[33]
When the Lenape arrived on the banks of the Mississippi, they sent a
message to the Alligewi to request permission to settle themselves
in their neighbourhood. This was refused them, but they obtained
leave to pass through the country and seek a settlement farther to
the eastward. They accordingly began to cross the Namæsi Sipu, when
the Alligewi, seeing that their numbers were so very great, and in
fact they consisted of many thousands, made a furious attack on those
who had crossed, threatening them all with destruction, if they
dared to persist in coming over to their side of the river. Fired at
the treachery of these people, and the great loss of men they had
sustained, and besides, not being prepared for a conflict, the Lenape
consulted on what was to be done; whether to retreat in the best manner
they could, or try their strength, and let the enemy see that they were
not cowards, but men, and too high-minded to suffer themselves to be
driven off before they had made a trial of their strength, and were
convinced that the enemy was too powerful for them. The Mengwe, who had
hitherto been satisfied with being spectators from a distance, offered
to join them, on condition that, after conquering the country, they
should be entitled to share it with them; their proposal was accepted,
and the resolution was taken by the two nations, to conquer or die.
Having thus united their forces, the Lenape and Mengwe declared war
against the Alligewi, and great battles were fought, in which many
warriors fell on both sides. The enemy fortified their large towns
and erected fortifications, especially on large rivers, and near
lakes, where they were successively attacked and sometimes stormed
by the allies. An engagement took place in which hundreds fell, who
were afterwards buried in holes or laid together in heaps and covered
over with earth. No quarter was given, so that the Alligewi, at last,
finding that their destruction was inevitable if they persisted in
their obstinacy, abandoned the country to the conquerors, and fled down
the Mississippi river, from whence they never returned. The war which
was carried on with this nation, lasted many years, during which the
Lenape lost a great number of their warriors, while the Mengwe would
always hang back in the rear, leaving them to face the enemy. In the
end, the conquerors divided the country between themselves; the Mengwe
made choice of the lands in the vicinity of the great lakes, and on
their tributary streams, and the Lenape took possession of the country
to the south. For a long period of time, some say many hundred years,
the two nations resided peaceably in this country, and increased very
fast; some of their most enterprising huntsmen and warriors crossed
the great swamps,[34] and falling on streams running to the eastward,
followed them down to the great Bay River,[35] thence into the Bay
itself, which we call Chesapeak. As they pursued their travels, partly
by land and partly by water, sometimes near and at other times on
the great Saltwater Lake, as they call the Sea, they discovered the
great River, which we call the Delaware; and thence exploring still
eastward, the _Scheyichbi_ country, now named New Jersey, they arrived
at another great stream, that which we call the Hudson or North River.
Satisfied with what they had seen, they, (or some of them) after a
long absence, returned to their nation and reported the discoveries
they had made; they described the country they had discovered, as
abounding in game and various kinds of fruits; and the rivers and bays,
with fish, tortoises, &c., together with abundance of water-fowl, and
no enemy to be dreaded. They considered the event as a fortunate one
for them, and concluding this to be the country destined for them by
the Great Spirit, they began to emigrate thither, as yet but in small
bodies, so as not to be straitened for want of provisions by the
way, some even laying by for a whole year; at last they settled on
the four great rivers (which we call Delaware, Hudson, Susquehannah,
and Potomack) making the Delaware, to which they gave the name of
“_Lenapewihittuck_,”[36] (the river or stream of the Lenape) the centre
of their possessions.
They say, however, that the whole of their nation did not reach this
country; that many remained behind in order to aid and assist that
great body of their people, which had not crossed the Namæsi Sipu, but
had retreated into the interior of the country on the other side, on
being informed of the reception which those who had crossed had met
with, and probably thinking that they had all been killed by the enemy.
Their nation finally became divided into three separate bodies; the
larger body, which they suppose to have been one half of the whole, was
settled on the Atlantic, and the other half was again divided into two
parts, one of which, the strongest as they suppose, remained beyond the
Mississippi, and the remainder where they left them, on this side of
that river.
Those of the Delawares who fixed their abode on the shores of
the Atlantic divided themselves into three tribes. Two of them,
distinguished by the names of the _Turtle_ and the _Turkey_, the former
calling themselves _Unâmis_ and the other _Unalâchtgo_, chose those
grounds to settle on, which lay nearest to the sea, between the coast
and the high mountains. As they multiplied, their settlements extended
from the _Mohicannittuck_ (river of the Mohicans, which we call the
North or Hudson river) to beyond the Potomack. Many families with their
connexions choosing to live by themselves, were scattered not only
on the larger, but also on the small streams throughout the country,
having towns and villages, where they lived together in separate
bodies, in each of which a chief resided; those chiefs, however, were
subordinate (by their own free will, the only kind of subordination
which the Indians know) to the head chiefs or great council of the
nation, whom they officially informed of all events or occurrences
affecting the general interest which came to their knowledge. The
third tribe, the _Wolf_, commonly called the _Minsi_, which we have
corrupted into _Monseys_, had chosen to live back of the two other
tribes, and formed a kind of bulwark for their protection, watching
the motions of the Mengwe, and being at hand to afford their aid in
case of a rupture with them. The Minsi were considered the most warlike
and active branch of the Lenape. They extended their settlements, from
the _Minisink_, a place named after them, where they had their council
seat and fire, quite up to the Hudson on the east; and to the west or
south west far beyond the Susquehannah: their northern boundaries were
supposed originally to be the heads of the great rivers Susquehannah
and Delaware, and their southern boundaries that ridge of hills known
in New Jersey by the name of _Muskanecun_, and in Pennsylvania,
by those of _Lehigh_, _Coghnewago_, &c. Within this boundary were
their principal settlements; and even as late as the year 1742, they
had a town, with a large peach orchard, on the tract of land where
_Nazareth_, in Pennsylvania, has since been built;[37] another on
_Lehigh_ (the west branch of the Delaware), and others beyond the blue
ridge, besides small family settlements here and there scattered.
From the above _three_ tribes, the _Unâmis_, _Unalâchtgo_, and
the _Minsi_, comprising together the body of those people we call
_Delawares_, had in the course of time, sprung many others, who,
having for their own conveniency, chosen distant spots to settle on,
and increasing in numbers, gave themselves names or received them from
others. Those names, generally given after some simple natural objects,
or after something striking or extraordinary, they continued to bear
even after they ceased to be applicable, when they removed to other
places, where the object after which they were named was not to be
found; thus they formed separate and distinct tribes, yet did not deny
their origin, but retained their affection for the parent tribe, of
which they were even proud to be called the grandchildren.
This was the case with the _Mahicanni_ or Mohicans, in the east, a
people who by intermarriages had become a detached body, mixing two
languages together, and forming out of the two a dialect of their own:
choosing to live by themselves, they had crossed the Hudson River,
naming it Mahicannituck River after their assumed name, and spread
themselves over all that country which now composes the eastern states.
New tribes again sprung from them who assumed distinct names; still
however not breaking off from the parent stock, but acknowledging
the Lenni Lenape to be their grandfather: the Delawares, at last,
thought proper to enlarge their council house for their Mahicanni
grandchildren, that they might come to their fire, that is to say, be
benefited by their advice, and also in order to keep alive their family
connexions and remain in league with each other.
Much the same thing happened with a body of the Lenape, called
_Nanticokes_, who had, together with their offspring, proceeded far to
the south, in Maryland and Virginia; the council house was by their
grandfather (the Delawares), extended to the Potomack, in the same
manner and for the same motives as had been done with the _Mahicanni_.
Meanwhile the Mengwe, who had first settled on the great Lakes
between them, had always kept a number of canoes in readiness to save
themselves, in case the Alligewi should return, and their number also
increasing, they had in time proceeded farther, and settled below the
Lakes along the River St. Lawrence, so that they were now become, on
the north side, neighbours of the Lenape tribes.
These Mengwe now began to look upon their southern neighbours with
a jealous eye, became afraid of their growing power, and of being
dispossessed by them of the lands they occupied. To meet this evil
in time, they first sought to raise quarrels and disturbances, which
in the end might lead to wars between distant tribes and the Lenape,
for which purpose, they clandestinely murdered people on one or the
other side, seeking to induce the injured party to believe, that
some particular nation or tribe had been the aggressor; and having
actually succeeded to their wishes, they now stole into the country of
the Lenape and their associates, frequently surprising them at their
hunting camps, occasionally committing murders, and making off with
the plunder. Foreseeing, however, that they could not go on in this
way without being detected, they had recourse to other artful means,
by which they actually succeeded in setting tribe against tribe,
and nation against nation. As each nation or tribe has a particular
mark on their war clubs, different from that of the others; and as
on seeing one of these near the dead body of a murdered person, it
is immediately known what nation or tribe has been the aggressor; so
the Mengwe having left a war club, such as the Lenape made use of, in
the Cherokee country, where they had purposely committed a murder, of
course the Cherokees naturally concluding that it had been committed by
the Lenape, fell suddenly upon them, which produced a most bloody war
between the two nations. The treachery of the Mengwe, however, having
been at length discovered, the Lenape determined on taking an exemplary
revenge, and, indeed, nothing short of a total extirpation[38] of
that deceitful race was resolved on; they were, besides, known to eat
human flesh,[39] to kill men for the purpose of devouring them; and
therefore were not considered by the Lenape as a pure race, or as
rational beings; but as a mixture of the human and brutal kinds.
War being now openly declared against the Mengwe, it was carried on
with vigour; until, at last, finding that they were no match for so
powerful an enemy as the Lenape, who had such a train of connexions,
ready to join them if necessity required, they fell upon the plan of
entering into a confederacy with each other, by which they would be
bound to make a common cause, and meet the common enemy with their
united force, and not, as the present prospect was, be destroyed by
tribes, which threatened in the end the destruction of the whole.
Until this time, each tribe of the Mengwe had acted independent of the
others, and they were not inclined to come under any supreme authority,
which might counteract their base designs; for now, a single tribe, or
even individuals of a tribe, by the commission of wanton hostilities,
would draw the more peaceable among them into wars and bloodshed, as
particularly had been the case with the Senecas, who were the most
restless of the whole; and though the Lenape had directed their force
principally against the aggressors, yet the body of the nation became
thereby weaker; so that they saw the necessity of coming under some
better regulations and government.[40]
This confederation took place some time between the 15th and 16th
century;[41] the most bloody wars were afterwards carried on for a
great length of time, between the confederated Iroquois, and the
Delawares and their connexions, in which the Lenape say that they
generally came off victorious. While these wars were carrying on with
vigour, the French landed in Canada, and it was not long before they
and the now combined Five Nations, or tribes, were at war with each
other, the latter not being willing to permit that the French should
establish themselves in that country. At last the Iroquois, finding
themselves between two fires, and without any prospect of conquering
the Lenape by arms, and seeing the necessity of withdrawing with their
families, from the shores of the St. Lawrence, to the interior of the
country, where the French could not easily reach them, fell upon a
stratagem, which they flattered themselves would, if successful, secure
to them not only a peace with the Lenape, but also with all the other
tribes connected with them; so that they would then have but one enemy
(the French) to contend with.
This plan was very deeply laid, and was calculated to deprive the
Lenape and their allies, not only of their power but of their military
fame, which had exalted them above all the other Indian nations. They
were to be persuaded to abstain from the use of arms, and assume the
station of mediators and umpires among their warlike neighbours. In
the language of the Indians, they were to be made _women_.[42] It
must be understood that among these nations wars are never brought to
an end but by the interference of the weaker sex. The men, however
tired of fighting, are afraid of being considered as cowards if they
should intimate a desire for peace. It is not becoming, say they, for a
warrior, with the bloody weapon in his hand, to hold pacific language
to his enemy. He must shew to the end a determined courage, and appear
as ready and willing to fight as at the beginning of the contest.
Neither, say they, is it proper, to threaten and to sue in the same
breath, to hold the peace belt in one hand, and the tomahawk in the
other; men’s words, as well as their actions, should be of a piece,
all good or all bad; for it is a fixed maxim of theirs, which they
apply on all occasions, that good can never dwell with evil. They also
think that a treaty produced by threats or by force, cannot be binding.
With these dispositions, war would never have ceased among Indians,
until the extermination of one or the other party, if the tender and
compassionate sex had not come forward, and by their moving speeches
persuaded the enraged combatants to bury their hatchets, and make peace
with each other. On these occasions they were very eloquent, they would
lament with great feeling the losses suffered on both sides, when there
was not a warrior, perhaps, who had not lost a son, a brother, or a
friend. They would describe the sorrows of widowed wives, and, above
all, of bereaved mothers. The pains of child-birth, the anxieties
attending the progress of their sons from infancy to manhood, they had
willingly and even cheerfully suffered; but after all these trials,
how cruel was it for them to see those promising youths whom they had
reared with so much care, fall victims to the rage of war, and a prey
to a relentless enemy; to see them slaughtered on the field of battle,
or put to death, as prisoners, by a protracted torture, in the midst
of the most exquisite torments. The thought of such scenes made them
curse their own existence, and shudder at the idea of bearing children.
Then they would conjure the warriors by every thing that was dear
to them, to take pity on the sufferings of their wives and helpless
infants, to turn their faces once more towards their homes, families,
and friends, to forgive the wrongs suffered from each other, to lay
aside their deadly weapons, and smoke together the pipe of amity and
peace. They had given on both sides sufficient proofs of their courage;
the contending nations were alike high-minded and brave, and they
must now embrace as friends those whom they had learned to respect as
enemies. Speeches like these seldom failed of their intended effect,
and the women by this honorable function of peace-makers, were placed
in a situation by no means undignified. It would not be a disgrace,
therefore; on the contrary, it would be an honour to a powerful nation,
who could not be suspected of wanting either strength or courage, to
assume that station by which they would be the means, and the only
means, of preserving the general peace and saving the Indian race from
utter extirpation.
Such were the arguments which the artful Mengwe urged to the Lenape to
make them fall into the snare which they had prepared for them. They
had reflected, they said, deeply reflected on their critical situation;
there remained no resource for them, but that some magnanimous nation
should assume the part and situation of the _woman_. It could not be
given to a weak or contemptible tribe, such would not be listened to;
but the Lenape and their allies would at once possess influence and
command respect. As men they had been dreaded; as women they would be
respected and honored, none would be so daring or so base as to attack
or insult them; as women they would have a right to interfere in all
the quarrels of other nations, and to stop or prevent the effusion of
Indian blood. They entreated them, therefore, to become _the woman_
in name and, in fact, to lay down their arms and all the insignia
of warriors, to devote themselves to agriculture and other pacific
employments, and thus become the means of preserving peace and harmony
among the nations.
The Lenape, unfortunately for themselves, listened to the voice of
their enemies. They knew it was too true, that the Indian nations,
excited by their own unbridled passions, and not a little by their
European neighbours, were in the way of total extirpation by each
other’s hands. They believed that the Mengwe were sincere, and that
their proposal had no object in view but the preservation of the Indian
race. In a luckless hour they gave their consent, and agreed to become
_women_. This consent was received with great joy. A feast was prepared
for the purpose of confirming and proclaiming the new order of things.
With appropriate ceremonies, of which Loskiel has given a particular
description,[43] the Delawares were installed in their new functions,
eloquent speeches were delivered, accompanied, as usual, with belts
of wampum. The great peace belt and the chain of friendship (in the
figurative language of the Indians) was laid across the shoulders of
the new mediator, one end of which, it was said, was to be taken hold
of by all the Indian nations, and the other by the Europeans.[44] The
Lenape say that the Dutch were present at that ceremony, and had no
inconsiderable share in the intrigue.[45]
The old and intelligent Mahicanni, whose forefathers inhabited the
country on the east side of the North river, gave many years since
the following account of the above transaction. They said that their
grandfather (the Lenni Lenape), and the nations or tribes connected
with them, were so united, that whatsoever nation attacked the one,
it was the same as attacking the whole; all in such cases would unite
and make a common cause. That the long house (council house) of all
those who were of the same blood, and united under this kind of tacit
alliance, reached from the head of the tide, at some distance above
where Gaaschtinick (Albany) now stands, to the head of the tide water
on the Potomack. That at each end of this house there was a door for
the tribes to enter at. That the Mengwe were in no way connected with
those who had access to this house; but were looked upon as strangers.
That the Lenape, with the Mohicans and all the other tribes in their
connexion, were on the point of extirpating the Five Nations, when
they applied to the _Dutchemaan_, who were now making a settlement at
or near Gaaschtinick, to assist them in bringing about a peace with
the Lenape. That accordingly these new comers invited the Lenape and
Mohicans to a grand council, at a place situated at some distance from
where Albany now stands, which the white people have since called by
the name of _Nordman’s Kill_. That when at length, by their united
supplications and fair speeches, they had got the hatchet out of the
hands of the Lenape, they buried that weapon at Gaaschtinick, and
said that they would build a church over the spot, so that the weapon
could never any more be got at, otherwise than by lifting up the whole
church, and whatever nation should dare to do this, on them the
Dutchemaan would take revenge. That now, having succeeded in getting
the weapon out of the hands of the Lenape, the ceremony of placing them
in the situation of “the woman,” for the purpose of being mediators,
took place, when the Mengwe declared them henceforth to be their
cousins, and the Mahicanni, they said, they would call their nephews.
The Mahicanni further say, that it was fear which induced the
Dutchemaan to aid the Five Nations in bringing about this peace,
because at the place where they were at that time making their
settlement, great bodies of warriors would pass and repass, so that
they could not avoid being interrupted in their undertakings, and
probably molested, if not destroyed, by one or the other of the war
parties, as their wars, at that time, were carried on with great rage,
and no quarter was given. That in producing this peace, the white
people had effected for the Mengwe, what no other nation could have
done, and had laid the foundation of the future greatness of their
Iroquois friends, as the same policy was pursued by the English, after
they came into possession of this country.--So far the tradition of the
Mahicanni.
The Rev. Mr. Pyrlæus, in his notes, after fixing as near as he could
the time when the Five Nations confederated with each other, proceeds
in these words: “According to my informant, Sganarady, a creditable
aged Indian, his grandfather had been one of the deputies sent for the
purpose of entering into a covenant with the white Europeans; they met
at a place since called Nordman’s Kill, about four miles below where
afterwards Albany was built, where this covenant of friendship was
first established, and the Mohawks were the active body in effecting
this work.”
From these three separate accounts of the Lenape, of the Mahicanni,
and of the Mohawks, as related by Mr. Pyrlæus, it appears to be
conclusively proved, that the Europeans were already in this country,
when the Lenape were persuaded to assume the station of _the woman_,
and that the Dutch were assisting in the plot, and were at least the
instigators, if not the authors of it. It was the _Dutch_ who summoned
the great council near Albany; the tomahawk was buried deep in the
ground, and the vengeance of the _Dutch_ was threatened if it should
ever be taken up again; the peace belt was laid across the shoulders of
the unfortunate Delawares, supported at one end by the Five Nations,
and at the other by the _Europeans_; all these circumstances point
so clearly to European intrigue, that it is impossible to resist the
conclusion that the whites adopted this means to neutralize the power
of the Delawares and their friends, whom they dreaded, and strengthen
the hands of the Iroquois, who were in their alliance.
The Iroquois have denied that these machinations ever took place, and
say that they conquered the Delawares in fair battle, and compelled
them by force to become women, or in other words that they obliged
them to submit to the greatest humiliation to which a warlike spirited
people can ever be reduced; not a momentary humiliation, as when the
Romans were compelled by the Samnites to pass under the Caudine forks,
but a permanent disgrace, which was to last as long as their national
existence. If this were true, the Lenape and their allies, who, like
all other Indian nations, never considered a treaty binding when
entered into under any kind of compulsion, would not have submitted
to this any longer than until they could again have rallied their
forces and fallen upon their enemy; they would have done long before
the year 1755, what they did at last at that time, joined the French
in their wars against the Iroquois and English, and would not have
patiently waited more than a century before they took their revenge
for so flagrant an outrage. Their numbers, acknowledged to have been
far superior to that of their Indian enemies, and the vast extent of
territory which they possessed, furnished them with ample means to have
acted hostilely, if they had thought proper. On the contrary, they
lived at peace with the Iroquois, and their European allies, until that
decisive war, by which the French lost at once all their extensive
possessions on the continent of America.
In addition to these positive proofs, negative evidence of the
strongest kind may be adduced. The Iroquois say, indeed, that they
conquered the Delawares and their allies, and compelled them to become
women. But there is no tradition among them of the particulars of this
important event. Neither Mr. Pyrlæus, nor Mr. Zeisberger,[46] who
both lived long among the Five Nations, and spoke and understood their
language well, could obtain from them any details relative to this
supposed conquest; they ought, certainly, to have been able to say
how it was effected; whether by one decisive fight or by successive
engagements, or at least, when the last battle took place; who were the
nations or tribes engaged in it; who the chiefs or commanders; what
numbers fell on each side; and a variety of other facts, by which the
truth of their assertion might have been proved: the total absence of
such details appears to me to militate against them in the strongest
manner, and to corroborate the statement of their adversaries.
The Delawares are of opinion, that this scheme of the Five Nations,
however deeply laid, and meant essentially to injure them, would not,
however, have operated against them, but on the contrary, have greatly
subserved their national interest, if the Europeans had not afterwards
come into the country in such great numbers, and multiplied so rapidly
as they did. For their neutral position would greatly have favoured
their increase, while the numbers of the other Indian nations would
have been reduced by the wars in which they were continually engaged.
But unfortunately for them, it happened that the Europeans successively
invaded the country which they occupied, and now forms what are called
the middle states, and as they advanced from the Atlantic into the
interior, drove before them the Lenape and their allies, and obtained
possession of their lands; while the Iroquois, who happened to be
placed in the neighbourhood of Canada, between the French and English,
who were frequently at war with each other, had an enemy, it is true,
in the French nation, but had strong protectors in the English, who
considered them as a check upon their enemies, and, being the most
numerous people, were best able to afford them protection; thus they
were suffered to increase and become powerful, while the Lenape,
having no friend near them, the French being then at too great a
distance, were entirely at the mercy of their English neighbours, who,
advancing fast on their lands, gradually dispersed them, and other
causes concurring, produced at last their almost entire destruction.
Among those causes the treacherous conduct of the Five Nations may be
considered as the principal one.
Before that strange metamorphosis took place, of a great and powerful
nation being transformed into a band of defenceless women, the Iroquois
had never been permitted to visit the Lenape, even when they were at
peace with each other. Whenever a Mengwe appeared in their country, he
was hunted down as a beast of prey, and it was lawful for every one
to destroy him. But now, _the woman_ could not, consistently with her
new station and her engagements, make use of destructive weapons, and
she was bound to abstain from all violence against the human species.
Her late enemies, therefore, found no difficulty in travelling, under
various pretences, through her country, and those of her allies, and
leaving here and there a few of their people to remain among them as
long as they pleased, for the purpose, as they said, of keeping up
a good understanding, and assisting them in the preservation of the
general peace. But while they were amusing the Lenape with flattering
language, they were concerting measures to disturb their quiet by
involving them in difficulties with the neighbouring nations. I shall
relate one among many instances of a similar conduct. They once sent
their men into the Cherokee country, who were instructed secretly
to kill one of that nation, and to leave a war club near the person
murdered, which had been purposely made after the manner and in
the shape of those of the Delawares. Now leaving a war club in an
Indian country, is considered by those nations as a formal challenge
or declaration of war. The Cherokees, deceived by appearances, and
believing that their grandfather the Lenape had committed the murder,
collected a large party to go into their country and take their
revenge. Meanwhile, the Iroquois sent a messenger to the Lenape, to
inform them of the approach of an enemy, who, they had learned from
their hunters, was coming towards their settlement, and to advise them
to send a number of their men immediately to a certain place, where
they would be met by a large body of the Five Nations, who would take
the lead, march in front, and fight their battles, so that they would
have little else to do than to look on and see how well their friends
fought for them. The Lenape, being in no wise prepared to meet a
powerful foe, assembled in haste a few of their men, and repaired to
the place of rendezvous, where they were disappointed by not meeting
any of their pretended protectors. The enemy, however, was close upon
them; the Lenape fought with great courage, but were overpowered by an
immense superiority of numbers, and defeated with considerable loss.
Now the Iroquois made their appearance, and instead of attacking or
pursuing the Cherokees, loaded the Delawares with reproaches, for
their temerity, as they called it, in having dared, being _women_, to
take the lead in attacking _men_. They told them that the Five Nations
being their superiors, they ought to have waited for them before
they attacked the Cherokees, that then their protectors would have
fought and defeated them, but that as they had thought proper to act
by themselves, they had received the punishment justly due to their
presumption.
It was thus that the Five Nations rewarded the confidence that the
Delawares had placed in them. Their treachery was not, however,
suspected for a long time; but it was at last discovered; it was even
found out that in this last engagement, a number of the Iroquois had
joined in fight against them with their enemies. The Lenape then
determined to unite their forces, and by one great effort to destroy
entirely that perfidious nation. This, they say, they might easily
have done, as they were then yet as numerous as the grasshoppers at
particular seasons, and as destructive to their enemies as these
insects are to the fruits of the earth; while they described the Mengwe
as a number of croaking frogs in a pond, which make a great noise when
all is quiet, but at the first approach of danger, nay, at the very
rustling of a leaf, immediately plunge into the water and are silent.
But their attention was now diverted by other scenes. The whites were
again landing in great numbers on their coast, in the east and south,
and this spectacle once more engaged all the capacity of their minds.
They were lost in admiration at what they saw, and were consulting and
deliberating together on what they should do. The Five Nations, who
lived out of the reach of all danger, nevertheless also came; but bent
on their own interest, while they were instigating the other nations
to fall upon the new comers, or drive them off from their shores, by
which they caused useless hostilities, in which they did not appear to
participate, they were insinuating themselves into the favour of the
powerful strangers, professing great friendship for them, persuading
them that they were superior to the other Indian nations, that they had
controul over them all, and would chastise those who should disturb
their peace.
William Penn came, with his train of pacific followers. Never will the
Delawares forget their elder brother _Miquon_, as they affectionately
and respectfully call him. From his first arrival in their country, a
friendship was formed between them which was to last as long as the sun
should shine, and the rivers flow with water. That friendship would
undoubtedly have continued to the end of time, had their good brother
always remained among them, but in his absence, mischievous people,
say they, got into power, who, not content with the land which had
been given to them, contrived to get all that they wanted; and when
the Lenape looked round for the friends of their brother Miquon, to
hear their just complaints, and redress their wrongs, they could not
discover them, and had the misfortune to see their greatest enemies,
the Mengwe, brought on for the purpose of shutting their mouths, and
compelling them to submit to the injustice done them.
They cannot conceive how the English could turn from the people by
whom they had been so kindly received and welcomed with open arms;
from those who had permitted them to sit down upon their lands in
peace, and without fear of being molested by them; who had taken
delight in supplying all their wants,[47] and who were happy in smoking
the pipe of friendship with them at one and the same fire; how they
could not only see them degraded and injured by a base and perfidious
nation, but join with that nation in sinking them still lower. For
to the countenance of the English, they say, is entirely owing the
great preponderance which the Iroquois at last attained: they complain
that the English did support that enemy against them, that they even
sanctioned their insolence, by telling them to make use of their
authority as men, and bring these women (the Lenape) to their senses.
That they were even insulted and treated in a degrading manner, in
treaties to which the English were parties, and particularly in that
which took place at Easton,[48] in Pennsylvania, in July, 1742,[49]
when the Six Nations were publicly called on to compel the Delawares to
give up the land taken from them by the long day’s walk. But for these
repeated outrages, they would not have taken part with the French in
the memorable war of 1755.[50] Nor, perhaps, would they have done so,
had not they been seduced into the measure by the perfidious Iroquois.
At the commencement of that war, they brought the war belt, with a
piece of tobacco, to the Delawares, and told them: “Remember that the
English have unjustly deprived you of much of your land, which they
took from you by force. Your cause is just; therefore smoke of this
tobacco, and arise; join with us our fathers, the French, and take
your revenge. You are women, it is true, but we will shorten your
petticoats, and though you may appear by your dress to be women, yet by
your conduct and language you will convince your enemies that you are
determined not tamely to suffer the wrongs and injuries inflicted upon
you.”
Yielding to these solicitations, the Delawares and their connexions
took up arms against the English in favor of the French, and committed
many hostilities, in which the Iroquois appeared to take no part. Sir
William Johnson requested them to use their ascendancy and to persuade
the hostile Indians to lay down the hatchet, instead of which, instead
of conforming to the ancient custom of Indian nations, which was simply
to take the war-hatchet back from those to whom they had given it, they
fell on a sudden on the unsuspecting Lenape, killed their cattle, and
destroyed their town on the Susquehannah, and having taken a number of
them prisoners, carried them to Sir William Johnson, who confined and
put them in irons. This cruel act of treachery, the Delawares say, they
will never forget nor forgive.
Thus the Lenape, whose principal settlements were then on the frontier
of Pennsylvania, took part with the French, and acted hostilely against
the English during the whole of the war of 1755. The animosity which
mutual hostilities produced between them and the settlers concurred,
no doubt, with other causes, in producing the murder of the Conestogo
Indians, which took place at the close of that war, in December, 1763,
and is feelingly related by Loskiel, part I., ch. 14 and 15.[51]
The revolutionary war put an end to the exorbitant power of the
Iroquois. They were, indeed, still supported by the British government,
but the Americans were now the strongest party, and of course against
them. They endeavored to persuade the other Indian nations to join
them, but their expectations were deceived. At a meeting which took
place at Pittsburg in 1775, for the express purpose of deliberating
on the part which it became Indians to take in the disturbances which
had arisen between the King of Great Britain and his subjects, Capt.
White Eyes, a sensible and very spirited warrior of the Lenape,[52]
boldly declared to a select body of the Senecas, that his Indians would
never join any nation or power, for the purpose of destroying a people
who were born on the same soil with them. That the Americans were his
friends and brothers, and that no nation should dictate to him what
part he should take in the existing war. Anticipating the measure
which the American Congress took in the succeeding year, he declared
_himself_,[53] in behalf of his nation, free and independent of the
Iroquois; they had pretended that they had conquered him, they had
made a woman of him and dressed him in woman’s apparel, but now he was
again a man, he stood before them as a man, and with the weapons of a
man he would assert his claim to all yonder country, pointing to the
land on the west side of the Allegheny river; for to him it belonged,
and not to the Six Nations, who falsely asserted that they had acquired
it by conquest. In the year 1778 or 1779, the Lenape bravely asserted
their national independence by joining Col. Brodhead’s troops in an
expedition against the Senecas.[54] If they did not do as much in
that war as might have been expected of them, and took only a partial
revenge, it was owing to the death of their brave chief, White Eyes,
who died of the small pox at Pittsburg, I think, in the year 1780.
He was a Christian in his heart, but did not live to make a public
profession of our religion, though it is well known that he persuaded
many Indians to embrace it.[55]
Although the Lenape acted independently in the war of 1755, and made
a formal declaration of their independence at the beginning of the
revolutionary war, yet the Six Nations persevered in their pretensions,
and still affected to consider them as women. Finding, however, that
this obsolete claim was no longer acknowledged, and that it was useless
to insist upon it any longer, they came forward of their own accord,
about the time of Wayne’s treaty, and formally declared that the Lenape
and their allies were no longer women, but MEN.
The Delawares and Mohicans agree in saying, that from the time of the
fatal treaty in which they were persuaded to assimilate themselves
to women, and, indeed, ever since the Europeans first came into the
country, the conduct of the Iroquois was treacherous and perfidious
in the extreme. That it was their constant practice to sally out
secretly and commit depredations on the neighbouring nations, with
intent to involve them in wars with each other. That they would also
commit murders on the frontier settlers, from Virginia to New England,
and charge the tribes who were settled in the neighbourhood with the
commission of those crimes. That they would then turn negotiators,
and effect a peace, always at the expense of the nation whom they had
injured. They would sell the lands of other nations to the English
and receive the money, pretending to a paramount right to the whole
territory, and this, say the Lenape, was their manner of CONQUERING
NATIONS!