INDIAN RELATIONS OF THE CONDUCT OF THE EUROPEANS TOWARDS THEM.
Long and dismal are the complaints which the Indians make of European
ingratitude and injustice. They love to repeat them, and always do it
with the eloquence of nature, aided by an energetic and comprehensive
language, which our polished idioms cannot imitate. Often I have
listened to these descriptions of their hard sufferings, until I felt
ashamed of being a _white man_.
They are, in general, very minute in these recitals, and proceed with a
great degree of order and regularity. They begin with the Virginians,
whom they call the _long knives_, and who were the first European
settlers in this part of the American continent. “It was we,” say the
Lenape, Mohicans, and their kindred tribes, “who so kindly received
them on their first arrival into our country. We took them by the hand,
and bid them welcome to sit down by our side, and live with us as
brothers; but how did they requite our kindness? They at first asked
only for a little land on which to raise bread for themselves and their
families, and pasture for their cattle, which we freely gave them. They
soon wanted more, which we also gave them. They saw the game in the
woods, which the Great Spirit had given us for our subsistence, and
they wanted that too. They penetrated into the woods in quest of game;
they discovered spots of land which pleased them; that land they also
wanted, and because we were loth to part with it, as we saw they had
already more than they had need of, they took it from us by force, and
drove us to a great distance from our ancient homes.”
“By and by the _Dutchemaan_[60] arrived at _Manahachtánienk_,”[61]
(here they relate with all its details what has been said in the
preceding chapter.) “The great man wanted only a little, little land,
on which to raise greens for his soup, just as much as a bullock’s hide
would cover. Here we first might have observed their deceitful spirit.
The bullock’s hide was cut up into little strips, and did not cover,
indeed, but encircled a very large piece of land, which we foolishly
granted to them. They were to raise _greens_ on it, instead of which
they planted _great guns_; afterwards they built strong houses, made
themselves masters of the Island, then went up the river to our
enemies, the Mengwe, made a league with them, persuaded us by their
wicked arts to lay down our arms, and at last drove us entirely out of
the country.” Here, of course, is related at full length, the story
which we have told in the first chapter. Then the Delawares[62] proceed.
“When the _Yengeese_[63] arrived at _Machtitschwanne_,[64] they looked
about everywhere for good spots of land, and when they found one, they
immediately and without ceremony possessed themselves of it; we were
astonished, but still we let them go on, not thinking it worth while to
contend for a little land. But when at last they came to our favourite
spots, those which lay most convenient to our fisheries, then bloody
wars ensued: we would have been contented that the white people and
we should have lived quietly beside each other; but these white men
encroached so fast upon us, that we saw at once we should lose all, if
we did not resist them. The wars that we carried on against each other
were long and cruel. We were enraged when we saw the white people put
our friends and relatives, whom they had taken prisoners, on board
of their ships, and carry them off to sea, whether to drown or sell
them as slaves, in the country from which they came, we knew not, but
certain it is that none of them have ever returned or even been heard
of. At last they got possession of the whole of the country which the
Great Spirit had given us. One of our tribes was forced to wander far
beyond Quebec; others dispersed in small bodies, and sought places of
refuge where they could; some came to Pennsylvania; others went far to
the westward and mingled with other tribes.
“To many of those, Pennsylvania was a last, delightful asylum. But
here, again, the Europeans disturbed them, and forced them to emigrate,
although they had been most kindly and hospitably received. On which
ever side of the _Lenapewihittuck_[65] the white people landed, they
were welcomed as brothers by our ancestors, who gave them lands to live
on, and even hunted for them, and furnished them with meat out of the
woods. Such was our conduct to the white men[66] who inhabited this
country, until our elder brother, the great and good MIQUON,[67] came
and brought us words of peace and good will. We believed his words,
and his memory is still held in veneration among us. But it was not
long before our joy was turned into sorrow: our brother Miquon died,
and those of his good counsellors who were of his mind, and knew what
had passed between him and our ancestors, were no longer listened to;
the strangers[68] who had taken their places, no longer spoke to us of
sitting down by the side of each other as brothers of one family; they
forgot that friendship which their great man had established with us,
and was to last to the end of time; they now only strove to get all our
land from us by fraud or by force, and when we attempted to remind them
of what our good brother had said, they became angry, and sent word to
our enemies, the Mengwe, to meet them at a great council which they
were to hold with us at _Læhauwake_,[69] where they should take us by
the hair of our heads and shake us well. The Mengwe came; the council
was held, and in the presence of the white men, who did not contradict
them, they told us that we were women, and that they had made us such;
that we had no right to any land, because it was all theirs; that we
must be gone; and that as a great favour they permitted us to go and
settle further into the country, at the place which they themselves
pointed out at Wyoming.”[70]
Thus these good Indians, with a kind of melancholy pleasure, recite
the long history of their sufferings. After having gone through these
painful details, they seldom fail to indulge in bitter, but too just
reflections, upon the men of Europe. “We and our kindred tribes,” say
they, “lived in peace and harmony with each other before the white
people came into this country; our council house[71] extended far to
the north and far to the south. In the middle of it we would meet from
all parts to smoke the pipe of peace together. When the white men
arrived in the south, we received them as friends; we did the same
when they arrived in the east. It was we, it was our forefathers, who
made them welcome, and let them sit down by our side. The land they
settled on was ours. We knew not but the Great Spirit had sent them to
us for some good purpose, and therefore we thought they must be a good
people. We were mistaken; for no sooner had they obtained a footing on
our lands, than they began to pull our council house down,[72] first
at one end and then at the other, and at last meeting each other at
the centre, where the council fire was yet burning bright, they put it
out,[73] and extinguished it with our own blood![74] with the blood
of those[75] who with us had received them! who had welcomed them in
our land! Their blood ran in streams into our fire, and extinguished
it so entirely, that not one spark was left us whereby to kindle a new
fire;[76] we were compelled to withdraw ourselves beyond the great
swamp,[77] and to fly to our good uncle, the _Delamattenos_,[78]
who kindly gave us a tract of land to live on. How long we shall be
permitted to remain in this asylum, the Great Spirit only knows. The
whites will not rest contented until they shall have destroyed the last
of us, and made us disappear entirely from the face of the earth.”
I have given here only a brief specimen of the charges which they
exhibit against the white people. There are men among them, who have
by heart the whole history of what took place between the whites and
the Indians, since the former first came into their country; and relate
the whole with ease and with an eloquence not to be imitated. On the
tablets of their memories they preserve this record for posterity. I,
at one time, in April, 1787,[79] was astonished when I heard one of
their orators, a great chief of the Delaware nation,[80] go over this
ground, recapitulating the most extraordinary events which had before
happened, and concluding in these words: “I admit that there are good
white men, but they bear no proportion to the bad; the bad must be
the strongest, for they rule. They do what they please. They enslave
those who are not of their colour, although created by the same Great
Spirit who created us.[81] They would make slaves of us if they could,
but as they cannot do it, they kill us! There is no faith to be placed
in their words. They are not like the Indians, who are only enemies,
while at war, and are friends in peace. They will say to an Indian, ‘my
friend! my brother!’ They will take him by the hand, and at the same
moment destroy him. And so you (addressing himself to the Christian
Indians) will also be treated by them before long. Remember! that this
day I have warned you to beware of such friends as these. I know the
_long knives_; they are not to be trusted.”
Eleven months after this speech was delivered by this prophetic chief,
ninety-six of the same Christian Indians, about sixty of them women and
children, were murdered at the place where these very words had been
spoken, by the same men he had alluded to, and in the same manner that
he had described. See Loskiel’s History, part III., ch. 10.[82]